Martes 23 de octubre de 2001

Dear Anne...
I have received today your postcard and the good news about your living in England too... so I suppose I’ll have to make a trip to the south of England to visit quite a lot of people now. It is incredible that we have ended up both in the same country, taking on account that we both met here (summer in Bournemouth, not really a good experience for me, those Spanish people coming in my group made me angry every minute that I spent with them, uh, but now I don’t know who is worse, if them or those freshers)… Well, you may not know this stuff of the diary, but it is quite easy: each page is dedicated to one of my friends as a sort of “public” letter that is not really meant to reach the recipient directly, but just meant to send my love to all them present here and to tell about my life…

I went to the cinema to see Battle Royale, this Japanese film, bloody film I should say, in original version with subtitles, dealing with a teenage mayhem sponsored by the government to stop their revolting against the school system. All those students left in an island, each with a different gun, to survive after three days of killing and just one winner… The thing is that the film was terrifying; no feeling, no depth (no wonder… 41 deaths covered in one hour and a half is quite a challenge if you ever mean to give some meaning to it)… but just this lack of feeling and this lack of meaning is what attracted me most. It sounds like a sort of metaphor, just put some guns in the hands of the youngsters and… what do you expect from them? They´ll just pull the trigger, that´s it, and in the end, if one is forced to, killing becomes a matter of daily reality, bare of any tragic sense and bare of meaning, just like waking up and brushing your teeth… anyway, if you ever think of seeing it, take it as a house-made documentary, don’t take it seriously or you will hate it… just all that people killed in front of you and you staring unmoved at all. Humm… not bad…

At night we just came across the Malaysian guys again and we went with them to an international student party that was going on at the Students Union, ufff, all full of oriental people, incredible, and some blondes going around… well, it was fun, but most of the guys in there were just like predators, staring at you if you ever crossed your eye with them, my god, just like hawks… So we soon left, having got a bit tired of the ambient in there “fiesta casposa” (dandruffy party) as we would say in Spanish, with a fat man dressed in white singing in a karaoke, and tables full of Japanese hordes getting drunk with a bottle of wine, poor things. Oh, and also, one of the German assistants that has always been quite rude to us as she doesn’t say nor hello nor anything to us when she sees us (perhaps we are just creeps compared to her)… as soon as she saw us speaking to one of our good looking students, ooops, here she appeared, showing off her greatest smile and willing to start a conversation (having given us her back an hour before when we just said hello to her). Great, one person to whom I won’t take the trouble of speaking, she won’t feel very sorry for this, but really, I will not make the effort to speak to her at all, now that I know her deal.

So. Today… let me see… oh, yes. Today I went to the art galleries in both the university of Northumbria and the University of Newcastle (the posh one, with great beautiful old buildings). Both the exhibitions were wonderful. In our university we had some contemporary paintings on display, showing the mobs of people crossing the streets of NY as seen from a really high building, with a great perspective on the walls of the other buildings. The painter, Simon Nicholas, really amazed me, and what amazed me most was the great price of the catalogues, so I have bought one, something I don’t usually do, as they are awfully expensive most times.

The second exhibition was not of such quality in general, as I didn’t like all the works in it, but it was really interesting. It was about children books illustration in Japan, and there were some absolutely beautiful pieces of work, though some others were just crap. On the other hand there was the private collection of the university and among some other old paintings and some African sculptures, they had a real FRANCIS BACON piece, huh, amazing, the other one I have seen was in the Royal Museum in Bruxelles, I didn’t know I was going to see other so soon, and for free… Oh, and they were making activities with children. They were painting also stuff for books and getting dressed in the Japanese Kimonos, it was really a good idea (pity I am too old to look like a little girl, but if I had the opportunity of wearing one of those kimonos…).

Well, and then, preparing the classes, gossiping with the other assistants, hanging around my place in the university residence, buying milk and a lettuce… typical students life, as you may so well know. Though I haven’t had to scold my flatmates yet, which is quite amazing, hummm… much better, in this way I won’t loose my sense of humour in this rainy land…

Take care, Anne, and I hope we’ll be able to see each other one of these days..

Labels: Diario