all work and no play...

Working is no fun. Getting up early, returning home late. I don’t even get paid much. By Greek standards it’s the most I can hope for at the moment, but Greek wages are ridiculously low. Plus I am constantly stressed I’ll get fired. Actually they can’t fire me since they didn’t hire me, but they can say my services are no longer needed… In my line of work they rarely hire you with a proper contract, there’s this little loophole that lets them hire you as an “external associate” since theoretically (and practically, but not with my experience!) an architect can always be self-employed.

But I must insist that working is no fun. I feel like I barely have any time for myself. Correction, I feel like I barely have any time for myself where I have the energy or mood to do anything. Which means things are falling behind.

Employed at last!

I finally got a job!!!

It seems like I am no longer unemployed. An architectural office had taken me on a “trial run”. Today they gave me the keys to the office. that means they're taking me on properly, right?
The thing about working is it doesn’t really leave you enough time and energy for “other stuff”. I have finally found the mystery to be solved in the little post-war mytery harry/draco I have been thinking of for ages now, but can’t seem to get round to writting it.

What is worse of course is that the office I am working for looks like it specialises in the typical boring run-of-the-mill apartment blocks that are overrunning the greek cities. It feels like a small betrayal to be contributing towards the construction of buildings that I relentlessly put down in my free time. Artistic integrity or a wage? Since I desperately need the money to rent my own apartment I guess it’s a moot point.

What gets me through is the thought that in five years (a small eternity) I should be able to find work in an architectural office who’s work I will actually like or maybe get a job in the civil sector (the only way you have any hope – slim as it is – to change the way cities are built) or maybe even start a practice of my own with friends. Five years is a long time to wait... That’s why in the mean time with a group of architect friends we are looking for an architectural competition to take part in. It’s the only way we are going to get to do anything remotely creative in the near future.

There are days that I feel like I sold out. This summer I went to a Rainbow Gathering. It was a unique experience. It made me feel more comfortable in my own skin. It showed me that there are people who manage to live according to their teenage ideals even into their forties and fifties. Only thing is as much as I admire travellers, buskers and new age hippies I don’t think I could do it. I am in love with architecture which basically means an office job in a city.

But I have been thinking...

Architecture is not only buildings. I have known that for ages. I am even more interested in the city and urban space. Making a difference in the city means either the civil service or politics. Years ago an architect family friend told me that if I wanted to go into urbanism I should go into politics. It was the only way I had a hope of getting anything done.

A couple of weeks ago we had municipal elections. The woman on the floor below the floor below us (we more or less all know each other) gave us pamphlets on behalf of her son who was running as a municipal councilor. He is about two years younger that me at least. My father handed me the pamphlets and asked me jokingly why I wasn’t running too. I laughed. But then I read through the pamphlets of the “party” he was running with and started to wonder why I wasn’t running. Most of the stuff they were proposing was stuff that I would be remarkably interested in implementing.

Which got me to thinking... If I want to change the world I got to get cracking. I really should get my shit together so I can do some serious thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life. And then I have to work out how I am going to make a difference. The world is in a shitty state and if we all don’t pull our weight it will only get worse. What is it they said at the Rainbow Gathering? “I wondered why someone didn’t do something and then I realised that I was someone.”

Umm... This was a boring disjointed rample, wasn’t it? But that is kind of the state of my mind this day: confused and disjointed.

feeling a bit whiny

It’s a hot October and the second wave of tourists has hit the city of Athens. It’s all quite tiresome really. The hordes of tourists that invade during the summer months are all right, you get used to them. They can be amusing and distracting. It’s even sort of nice and different that when August comes around there are more foreigners than Greeks in the centre of the city. It makes you feel sort of cosmopolitan.

But when autumn comes and you find that the city is still inundated by groups of loud Americans in louder shirts, German OAPs with knobbly knees in shorts and backpackers with maps you feel it’s all got a bit too much. Holiday season is over! Isn’t it? Well it should be.

It isn’t as if Athens isn’t noisy and messy enough these days. What with municipal elections coming up, the teachers protesting, solidarity marches for Lebanon and Palestine and occasional strikes by the public transport and the major labour unions we are having a lovely month so far.

The festival is over!

And yesterday the Athens film festival finished! I didn’t see all that many films, not like the “good old times” where I could see over 40 films in the two weeks of the Thessaloniki film festival. Gayness seems to be in fashion the past year in Greece and the festival followed the trend by having a whole section on queer cinema.

As usual I preferred the rare, strange or experimental.

Warhol’s Lonesome Cowboys: slow and disjointed and just a bit boring even though very funny at points. Horridly sexist too. There was only one woman in the film I didn’t appreciate the way she was portrayed or the way she was treated by the men.
Blood, tea and red string: a very strange and slightly disturbing stop motion animation. Very enigmatical, but also rather good.
Thundercrack!: so rare there are only 4 or something copies in the world, which makes sense since they say it’s the most walked out off film in the history of cinema. It’s also one of the oddest. It’s a comic horror bi-sexual porn b-movie! Black and white seventies on top of all that. It was hillarious!
The pervert’s guide to the cinema: two and a half hours (with no break) of Slavoj Zizek analysing the cinema through a lacanian view at breakneck speed. Very interesting, but too much too fast.
The Queen: a rare little documentary about a drag queen beauty contest in 1967.
Scorpio Rising: a Kenneth Angers film with 50s rock and roll sountrack motorcycles, leather, religious parallels and nazi flags. Odd and disjointed as Angers is and very fetishistic and I’m sure very provocative for when it came out.

Pink Narcissus: about the strangest film I saw in the festival. And maybe the gayest. For 71 minutes you see a beautiful boy meandering around over decorated settings, undressing, fantasising, touching himself etc. Most of it with a pink wash over it.... Odd and mesmerising.

Obviously there were "mainstream" films too. I only saw two memorable ones though.

Shortbus: by Cameron Mitchel (he of Hedwig and the angry inch). It was supposed to contain nothing but sex, but there is much more to it than that. It's about people and relationships and sex. It's sweet and beautiful and quirky and I thoroughly recommend it.
Laitakaupungin Valot (Light at dusk): by the finnish director with the japanses name (Aki Kaourismaki). Really, really atmosphric. Is Helsinki REALLY like that? It was like going back in some type of timewarp. Dysfunctional people and 60s electrical appliances in the most depressing areas of the city and with such an unbelievable LOSER as the hero that you almost believe he deserves what he gets. Not as good though as The man without a past.

And finally what would the festival be without the prerequisite musical documentaries?

Air Guitar Nation: hilarious, hilarious documentary about the world air guitar competition. There are people out there that take air guitar very very seriously. As one guy said :To air is human, to air guitar divine.
LoudQUIETloud: the Pixies reunion tour. Why did I see that film? The Pixies are good but I'm hardly a fan and would someone please tell me why Kim Deal is god?
Glastonbury: more my think. The history of the Glastonbury festival in two and a half hours. Really good and really informative. Why, why, why have I never been to the festival?

The 12th International Film Festival of Athens as I saw it...

I'm better now

Tomorrow is the start of the Athens film festival, hooray! It’s nothing much really, doesn’t compare to the marvellous Thessaloniki international film festival, but it’s better than nothing. My splendid friend Nikoletta took pity on poor broke me and is lending me the money to get the festival card. Now I must see films. Unfortunately not too many, I’m still job hunting and I must spend time at home keeping my parents happy lest they throw me out on my ear. I don’t want to end up homeless, jobless and penniless in a country with pathetic social security. I don’t even get unemployment benefit!

No, I must be a good girl and stay at home until I can implement my three–step plan:
1. get a job
2. find a house (sharing with the marvellous Nikoletta preferably)
3. get an adsl internet connection!

Afterwards I can deal with lesser worries, like getting a driving licence and a boyfriend. Sometimes I wonder if my priorities have got mixed up....

First post (sort of)

I'm cheating.

I've had this blog for ages but never actually used it because my main blog is over at livejournal. However blogspot is where all the greeks are at, so I thought I should come here too. Also livejournal accounts are being hacked left and right lately. Creating duplicate posts over here seems like a good idea.
How am I cheating? I'm going to backdate this post, just like I'm going to post all my old livejournal posts over here too backdating them to their original dates. It'll look like I've active at blogspot longer than I actually have, but who cares?

This post was actually posted on Saturday 6 December 2008