Signature, PJ Harvey and the Gulag Archipelago

Now that I have a little bit of web-space again I feel like I'm going to post almost every day - but of course that won't be the case. Last year I threatened to do a project where I would take a photo for every day of the year. Well... ahm... it's already the 19th of January and I'm behind on that project. So I decided to try and simplify it by doing a variation on that project by doing a photo-collage for each month - that might be a bit more do-able. I'll see how I go.

Today has been a successful day because I got the official uni signature I wanted - for doing work experience in Novosibirsk these spring holidays. For all of March I'll be working with preschool and primary school kids in a special "developmental" school under the supervision of a Doctor of Psychology. Some of the possible tasks that I will be charged with involve researching and putting together programs for kids and their parents, as well as participating in the diagnostic and analytical process. All of this sounds really cool and I am glad that university signed off on it.

Then later today I received an announcement from a ticket office in the email today, that PJ Harvey is touring Berlin again. She did last year but the tickets were very expensive and Jack's ears were still a bit stuffed, so we couldn't go. But this year we can! The show will be in a church (?!) in Kreuzberg... which is a bit of a weird choice of venue, but hey - it's Berlin!

Last but certainly not least, I've started reading the Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. It's a personal (his and others) account about the soviet concentration camps in the period between 1920's and 1950's. I read some of his other fictional works before but as this is a documentary, it is almost too surreal. Perhaps I am already desensitised, but all of the horrors of which he is writing seem too distant... and only to think that they happened not even half a century ago is just terrifying. And now the image of Stalin is being "cleaned up" in the Russian media to present a much less bloodier ruler, who "brought us victory in WWII and discipline to the people". I think they should make this compulsory reading in Russia - to at least increase the chance of those who might think a little about their own history. This is actually a survey I wouldn't mind seeing the results of - which country knows most about its own history?