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.