mojito granita

yummy, yummy, yummy!

Here is the recipe.

Reading with a pencil in hand

"There are two kinds of reader: those who read with a pencil in their hand, and those who don't. (For "pencil", you may read, if you like, "pencil or pen", though inking marginalia strikes me as decadent and hubristic.) For me, a pencil is a reading tool, and since bookish types are no less prone than anyone else to commodity fetishism, I have developed a profound interest in my favoured kind of implement, surely among the greatest inventions of mankind: the mechanical pencil."

I am one of those people.  Except that my writing tool requirements are incredibly complex, depending on the topic, the type of paper, the amount of comments I am likely to make, whether it's sunny today, whether I am reading fiction or non-fiction.  This choice of writing tool has the same importance to me as deciding what to wear in the morning, what to eat for dinner or where to go on holiday.  This is big stuff.  I write on my hands, on additional pieces of paper, on kitchen towels, calendars, diaries, and...uhm...sometimes on my own body too.  There is always something that needs to be written down, like a word I hear, the lines of a song I'm listening to, fragments of phone conversations with significant others.  Sometimes drawing my thoughts feels good.  This usually translates into drawings of complex-patterned mazes to which only I have the key.  I could never understand people that read without taking notes.  In a way I'm jealous.  I need the writing to feel the connection to both the text and the context.

Aung San Suu Kyi tells of Burma's struggle for freedom and its cost

"What is this passion? What is the cause to which we are so passionately dedicated as to forgo the comforts of a conventional existence?" she asks. "Going back to [former Czech dissident leader] Václav Havel's definition of the basic job of dissidents, we are dedicated to the defence of the right of individuals to free and truthful life. In other words, our passion is liberty."

From The Guardian

feminism and the masculinization of femininity

The Guardian has an interesting article today about the portrayal of "empowered" women in the media.  It is the image of women behaving badly.  Behaving in a masculine way.  And yes, I can do it like a brother, do it like a dude...., but this is totally missing the point!  Unfortunately, (and dangerously so) this complete misunderstading of feminist theory is extremely prevalent among women, even the more educated.

C'mon, being like a dude is soooo NOT the point!

all in a day's work

My day at work. Can't talk about it. It's confidential, you see. Everything I do is confidential. Anyone I come in contact with needs to stay anonymous.

I'm working on my new assignment, which I need to figure out pretty soon! It's due a week from today minus 6 hours difference between US and England. That's for the ED209 Child Development with Open University. I enjoy some aspects of this course, but I still can't make up my mind about its overall appeal.

Had an interesting conversation with a friend today. Talked about a book called Classism and Feminist Therapy....:-)

In the meantime I came across a really interesting story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/video/2010/may/13/death-penalty-trial-law-video in which The former lord chief justice Lord Woolf presides over a trial of the US death penalty for perverting the course of justice. Two of Britain's leading criminal barristers cross-examine witnesses with intimate knowledge of the American justice system, including a mother who argued against the death sentence for her daughter's murderer. That's from my favourite paper: The Guardian! Could not live a day without it!