Episode 511: Unusually Productive Start To Reading Week

I slept until past noon, but still feel quite terrible. I did make a to-do list, and I even managed to cover the first two items. This was after changing my bedsheets, which in itself made me feel ridiculously accomplished. (Let's not comment on the fact that I also tried to wash my laptop sleeve with the bedsheets, which totally ruined it. Thank goodness it was just some cheap one that I took from Audrey way back. Have ordered the cheapest replacement off Amazon UK that seemed like it would actually do a decent job.) I finished reading the last part of all those non-fiction pieces that Jeremy Treglown has been handing out to us, which included a brilliant speech delivered by Arundhati Roy, entitled 'Insta-Mix Imperial Democracy'. It exposes the inherent hypocrisy when a country like the USA presumes to criticise supposedly undemocratic states. It also brought me back to one of the few major disagreements I've ever had with my dad, which had to do with the reasons for the war in Iraq. He bought into the American spiel about democracy and liberation, whilst I maintained that oil was definitely a factor in it. (Please don't bother calling me out on this. I'm aware that the geopolitical reality is far more complex than I've just painted it to be.) Also managed to finish the entry for my site diary, so that's one more piece of work out of the way. Just need to do my Rossetti presentation and watch a French film by next week's lesson!