I also finally finally finally received the enrolment forms for Maastricht University in the mail today. So I’m gonna go and read through those in a minute.

Didn’t have time to do that yesterday because as soon as I got home my friend J called to confirm our plans for today, then I hit the shower, picked up my friend N, ran to the store to buy peaches, strawberries and grapes, went back to my house to quickly fix some fruity salad, and went to our friend V’s house to watch Casablanca.

Which we didn’t actually end up watching because we had to keep talking since we hadn’t seen each other for so long and, thus, couldn’t keep up with the movie. So then we watched one that didn’t need much attention and then Ocean’s Eleven which we had all seen at least twice. That they acted as though Casablanca was a boring movie and then kept their mouthes shut during the other movies kinda pissed me off.

Side note: my friend V brought to our attention that Brad Pitt either eats or drinks something in every scene of Ocean’s Eleven (except for maybe two or so when he’s in that SWAT team uniform or whatever). Also, he has an annoying way of chewing food. That is something I had once noticed in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Fell into bed at 2am sharp, endlessly tired. More details tomorrow.

The Greater Middle East laying before the Himalaya mountain range in Central Asia. How come we don’t know anything about that part of the world but we know what Heidi and Spencer are doing right now? What the freaking hell. It’s so wrong and annoying and… just lame. Or is that just me?

I’ve read two novels set in said region and a travel book about different countries of the Greater Middle East. Currently, I am reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin which is an astounding read explaining how Mortenson built over 60 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 25,000 children, including 14,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before. Said he, “you can drop bombs, hand out condoms, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change”.

My mom was actually the one who pointed out to me that I’ve been subconsciously interested in the Greater Middle East; reading books and watching shows on televison. Granted, the books I’ve read so far are not many and certainly not enough to even begin to portray the area in the right light, cover all its history and political conflicts. Obviously not.

I think, I’m also more interested in the people there and the culture. All we ever hear is about Western countries intruding and how the war is processing and that women are oppressed (except in a handful of major cities), kids don’t have schools, religion is an extremely important factor, the winters are rough and so forth - which are all interesting things to know in itself - but we never hear about the people who maybe live out of reach of the war - yet still terrified and influenced by its aftermath.

More importantly, we never hear about anything in detail or about everyday life and we can never be sure whether what we hear or read is actually true, or still true. It seems as though no source is qualified enough to deliver actual information without shaping and forming it to their own preference.

It’s enraging.

Countries such as Pakistan, Aghanistan and Kazakhstan which are of course well-known around the globe for mostly awful reasons and the lesser-known small countries in between are incredibly interesting and fascinating to me.

I’ll be in Dortmund tomorrow because my friend N has to go there for a study/apprentice interview and I’ll be her Shoulder To Cry On and there’s a huge bookstore there that I just love. I could spend days in there and I’m just going to look through the rows and rows of pretty new books and endulge in the New Book Smell until she gets back from her Lunch With The Boss. I’m going to try and see if they have more books on Central Asia there, and not just typical travel books. Also, I’m going to try not to come up with Capitalized Names For Certain Phrases anymore.

Picture source: here. 

So I saw that Sex and the City movie and it was okay. Given that I didn’t expect much from it from the beginning and that I had a Mercedes Benz gift card for it and so didn’t spend a single dime, it wasn’t disappointing.

As mentioned before, my cousin L and I went to the 11 o’clock showing on Tuesday and we basically had the whole screen to ourselves. Which was awkward because she and I don’t really have much to say to each other and so there were a few annoying silences.

But anyway, on to the movie. It was just like what you would expect from something called Sex and the City and just like the TV series itself: lots and lots of almost pornographic sex scenes (considering that, in Germany, it’s rated to be okay for 12-year-olds to see it without PG and in the US it’s rated R, this is especially confusing), some pretty shots of NYC and extraordinary apartments and unbearably cheesy and predictable dialogues.

Seriously, what’s with the language in that movie? What’s with the, some love stories aren’t epic novels, some are short stories but that doesn’t make them any less filled with love? What’s with Mr. Big sending Carrie love letters written by great ancient poets? What’s with all the, But don’t you want a big wedding? - Darling, I want you.s?

Everything about the storyline and especially the dialogues was so incredibly cliché!

Although, of course, as does everybody else who saw the flic, I too can’t get over The Shower Scene with Gilles Marini. That was pretty hot, I must admit.

Other than that, go see it with a bunch of girlfriends if you’re really bored and have nothing better to do or if, like me, you get to go for free. Otherwise, you don’t miss out on anything.

(Especially since the shower scene is already on YouTube. You might as well watch it there and skip the rest of the Hollywood nonsense whose sole purpose it appears to be to rid you of your money. But what else is new, right? So, just go watch this on YouTube already.)

Picture source: here.