Heedless of the wind and weather

I came to my room with the intention of writing another section of my extended essay, but have spent most of the time faffing about putting photos on facebook. (This is always irritating cos for some reason I can't do it on Firefox and have to use Explorer.) However, festive pictures should now be there for your delectation.

Got home today after a week traipsing round England in what seems, in retrospect, like an extended wine-tasting. It started in London (after a prolific bout of work on the East Coast main line) for an exciting AV reunion, where there was much ooh-ing over Nat's new flat and Wellers's engagement (congratulations!!) and I thought how much we've grown up since we all met at the airport four years ago, untravelled and fresh out of school. We went out for a lovely meal in Chiswick and caught up and reminisced lots and pouted in lots of photos, and then unfortunately I had to leave cos it was Nik's birthday the next day and I was going to stay with him. However, due to the combined incompetence of my timekeeping, late-evening holiday period tube services, London Victoria's ticket machine provision and the slow man in front of me in the queue, I succeeded in missing the train and dragging Nik out to fetch me from Epsom at 1 a.m. in the freezing fog (I can't deal with these harsh southern climes) with the remnants of a cold. Oops.

Still, his birthday was fun - he beat me and his sisters resoundingly (twice) at his new Friends trivia DVD game (surprise, surprise) and we had a nice meal and a very competitive game of Trivial Pursuits. (Snowflakes have 6 sides. I knew that, but did they listen...?) On Christmas Eve his mum was giving a huge party which was really cool, but I had to leave after a couple of hours (and spent those gripped by train paranoia) and go to my grandparents' where we had a very traditional Christmas (turkey, flaming puddings, board games, carols). Nik came up on Boxing Day and coped admirably with my mad relatives and their perishingly cold house.

Took my brothers to London yesterday (though Davy would like it to be known that he is an adult and capable of taking care of himself) which, despite more train madness (sodding Virgin, bunch of incompetents), ended up being fun. Charlie is just young enough for it still to be rewarding when you take him to something he enjoys, even if he is old enough for you to take to Avenue Q. Which was, overall, excellent. The second half seemed like a desperate attempt to cobble together a coherent plot from the various amusing songs and characters and consequently the ending felt rather unsatisfactory, and the tunes weren't very memorable (which, considering that the words were, was disappointing) but, overall, excellent.

Back from Warwickshire in the car today, hate car journeys, esp in the back, esp with bony boys with their iPods turned up too loud. Ah well.

Soooo much work to do. Depressing. Just want to lie comatose and eat chocolate. Grr.

Still, can get a bargainous ticket to London for New Year. Carrot.

Ooh, ooh, just one more...

"Oh, come on, it's not like men have never used sex to get what they want?"
"How can we use sex to get what we want? Sex is what we want!"

------------------------

"You think my wiles are masculine?"

"They're blue... to match your... lips, when they're cold..."

I'm supposed to be working... Shh... Don't tell anyone... I'm lying on the sofa watching Frasier, MSNing Liv, sipping red wine and giggling out loud. I was meant to be reading some articles that I printed out (I'm halfway through my print quota already???!!) but I can do it on the train on Tuesday. Along with reading all the books on francophonie... and planning the damn essay... and writing an introduction... and the 12 WW1 novels (why? why? why would I do that to myself?)... You can bet this will be the one time I don't get stuck for 3 hours in Doncaster...

Gaah, sodding Windows keeps trying to restart my computer. No, I want to install updates when I'm finished, thankyou.

I have Bod-madness. I've been in that (or Rhodes House, queen of libraries) since Monday, from as soon as I can drag myself there until the tetchy librarian comes round and wrenches the books from under my pale, nervous grasp. (Is anyone else worried that the abyss below is going to swallow their books at the end of the day? I always have to expressly tell the librarians I want to see the books again tomorrow - no, I don't want to restart my sodding computer - and they all think I'm neurotic and irritating, but I just can't trust the this-side-goes-back-to-the-stack-this-side-goes-back-to-the-shelf' system.) I am suffering with the almost total lack of literature on Togo (i.e. on half my essay) except for the absurdly technical of articles in French and the thing that sounds like it's exactly what I want, but it's in German. But, there we go....

"... whose ancestors were once heard to remark, 'Oh, that's a nice wooden horse, sure I'll sign for it!'"

NO! COMPUTER! NO! STOP IT!

"I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with a guy whose favourite T-shirt reads 'Seattle Hooter inspector'."

Sorry, I will cease the Frasier-quoting.

Nik is in Manchester using big manly chemist machines, which is great because it meant I got to do my 'you're leaving me alone' eyes and make him walk all the way to Jericho to watch political documentaries! The U.S. vs John Lennon was very interesting, if rather obvious parallels. 'America has this mad president. He's curtailing civil liberties and fighting this mad war in some faraway country in the name of democracy, but it's messy and not working... hmm... Just what are we alluding to? What?!' And they kept going on about how John Lennon could make a really serious point because he was a brilliant artist, but the film itself was just a lot of old interviews and concert footage interspersed with people talking. But it made me think. We don't really have anyone like that. If the world is, as I sometimes think, doomed, there isn't really anyone who (shut up windows) has the same influence. Lennon was such a threat to the establishment because he was so famous the press jumped on anything he did. Who do we have now? Paris Hilton?

"Why is it so easy to love your family but so hard to like them?"
"Ah, Daphne, that's one of the questions that makes life so rich... and psychiatrists richer."

I've bought a cardigan. Another one. It's big and pinky-purpley and warm and snuggly and I love it and it was in the sale but I think it's mumsy and makes me look like I'm 35.

"Isn't it sad when bad things happen to good sentences?"

Ack, I have to be a soprano again tomorrow. I've been croaky all week. That doesn't bode well. Especially for the Messiah on Saturday. I got an email from someone at Oxford Phil saying Nik could have a free ticket if he agreed to sell CDs. I very nearly replied thus:

Yes, that would be fine. He hates classical music and would be thrilled not to have to part with beer money for the concert. Does he need to wear a shirt?

"She deserves a doctor... or a lawyer... someone for whom a T-shirt is an undergarment."

All right, Bill Gates, you win!

xx

Yesterday I harangued Nik for being boring and doing nothing but watch TV and dragged him to the University Parks in a boring, middle-aged couple sort of way, and I took lots of photos of leafless trees and geese. Here are some of them.

Carols, ice-cream and postcolonial language policy

Ow. I don't think I was designed to sing soprano. Not judging by the pain, and the hoarseness, and the coughing, and the croaking.

Had my arm twisted into helping out St John's for their staff carol service, as their entire soprano section has gone ski-ing, which was presented to me as general carol-type shenanigans, with a couple of choir items... except these turned out to include Jesus Christ the Apple Tree (which is lovely, but those top Gs come out of flippin' nowhere) and I Saw Three Ships (which is all pitched about half an octave above my comfort zone).

And, to top it all off, during We Three Kings, some people traipsed up to the crib with a (fake) gold crown, some frankincense and some myrrh, which was hugely exciting, as I've never seen that before, but smokey and had me hacking away!

But it was fun, and I'm doing it again next week.

Afterwards I raced to Cafe Opium to celebrate Holly's birthday, ate a funky chicken dish with mangoes in, then sat around in G & D's having peculiar conversations. When we finally dragged our weary selves away, Zhenia's bike key snapped off in the lock, which happened to me over the summer and is really irritating, and we all faffed around trying to snap it, wondering how to get the bike over the top of the sign, asking the nice man in G & D's for a pair of pliars, only to find (when he appeared, bearing said useful implement) that it actually came away quite easily in James's hands...

Entertained me, anyway!

Otherwise, have done extremely little - theoretically I'm working like a Trojan (that warrior race well-known for their vicious use of OLIS stack requests and violent assaults on unsuspecting reading rooms) but due to residual term-fatigue, have been less productive than I'd like. Though I have discovered the wonderful Rhodes House, which is by no means least among the libraries of Oxford. Massively impressive and exciting building, rotunda, huuuge wooden staircase, pictures of venerable people, calls its toilets 'cloakrooms', friendly, smiley staff... That chemistry guy Nik was talking about probably took pictures of it. I should try and find them.

Though I am tired. So not now.

I will just listen to the end of Choral Evensong (from Newcastle), and then I will sleep.

Sod Facebook.

Oh dear. Oh deary me. Deary, deary, deary me.

I've been sucked in by YouTube.

I thought it was just a conduit for amateur porn, other people's children's school plays and things that weren't funny enough to get on You've Been Framed.

How wrong, how wrong I was.

Monty Python sketches... Rowan Atkinson's Welcome to Hell... French and Saunders' Titanic... All the bits of Father Ted that Catherine and Paul have been quoting for the past three years...

It's all here, in tantalisingly short and watchable snippets - "Oh, just one more before I go to sleep!" I said, two hours ago. TWO HOURS!!!!

My soul is damned for ever. Damned.

I know I should feel Christmassy, but....

The brain fog lifted at the weekend and the return to normal life would have been blissful, had it not been accompanied by a massive backlog of work. Consequently, we have two days left till the end of term, and I still have two essays to write. Which means I have to spend my last Christmas dinner with Symbolist poetry nagging annoyingly at me. (Oxford has surpassed itself, and achieved what it has been attempting for three years: this year, Christmas comes before Advent.) Fortunately, Nik will be there, and has an interview tomorrow morning, so with any luck he'll drag me home in time for him to get an early night, and therefore I'll be able to tease my inchoate thoughts on Mallarme into something resembling a structured argument of 2000 words, unimpeded by hangover and tiredness.

I had thought Christmas would be doubly exciting and magical, having been away last year and missed out on carols, mulled wine, tinsel and the like last year, but aside from the choir festivities, it feels rather like a party for the first and second years. The theme is 'Oscars' and there are Queen's 'Academy Awards', where you vote for the fittest people, the lewdest public display of affaction, the best sportspeople etc, and when I got it in my pidge I immediately thought, "Ooh, that'll be so-and-so... oh no, he's left..." It really just made me feel old. And boring. And like I've done nothing but work all term. Socially, I feel like I've left already.

Have decided to put postgrad plans on hold, partly cos I don't know whether I want to do literature or linguistics, and partly cos the AHRC form scares me. In a way, I'm really just postponing the decision, which is rather cowardly and probably ultimately unproductive, but it is possible that another term, finals and results will indicate if I have a strong inclination or ability for one or the other.

Annoyingly, while I'm quite happy to wander through life without any fixed purpose (so long as I don't actually starve), I would quite like to know, materially, what I'm going to be doing next September, when the student loan and subsidised accommodation are no more. I'm twitchy like that. I thought about doing something dictionary-related (and got all enthused by meeting a real-life lexicographer last week) but then I would either have to stay in Oxford or move to Glasgow, neither of which I really want to do. Applying for any corporate graduate scheme makes me want to gnaw my arm off, so I'm really down to scouring Guardian jobs for something that takes my fancy, probably something arts or heritage related. There was a gorgeous job at English Heritage, but unfortunately they probably aren't looking for someone to start in several months time. Same goes for anything else I'd have to apply for on a job-by-job basis. Dammit.

I made roast dinner for the first time ever on Saturday, and didn't poison anyone, which made it in my eyes a triumph. I know feel ready to take on knitting, parents' evenings and all the other trappings of domesticity. Emboldened by last week's success, Nik and I have now decided to make chicken in beer, which I had on Christmas Eve last year and remember being nice, and appealed to him for... some reason... can't work out what...

Conversation in the linguists' kitchen a while ago:

"How is it lunchtime already?"
"How is it sixth week already?"
"How is it fourth year?"

"It is dainty to be sick..."

"... if you have leisure and convenience for it." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Bah. I don't like being ill. It makes me cross. I feel all frustrated and useless. However, as my brain is a fog and I feel like I might fall asleep at any given moment, I have little choice but to... wallow indulgently in my fate, retreat to bed with excess Blackadder, get people to do things for me and keep whining on about how it might be something really serious.

Not much has happened lately. Nik had a particularly comic bout of manflu last week, but in my current state I can't really mock him for that. We went and saw 'The Blue Room' which was really good in places, though not in others, and aside from the full frontal nudity wasn't as shocking as it claimed to be. I wanted to be scandalised, dammit. I did a timed essay in French, where I tried to situate feminism in the context of 19th century human rights discourse, but really just ended up with polemical ranting. Though I managed to write the right amount of words in the right amount of time, which was hugely empowering (till the brain fog kicked in). Choir has been much improved of late. This might be because Tom now gives everyone tea before Sunday rehearsals.

I battled the brain fog on Monday and Tuesday to write an essay which my tutor said was "good" and led to an actual, interesting discussion, where I made suggestions and comments and allsorts. Hurrah. Then I went to buy some vegetables, and now I'm trying to file things, but not very successful. In fact, I just have a pile of files (miles of files) on my carpet as well as a pile of paper on my desk. So, probably not a productive endeavour as yet. Ah well.

Last night someone left a mysterious offering of Lockets and chocolates outside my door, with a note attached to it written in orange highlighter. I wonder who that could have been...

Symbolism hurts. I'm going to go and make a pasta bake.

"They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm
But with the sea at your feet and the phoney false alarm
And the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms"

Poetry, or just plain bollocks?

Frenetic

Yesterday, I woke up with a hangover, and a sinking feeling that I had rambled somewhat in front of my tutor the night before. I couldn't decide whether to go to lectures or to go back to bed, and regretted choosing the former when existentialism and phenomenology did not combine well with the residual wine fog in my brain. So I skipped Gide.

Last week I was mostly writing essays. Some of them seemed okay. But they tried to kill me, which wasn't nice. Having recovered from the tension headaches and the sleep deprivation, I now feel I should be all organised and planning-in-advance-y to avoid situation repeating, but instead I spent all of yesterday afternoon engaged in girly faffage.

After years of traipsing up the SCR stairs to sing grace, before being banished to the OTR with some salmon and a stale bread roll, it was finally my turn to go to the All Saints' gaudy which very nearly made up for all the phonetics revision I did in first year! The food was excellent and the wine plentiful, which was just as well because I spent most of the time discussing porn films and legalising prostitution with the chaplain, who was very keen to stress that nowhere in the New Testament is sex before marriage forbidden. Then we all went outside, shivered, came back in and I got to sit at high table where a combination of relief and wine meant I talked far, far too much and fomented discord within the Modern Languages faculty. Oops.

Afterwards, some of us went to the MCR and drank a bottle of wine, which we then had to finish in Pippa and Zhenia's room because we got kicked out, and we had a great evening, even if I did get end up singing (to the accompaniment of my very out of practice and uncoordinated guitar playing). Ooh, and Zhenia treated us to a beautiful Russian song, and she can actually play the guitar properly, and it was lovely. Then I brought Sally home in the dead of night down some dark alleys (sorry) and woke up at 6.30 in the morning, gasping for water. I drank about half a litre, then was just dropping off to sleep when I needed the loo, so I abandoned the lie-in and bounced rather feverishly round my room until it was time for some nice calming Sartre.

And now Livvy's here! Hurrah! Rob abandoned her to watch the football, so we had a gloriously girly evening in the kitchen, eating enormous quantities of Belgian chocolate and shepherd's pie, enjoying the spectacle of Catherine's rather anxious baking, enjoying the results of said baking, and then conducting a washing up marathon. And there are shopping/choir/formal/Scrabble plans. Hurrah!

This made me and Holly giggle/cringe.

I'm not sure I like Norton. It's like one of those malign servants who deluded their slightly dopey masters by saying they'd 'take care of everything' and then spread evil without them noticing. I don't really know what it's doing, but it says it's fixing my computer and I'm too ignorant to know if it's telling me the truth, and I daren't disbelieve it, in case I get casinos and porn everywhere. It's sort of malevolently too good to be true.

Ooh, no, my basil plant's all droopy and spotty.

My nutritional intake today (barring my usual healthy breakfast) has thus far consisted of a cafetiere of strong, black coffee and half a chocolate orange.

Previous to this I was so tired I fell asleep on my books.

Yesterday, I wrote an essay.

On Thursday, I wrote an essay until 3 a.m.

Today, I have to write another essay.


Please, please, please can I sleep now????

Procrastination rocks!

I've visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited? made by marnanel map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey. © Crown copyright 2001.

"Neil is an actor, comedian and and master of improvisation who was once responsible for the shortest ever run of a Beckett play, when he improvised the opening line, 'Hello, Godot, what are you doing here?'"

Musing...

I think I might become addicted to cocaine.

Then I wouldn't need to sleep.

It would make life easier.

In some ways.

I've had more bike locks than you've had hot meals...

Well, perhaps I haven't. But sometimes it feels like it. I'm on my fourth since June.

Actually, the latest thing to have gone wrong with my bike, is the rusty chain. While this has, I admit, been a problem roughly since I got the thing in first year, recently it has started to make clunking noises and threaten to snap if I go uphill. Or even flat. Or indeed anything other than quite steeply downhill. I did buy some oil, but I promptly left it in the changing rooms at New Look and couldn't go back to claim it till Tuesday. And it comes in a spray can and has one of those funny, tiny plastic straws that I don't know where to put and... meh. I just can't be bothered. So, I've been walking everywhere, which is good to do once in a while cos it uses different muscles, and enables you to carry an umbrella and hence not get soaked in the rain.

Incidentally, we were promised rain and floods of Biblical proportions on Monday, and none have materialised.

This is brought to you from the computer room, which I feel bad using for non-work things, except that a vast proportion of people seem to be checking Facebook, so perhaps I'm being too harsh on myself. I did say earlier that my twitchiness and disinclination to work were solely a result of my anxiety about getting my extended essay form in and promised myself (and Holly, who is my conscience incarnate) that after taking that fateful piece of paper to Wellington Square, I would sit in the library (or the OTR, which is cosier) with my old friend Mr Carnie and get reacquainted with the advantages of X-bar theory. However, I am still feeling restless and scared of syntax, and totally unmotivated by the fact that my tute is in less than 48 hours and I've read about 10 pages on the (rather complicated) subject, so clearly that was just an excuse to play Tetris.

But, hey, how cool does, "Language planning and language policy: a comparative study of East Africa and Togo" sound?!

Oxford is much the same as it ever was - busy and meteorologically dubious - except for the fact that I have a kitchen, and only know about 4 people. In fact, I spend a lot of my time sitting in said kitchen with other linguists, bemoaning the fact that I have so much work and know so few people. I have been to the pub a total of twice, and drunk two halves of Kronenbourg. (And a lot of wine at Liz's party on Saturday.)

I've also been struck by the urge to do an MA in something other than linguistics. After a suggestion of African Literature from my tutor, I browsed the SOAS website and am now sooooo tempted by the Anthropology of Food. I did want to do French, and have switched to an option in WW1 literature (which will doubtless be a far cry from A-Level Eng Lit with Ms Clare, but probably fun nonetheless) instead of Semantics, on the basis that Semantics fills me with fear and panic. And I love literature and I don't want to stop studying it. And I love linguistics (most of the time) and don't want to stop studying that either. Aargh! It's like UCAS all over again. So, yes, my tutor suggested African Literature or African Studies, which sounds exciting, but rather like the sort of thing my parents would think was mad... The more I think about it, and the more I think about other options, the more attractive an option I find academia, but, meh - host of choices, little time to decide. I suppose whatever I choose I'll have some regrets, and if I do do linguistics (as I've planned for, what, a year?) it's not like I'll never read a book again, and if I do something literary, it's not like I can't learn Swahili on the side, but I was so lucky to find a degree that allowed me to do both, it's rather a shock having to choose now.

Bah.

Making hot drinks, Hannah-style

1. Infuse caffeinated substance in hot water.
2. Leave to brew for twice as long as anyone else would.
3. Do not adulterate with milk or sugar. Slices of lemon are acceptable in Earl Grey.

Jesus, this essay malarky is a lot tougher than I remember it. I don't have the stamina I had in first and second year, either. I worked till 12 last night, and it's totally knocked me out today!

I am not a fresher and I don't want their evil flu.

Some photos from home...

Si j'ai toujours raison
Je suis pas un mec sympa

Too right, my friend, too right......

YES!! WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!!!!

Firstly, everyone should eat Tyrrells crisps. Not least because they are delicious, for I agree this is an important incentive to purchase foodstuffs, but also because they stopped Tesco marching all over them, just because they're a big supermarket and Tyrrells are an independent producer.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1875532,00.html
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1874707,00.html

I've been at home for a couple of days now. It's still at the stage where it's wonderfully relaxing to be looked after and have all my books around me, but I can feel the 'I'm a grown-up, I can do my own damn laundry' complex simmering away inside somewhere. I suppose the most irritating thing is the excitement of having a decent-sized kitchen, sufficient equipment and someone else to pay for the ingredients, only to remember that my dad has very rigid (carnivorous-British hybrid) ideas of what constitutes a meal, my mum is on the Atkins diet and my brother is twelve, and fussy. So far I have made a vat of ratatouille.

However, as I feel increasingly demographically abnormal (drastically lowering average age of Radio 4 listener, too many operas on iTunes, shopping at markets), it is nice to know that there is some reason for it, whether genetic or due to the mad atmosphere I grew up in.

I've almost finished Qu'est-ce que la litterature? which is a relief as it's taken me the entire summer. I've been rather academically disillusioned since I found out I couldn't do my project, and now don't even know exactly what papers I'm doing this term, and I don't seem to get on with Sartre. My mum asked me earlier, 'Was there a Betty Muriel?' After leaving me baffled for a while, she explained this was his wife in a Monty Python sketch. 'Umm, well, Beauvoir, kind of... never mind...'

Nik interrupted a very interesting debate on The World Tonight (last night) about Richard Branson's pledge to research ways of cutting carbon emissions and corporate social responsibility and whether we should all be taxed for the bad things we do to the environment, when he rang me up to tell me he was researching hydrogen fuels. I've already forgotten what this entails, but I think it's something along the lines of combining water and sand in order to create something other than sludge and thereby to power cars. This requires reading 1920s research papers and buying silicone from catalogues. I didn't even know you could do that, but the project sounds very useful and topical, and I approve. And it means no more people saying, 'Ooh, your boyfriend's working with diamonds, lucky you!' and me having to explain that these aren't the interesting sort that you can, like, wear, and see with the naked eye and stuff.

Dammit, after the end of the Leeds Piano Competition, which I was listening to, I skipped forwards five minutes to see why there was an extra hour and a half of Performance on 3 which hadn't been there when I'd caught the end live, and have now found some interesting choral music, which I'm having to listen to in order to find out what it is. And I foolishly told my mother to wake me up at a sensible time tomorrow morning so I could have a vaguely productive day. I must get back into a routine of working, or I'll never get anything like enough reading done before term starts. This apathy doesn't sit well with the smiley version of me that has to tell all my parents' friends I intend to do this MA. Maybe I should become a teacher instead. They get paid. Students don't. And I'd also be morally obliged to read the Guardian, drink lots of wine and be cynical and irritable - which is fun. Except I don't want to teach French. And you generally need two languages and ich habe fast alle mein Deutsch vergessen.

Hopefully when L'Invitee wings its way to me in the next few days, I should get some enthusiasm back.

"That's not the can-do attitude that created the giraffe!"

Interestingly, if you type 'rejection' into predictive text, it comes up as 'selection'. This made me giggle. And, also, it made me almost send a message saying the opposite of what I meant.

I'm feeling very grown-up tonight, as I've just had an email from Mslexia saying one of my poems got shortlisted - last 60 apparently! Obviously, they didn't want to publish me, but I wasn't really expecting them to, and I'm not feeling disappointed, just, as I said, grown-up.

I'm addicted to Radio 4. It makes me happy.

I've spent all day trying valiantly to read the book about literary theory which I've had on the go since the beginning of second year, but I've finally cracked and looked up 'postmodernism' on Uncyclopedia.

"Recently, postmodernism has fallen out of favour with authors, because they like to eat."

Hehehehehe.

I think I may be unsuited to a future in academia.

Must... take... incomprehensible... theorising... seriously...


PS - In a similar vein, I have also discovered Encyclopedia Dramatica.

"Watch out! A GIANT MONGOOSE!"

Well, given my laziness, I don't get to write a timely, irate post about the Facebook feed thingummiwhatsit (though the following is still included for sheer comedic value) cos they've gone and changed it. I signed in and asked it not to tell everyone I've ever sat next to in lectures or stumbled into in the beer cellar whenever I join another pretentious group in an attempt to prove I'm too cool for the whole malarky, but this didn't really bother me: I don't really do anything of note on facebook and the only thing I'd be ashamed of is people seeing how much time I waste online. So really, they've done me a favour by threatening to reveal the extent of this to the world and making me waste it in the jasperfforde.com forums instead. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way of stopping it telling me pointless information about other people. "So-and-so has added someone you don't know as a friend." "X has joined 'We hate the news feed!" "Y is unpacking." "Mr Thingy likes toast." Yes, you can call me a reclusive, self-involved intellectual snob if you like - it's actually something I'm proud of - but I don't really care. I think I shall be spending less time on Facebook in future. In fact, I'm convinced this was all just a publicity stunt and I'm already playing into their hands by even writing about it. Bah.

Big Brother

At the start of September, Big Brother took over Facebook, and as part of the world's backlash against Steve Irwin's death, decided to inform everyone on Facebook of their friends' every move.

Current owner and operator of Facebook

For example, the average user can now know with a simple view of their Facebook homepage that:

• Their best friend opted to join the "I hate Oscar Wilde" group and declined their invitation to their newly created "Gru Lovers" group at 8:15 pm (when they said they wouldn't be home)
• Megan T removed "fuzzy socks" from her interests at 10:37 pm
• James B replied to a post in the "I'm a closeted terrorist" group at 6:28 pm
• Lisa H complained about her history professor in a note posted at 3:35 pm (ironically during her history class)
• At least 5 of their friends are in constant relationship flux (signifying extreme Borderline Personality Disorder) going from "Single" to "It's Complicated" to "Broken up" within 15 minutes
• little Kate P from that high school down the street from them will be attending an event nearby at 11 pm tomorrow night

The aim of this exercise is uncertain, but it seems to be a ploy mainly to make everyone extremely paranoid and piss them off in equal measures.

- from Uncyclopedia

I think I'm in love with Jasper Fforde. Giggle-out-loud-in-public-places in love. Much to the mortification of the boy, who has read the beginning of The Big Over Easy and is somewhat baffled. I keep reading passages aloud for the edification of thoes around me, but, alas, I seem to be a lone crusader.

"But all of this was scant comfort to Mr Wolff, who went to his casket unavenged, and parboiled."

"'First name?'
'Otto,' he replied, then added by way of explanation: ' Palindrome as well. My sister's name is Hannah. Father liked word games. He was fourteen times world Scrabble champion. When he died we buried him at Queenzieburn to make use of the triple word score.'"

I like the Nursery Crime books, because they're much more independent. The Thursday Next series, while fantastically clever and entertaining, reference so many works of great literature that the novels themselves cannot possibly stand out in comparison, whereas these are convincing detective stories in their own right. The man is a genius, writing books which combine my love of satire, wacky humour, word games and references to the English literary canon.

And now, back to the cryptic crossword!

Thoughts on learning Swedish...

I think my degree has made me very bad at learning languages. I can't learn to count to ten, without stopping to initiate an involved discussion about phonology or to introduce myself without heavy morphosyntactic analysis. I find myself asking: is there a case system? how rich a verb inflection system is there? And if that weren't impediment enough, the level to which I now speak French, means I find any lesser degree fluency in a language highly irritating. Memorising simple phrases is so frustrating compared to discussing politics and poetry, especially as I am clearly not a nice enough person to find common courtesy a more compelling reason to learn a language than reading gloomy literature.

Stansted at 3, oh joy...

Stuck in the middle with...

Well, aside from imparting useles information about household pests or quoting obscure French bands, I should probably talk about myself extensively and boringly, seeing as this is what I started this for in the first place.

Work finished, in a haze of sulky, bitchy classes and white wine spritzers, sadly not simultaneously. Overall, I enjoyed the six weeks, but it ended on a rather sour note, leaving lovely colleagues, the local pub and good pay as higher-ranking rewards than, like, the warm, fuzzy glow from helping shape young minds and inspire the generation of tomorrow, etc, etc... Wednesday was fab, in that I was in the fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on which way you look at it) position of being offered two fancy meals, with wine, paid for by someone else, at the same time - and it was too rainy and far away to do the Mrs Doubtfire thing of running between them both. The two occasions were Nik's mum's birthday and the celebratory end of summer school dinner, so I sandwiched dinner at the Randolph between an afternoon in the pub and an afterparty which, if the smell of wine emanating from my dress the next morning was anything to go by, saw my hand-eye co-ordination hit a particularly low ebb... Also, the next morning, I was unable to get out of bed or eat anything until about 3 p.m. I blamed certain people, who have refused to acknowledge responsibility.

After a couple of days faffing and feeling purposeless, punctuated by trying to learn something about language policy and/or planning, the boy and I decided on the spur of the moment to go home to Northumberland, where we were well-fed and it rained a lot. We went into town, where I bought some humongously exciting books, I did the obligatory tour of A.N. Other piece of Hadrian's Wall and we met Sarah for drinks, quiz machines and curries in Hexham last night before driving back at some ungodly hour this morning.

"We haven't had that spirit here since 1969"

My wikipedia search for 'nasal vestibulitis' turned up no results but a link to 'sexology topics'. Dear God. The good news is the consultant says that I don't need rhinoplasty. Hurrah.

The American Election board game being designed by everyone in the house but me is in the next trial phase. It's not a fantastic spectator sport, but has kept Nik and Jamie quiet for quite some time.

I have another teaching job for next week and the week after. Hurrah. And I get to go to Oxfam tomorrow, which means more batty old ladies, biscuits and books!

"Je t'aime a reculons."

What a lyric.

Propaganda pheromones

Here are some interesting facts about ants:

Ants communicate mainy through pheromones. When a forager finds food, she will leave a pheromone trail along the ground on her way home which other ants will follow, thus reinforcing the trail and attracing more ants.

Crushed ants emit an alarm pheromone which in high concentration sends nearby ants into an attack frenzy and in lower concentration merely attracts them. Some species even emit propaganda pheromones to confuse their enemies.

They even exchange pheromones as compounds mixed with food to share information about one another's health and nutrition

Ants can constitute up to 15% of the total animal biomass of a tropical rainforest; in the Amazon the combined weight of the ants is said to be four times larger than that of the tetrapods in the same area.

In some parts of the world, large ants have been used as sutures by pressing the wound together and applying ants along it. The ant in defensive attitude seizes the edges in its mandibles and locks in place. The body is then cut off and the mandibles can remain in place for up to three days closing the wound.


(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Stage one of battle: know your enemy. B******s keep invading our cupboard.

Ramble, ramble

St John's Wood is the only one of 274 London Underground stations to contain none of the letters of the word 'mackerel'.

In the 1950s Jericho was a red light district and the Phoenix was a pornography cinema.

35-40% of all household waste which ends up in a landfill begins life as a purchase from one of the big five supermarkets.

I might have a rant soon. Can't decide.

Sleepy. Have spent all evening reading articles on Wikipedia and anti-supermarket websites in an attempt to keep myself awake until the boy comes back from work and we can watch the next episode of 24. ("Can you call in sick? I want to find out what happens.") It's that bizarre self-delusion thing again, where for some reason, even though you know you can't possibly watch the entire series at once, just seeing the next one would help, whereas in reality the cliffhanger at the end of that will just leave you with another insatiable itch to dive further into the story...

Circle. Vicious.

One more week left at work. It's been fun but I think any longer would probably kill me. There was a moment last week where I was so tired I came home and collapsed on the sofa, rousing only when coaxed by the boy to eat some dinner.

I want an MP3 player but there are so many and they're all so shiny and gadgetty that I get flustered and confused whenever I look at them. Humph.

Funky cartoon - click here

Hehe. I love those chickens. I also feel pleased that I've finally found an internet cartoon of my very own. Cos I'm not competitive. Oh no. Particularly not with the boy. Ahem...

It's about 8.40 and I'm already up. Amusingly, it's Wednesday and I'm reading the Times magazine from Saturday, although the novelty of these staggered weeks is starting to wear off, and instead I'm just annoyed that on the one day in about a fortnight I'm going to get a lie-in, some ingrained habit caused me to wake up for 7 a.m. prompt and a month of having too many demands on my time and energy has made it impossible for me to lie in bed doing nothing. Ergo, I got up and am now listening to Bach, both I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue and Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive having finished while I've been 'away'.

Part of my acquiescence in the face of such a life-consuming job is due to a more-or-less enjoyment of it. Yes, it's tiring; yes, some of my kids sit in class scowling and refusing to participate and then give me bad feedback; yes, teenage boys think it's funny to draw naked people while storyboarding a Simple Plan song; yes, I didn't get home till 11 on Friday and Saturday, yes, I got soaked on Saturday night. Still, there aren't many jobs where you get to discuss censorship, play scattegories, draw cartoons and compere karaoke in one day. "Never dull" - such a cliche, and I'm not naive enough to believe that any teaching job would be like this, but it's a far more rewarding way to spend a summer than temping or working in a supermarket would be. With this and volunteering in the Oxfam bookshop on Wednesday afternoons, I've met so many interesting people. There's this sort of belief that because all Oxford students are so clever, it must somehow be the most stimulating society to live in, but in truth I find many people remarkably boring. All my enthusiasm for coming back hangs on my course and the people whose company I genuinely enjoy, but no longer meeting people with a plethora of different experiences and opinions is the definite flip side. I feel about five years older than I am.

In fact, I feel like I'm turning into a thirty-something, Times-reading liberal, without the pretentiously-named children. I'm frustrating the boy with my anti-supermarket campaign and turning my fresh, locally-grown ingredients into increasingly peculiar dishes. I'd like to direct my social conscience and domestic drive towards clearing my stuff out of our housemate's room so she can move in, or doing some laundry. Alas...

I invited Matt over for dinner on Monday and he arrived while Nik, Jamie and Debbie's nascent board game was entering the test phase. Jamie and Debbie initially felt rather embarrassed, but when I explained, "we're designing a board game based on the American election," Matt's eyes lit up. People should not underestimate my ability to choose my friends. We all had a fantastic evening (I think) and afterwards Nik and I sat on the sofa listening to music and talking, which had a slightly alarming feeling of novelty to it, but was lovely nonetheless.

And today I am relishing the prospect of a trip to the market to rectify the 'no fruit and veg' situation and an afternoon fondly caring for old, yellowing, dusty-smelling books. And tomorrow I have to test new students but afterwards I get to go to London for lunch and African story-swapping with Nat. And soon I should get paid and then I won't have an overdraft any more (unless I get seriously carried away with the white wine spritzers and crinkly Cheddars in the pub). And in two weeks I will be free to do more reading for my project. And in September I'm going to Sweden.

Ack, I have purpose, and to a lesser extent money. Life is good.

One green bottle, drop it in the bank,
Ten green bottles, what a lot we drank,
Heaps of bottles, and yesterdays a blank,
But we'll save the planet, tinkle tinkle clank.

I AM VERY TIRED!

The madness begins....

Well. One week down, three (or five) to go.

I have survived, I have done parts of it well, I have enjoyed parts of it, and other parts have been hell. My class are lovely - very quiet, well-behaved and hard-working, though I took until yesterday to get them to loosen up and have fun - by planning a lesson on football (yes, yes, I know) that involved lots of competitive games, and then taking them outside to have a lesson on the grass. Heehee. In the afternoons, though, I was talked into taking a class on international affairs for 16-19 year olds, most of whom didn't care about anything I tried to talk about and spent the entire time sniggering and talking. I offloaded the particularly unpleasant Spanish boy (subsequently put on his final warning for pinning a kid half his height to the ground and pouring pepper in his eye) onto Matt, my colleague, who also found him obstreperous and disruptive, so I don't feel too bad about not being able to control him, but his six remaining friends still managed to ruin the class for the Germans and Russians who were very motivated and serious. Oddly, a workshop on international affairs with students from many different countries has mainly reinforced a lot of national stereotypes.

I have been asked to provide lessons on music next week, and my class's suggestions included: 50 cent, Eminem, Dido, Britney Spears, James Blunt, Green Day. Any ideas as to how this could be incorporated into a coherent lesson plan that will appeal to more than two individual students greatly appreciated. Also, Jaime has requested 'no more paper with things to do', which does limit things somewhat.

Still, there always seem to be plenty of other teachers around for a consolatory pint (or half) afterwards. I seem to have overcome my silly mental block about not being able to drink beer in England and the prospect of having some money means I've got less stingy. Yesterday was lovely and sunny, so we went to the Trout, had random conversations (why Matt is like a duck, why Christ doesn't wear underwear), listened to Chris playing the mandolin and drank Pimm's in the sunshine. Then there was a formal dinner, nominally to encourage us to bond with the Canadian teachers, regular school teachers and New York Film Academy people also on site, but I ended up sitting at a table getting rather drunk and talking rubbish. For a long time. Oops.

And even though it's my day off, I'm still planning lessons, cos I have to help supervise a trip tomorrow and won't have any time to do it before Friday.

Sorry. I have just rambled about my job for longer than you probably want to read about it. I just haven't done anything else and won't for the foreseeable future. I'll try and confine it to comic anecdotes rather than extensive complaining, but can't make any promises....

I am sitting in the computer room in college with a new bike lock and a package from my mother, neither of which I can get into. The woman has used epic quantities of sellotape, even for her. So now all I have to do is persuade the porter (who took a while to be convinced that I was even a member of the college) to lend me some lock-cutters, walk all the way down to Cardo with them enduring, doubtless, suspicious looks, break into my own bike and then take it all the way back to Botley Road, on the way buying fruit and veg, a birthday present for my mother (more sellotape?) and going to explain to the Oxfam bookshop that my job is going to allow me next to no free time, ever. The last isn't really on the way. Sigh.

Last week was fun. I didn't do a whole lot, but it was probably good for me to get out of Oxford. We went to one of Nik's friends from home's birthday party, where I got rather drunk, but don't think I disgraced myself. We also went to his mum's graduation, and then I spent the weekend lazing around by the pool while Nik went off to another party/slept.

On Monday I came back to Oxford and after a brief period of uncertainty where it transpired that nobody was really expecting my arrival, I managed to get in, have dinner and make some progress on Debbie's jigsaw. Yesterday I had my induction day at work, which was... an induction day. I was absolutely terrified to begin with. Everybody seemed to know each other, have taught there before and have been teaching for ages and I felt hideously lost and newly-qualified. Then, I was told I'd have to design all course programmes and lessons myself, provide enough detail in my plans so that someone else can teach my lesson if I'm ill, include lessons to be taught by the changeover teacher in my schedule and generally, like... be good at this. I also have to run activities and it looks like it's going to take up horrid amounts of time. Bah. And I have no idea what level I'll be teaching till tomorrow night (though I know all my students will be aged 12 - 14) so I can't use today to do any planning. Grrr. Still, we were all given pizza and wine and I got talking to some of the other teachers properly, and actually, they don't all know each other, and some of the others haven't been teaching for very long either, and they were lovely and took me to the pub and showed me a short-cut into Oxford along the towpath. Still glad I'm not living on site though - it'll be nice to escape at the end of the day.

Also, when did 'sunny' come to mean 'unpleasant'? I'm sure when I was little, when the weather was nice it was, well, nice. Now, whenever it gets hot, it doesn't stop until it gets far too hot, and you don't actually want to go outside and do anything. Damn global warming.

Hmm, anyway, I have a bike to sort out and errands to run, so I'd best stop procrastinating and go and brave the lodge.

"... all the signs are that the European Union is developing a policy of particular complexity and interest..." (from a book on language policy)

Found it!

The Words Continue Their Journey
Margaret Atwood

Do poets really suffer more
than other people? Isn't it only
that they get their pictures taken
and are seen to do it?
The loony bins are full of those
who never wrote a poem.
Most suicides are not
poets: a good statistic.

Some days though I want, still,
to be like other people;
but then I go and talk with them,
these people who are supposed to be
other, and they are much like us,
except that they lack the sort of thing
we think of as a voice.
We tell ourselves they are fainter
than we are, less defined,
that they are what we are defining,
that we are doing them a favor,
which makes us feel better.
They are less elegant about pain than we are.

But look, I said us. Though I may hate your guts
individually, and want never to see you,
though I prefer to spend my time
with dentists because I learn more,
I spoke of us as we, I gathered us
like the members of some doomed caravan

which is how I see us, traveling together,
the women veiled and singly, with that inturned
sight and the eyes averted,
the men in groups, with their moustaches
and passwords and bravado

in the place we're stuck in, the place we've chosen,
a pilgrimage that took a wrong turn
somewhere far back and ended
here, in the full glare
of the sun, and the hard red-black shadows
cast by each stone, each dead tree lurid
in its particulars, its doubled gravity, but floating
too in the aureole of stone, of tree,

and we're no more doomed really than anyone, as we go
together, through this moon terrain
where everything is dry and perishing and so
vivid, into the dunes, vanishing out of sight,
vanishing out of the sight of each other,
vanishing even out of our own sight,
looking for water.

To continue last week's theme of using this as a vehicle for self-indulgent rambling...

Hmm. I'm plucking my eyebrows while Nik is pollyfilling cracks in a bathroom wall. Is this some form of hideous stereotype I promised myself never to become? If so, when did this happen?

Regardless, it's very peaceful. I've never been so relieved to get out of Oxford before, which feels very weird. It's only through getting out and coming back that you realise how much of a bubble the place is. That used to be part of its charm, but I spent most of the last few weeks railing frenetically against it in a desperate bid to seem happy and fun by drinking more Pimm's than anyone else. No, it didn't work; yes, I felt hugely silly; yes, the second I got outside the ring road I felt much freer than I had previously. Ah well. When I get back next year I'll have my own space, my own keys and my own life and (I hope) won't feel a huge sense of purposelessness in an atmosphere where you thrive on being manic and forever bouncing from tute to worthy activity to social to squeaky college single bed.

9th week was quite a lot of fun. I proved (three times) that it was possible to go out and enjoy myself without drinking, once in Kasbar, once for the football (people I texted for an alternative, I am disappointed in you) and once for the end of Tim's exams, and also proved (once) that curling up in bed with a bottle of red wine, some jam doughnuts and lots of episodes of Scrubs is something that must be done once in a while to restore sanity. I cooked a moderately exciting meal and swore at facebook a lot. On Friday in the Raddy, there was a large group of loud people sitting near us and one girl was insistent that it was possible to use three had's in a row in a sentence, though could not justify this with an example. However,

"The good times she had had had been behind her for ages."

This is my last week of respite before actually beginning to earn some money in July. I feel dimly that I ought to go home-home, but I've been banned until my brother finishes A-Levels and it doesn't seem worth spending a grand total of 16 hours on trains and buses for the two days I might get at home. Particularly when I can't afford a ticket. Particularly seeing as here there is wireless internet and a pool, even if I was cruelly prevented from swimming on the day it was actually warm. Damn biology.

I was feeling old, but last night we watched the first ever episode of Spitting Image. And didn't really get most of it. So now I feel less ancient. Hurrah. And today I bought a lovely birthday card for my mum and found the shampoo I used to love and haven't seen for over a year and now I have a short-haired, new-shoed boyfriend.

"Excuse me, can I interest you in buying this dead horse?"

I had such good intentions. I came to update this virtually the second I'd come into the room, and it refused to work. Grrrrr. I pressed 'Refresh' a lot and then got sidetracked listening to I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, and checking my email (oddly enough I didn't have any new ones since checking half an hour previously), and trying to destroy a paying-in receipt with nail clippers.

It has been quite a long time since I actually provided any illuminating information about my life, as opposed to pointless yet amusing quotes or photo-spam. This may be because the last posts went roughly along the lines of: "Ooh! Oxford is sunny! All my friends have finished finals and nobody has anything to do except sit on lawns and drink Pimm's or (once the bank statements come through) Blossom Hill." There have been several inclement breaks in the sunniness, but not frequent enough to prevent my back turning bright pink. Other than that, my life has really changed very little, except that Nik is no longer doing finals and is now able to watch epic quantities of 24 with me.

I could talk about various difficulties (re-)fitting into already established social groups (that I may once have been part of); or feeling like an appendage to the boy (a dull one, that gets sleepy at parties and nags him about finding a job) instead of an actual person; or not having a particular purpose now the mad Italians have gone home and finding a life of unmitigated hedonism rather unfulfilling having not just finished some very stressful exams; or general distress about The Rest Of My Life.

This last is, actually, rather unfair. I have a plan, involving postgrad funded by EFL tutoring and translation/proof-reading and then becoming a critically acclaimed novelist, and if this falls through (i.e. the idea of stringing together enough words to constitute a respectable thesis or novel overpowers me) then a helpful website has thrown up several more career options which had me raving about becoming a lexicographer (can't you so see that happening?), and it doesn't bother me at all that of the handful of jobs I liked the sound of, in 90% of them financial reward plays "no part". It is hugely self-indulgent to worry about all this now when a large proportion of my readership consists of jobless ex-finalists for whom this angst is a good deal closer than a year away (*hugs* to all in this predicament), but the astonishing number of transitions, goodbyes and departures I've endured this year has given me a peculiar twitchiness and an irritating tendency towards self-analysis.

It's just that sometimes I feel like the quote in the introduction to all the Folio editions of Beauvoir, that quote that I can't remember or translate about feeling torn between living life and writing about it; like how I updated this almost every day in Lyon, because I was bored and miserable, but as soon as Sainsbury's has Pimm's, Cava and strawberries on special offer, I can go days without stringing words together; and this choice between dullness/misery and productivity versus (most of the time) contentment, good company and not feeling the need to lock myself away with a computer may replicate itself later in life with something (I hope) of more worth than this. I feel passionate about so many things, but at some point I have to stop them, and describe them, or else I go mad.

My problem is not that I don't know what to do: I've known that since I was 5. My problem is that what I want to do scares me.

I'm scared that I'm not as good at it as I think I am. I'm scared that I won't have the discipline to find out. I'm scared the fear of rejection will turn me into the sort of person who hoards things in drawers and that all my descendents will find fourteen unfinished novels and say I could have been quite good, it's a pity I wasn't. I'm scared the ancestral curse will get me, and I'll give up being creative and notable in order to breed prolifically, like all the women I'm related to did while my Grandpa gets a CBE. (Sorry. Just had to drop that in.) Indeed, in a Shakespeare's sister sort of way, we could extend this beyond my immediate family, but that's a whole different ball game. I'm scared it may be incompatible with a normal life, whatever that may be, and whether I even want it.

There's a Margaret Atwood poem which sums up how I feel pretty accurately, but not even Google can find it. It begins "Do poets really suffer more than other people?" if you want to look it up. (And I recommend you do.)

And now I'm going to curl up in bed, with my diary, and Le Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs.


oh but now, old friends, they're acting strange
and they shake their heads
and they tell me that I've changed
well, something's lost and something's gained
in living every day.

"Francis Bacon wishes to meet the Earl of Sandwich"

For the second day in a row, I have been abandoned by the boy, and have immediately turned on Radio 4 and started to eat salad (my poor vegetable-starved body...) and today I found myself laughing so hysterically at I'm sorry I haven't a clue that I thought I'd post some gems from the opening round. (The brief was to come up with responses to traditional chat-up lines.)

Where have you been all my life?
Well, for most of it, I wasn't even born.

Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
Yes. I'm the receptionist at the VD clinic.

The name's Bond. James Bond.
The name's Lost. Gert Lost.

Come on. Don't be shy. Ask me out.
All right. Get out.

Those clothes would look great in a crumpled heap on my bedroom floor.
So would you.

Your legs must be tired - you've been running through my mind all night.
Yes, it was lovely... all those wide open spaces.

Is that a ladder in your stockings or is it the stairway to heaven?
Yes, it is the stairway to heaven, but I've already got an arse up there.

And now I really, really have to get on with the washing-up...

Jo

Nik

Ali and Mairi

Mairi

Sarah as nun

Sarah and Livvy

Holly and Sally

Me

Livvy and Sarah

Sarah, covered in cat-food

Livvy and Sarah

Jo and Jen

Sarah

Sarah

Cake... I mean...

Catherine and Aloysius

It's Pimm's o'clock..... Again......

Sorry for not updating much this week. I was competing in the Regional Floor-Hopping Championships and never in one place for very long, not to mention having far too much fun.

Friday was my last day at work and my lessons went really well. I also took them to the Multimedia Centre to do things on computers, which baffled most of them and entertained me hugely, and in the afternoon I chaperoned them to Windsor Castle, which was really fun, though it was rather stressful. And I was so tired that in the evening I effectively went to Botley Road and collapsed on the sofa in front of the TV. I don't think I was much fun, and couldn't face Risk, but I was very well looked after.

Saturday was Catherine's birthday and we had Buck's Fizz and cake in front quad and then I went to meet the first of seven finalists who have finished lately. Turf, fish and chips, wine - excellent. I got talked into singing with Hertford Choir on Sunday, and subsequently recruited for a madrigal group, which was... random. But I got free dinner. And free wine. And free tea. And then Thomas bought me Pimm's in the KA and it had fruit in. Joyfulness.

I have spent the last three days in an extended Pimm's-induced stupor, punctuated by mad dashes to Merton St to cover people in glitter. It has been fun. Lots of people are very happy, and I get to join in the fun, despite having earned it neither with exams of my own nor by providing emotional support. I have drunk in four different colleges and the Parks and it is SUNNY. Joyfulness. I was going to write this post entirely using quotes and pictures, but I can't remember anything anyone said. Ever.

Except this:
"Aah, I'm so happy. I just want to talk to everything. The trees, the flowers..."
"There are no trees."
"True. There's a cloud."
"You could talk to the cloud."
"I could. Hello cloud."

Also:
One comatose, hungover, beglittered boyfriend, free to good home.

"It's three o'clock and I'm confused"

The ethernet cable is evil. It is making me update every day. I am turning into an egocentric geek. Help.

I had a to-do list for this afternoon. It went like this:

• eat lunch
• put Suba's number in my phone
• uninstall Spider Solitaire from my laptop
• plan lesson on daily routines
• plan lesson on something else
• research Windsor Castle
• pump up bike tyres

Needless to say, by four o'clock (argh, have now started writing times out in full, have been planning for so long), only the first two items had been completed.

I have been prevailed upon to go to Windsor Castle with the Italians tomorrow afternoon. From the sound of it I'll have to do very little and get paid £25 for it, and it stops me annoying Phil by hanging around Botley Road all afternoon. I stopped to share the good news with my students on the way out and was rather confused when one of them asked me if I had an Italian boyfriend. I said no, which is true, but in by baffled state, I forgot that this in itself didn't preclude the existence of a boyfriend of any other nationality, and that rather vital piece of information was lost in translation so she then proceeded to try and set me up with her son... Every day this week has been mad. I wonder if the entire rest of the summer will be equally exciting.

After I got home, I then went to Cowley Road, repeating in my head the mantra, 'I am going to Tesco for salad dressing and NOTHING ELSE, I will buy ONLY salad dressing...' I should have also included, 'I am going to Oxfam for Fairtrade tea and NOTHING ELSE, I will NOT buy any shoes, books or birthday cards...'

Oops.

Right, I'm now going to add 'eat dinner' and 'go to pub' to my to-do list, so I'll have a chance of crossing off at least two more things before midnight.

Correction

If I could get on MSN and if I'd remembered to buy some salad dressing, my life would be perfect.

"Aren't you in Africa?"

Aww. The annoying old men got shifted to my colleague's class and I had an absolutely lovely group this morning. Taught two fairly successful lessons and got called an 'angel' by half of my students. Afterwards, went to LMH to be rapturously reunited with my, er... bike and then cycled to Tesco's to stock up on food, which made me feel unclean, but I mostly bought non-Tesco stuff, and got some of those hippie bags you're supposed to remember to take next time you go, which salves my conscience slightly. I am vaguely depressed at impending student eating habits. I just decided I couldn't bear reformed ham, or Value Weetabix, or that cheese that tastes like plastic any more, and have come home with muesli, the most enormous olives I've ever seen, 'cheese with bits' (on special offer... white Stilton with apricots... Wensleydale with cranberries....) and real Tropicana. Decadent, but I'm sure it's good for my soul. And, maybe, my body, if you think about it.

And I love having a job that makes me feel fuzzy when I think I've done it well. I love how pretty Oxford is when it's sunny. I even love my tiny, temporary room. I love the ginormous olives. I love that I felt like smiling at everyone I saw on my way home. I love that my scout put all my stuff in a nice, tidy pile. I love that Crystal Light still tastes foul and dyes your tongue weird colours. I love that I had a great time last night and wasn't intimidated by Large Groups of People like I was in February. (Even if I did stay far too long, get stupidly drunk-tired and end up collapsing into bed, lesson still unplanned, after an impromptu midnight coffee.) I love playing my music without bass riffs reverberating through the house and rather spoiling Bach. I love that my phone is full of mad pictures. I just feel rather fond of everything, and everyone, around me at the moment. Thank you.

Hell, if I could just get on bloody MSN, my life'd be perfect.

Find someone who...

Have now arrived back in Oxford, where I aim to stay for over a year. Wow. Consistency.

I got here last night after a day on Megabus, which was cheap and allowed me to read lots. In fact, the journey from London to Oxford was on a normal Oxford Tube, only cheaper. And I saw a friend from school who I hadn't seen in ages, which was a very odd coincidence, but it was cool to catch up. I had dinner with Nik, sat on the balcony shivering out of some peculiar English determination to enjoy being outside when it's sunny regardless of temperature, spilt tomato sauce down my new, clean skirt that I wanted to wear to work and then went to bed and had a bad attack of insomnia.

Today was my first day teaching, which was... interesting. I had been expecting to walk straight into a lesson plan, but they just handed me a folder and a textbook and I had to very briefly prepare a lesson to teach to a group I knew nothing about, so we had a nice game of 'Find Someone Who...' and then talked about transport, cos that unit in the textbook had lots of pictures. And aside from the fact that there were two old men who kept shouting at each other across the classroom in Italian, another old man who kept trying to flirt with me and an old lady who came up to me at the end and said she hadn't understood a word and could we do primary school things tomorrow, it went pretty well. Or at least I'm still newly qualified and naive enough to feel all warm and fuzzy when they seem to be having fun even if I doubt they learnt anything. They are a lovely group, just.... mad.

I have one lesson planned for tomorrow, but the other one caused me untold panic (they're switching the groups around again) and I had no idea what to do it on, so I gave up and came home with a textbook and meant to plan it now, except I had to faff around moving my stuff from LMH to Cardo (Rami, thank you sooooo much!), and then I started settling in, and then I discovered the ethernet cable... Though I can't get on MSN cos apparently I'm not actually on the network. Grr. (If anyone wants to help me rectify this situation...) And now I have to change into something that doesn't smell and go to Queen's, and then to the pub, but THE LESSON WILL BE PLANNED. Even if I did have no sleep and want to just curl up in bed.....

Viv, the caretaker, has lent me a kettle, some cutlery and a plate. That would never have happened in Florey.

Must also acquire breakfast for tomorrow at some point. Will have to be out of here before they start serving tomorrow. Honestly. Work is near LMH. "Near LMH!" I have never uttered those words unless preceded by an emphatic negative and possibly swearing, but the one time I can say it unironically, the boy has finals.


My old man told me one time
You never get wise, you only get older

Another turning point...

My MSN homepage told me that today's 'top picks' (whatever those are) are:

• Da Vinci code: test your knowledge
• Are you the ultimate BB fan?
• Quiz: Madonna's dizzying career

I got so distressed by the state of modern society and the subsequent possibility that I may secretly be middle-aged that I forgot why I'd opened a second window.

Home is good. I'm vaguely worried my brothers are going to give me their nasty cold germs, which I will then bring down to Oxford and spread among people who really don't want to be ill right now, but it's nice to be around familiar people and have someone to talk to during the day. I've done lots of boring, domesticated things (ironing, making rice salads, sorting out my old clothes) but it surprisingly feels quite calming: like I'm getting some sort of semblance of order back in my life after a rather hectic year. Even if I do think that I'm only getting rid of things to house yet more books. My parents have developed an alarming obsession with Frasier and my brother still plays the bass guitar REALLY LOUDLY for HOURS ON END. My mum is finally getting bored with being at home all the time and is already planning for my dad's retirement. (Buying a camper van, going round Europe, turning the dining room into a spare bedroom, getting a new sink. I think his plans involve compost heaps and vegetable patches.) I'm making good progress with my reading list, which is so organised and dedicated it's frankly terrifying and I found several pages of something I wrote over the summer on a floppy disk which pushes the word count up to 1/5 of the average novel! (It's only taken me 2 years to get that far...)

So, yes, generally feeling good about having people I know and like around me, looking forward to throwing things at happy finalists, to having a job I'm enthusiastic about and get paid more than minimum wage for, getting back to my exciting course (knowing full well my enthusiasm will evaporate in 0th week faster than you can say the word 'deadline' ) and possibly, possibly to regaining something approximating sanity.

We can hope.

I have even been head-hunted! After a fashion. This TEFL malarky is fantastic. Not only have I spent all morning being interviewed 'in case we can give you a better offer' and emailing people to get extensions on when I have to let them know about contracts, but I've also had an offer from a language school in Oxford next week. It's teaching a small group of Italian adults, just for a few hours a day, and only for next week, but it'll be great experience and give me a chance to get used to teaching again before the summer. There might even be a possibility of working for them in August and September. I actually have a skill that people want to pay me for, mostly during the summer vacation, when I'm mostly looking for work, mostly in Oxford, where I live, or wouldn't mind coming back to work in once I'm in London. (I am indebted to Daily Info. Thank you.)

I'll be back in Oxford from Monday, very responsibly living a long way down Iffley Road so as not to distract certain people from Very Important Things, and if anyone wants to meet up one afternoon/evening, well, you can call me on my shiny, new phone!

I even know how to set the alarm clock on it now.

Hmph.

Ah, crap. I think I'm falling in love with Gide all over again. He's GAY and DEAD - when will I learn? It's not going to happen!

"And the weather in Newcastle is very similar to here in Paris..."

Similar my a***. I don't recall a howling gale and torrential rainstorm in Paris. How I've missed the North-East.

I spent all of yesterday in varying types of vehicle. I took the train to Paris, and was once again amazed at how France has such clean, efficient, cheap public transport, when everybody has a car and nobody uses it. Odd.

I was meant to be meeting Rachel, who was on the TEFL course with me and is currently working in Paris teaching people who work in the Pompidou Centre, who was also looking after a lot of my stuff. Unfortunately, she'd had an extra class sprung on her and had to dash off and prepare that, so I went for lunch on my own. I found a little cafe and sat for a long time drinking a glass of white Burgundy (it appeals to my sense of irony) and reading Gide, which is really pushing the boundaries between bohemian and pretentious, and then ate a sandwich on the train to the airport.

I managed to flirt my way onto my flight with 22kg of luggage and three carry-on items, which I was very proud of, and arrived home in time for a civilised takeaway with my parents and brother. I also decided to mark my return to the UK by getting a new contract with a shiny new phone, which has the advantage of being shiny, and new and all, but which has the disadvantage of me not being to use it (possibly not the phone's fault?). But it gives me something to play with, which is fun. If anyone wants to email me their number I'd be very grateful, cos I've lost everyone's!

love, pride, deep-fried chicken

Today I have:

• bought 10 books, all of academic worth;
• got a new phone contract complete with shiny new phone;
• bought a train ticket to Paris;
• read an essay by Duras about writing, love and solitude;
• cooked an exciting meal, again involving goats' cheese;
• challenged the washing machine to a duel... and won!

I also discovered a fantastic website, of geeky interest to (perhaps) a select few.

I wonder if it's a) significant and b) worrying that my iTunes Top 25 Most Played contains Don't think twice, it's all right (Bob Dylan), I heard love is blind (Amy Winehouse) and Come on home (Franz Ferdinand). This is all coincidental, and possibly countered by the presence of Drops of Jupiter (Train), but that song is so melodramatically sentimental that I doubt it. (In a good way.)

Am now resigned to the accommodation situation for next year, and instead of bitching, I've started organising a kitchen full of nice people, which is much more productive. Though it still mings. I think it's just the suddenness of it. And the fact that I was planning to use the boy's kitchen anyway, so having one in St Aldate's is not really much of an advantage. But I will be able to knock on Catherine's door and watch her giving birth to kittens on the walk to choir, which will be just like first year. =) (And, yes, I know it would be much nicer just to be able to run across the quad five minutes before it starts, but I'm trying to be positive here.)

My return is set for next Tuesday (23rd) and I shall be in Oxford from the 5th June, so if you would like me to come and throw things at you at any point after that date, please do alert me to the fact.

"I ain't saying you treated me unkind
You could've done better, but I don't mind..."

FEEL MY WRATH!!!

Bah. I don't *want* to live in a building it's actually acceptable to charge people rent for. I don't *want* kitchens and en suite facilities. If I'd wanted decent-standard accommodation I'd have gone somewhere else, but I believe it is my right as an Oxford student to live in a poky, moth-infested attic for at least one year of my life. Everyone else got to be within staggering distance of the beer cellar, panicking distance of the library and "aargh, choir starts at 5 on Wednesdays" distance of the chapel. So why can't we?

Humph.

And gallantly, she chickened out...

Well. Total about-face regarding plans for immediate future.

I have been offered a job in Oxford over the summer. It's not ideal, but I have two more interviews for other summer school jobs, which may turn up something better, and even if they don't, this sounds fun and gives me the chance to: a) use my TEFL qualification, b) earn money, c) do something towards the vague general objective of getting a degree, and d) have fun. All things I'm not doing here, even though that was the initial plan. Truth be told, I'm not hugely happy, everything positive keeping me here largely involves seeing people from home, and if I'm not doing anything to make feeling like this worthwhile, well, I'm going to come home and meet my friends and my boyfriend out of finals, and take a job I will enjoy and that might be useful to me in the future (you can apply linguistics?), and start my project that I'm hugely excited about. So there.

And I don't care if you think I'm giving up just cos it's difficult, and you can sing the 'Brave Sir Robin' song from The Holy Grail at me all you want, but I have justified this decision as a Good Thing in the overarching scheme of my life and I will stick my fingers in my ears and hum loudly if anyone tries to change my mind.

Apologies go to anyone who wanted to come and use me as an excuse to stock up on Beaujolais.

 

"A tinkling piano in the next appartment..."

Unfortunately, I do not have an airline ticket to romantic places, wild strawberries, silk stockings, dance invitations, daffodils, or indeed any of the other things mentioned in the song.

Also, to clarify, the rum was not for me to get drunk on to numb the pain caused by the inexpert, unvaried music wafting gently down from the floor above, it was for my housemate to soak exotic fruits in to create a lovely digestif. (In chorus, "We believe you....")

Since I finished Desperate Housewives on Sunday my life has seemed rather empty. I tried to fill the void with reading, writing, lesson planning, martini, facebook, but none of it worked. However, for some reason I seem to have come over all positive and determined in the last couple of days. Firstly, I deleted Spider Solitaire from my computer. I've done this before, but this time I didn't reinstall it again 2 hours later. I did all the washing up from the dinner party last night (great fun, but they started talking engineering at the end so I retired to my literary theory book) and even went for a run. It has been a long time since I took any exercie, and I probably spent more time recovering afterwards than actually doing the whole cardiovascular thang, but I still feel virtuous. I also finally figured out how to get a photo on my profile on this thing, and spent a long time faffing about with colours and stuff. I demand you all click on the link to BBC news because I ventured into html for the first time in my life to create it, AND it worked.

I am withing finishing distance of two of the worthy books I have here and will soon actually have to do the Paper VIII reading lists in a more thorough way than, 'Ooh, a train, let's read another half a chapter of Le rouge et le noir on it!' Send linguistics books. Fast.

MAN UPSTAIRS: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE STOP PLAYING THE PIANO. OR AT LEAST LEARN A SECOND PIECE. NOW. THANKYOU.

I'm going to buy some rum.

Anyone who talked to me on Friday would have been subjected to extensive bitching about the fact that my teaching has been set back three weeks and I'd been prevented from taking another job because I was theoretically busy on Tuesdays. However, I have, in the last two days, watched so many episodes of Desperate Housewives that real life now seems like a distant memory.

I had an 8-episode binge last night, after a similarly lengthy binge of Freudian analysis of literature, and consequently took it all much too seriously. Still, overintellectualising aside, I do think there are some good moments in it, if a little too much slapstick for my liking, and the voiceovers are annoying and unnecessary - why have a dead woman giving trite summaries of things that can be equally well expressed by the writing and the acting?

This weekend my house has been invaded by rugby players who spent the whole day yesterday sitting in the living room making cockerel noises and laughing extremely loudly. They went out in the evening, came back on the earliest Métro and spent the entire morning (by which I mean early afternoon) wandering around looking hungover and half-naked.

Here is a quote from the literary theory book, which I feel is an example of why translations should be used with caution:

"The Women's Liberation movements are correct in saying: We are not castrated, so you get fucked."

And one from Le Rouge et le Noir :

"Mme de Rênal pensait aux passions comme nous pensons à la loterie: duperie certaine et bonheur cherché par des fous."

I am eating a sandwich. On real square sandwich bread. Brown bread.

I appear to have reacquired my Northumbrian inability to cope with heat, which does not bode well, as it is only the beginning of May. Maybe I should stop walking up and down hills in the early afternoon.

It's been an odd couple of days. Strange is back. Meh. Have been assiduously planning my lessons for next week, which I got rather worried about, because I don't know these people and I've never planned a 2-hour lesson before. Also, I was presented with a map of how to find the company, which was very detailed but gave no clue as to what general area of Lyon it was, aside from my boss's helpful remark that it was 'on the way to IKEA'. I met some of my colleagues, who were all nice, particularly the biker guy who told me everyone in the company was lovely, but they're still a little odd in the way that many expats are...

I am also incapable of using the washing machine. You put stuff in the top of the drum and have to close it, which I didn't realise, and I couldn't open it again, resulting in all my clothes being locked inside until my housemates got home. Then, I took my fabulously clean clothes out to discover that my French Connection black linen trousers that make my legs actually look long (I think cos the trousers themselves are too long) had been brutally discoloured by the rather alarmingly magenta top I bought in New York. Grr.

And I didn't get the car breakdown job, as I can't work Tuesdays, which leaves me back... not quite at square one, but maybe two or three (depending on how many steps there are), and my latest potential tutee stood me up. Bastard. After my perilous walk to the park. Literature lesson was fun, and he even showed me where to get second hand books, and this morning sent me an email with various attachments for next time and some job-finding website.

Went out for dinner last night and was so impressed by the flat. It's right in the centre, in a funky old building and has three floors (so I guess not really 'flat') accessed by winding staircases and trapdoors.

If anyone would like to marry me (thus enabling me to wear the absolutely gorgeous dress in one of the many bridal wear shops around where I work) and then move into a funky multi-level appartment with me, I would be very grateful.