"I wanna be drunk when I wake up" 

It seems I am high on anything else but air and life on SEP... spur of the moment decision to escape to Barcelona literally 7 days later. Terribly last minute. But... I am so... heady from being in Europe. I cannot find the words and in place I provide a picture. 

I am excited more than anything else... I have been reading a lot here. And I shall post soon, all these things that have blown my mind when I am in this mindblowing place. I can't believe I just passed the half-way mark.

I am young, I am free, I am here. <3

The coin wavers, one side with the face of sophistication, the other with the face of questing, diffident innocence.

Joseph Levenson, the unfulfilled promise of a historian

It is no different from the swallow's matching his wings against the roc, from the firefly's debating his brightness with the moon. 

Christians Countered, Suzuki Shosan
In Deus Destoryed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan, George Elison

Tired. Retreat into history readings. 

 But new interpretative insight, flowing directly from the application of social science theory, has lagged behind. Recent efforts in this direction have been criticized in a number of quarters for being strained and artificial. Too often, it is argued, the theory seems to have been "tacked on" to the data, rather than being genuinely integrated with it, and readers have been left with the uncomfortable sense of being witness to a marriage that has been inadequately consummated. 

Discovering History in China, Paul A Cohen. 

Can you imagine I didn't post ANYTHING for all of summer. 

Sometimes, I suspect academics insert such images into their writings to shock awake sleepy readers. 

 "The beating of a million drums" 

- Civilisation, Justice

I keep reminding myself that I will survive this. Just like I always do. 

"Don't believe the things you tell yourself so late at night." 

"For Walesa, it was an incredible victory, and with a new self-confidence he shouted into the microphone that the strike would go on until all the demands were met- and while they were about it, they had better talk about new trade unions too... Instead of going home, appeased, several thousand strikers settled down for the first of many nights they would spend inside the yard (some had already brought in a spare pair of overalls)." 

[Dear people in the library, I apologise for laughing out loud. But it's just so mundanely cute. Overalls!] 

"The hours and days of waiting passed in an orgy of discussion. Workers clustered in small, excited groups from which you caught the words 'democracy!, 'equality!', 'freedom!' and 'shit!'." 

The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, Timothy Garton Ash. 

The thing is, I might not get first class honours. But I'd take third class honours in history over first class in anything else. It's too awesome to give up, for something I know won't even matter for the rest of my life. 

"Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last."

Charles de Gaulle, the man who fumed about not being invited to the Grand Alliance conferences in WWII.

"You, me, going all night.
We don't care who's wrong and who's right."

"Were you ever in France, Mr Martin?" asked Candide. They were within sight of the coast.

"Yes, I have passed through several of her provinces. In some, the half of the inhabitants are mad; in others, they are too artful; in others, they are mostly rather simple and stupid; in still others, they affect to be witty. In all of them, however, the chief occupation is making love, the second is slander, and the third is talking nonsense."

"But have you seen Paris, Mr Martin?"

"Yes, I have been there. It contains all kinds I have mentioned. It is a chaos, a throng, where everyone seeks for pleasure, and, as far as I could make out, scarcely anyone finds it.

"On my arrival there, I had all my money stolen by pickpockets at the fair at Saint Germain. I myself was arrested as a thief, and imprisoned for a week. Afterwards I worked as a publisher's proof-reader, to earn enough to return to Holland on foot. I came to know the whole pack of scribblers, caballers and religious jumping-jacks. Some of the people are said to be very polite. I would like to believe it."

Candide, Voltaire

"For understanding the emperor's own role in the soulstealing crisis, and indeed in Chinese politics in general, the key is vermilion... the vermilion personal touch reminded the official that the court letter as a whole faithfully reflected the imperial mind.

...
The governor wrote back amicably, "Just as Your Majesty pronounced in your Sage Edict, 'There must be gangs of persons with seditious plots.'" (Vermilion: 'You wretched thing!') "Your humble minister is extremely stupid." (Vermilion: "Indeed you are extremely stupid.")."

Soulstealers The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768, Philip A. Kuhn

As always at the beginning of semesters, I am extremely insecure about my ability to do well. But at least the struggle is littered with readings like these.

"Good night?"
" Not bad," he says. "I got to chat with George Cloony."
" You did?"
" Bet you wish you'd gone now." He smiles.
" I do actually. What's he like?"
" Well, you know how every Hollywood movie star you've ever met is shorter than you thought, uglier than you thought, and usually a bit of a cunt?"
" Yeah."
" Well, he is the only one who isn't.He is just as charming as you would have hoped. He is just as handsome and just as entertaining. You see, I have this theory." He coughs, snorts the phlegm and swallows it. It is one of his most disgusting habits. "The year you become famous is the year you stop growing as a person. Like, Michael Jackson became famous at five or something, which is why he is permanently five. He wants to play children's games, hang out with the kids, build a bloody fun fair in his backyard and eat sweeties. Robbies Williams was sixteen, which is why he is always shagging girls and behaving like a teenager. George, on the other hand, was nearly forty, which is why he is such a delightful, well-rounded individual."

Fashion Babylon, Imogen Edward-Jones & Anonymous.

I wonder.