Saturday, July 11, 2009

I'm back

I've been away for ages. Not from Oxford, I mean, but from the blog. EXAMS.

That says it all really. They came and went and they were ok.

Last stages now of the MSc. Writing my thesis. Busy with Stata sorting out all that data. But that means I'm at my computer a lot again so I can type some stuff up now and then. Cool.

Been reading all about gangs and inner-city American poverty and that kinda thing. Well into the "conscious" hip-hop nowadays, wondering how we can harness ourselves to help the people in Sri Lanka. The Tamil people I mean.

What else? Still got my ESRC at Cardiff but thinking about staying in Oxford. It's all a bit complicated and so I'm avoiding thinking about it.

Saw my old maths department last night - good and bad memories of teaching are in my mind now. Seen the same people, doing the same thing really, but enjoying it.

Thought I'd post this one as I liked it. It's the intro from Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liqour album.

Food and liquor stores rest on every corner
From 45th and State to the last standin Henry Horner
J&J's, pale chicken, good finger lickin
While they sin, gin, sin sin at Rothschild and Kenwood Liquors
The winos crooked stagger
meets the high stride of the youth searchin for the truth
They rebel and raise hell across alleyways and in classroom settings
They get high off that drum bass and 20/20 rims
They rock braids, Air Force Ones and Timbs
They drink Hennessy, Hypnotiq and 40's
They call they women hoes, bust downs and shorties
They keep funeral homes in business and gunshot wards of hospitals full
Prisons packed, bubblin over in brown sugar
They keep empty, Westside lots crowded, hype's powdered
The well is running dry, the days of Malcolm and Martin have ended
Our hope has descended and off to the side
Waiting for the reinstallment of the revolution
Because we are dying at the cost of our own pollution
But God has another solution, that has evolved from the hood
I present one who turns, the Fiasco to good