#138: Grad School

This Friday is a deadline for a graduate fellowship program in the US. Finished the first draft of my statement of purpose. Waiting for two more reference letters from a former employer and a former professor, who actually said we [AUCA graduates] never change and do things at the last moment. Damn procrastination!

I am applying to programs on Public Administration/Policy. Found several good schools in the U.S. and one in Singapore.

Last week I went to see three European films, picked by their embassies in Bishkek. Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's The Man Without a Past, nominated for Academy Awards and a Grand Prix winner in Cannes, was the best of all. If you get a chance, try to watch it. Good humor.

What really pleased the Bishkek crowd was when an employer at a steel plant in Helsinki said that 80% of her workers were from Kyrgyzstan, when the man who lost his memory said he did not know his name to fill out the necessary paperwork. Bishkek viewers did not care that Kyrgyz workers were being portrayed as illegal workers. Kyrgyzstan is rarely mentioned in Western movies (Asian movies are not popular, because we are a Russia-oriented country) that we are happy when we are mentioned at all.