Vegetarianism

"I'm a postmodern vegetarian; I eat meat ironically."
- Bill Bailey

Changes, poverty, etc.

It has been just a little over a week since I have moved to the new flat. Time flies… I have the feeling that I have been here forever. The first day was tough though, but when I caught myself thinking: “my room looks so nice,” I knew I was moving in the right direction.
I have not been back to the old flat yet – so many memories…

We had an Estonian Independence Day party at our flat last Friday. Sixty people showed up. It is such a pleasant feeling for someone like me (extremely patriotic and from a tiny country) to think that at least once a year, a bunch of people from around the world will be thinking about YOUR country, no matter how tiny it is. We also blew 60 blue, black and white balloons. (Some pictures/comments here)

I’ve chosen my dissertation topic – I’ll be writing about poverty reduction efforts in Asia, particularly in India, China, and Indonesia. The topic will surely evolve as I write, but for now, I’m glad to have finally decided on the topic and I’m so excited.

Tomorrow, I have to do another blood test. At least I don’t have malaria.

This is such a random blog posting… but some news are important, yet not big enough to devote a separate story to each.

Stuck in bed

When I was coming back from the clinic today, with a verdict ‘serious chest infection’, 39 degrees fever and a phone number to check on my malaria test next morning, I was expecting the next one week in bed to be incredibly depressive. But so far, it has turned out quite the opposite.

Once you are stuck in bed with a high fever and a bunch of colorful pills to take every 4 hours, you finally start doing all the things you never had time to do. You catch up with your friends, read that book you’ve had no time to finish, do something really enjoyable, and think-think-think. Today, I felt free to be myself. I was telling myself every once in a while: “my fever is playing tricks on me! I must be delirious...” Whatever it was – being true to your real self is a refreshing experience.


Actually, I was writing this posting just to bring back a link to some of my old stories. I was reading my Japanese stories (hence the relic picture from an AIDS conference :) and thinking of how eye-opening an experience it was. I guess it’s time I start looking around again and finding the wonderful people and their curious stories... this time here, in Edinburgh.