I have to say I’m not a (big) fan of the Eurovision. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad my home city is the host city of this year’s competition, I just don’t know much about the competition itself. TV performances, pointless pop songs, pointless dance songs, “glamour”, really bad English (c’mon people, sing in your own language for a change, there’s nothing wrong with that, on the contrary!) - not really my thing.

Personally, I’m glad Belgrade got the opportunity to show itself in the positive light. I have to admit I adore my city and tourists are usually quite surprised to see it’s a modern European city (now what did they exactly expect? More than 2 million people live in Belgrade, and of course it looks like an European city, because- IT IS an European city (duh). Belgrade has a rich culture and history, but tourists are usually interested in the night life (meaning: insane number of clubs all over the city that work all night… suuure, that sounds fun, but it’s just not my thing, and there are several under my window, and that just not as great as it sounds. But I’ll whine about it some other time).

So, welcome to Belgrade I believe people will have fun…
…We just need to survive today’s elections. Don’t ask.

Official website: http://www.eurovision.tv/

PS- About our participant… This year, Serbia is presenting another Joksimovic’s creation, though “Oro” is a better song (sorry, I just can’t stand “Lane moje”) and Jelena Tomasevic has a great voice. Some say audience got bored of this etno ballads style of songs, some say Europe just love them… we’ll see. What I don’t like about this whole thing- majority of people here believe we’re gonna win again! I mean, that would be great, but could you just wait and see?!?!?

My dear hamster Ellie died today afternoon.

I adore animals and I really loved my Ellie. She was a white-with-black-ears Syrian, and she lived for two years and two months, which means she died of old age.

When she was 5 months old, Ellie lost her left hind foot in an accident. Nobody knows what really happened. She escaped the cage with her brothers and sisters, and when she was found, we noticed her foot was black. A few days later, the foot fell of, and after that, she was acting normally, eating, playing etc.

Ellie was not my hamster back then, but I adopted her after the accident, because I knew it would be really hard for her to find a nice home- people don’t really want disabled hamsters as pets. I’m glad I adopted Ellie, because she was an adorable little hammie, sweet and surprisingly tame for a female (female Syrians tend to be a bit aggressive).

Ellie mated with Vito, and had two babies. Yes, there were only two of them in the litter, both males- which was a bit surprising, since there are usually a) at least 5 cubs in the litter, b) there are often more females than males. And Ellie had only two cubs, both males, Chip and Dale.

She died of old age, but I still gonna miss her. She was not just a pet hamster, she was my little Ellie, you know what I mean?

Here’s a really short clip of Ellie and her son Chip (he died in June 2007, my poor Chip); he’s outside the cage, and Ellie is inside. Of course, he didn’t know she was his mother and was interested in her as an ordinary female.

RIP, my darling, my little Ellie.

I know, I’m mean. IT IS mean to name this entry after one of Vedder’s songs, because this is not fun at all.

Two days ago, a ceiling at one of the classrooms at Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade collapsed. Just like that. Nobody was hurt but I was really pissed off when I heard about this. After all, I’m one of the students, and while I’m not concerned about my safety, I am really really furious about this.

NOTE: Those classrooms, were renovated just a few months ago, and they were really classy compared to the others. Shit. Obviously, somebody did a really bad renovation job. Police is investigating the whole thing.