we are still electronically connected.

i've been quite busy and stressed and will continue to be so until two tuesdays from now, so i apologize for those of you who have written me who i haven't responded to. it makes me very anxious to be a poor correspondent, because the exchange really does mean a lot to me. but i am coming upon the climax of my semester - at least about the important stuff, the literature - throughout which i will be hosting the esteemed john lingan here in edinburgh for 5 days, trying to show him the city and scotland and a good time. with some relief i found out today that another visitor i was supposed to have, my sister's friend from college jay, is going to postpone his trip for a few weeks, which is really the best, because i'd love to not be so stressed that i can't properly meet and host him - he seems like a very good guy, so is deserving of hospitality all the more.
meanwhile a few new things have been going on. firstly, i went to beauty and the beast and was a little disappointed. musicals in general are cheesy, but if they are successfully dramatic you don't notice or mind people's exaggerated behavior or random song bursts; the thing with beauty and the beast, which was the disney version and very faithful to the movie, is that i apparently never got in touch with that childhood escapism i mentioned enough to get over the copious, copious cheese. what's more, i reaalllly didn't like belle, which sort of just ruins it from the inside out. she wasn't very pretty - sorry to be shallow but her name is, uh, belle - and her physical characterization was really off - full of androgenous hops and runs and gracelessness - not the dreamy girlish grace that makes the character so charming. so i never really got over that, and neither did my compatriots. mrs. potts, lumiere and the feather duster character were all very good, however, and helped to balance out the incredible homoeroticism of the gaston character and scenes, which are supposed to be uber-manly and just..weren't.
oh well. next up i will go to see cat on a hot tin roof, probably with john, at the royal lyceum theatre; i could use some heavy, intense tennesee-williams drama after that, and i'm actually unfamiliar with that show, so i expect to have a falling-in-love moment as is usual with mr. williams.

the dinner rosalia made me - spanish omelette - was excellent, and i don't know how i will return the favor because i know how to cook nothing. suggestions? maybe embarassment will be the impetus for my getting in touch with my domesticated self. maybe.
but yes, it was also an important night because i made an intriguing new friend: may, one of rosalia's flatmates, who is saudi arabian and a very intense, interesting and cool girl. she is also the first saudi arabian i have ever met, i think, and so the dynamic is quite new, and includes conversations about how the saudi royal family taps all phone lines of people educated outside of the country - her father, a professor, included - just to keep thought-police tabs. we went out dancing to a club here called caberet voltaire that played the most...primal sounding techno i've ever heard (apparently a tuesday night feature). basically you had to spasm your body, move it really hard, to keep up. and i mean, i could do it, but i would never dance that way in another circumstance. after this evening together, may and rosalia invited me to a dinner party they were having on friday with all of may's arab friends and featuring arab and spanish foods. i went, it was quite delicious, and i met some new people. meeting the saudis was interesting for me, because rather than getting the usual "oh okay" when i tell someone i'm american, which implies that their impression of me will be guided, at least initially, by a group of assumptions about americans, the saudis sort of stopped and seemed to put a guard up, or get a little worried. may tells me it's because they are worried about what i will think of them as saudis rather than having judgments about me. but yeah, it was just a split second, and then things were quite amiable; interesting, nonetheless. yeah, international life.

the rest of the week involved class and work and intense readings - nietzsche and heart of darkness and class differences in the education system. but, it is all rather the point. now on to my thomas mann research - i'm scared of this paper. wish me luck. hopefully i can write more soon, but it cannot be predicted. i hope everyone is well and forgive me for fading in and out so much, and for the more that is to come.
until next time-