lately

Lately I’ve been tirelessly trudging through all the (mostly incoherent) words the internet has to offer on telecommunications in Central Asia. The project is in the final stretch and I’m looking forward to not reading about how unregulated Tajikistan seems and how hopelessly isolated Turkmenistan is. They have five TV channels there. FIVE. Imagine that next time you flip through your hundreds of satellite TV channels, thinking there’s nothing good to watch.

Keeping with the past few weeks of my political enthusiasm, I completely ignored the elections on Sunday and recovered from food poisoning. Halloween, too, was spent in bed all day. Luckily, I didn’t miss anything major, there were no riots, no protests, no huge events of great importance that I would’ve felt, like, totally lame for missing out on.

In good news, lately I’ve been getting published all over the place. First, a photo I took during the Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan World Cup qualifying match was published in the Spektator, an English-language magazine here in Bishkek. Second, an article I wrote about protesting, and a photo series from Issyk-Kul, were posted on Jetsettlers, a new website with all sorts of stuff written by expats. Incredibly nichey, but it’s a start.

Now I’m getting restless and I’m planning to head to the southern shore of Issyk-Kul for some sort of festival involving various animal races. I don’t know what to expect; I’ve heard these things can be tourist traps. Eagles that “hunt” an animal that’s chained to a post, stuff like that. But we’ll see, I’m toting my whole rig with my so hopefully I’ll get some good action shots of whatever action takes place.