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?"
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
"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.
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.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Thursday, November 02, 2006
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.
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.
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