Well, despite the apparent air of suspicion from the seed of discord planted some weeks ago amidst the team at Won's Westwon, everything went relatively smoothly tonight. The novelty of being a waiter at a Chinese restaurant has worn off. Much as I like the fact that I enjoy doing good service, politely, and have sufficient time to read when it's quiet, it is still all, "Sweet and sour chicken, prawn crackers and a can of coke." Blah blah blah. It's all so very banal.
Tomorrow is going to be even worse. Taking that red brick poker up the bottom twice in one day, once in the afternoon prostituting my art, then again at night, out in the December weather playing for some lads from the Rugby club. Yeah, a real hoot. Lavishly paid of course (5% of musician's union minimum) with plenty of drink (two cups of tea, if I'm lucky) and a meal (I say a "meal" it is very average what I receive, usually dried chicken and mush, which almost always makes me feel sick afterwards). It's not the chefs fault, a meal is only as good as its ingredients, therefore seeing as we import over 90% of all our food, coupled with the fact that producing countries always keep the best for themselves, means food will never, ever, be nice here (despite the phoney illusions put out on television to subdue the milling masses).
Now I have to sit alone on emergency electrickery (therefore no heating, gas is a thing of the past) slogging my guts out for this assignment. Bugger. Despite the fact that it bears little if no relevance to anything written in the module materials (as has been the case with most all level three assignments I have been given) it is actually an incredibly well thought out essay question. It is able to be approached from many angles, and the issue at hand is crucial to understanding not only Tacitus' Agricola but also his Germania. Hats off to whomever came up with it. Sincerely.
This evening, the most enjoyable part was this guy I know (with pink nose piercings, a long beard and hippy clothes on) talked to me about archaeology. It was so funny. Hahahaha! His conception of what he called "history" is from beyond 6,000 years ago (naturally, this is not history, but pre-history) and what his burd likes reading about is what he termed "modern history" from a couple of thousand years ago. This made me laugh so much, naturally that is ancient history. The guy reads a few secondary sources and is all of a sudden an "expert" historian, without ever having studied. He is most confounded indeed, and I did not correct him. (The fact that his eyes were like two saucers of oil means he was in Rainbowland - likely on MDMA - but this doesn't let him off the hook, he's like that when sober).
Tonight our resident historian was in. A young PhD student who likes to talk, a lot (more than me, and believe me, that is a lot - hell, I've even begun to mellow with age a little, but she is something else). Crickey. Even so, about two hours into her monologue, she mentioned two most excellent anecdotes, one about local correspondence between sources from the nineteenth century (she is not a classicist, and does not know either Latin or ancient Greek, but "knows it all already" sort of thing) and another about what she described as "oh, you know, those pointy things, what are they called? Oh yes, obelisks." What she said was actually of great interest (despite her ambiguous definition of an obelisks) and she was actually a keen historian, even if she is not truly learned.
Well, I suppose I had better get on with my assignment. Bugger.
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