Personal Log: Adrian Rodd

I've spent the past few days working on research (preliminary sorting through notes), for an article I intend to write on inter-ethnic relations in Fiji. Most notably, I've ploughed diligently through a 350 page document filled with reports an papers circulating back and forth between the Fiji government, the United Nations and various Fiji NGOs, all on the issue of ethnic discrimination, reading every word and taking lots of notes like a good little researcher. By now, I'm getting slightly sick of Fiji - and of Qarase, Bainimarama, Rabuka, Speight and Chaudry, indigenous landowners and Indo-Fijian farmer tenants, taukei and vulagi, disputes over political, economic and religious paramountcy, the Deed of Cession, the three Constititions, Fiji's Bill of Rights, ALTA, the qoliqoli shore lands and seabeds transfer bill, disputes over amnesty for the 2000 coup makers, the Fiji Times, the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, the House of Representatives and the Great Council of Chiefs... I have this nagging feeling of guilt whenever I'm not working, and it's been a huge help to me through the years, but right now I want a day to do something else.

So I've decided to blow the dust off my "teach yourself Korean" manuel, and take another look at it. Every time I do that, I get about as far as learning the alphabet, then back it goes onto a shelf to gather dust for another eight or ten months. But since I'm going to Korea this summer, now seems a rather good time to learn how to read a bit of the language. And those nice Koreans have actually got an alphabet to help us poor, befuddled Westerners - unlike the Chinese, who tried to confuse me with their non-alphabetic language when I gave *that* language a brief try five years ago.

So here I am writing lines of letters - Korean equivalents to k, t, p, tch, m, n, a, o, ya, yo, i - and trying to drum them into my head. I'd better get back to it... The things we do for fun (as the saying goes), eh?

Before I go, a random assortment of pictures from Second Life:

* I welcome Darth into someone else's home.
* Darth takes a dive.
* Paris, 1900, with my French friend Kévin. He's the alien to my right. You may be surprised to learn that he doesn't look like that in real life. We've known each other since we were 13, and he's one of my best friends here in France. He introduced me to Second Life, so if you want someone to blame, blame him!
* There are some rather strange places in here. A close-up of Darth, while I sit on a cushion.
* I sunbathe under a grey sky...
* Showing Kévin the headquarters of the French Socialist Party (Ségolène Royal's officially approved base of operations in 2L). That's Kévin up in the... erm, funny thing at the top of the picture.
* Showing Kévin "my" home (a close-up of him).
* Kévin almost gets hit by lightning! (I took this at just the right moment.)
* Meeting RoBobby for the first time.

I've got many other pictures, including some I haven't uploaded yet.