I didn't hate everything we did by a long way, although admittedly I'm hard pressed to think of many now. At least one Shakespear play per year, which I usually liked, and I also enjoyed Kringe in 'n Bos, somewhat to my surprise.

There was one poem in our Isn't Ethnic Stuff Wonderful book that was half in Gujerati, half in English, and one week the teacher asked us to choose a line from it that we felt summed it up. He went round the class asking and finally got to Phil (yes, Psyche, he of the rape fantasies), who had picked one of the Gujerati lines.
"Hmmm. Interesting. And why did you pick that one?"
"Because it doesn't make any sense."

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I'm still 'reading' this.

I could give you a hand with some of the long words if you like.

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Dorril's MI6 is 800 pages of watching paint dry. Rough.

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Addicted to a naïve stimulus-response philosophy, we tend to take it for granted that people’s actions depend on nothing but the momentary stimuli that we, the manipulators, can control at will.
-Paul Kecskemeti

Vaguely thinking about giving XXXHolic another try. I read the first few chapters a while back, but was put off by the crossover storylines with Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles (which I haven't read, which made it pretty frustrating) and sort of gave up. But, on the other hand, (as those of you who've been paying attention will have noticed), I do like fucked-up double act stories (sorry, there must surely be some sort of tv tropes-style official name for the genre, but I don't know it) and having given up on this feel like something's missing from the corpus. Also, Midnight Secretary, but I got the impression that that was more conventional romance so I've not been in any special rush to read it.

xxxHolic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Midnight Secretary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Administrative law papers from here: Dissertations, Commentaires Composés, Notes de Recherche et Mémoires Gratuits - DissertationsGratuites.fr All part of the great Let's Get Through This Damn Thing Without Doing A Prépa effort. I was really excited when I found it because for a long time nothing like this existed - there was only oboulo.com, which you have to pay to use. It's part of French culture to never share useful information, so I have no idea how this got going, but I love whoever started it.

I'm also (slowly) reading Ura Hello Work in Japanese. It's great for learners because a) there's a free English translation already out, and b) the language is insanely simple. It's written how people talk, for a start. There's way more filler in the Japanese version than in the English, but I don't care because it's easy. I can do it more or less without a dictionary, unlike say manga or newspapers.

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We're around the 20th, which can only mean one thing: scanlations from this month's GFantasy coming out (yep, I've got the publication schedules committed to memory: if you want it then you shoulda put a ring on it). Yeah, so I should be reading the raws, but you should be eating five portions of fruit and veg a day and I bet you don't do that either.

Durarara isn't out yet as far as I can see, but chapter 46 of Kuroshitsuiji is already done (copyright issues mean that I have to go all the way to bleachasylum to download the scans now, takes way longer), and we get colour pages, plus some pics from the new series. Also, the return of Yana's cookery obsession, which pleased me. Darker storylines = no more cake, but I'll settle for tofu.

Another great, unwritten dissertation: the role of patisseries in Japanese culture.

Oh, and there was a new chapter of Hohzuki Island out a while back. They're really spinning out the revelations, the key plot device has been underwater shots of Yukino-sensei's arse for about four chapters now.

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1. The latest Bulletin d'études de la marine. It's about drones in the navy.

2.

Africa and the International System

Africa and the International System

. Cos I've been forced. And meh, I suppose it's okay, but I still think there's something deeply unsatsfying about the whole thing, and I can't quite put my finger on what. I suspect that it may be that the author's actually itching to write a Gaurdian polemic about how awful white people are, but feels he has to be all restrained and academically objective.

3.

Le Territoire est mort, vive les territoires!

Le Territoire est mort, vive les territoires!

Very French this. All about the philosophy of states and boundaries. I'm really only in it for an article by Achille Mbembe, which begins "It is possible to compare globalisation with what Heidegger, in his time, called 'the gigantic'." Oh my gawd.

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Got to the end of Hohzuki Island, and was a bit disappointed, tbh. (Spoilers ahoy.) Why did Kuwadate-sensei even want to kill the kids in the first place? Who killed Usui-sensei? Why? Shu killed the headmaster but everyone's all whatever about it? Sounds like the mangaka got a C&D notice from the publishers and had to wrap the whole thing up in a couple of chapters.

Also, , by Mohammed Hanif. The first half of this (the comedy half) was the best book I've read in ages. Unfortunately, about midway it gets all po faced and serious, interested only in creating leaden dramatic irony from international affairs (oh look, there's Osama bin Laden at the US Embassy party etc. etc.). That half reminded me a bit of .

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