a passing interest in the past

Recently I've enjoyed the following activities:
1. Cycling through sunshine, wind and rain listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks. Writing a dissertation apparently means constant headaches and feeling braindead, so this is the most relaxing thing I can think of. (I do hate how Stephen Fry makes Ron appear a bit dumb though.)
2. Time spent with my brothers - cooking, watching football, silly conversations. It's the best flatshare I can think of.
3. My mum and I watched this film, it's a documentary/essay film about Europe at night. If you get the chance to see it, please do! The camera is used to observe different episodes without any comment whatsoever - apart from the way the scenes are arranged, obviously. Humanity is so strange and interesting.
4. Days spent in the library are actually amazing, if only because I get to observe all kinds of strange behaviour. The other day I saw someone play World of Warcraft! I also keep finding new and wonderful books that I want to read once I have time to read what I want again.
5. Listening to this song about twenty times in a row every day. I guess being ready to say, "This is my favourite band" is a sign that I'm growing old.
6. Thinking about this quote by Charles Tilly (one of those historians with an absolutely incredible output of books) and trying to figure out how I feel about it: „We shall know that a new era has begun not when a new elite holds power or a new constitution appears, but when ordinary people begin contending for their interests in new ways. Of course, changes in contention could occur mainly as effects of changes in elites or constitutions. The historical challenge is to try out that hypothesis, not to take its validity for granted.“
7. Staring at houses. I do love houses. And the occasional, surprising glimpse of what must be a church tower. I've not fallen out of love with you yet, Vienna, and looking down on you every day from a window of the library, right underneath the roof of the university, and seeing more roofs and trees and cranes and hills and trams makes me feel all sentimental about your strange 19th century charms.

One of these days, I'll stop writing these lists and start composing actual texts.