Burns' Night

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June:

O my Luve's like the melodie,

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi' the sun;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!

And fare-thee-weel, a while!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!

When I studied this poem at school, I was struck by the flowery language and how kitschig/tacky it sounded. I didn't realise until second reading that it was also totally vacuous. How can Burns claim to be so madly in love with the girl for three verses, and then say he's popping off for a while, promising to come back. He's clearly already thinking ahead to looking for new love somewhere else! So his beloved must wait for him to return, content with a poem committing the lover to a ludicrous unbelievable love. I bet he never came back.

I personally think love is a bit silly: everyone feels it in the heat of the moment, the passion, the excitement, the intrigue. But given a new partner a few nights later, one can go through exactly the same rigmarole of emotions. People are in love with love, they miss love and they need love, but the person is immaterial. That's why it's best and safest to love as many people as possible. Then, if one disappoints you, you have plenty of back ups. This is my favourite song about love, it's by The Monkees and has my favourite love lyric - 'don't say you love me say you like me':

I wanna be free,
Like the bluebirds flying by me
Like the waves out on the blue sea.
If your love has to tie me, dont try me,
Say good-bye.

I wanna be free,
Dont say you love me say you like me,
But when I need you beside me,
Stay close enough to guide me, confide in me,
Oh-oh-oh

I wanna hold your hand,
Walk along the sand
Laughing in the sun,
Always having fun
Doing all those things
Without any strings
To tie me down.

I wanna be free,
Like the warm September wind, babe,
Say you'll always be my friend, babe.
We can make it to the end, babe,

Again, babe, I gotta say:
I wanna be free
I wanna be free
I wanna be free

EMA, WikiLeaks and the SDP

Today was depressing. I don't agree with the EMA cuts, unless the reforms mean that students end up with a better deal for poor students, but I resent it when Labour MPs use EMA to score political points in a completely unrelated speech. At the Afro Caribbean Trade and Commerce Launch, the Labour MP for Bristol East, did just that. Policies should not be used to score political points, it destroys any trust we might have in what politicians say they believe. I'm not saying only Labour does it, but there is a time and place - in the Chamber, not at a non partisan event.

Also I realised that although I value open politics and as little secrecy as possible: the Government should not keep things from the public, as Shirley Williams pointed out in her talk on Memoirs: Egoistical or Educational, we are in a Catch 22 situation. If all communication between Government Ministers had to be available for all to peruse at will, and Bush and Blair had to publish their correspondence to find out whether Blair said he would do whatever Bush did as far as Iraq was concerned, that would be a fantastic way for the public to receive justice for their actions. But, in the future, politicians would be far more cautious so that statements like those we suspect made between Bush and Blair would either not be made at all, which would be great in theory, although it might lead to poorer relations between Britain and other countries. Or politicians will begin to communicate in some nontraceable way: a private room with no tape recorder perhaps. Yes, it will be harder for politicians to cover their words up, and WikiLeaks will hopefully still be able to expose some hidden conversations, but a lot will be driven further into secrecy.

I wonder how Shirley feels having left the Labour Party, where she was in the Cabinet with Tony Benn under Wilson and Callaghan, to merge her SDP with the Liberals and form the Liberal Democrat Party in 1988, to watching her baby form a Coalition with the Conservatives. Sure, she is being pragmatic if she supports the Coalition. I too am of the conclusion that it is better to have a Tory government containing Lib Dems who are beavering away to put Lib Dem policies into practice and soften and amend Tory policies, than a Tory led government, which would undoubtedly be more right wing. But it must be a million miles away from what she originally anticipated thirty years ago, as one of the Labour "Gang of Four" rebels in 1981.

Club der Kulturen

Last night was great for many reasons. We danced to the Beatles, German pop song "Mein Herz tanzt" and awesome songs that I have on Just Dance on my Wii at home. Then we played Twister and I won! And then I played the piano, which had been in the room all night and I hadn't noticed.

Playing the piano was amazing. I haven't played for maybe a year and I talked to a guy who can't read music but can improvise really well- I want to do that too and he showed me that improvising is based on the left hand doing an arpeggio chord sequence, similar to the guitar, like CAFG, and playing an awesome tune with the right hand. I had two problems: coordinating the different fingerwork of both hands and thinking of an awesome tune. Everything I played sounded melancholy. It was sad when I remember how I used to think of awesome songs I used to think out and play. Indeed I wrote down some songs in a pink sheet music book, but I haven't seen it for maybe eight years. I should try and find it again.

I still remember the song my first proper boyfriend sang and played on the piano for me in the school music rooms. It made me cry. I wish I had the music and all the words so I could play it. The melody, first verse and chorus are still with me and I'll never forget them.

So in summary: Becky is made happy by crazy dancing, playing Twister and pianos. It was also incredibly lovely to sleep overnight in the student club which *made* my time in Chemnitz. Almost all my Chemnitz friends worked or work there, or at least went to one of the many evenings there: English Club, French Club, etc. I am even directly responsible for one of them joining, who now leads the club. And I can belong to this ever changing family like community twice a year when I visit. The sofas were very comfy, the brunch was awesome: we had a Moroccan chef with us and I managed to persuade them to play the German Cluedo (Clu-Eh-do) with me.

I went Go Karting this evening which I was terrified about but was actually amazing, even if I did come last. Alhough it was a bit sad that when we had a race, the German guy who was winning all evening stopped driving when someone overtook him. He couldn't cope with not winning I guess.

Tomorrow I look forward to lunch (Mittagessen) in the Mensa (student cafeteria), a lecture demonstrating Christmas science experiments and ballet in the evening. I hope I wake up in time...

Pass auf euch auf!

In Chemnitz

Scheiße, it's annoying using a German keyboard. At home I can switch between English and German, but here there's just German. And I still don't know how to find the @ sign so I have to keep copying and pasting it, which "geht mir auf den Keks/geht mir auf den Geist" i.e. is also annoying. German is weird - 'It gets on my biscuits' means its annoying!

Just watched KiddieContest - a child's version of X Factor. Pretty cool actually. The kids sing German words to American (Ami) and English songs. I loved the song about not being able to survive without her mobile phone (Handy) and the winner who sang about pocket money (Taschengeld) being hard to come by in the recession (Wirtschaftskrise), but again necessary to pay for his phone and taking girls to the cinema (Kino). Not sure if it would be really sad to buy the CD of the KiddyContest. It's still rare to hear German pop music with German lyics so it would be quite nice.

It was a bit sad I guess that all the songs involved Youtube and Handys. Is the spirit of childhood disappearing to technology? Although the song I want to stay young/small (Ich will klein sein) was quite moving. It was also annoying that after the programme lots of toys and games were advertised. Do kids spend all their time on Playstations now? More annoying - do girls really want to buy Barbie on a horse and a fake baby advertised by a woman with a horrible shrieky voice. Surely they would prefer a mini remote control car that can drive over everything including someone's arm and that can sneakily be hidden in your pocket? I hope my brother doesn't see that advert...he doesn't need to hide yet more stuff!

Chemnitz is nice, the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) is beautiful and the snow covering everything magical, although my feet are constantly soaking, its hard to avoid it when the snow is half a meter deep and no one is cleaning it up. My boots don't go up to my knees unfortunately.

Went to see my first ever opera yesterday: "La Boheme" by Puccini in Chemnitz's Operhaus. It was much better than I thought, like a play or musical, just in Italian and you had to keep raising your head to read the subtitles. I don't know if it had a serious message and it lagged towards the end, but I always like seeing people that live in artistic communes, there was a painter, writer, philosopher etc. Although it was a shame that the artistic types were all men, and the only two women were obviously love interests. I've never heard of a female artist with a male muse.

Today I went Christmas shopping and was very excited to see an Adventkalendar which had neither a picture nor chocolate behind its big square doors, but instead a book for each day of Advent. This is truly awesome, but it's too big and expensive to take home with me I think. I wonder if they exist in London? Now I'm going to Club of Cultures or Club der Kulturen - CdK for a baking and pyjama private party. I am loath to leave the warm flat to soak my feet yet again, but it should be very fun.

Pass auf euch auf! (Take care!)

Student Protest Number Two

I've decided to start writing again, having left it so long. And today was rather out of the ordinary. As you will have gathered it's the second student protest and we got to see it at first hand in Parliament - out of the window at lunch time in Bellamys. Opinions in Parliament on the Lib Dem side are fairly anti protest - which is understandable given the situation Lib Dem staff have found themselves in - having to defend the policy of their MP to their constituents. However, I feel that protests are often a good way to stir up an interest in politics in young people.

The country gave the Conservatives a majority of sorts (if 40% can be seen as a majority) and they need to accept the consequences of their actions. If young people can be incentivised to challenge Government policy and campaign for better political parties that can only be a good thing - far better than never reading the paper and remaining oblivious.

However, the police were atrociously behaved today. They kettled the protesters into a small space on Whitehall, rather than letting them pass. The protesters had to stand in two separated groups in a claustrophobic space with no idea what was going on, no one could even leave to go to the toilet. And they wonder why the protesters tried to break police lines. The police thought it prudent to viciously hit those protesters trying to leave with their batons - seemingly breaking the arm of one of their colleagues. Also suspicious was the police van left in the middle of the road with the protesters - why was it there - it seemed to be a good ruse on the part of the police to encourage the more juvenile protesters to attack it and thus render another protest irresponsible: it's a perfect recipe for damage if you leave several thousand protesters prevented from marching by being caged in an enclosed area surrounded by violent police officers. After a few hours what would you do if the only object of interest is a dormant police van? This is not a justification of smashing a vehicle, merely a valid point - if you provoke people enough they will retaliate eventually.

Also today I met a constituent who wanted to talk to Stephen about Palestine, having recently been. She was shocked by the deprivation and danger of the West Bank that the Palestinian people live in, having been on a very peaceful protest against the Israeli military in the West Bank with fellow protesters aged 50 and upwards. Faced with a handful of middle aged people marching, Israeli soldiers attacked them with tear gas and stun weapons. Compare that to the police in Westminster today and the difference is appalling. Yet whilst everyone in the UK will have heard about the London and regional based protests by tomorrow, very few will understand the conditions Palestinians in the West Bank live in on a daily basis. It surprised me how affected the constituent had been by her visit to Palestine - on a detour from her holiday in Israel. Before she had assumed if the states were not at war, life must be fine. Having seen the reality she is determined to do all she can to campaign against the unfairness of Israeli building projects and the lack of water available to the Palestinians. I imagined everyone knew the facts already but just didn't care about the Palestinians - it is sad that one must physically go there to fully comprehend why we need to take action so desperately.

On a different note I went to French class today in Brent, where we discussed the protest, EMA cuts, the royal wedding and how to combat climate change. I often view it as a kind of focus group to gauge popular opinion, unlike the focus group of one woman in the episode of the Thick of It. It struck me that out of the eight of us, only half of us spoke English as a first language. It seems that there is a correlation between already speaking two or more languages and wanting to learn a new one. This is understandable but sad. Cameron has decided immigrants to the UK need to have perfect English, but he should 'first remove the log from his own eye' and ensure all Government Ministers and preferably all British citizens can speak two or more languages, if he does not want to be seen as hypocritical.

New Job

So finally, for the first time in my life...a proper job! I beat 240 people to get an interview with 7 others hoping to be offered the job of researcher for a cool Lib Dem MP, and I got the job of assistant researcher! Gone are the days of internhood, lazing around, being stressed about the big future out there...I went to an all party group on Wellbeing Economics today and it made me release how lucky I am - I have been offered a job from 10am - 5.30pm, hours I adore, I get to work in Parliament and learn more about the mad world of politics, and I might even be making enough money to think about moving out soon...

Who'd have guessed I'd be a role model?

Panthea greeted me today with her usual enthusiasm, 'I'm tired, I've got a headache, I need to go shopping...I'm reallly ill...' Half way through the lesson, after I'd persuaded her to do some ratio worksheets, she started questioning me about my job and whether I worked part time. Within minutes she had decided she would get an A in Maths and become a tutor too - 'If I work in the evenings I can spend the day going shopping'. She worked out the exact hour intervals when she would work and even informed me that she would earn more than me because she would 'work Fridays too'.

Before she could be persuaded to work again she sketched the shoe she apparently wanted to buy - complete with spikes, 5 wheels, a water bottle holder at the back and various doughnut carriers at the front, the shoe would make doughnuts. She is remarkably inventive, if a little crazy, and it almost seems a shame to teach her maths instead of English, which she loves. However, she cant be a Maths tutor if she doesn't learn, so hopefully she will be more keen on Friday.