Yesterday I went to the cinema and watched Her. I didn't hate the movie, I didn't love it either. I didn't think the story was that good. But there was something in the movie that I have to admit captivated me: Theodore Twombly, the main character (played fantastically by Joaquin Phoenix) is a professional letter writer. He writes letters for other people, love letters mainly, but also letters from children to their parents and letters between friends. He has a gift for it.
The notion made me wonder if this is currently a profession, and if it's not, whether it really will be one day. I find the idea fascinating and disturbing, beautiful and worrying.
Personally, I have not sent a letter, a real letter, in years. But every year, when I travel, I send post-cards to a few people. And I love the idea of letters, especially love letters. The physicality of them. An e-mail is not the same. I want something that I can touch, I want a physical object, something that another person has taken the time to write by hand, I want the handwriting, and the paper they chose. I want to open the envelope (because it's always exciting to receive mail) and take out the letter carefully and read it over and over, and know that it has been held by the person who sent it to me. I want them to feel the same when I write them back. More than anything I want something I can actually hang up on my wall, a reminder that someone thought of me.
Recently, one of the people I send post-cards to every year showed me the collection. I had forgotten many of them. A lot of what was written was routine, the same thing in each one, asking about how they were doing, telling them where I was when I wrote it. Nothing special in any of them, but special because every post-card says "I was far away, and I thought of you, and I wanted to tell you about where I am and what I have seen because I wish you could have been there and seen it too".
Theodore's letters raised many questions. Does the person receiving them know that it was Theodore that wrote them? Does the person who asks Theodore to write them read them before they are sent so that they know what they have said? How much does Theodore know about the people he writes about? Have they ever met in person? And, possibly because the idea of publishing the letters comes up in the movie, I had to wonder, who do a person's letters belong to? The person who sends them? The person who writes them? The person who receives them?
Writing is an act of nakedness. One exposes their own thoughts to others, their beliefs, their private worlds, their ideas. One risks being disliked or adored, being hated, being persecuted. Writing to someone is even more than that. Writing to someone is telling them you care about them, you took the time to form the words and think of what to say. Writing a letter is special because more thought goes into it than into a text or an e-mail. There are things I would only say in a letter, and I have many written in my notebooks, to many people. I write them when someone has hurt me, and I need to tell them, when someone has helped me, and I want to thank them, when I feel strongly about someone and I want them to understand. I don't send them. They hold too much of me and I am not brave enough, but sometimes I think that letters are the real diaries, the holders of the real secrets and the real feelings.
Saturday, 22 February 2014
Friday, 14 February 2014
The girl
She was sitting at the far end table, the one I usually liked to take. If she hadn't been in my seat, in my place, she would go passed unnoticed, just a girl sitting in the Café, playing with her hair while reading, but once I looked at her I couldn't look away.
The novel was "The Unconsoled", and I seemed to remember that it was the saddest book I had ever read, but I couldn't be sure. I remembered it being about a pianist who didn't know who he was, somewhere, a sort of dream; but then, I couldn't remember when or where or if I had read it. She was completely mesmerised, entirely ignorant of anything except the book. She held it with her left hand, her right in her hair, twisting it unconsciously. She had folded her legs underneath herself and her scarf had fallen, so that the edge was trailing on the ground, a bright orange on the dark brown wood.
She could not be described as beautiful. Her eyes were small for her face, her mouth too big, her hair too thin. But there was something in her face, in her intent on reading the book, in her posture. I knew without a doubt that she was the only person alive in the Café. I wondered for a few seconds if I should go talk to her, maybe mention that I might have read the same novel once upon a time, that we might be kindred souls. Then I remembered that she was reading, that you should never wake someone from a book. That she was a stranger, that she would be startled, confused, maybe even angry.
I looked back down at my papers, trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing. I was reading papers about the differentiation of neural stem cells in mouse due to Wnt signalling. I sighed. I could imagine a single neuron, its axon extending farther and farther away from its centre, trying to find a connection. It made me smile. I looked back at the girl, and thought about her neurons. Would they be firing right now? What was she thinking exactly? What do we think when we read? The paper I was reading was good. The experiments were well designed, the data had been well analysed, everything seemed to be in order. It was lacking a good story, a gift for writing, but that was a problem with most of the papers we received those days. I gave a cursory look at the references, making sure they weren't bullshit, then sent an e-mail to the other editors with the article as an attachment. I checked my watch. It wasn't 1PM yet. I could afford another hour. I looked back at the girl and wondered if I had been like her at some point. I seemed to remember so. I knew that three years before the extra-hour would have been spent writing, trying to construct the story in my head, the one that even now I have not written and I have not forgotten. I sighed. I wondered whether growing up was the same for everyone.
I stood up and headed towards the bookshop. Maybe I'd find something new, something radically different from the sort of sad fiction I'd been reading, something joyful. As I was about to cross the door I looked back at the girl. She was looking at me, her eyes wide open, as though she had suddenly realised something important. She smiled and raised her hand, almost waving, and then slowly turned back to her book, and continued reading. I looked at her for a few more seconds, trying to remember something I hadn't quite forgotten, before turning into the bookshop and remembering who I was now.
The novel was "The Unconsoled", and I seemed to remember that it was the saddest book I had ever read, but I couldn't be sure. I remembered it being about a pianist who didn't know who he was, somewhere, a sort of dream; but then, I couldn't remember when or where or if I had read it. She was completely mesmerised, entirely ignorant of anything except the book. She held it with her left hand, her right in her hair, twisting it unconsciously. She had folded her legs underneath herself and her scarf had fallen, so that the edge was trailing on the ground, a bright orange on the dark brown wood.
She could not be described as beautiful. Her eyes were small for her face, her mouth too big, her hair too thin. But there was something in her face, in her intent on reading the book, in her posture. I knew without a doubt that she was the only person alive in the Café. I wondered for a few seconds if I should go talk to her, maybe mention that I might have read the same novel once upon a time, that we might be kindred souls. Then I remembered that she was reading, that you should never wake someone from a book. That she was a stranger, that she would be startled, confused, maybe even angry.
I looked back down at my papers, trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing. I was reading papers about the differentiation of neural stem cells in mouse due to Wnt signalling. I sighed. I could imagine a single neuron, its axon extending farther and farther away from its centre, trying to find a connection. It made me smile. I looked back at the girl, and thought about her neurons. Would they be firing right now? What was she thinking exactly? What do we think when we read? The paper I was reading was good. The experiments were well designed, the data had been well analysed, everything seemed to be in order. It was lacking a good story, a gift for writing, but that was a problem with most of the papers we received those days. I gave a cursory look at the references, making sure they weren't bullshit, then sent an e-mail to the other editors with the article as an attachment. I checked my watch. It wasn't 1PM yet. I could afford another hour. I looked back at the girl and wondered if I had been like her at some point. I seemed to remember so. I knew that three years before the extra-hour would have been spent writing, trying to construct the story in my head, the one that even now I have not written and I have not forgotten. I sighed. I wondered whether growing up was the same for everyone.
I stood up and headed towards the bookshop. Maybe I'd find something new, something radically different from the sort of sad fiction I'd been reading, something joyful. As I was about to cross the door I looked back at the girl. She was looking at me, her eyes wide open, as though she had suddenly realised something important. She smiled and raised her hand, almost waving, and then slowly turned back to her book, and continued reading. I looked at her for a few more seconds, trying to remember something I hadn't quite forgotten, before turning into the bookshop and remembering who I was now.
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
I'm sick
I started this post about a week ago, when I wasn't feeling very happy, and now I'm happy, but I'm not feeling very well, which gave me the perfect name for the post. At the moment, I'm sitting on the comfiest sofa in the house, with my duvet all around me, some takeout, and my computer. I've been watching House episodes (that have somehow slipped into my subconscious, this morning I had a dream featuring Taub), looking at insurance prices for cars and looking at places to move into next year.
Ah. Next year. Such a mythical time. My degree will be over, and possibly also my time in London. And you know what? I'm scared. Really, properly scared.
Here goes. As I said, now that I am ill (and after a really nice weekend, which helped immensely) and waiting for test results (and scared to death, but that's another story) I'm feeling a lot better than I was last week, when I was healthy and had little to worry about, which makes total sense. Last week, I was really sad, stressed out and extremely homesick. This is significant because I hadn't been homesick, properly homesick, in about two years. Last week I wanted my mum, my dad and my dog, and if it weren't for the fact that my mum and dad are in India and my dog has been adopted for the time being, I would have probably booked myself a flight to Spain.
The whole thing got me thinking quite seriously about next year, and the Future. And these are a few ideas I've come up with. I'd very much appreciate any comments or views (though I will probably ignore them and do whatever I want because I think no one else has ever gone through what I'm going through because I'm human).
Firstly, about next year. There are several things that I could do next year:
-PhD in Cambridge (am currently on the reserve list, if enough people don't want their place I'll get one, not getting my hopes up, but hey, it's still a possibility)
-PhD in UCL (haven't applied yet, but there are a couple of projects that really interest me, although I don't know what the funding is like)
-Masters degree in London (either Imperial or UCL) and apply for PhDs again next year (this would open up the possibility of doing a PhD in Europe which I'm not currently considering because it's difficult to do without a Masters degree)
-Find a job here in London
-Go back home (apply for either jobs or PhD back home)
From this you can gather that most options involve staying in the UK. In fact, three out of five of these options would imply staying in London. So here's the confession: I don't want to move away from London. The worst thing is, it's not because of the city (or not just because of the city).
I've been living here for three years and four months now. London is as much home as anywhere other than home could ever be. But part of the reason that's true is that my friends are here. I'm terrified that if I move away I'll lose them. I know it's a ridiculous fear, we grow closer to some people, further away from others, losing people is part of how life works, and for most of us, the people we are friends with now are not the people who we'll be friends with in ten years. But what the hell. I like the friends I have now. I don't want to change them.
Of course, many of my friends will be moving away from London next year (after all, a lot of them who are still here are finishing their degrees), but I feel like if we keep seeing each other at all, they'll be coming down here. There's the incentive of it being London. Don't get me wrong, I occasionally visit friends who are in other places, but it's mostly for them, not for where they are. Coming to London is a reason in itself, and once I move out of here, I'll miss out on seeing my friends whenever they're down. But then, is it worth me staying in the UK if I have to restart and make friends all over again?
Because here's the thing. When I moved here, the idea wasn't to stay. I would do my degree here, and then I'd go back home. I'd go back to Spain, find a job, live my life there. I didn't think of the fact that I'd have spent three years here and none at home. That home friends wouldn't be as friends any more, and that I'd have friends here too. I never thought I'd want to stay. But the fact is, I want to stay the way things are now. Other than my friends, there's nothing keeping me here. My family's back in Spain. Pretty much all of it. If I go back, I may not have anything else, but I'll have my family. And the fact is, I miss them. I miss my parents, and my cousins, and my aunts and uncles. And I miss my dog. So I'm tempted to move back. Because at least, if I had to restart, I'd have them.
In summary, I don't know what to do. Staying in London seems like a viable solution, but the fact is a lot of people I know in London now will have left next year. Leaving London for Cambridge seems like a viable solution, but I won't see my friends as much as if I stayed in London (most probably) and I hate that. I am not a person who loves getting thrown into new situations and making new friends. Going back home feels stupid, but safe. I'd be home. Home things are easier. And it's sunny. And I could live with my dog.
So. Yeah. As you must have surmised, I'm terrified. I'll get over it. No matter what I do, it'll happen, and I'll have to deal with it. So there. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
H
Ah. Next year. Such a mythical time. My degree will be over, and possibly also my time in London. And you know what? I'm scared. Really, properly scared.
Here goes. As I said, now that I am ill (and after a really nice weekend, which helped immensely) and waiting for test results (and scared to death, but that's another story) I'm feeling a lot better than I was last week, when I was healthy and had little to worry about, which makes total sense. Last week, I was really sad, stressed out and extremely homesick. This is significant because I hadn't been homesick, properly homesick, in about two years. Last week I wanted my mum, my dad and my dog, and if it weren't for the fact that my mum and dad are in India and my dog has been adopted for the time being, I would have probably booked myself a flight to Spain.
The whole thing got me thinking quite seriously about next year, and the Future. And these are a few ideas I've come up with. I'd very much appreciate any comments or views (though I will probably ignore them and do whatever I want because I think no one else has ever gone through what I'm going through because I'm human).
Firstly, about next year. There are several things that I could do next year:
-PhD in Cambridge (am currently on the reserve list, if enough people don't want their place I'll get one, not getting my hopes up, but hey, it's still a possibility)
-PhD in UCL (haven't applied yet, but there are a couple of projects that really interest me, although I don't know what the funding is like)
-Masters degree in London (either Imperial or UCL) and apply for PhDs again next year (this would open up the possibility of doing a PhD in Europe which I'm not currently considering because it's difficult to do without a Masters degree)
-Find a job here in London
-Go back home (apply for either jobs or PhD back home)
From this you can gather that most options involve staying in the UK. In fact, three out of five of these options would imply staying in London. So here's the confession: I don't want to move away from London. The worst thing is, it's not because of the city (or not just because of the city).
I've been living here for three years and four months now. London is as much home as anywhere other than home could ever be. But part of the reason that's true is that my friends are here. I'm terrified that if I move away I'll lose them. I know it's a ridiculous fear, we grow closer to some people, further away from others, losing people is part of how life works, and for most of us, the people we are friends with now are not the people who we'll be friends with in ten years. But what the hell. I like the friends I have now. I don't want to change them.
Of course, many of my friends will be moving away from London next year (after all, a lot of them who are still here are finishing their degrees), but I feel like if we keep seeing each other at all, they'll be coming down here. There's the incentive of it being London. Don't get me wrong, I occasionally visit friends who are in other places, but it's mostly for them, not for where they are. Coming to London is a reason in itself, and once I move out of here, I'll miss out on seeing my friends whenever they're down. But then, is it worth me staying in the UK if I have to restart and make friends all over again?
Because here's the thing. When I moved here, the idea wasn't to stay. I would do my degree here, and then I'd go back home. I'd go back to Spain, find a job, live my life there. I didn't think of the fact that I'd have spent three years here and none at home. That home friends wouldn't be as friends any more, and that I'd have friends here too. I never thought I'd want to stay. But the fact is, I want to stay the way things are now. Other than my friends, there's nothing keeping me here. My family's back in Spain. Pretty much all of it. If I go back, I may not have anything else, but I'll have my family. And the fact is, I miss them. I miss my parents, and my cousins, and my aunts and uncles. And I miss my dog. So I'm tempted to move back. Because at least, if I had to restart, I'd have them.
In summary, I don't know what to do. Staying in London seems like a viable solution, but the fact is a lot of people I know in London now will have left next year. Leaving London for Cambridge seems like a viable solution, but I won't see my friends as much as if I stayed in London (most probably) and I hate that. I am not a person who loves getting thrown into new situations and making new friends. Going back home feels stupid, but safe. I'd be home. Home things are easier. And it's sunny. And I could live with my dog.
So. Yeah. As you must have surmised, I'm terrified. I'll get over it. No matter what I do, it'll happen, and I'll have to deal with it. So there. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
H
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
Rights, Redundancy and Statistics
This morning I woke up fairly early after a glorious eight and a half hours sleep. I got up, threw some clothes on, made lunch (scallops with aubergines and broccoli), made breakfast (eggs and bacon and tomatoes and cucumber) and sat down to read the paper (should it be called the paper if it's online?).
I was in luck. The Guardian had combined two of my favourite things: an interactive infographic and women's rights. Now, the infographic wasn't great. The circular way it is arranged, and the fact that it is arranged by population of the countries, which I don't really understand the reasons for unless it's trying to reflect how many women are affected by legislation, made it difficult to read. The fact that it was separated by different parts of the world made it difficult to compare some of the countries I would have liked to compare. But in any case, cool infographic.
I started playing around with it and reading it. I wanted to check out how European countries compare, so I clicked on the first place I read "Europe" without really reading. I ended up in "Eastern Europe and Central Asia". To my surprise, Albania and Turkey were very colourful (the infographic is colour coded, the brighter the colours the more laws the country has in that area). More than that: every single "Eastern Europe and Central Asia" country has completely liberal abortion laws. If you want an abortion, you can get it. I was not surprised at all by this in the case of countries that had been under communism, in fact, I expected it of many of them (although the fact that Romania had fully liberal abortion laws was slightly unexpected, maybe because of my bias due to "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days", a fantastic film about abortion during the Ceausescu regime, a communist regime that restricted abortion severely in order to increase nativity rates). What was more surprising is that, when it comes to abortion, Turkey has less restrictive laws than the UK, Finland or Iceland. In fact, according to the infographic, Great Britain's Constitution was crap regarding gender laws. And so I started to see the truth of the infographic. Because of course, the UK doesn't have a written Constitution. Plus, the UK does have an equality law.
The infographic is a cool tool. It's quite nice to summarise data in an attractive colourful way. But it also lies. A lot. For example, regarding abortion, the infographic maintains that Iceland and Finland have more restrictive laws than Turkey or Albania. The only reason for this is that Iceland and Finland don't offer abortion on demand. I am not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of Icelandic or Finnish (or any other country's) abortion laws. However, I know that the English, Welsh and Scottish interpretation of the English, Welsh and Scottish (the situation in Northern Ireland is somewhat different) abortion law (which says that abortion may be performed if the continuation of the pregnancy poses a greater risk for the mother than the interruption of said pregnancy) is that any pregnancy carried to term is more risky than a termination, effectively making it so that as long as you find the right doctors (and this is not too difficult) having an abortion in the UK is perfectly feasible even though abortion on demand as such is not available.
Another lie of the infographic becomes apparent when one takes a look at the "Constitution"section for each country. For one thing, it doesn't take into account that some countries (the UK being the first I noticed) don't have a written Constitution, and therefore talking about the Constitution is somewhat irrelevant. For another it doesn't take into account that other countries (such as the US) consider that an article including "equal rights" makes the need for an article on non-discrimination obsolete. Of course, this might is not always true, but it is in many interpretations of the US Constitution.
The other thing that sort of bothered me about the infographic was redundancy. For example, Great Britain doesn't have laws regarding sexual abuse in domestic violence. This is because Great Britain has laws regarding sexual abuse independent of domestic violence. In a similar way, I find that laws regarding sexual harassment, if they are good enough, preclude the need for laws regarding sexual harassment at work, or in school, or in public spaces, etc. etc.
Don't get me wrong. I loved the infographic. It kept me entertained for a while and gave me material for a blogpost. It just reminded me of how flawed statistics and data presentation can be. It also reminded me how generalisations make feminism few favours: some people reading this post may conclude that I am arguing that women's rights are advanced and equal in many countries. They are not. There is still a lot to do for women's rights. For this reason, it is important that when we talk about them we are absolutely clear, know exactly what is a law, what is an interpretation and what is meaningless. It is also important to understand the context of laws. If a law is present in a country where laws are routinely broken by the governing body, then there is no point in evaluating the law. If a law is present in a country in war, where laws are continuously broken, saying that that country has more freedom than another country with a slightly more restrictive law is stupid.
I like reading the paper in the mornings. It wakes me up, and it usually gets me thinking. And once in a while, it reminds me not to believe everything I read in the newspaper.
I was in luck. The Guardian had combined two of my favourite things: an interactive infographic and women's rights. Now, the infographic wasn't great. The circular way it is arranged, and the fact that it is arranged by population of the countries, which I don't really understand the reasons for unless it's trying to reflect how many women are affected by legislation, made it difficult to read. The fact that it was separated by different parts of the world made it difficult to compare some of the countries I would have liked to compare. But in any case, cool infographic.
I started playing around with it and reading it. I wanted to check out how European countries compare, so I clicked on the first place I read "Europe" without really reading. I ended up in "Eastern Europe and Central Asia". To my surprise, Albania and Turkey were very colourful (the infographic is colour coded, the brighter the colours the more laws the country has in that area). More than that: every single "Eastern Europe and Central Asia" country has completely liberal abortion laws. If you want an abortion, you can get it. I was not surprised at all by this in the case of countries that had been under communism, in fact, I expected it of many of them (although the fact that Romania had fully liberal abortion laws was slightly unexpected, maybe because of my bias due to "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days", a fantastic film about abortion during the Ceausescu regime, a communist regime that restricted abortion severely in order to increase nativity rates). What was more surprising is that, when it comes to abortion, Turkey has less restrictive laws than the UK, Finland or Iceland. In fact, according to the infographic, Great Britain's Constitution was crap regarding gender laws. And so I started to see the truth of the infographic. Because of course, the UK doesn't have a written Constitution. Plus, the UK does have an equality law.
The infographic is a cool tool. It's quite nice to summarise data in an attractive colourful way. But it also lies. A lot. For example, regarding abortion, the infographic maintains that Iceland and Finland have more restrictive laws than Turkey or Albania. The only reason for this is that Iceland and Finland don't offer abortion on demand. I am not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of Icelandic or Finnish (or any other country's) abortion laws. However, I know that the English, Welsh and Scottish interpretation of the English, Welsh and Scottish (the situation in Northern Ireland is somewhat different) abortion law (which says that abortion may be performed if the continuation of the pregnancy poses a greater risk for the mother than the interruption of said pregnancy) is that any pregnancy carried to term is more risky than a termination, effectively making it so that as long as you find the right doctors (and this is not too difficult) having an abortion in the UK is perfectly feasible even though abortion on demand as such is not available.
Another lie of the infographic becomes apparent when one takes a look at the "Constitution"section for each country. For one thing, it doesn't take into account that some countries (the UK being the first I noticed) don't have a written Constitution, and therefore talking about the Constitution is somewhat irrelevant. For another it doesn't take into account that other countries (such as the US) consider that an article including "equal rights" makes the need for an article on non-discrimination obsolete. Of course, this might is not always true, but it is in many interpretations of the US Constitution.
The other thing that sort of bothered me about the infographic was redundancy. For example, Great Britain doesn't have laws regarding sexual abuse in domestic violence. This is because Great Britain has laws regarding sexual abuse independent of domestic violence. In a similar way, I find that laws regarding sexual harassment, if they are good enough, preclude the need for laws regarding sexual harassment at work, or in school, or in public spaces, etc. etc.
Don't get me wrong. I loved the infographic. It kept me entertained for a while and gave me material for a blogpost. It just reminded me of how flawed statistics and data presentation can be. It also reminded me how generalisations make feminism few favours: some people reading this post may conclude that I am arguing that women's rights are advanced and equal in many countries. They are not. There is still a lot to do for women's rights. For this reason, it is important that when we talk about them we are absolutely clear, know exactly what is a law, what is an interpretation and what is meaningless. It is also important to understand the context of laws. If a law is present in a country where laws are routinely broken by the governing body, then there is no point in evaluating the law. If a law is present in a country in war, where laws are continuously broken, saying that that country has more freedom than another country with a slightly more restrictive law is stupid.
I like reading the paper in the mornings. It wakes me up, and it usually gets me thinking. And once in a while, it reminds me not to believe everything I read in the newspaper.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)