by I haven’t felt great the last few days. I’ve had no motivation to cross off any of the items on my overwhelming to-do list. Some of those items involve making decisions, so yeah, forget it.
I go away in under three months. The very thing that makes going to Romania possible – my complete lack of dependent family or dependent anybody – is what makes it so damn hard. I’m on my own here. But last night my carpool mate and I discussed my list over a drink, and what a useful process that was. Getting people to make decisions and draw timelines is precisely his thing. All the high-fiving and sentences ending in ‘dude’ and ‘bro’ would have been annoying if I didn’t know him better, but I’ve now got some plans in place that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for him. We decided that I’ll travel around Romania for a while to begin with instead of settling immediately in one place, except in the unlikely event that I get a job before I go. I’ll get to know the country much better that way, and besides it should be fun.
The Brexit vote and fallout haven’t helped my mood. The vote to leave the EU has caused political turmoil not seen in Britain since the Second World War. It’s fascinating in a way to see it unfold, but it’s also very upsetting. To see Nigel Farage speak with such pomposity and lack of magnanimity in the European parliament was troubling. To deliberately antagonise the people you’ll be brokering an exit deal with, what was he thinking? It’s like he didn’t care about British people other than himself. Millions of good people voted to leave, but the Leave-supporting politicians all seem bad, evil, despicable people. Millions of good people have nobody fighting their corner anymore.
It beggars belief that no coherent plan for “leave” was set out before the referendum. “Leave the European Union”. That was it. So much mayhem could have been alleviated with some planning. The Scotland referendum was a similar story, and I was thankful that on that occasion they voted for the status quo.
Just to rub it in, England exited Euro 2016 at the hands of Iceland, whose population is roughly that of Wellington. I saw the last quarter-hour of England’s embarrassing 2-1 defeat on the TV at work. I mentioned in my last post that English used to have a separate letter for the th sound. Well Icelandic still does, two in fact. They’re called eth (uppercase Ð, lowercase ð) and thorn (uppercase Þ, lowercase þ). Eth is used for the voiced th sound, as in this and that, while thorn is used for the unvoiced th sound, as in thick and thin. Icelandic also has an interesting naming system. Supposedly 80% of Icelandic people believe in elves, and roads have been rerouted so as not to disturb their caves. Björk is from Iceland, as are the band Of Monsters and Men.
I’d dread to think where I’d be if my flatmate was still here.
