Shocking news!

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Current veep and former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney coordinated Halliburton's lucrative war-profiteering contract in Iraq.

It's good to see we don't let pesky details like conflict of interest get in the way of better business-government relationships. Or concerns for human rights.

Spring cleaned

Today I really cleaned house. No, seriously.

To wit, I got the bug to make this pigsty less of a, well, pigsty. In part this is perhaps because my roommate left yesterday to go to North Carolina for almost two weeks, so I figured it would be a good time to tackle such a project without having anyone else underfoot. And in part I'm sure this owes to some subconscious thinking that if we're going to have additional roommates this summer, or at least if Colleen is to come visit at some point, they'd probably appreciate the apartment looking like it had been sort of maintained. No doubt the realization that I'm soon to have a nicer place to live with not only roommate(s) interested in cleanliness, but also landlords, has me considering the merits of easing myself back into having to take care of a place. Last, but not least, this was most certainly prompted by my desire to finally have our toilet bowl cleaned, since it was in need of a decent scrubbing. That's the synapsis of my cleaning psychosis.

It (kinda) began last night, on my way home from the Chicago Critical Mass Mass the Drive ride, when I picked up a toilet brush along with other items at Jewel. Feeling thoroughly tired physically from three hours or so of leisurely-to-brisk cycling (my legs have never felt so rubbery trying to walk stairs), I opted not to begin last night, but instead to put it off till today.

Problem is, once I set my mind to doing something minor, like scrubbing the toilet, I get it in my head that I should undertake a comprehensive cleaning project. If I was going to clean the bowl, I might as well scrub the exterior of the toilet. And while I'm at it cleaning the toilet, the wash basin and bathtub ought to get a decent scrubbing. No sense in not totally cleaning the bathroom; better add mopping to my duties. While I'm at it I should mop the kitchen as well. Before I can mop, I need to sweep. And if I'm sweeping the kitchen and bathroom, I might as well add the living room. And for good measure, let's sweep my bedroom upstairs. And the stairway between floors of our duplex. And the stairway from outside.

By the time this madness finished, I also gave a thorough scrubbing to the sink and surfaces in the kitchen; I wiped down the inside of the microwave; wiped off the stove; emptied the trash; rearranged the loose items in the kitchen; neatly reorganized our collection of 34 beer bottles and cans in rough geographic order (west to east above the cabinets, south to north on the window sill); went through my stack of old Baseball Digests and Condé Nast Travelers; cleaned off the coffee table; cleaned off the couch; cleaned off my desk; rearranged my toiletry shelf in the bathroom; wiped off the tablecloth; washed, dried and put away the dishes; hung the heretofore unhung logos cut out of cases of beer; and probably performed many other sundry chores that I can't think to enumerate at present. Phew!

The upshot of it is, I have a (fair the dump we inhabit) a pretty nice place to live at the moment. And with any luck (and some out-of-character tenacity) might even keep it in a fairly tidy state until Joe gets back. At which point all bets are likely off. Although I'll likely commence my decline down this slippery slope much sooner. (Tomorrow?)

In my defense, I think, is the fact that I left some things untouched. Mainly spaces that aren't mine, like Joe's room and desk, but also the library/map room/art gallery, which seems doomed to disorder until we move in August. My original bedroom -- which currently functions as an auxiliary space/closet for me -- also went ignored today, though I did a good job of tidying up in there earlier in the week after I unpacked from my trip. The only thing that could've used was a vacuuming (though it could certainly stand a few coats of unleaded paint), but as we lack a vacuum, it's destined to have a dirty carpet in perpetuity.

I also gained a greater appreciation for how difficult it is to actually keep a place clean. No doubt it would've been easier 1) had we done a better job of regularly cleaning instead of just letting the mess and dirt snowball and 2) had I had better supplies, like a bucket for the mop, instead of using the bathtub, and a dustpan instead of a piece of cardboard. I still managed to catch part of the Angels game on the tube, and I even sat down to watch Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals in its entirety. But I failed miserably in my more academic or erudite endeavors, like finishing the book I'm reading, studying Czech, revising an article for publication or working on my art.

Hopefully in the future this will inspire and encourage me to not let things fall into such a state of disrepair. Ordinarily I don't think that'd be a problem, but having an apartment that has an impending date with a wrecking ball really undermines any sense of urgency to keep the place more than minimally maintained. Still, who knew being industrious was such hard work?

Unreal TV

From Britain, reality television carried to its logical conclusion. Hopefully they'll follow this up with "Watching Grass Grow."

Fatiguable

Never again will I take a red-eye flight. Well, at least not if I have to then put in a full day at work a couple of hours after getting home.

Now, I won't say it was a mistake to have flown overnight back to Chicago from L.A., as it afforded me the maximum amount of time possible to spend at home and with Colleen and my parents while only knocking off work for three days. But I do regret not somehow managing to cram in a few hours of deep sleep in an actual flat bed, as opposed to spotty napping in a cramped, slightly reclined economy-class airplane seat on American Airlines. (More room throughout coach my ass.)

Predictably, I struggled through work yesterday. My body did not take too kindly to only getting to sleep on the plane, and it wasn't helped by the fact that we boarded the aircraft about half an hour late and got into Chicago late, thus forcing me to stay up later than expected and to not get back to my apartment in time to catch the short nap I was hoping for. Thus, I endured low-level, dull fatigue headaches periodically. And I kept finding my eyelids getting very heavy during the morning. At lunch in the conference room, I kept nodding off in the middle of my book. I think at one point I even dozed for several minutes, before waking in a start and discovering that my lunch hour was up. However, a caffeine infusion after lunch got me through till 5 o'clock.

I did well to get to bed at my normal targeted bed time of 11:45 p.m. last night, which ensured I'd get eight solid hours of sleep. But I still felt very tired when my alarm went off, and that feeling never quite left me throughout the day. Once more, I found myself nodding off sporadically in the morning, and again at the lunch table. But at least I busied myself enough in the afternoon to stay awake and relatively alert. Though I wasn't expecting to fight such a battle today.

Hopefully when I get another eight hours of sleep tonight I'll finally feel rested and up to a full day. And if not, there's a nice long holiday weekend just around the corner when I can gleefully and guiltlessly sleep to my heart's content.

In the meantime, it's just about time for me to hit the hay. And in about eight hours it'll be time for me to once again curse having to work. At least I only have 65 more days to go.

Letting freedom ring

What a country!

Colleen and I got to tonight's Angels game with only a few minutes to spare before the first pitch. I wanted to get to our seats in time to watch the players take the field, so I was leading us toward our seats out in the right field terrace at a brisk pace. Shortly after we passed through the turnstiles and reached the concourse, the "Star-Spangled Banner" began playing. Knowing this meant the start of the game was imminent, we redoubled our efforts to reach our seats.

That went well till one usher held up his hand and directed us to stop. He gestured in the general direction of the field, or the video screen, or the North Pole, then said, "That's the national anthem, do you keep walking during the national anthem?"

"Sure," I replied.

"I guess it's a free country," he retorted as he stepped aside.

The moral of the story is: Freedom is being told what to do.

Learning to fly

It will be phenomenally great to get to Seattle in September and finally have a place of my own. More important, it will be delightful to be able to be living in a city for long enough to make it worth my while to get nice and settled in and to have all my worldy possessions (of which there are definitely too many) in one place, and to allow myself to get situated.

The past five years have been kind of taxing in that regard. Even though I lived in the same dorm for four years, I didn't spend a single summer there, and I moved between rooms. That still might not have been so bad had I not had to move everything in and out at the beginning and end of each school year. It really makes it difficult to bring myself to get totally moved in, to go to great lengths to make the place feel like home. Nonetheless, I did just that each year, with the traditional pre-Fall Quarter ritual of covering my door and walls with posters, flags and other uniquely me decor.

This year, despite being in Chicago, I went through the whole process yet again. Or rather, I got to move into an apartment and deal with all the special furnishing that entailed. On some level I should regret not having planned this in advance so I could've left lots of things in town and had stuff to get me started. But then, there really wasn't too much that I would've found useful in an apartment (dorm fridge, anyone?), and much of what would be nice to have I re-inherited from Colleen anyway. And I'd only find myself in the position of having more junk that needed transporting back to the West Coast before this autumn.

Which brings me to tomorrow. I'm flying home for a long weekend and taking advantage of the opportunity to unload lots of books and other things I won't need for my remaining three months in Chicago. Plus, I'm bringing home plenty of laundry so I won't have to pay six bucks to wash it all at the local launder-bar. It's still not easy, since I'm going to be relying on the CTA to get to the airport, and I'm a bit concerned about juggling a large rolling suitcase, a big duffel bag sans shoulder strap, a rolling tote and a backpack, all by myself. Fortunately, Joe will go with me at least as far as the Blue Line, so I should only have to manage from when I disembark the train beneath the airport and when I wind my way up the elevators and down the moving walkways to the departure level of the terminal. And if I'm extraordinarily lucky, I'll find an unattended luggage cart along the way to facilitate the process.

It might well prove worth the minor investment to just ship so much of this stuff, or to take a cab. But it also seems to me wasteful not to see how much of my included luggage allowance I can use up for this purpose. In an ideal world I wouldn't have to ship anything, which is what I amazingly managed when I moved back home after graduation last summer. Of course, then I had the benefit of having several people traveling back to California with me, so I dispersed my myriad junk in several people's luggage. The only thing we had to pay to ship was a large poster tube, and that cost less than $5. Pretty nice, eh?

But, I swung that only because I slowly started to move things back home beginning at Winter Break of my sophomore year. My books trickled in over three years, and I did a pretty good job of being minimalist in what I brought back to school with me each time. A favorite trick was to bring home two suitcases and leave the contents of one at home, which I then filled with foodstuffs to take back to school.

The upshot of all this is that it's really a hassle trying to get stuff back and forth without spending a lot of money on shipping and/or having the benefit of car transportation from my door to the curb of the airport terminal. Which is why it will be all the nicer to move to Seattle and at last not have to worry about it. Hell, assuming I have affordable laundry facilities on hand, I can probably get away with only taking carry-ons whenever I go back home for breaks and such. And that'll be sweet.

Supporting neo-imperialism by demeaning women

This is so wrong and so sickening.

Key quote: "There are a lot of girls out there like me who would like to do something for the country and really have no idea where to start. Our philosophy is if you are out there partying and engage in casual sex you might as well 'Take One for the Country.'"

Dumsfeld

What a country!

You have to admit, it's pretty impressive (?!) when the secretary of defense pushes for a strategy that disgusts the CIA (see Guatemala and Iran, 1954; the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1964; Chile, 1973; etc.).

But, that's the latest bombshell, according to distinguished journalist Seymour Hersh.

New Yorker is reporting that last year, Donald Rumsfeld signed off on a program called "Copper Green", which encouraged physical coercion and sexual humilitation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency against the U.S. occupation.

By last fall, this became too much for even the CIA, where senior intelligence officials thought it was being misused on the ordinary people populating the now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison. (Of course, a great portion of the CIA's objections owed to the agency's fear the abuse of low-level prisoners in Abu Ghraib would undermine its ability to employ similar tactics against top terrorist targets in Afghanistan and elsewhere. So fear not, lest you thought the agency was developing a conscience -- or some semblance of humanity.) So last fall, the CIA pulled out of its use in Abu Ghraib. But the program proceeded under the military operators of the prison, with Rummy's blessing.

I'd like to point out this implicates Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Gen. Richard Myers and, of course, Dubya in war crimes. This isn't a mere impeachable offense (like, say, lying about an office encounter with an intern). These are full-blown war crimes that merit all of the aforementioned officials (and undoubtedly many others) being thrown in the dock before the International Criminal Court -- or better still, the to-be-convened tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein for his crimes in Iraq.

Sadly, I know that'll never happen. The best we can hope for is that Rummy gets pushed out of office, and even that seems doubtful.

Too many hawks, not enough justice.

Visiting the Emerald City

I returned from my weekend trip to Seattle today, and mainly liked what I saw.

Put another way, I liked what I saw of the campus, I liked what I saw from my future adviser, I liked the other history grad students I met, the scenery, the things to do around the university, things of that sort. Those were definite highlights of my trip.

The lowlights were staying in a really dumpy hostel in a sketchy part of town and visiting some lousy apartments that I wouldn't want to inhabit in the fall. However, those weren't reflections of the school or the city, just unfortunate factors of my trip.

Thursday evening I departed early from work so I could catch an earlier flight on standby. That worked well, except that the flight left probably 45 minutes late because the plane was late getting in from some other city. And, we learned later as we were aboard waiting for takeoff, because there had been an air leak reported so they had to fix the mechanical problem. Not exactly the most reassuring words to come from the cabin moments before embarking on a long flight, but it did appear to have been fixed. In any rate, we landed in Seattle without incident, though we were probably 25 minutes or so late. I called Trish, the history grad student who was hosting me for the first part of my visit, and she and her husband picked me up and whisked me away to their apartment, where I slept very well on the hide-a-bed.

Friday morning I walked to the History Department with Trish, who dropped me off at the office of my adviser-to-be, Professor Felak. We chatted for at least an hour and he gave me a much better overview of the program, the course offerings and the timetable for working on my degree. I definitely have the potential to go from start to finish of the M.A./Ph.D. in six years, assuming I get cracking at it right away, which I plan to do. Tentatively it looks like this fall I'll take second-year Czech, a seminar course with Felak on Eastern Europe, and probably something from one of my potential other fields. At present I've declared fields in Modern Eastern Europe and Comparative Colonialisms; I'm looking tentatively at doing my other fields in Russia/Soviet Union and/or Germany. But, I'm excited to know that I could, for my fourth field, work in another department on either Baltic or Balkan history and literature. This is an exciting prospect for me, though it probably holds little interest for anyone else.

Provisionally, though, I think my timeline will be to get Czech and some of my fields out of the way in the first year, then do the core seminar and a second field in Year Two, when I'll also start TAing and will likely take my M.A. exams in the spring, followed by the rest of my language study (second-year German, perhaps) and my other two fields, to be completed over Years Two and Three. In the fall of my fourth year I'll probably take my Ph.D. exams and then begin doing dissertation research. In Year Five I'll hopefully get a fellowship to do dissertation research abroad, and then I'll come back for the sixth year and try to write it all up. That may well stretch into a seventh year (or even beyond), depending on the timing of things, but I'm hoping that everything aligns in a way to make it possible and that I maintain the motivation and work ethic to make it happen. Still, I found it extremely encouraging that Felak thought I could finish in six years (which is on the low end of the spectrum for non-U.S. history), so it will definitely be in my sights.

After that meeting I spoke briefly with the graduate adviser and also filled out paperwork so I can get on the payroll and begin collecting a paycheck in September. Then I met up with Trish and a Czech friend of hers, and we went for Thai food on the Ave, a main thoroughfare near campus in the University District. They left me to wander around for a few hours, I explored a bit, bought some gifts and a t-shirt at the bookstore, got a hat, and had a cold drink at the newsstand/coffee bar on the Ave. Then I met back up with Trish, we picked up another grad student, Heidi, and headed to the weekly happy hour for history grad students. That was pretty good, with good, cheap food and some interesting conversation. Trish dropped off Heidi and I, who then took her dog for a walk through this arboretum, which was cool. I got to ask more questions about the program and such, then she drove me downtown to my hostel.

The hostel was, as I mentioned, disappointing. It wasn't the worst hostel I've ever stayed in -- that's an honor that will long and probably eternally belong to the Yellow Submarine Hostel in Budapest, but it was pretty high on the sketchiness scale. To wit: when I arrived around 8 Friday night, the hostel was doing some free dinner for guests that also included free beer, dispensed from a Rubbermaid pitcher filled from a keg behind the front desk by the staff into plastic cups of the patron. The rooms were, well, hostel rooms. Three bunk beds cramped into tight quarters. I had the bunk above some dodgy-looking old guy who was lying in bed trying to sleep. There were foot lockers underneath the beds, however, these didn't come with locks. I could've bought one from a vending machine for five bucks, but I opted to keep my backpack with me and take my chances with leaving a duffle bag of dirty clothes on the bunk. Not wanting any part of the cheap beer drinking occurring in the common room, I wandered outside to Pike Place Market, the famous Seattle farmers market with fish being tossed to and fro. However, most everything in the market closes pretty early, so there wasn't a lot to be seen. And the neighborhood wasn't the greatest, so I went to one of the many coffee shops in Seattle to get a hot chai latte and chat on the phone to Colleen until they closed. I grudingly returned to the hostel and sought refuge on the exterior porch, which offered more quiet and privacy than any of the indoor common areas, as well as a view of the entrance to a strip club across the parking lot. When it came time for bed I took all my luggage and possessions, save for my sneakers, onto the bunk with me and proceeded to slumber.

Originally I made arrangements to see the first prospective place to stay at 11 a.m. Saturday. However, I decided that I'd get an early start on my day if for no other reason than to get out of the hostel quicker. I had set my alarm for 8, but I woke up sometime after 7 and opted to just get up and go. I took a shower (the shower was at least reasonably clean), checked my mail, locked my duffle bag at the front desk and was off. It was maybe 8:30 at that point.

Since I hadn't seen anything open in Pike Place Friday night, I decided to venture down there again before I left, fearing that I'd be out of luck if I tried to visit in the early evening after returning from apartment hunting. That move proved smart. Not everything was open that early, but a good bit of the market shops were, and there was a healthy hustle and bustle that had been conspicuously absent the previous evening.

Pike Place Fish was indeed open that early, which afforded me an eyewitness view of the famous flying fish. I also scored some free samples of delicious smoked salmon (this was the first time I enjoyed eating salmon, mind you), and was really, really tempted to try to buy a whole crab to take back to Chicago for dinner the following night. After venturing through the market I bought a half-dozen mini-doughnuts from a stall for breakfast, then headed out for the day's work.

Friday evening I had gone to great pains to map out my itinerary on the Seattle bus system so I wouldn't be stuck trying to aimlessly ascertain which bus would take me where I wanted to go next. Unfortunately, when I used the Metro trip planner, I hadn't yet developed a knack for Seattle's address and grid system. When I entered the address of the hostel, it said it couldn't recognize it as such and gave me three or four options, all of which had the same street number and name, but different directions. I must've chosen the wrong one, because the itinerary it spat out claimed I'd only have to walk .3 miles to get to the bus stop. Now, I should've suspected this was a bit close when I had trouble finding either of the cross streets in the downtown inset of my AAA map. But I did eventually find them, albeit tucked away in a corner. Still, it took me something like 20 or 30 minutes to walk there, so I'm guessing I covered closer to 2 miles by foot. But the exercise was good for me, I'm sure.

One nice thing I discovered about the Seattle bus system is that it's fairly clean and modern. Many of the buses appear to be electric, operating sort of like European trains with overhead electrical lines. And, on weekends, you can buy a day pass for $2.50, which is the equivalent of paying two full fares. Not too shabby.

I made it to the first house at 10:30, a full half-hour early. No problem. Lauren, the 58-year-old trumpet instructor who owns the house, was ready and waiting for me. He gave me a full tour of the house, which has three bedrooms that will be available to rent long-term beginning in September. One is small, probably comparable to my bedroom here, by which I mean it has a metal clothes rack in lieu of an actual closet, but it'd be $400 a month. The other two bedrooms are a good bit larger, have full-sized beds and other furniture, like dressers and desks and the like. One of the two has a walk-in closet, the other has a smaller closet, but also had a shower and sink (though no toilet) attached. Those are both $500 a month. The other bathrooms, downstairs living room, dining room and kitchen are all communal. And pretty nice. The policy on food is that everyone is expected to buy groceries and if it's in the house, it's fair game (unless tagged with a note to the contrary). But, all the utilities are included, I believe as well as DSL, and there's a landline that would be available for local and incoming calls. There's a free washer and dryer in the basement (which could also be used for some auxiliary storage), and there are a couple of sheltered places where I could lock up a bike. It's only about 2 miles from campus, and I think it's generally pretty level terrain between the house and campus, so it wouldn't be too bad. There's a convenience store five blocks away and a full grocery store five blocks beyond that. But, Lauren has a van and said he wouldn't mind letting me ride along when he goes grocery shopping. Plus, he said that he hopes to befriend anyone who lives in his house, in which case it wouldn't be inconceivable that he'd drive me to and from the airport on the rare occasions when I was flying somewhere. And he seems like a pretty nice guy. So this place is definitely a maybe. My main reservation is that I don't know who else will be living there, and I'd really prefer to be around other UW students, especially grad students. But, if I somehow knew there'd be grad students in the other rooms, or if I was more confident that I'd make new friends pretty quickly, I think that'd be less of a deterrent. And, even if I don't feel like biking to campus, there's a bus that picks up right by the house that runs straight to the Ave, probably in five to 10 minutes.

So after Lauren showed me around, we sat down and chatted for a bit. He asked me about the other places I had seen and I explained that his was actually the first, but that I was going to look at some other places afterward, including a couple of buildings near campus that rent apartments/rooms to students. I also explained how I felt somewhat limited by not having any potential roommates lined up, and he then proceeded to make recommendations about newspapers where I should look if I wanted to go that route. Then he offered to drive me to my next appointment, which was in Lake City, in the far north end of Seattle. But since that wasn't for more than an hour, in the meantime he'd drive me around to show me different parts of Seattle and to give me a sense of where everything is in relation to his house. It was very nice. He drove me to a beach, explained to some degree how the address system works (all north-south streets are avenues, whereas all east-west streets are, well, streets), gave me some history and chatted about himself and asked about myself. We drove through Fremont, the self-proclaimed "center of the universe" (it actually said this on a sign for the neighborhood), which he described as a sort of off-the-wall refuge for former hippies, and we went past the 20-foot statue of Lenin that had been relocated from Eastern Europe to Fremont in the 1990s. Finally, he drove me all the way up to Lake City and said that even if I decided to live somewhere else, that I should give him a call sometime if I wanted to get together to go hiking or take in more of the city. He struck me as a really nice man who's just a little lonely as he no longer has family living with him and just really wants to have people around. Which, in some ways, is how I'll probably feel initially when I move to Seattle. Maybe it'll be a good fit.

The place in Lake City made me feel like it wasn't really worth the effort to go out there. First of all, it's about as far north as you can go without leaving the Seattle city limits. If my shoulder wasn't injured I could easily throw a stone into the first suburb with the aid of a crow hop. I had been leery about this place before mainly because of the distance. It's probably six miles or so from campus, which isn't terribly close without a car. Or even with a car. She said that there's a bus that's only about 20 minutes from the campus, which was true. But when I left it took me nearly 15 minutes just to walk to the bus stop, and that was with the benefit of going downhill on a relatively difficult incline. I can't imagine how bad it'd be to try to go up it. I think if I were to bike it I'd probably have an easier time dismounting and walking the bike uphill. Plus, the bus stop is roughly the same distance from the nearest grocery stores, so it wouldn't be a particular fun place to live.

As for the place itself, it'd be three rooms. One is a little study downstairs with a desk, bookshelves and filing cabinet. Upstairs is a small living room with a tiny foam couch and a small TV. There's a decent-sized bedroom with a big bed, closet and some shelves. And in what appears to have once been a closet, there's a toilet. Just a toilet. And a curtain. Plus, the way the roof pitches makes it awkward for me to walk down the stairs. Then there were the animals. Her dog, an Australian cattle dog mix, was sweet enough. But she has two cats. One I didn't see, the other kept jumping onto the dining room table between the two of us. I petted the cat's back, for which she tried to bite me. I really didn't want to stay at that point. And as if all that weren't enough to turn me off, this place would be $525 a month. Which includes most of the utilities, except that she'd expect me to pay $50 or so in the winter to help cover heating costs. And I'd also have to pay for either a landline or DSL or cable to have Internet access. I was only too glad to leave. I got the vibe pretty quickly that this wasn't some place I'd want to stay.

After stopping in a gas station to buy a large bottle of cold water, I caught the bus back to campus. It did take only about 20 minutes, but by then it was a purely academic exercise. As I had half an hour to kill before my third appointment of the day, I stopped in a nearby Jack in the Box and ate a salad for lunch. Then I walked to the next house.

This place was really close to campus -- only about two blocks away. However, the two blocks in between constitute Greek Row. Not the best thing. But, the place was really cheap: $410 a month. It was a little dodgy, but I thought it'd be livable at that price. There's a full-size bed, dorm refridgerator, microwave and a couple of chests of drawers included. They said they probably could also get me a desk and lamps if need be. So it wasn't too bad. The bathroom was shared by the floor, and it looked kind of old, but presumably it's functional. I could presumably even keep a bike in the entryway just inside the front door, so at least it'd be sheltered. However, the kicker with this place is that the kitchen and laundry are in the basement. And the only way to access them is by going outside and walking around to the side of the building.

Now, before I proceed with this story, I should mention that up till this point, it had been a gorgeous day in Seattle. Blue skies, not too many clouds, and not a drop of precipitation. I couldn't have asked for more perfect weather.

However, during the time I was upstairs looking at the room, it had started to rain. Which only dramatized how awful it would be to live in this place when I had to go outside everytime I wanted to use the kitchen. It's Seattle, for crying out loud. It rains. A lot. And even if it weren't raining, it'd still be a monumental pain in the ass, one not worth saving $90 or so on rent.

When I left there it was pouring. And I had nearly two hours to kill before my last appointment of the day. So, I decided to make for campus and seek refuge in the HUB -- the Husky Union Building. I imagine this is the UW's counterpart to NU's Norris. At least, they also have a CampusLink inside the main entrance. Being a Saturday, there wasn't a lot of activity, and this seemed like as good a place as any to ride out the rain. I checked my mail and figured out what time earlier flights left so I could try to go on standby. Then, once the rain had subsided, I went outside in search of a dry place where I could get reception so I could sit and call Colleen.

Finally, I found a bench near a flagpole with a "view" of William H. Gates Hall, home of the UW law school. It's a modern brick and glass structure, but one that doesn't seem very elegant and looks like it must cost a fortune to heat and air-condition. In that way it reminds me a lot of Windows: it tries to be forward-looking and cutting edge, but ends up being ugly and inefficient. I also like how the business school is housed in the building on campus that most resembled a Communist apartment bloc.

I chatted with Colleen for a bit, gave her a recap of the places I had seen so far, and lamented having to return to the hostel in the evening. She came up with a brilliant suggestion: go see a movie. Hardly ever watching TV, I had no idea what was playing, but she told me that SuperSize Me was now out, and she graciously went to the trouble of finding a cinema nearby that was screening it, as well as show times. So I settled on that.

In the meantime, I went and saw the last two buildings of the day, both of which are owned and operated by the same management company, University Housing. The first one I saw, Campus Heights, was easily the nicest place I had seen all day. It was a recently constructed building, with single-room apartments for rent. The units have a built-in desktop, a full refridgerator, microwave, closet (more like a wardrobe cabinet with a shelf and clothes bar inside), and a full bathroom. They also offer cable Internet for $15 a month, which is a pretty nice deal. The rooms start at $575 a month, although they're on the smallish side. There's a shared kitchen on each floor, with two sinks, stoves and microwaves, and locking cabinets for each unit. Plus, there's a washer and dryer in each kitchen, so that was nice. Apparently there's also bike storage underneath the building in the parking garage. And it's maybe half a mile or so from the edge of campus, which isn't bad at all. Plus, there's a Trader Joe's about two blocks away, and a full-scale supermarket two blocks beyond that. So it's a keeper for now at least.

We then went to Patricia Place, which is very similar. It's near where the place with the outdoor-accessible kitchen was, but not quite so close to Greek Row. The rooms looked fairly similar, if slightly older. They have the same built-in desktop but a smaller refridgerator and no microwave. However, there are some shelves and in some units a built-in bookcase. Since it wasn't a building built by the property management company, cable and Internet have to be obtained directly from Comcast, so it's more expensive. Also, though there's a kitchen on each floor, the laundry's in the basement. But these rooms start at $550, which isn't bad. However, both of the buildings are otherwise unfurnished (though I could rent a bed and desk chair for $10 a month if I wanted) and they don't include utilities, though apparently those run about $10-15 a month. So, while they're nicer, they're also smaller and more expensive.

At the moment, I still think my best option would be to get in the single student apartment building on campus, which is $502 a month, including all utilities, plus ethernet, satellite TV and local telephone, and is furnished with a bed, desk and bookcase. They're four-bedroom apartments, which means I'd be living with three strangers, but I kind of like the idea of at least having roommates to start. So I'm still undecided.

After visiting the last apartment, I wandered to the arthouse theater to buy a ticket for the movie, then walked back to the Ave to grab dinner and kill time. I stopped in a hole-in-the-wall Middle Eastern restaurant and got very excited when I saw fuul on the menu. But when I tried to order a fuul sandwich they said they were out, which disappointed me. I had a falafel sandwich instead, which was good but not so existentially satisfying. I then wandered back to the theater to sit and relax until the movie.

I highly recommend this film, by the way. However, if you go see it, you probably shouldn't eat for several hours beforehand. And you probably won't want to eat anytime afterward. It's graphic and shocking enough to make me want to swear off all forms of fast food and junk food forever. Very powerful. It's funny, but also cutting toward the food industry. But, it was very cool.

After the movie got out, I begrudgingly walked back to the Ave to wait for a bus back to the hostel. At least I didn't get back till almost 10, which meant I didn't have too much time to kill. I checked my e-mail and then went to bed, planning to get up early to take a much earlier flight home.

Overall, I really enjoyed Seattle. I thought it was a cool city with a lot of natural beauty, and the weather was great, even if it rained a little. Plus, the University District actually feels like a college town and has plenty of stuff to see and do. It's a far cry from the desolate and deserted nightlife of Evanston.

I think the biggest challenge will be overcoming the overwhelming sensation of feeling alone when I first move in. Until I meet some friends, or have some friends come to visit, or have some friends move to Seattle (hint, hint), I know I'll feel pretty lonely. Maybe that's a good reason to live in Lauren's house, or in campus housing, or somewhere else where I'd have a roommate. At least to have a somewhat familiar face or two around until I get settled.

But I've come away from my trip feeling like I definitely made the right choice. Even if there wasn't much of a choice to be made on my part. The university is definitely the place for me to do and study what I want and am interested in, and culturally and aesthetically, it's such a vibrant, beautiful town that I think I'll really enjoy spending the next six-plus years living there.

Jo, ale jenom v anglictine, mluvim cesky tak spatne

For those of you who speak Czech or at least understand a little, and knowing my viewership fairly well I'm sure this will be mainly for my amusement, here's a funny article from The Prague Post about the facility with which key Czech politicians avail themselves of the English language.

In fairness, English and Czech are fairly dissimilar languages, and speaking as someone attempting to go from English to Czech at a relatively advanced age in life (for language learning, at least), I can fully empathize with their troubles.

The upshot of this is that I'd better keep my nose to the grindstone studying if I ever hope to have a conversation with a leading Czech politician, lest we be forced to rely on a translator or to seek a more universal language. (Music? Soccer? Beer?)

A day freighted with utmost historical significance

Today, as you may (or should) be aware, is May Day. The holiday (at least, in most of the non-U.S. world) carries many meanings to many different groups.

To some (sadly an all-too small segment of the world), May Day is a time to recall and reflect upon the non-pagan origins of the holiday. Here in Chicago, it should curry even greater importance, since it was in the heart of this very city where the anarchist movement called for an 8-hour work day and a massive wave of strikes and demonstrations that culminated in the fateful events at Haymarket Square. May Day is very much anarchist in its roots.

For others, May Day represents the triumph of organized labor. Indeed, originally May Day was to mark the inauguration of the aforementioned 8-hour day for laborers in Chicago industry, at least in the vision of the nascent unions that called for strikes in factories where these demands weren't honored. Owing partly to this, May Day was seized upon as the first "Labor Day," fraught with the connotations of courageous workers struggling for fair working conditions. And in Communist nations, May Day became one of the most significant holidays of the year, an occasion meriting military parades and celebrations (all with heavy party and state propaganda) in commemoration of the apparent triumph of the proletariat. Yet it was not merely a Communist holiday. All across the world, in nations as "socialistic" as the banking and tax haven of Luxembourg, May Day became and remains a holiday. Indeed, in much of the world, it is simply referred to as "Labor Day," with historical referents and connotations, unlike the purely arbitrary and insulting designation of the first Monday in September as the U.S. "Labor Day" holiday.

And, to many, May Day is a commemoration of infamy, lawlessness and injustice. Chiefly conservatives hold this point of view, which derives from the anarchist origins of the first May Day. Even today, the original events of May 1886 resonate heavily among the law and order set; in Chicago, a proposal to rededicate a Northwest Side park in honor of Lucy Parsons, the anarchist wife of Albert Parsons, one of the Haymarket Martyrs executed unjustly, has brought scorn from the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police. The Chicago Park District has even taken to justifying the proposal by claiming it commemorates her work as a crusader for womens labor and civil rights, distancing her from her connections to the anarchist movement. This vein of disgust also led President Eisenhower in 1958 to proclaim the first of May "Law Day," a manifest insult to the anarchist roots of the date. And, undoubtedly, many conservatives disdain May Day because, in their mind, it conjures up images of the Cold War and the Communist embrace of the holiday. None of this, of course, seems to have bothered the overwhelming majority of the world, where, again, May Day is an official holiday.

However, of arguably greater significance on this date in particular, 1 May 2004, is the formal accession of 10 new members to the European Union, including eight from the former Communist bloc. It gives me great hope to see these members in particular -- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia -- joining (or rejoining) the common family of European nations. Even if EU membership seems to make these states second-class citizens in the New Europe, with full EU rights and privileges being denied initially. Still, on some level, I feel like this really marks the definitive conclusion of the Second World War and the Cold War, and the commencement of a courageous, if uncertain, new chapter in European history. For that reason, despite all my misgivings about the way in which the EU seems to have gone back initially on its promises to the new members, for today I want to let those worries subside and celebrate an occasion that, ultimately, should really help promote a united, diverse, vibrant Europe, one that with any luck may extend some day all the way from the Atlantic to the Urals and even beyond. I will remain critical of double standards and the obvious junior status of these new states, but I cannot forgo my optimism that the EU should and will become a model for adapting to a globalizing society and developing truly international governance.