Mocondo

My favorite café on Hoxton square went bust. Now, I didn’t feel it when my last company lost a client or when the pound took a beating. But I’ve been officially hit by the crisis, even if the UK just came out of recession in this past quarter.
Mocondo was the first place I went to in Shoreditch. A friend of mine took me there, a true pioneer of East London and its hidden secrets. The first time I went there with her I order a chocolate cake to share. I did not. Share. The second time she took me to the flower market on Curtain Road after an espresso. She bought dry flowers because her room was not getting enough light. I resolved to go back and buy an orange tree. I never did. Last time I spoke to my friend she was back in the US taking care of her family. Mocodo closing down reminded me that I should have written to her sooner.
Mocodo closing down upsets me. Everything that I want and I can’t get lately upsets me. It also reminds me of the loony Marques village where everyone got insomnia for a week. Or was it a month. I could really do with a bit of insomnia these days, but, alas, my sleep is sound as a baby’s. Also sound as this guy on Grey’s Anatomy who had brain tumor. But that’s thinking is just a function of me and my roommate’s obsession with doctors’ TV shows. They are just so miserable, they make my life look like a breeze. I could take the Mcodo simile further by talking about magic realism and how academic and the constant vortex of job applications I am stuck in lately make me feel like living in a made-up place, but I won’t, because nobody likes a whiner.
In any case, I’m in another café now. It’s not as good, but it will do. The barrister is pretty. And this is not me having a soft spot for men behind bars (as in horizontal bars, not vertical). This situational appeal only works for men during the night. It’s 3pm and she’s a well, she. So my opinion is objective. Anyway, she has the “I wish I were in Mocondo gaze too.”

A list of words I'd like to use

Scintillate
noun
1. To throw off sparks; flash.
2. To sparkle or shine.
3. To be animated and brilliant: dinner conversation that scintillated.
verb
To give off (sparks or flashes).

Mamihlapinatapai (Ma-MI-luh-PEE-na-TAH-pie)
in Yaghan, spoken in Tierra del Fuego, South America.
noun
A meaningful look between two people, expressing mutual unstated feelings

Effigy
a representation of a person (especially in the form of sculpture); "the coin bears an effigy of Lincoln"

Haiti

I just finished watching the Help for Haiti Now concert and I'm finding it hard to go to sleep, even though it's probably a good idea. There's few reasons why. Last week alone I talked to probably few hundreds university alumni asking them for donations. I made couple of hundred pounds of the school and the organization I work for raised in the amount of thousands. This money would have been better spent on antibiotics and food. I know that the biggest problem in relieving disasters like this one is not the money, but its distribution. I still cannot feel right about going to work this Wednesday and asking people to donate. Part of the reason is that I myself am using several thousands of the school's money on my scholarship. For a degree I am not sure I want, towards a career I am almost certain I will not enjoy and that has little value added towards the economy in general, albeit the fees it attracts, and for an education I put suboptimal amount of time into. I had a friend from Haiti couple of years ago. We never spoke after that summer. I hope his family is well.

Training Contract Applications

aka the bane of my recent existence. Two curious observations in relation. Firstly, all graduate brochures are identical. The last sponsored article about a law firm I read actually listed great training, international offices, and approachable partners as their main perks. Ok then, my perks should be intellectual aptitude, global mind, and team player. Written just like that. Distinctive enough for HR? I should think not. What hypocrites.

Secondly, the stomach sickness I get from talking about myself in these applications has pushed me to blogging as a tool of procrastination. Not my most creative move.

Work in progress

I have two projects to finish these days, and they are as different as my plans for the future. I am writing a magazine article for Boxcar Bertha, the famous Hobo heroine, and inspiration for one of Scorsese's early movies. It is going to be part of series of articles on the Underground Culture. It's kinda cool, giving that the apartment I live in now is a stone throw away from where Orwell used to live in while pretending to be a Hobo in London, the "background research" if you will for his Down and Out in Paris and London. The area has improved, needless to say. So have rents. Anyway, the other thing I'm writing, or I should have written 2 days ago if I was not too busy perendinating, another great word I learned today, is an essay on insider trading. Quite a sexy topic when it comes to economic justifications, quite dull when it comes to enforcement and regulation, which is what I have to write about. Ugh.

Fool's Gold

I found a great new word today. Borborygmos. It's the Greek for stomach rumble. The word is far better than its semantics I think. It was my great, useless, unpronounceable word for entire 30 minutes. Until I googled it. Then I realized that other people already have such blog sections, additional to thousands unpleasant images associated with it.

Il postre (or why this blog has the image that it does)

Il postre is what the Italians will serve you post a feast that started with melon and prosuto and quickly slipped into a decadency of carbohydrates and sour cream. I am one of those people that starts a meal in order to get to the Il postres. I get nervous, disturbed, somewhat utterly dissatisfied, if my meal does not end with a does of chocolate or at least sugar somehow thermally modified. My friends know better than to expect to share sweets with me. I only have friends that like chocolate.
Somehow ironically I came to work in the "Il postre" field of politics and public occurrences of somewhat significant kind. A political scientist by education, I've spent sometimes too many, but overall too little, hours in analyzing things that happened, and things that happened after things that happened, and things that should have happened or could potentially happen after what happened. And just recently thought of this clever, borderline silly, metaphorical link between my taste for postres and my work in the a posteriori sphere of ....well, life.
So that's how A posteriori came to be. My intention in 2008 was to post analyses I write on here, but given my taste for doing things last moment articles I write seem to make it faster to the print media then to my blog. So for 2010, at least thus far, I’ve focused more on myself rather that on the public sphere. See, I’m a bit preoccupied with myself these days because there’re plans to be made. So I write. And I’ll write some more until I figure it out and can start paying attention to bigger things, and generally be a bigger person. What a utilized phrase.
TA-DA. The ribbon has been cut.