Perhaps I should start with the rant. Did it ever occur to you people that the reason spam sounds like it does is because that's how people in some countries really write?

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I also went abroad to do a degree, and many of the other people on my degree (many of my friends) were also foreigners. I knew many like you, hating the local situation and desperate to go home. But let me warn you --- one thing I saw over and over again (though not every time) was that when my friends went back to their old lives, they missed something about the country they'd just been in! It's easy to remember the good things you are missing and overlook the good things you have acquired, because you start taking the things that are present for granted. So please, do try to think about what you might miss when you go home, and enjoy these things the more in your last four months.

If you don't mind me saying so, you sound very likely to be a woman, and it is an unfortunate psychological fact that women often underestimate their own abilities. You may find you are a better student than you realize. If you really do not care about that and are truly content with your old life, then take the advice of the person living in email. But I think this is a chance for you to make interesting friends among your coursemates and other people in your situation at your university. Look for them in lectures & cafaterias -- people who are sitting alone --- and ask if you can sit next to them. Some will be boring or rude but some will be wonderful, and you can look for them again the next day. These may ironically be the people who sustain you after you go back home, especially if you have internet access there.

Interesting --- when I logged in this morning there were only about 5 responses to this letter, but at least two of them were *really* rude. Now only one of the rude ones is left. So I guess the Salon editors not only allocate stars, but also do some moderation.

That's a good thing I think -- there's no reason for people who are in the situation of the writer to have to read some of the things people were saying. But I'd just never known it before. Most blogs with moderated comment sections make that clear.

Give the doctor another chance, but not next week -- the second episode of this series is only for the true devotees.

The old series were made out of 4 or 6 half-hour episodes, the new series is made out of single 45 minute episodes, so lacks some depth & complexity of the old series. You don't get this sense of "they are getting seperated on an alien planet in different times how will they ever get back together" that you used to. But later in the season, there start being some multi-part episodes, and there's this great bisexual 35th century American character who really picks things up.

Anyway, the third episode is pretty good regardless, and it's not long after that that there's a spectacular episode set in WWII in London. The only problem with that episode is some deep hokeyness at the end, but it was broadcast on the 60th anniversery of the end of the war, and you have to realize that people are still pretty emotional about having had their capital bombed for a few years, and remember expecting to be invaded.

Anyway, I don't even have a TV (so this is the first time I've read your column) but I went over to some friends' house with my partner and at least one bottle of wine ever Saturday during the season and we all had a riot. The doctor is definitely back!

I unfortunately missed this video, but I did watch the whole Colbert video and you know, the audience were laughing all the way through that too. Maybe not as hard as at whatever the previous act was, maybe they were incredulous or afraid to laugh conspicuously at such blatent heresy, but they did laugh anyway.

I think Colbert may very well have had the impact he wanted to of waking up the DC press. You notice in high-level negotiations that no one admits when a subordinate wins; things just quietly change. If Bush were winning, no one would have been able to do that routine. If Colbert had made an idiot of himself, it would have been written up everywhere.

I think Salon has done a great service in letting so much more of the country know what happened. But I do think it's a shame you have to spin so hard to get people to look at things.