today in "the boston globe" there were two editorial articles and both of them - on universities. one was the famous khatami visit to harvard and later M.I.T., and the other - on harvard's decision to end early admissions which will enable less rich students to be accepted in greater numbers. then there were some more articles... on the refusal by boston college to invite khatami to an islamic art exhibition and on the whole khatami issue in general... how do universities allow themselves to have the fierce femminist movements and critics of the government and at the same time invite to speak someone in whose country women are more persecuted than in the states and which has less democratic politics than the bush administration? some say, it's the manifestation of the freedom of speech, that universities are an example of the open discussion. the others, however, think that this was a purely political act - to welcome a less radical figure than ahmadinejad and demonstrate that this is the course of iran that washington expects to be the right one. in any case, i wanted to point out not the debate on khatami's visit, but the fact that universities matter here. they make the editorials. they make the news. i have never seen a front page article on vilnius university... that it did something, that it didn't do something. yes, sometimes there are news about some shameful things... or even about the need to reform the university system. but never the university plays a significant role in the country's affairs. it has no voice whatsoever. while here every day they matter. the universities and their pluralism.



but universities here do have problems as well. the main one, which is so far from what we are troubled about at home, where the complains on the quality of studies are the most important, is the money. it is too expensive to study here. 40 thousand dollars per year or more... brandeis is more expensive. it is small, it has brilliant professors and visiting lecturers and politicians, it is one of the most conscious on political matters, although it is jewish, having some major palestinians (or at least the one that simon told me about but i forgot... someone who is the brother of someone who is the leader of some most radical islamist movements) and others... the question of the izraeli-lebanon conflict was discussed in a conference here, by the way, but this issue needs more space and time than i can afford now... brandeis also has all the fancy facilities i already mentioned, that is, free buses around town and even to boston downtown, free printing and copying, computer and study center working all night, the four-floor library open till midnight, dozens of clubs - political, sports, cultural etc., you can also find somewhere to eat for free almost every day... and on fridays all graduate students have an event called T.G.I.F. which stands for "thanks god it's friday", where we get free snacks and free wine and beer... and then there are parties at night just in front of the main library or the shapiro - the multifuncional student space. the campus is alive day and night. and at night the green soccer field is usually full. actually, in the main rankings of universities in the united states - the U.S. news and world report - brandeis is the 31. and it is number four in massachusetts after harvard, M.I.T. and Tufts. these are very good indications. although in lithuania and probably europe nobody knows of brandeis as it is really small compared to the others, in the states everybody knows it. and knows it's good. and very expensive. and has a wonderful program of anthropology:) i'll have to get a brandeis pullover next month... i'm becoming patriotic:) but it's worth... i know that there are so many greater ones and maybe i should find one for my phd, but brandeis is like home.

looking through the library window this late morning i see overcast sky... and the wind was rather strong on my way to the bank to take some money before i get the debit card... this is the very edge of ernesto, i guess... the hurricane from the south. anyway, i have no time for contemplation, although i would be just sitting and writing letters... some three hundred pages to read and some on-line work to do during the first weekend... good, that we at least have labor day on monday, so no classes... but let's start from the beginning...



thursday was the first day of classes. the campus was busy with students like in the harry potter movie when hogwarts welcomes newcomers in september. undergrads following their instructors with yellow t-shirts, professors arriving from distant lands, full canteens of the hungry for knowledge and for food, full lawns of the resting between classes...

i do like brandeis campus. it's all in one place, different departments separated by pieces of forest or gardens, so green everywhere... if you go up to the financial student services you can see downtown boston in a sunny day, well, not like the one today... the campus has several restaurants, one bookstore where you can get almost all the books you need for classes, new and used, then there is a large sports complex or even several of them... i even got keys from my department so that i can come there anytime... to have some tea or to print or copy for free...



the infrastructure is also amazing compared to what we have in lithuania... here there are brandeis shuttles that operate all day and take students to different departments, take them to waltham center or even drive back home at midnight... it's better than a taxi as you don't have to pay at all, just sometimes to wait a bit... and from the next week the celebrated brandeis - cambridge shuttle will start... it takes students from brandeis to harvard square and downtown boston on mass av and beacon street corner... according to the schedule, the last bus leaves downtown at 2 am... hard to believe, isn't it?

then there is the police... brandeis has its own police cars which patrol the campus and a small police station... maybe it makes you feel safe, but i'm not sure if there is anything to be afraid of... except... well, the other day diego told me that at harvard they recieve e-mails from their police saying what had happened... and there was a girl raped. anyway, it'ss safer than anywehere else i have lived so far...



apart from the fancy police vehicles, there is the health center... here i got a shot for hepatitus b which apparently everybody already have... even the germans and the russians ... interesting that lithuanian health care system does not make it obligatory as it is in MA.

after classes on friday i went to downtowm boston to meet the fulbrighters. unfortunately, i chose the bus and not the commuter rail this time... and guess what? it took more than an hour to get there... the bus number 553 was stopping at every corner and then there was a huge traffic jam on the entrance from the mass pike to the south station in boston, which is near or in the chinatown. next time, i definitely take the rail... or the brandeis shuttle, of course. so, after i finally got there, there was nobody... so difficult to arrange meetings when most of the friends are "cell-phone-less":) waiting for ksenia i spent two hours at the border's bookstore... there is the "roots" by james clifford which was the first anthropological book i have read long time ago at the invisible college... i'll have to get that... then there was clifford geertz... but i was really disappointed with that section... really few books in anthropology. there were so many on women studies and even more on transgender studies... and some on men studies as well... actually, while waiting at park station i heard some guys talking... "are you a queer?" or "what a queer!"... a substitute for what we still call "gay" back home... and then... well, the whole section of military history... weapons, espionage and so on and so forth... a treasure for someone like deivis:) anyway, i liked the bookstore... as usually, with a cafe, many armchairs and all the comfort to come here and read books on the spot. however, no used books... these you can find in cambridge... at M.I.T. or harvard stores in particularly.



at the entrance of the boston common - opened in the seventeenth century - i met ksenia. she is russian from kaliningrad studying for her PhD in literature at M.I.T. in fact, not usual litarature but 'fanfics'... or fan fiction... all the extentions of 'harry potter', 'the lord of the rings', 'shrek', charles dickens or sherlok holmes... these can be 'shipfics' on the relationship of two characters which is not developed enough by the author... or these can be new endings... interesting. ksenia told me that harry potter is not going to die at the end, that rowling can't kill him... although the rest disagreed with her... the rest were four other russian immigrants in the u.s., who were playing cards all night while we were talking over some bottles of red wine... they like role-playing games as well... dress up like hobits... or imagine what happened after romeo and juliet died... interesting people. they say that the russian community is rather differentiated here... there are the new and the old immigrants who barely speak russian... and then they divide according to the regions which they come from. ksenia didn't know any of them before coming here. and now they welcomed her, gave her some space to sleep and take care of her. that's a community. although ksenia feels some difference... on her M.I.T. t-shirt there is a star of young lenin which they used to give to second-year students at school... and the rest think this is inappropriate, this is rude... they fled because of the soviet regime, they don't like it. for ksenia it is only a game. at three in the morning the game of cards finally ended and pasha drove me home to waltham. he is learning how to pilot a plane, he's been doing that for more than a year now... and had a flight this morning... i hope that ernesto didn't ruin this plan. interesting evening it was, indeed.

now i have to do some research on museums in lithuania... gruto parkas and the kgb museum will do. in the evening i'm meeting the german guys to go out to moody street... like we did some days ago when we went to the asian fusion restaurant and the really stupid beyond any limits movie... "oh in ohio".