HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Hope you all spent it in a more riotous fashion than I did. I have now been to an office Christmas party and watched TV on New Year's instead of going out - feel very old. I was also sober enough to remember midnight, which hasn't happened for several years. We didn't spend all night in front of the telly, but went out just after they celebrated the New Year in France (11p.m. here) to try and find some fireworks. There weren't any but we had one of our own that we lef off in the street. Then we went home and had champagne in plastic cups in the car en route. It was still pleasant, if rather peaceful, and the office party was fun, if rather surreal: kind of like a cross between a black tie dinner and a children's party (lots of people dancing round in a circle in between courses). Said goodbye to all my friends and was given a lift home by the ex-husband of the previous inhabitant of my house, who happens to now be married to my colleague Arlette. Small world.

I have now left work. For a variety of reasons, not least that I've finished my stint as a data entry clerk/emergency receptionist (when everyone else is in a meeting) and need time to learn things about African linguistics. I'm not sure what it says about me as a person that when faced with a choice between helping out in a vibrant, friendly NGO that is doing great things to help needy people and sitting in a library selfishly reading about Kabye morphology I choose the latter. I remember writing a letter to Livvy when I was in Paris saying I felt that at some point I'd have to choose between academic/literary introspection and actively trying to better the world, and I fear the former is gaining the upper hand. I am a geek, I may as well embrace the fact. It just makes me feel like I'm putting myself above everyone else, doing something that is of no benefit to anyone, just because I enjoy it, or I'd like to think I'm good at it. Or maybe it's just that the library has really good air-con.

So, as of tomorrow I will be a full-time geek for two weeks before heading off to the desert. And then I come home and my life gets considerably less interesting as I actually become engaged in the business of earning money. This will be rather a shock to the system, I fear.

Keep emailing!

Hannah xx