Just a quick note to wish anyone reading this a Merry Christmas and brilliant new year.

I am so bored!! I can't wait to start work on Thursday...who knew there would ever come a point when I would actually be saying that? But I really am bored, and tired of being cooped up in my room but too lazy to get dressed and go outside. Yaaawn...

SO the first ninth of my UK experience has passed. I should, before I move on, apologise for the hiatus. I have been harrassed by assignments and extracurriculars to no end...

Firstly, the assignments. Becaue I am taking some ambiguous arts course I don't have exams till the end of the year. Yaay!! On the flip side; I have enough essays to produce a small book not so yaay. Writing and writing and writing...and it's not like everything else has stopped happening either. Still got classes, still got other assignments and all that. Sheesh! (that's a Kenyan sigh of exasperation)

Juggling between that and leading a new society and being a member of an existing society, plus part time work and just generally trying not to go insane is pretty hard. I rely on miracles to make my day to day needs, which has worked out great so far, so why rock the boat?

On a happier note, I paid my first rent!! I'm so proud of my 20 year old self...you can't even imagine. And, I didn't go flat broke as a result, which means something must have gone right during the term!! I realise that this makes me a late bloomer in some countries but I think for a Kenyan girl that is pretty neat. Unfortunately rent is paid each month and not just when I can afford it so, I now have to get back to the salt mines for December...

Work does not seem to agree with me. I'm finally getting the hang of the hours (even though I forgot and was an hour late this week) but my body is staging a revolt. My feet are sore, my back hurts and I just feel rubbish. But I am so into the routine of push, push, push that after two days of Holiday I am ready to go back. The muscles of relaxation in me have atrophied and I just feel like I'm wasting time and I need to be out there...doing.

Which means for me that I end up eating...and eating...and eating. And spending money I don't have. Ah, its a vicious cycle, when I have money, I have no time to spend it, and when I don't have money, I have too much time to spend it.

Anyway, that was just a random collection of my thoughts from the last few days. I am pretty shattered but restless still, waiting to go back to work.

y'all be good, y'hear?

Hey loyal fan...This is a copy of a message I posted on another forum that unfortunately is not in public access. Its a response to something that was said to something I said...you'll get the gist as you read along.

Ola Elena! Que tal?

He he, that is just about the extent of my Spanish, so I will stop before I embarrass myself!!

You're probably right about what I said about economies, I don't think I expressed myself quite well in that post. What I meant to say was that Economics as we understand them are a creation of the minds. I think that even though the basic concept of exchanging goods and services is innate, and that we would end up doing it eventually. However, all this stuff about building the perfect economy and trying to sustain this model of the perfect economy is hogwash.

Think about it. Almost all governments in the world are slaved to the notion of achieving the perfect economy. In Britain, where they have (I think) the strongest currency in the world, they are not happy, governments are still elected on the platforms of creating a stronger economy or improving the economy. But improving it to what? You are already the best, what more could you possibly want?!

We aim for perfect demand matched with perfect supply to yield perfect prices in a perfectly competitive market and yet economists are the first to admit that because people are not perfect this will never be achieved. They admit that trade cycles are inevitable and the only things that governments and "economies" can do is adjust to them and hope for the best. People study for years on how to adjust to them, but they admit that nothing that they can ever do will ever stop them from happening.

In my brief affair with economics, I remember sitting in a class on economic models and asking my teacher , if we all know that all economies are doomed to failure then why do we keep trying?

I am not against the study of economics, or even trying to create the (unachievable) perfect economy. If anything it creates jobs and makes people think. I am, however, against the notion of trading off something so elusive and unacheivable for the lives of other people, and that is what I meant to say. Why should young men and women be sent to far off country's to kill other people, and possibly die themselves to secure more oil and make their country's economy stronger? Why should mercenaries be trained to topple governments, and then supported in oppressing other people, so that other economies can gain? (Think Angola, Afghanistan, The DRC, ...) (Also Sorry for the African examples that may be unfamiliar to some of you but African History is my thing!)

As for my examples, I'm sorry if they seemed ignorant. I must confess that I know little about Basque country and ETA beyond the claim for independence. I will do some more research before I make more claims, and if you have any websites that you want to recommend please post them or email them to me directly through the icon in the corner of the post.

I was just wondering, at what point does a regions claim for independence become legitimate and not just a group if unhappy people trying to upset the government? Why does East Timor gain independence after such a short time when Taiwan has been agitating for it for ages? Why does Eritrea get freedom but Western Sahara remain tied to Morocco? Does it have to be violent before it becomes worth listening to? If so, how much violence before it becomes too much?

In terms of news coverage, I find that the best thing is 1. know the history of the story. The story behind the story is often more interesting than the story itself. This means some extra work for you but the thing with world history is that patterns tend to repeat themselves all over. People are all the same inside...

2. Read/watch/listen widely. I check feed from Reuters, Yahoo, The Beeb (BBC), a Kenyan newspaper (The daily nation ; www.nationmedia.com ) and CNN. Web logs (blogs)are also a good place to get information although they can be a bit risky.

3. Get the news but do your own analysis. The people who own media corporations usually have their own interests at heart, and even though we may not see it, there is usually a lot of lobbying and censorship that goes on in the background. Don't necessarily watch analysis programmes unless they are actually interviewing people who are in the news. A good one for this is Hardtalk on the BBC World service, and Larry King on CNN.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, and I have to confess I only got into this routine because I took History for my national exam, but it really helps you develop your own impressions about what is going on in the world, and once you get into the habit, it just flows naturally. I never leave the house before I look at my news feeds, even when I am late. Plus it kicks in nicely in exams when you need examples to back up a claim.

Finally (phew!) I think its really great that we are thinking along the lines of one life at a time. Its the best approach and to that one person, you've made a world of difference.

Wow, what a long boring post...I wonder how you ever made it this far??! Your life must be just as dull as the one of the person who wrote it!

What do you, my one reader, think? Let me know.