had a calmer weekend. Stayed in soho at a friend's flat, took care of the cats, worked at the cafe. stayed out late on Saturday meeting people and listening to music. Also signed up for a cheapcheap phone service (3p/minute to the US!) and called some pals in Boston on Sunday night. And Stillex. Who is keeping up a solid half of an email conversation. confusingly. I need to see him again soon, just to see... to see... um just to see, okay?

11/11 Saw "gemini" at the odeon west end. strange grisly nearghost story. by the guy who directed tetsuo the iron man. but this was a period film, in lovely color, in postwar japan. A little fable, really, with strange slow pacing interspersed with frantic frenetic kinetic acting in that mifune-style. the body horror of tetsuo modified into metaphors of poverty and ferality. Visually just gorgeous, especially the "slum people" and their layers of multicolored rags and makeup and sparkle and mountains of hair. Quite subversive in a little way, i think.

Finally found a really interesting book from my sociology class. _Rethinking Social Development_ , edited by David Booth. Slow going metatheory at first, but it's more directed than a lot of sociology i've been reading. And by the 3rd and 4th chapter, it's definitely enagging with all kinds of fun things, especially the theory/practice debates and the challenge of diverse outcomes.

11/8 (clinging desparately to the american-style way of writing the date - but i have to write "labour" "behaviour" "honour" etc. or the spellchecker on this english machine kicks up a fuss) Weekend: birtdhay party for a new friend friday night. I was invited to dj, with much-less-than-adequate equipment, but it was fun anyway. It was mostly folks from the cafe scene (plus some very much more glamorous folks as well), with me and birthdayboy both also LSE students, plus i invited some other lse friends. The flat was very upscale, with the main room like a dance studies with hardwood floor and windows at each end. Everyone sat on the floor or leaned against teh wall. I ended up staying until 8:30 in the morning, because several folk were there that i hadn't seen (including my morning companion from after the squatparty a couple weeks ago), and we got into a nice 4way tagteam on the turntables. quite fun. Earlier on, i felt a bit odd, like there was some covert male competetion (over me) going on. which may be unrealistic and self-centered, but i don't think so. That sort of thing makes me want to run away. I don't understand girls who think this is fun, or ego-boosting. it makes me feel dogsbone-ish. frustrating! luckily, it didn't last forever. And especially these newly long-lost folk were not involved, so i could just relax in their company and throw on a few tunes.

Sunday was a nice solo day, biked across to some outdoor markets and wnadered among secondhand appliances, food, records, books, and fashion. Parked myself in a cafe and read while sucking down soy mochas. biked home, self-sufficiently, and watched still more british tv. More docuemntaries about race and riots and police in britain.

11/4 Well I did hand in the damn paper. The main problem (besides my stomache at the thought of all 30 of classmates plus two professors reading it) is that I had two weeks to assimilate a ton of new knowledge, take an opinion, and write it up. Looking over it, I'm not entirely sure it's what I believe.. but it does make sense. I think. ack. Well the class in which we ALL talk about my paper (agh. agh.) is tomorrow. so after that it'll all be over. Yesterday i spent my first paycheck on electrical equipment. My turntables are almost running. Well the are running but I only have headphones to hear them on. That's ok but soon I'll need a speaker or two. This stuff is damn expensive, even though I bargained the guy down. got headphones and a two-input 300watt voltage converter for much much less than the prices on them. thank heavens. Also worked at the cafe which was too quiet yesterday.. not enough tips for lunch today. On average, the swarms of beautiful, immaculate japanese wealthywealthy young people never tip. they stay for hours and smoke like chimneys, order many drinks and food. no tips at all. But my co-worker was someone whose working style is similar to mine, so it was easy and we were out of there by before midnight (woohoo!).

yawn.. time for class..

the colder of our two lecturers held forth today. he's very good, quite lively, barreling on at a tremendous pace, with a memorable choice of examples (often a straight economist's most obvious creative outlet). Not at all as humanistic, but it's already interesting to try to pick out where to fit our lecturers in to 'camps' of economcs and economic history. also cuz i don't quite know the terrain, so i don'tknow who's typical or not. But every lecture in this class (teamtaught) has been good. the other guy is quite a bit warmer, a but more narrative in style, more digressive and philosophical. Interesting..
and soon I have the sociology class. which is the least interesting of the three. And I just found out (due to my friend and critic here at lse) that the course i most wanted to take here, the one that they told me was not being offered at lse this year, so i had to restructure my whole plan? Well IT IS being offered, through the International Hisory department. those jerks. Every single time i contacted LSE i mentioned that i wanted to take that course, avery tinme after i got here and talked to my advisor i said so. and did anybody tell me that it was being offered. argh. feh. feh. I pound the table in frustration. i kick a bus-stand bench. grrrrr.