I finished reading Maus today, after having read July's People earlier this week.

Spiegelman, at one point in Maus actually quotes Beckett who had said, " Every word is a strain on silence and nothingness". This really resonated with me and can act as a reminder of how powerful and powerless words can be, given a specific situation.

Reading about the holocaust and the apartheid back to back made me quite depressed, but made me want to know more. I've always been interested in the history of Eastern Europe and Southern Africa, so I would like to do more reading.  I'm also looking to write my Masters thesis on violence and conflict.


 Recommendations are welcome- they could be films, textbooks, books, artwork, pamphlets, a website- anything that I can look up and learn more about these two historical periods.

**
I feel quite useless. I was supposed to clean my room, do laundry, organise papers required for travelling and finish writing a last minute article ( I swear I took on no additional work!) and updating my CV. None of this is optional. I also need to sort out which books I'm taking with me to Kolkata. Get this, I have a 3,000 word essay to finish during my vacations. If I was more organised, I'd try and finish up before coming home, but that's not going to happen.

All I've been doing is going out and having fun. I did manage to sneak in some Christmas shopping though ( Thank you to-do list!). I've also realised how bad my memory is about random things to get done. I have good memory for obscure things , but I never ever remember iconic incidents from even my own life. My classmates think I'm nuts because I have a planner where I write EVERYTHING, but it's only because I'd get nothing done otherwise. 

Comments

Magically Bored said…
You and I are planner-aholics, if there can be any such word. I write the most inane things in my planner, but the reason for doing so is the same as yours - if I didn't write them down, I probably wouldn't remember the tasks! It's practically like a survival tactic.