Just in time for Valentine's Day!

Just in time for Valentine’s Day… yes that’s right… a marriage proposal!

A young taxi driver named Bojan who drove me to get my residency visa today (for those keeping score, that’s my 4th trip to the Ministry for “Strangers” … ahhh…Serbian Bureaucracy!) has pledged his undying love for me and asked for my hand in marriage. He says that before he met me (in his taxi about an hour ago) he thought he would be a “free man” for life, but now he says he is my man. He says that this arrangement will work out especially well for me because he can help me with my language skills.

He wishes to come back to Philadelphia with me (and have many babies) precisely so that he can visit neighboring San Francisco. He is also convinced that I have met Clint Eastwood and Julia Roberts, who he claims live in Philadelphia! (and apparently commute to work in San Francisco?) And told me that it is his lifelong dream to be with “American girl name Christina” and to see New York. I am the luckiest girl in Serbia!

(I am not so good with Geography, is San Francisco between Phillie and NYC? And where is Clint Eastwood’s house? Can he see Ben Franklin from his window?)

In other news…Belgrade has become a winter wonderland! After stretch of 5 warm and sunny days without a jacket, I had considered sending my boots and winter coat home. But when I woke yesterday, there was about an inch of snow on my window ledge and it has been snowing steadily since then…and looks as if it will continue for several days and even possibly a week! I actually think it looks beautiful!! And even though it is really snowy, it is not that cold…maybe in the high 20s…so it is not too bad to go outside when I need to…BUT I am not doing too much outside these snowy days as I am trying to take advantage of the weather to get as much work done as possible…and I am making some excellent progress!

Belgrade as winter wonderland! (as seen from my apartment)

The last few days I have renewed my love affair with Edward Said and have read and written like a maniac! I have also been downloading from itunes the weekly episodes of LOST and Heroes (as well as The Office) to watch at night as I am winding down. Now…The Office is as funny and well scripted as ever. I like it very much. It did not lose its touch with the union of Jim & Pam and has really taken on a life of its own after mimicking very closely its British counterpart for the 1st few seasons.

LOST is still so suspenseful and awesome and I love every minute of it…though I am hoping the time switching thing ends soon and I was a little disappointed with the cursory treatment of Russeau’s story – she got shortchanged!! Still, I was on the edge of my seat the whole episode and was breathlessly cursing the moment it ended. I have also been rewatching old seasons and I have realized how clever the writers are. The 1st time through I was so focused on the story that I missed the fact that you have a host of philosophers embedded in the characters (obviously Locke & Hume, but also Bentham, Russeau, and Said as well as Edmund Burke – there may be others I am missing). I also now think that the main characters are supposed to represent the 7 deadly sins, though I haven’t worked that all out yet. (This is what I have thought of so far…Hurley is Gluttony, Sawyer is Greed, Jack is either pride or envy, Boone & Shannon were Lust (but Shannon could be Vanity as well), Ana Lucia & Said are Vengeance, Kate - ? not sure…, Jin is Pride, Charlie may have been Sloth, Nicki & Paolo were greed, there may be others, but Locke, Libby, Bernard & Rose and Claire seem to be the antitheses and it is unclear where Sun falls in this theory).

Oh, and by the way, in honor of Valentine’s Day I will disclose a little love secret…I have several super secret boyfriends on Lost, 2 of whom are now dead…Said is my main boyfriend – I love him the most and have from the beginning. I love his personality and his body and his accent. The funny thing is I heard the actor Naveen Andrews (who plays Said) talking in an interview and I like the actor way less than I like the character. Jin is my other boyfriend – though I only like him for his looks. I also liked Boone & Mr. Echo – both dead, and both distant 3rds to the others.

Heroes on the other hand…I am a little disappointed with. I LOVED the 1st season. The 2nd season was good, but the strike threw a wrench in the works. Season 3 start out OK, but now I am not so sure about it. The writing is not as good as LOST, but also there are so many unclear choices, deserted plotlines, and recycled stale themes.

I have so many questions!

…where is Micah? What is with Tracey – formerly Nicky!?!? (Nicky annoyed me, but Tracey is even worse!) They seem to have run out of interesting things to do with Claire and Hiro (the best characters of season 1). Where is the little girl that Parkman & Suresh protected? What happened to Parkman’s kid and pregnant wife? Still so many mysteries from season 1 that are not solved. And the only character that seems to be allowed interesting story lines is Sylar, and still his story is inconsistent and confusing.

The only thing I can think of is that they are running each group of episodes like individual comic books so that there is minimal character development and disjointed story telling, with each collection of episodes acting as an individual story about the characters. I am not giving up on it yet, but I am really hoping it gets better again.

Finally, I had the strangest dream last night…I dreamt I was in the WaWa for like 5 hours and there was all these random wierdos that worked there and each had a nickname. There was “mama” who was the older woman, chubby, bad teeth, loud and not very bright, but sweet and everyone loved her. There was “Princess” who was a hot, slutty, “but-a-face” 19 year old, and her cohort “Queen Bee” who was an equally skanky but sweet single mother in her 30s. Now “Mama” was having a secret affair with “grease” who was the skinny, oily late 20s guy who smelled of cars and cigarettes. And there was one guy (the only one who is actually a person who works at the WaWa in my neighborhood in NJ) who is a good looking Pakistani guy who looks to be in his late 20s. I can’t remember his name in real life, and he did not have a nickname in the dream.

For some reason in the dream I was trapped inside WaWa for hours and I kept buying snack food, cigarettes and lotto tickets with the hope I would be allowed out. I was then forced to sit through a WaWa educational training seminar with them, and I sat next to the Pakistani guy and talked to him (probably b/c in real life he is my super secret WaWa crush).

In all…a very strange dream!

And a very strange day today!

But I am back to work! Thanks for reading and will write again next week or when something else interesting happens…

Happy Valentine’s Day and have a great weekend.