It turns out I didn't have culture shock. Just a really upset tummy, in token of which I'm about to take a sick day. After I show up at work, fill in a price chart, update my newslead file, and print off a bunch of phone numbers and notes so that I can go on making research calls from home. It's very strange, this job, in the sense that for the first time ever, I want to do well. I handed in my first big industry feature yesterday, and it was well-received, which sent me over the moon, quietly-like, because of my upset tummy, but over the moon nonetheless.
I've been feeling under the weather for a little while though, so it's time to stay prone for a day. Especially because the lovely F-word has a student who works at an upmarket chocolate store here, and last night he brought me home a bag of nut-free samples, which if I was any sort of woman I would have eaten already. At the moment I'm just staring at it glumly. Awful.
Oh, and you know how when you get in an elevator, you wonder sometimes if it's within the realm of human possibility to accidentally drop your cellphone into the gap between the lift and the floor? It turns out it is not only possible, but that I did it. I'm going to see if they retrieved my SIM card for me - the phone itself is probably a lost cause after falling five floors to the parking lot level - but I'd say the odds are pretty good I'll switch to just using my work cell number this afternoon, which will shortly be on Facebook, as is our new fixed line, which is much cheaper to call from Canada, but I know how fond some of you are of SMSes.
mercoledì, luglio 11, 2007
martedì, luglio 10, 2007
The Outpost of Propaganda
I think I’m starting to have something like culture shock, and I’m pleased it’s come so late after my arrival. A good sign. The weather is just so shitty and depressing. I’m having a hard time figuring out why the fuck anybody lives here, it’s like Vancouver without the sea. That’s not fair, of course; shitty weather aside there’s no comparison. As I’ve wrote a million times it’s pretty and quaint here, just reeking with history and the traces of colonial expropriation. We went to the African museum last weekend and that was a trip . . . and eye-opening trip.
It was founded as a propaganda piece by Leopold, the Belgian king who contracted out the Congo out in the 19th century as though he was having his back yard landscaped, resulting in the de facto slavery of generations of Congolese and laying the groundwork for the intense struggle over resources there that has sparked the slaughter of so many people. An unqualified disaster, and the obsession of Joseph Conrad, who wrote Heart of Darkness and The Outpost of Progress about it.
So everybody in Canada, who’s forced to read Heart of Darkness in school – usually when they’re around 15 and utterly unprepared for such a bleak vision of life, Goths included, and they complain about it endlessly – has some idea that the Belgian experience in the Congo was not an edifying one.
But based on the African museum here, and excepting one new exhibit, the museum still stands for the most part as a propaganda piece for the cause of bringing the darkies civilization and rescuing them from the Arab slave traders.
Well. I guess if they just changed the museum altogether, denied the propaganda as it were, that would be a denial of history, since the propaganda was so strong. It was still odd to be there though. In any old colonial power you can show up at the museums and gawk at the emblems of a time when they stripped the land and people of all they could, but this one was quite special.
And in my culture shock resulting from shitty weather, I walk through Brussels, geek on the lovely architecture, and sometimes go up to the royal district with its beautiful stately whitewashed buildings – and you know, maybe Paris is what it is and London is what it is because of what the French and English once did to their colonies, but here, because of Joseph Conrad and now that museum, it’s always on my mind.
It was founded as a propaganda piece by Leopold, the Belgian king who contracted out the Congo out in the 19th century as though he was having his back yard landscaped, resulting in the de facto slavery of generations of Congolese and laying the groundwork for the intense struggle over resources there that has sparked the slaughter of so many people. An unqualified disaster, and the obsession of Joseph Conrad, who wrote Heart of Darkness and The Outpost of Progress about it.
So everybody in Canada, who’s forced to read Heart of Darkness in school – usually when they’re around 15 and utterly unprepared for such a bleak vision of life, Goths included, and they complain about it endlessly – has some idea that the Belgian experience in the Congo was not an edifying one.
But based on the African museum here, and excepting one new exhibit, the museum still stands for the most part as a propaganda piece for the cause of bringing the darkies civilization and rescuing them from the Arab slave traders.
Well. I guess if they just changed the museum altogether, denied the propaganda as it were, that would be a denial of history, since the propaganda was so strong. It was still odd to be there though. In any old colonial power you can show up at the museums and gawk at the emblems of a time when they stripped the land and people of all they could, but this one was quite special.
And in my culture shock resulting from shitty weather, I walk through Brussels, geek on the lovely architecture, and sometimes go up to the royal district with its beautiful stately whitewashed buildings – and you know, maybe Paris is what it is and London is what it is because of what the French and English once did to their colonies, but here, because of Joseph Conrad and now that museum, it’s always on my mind.
lunedì, luglio 09, 2007
Flemish blogger won't let me give names to my posts anymore. Not that it matters, because today all I want to say is "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuurgggggggh I fucking hate working." I mean, it's less stressful than it was I suppose, as far as stress goes, but I can't get used to feeling like such a sucker - maybe because all of my money to date has been shunted into debt holes and retirement funds that I just might never see in this naughty naughty life so all I feel like my job is getting me is the possibility of impulse buying, which I'm not really into anymore.
Watched The Dirty Dozen last night and thought it was crap, even with Charles Bronson running around in the sort of manly yet tight clothes that were made to be run around in by him and with John Cassavetes being just phenomenal. But the 'boy's own army' whistling and drum music and the winking, winking, winking did not suit a story that culminated in the living immolation of dozens of screaming people, nor did it suit Telly Savalas's freak turn. This movie is a candidate to be remade in the same way Ocean's Eleven was - the original being crap. Of course, when it is - which it will be, Hollywood being what it is these naughty days - I'll hate it because they will never find anyone to cast who's as fucking hot as Charles Bronson or as good at playing an emotionally engaging violent asshole as John Cassavetes. Poor Hollywood.
Watched The Dirty Dozen last night and thought it was crap, even with Charles Bronson running around in the sort of manly yet tight clothes that were made to be run around in by him and with John Cassavetes being just phenomenal. But the 'boy's own army' whistling and drum music and the winking, winking, winking did not suit a story that culminated in the living immolation of dozens of screaming people, nor did it suit Telly Savalas's freak turn. This movie is a candidate to be remade in the same way Ocean's Eleven was - the original being crap. Of course, when it is - which it will be, Hollywood being what it is these naughty days - I'll hate it because they will never find anyone to cast who's as fucking hot as Charles Bronson or as good at playing an emotionally engaging violent asshole as John Cassavetes. Poor Hollywood.
domenica, luglio 08, 2007
Just had a weekend visit from Mummy, who was on her way from her own mum in Yorkshire. These visits and the attendant wide eyes and hungry cutlery attending cauliflower that isn't soggy and starches that aren't yorkshire puddings or boiled potatoes make me realize how good the food is here. Too good. So good. If ever I truly become a Belgian, I'll be a'bulgin, and if you don't appreciate the quality of that pun I don't care - I'm too full of food and beer.
During the weekend much family gossip was heard by me. My family gossip has taken a turn for the gross and melodramatic. The details aren't bloggable, but neither are they actually illegal, so just let me say this: I am a caker, and proud of it. Maybe I can eat pig's feet without gagging, maybe I can spend time in the sun without burning, maybe I've spent more time in Italy than most of my generation, maybe I've had more carnal relationships with Italians than have my family members who are actually legally Italian, and maybe there's a whole litany of things that pisses me off about cakers.
None of that changes the fact that I'm a caker through and through: that I'd probably join the Freemasons if they let ladies past the auxiliary; that sometimes I just plain like boiled potatoes, as long as they're dirt fresh spring ones done with a little mint; that I will always take the comfy shoes over the pretty shoes; and that there are some things which are simply not said or done, blush, harumph, let's talk about the weather and just let people live their bloody lives, please.
This is the long way to say that I've always been really, really glad Mummy is my mum, and that I don't have a Mamma, and with this new onslaught of gossip I'm even more so.
During the weekend much family gossip was heard by me. My family gossip has taken a turn for the gross and melodramatic. The details aren't bloggable, but neither are they actually illegal, so just let me say this: I am a caker, and proud of it. Maybe I can eat pig's feet without gagging, maybe I can spend time in the sun without burning, maybe I've spent more time in Italy than most of my generation, maybe I've had more carnal relationships with Italians than have my family members who are actually legally Italian, and maybe there's a whole litany of things that pisses me off about cakers.
None of that changes the fact that I'm a caker through and through: that I'd probably join the Freemasons if they let ladies past the auxiliary; that sometimes I just plain like boiled potatoes, as long as they're dirt fresh spring ones done with a little mint; that I will always take the comfy shoes over the pretty shoes; and that there are some things which are simply not said or done, blush, harumph, let's talk about the weather and just let people live their bloody lives, please.
This is the long way to say that I've always been really, really glad Mummy is my mum, and that I don't have a Mamma, and with this new onslaught of gossip I'm even more so.
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