A week of isolation due to SARS-CoV-2, although I had to spend most part of Wednesday with a broken gas boiler which three men managed to repair. Chatted to J while waiting for them, but we kept the distance.
How quickly the new normal settles. Only on Monday S and I discussed whether we would go to a dinner together – after all, we have not met many of our friends since returning from Japan. We decided not to go, mainly because we have an elderly neighbour who would maybe not survive if we happened to spread the virus to her. On Monday our decision felt a bit silly, but at the end of the week going to a dinner is completely out of the question – for everyone!
So we stay at home, as I usually do anyway. I’m so happy that I managed to finish fieldwork and filming before things started getting really serious. I’ve started to log the material, mainly by way of fixing interview audio and syncing it with video. And we had a little Miyazaki Hayao festival. And I studied some Japanese and bought a flashcards app that seems very promising.
(Original plan for this weekend was to see Tölzer Knabenchor in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg – we bought tickets one year ago!)
I wrote a bit on the “professional report”, which is a replacement paper for those of us who didn’t do an internship. I have 1,500 words out of 3,500. It’s a pass or fail only, so no grade.
Speaking of grades, I almost forgot that the grade for my Space and place paper came – 200 days after I submitted it in August 2019. I was very disappointed to see an extremely positive comment from the lecturer and a grade that I could not see how it matched that comment. So I got back to him and asked for feedback – what could I have done better? He suggested a Skype meeting next week, and apparently another student will join too.
I read the first chapter of a book called “What is Anthropology?”, which S found. It’s surprisingly enlightening, as it describes the fundamentals of anthropology in a way that no course in this master’s programme has managed to do. Which is sad.
General feeling: I’m gravitating into my own research and I love it.
Stories
- Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World, edited by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro.
- Telmo Marçal: “When Kingdoms Collide”, pp. 49–63.
- Romeu Martins: “Breaking News!”, pp. 65–81.
Readings
- Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2004. What Is Anthropology? London: Pluto Press.
- 1: “Why Anthropology?”, pp. 3–18.
Japanese
- Try N2: Chapter 2.2 (pp. 38–49), review: 15/18
- 新にほんご500問 N2: Week 1 (pp. 9–76), test: 23/35
- Flashcards Deluxe (app)
Articles
- Tagesspiegel: Berlins Vollbremsung und ihre Folgen
- BBC: Climate change: The rich are to blame, international study finds
Anime
- Miyazaki Hayao:
- Princess Mononoke (1997, 134 min)
- My Neighbour Totoro (1988, 88 min)
- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984, 117 min)
- 1988: Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. E19.
Film
- Fucking Åmål (Lukas Moodyson, Sweden, 1998, 89 min)
TV
- Mr Robot, S4 E4 (filler episode)
Leave a comment