Here I'm posting a translation of my Yiddish dialogue that I wrote for tonight's homework.
Who did you elect for president?
We elected Mendel Ginsburg.
Mendel Ginsburg? Very strange!
Why?
He's a monkey!
Really? How do you know?
His former office was 'Secretary of Bananas'!
Why is /that/ such a bad thing? We're all monkeys!
Really?
Here's a mirror.
(looks at himself) Oy! I certainly am a monkey!
What did I tell you? I'm a monkey, you're a monkey and Mendel Ginsburg is a monkey. We're a monkey club.
Every time I open a new Internet Explorer window, it defaults to a website showing Sri Lankan news. According to the most recent post, the new alliance between the pseudomarxist reactionary JVP and warmongering quasileftist SLFP has been 'sealed in blood' in the Sinhalese south. Great. That bodes really well for everyone in the country. It's great that the Buddha chose such brave defenders of the isle of dharma.
Actually, I still feel like I've been hit at the base of the skull from reading this. The same feeling that I got when I realized I was five hours late to my Tamil final. I mean, now that folks are killing each other in the south, what can stop them from pointing their guns north? I'm terrified that war is going to break out again.
Not that I'm afraid for the LTTE. Their legitimacy among the world (especially Europe and Japan) is waxing strong and the Colombo policymakers know that. For Chandrika to lead some new campaign north will end just like all the others -- in an ignoble defeat.
The military strategist in me wants to grin sweetly and say, "Sure, if they want to determine this by war, let them come! Then the winner will get have their way with the country!" No, it's definitely not a question of the Sinhala army threatening the status quo of the northeast like the hawks in the south would like to believe. What do they think the Tamil military has been doing for the past months? Sitting around watching Jerry Springer and eating cheese puffs? (Now there's a funny vision. Pirabakaran, Thamilchelvan, Balasingam and Col. Karuna watching 'My mother is really a man!' and ordering pizza.)
It's past midnight and my mind is going off on a tangent. How /do/ you order pizza when you're in the middle of nowhere in the Vanni?
"Hello, Round Table."
"Yes, we would like to order a pizza."
"Okay. What kind?"
"A large cheese. And with an order of breadsticks."
"Where to you want it delivered?"
"Tamil Eelam -- er, I mean, Sri Lanka."
**pause** **line goes dead**
"....damn racist Sinhala pizza shop..."
In my old weblog, I came up with the idea that Chandrika Kumaratunga and Velupillai Pirabakaran just needed to get some couples' counseling. Now I guess it's a little stickier, since there are now two couples (Pirabakaran and Ranil Velupillai-Wickramasinghe along with Chandrika and Tilvin Kumaratunga-Silva) that need to work on their relationships, separately and together.
Oh, wouldn't /that/ be a Jerry Springer episode! 'My President is in love with a Marxist!'
Chandrika: (leaps out of chair waving fist at Pirabakaran) You ********! Imma whup yo' *****!
Pirabakaran: (uppity) You don't know me! Nuh-uh, you don't know me!
Tilvin: (cheering) You lay the smackdown on that bourgeois Tamil bastard, sista'! The proletariat is rising!
Ranil: (whimpering) Can't we all just get al-- (is punched in the mouth by Chandrika)
Chandrika: You mutha****** neoliberal *****!
Tilvin: Take /that/ to your colonial mast-- (is given touch of death by Black Tiger ninjas, who have slipped in through the ventilation ducts)
Chandrika: What the-- (is also given touch of death)
Pirabakaran: What a pity. I think she left the oven on.
(Don't try to understand that last. It's an inside joke about Kumaratunga from my high school yearbook.)
What the hell did I just write? Forget it. I'm going to bed.
I'm back from finals and vacation. And what do I come back to but my roommate slathering her snowboard-wounded self with Bengay every five minutes. My sinuses are numb... I've opened the window as wide as it'll go and have been sticking my head outside every few words to breathe. Even my clothing (that's not squirreled away in a drawer or closet) and bed smells like it. There's no escape.
On a positive note, the birds ate all the bread and birdseed I left for them on the windowsill and I went out for an dawn mushroom hunt on the 'Big C' hill. I still haven't IDed anything but the three bone-dry shelves of Turkey Tail on a stump..The others are sitting patiently beside me.
And tomorrow I get to go to my first ever 8:00 AM class. That's right. I've made it to the second half of my junior year without having to take anything earlier than 9:00. Wish me luck.