Graduation Photos
Im too tired and lazy to be blogging for real these days, so this is what you get.
Robing up in the monument building. Stephen says our department's hoods made us look like nuns.
Ola (poland) and Florin (romania), sociology&anthropology.
Marko (croatia, political science). poli sci got cool blue hoods. I might be jealous.
Judit (hungary) and her daughter Sonja. Judit didnt come to the graduation with us, but i did learn that her daughter recently named her doll "Jennifer". Which is way awesome.
Stefan (bulgaria). Sociology&Anthropology. This guy definitely has the best laugh of the whole department.
Brigette (Texas) and Luci (Romania). Sociology&Anthropology
Drago (Croatia) does his best imitation of the Ghost of George Soros
Drago. Sociology&Anthropology
Stephen (Ohio, Political Science) looks way too sharp. I can't handle it.
Man. Those shades were awesome. And I still had the laurels.
Aungo (Kenya. Sociology&Anthropology). He hates these pictures that I take of him, but I love them.
Agi (hungary), Brigette, and Ola. And Artyom (Russia) off in the background.
Aungo, Colin (who is NOT british) and Brigette.
Cera (Romania), Ola, and Brigette. Sociology and anthropology.
Ballav (Pakistan) and Aungo. Sociology and anthropology.
Aungo and me.
Ola and Asa (Israel). Sociology and anthropology.
This is ALMOST all of us. We were missing Gergő and Judit (hungary), Mariya (Bulgaria), Damir (Croatia), Austin (Nigeria), and a handful of professors. Everyone had a rough morning because defenses ended just the day before. I had never seen some of us so hung over. goodness.
And so we stagger into the future!
Labels: Agi, Asa, aungo, Ballav, CEU, drago, Florin, grad school, graduation, Luc, Marko, Ola, photos, stefan, Stephen
Group Pics from Rackeve
These are some of the shots that colin took on the dock, mere moments before that storm swirling behind us sent us sprinting for cover and took out a few nearby trees!
Labels: Brigette, CEU, Colin, Damir, l, Luc, Ola, photos, rabble rousing, rackeve, stefan
Rackeve=A Day in the Sociological Life
oh man, half of the department went to rackeve today, a village on the south island and hour outside of budapest, and swam in the danube, diving off of docks in the water, in between cat tails, then saw a thunderstorm start on the other side of the river, and watched lightning from the grass, then took a bunch of group pictures in front of the crazy sky, then ran for it as the temperature dropped like 5 deg celcius in an instant and the rain and wind started, and as we were dashing out of the way, the wind blew down one of the 30' tall trees that we had just been sitting under! and we hauled ass through the rain and took cover in the hotel that was immediately across the street that used to be a castle! and we had beer and hot chocolate in the cellar of the giant castle and had free coffee from a physics conference that was 5n the castle, and the walked all around this city and saw a serbian orthodox church compound that was breathtaking with golden steeples and wells and dogs and tombstones, and we ate cherries off of the trees in the street and then bought bags of them off of two kids who were picking them out of their yard who had this hilarious dog named cameron. thats not even the half if it, and it was awesome and we slept the whole way home. oh man. today was good.
Labels: aungo, Brigette, CEU, grad school, Luc, Ola, photos, rackeve, stefan, thin justification for my existace, travel
well, friday was yesterday....
or given that its now 3am, maybe friday was 2 days ago.
i have just had the most hellish 36 hours with my lit review. I had to add no less than 5 (5!) new major theoretical threads to it. apparently i was spending no where near enough time problematizing human agency nor situating the subject within the post-socialist historicity of individualized risk.
and all this time, i thought i was writing a paper on junkies.
the deadline is, now, in 34 hours. Tomorrow will suck, but on monday, i get to hand that shit in, go eat cake with brigette, and spend the evening dancing underground to gypsy punk with my whole department to celebrate brigettes birthday. whoo. i am looking forward to that more than i am finishing this thesis, and i think thats a good sign.
oh, and here's a good illustration of how things are run at my school: during the 3 days in which the sociology students are defending, the building that houses my department is going to have the electricity shut off. we are going to have our orals in the dark. wtf?
and there it is...
Labels: Abbey, CEU, grad school, liquor, thin justification for my existace
The Goings On
So, I have not been blogging because I have been, instead of living life and seeing the sun, writing my thesis and developing the most incredible ass-groove in a chair at Siraly, where Brigette, Stephen, Luc and I have permanently set up residence to kick this pig.
But here are a few small points of note to tide you over until I get my wee little life back
*Artyom used the word "harlot" in his thesis. There is no end to the hilarity that I find in this
*We bought our visas for Belarus. $125. wtf? We should be able to pick them up from the embassy tomorrow. Lord. I'm excited, but I plan on coming back friggin fluent. I won't have just gone to Belarus, I will have DONE Belarus.
*My camera got jacked by some sketchy Hungarian-Transylvanian dude who ended up at my house and made out with some chick on my couch after smoking in Monica's bedroom. Screw that guy. Screw that guy right in the ear. But, this means that I am on the market for a new one. I think I'm going to go for digital video
*Barring any impediments to the previous goal, Stephen, Brigette, Sasha, Marko and I are going to collaborate on "Belarus: The Movie"
*After Belarus, we are going to Croatia to mooch off of Marko's family and sleep in forests. While we are there, it will be Croatian Independance Day (Hooray! We're all still catholic! woo!). On independence day, it is meet for one to eat bear. With berries. Berry bear. Again, wtf?
*My thesis deadline is Monday, but I'm hoping to have it in by Friday. We'll see how it goes.
Labels: belarus, Brigette, CEU, croatia, food, grad school, Marko, Sasha, Stephen, travel
Two of My Favoritest Smart People
First of all, Kasia is totally hilarious. Check
this out.
Second, I had a very interesting afternoon today. It was the first day back to reality for my department. The rest of the school has been suffering through their own assortment s of deadlines and draft submissions and what not. The Soc/Anth kids, on the other hand, were released like the hounds to scramble all over the globe for our field work during the month of April, and had our first departmental meeting for thesis writing today, and all 21 of us were crammed back in that corner room on the 4th floor of the Zrinyi building again for the first time since March. After being away in Ukraine for nearly a month, the discomfort of it all felt reassuringly familiar.
Today was also a special day, because
Bruno Latour was a guest of the sociology department this weekend, and he presented a lecture on truth and objectivity in politics in the Monument Building this evening. I have been looking forward to his visit for months, since I have always admired his theoretical works, I have read and been totally confused by his writings since I began studying anthropology in college, and he's a crazy famous big shot.
He talked for a long time about creating sociology as an objective science, on that is bound by the thing that it studies. He said, that even if you are a shitty chemist, it is hard to write poor quality work, because you are so bound by your materials. If you mess up, your lab could explode. Whereas, you could talk circles of crap around cultural ideas. You could BS your way through entire books, and there may be few people to actually call you on it. Thought provoking sentiment--and terribly interesting considering that a large portion of this guys theoretical work has concerned the scientific production of knowledge. People cant BS about laboratory conditions? Its been a few years since I had my safety goggles on and my pipet in hand, but goodness, if there's anything that the natural sciences AREN'T, its exact and natural.
Labels: CEU, grad school, kasia, latour
Chicago Brings the Mayhem.
Oi.
Alexis got here on Wednesday, after a lovely trompe de l'aeroport in London that ended up with her getting here at 11pm out of Gatwick instead of noon out of Luton. Such chaos.
This is a lovely shot of her and Agi at the bar that my whole department descends on every Tuesday evening. We ended up here after a soc department lecture about mega churches in Oklahoma City. It was surprisingly phenomenal. The lecture-and the bar.
And its Christmas season here. Like, officially. They even have a Santa to greet the kids at school and everything. Plus a sleigh for pictures, which we found hilarious. Agi brought her awesome little girl Theodora to meet Santa on Thursday, and she looked at the display and said, "Oh, look! Its Rudolph!"
"No Agi. That's a moose. Why is there a moose pulling Santa's sleigh?"
"Oh what is it supposed to be. He's a caribou right?"
"A reindeer yea."
"Oh, we Hungarians don't make these distinctions. We just call them all 'szarvas'."
Here is a picture of Stephen driving the moose:
It made him so happy...
So, yea, post moose, we went to the bar down the street. Most of us kept ourselves busy with more stories about Agi being killed one time by an italian tiger on a boat filled with monkeys.
Aungo savored Hungarian bar food:
And Asa, before he had had a single drink, shifted out of his earlier melancholy into his usual state:
After this gathering dissolved, a few of us decided to crash a poli-sci/IRES gathering that was happening at a place on the north side of Szent Istvan krt, but it was such a mess there that our group became divided and lost almost immediately, and the few of us who got out alive (namely, me, Alexis, Aungo, Agi, Brigette, and Colin) went back to the 7th district to a rad little shisha bar. I cant remember the name, but it reeked of authenticity and is right behind the KFC. yea.
Lots of fun.
Oh, I have to add one more thing, though. Brigette, Marko, Alexis and I wandered down to Szimpla for David Berliner's goodbye party on Friday night. We were hungry before hand, and some of us had mentioned pizza. The guys have been known to go down to this place called Pizza King. Marko swears that its totally good.
Exhibit A:
Marko also apparently drinks Bacardi Breezers. If only we had known how screwed we were at the time. The pizza, after OVER AN HOUR, finally hits our table, and is way sad looking. And the damn Hungarians put the dreaded corn on it. They put corn on everything. Marko, enthusiastically digs in, and says "This stuff is really good." While simultaneously smearing ketchup all over his slice.
Exhibit B:
We tried it, and this was quite possibly the grossest pizza I have ever had in my entire life. Like, ever. Even worse than that one that Sean and I ordered from JoBo's on Clarendon that had adhered itself to the box. Even grosser than that. Raw dough. No sauce. Yellow peppers. Corn!
Veni, Vidi, No Likey
So, we did the only thing that we felt was appropriate with the remains, after we had picked through all the slightly edible peices. We made a diarama.
Labels: Agi, Alexis, Asa, aungo, Brigette, CEU, clubs and bars, Colin, Marko, photos, rabble rousing, thin justification for my existace
SCANDAL! brought to you by Sorin Antohi
Sorin Antohi was, until last Friday, the founding chair of the history department at CEU. He has a huge legacy here, and is the pet of countless administrators, students, and professors. He is incredibly popular here and regarded in very high faith.
Then, the whole university got this e mail from the University president today:
To: Members of the CEU Community
On Friday, 20 October 2006 a Romanian newspaper published an article indicating that Sorin Antohi does not have a Ph.D. degree, although he mentions in his c.v. that he possesses one. We learned about this article from Sorin Antohi himself who, in an e-mail letter sent on the same day, acknowledged that the article was true and also submitted his resignation from CEU. The resignation was accepted (see acceptance letter attached). We have clarified in two communiqués that students who had Sorin Antohi as their Ph.D. supervisor should not fear negative consequences regarding the validity of their diplomas (the two communiqués are attached).
Yehuda Elkana
And it came with this attachment:
20 October 2006
Attn: Sorin Antohi
Dear Sorin,
Having received your letter dated October 20, 2006, with sadness and
regret, I hereby accept your resignation from all your positions at
CEU as from today.
The termination of your employment contract will be settled
following the standard CEU protocol for resignation.
Based on the fact you disclosed in your letter, CEU does not plan to
take any legal actions against you.
My best personal wishes for the future.
Your Yehuda
CC: Executive Committee
This is the explanation, that keeps getting posted and deleted and posted and deleted from his wikipedia entry. Please don't miss the part about his apparently fabricated publications. Good gravy:
| In a 2006 open letter published in the Bucharest-based 22 review, Mr. Antohi admitted to having collaborated with the communist secret intelligence service, the notorious Securitate, during the 1970s and the 1980s. In that capacity, he secretly reported information damaging to the lives of many of his close friends. |
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| On 20 October 2006, the Romanian press reported that representatives of the Romanian Ministry of Education discovered that Mr. Antohi never defended his doctoral thesis in the country. Antohi's CEU website claims that he got his doctoral degree in 1995 from the Faculty of History, University Al. Ioan Cuza of Iasi. In fact, Mr. Antohi was expelled in 2000 from the doctoral program. The website also lists among his books some titles published by Polirom press. Journalists from the "Ziua de Iasi" daily were unable to locate any of those volumes. |
Think it ends here? NEVER!
The wiki continues:
In a 2006 open letter published in the Bucharest-based 22 review, Mr. Antohi admitted to having collaborated with the communist secret intelligence service, the notorious Securitate, during the 1970s and the 1980s. In that capacity, he secretly reported information damaging to the lives of many of his close friends.
Wow.
I mean, just, wow.
Makes me think that missing that deadline for my for my social inquiry paper by a few days isn't such a big deal after all.
Labels: Antohi, CEU, grad school
Interesting...
These are excepts from the CEU network forum tread about Oct 23.
Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:29 pm Post subject:
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My friends and I ended up right in the middle of the crowd by accident...By the time I reached the upper floor of the Deak Ferenc Ter I could see the smoke, it was a tear gas granade, thrown or shot by the police. It went all the way down into the underground territory. People were running around, some stood shocked, some were scared, but most of them were not prepared to be in such a situation. When I rushed out to the street I ended up in a cloud of tear gas, which was shot by the police every 20 to 30 seconds into the crowd. I saw the old Soviet truck being pushed towards the riot police, I saw how the protestants [sic] started the old Soviet tank and tried to guide it through the crowd, but I saw no barricades there. I saw no extremists, skinheads or fascists. As a matter of fact, the more I was moving away from the epicentre the more surprised I was. It almost looked like the crowd wanted to have a regular demonstration and the government didn't want that to happen. People around me were in their 30's and 40's. I saw a large group of old people, in their 60's and 70's. What really surprised me was the riot police...I saw the police officer on horse hitting a woman right in front of me. Her only fault was that she was not fast enough to turn away from a galloping horse. This happened about 150 meters away from the epicentre, where the riot police were standing in line. I saw police officers beating the crap out of anyone they can catch and drag behind their lines. And I was extremely surprised to hear that the police acted professional and legitimate. Throwing tear gas into the subway underground territory is extremely dangerous and unjustifiable. Riding over protestants [sic] with horses is hard to justify as well. But then again, maybe I am just overreacting. After all, I don't know all the truth about the people who were surrounding me in the crowd, except for their age and their appearance (seemed like regular Hungarians to me). After all, maybe the police did act professionally and it's a new European police tactic of breaking up the crowd with rubber bullets, water, gas and horses. After all, maybe right wing extremists are young people, elderly and middle aged regular Hungarian protestants [sic].
Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:41 pm Post subject:
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Strange things are happening...Halfyear ago, in Vladivostok, a police officer hit a woman in front of TV camera and was immediately fired. Until now I didn't hear about any policemen arrested for his actions against innocent people.
Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:04 pm Post subject: Budapest is Politicaly Hot....
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As a Political Scientist it a very interesting thing to observe. as an American I feel like Hungary has something in common with the United States Independence. May-be there should be somthing the people can better identify with like parades, fireworks, a day off from school and work...I'm very happy for Hungary. Not to long ago Americans were not aloud behind the iron curtain. now here I am that says allot.
...You see, Hungary is a very politicaly opressed country, it has been ruled by so many for the past two thousand years. its a political phenomena we can observe first hand. its a very beutiful thing.
Ok, so I still stand to be convinced that the last guy on the thread is an American (hello syntax), or even a sensible human being. I understand the draw towards witnessing and recording political events like these, but its a little sickly to call police violence and mass rioting a "beautiful thing". I cant recall the last time I say someone get their face ground to a pulp and then commented on the beautiful interpersonal harmony that is forged from violent social behavior control. I dunno. I'm glad these threads are anonymous, cause this guy is just asking for a smack down.
Also, I have to add that I too am surprised that the police violence isn't really being responded to. Even if there is no official response to officers acting out of line, there is usally a public outcry.
Where are the crowds of people shouting "Rodney King!" over and over? Aren't they supposed to be here?
Well, at least teh politicos are still getting each others panties in a wad. This article was posted by Caboodle.hu
Parliament rejects session to discuss Budapest riots
By: HATC
2006-10-25 09:42:00
Parliament's House Committee yesterday dismissed appeals for a special session to discuss the previous day's riots in Budapest.
Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány spoke about the events in a speech before the day's main business, though Fidesz and Christian Democrat MPs left the chamber in line with their boycotting policy.
Gyurcsány said: "those who sought to hurt me have taken their revenge on the nation. Demonstration is rightful but we will not tolerate riots and I expect the police to fight against them with all their might," he added. "They do not understand what they are playing with," continued Gyurcsány, turning to the empty Fidesz seats. "This situation was brought about by a politician who does not respect God, nor human and constitutional democracy," he declared.
Parliamentary regulations require debates to be declared 14-28 days in advance. Fidesz and the Christian Democrats dropped their plan to hold a debate on the riots because of these requirements and will instead raise questions at official meetings of the law enforcement, human rights and national security House committees.
"This extraordinary situation arose because a police attack was ordered on the opposition's demonstration," said Fidesz caucus leader Tibor Navracsics.
Free Democrat chairman Gábor Kuncze retorted: "We have reached new heights of political idiocy, hearing that the police provoked peaceful demonstrators, who were equipped with metal balls and molotov cocktails under Árpád flags." The red and white striped Árpád flags were also used by the Hungary's Nazi Arrow Cross movement.
"The original offence was Gyurcsány offending the nation, but Orbán's reckless behaviour is also leading the country to anarchy," said Democratic Forum leader Ibolya Dávid. "Both should resign," she concluded.
For the record, my impression is that the people who were waiving the red and white flags had more to do with the
Greater Hungary cause than an anti-semitic one, but I can't really back that up. I mean, I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin...
Labels: Budapest, CEU, politics, riots
