In which the Hamster descends further into middle age

Dear lord, I feel frightfully grown up!

And also frightfully cold. Am sitting here typing with fingerless mittens on and feeling like I should be being more organised about Christmas. I think one of the signs of being an adult is that you no longer look forward to Christmas with unadulterated excitement but also start to dread it. I refuse to go that far, but signs of the 'it's such a faff' feeling are starting to make themselves felt.

Mostly because I unfortunately succumbed to Nik's cold this week. I had felt myself coming down with it last week and successfully fought it off, and went round feeling smug and waxing lyrical about the healing powers of echinacea, zinc, onion soup and sheer bloody-mindedness. I was then cruelly struck down last weekend, limped through to my deadline, decided I would be healthy on Tuesday and do all the things that needed to be done (ordering Christmas decoration kits from ebay, putting finishing touches to presents, learning how to do ribbing so I can make gloves and hats etc, writing cards, buying paint and making the cheapie recycled brown paper I'm wrapping things in more exciting, etc etc) and felt distinctly unhealthy on Tuesday after all. My eyes were streaming, as per usual, and I couldn't actually see to focus on anything long enough to read, knit, write cards, cross stitch, look at the computer etc etc and consequently I spent the day either in a foul mood or asleep.

On Wednesday, I dragged myself to London very much against my better judgement to put in an appearance at the Sustain Christmas party. After a couple of glasses of local, organic cider in a plastic container that could be returned to the producer, I suddenly felt much better, and found myself on the penultimate train home and crawling into bed at 1 a.m. with extremely cold feet.

Yesterday I had a 1950s housewife day, and made carrot cake and used up one of the peculiar joints that we got when we ordered half a lamb. This required excessive quantities of stuffing and slow roasting to make it palatable. I also boned it out myself, which made me feel very thrifty, esp as am now going to make stock! My hero, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, had a very exciting looking recipe, but it involved storing things overnight in jam jars, so I refrained from going down that road.

My garden is full of pigeons and a grey squirrel. Vile, southern, urban wildlife. Had a fox once, too, that came right up to the window. Have pathological fear of urban foxes, creepy unnatural things that they are. Foxes should not be that tame!

Also had a robin once. I can deal with that! Am quite pleased, in theory, that despite being paved over my garden can still be part of a wildlife corridor. I wonder if I can encourage 'good' wildlife without encouraging ugly, scroungy things though...

Maybe I should write to 'Feedback'...

Oh, oh, oh, PEOPLE! The reason I listen to Radio 4 at 2 a.m. is because I can't sleep. While I am really very sad that Stockhausen died, broadcasting a tribute to him at that time is not very conducive to sleep and restfulness!!!

Urgh, it's only 8 a.m. Why am I up so early on a Saturday?

Cross stitch, carbon footprints and Broadmoor

Right, I am going to get into the habit of updating this again, even though my life is really boring, because Rob just reminded me that he actually reads this and now I feel bad. If you read this too, I promise to write more random drivel to distract you from work/study.

So, what have I done that isn't really boring.....?

I made a massive cross stitch sampler for my parents' wedding anniversary, which you can see on the right. Their anniversary was in September and I finished it last week.... Ahem....

I have booked myself onto a dressmaking course for next term, so I can learn how to use my beautiful new sewing machine. Hurrah.

I have made excellent progress on my Sustain project today. Need to chase a few more people, but am feeling more confident that I'll get it done for Christmas.

I calculated my carbon footprint tonight, on the government website thingy. We're doing pretty well, given as we're renting and aren't allowed to faff around with solar panels, switch electricity suppliers or bung fluffy stuff in the loft. I can't believe we did so well compared with the national average. Who are these people who actually boil a full kettle of water just for one cup or leave their mobile charger plugged in? Do they really exist?

Work is going well. I quite enjoy getting to sit around arranging words on a page all day, and I have a far wider range of good quality teas than any office. (Except maybe if I worked at Whittard's...) I think it's making me a bit agoraphobic, though. Or a sociopath. I don't know if it's my inner anti-consumerist reacting to the time of year, but I find going out a less and less attractive prospect.... Hmm. There is the Sustain party next week which I am looking forward to. Anyone else's office party sounds dire, though! I think it's partly to do with my insomnia earlier in the year. I managed to 'cure' it by getting into a bedtime routine, but the trade-off is that when I want to stay up later, I can't, so I'm pretty rubbish at anything exciting and eveningy...

Oh, and I found out what the air-raid siren is. It isn't an air-raid siren (or it is, but it doesn't mean there's an air-raid), it's the escape alarm at Broadmoor! They test it every Monday at 10. If you go here you can read lots of people's memories of it going off. All the schools have specific procedures to follow in the event of an escape. Pretty scary stuff.... Oh, I do like being smug and telling people I've been inside!

Another moment of perplexity

Cor, there's some odd stuff available on ebay. Why on earth would anyone buy bright orange curtains?

So, to summarise the last month

Gaaaah, sorry, have been absolutely terrible at updating recently. Apologies.

Well, to summarise the last month...

The house is very cold. I've been running round it periodically doing crazy energy-saving measures. We have tinfoil behind the radiators, scrunched up newspaper up the chimney, a draught-excluder lying in wait ready to trip over anyone who comes in the door...

Employment prospects are looking better. With any luck (assuming I haven't screwed up the test!) I should be doing some freelance report-writing, transcripts and possibly translation, and eventually might get to be official translation hander-outer-er. But let's not get carried away. This is, incidentally, all thanks to my cousin. Nepotism and telecommuting, that's what we like! I now have to tidy the study, but this is preferable to working in an ethically questionable organisation as I thought I'd otherwise have to.

Wokingham has gone down in my estimation. Previously, I used say in a rather droll, slightly tongue-in-cheek fashion, 'oh, the only thing it has going for it is the salsa dancing classes'. They've recently moved the salsa dancing classes to Twyford, and I've decided I want to move to London, so perhaps the was something in it.

Meh. I want to live in the middle of London or the middle of nowhere. Suburbia sucks.

Foodie project goes well. Have been talking to some very helpful and some rather obstreperous catering managers, and very much enjoying working in an office where people talk about things like the Soil Assoc report on imported organic food, and where there are 400 varieties of coffee in the fridge!

Am also becoming even more middle aged. Spent ages on Wednesday trying to tidy the garden up, as it was covered in weeds and depressing me. Looking much clearer now, but I did manage to lock myself out of the house without any shoes on. Oops.

Randomness

Ooh, how scary. There's just been what sounds like an air raid siren going off. I wondered if it was the four-minute warning, and was briefly confronted with the terrifying possibility that I might die, unemployed, playing spider solitaire in my pyjamas at 10 o'clock.

So, yes, the summer was fun, Portugal was fun, the house is nice and now mostly furnished, and I'm still unemployed. I did work briefly as a battery chicken, but then had a spectacular bout of career indecision, burnt my boats (it was boring as hell, but at least it paid), subsequently decided I didn't want to be a speech therapist after all, but have ended up working (sporadically) with people with learning disabilities in order to become one, which doesn't pay well and isn't very regular, and nobody else wants to employ me.

Bugger.

There's a few things I'm waiting to hear about, though, and I have a very exciting internship, so it's not all doom and gloom. I just feel like I've moved to some provincial backwater to sponge off my boyfriend, which defies all my feminist principles. It's also rather depressing not knowing anyone or having anything to do a lot of the time. Meh.

Ah well. Am keeping myself occupied baking and cross stitching and stuff, which I'll doubtless miss tremendously as soon as I am working. Anyway, I have to go and collect a drill from someone so I can continue with my plan to grow spinach in a box, so I shall have to leave this here. Probably just as well, no-one wants to read my self-indulgent moaning!

"Nothing suppresses the exercise of conscience as effectively as the words, 'Buy one get one free'."

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Argh!

I was minutes away from telling a prospective employer that I have excellent 'communicational skills'.

Young people these days!

Blimmin' 'eck, what's with all this Facebook/proctors/trashing malarky? I've had about 400 emails from OUSU in the last few days, blatantly up in arms about the whole thing, but I can't really see why. We get countless emails and letters from the proctors, right through Trinity term, saying that we're not allowed to throw disgusting things at people and that we shouldn't do it - I hardly believe anyone hurling octopodes on Queen's Lane hasn't heard yet. I suppose it's possible there are a few muppets out there who haven't yet realised that Facebook is public and lots of people have access to your personal details, but, honestly, anyone who persists in this so-called tradition* knows full well that it's against the rules, and if your misguided sense of humour and/or anarchy leads you to break them and you subsequently get caught, then I fail to see why anyone should feel morally indignant about it.



*Do you know how they really used to celebrate finishing Finals in the old days? They used to go and sit in the quad with a bottle of sherry, and invite their tutors.

I repeat, July my arse

Changed my mind, don't want to move to Berkshire anymore, it's all underwater. Think I'll stay up north, where there's lots of hills.

(Picture from BBC)


Damn global warming...

Whinge, whinge, whinge...

Wish it would stop bloody raining.

July my arse.

"Dignity is the one thing that can't be preserved in alcohol"

I'm supposed to be applying for jobs. Two admin jobs on the Reading Uni website finish this week and I would be more than happy to do either of them. Just put off by the scary form-filling. What's quite annoying is that I have actually been offered a job, but it's in Oxford, and it's teaching, so can't/won't do it.

Meh.

When I'm prime minister, I would pass a law that all jobs are to be applied for by means of CV and covering letter only, none of these stupid 10-page forms.


In other news....
We have the house!! Hurrah!!

Went down on Friday to visit the only house left on our list (all the others had gone during the week) and both really liked it. Cue a weekend of nailbiting while we waited to hear if the landlord was happy to take us with a guarantor (in absentia job and salary) , but the agency called first thing today and said yes!!

It's so, so cool and I'm massively excited about it. It's a wee Victorian terrace, two-up two-down, with a funky wooden staircase and a kitchen at the back of the house (gas hob!!). It's really light and airy, fortunately there aren't any hideous carpets or curtains we have to put up with, and there's a long, thin garden (all patio) where we can have barbecues. It's unfurnished, which is a pain, esp as we have to find a fridge and a washing machine from somewhere, but various family members seem to be keen to push furniture off on us, so we'll probably get useful things (like a bed and a sofa) from Nik's mum, and a handful of old clocks and ornaments from my antique-collector of a grandfather. My dad has promised to buy me some pots as a moving-in present, so I can start growing herbs and vegetables and things. Hurrah. Have also acquired Gaby's slow cooker which I am extremely pleased about.

Had a lovely last few days. Incredibly washed out barbecue on Saturday, which saw me and Jo holding umbrellas over the barbecues while Nik heroically flipped burgers, and a bunch of incredibly damp people huddled in the boathouse. Inspired by the relative dryness of Sunday, I dragged Nik, Catherine, Rob and Mairi to Minster Lovell (on the suggestion, two years ago, of my mother) which was an incredibly cool ruined hall near Witney. Aside from getting rather lost and the unsuitably-clad Catherine stepping in a cowpat, it was a most successful expedition. I also have a new contender for 'oddest utterance ever':

"I'm not following you. I've got some crayfish in a bag and they're trying to escape. You see, my dog just learnt to swim today."

This was from a lady at Minster Lovell whose numerous tanned children were splashing around in the stream. I want to be the kind of cool parent who lets their kids do that kind of thing (though don't want to engage strangers in peculiar conversations).

I'll post some photos of the day out and the house tomorrow.

Today, Nik took various bits of paperwork to the estate agents en route to home, and I've been faffing about filling in job applications. Actually, I've filled in one (my target was three), though the other Reading one should be easier now I've done the boring bits of the form and only have to write the 'why I'm fab' bit. I always agonise over them, and then get into it right at the end and write something utterly preposterous and arse-licking. I have, however, started packing. My room is full of boxes and piles of things and I'm missing a teaspoon, a glass and a plate. Damn communal kitchens.

Crikey!

"The alleged phenomenon of the Bridezilla spawned numerous newspaper articles that recounted her exploits with gleeful censure. There was one bride who demanded that her attendants all colour their hair the same shade of blonde; another who procured a swatch of the purple wallpaper from the hotel suite in which she would be spending her wedding night so her florist could find blooms that were an exact match; and another who insisted, before a barefoot beach wedding, that her husband's groomsmen all endure a pedicure."

...

"Thanks to the inspiration of Gerety - who never herself married - the imperative for a diamond engagement ring is today so well established that current De Beers' marketing campaigns have focused not simply upon the necessity of a diamond, but the necessity of a really, really big diamond. (One recent US advertisement shows a large stone and a smaller one side by side, with the caption under the smaller reading, "Where'd you get that diamond?" while the caption under the larger reads, "Where'd you get that man?") The convention that a man should spend two months' salary on his bride's ring was also created by the jewellery industry, and the De Beers website, adiamondisforever.com, provides a handy calculator for figuring out two months' salary from an annual wage, helpful for any would-be groom who can't divide by six. (Where'd you get that man, indeed.)"

From The Guardian.

Shiny, happy people holding champagne...

Right.

Time for a proper update I think, since I now have some time.

Well, finals were... finals happened. All my diligently colour-coordinated linguistics notes were utterly redundant as none of the papers had any questions on anything I knew about and I had to blag extensively. My supposedly best literature paper was rubbish, again no questions on anything I knew about, and it's easier to blag based on prelims/general knowledge of linguistics than it is when you haven't read any texts for a literature topic!! The three papers I had been most afeared of were actually the ones I felt went best - special authors, syntax and language essay. Though syntax would have been dire had Holly and I not learnt one side of lecture notes that was then expanded into the basis of an entire essay for both of us!! And I hope whoever marks my language essay is Belgian...

Anyway, after two weeks of exams, long cycle rides, sleep deprivation and patronising such fine establishments as Mamma Mia, the Dew Drop and the Summertown Wine Cafe on a regular basis, finals were over. Nik and Catherine gallantly trekked up north to meet me. Catherine brought some lovely flowers that smell gorgeous and made my room look pretty. Nik sprayed champagne in my eyes and I spent my first ten minutes of freedom hopping around outside M&S going 'Argh! Aaargh! I can't see!' Catherine went off to play squash with Mairi and Nik and I went to have lunch at the Oak (whose burgers are AMAZING) and we then all met up again in Chequers, Thomas arrived, I went to choir, I came home and collapsed in a sleepy heap and listened to the News Quiz and then dragged a posse of lovely people to the Grand Cafe for cheap cocktails. Hurrah.

I spent the weekend pottering. I like pottering. I made dinner for people on Saturday: chicken cacciatore (?sp), quite successful. I really want a Le Creuset casserole now. More than anything in the world. (I wanted one before, but I want one even more now I've borrowed Pete's.) My friends are heroic washer-uppers. Thank you! Sunday was Catherine's birthday and she was being flautatious for most of the day, but had a girly cream tea at the Rose and more cocktails at the Grand Cafe.

Incidentally, I thought I was doing so well not getting very worked up about finals. Since finishing, I realise that while I never had extreme moments of tension, I've been carrying around a residual level of tension for some time and I've been horribly antisocial and grumpy and not really been aware of it. Anyway, I'm very sorry and will now endeavour to be sunny and cheerful.

Last night was Schools Dinner and I was extremely cheerful, in large part thanks to the vast quantities of wine I consumed, and also because everyone's so lovely, all the other linguists, all our tutors. Lord, I'm getting soppy in my old age! But, meh, we all felt a bit soppy, and we got an email from Prof. Pearson this morning thanking us for our gifts (among which a pen with 'I [heart] Mallarme' on it!!) and I did have a bit of a cry. Also, never would have guessed in first year that I'd end up happily sitting with Mrs Williams discussing where babies come from!! And that was when I was relatively sober! There weren't too many questions about what on earth the void of the future will be filled with (everyone tactfully asked what we were doing 'in the summer') and Ruth very firmly told me that my woolly liberal desire to do something socially useful is 'not vague and not naive'. Hurrah! I extolled the virtues of facebook to Prof. Pearson and Ruth, thanked Charlie (the German tutor) 'for letting me in in the first place, even if I defected', went to Escape with Francois and stayed up till 4 a.m. eating cake and talking about god knows what. Apologies if I talked bollocks at anyone! And you're all a lovely bunch. I will make you another cake soon!

Hmm, maybe I should change my MSN from 'us linguists is working terrible hard' to something more appropriate.

I refer you to facebook for more photos!

Between now and the end of 9th week I am going to:

• go to the History of Science museum
• go to the Natural History/Pitt Rivers museum
• go to Blenheim Palace
• go to Minster Lovell
• go for a couple of long walks in the Cotswolds
• get some shoes for the ball
• make more lists
  
• read some more books FOR FUN and FOR THE PLOT

Anyone who wants to be included in any of the above (except the books one, cos I get territorial and solitary when reading) please contact me in some way!

I just filled in my vac res application form and had to write 'n/a' in the 'I would like to come into residence' section.

Happiness

Finals are over and 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' is back on the radio.

Hurrah.

Typical...

Only on a French website, could you search for a casserole dish and be offered the DVD of 'Chicken Run'.

Shock horror!

A very satisfactory weekend.

Rather unexpectedly, I think this has been one of the nicest weekends I've ever spent in Oxford. Aside, of course, from feeling like I'm coming down with a nasty cold (TIMING! immune system, what were you thinking??!!!), this morning, for the first time in days, I got out of bed feeling like I'd had enough sleep! What wonder is this?!

I've mostly been pottering. Have done a little light work, mostly re-reading notes for Wednesday and cribbing parts of Holly's gender essay (thank you!), but otherwise I have read the paper, faffed about on the internet, been to the covered market and M&S Food, had a proper chat with Livvy, been to a pub with real people, made myself a massive lasagne and risotto so I can eat proper, nutritious food throughout the week without expending any more effort than popping a plate in the microwave, finished a cross stitch bookmark and gone on a lovely walk.

It's my favourite Oxford walk, but I was feeling especially attentive and thoughtful today. I went down past the station and walked up the Thames Path from Botley Road to Portmeadow. As I joined the path a canal barge went under the bridge, and I walked past all the little terraced cottages that back onto the river, and the allotments on the other side, with the sound of strimming and the glint of greenhouses.


As I crossed the next bridge, a train went past nearby. It was like a walking history tour of Industrial Britain. I carried on up the path, picking wild flowers and taking pictures of ducks. I even heard a cuckoo! I've always wondered why cuckoos are associated with springlike, cheerful things when they're nasty, sneaky, vicious birds. Ah well.

I crossed Portmeadow, and came back along the towpath from Jericho, peering nosily into the barges that were moored, thinking how homely they looked, with the plants growing on the roofs, Radio 4 playing, little models in the windows, a letterbox with a number on it, a woman standing on the deck doing her make-up in a hand mirror...

Also, the gardens of the houses alongside the canal, with dinghies tied up at the bottom of the lawn, cast iron tables and chairs under the willow trees. The graffiti on the barrier around where the boatyard used to be: GIVE IT BACK.

And, more faintly, ETHNIC CLEANSING. (Or, maybe, CLEANING. It was hard to read.)

I came back via a different route. A very Roberson walk.


Solitude, sometimes, is bliss.

Hmm

I must be getting old. On the way to college the other day, I was waiting to cross the road, when a bus went past and I looked at the driver and thought: 'He looks far too young to be driving a bus!'

Hehehehe

She wants to have my babies!!

Just got this email, which amused me no end!


Hello, gentleman

I want you to know that I had different relations with different men. I have
not got married one time, I decided that it was true love, but it was fatal
mistake of my life.
You may imagine how my heart is broken and it has painful scars. But
nevertheless I don't give up and I  continue looking for my love, happiness.
I understood that I could not find it there, in my native country, in
Ukraine. I had too much disappointments here. That is why I put a full stop
at the attempts to build love  in Ukraine. I feel lonely among thousands of
people.
I don't have native soul which would want to create family with me, give
birth to children, to build our home. So, I can't be happy in Ukraine,
although it is my native land.
I think that happiness will present me its smile abroad where I will find a
good, descent man who will share my interests and desire to create family.
You do were the first who attracted my attention and rose my interest. You
have something special if I decided to write you.
I hope that after reading my letter, you will be interested to get
acquainted with me too and write me  here http://inetfeelings.com/shy

Looking forward to get a letter from you

Olenka

BRING BACK PRELIMS

ALL IS FORGIVEN.

Madness!

Yesterday, in M&S food, I saw somebody with one of these:

















using it as a handbag and putting her shopping in one of these:











No, really.

Crazy finalist alert!

So, there I was, obscenely early for my tute as per usual and sitting by the water cooler in the linguistics faculty, listening to these two Chinese students talking. (As in students of Chinese, rather than students of Chinese nationality, but that's a different crazy finalist story.) I could tell they were first years because they both looked very clean. And because they were so idealistic and enthusiastic. They were talking about how many Chinese characters they had (about 1000) and about a book one of them had ordered to read over the summer. Then a girl walked in, who looked about 15, with an immaculate tan and a short white skirt, followed by her friend, who then bragged about how she'd only had 2 hours' sleep. The girl in the white skirt said something like, 'Yeah, I was going to go clubbing, but I was too drunk to walk' and the boys said they'd gone to Portmeadow 'but it was full of drunk hippies sitting round a bonfire'.

'Wow,' I thought, 'what interesting lives they must all lead.'

Then I remembered it was May Day.

Quotations

These have been sitting in my drafts folder on Gmail for ages (for want of a better place to put them) so I thought I'd share:

The chief reason for drinking is the desire to behave in a certain way, and to be able to blame it on alcohol. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

If only it was as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly as it is to masturbate. ~Diogenes the Cynic

Seethe, seethe, seethe...

Being the peculiar person I am, I have been following with alternate amusement and distress the furore about weekly/fortnightly bin collections. (Yes. The processes at work in the evolution of French vocabulary are really that dull.) And, apparently*, ASDA have now decided to allow shoppers to leave their excess packaging at the shops, and then pass it on to the suppliers.

Ohhhh. So it's the suppliers' fault is it. Never mind that supermarkets insist on farmers using a certain type of packaging and making them pay for it themselves. Never mind that most fruit and veg is pre-packaged because it makes it easier for the person on the checkout to scan a barcode than to weigh loose apricots in a paper bag, and because it encourages the consumers to buy more.

Nope, must be those pesky suppliers, who, as we all know, have for years been exploiting those poor supermarkets and forcing them to comply with their ridiculous demands...


I think I might go and live on an island somewhere and keep goats.

*Though I can't actually find a more reliable source than the Mail or the Evening Standard, so it might all be b*llocks.

Progress report!

• Full 24 hour periods since I started revision: 1 1/4.
• Mornings wasted faffing online: 1.
• Elaborate meals cooked from scratch: 1.
• Different colour felt-tip pens used: 7.
• Topics that have scared me so much I've postponed them till tomorrow: 1.
• Year I had to go back to before I found a past paper question I could answer: 2002.
• Past paper questions answered: 0.
• Afternoon naps embarked on without setting an alarm: 1.

Virtual reality...

After some discussion with various people whose opinions I value highly, a consensus has been reached that the content of this blog has gone steeply downhill since its inception. While this isn't entirely my fault - finals are a lot less exciting than Africa and TEFL, and I can only do the best I can with the material I've got - I accept the general sentiment behind the criticism and will try to do better.

The war essays are finished. Hurrah. Admittedly, by the end they were written in the shortest, clippedest sentences you can imagine (to get rid of any 'and's), I was forced to cut out the exciting quotation about pregnancy and trench warfare, and I only got 4 hours sleep the night before they were handed in, but they got in on time and were mostly coherent. The extended essay, too, was eventually finished, reining in the excessive word count through judicious deletion of anything that gave it interest and character and the demotion of a paraphrase of Tanzania's cultural policy to an impressive-looking appendix. Thankyou to everyone who was concerned enough about me sleeping through the deadline to hammer mercilessly on my door on Friday morning as I requested. I'm so sorry that my paranoia had me up, dressed and on my way to Exam Schools before anyone else emerged.

I had a lovely, relaxing afternoon post hand-in, although, to return to dullsville, for me a lovely, relaxing afternoon entailed a wander through the Covered Market, a trip to Boswells, Debenham's cookshop and Robert Dyas in search of a mother's day present (and for wistful gazing at the Le Creuset stuff), a brief sniff in Culpeper and an extravagant purchase of various foodstuffs from M & S. I did go and sit in the Parks with Catherine and Jen and had a picnic, which was fun, though unfortunately we failed to liaise with Jo. In the afternoon, I went to sleep, woke up grouchy, inveigled Catherine into sharing a bottle of Cava with me, visited the funky Luminox thing on Broad Street and then went to the pub, drank some more wine, and ended up so ill I didn't get any sleep on Friday night either. Cue extremely disgruntled Hamster on Saturday morning! (Was actually rather annoyed at my body - it used to be able to take much more of a battering than that! I am henceforth giving up wine in pubs, and other cheap wine, as it always seems to make me feel vile.)

The weekend was hearty and outdoorsy. I dragged Jo and Catherine to the Perch, which was really nice, and I would like to go back and eat there at some point. It was lovely to sit by the log fire and read the papers (shame they only had the Torygraph though) and it's retained lots of its character and charm, while doubtless improving vastly (good food, art, nice loos, drinks that didn't send anyone into anaphylactic shock...). It's just a bit of a shame, given its location, that you now feel a bit self-conscious turning up all rosy-cheeked having tramped there along the towpath. We had to navigate our way back along the river to civilisation with my torch (prescience, thy name is Hannah Roberson) which I found disproportionately exciting, and then Catherine and I got fish and chips in Jericho. At least, she got fish and chips, I had a rather phallic sausage. We wanted to give our leftover chips to a homeless person, but couldn't find a single one on the way home.

On Sunday, I went out with the Oxford Conservation Volunteers, which was AMAZING fun. Everyone was really friendly, and aside from having lunch in a hailstorm, the weather was pretty pleasant. I dug some tree stumps out of a path and fixed some wire to a fence to keep sheep out. Fantastic sense of achievement, met lots of cool people, arms ache like nothing else! Beginning to understand why gardeners get so much back trouble. Want to go back next week, but the girl I tutor needs me to go on Sunday. Then I'm away, then term starts and it's choir on Sundays again... *sigh* Ooh, yes, and two of the people I met there had been to our Messiah concert in the Sheldonian!! Oxford is such a small place...

Slumped on the sofa in the evening and watched The Emperor's New Groove and had a wee rant about the presentation of women ("What about Mulan?" - "Well, the army was ultimately a way for her to meet a nice man, and she only did it for her father anyway!") and how hypocritical it was for the film to imply that it's bad for rich people to screw over poor people in the pursuit of more stuff, when the CEO of Disney could probably pay a living wage to all the people stitching llama toys in the third world and still be a millionaire several times over. Ahem.

Then I had to help Nik take his car to the garage, cos the petrol cap was stuck, but it's all mended now, and then I went home and drew up a revision timetable and wrote notes about French-lexifier pidgins and creoles. Which was so traumatic it catapulted me back to the Covered Market, and I spent all evening therapeutically chopping onions and grating cheese. Still felt pretty good about it, until I looked on Oxam this morning and had to go back to 2002 to find a practice question I could actually answer on it. Enthusiasm rather dampened now, hence why have done minimal work and spent most of the morning online, despite a promising early start. Besides, you know, my arm's still kinda stiff... Don't want to injure myself doing past papers...

Revision is boring. Really boring. I want to curl up in bed with my book about the Black Death instead. Why did I not make coherent notes in second year? What can I do about my awful handwriting?

Things I am not going to do again in a hurry, No. 43.

Sit on one of those purple chairs in the SSL in a red skirt.

Yuck.

Never have two colours clashed more.

Tip of the week!

Here's Granny Hannah's tip of the week... Descale your kettles, people!

In a fit of boredom I looked inside my kettle last night, realised how mingy it actually was, and asked google how best to rectify this state of affairs. It was really very simple, and has drastically improved the speed at which I can make tea or coffee! All you do is:

• Boil 500ml of water in your kettle.
• Squeeze a lemon. Pour the juice into the boiled water.
• Let it sit for 15 mins.
• Pour it away and rinse the kettle several times.
• Sit back and enjoy the sense of achievement and the speedy hot beverages.

Also, if anyone can tell me when exactly I started looking forward to mundane household tasks as a break from work, I'd be much obliged. Roll on Friday lunchtime!

1 975 words, free to good home....

Ahem

A new group has appeared on Facebook called 'F**k House of Lords Reform'. (It has a horrid sidebar ad that flashes red and orange extremely rapidly at me, but that's by the by.) Completely ignoring the complex political implications of the reform, although 'The Now Show' pointed out to me that the Lords have to pass it first, I thought it worth drawing attention to the fact that among the 'related groups' are:

• Petition to revoke the independence of the United States of America
• I WENT TO A PROPER BRITISH BOARDING SCHOOL
• I always wear sunglasses because the sun never sets on the British Empire

Ahem.

Things I should not have said to my tutor, Part 4 793

"Well, I recently read this thing that compared childbirth to trench warfare... in that although the climax was going to be ghastly and painful, the waiting was so unbearable that you began to long for the end, although you knew it would be horrible. I sort of feel like that about finals."

And aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh again...

I'm going out with someone who thinks it's amusing and cool to drink beer through a strawberry bootlace.

Aaaaaaaaaargh!!

Whittard's do student discounts? Why did nobody tell me this in October? How much money could I have saved?!!!

Aargh!

I tend to google unfamiliar French phrases in translations to see if I can get a better feel for them with more contextual examples (or, if I'm translating into French and torn between two things, to see which is more common and which is closer to what I'm trying to say). However, having typed in one from this week's translation (the one that's due in in a few hours), practically the whole of the first page is links to discussion forums about the difficulties of translating this particular phrase of this particular translation, and how lots of French people and professional translators have no idea what it's about.

I kid you not!!!

Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.

And, once again, a trivial observation turns into a major eco-rant...

I really want to get into bed with a hot water bottle and 'The Now Show' on listen again, but I feel bound to have another 'ethical-food' bore moment beforehand. Inspired by hazily listening to the CEO of Sainsbury's arguing with some person-who-did-something-supporting-farmers one morning (that classic 'Today Programme' trick of picking two people with polar opposite view and getting them to shout unconstructively at each other for a few minutes until John Humphries tells them they've run out of time), I bought some milk at the farmer's market. I did balk at the price, but kept staunchly reminding myself that milk is pretty much the absolute worst culprit as far as unsound products go, and shelled out for some yoghurt as well, cos I bought some earlier this term and it was divine. Anyway, to cut this (extremely dull) long story short, the milk, too, was excellent: I just made some sinful hot chocolate with it and sneaked a gulp before microwaving it, and this is what milk has always really tasted like all along!!! Just, you sort of forget. It's all creamy, and doesn't taste all watery, and it's a totally different colour, and... Ack! It's amazing. Reminds me of when we used to get it on the doorstep in glass bottles. And when it used to go warm in the summer, and the birds used to peck through the foil tops. Ooh, and collecting all the tops for school... Can't remember why that was.

I like 'rediscovering' food. I've been doing it steadily since starting weaning myself off supermarkets over the summer. Like the first time I had chicken and avocadoes from the market. All the debate about local vs organic vs mass-produced (and hence efficient) food that that Economist article* sparked off has ignored the vitally important fact that food produced in small quantities and not transported halfway across the country and back often tastes better. Supermarket food is designed to look uniform and hence pretty on the shelves, to not get bruised during transit, to be easy to pick, to last for a long time after it's been picked... Consquently, it tastes, well, bland and I defy anyone to eat a home-grown tomato and not agree with me. Food production involves lots of complex economics that I don't understand. (Climate change involves lots of complex science that I don't understand either, yet I still feel entitled to an opinion on it, but I'll talk about that another time.) I can't say whether FairTrade is really helping poor farmers or in fact taking trade away from the very poorest countries and into those whose governments the West approves of. It may well be more cost- and energy-efficient to transport food in big trucks and have people make one weekly trip to the supermarket, rather than have lots of individual farmers driving around in four wheel drives and lots of well-meaning leftie shoppers making lots more trips to lots of different shops. Intensive farming could be a better use of limited space and the best way to feed a growing population. I'm not even entirely convinced by organic food. However, none of this can change the fact that local food is nicer to eat (and, if this is to be believed, good-tasting food is better for us) and, more wishy-washy liberally, that we as a society are extremely alienated from our food and how it is produced, and this can only be a bad thing, given the rising obesity rates, yadda, yadda...

Incidentally, look up 'balk' on oed.com. It's got so many different meanings!

I keep being tempted to write incessantly about food and the environment and stuff on here. In fact I keep doing so. I've been spending hours recently reading about such things online. Mostly cos the books I've been battling with have been gung-ho militaristic isn't-the-mission-civilatrice-great tracts which are making me jump up and down with rage.

I suppose if I really cared, I'd go out and plant some trees rather than sitting with my computer on all day.

I did spend rather a lot of time when I was about 17 reading all this eco stuff and crusading passionately for the environment, which meant moaning at my beleaguered parents for choosing to live in the middle of nowhere because it meant I was miles away from my friends and H&M... I mean, because it made us dependent on our car, and haranguing them to go back to using the milkman and not getting the milk from Tesco. That one always baffled me, as in Oxford you could easily forget that food and where it comes from is important, but when you've got a prize winning herd of dairy cows less than a mile from your fridge, you'd think people would care more... Anyway, when I was a bookish, unsociable teenager, I used to spend hours angsting over how we were destroying the planet, but this was rather a peculiar thing to bang on about (unless you were preparing for a Modern Languages oral), so I suppressed the Swampy side of me, and spent first year eating Tesco Value Wheat Biscuits for breakfast and lunch so I'd have enough money to spend on 3 for £10 wines at the weekend, and suchlike.

And now, suddenly, the environment debate has exploded into the British media! It's become a trendy, acceptable thing to talk about, and, dear Lord, I'm revelling in it. I'm sure the pain of limiting my facebook time to when I'm in my pyjamas has been made much easier by the fact that I can tell myself it's okay, nay, good, to 'stay in touch with the world' by reading the papers and then channel all my internet time-wasting time into that, when really, I'm smugly massaging my own ego, knowing I've been saying all this for years and everyone else is only just beginning to catch on...

However, this blog is supposed to be for keeping in touch with friends, and, much as I'd love for everybody to think the same as me, this is rather selfish and unfair. I don't want to alienate everyone I know by turning into some mad holier-than-thou hippy; nor, if I want to share my eco-ranting with other mad hippies, do I want them, as relative strangers, to be able to read all the personal (or frivolous) things I write on here. Therefore, I shall start a new blog for talking about food and things, so anyone who's interested can read it, but that those who aren't won't have to be bored by it! Details to follow...

And now, to bed with 'The Now Show'!

*which I can't link to cos it's subscriber-only

Ah.

My mother has just left.

She took one look at my mattress and said, "Well, it's no wonder you haven't been sleeping well."

Musings

Ack, for the first time in four days I've checked my Webmail and only had two new emails, both from organisations I'm actually part of. Success.

For those of you not privileged enough to be on 'the List', here is the story in full.

On Friday, one of the vice-chancellors sent round an email to all the finalists in the university (in batches) asking them to complete some 'Course Experience Survey'. They left all the email addresses visible. Most people ignored this. My group didn't. Shortly afterwards, somebody commented, rather aptly, 'Oops. I bet she thought no-one would reply all. The rain today's rather depressing, isn't it.'

This did not anger me too much. I even thought it was rather witty (I was very bored), but it soon unleashed the madness that is 'the list' and more or less every time I checked my email from then on I had an average of three pages of new emails from bored, immature people who think it's really funny to regularly email 863 people. Frequent reference was made to a 'legend' named Hugo, the word 'banter' was used a lot and everyone signed off with 'way-oo', from which you can probably guess much about the calibre of the content and the main perpetrators.

Furthermore, when someone sent an email saying 'this is really annoying', 'please take me off this list' or 'dear lord, do you people have no life?' (the irony of replying all to say so notwithstanding) they were either mocked resoundingly by these humorous individuals for not seeing the funny side of having to sift through 47 emails entirely devoid of interest in order to read important communiques from their friends, family, tutors or JCR, or (and someone has now set up an anonymous email address entirely for the purpose) somebody simply hits 'reply all', often more than once, and thereby sends them another email, presumably as punishment for being so boring and fusty.

Resistance, clearly, futile. I tried blacklisting the addresses in Webmail (after carefully filtering through and removing people I actually like) but I still seemed to be getting loads. Fortunately someone has now threatened to complain to the proctors if anyone does it again, and things have been quiet for the last few hours. There was a suggestion that it was all a social experiment and in the Mail tomorrow there will be an expose about how stupid/cruel/bored Oxford students are.

In other news, my take-away paper seems to have coalesced into three questions I can answer (albeit with lots of reading) but I think I've spotted the flaw in this paper. Normally, I can manage quite a lot of reading in one go, but when it's full of people being blown apart, losing limbs, becoming alienated from their loved ones and being used as cannon fodder by insensitive, incompetent military and political leaders, it's rather difficult to concentrate for any sustained period of time, without a) getting horribly depressed and upset, or b) concluding that in comparison to all that, Finals really aren't that bad after all, and there are far more important things I could be doing. (While, in the scheme of things, this is probably true, I still wish I could harness my drive and enthusiasm and just force myself to work for the next four months, safe in the knowledge that I will never again have to read anything with a pencil poised over the page, unless I really want to.)

Had a rather exciting few days. On Friday I cycled up to Keble with Harriet and some of her friends who didn't realise I was at Queen's cos they'd never seen me before! We went to see 'Utopia Limited', cos loads of people from choir were in it, which was highly amusing (though not flawless), deeply cynical and desperately topical.

I also bought a pestle and mortar. It's yellow.

Nik and I went to Wokingham on Saturday, which is perfectly unobjectionable. It has nice bits, a Waitrose, a New Look, plenty of pubs, a market, and I've been looking at all sorts of exciting things I could do with myself: learning Italian/German, salsa, going round Berkshire planting trees... I still actually need a job, mind, or my dreams of worthy work experience, buying kitchen gadgets and soft furnishings and going to China will remain sadly unrealised.

Yesterday I spent lots of time in the Bod reading about masculinity and war. It was mostly about the public school system, the role of team sports and the Victorians, which I didn't need to read as it isn't really relevant to France, but it was so interesting I couldn't bear to skip straight to the useful chapters!! At lunchtime, Sally and I planning things we're going to do after Finals. Later, I went to DNA who were having a closing down sale.

I now feel that sort of guilt, where I'm all sad and nostalgic and furious that a small, independent retailer is closing down due to rent increases, and then remember that I never actually bought anything there. I mean, aside from a small moment of weakness in the New Look sale, all the clothes I've bought in the last few months have been from charity shops or Bonnie (sale), so my not supporting them stems more from a general unwillingness to pay upwards of £5 for a pair of jeans, rather than a marked preference for Topshop, and despite my attraction to cheap clothes I've resisted the lure of Primark. So, while I know my clothes-shopping habits leave room for improvment, I don't feel massively personally responsible for the creeping homogenisation of town centres, but I am slightly ashamed of the glee with which I still descended on the £8 skirts and £5 tops, when outwardly I would profess a preference for DNA continuing to exist, representing diversity, creativity and fairly priced goods.

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

Interesting fact:
In 1884, Eton had 28 classics teachers and no scientists. (This was indirectlly a contributing factor to the outbreak of the First World War.)

Minor irritations

Friday was the last News Quiz in the series. *sigh* I feel rather bereft. Also, Sandi Toksvig was ill and someone else was running it. Meh.

Yesterday, Nik bought a Times to read on the train to Wokingham. The outside two pages of the 'Body and Soul' (my favourite section) were missing, so I was deprived of the sex problem page.

All these things that I've done...

I finished my extended essay!!!!!!!!!

Well, sort of. I have finished the first draft, which needs to be teased away from anti-neocolonial polemic and directed firmly back towards the actual question (which was something about language policy, wasn't it?) and I have to go through and reference everything properly so I don't get sentenced to death by firing squad for plagiarism. I also need to make 1 655 words disappear, and format it properly, and find out what that tribe in northern Nigeria that I wanted to talk about was. I felt briefly joyful, until I remembered the amount of work I had left to do on it. And, indeed, the amount of work I have left to do.

Went to see Spamalot last Monday, which was really, really cool. On Tuesday I went to EMS dinner and I had an absolutely riotous time, there was lots of pennying going on, and I went to the beer cellar afterwards, and then went to Babylove with a friendly medic, and didn't feel rubbish the next morning! And danced! When did I last do that?! I feel young and spontaneous and healthy again! On Wednesday, I went to see Hot Fuzz which was also good fun! I want to ride around in a police car with a swan. Otherwise I have been buried in my room with four dictionaries and a book called 'Gender', which is not about social stereotyping, but about grammar.

Ooh, iTunes just gave me one of my favourite songs. I like it when that happens.

I got the questions for my take-away paper. They're VILE!

My kitchen is full of revelling footballers eating scones.

Nik has manflu again and spent all morning skulking around my room spreading germs and stopping me achieving anything meaningful, without actually being a fun distraction. I've been dutifully making lemsips and trying to be helpful, and now he's left, without even taking the vitamin C that I offered him. Ungrateful swine! He has to go to Wokingham tomorrow to talk about becoming an actuary. I'm currently trying to decide if this is something I want to be a party to.

I'm also trying to decide if I want to be a speech therapist and if I'd actually be any good at it if did. Part of me has always thought I should do something really useful with my life. And all of the useful things I've done have been really rewarding. Part of me thinks I'm really rubbish at anything that requires good interpersonal skills and being practical and that I'm motivated more by self-flagellating white-middle-class guilt than any sort of innate aptitude.

Like most of my sudden epiphanies about my career I'll probably change my mind in a couple of weeks and go back to Plan B* of temping and seeing what happens.

Argh, help, I can't stop footnoting things!!

Best put some make-up on and go to choir methinks...

*I call it Plan B because I feel like there should be a Plan A that is preferable to data entry. Yet, there is no Plan A.

Warning: polemic ahead

Oh hurrah. That 'political-correctness-gone-mad!' idea that competitive sport is 'bad' for children, teaches them to be aggressive and is divisive, has now been debunked and schools are going to bring back team games in PE. Hockey, netball, football and cricket will once again be inflicted on generations of schoolchildren in the hope that it will teach them to 'co-operate'.

I'm sure I don't just speak for myself when I recall the hideous torment that was double games on a Wednesday afternoon. No other aspect of the school curriculum created such a divide between those who were good at it and those who weren't. For the first few weeks of secondary school, we were split into groups based on alphabetical order, or birthdays, or something random, and then at half term, once the PE teachers had got to know us, the year group was summarily split into two large sections, the sporty ones, and the not sporty ones. And thus we were condemned to years of half-heartedly running around in pleated skirts and shiny gym knickers unsuited to the northern drizzle, in the hope of winning some game we weren't really very enthusiastic about. (We didn't have any showers, and we usually wore our PE kits all day, so the motivation to exert yourself physically was minimal.)

Once a year, they brought out the 'fitness records' or whatever they were. Basically, you had to do all kinds of mind-numbing exercises and then measure our heart rates to prove that the people in the sporty group were fitter than the rest of us. Did anyone else have to do bleep tests? When you had to run back and forth across the gym, wheezing and aching, terrified your body was going to give out, but too scared to stop in case people laughed at you and classed you with the 'fat girls'? I suppose the furtive glances I shared with my friends ('I'll give up now if you will') could have been a form of co-operation. And then, those of us who were soon to be berated for being unfit and told to take more exercise, had to sit around and wait while the healthier among us finished.

And then, when we were in Year 10, something amazing happened. The drudgery of team sports was limited to half of each term and the rest of the time we went to the leisure centre in town. There, we were allowed to do six weeks of aerobics, of line-dancing, of self-defence, we could use the gym if we wanted. For the first time, I felt like I was enjoying physical activity (aside, I suppose, from all the time I spent running around outside as a child). It seemed to have a purpose: it felt like it was doing me some good and might, in the case of self-defence, be helpful at some point, or, in the case of line-dancing, allowed me for the first time to feel like I wasn't completely useless at anything involving more than a basic degree of co-ordination. Gone was the huge division between sporty and non sporty. PE became, dare I say it, fun.

And, looking back on my experience of sport in school, I can reflect that it wasn't all boring and punishing. While playing tennis 8 to a court seemed counter-productive (prioritising technique over actually running around and burning off calories), playing rounders in the summer always evoked enthusiasm for running around outdoors in even the most sedentary and high-minded of us; Swedish netball, usually reserved for an end-of-term treat, was often far more energetic and competitive than the usual variety, for the sole reason that we weren't supposed to take it so seriously; the country dances we learned for the first year Christmas party had a tangible purpose; trampolining was positively enjoyable.

Ultimately, those who have an interest in and talent for sport will pursue this outside of structured school PE lessons. They will join teams and clubs, have specialist coaching, train in their spare time and meet like-minded people. School PE should be as fun and inclusive as possible, less about refining your backhand or improving your footwork, and more about encouraging young people to take pleasure in exercise and find ways that they can look after their health on their own. It is only seven years after stopping school games that I am beginning to address the need to do this, so scarred was I by the experience. I bought a mini-trampoline and went salsa dancing. I hope to go again next week. The enforced discrimination and ritual humiliation of school PE had, on me and probably on many others, the exact opposite of the intended effect. Give primary school children an hour to run around playing games. Have school gardens that pupils are responsible for the upkeep of. Introduce aerobics, dancing and martial arts in place of hockey and rugby. Play rounders and quik cricket instead of tennis and athletics. Do not condemn the children who most need physical exercise at school to years of feeling inadequate and excluded.

Snow, power cuts and choir debauchery

Wow, updating for the second time in two days. It's snowing again!! In fact, I touch-typed all that cos I was looking out of my window ("at the only snow") and didn't make a single mistake. Ach, snow is lovely. At least before it gets all slushy and grey from the cars. It really makes me miss the countryside, actually. Not least cos we always used to get days off school when it snowed really badly. But also because you're not allowed to walk on the grass much here, and it's no fun if you can't go tearing around fields chucking snowballs. And because there are more trees, and snow on trees is one of the most beautiful things in the world, and because the snow doesn't get all trampled and driven through, and because snow makes everyone so childish and excitable. Helen had an email from her tutor saying, 'I don't care if your essays are late, if it means you get the chance to go outside and play in the snow.' Wow. All my tutor said to me was, 'Lots of excellent analysis, but I fear you have completely lost sight of the question you chose! Even the conclusion makes no reference to it...'

Oops.

I had a reprieve on my language essay. I thought I was going to have to get it in today, and as I haven't started it, this would have put a damper on the snow excitement somewhat, but I have till Monday! Hurrah! So I went to choir dinner with a clear conscience (and two pairs of tights, because it was cold). Great fun - everyone looked lovely and was pleasantly drunk. Goat's cheese tart featured on the menu, which pleased me muchly. Ditto the chocolate pots; sin in a coffee cup. Owen came up to me as we were going into hall and asked my permission to read from his hamster book ('by popular request'), assuring me it wasn't a personal reference. I wonder how he found out Catherine called me that...

I left before things got too riotous (the Irish one rolled in at 4.30, after a debauched evening of spin the bottle and drinking games involving the removal of clothing, though she claims she treated such activities with the contempt they deserve) and came home, took my make-up off and drank a glass of milk before going to bed. When did I get so grown-up? I've rediscovered the joys of writing in fountain pen and even had two people tell me this week that I'm going to make a fantastic mother! The power was off when I got back, which was enormously exciting. I had to go to bed by candlelight, feeling fabulously old-fashioned, particularly after having brought my shopping home wrapped in a paper parcel! I've made a resolution to stop using carrier bags (except for clothes shopping, somehow it seems wrong to put new clothes in a Tesco bag for life, though I don't know why this should be so) which I'm doing quite well at. When I set out to go food-shopping I usually remember, but when calling in for odd things on the way back from tutes and suchlike I keep realising I've forgotten them, and many's the time I've come back from Sainsbury's with cans of chickpeas cradled in my arms! Anyway, I was in Whittard's buying some tea (it momentarily having slipped my mind that while I have nine different varieties of tea, I have completely run out of coffee) and completely confused the shop assistant when I asked her to wrap them up! I did reflect that living in the days of candles and parcels of shopping might be quite fun, except for the fact that I wouldn't have been able to go to Oxford, or travel to Africa, or write, or do any of the other things that I enjoy...

I found a Saturday Jumbo crossword on the Times website. I am making very good progress. I am making less good progress with work.

Ooh, and Gaelle, thankyou for leaving my first comment in MONTHS! Was v excited! Also, you're being very persuasive about the whole going-to-China thing. What would be a good time of year for a visit?

Oxford in the snow

The chief nourisher in life's feast...

Hello all.

I was supposed to be watching 'A very long engagement' with my seminar group tonight but it was only going to be two of us, so we've postponed it and now I have an evening I didn't have before. The good part of my brain is saying 'do some work, then you won't have a mad essay dash tomorrow like you did last week'. The other part is saying, 'ooh, internet, bet you can have fun on that.'

I haven't really done much this term. Not as much work as I should be doing and too much cooking. Nothing seems to motivate me except shepherd's pie. I know this is a valuable life skill, but I'm competent enough to keep myself alive and healthy, and I have the entire rest of my life to make soup... I can hardly go to a job interview and say, 'Look, I know I got a third, but my risotto is really, really good.'

We came second in the Turf quiz last Tuesday, winning the princely sum of three pounds, largely thanks to the classical music round, much to the chagrin of the absent Catherine. I finally succeeded in writing something for one of my seminars and my tutor was suitably appreciative. Livvy was here at the weekend, though she was preoccupied with Rob and I was preoccupied with cottage pie and the Translation of Doom so we didn't see much of each other. Everyone else went out for lunch, but I'd eaten, so I joined them afterwards and drank more lapsang souchong than you could shake a stick at.

I've had a major insomniac patch over the last couple of weeks. Never sure how confessional I should get on here as I have absolutely no idea who's reading, but, meh, let's just say that insomnia always makes me feel sad and anxious, even when there's no real underlying cause. (Oh, and almost comically irritable in the morning. I've always been incapable of functioning without muesli, but this was epic.) And I always seem to be so tired that I can't concentrate on anything or take an interest in anything, which means I get more anxious that I'm not achieving anything and then can't sleep because of that, and then I find myself getting so worried about the insomnia itself that it just makes itself worse... It's such a disturbing experience, too, not being able to sleep, particularly after several nights. Your body knows you're tired and it knows you need sleep, and it seems strange that your body would do something that's going to be bad for it - yet for some reason you're still awake, fretting...

Have now substituted redbush tea and bananas for anything remotely enjoyable after about 4 p.m. Here's hoping.

Mini-rant

Urgh. "Alternative careers." What does that even mean? It makes it sound like there's something strange about you, something wrong with you if you don't want to be an investment banker. I feel as if the Careers Service are somehow judging me for wanting a job I enjoy; or a job that also gives me time to write and sing and cook and maintain some semblance of funtional human relationships outside work; or a job that fits in with my principles. It's like an 'alternative lifestyle' is always something that society doesn't really approve of, even if it makes you happy.

Bah.

Green living, Hamster-style

According to a list of tips on how to save the environment which I read on the back of a toilet door in Magdalen, recycling two glass bottles will save enough energy to boil the kettle for five cups of tea or coffee.

Which means that if I drink two bottles of wine a day, I can justify the amount of hot beverages I consume.

Why?

Meh. This term I have made a concerted effort to be healthy. Yet, despite taking more exercise, getting to bed at a decent time, eating lots of fresh fruit and veg and drinking nothing but herbal tea, I once again find myself beginning second week surrounded by vitamin C, zinc, echinea, Kleenex balsam and an inability to concentrate cos my head's all stuffed up. What more can I do??!!!!!

Last night my friends and I had a dinner party. We ended up talking about property prices.

Help.

Hee hee!

Lost Earl Grey - distraught.

Me: Hello! How are you?

Aged relative: Fine, thank you. How are you?

Me: Fine. Has Daddy arrived at your house yet?

Aged relative: Not yet. He rang to say he'd be late. We're expecting him any minute.

Me: Okay... [slowly] It's just that he said that he and Grandpa would either get here around 4 so we can meet before choir practice, or come straight to evensong at 6.30. I don't mind either way but I'd just like to know.

Aged relative: Right. What time is evensong?

Me: 6.30.

Aged relative: So it'll finish around 7.30.

Me: Usually around 7.

Aged relative: I see.

[Pause]

Aged relative: But you have a practice, don't you?

Me: Yes.

Aged relative: What time?

Me: 5.

Aged relative: So if they're coming before evensong, they'll need to get there about 4.

Me: Yes.

Aged relative: So maybe they'd better come at 6.30.

Me: Maybe.

Aged relative: Do you know which they're going to do?

Me: No...

[Sounds of me banging my head against the wall in frustration.]

Me: Do you think you could ask Daddy to ring me when he gets to yours, please?

Aged relative: Yes, of course. What on?

Me: Err, my phone. He'll have the number.

Aged relative: Okay. What do you want him to tell you?

.......


I probably shouldn't mock the elderly, but my Granny is otherwise perfectly mentally sound and has always been like this to some extent.

I have made about 2.5l of butternut squash soup, dyeing parts of the kitchen orange (sorry).

I want these shoes.

My teapot arrives in a few hours.

I have mislaid the box of Earl Grey I'm convinced I had last term.

Sally gave Sybil a good trim and she looks much healthier now. I might get some coriander, mint and/or chives to keep her company on my windowsill.

I know what I'm going to write about for my seminar tomorrow.

I woke up at a sensible time this morning. I would have got in the shower during Thought for the Day as I usually did last term, but they were talking to Sebastian Faulks about WW1 veterans afterwards so I had a little more of a doze and listened to that, as I'm sure it counts as work. Though he didn't say anything massively insightful. The recordings of the veterans were more interesting. There are only 4 surviving WW1 veterans alive today. Which, given as they must be over 100, is pretty amazing.

Today has been a good day for M&S Food special offers.

Vindicated

Just found this on the BBC Food website. It made me want to jump up and down, waving my arms and shouting, 'Yes, yes, you morons! This is what I've been saying all along!'

Fresh is best

Often foods marketed at slimmers are not very nutritious. One so-called 'slimming' chicken and sweetcorn flavour packet soup mix contained no sweetcorn and only one per cent chicken, water and glucose syrup being the first two ingredients. Okay, so it's less than 60 calories a serving but where's the goodness in it?

The healthiest food you can buy probably doesn't come with a label. Fresh ingredients won't list their nutrients, additives (or absence of) or boast that they're good for you. But if you buy organic broccoli from a farmers' market you know that it has been grown without pesticides and that it's packed with nutrients. It might even have been picked that very morning.

So, beware of the claims of labels. Look for the Government-approved traffic light rating - if there is one - and look even more carefully where there isn't.

Where possible, prepare foods yourself. You'll know exactly what you're eating and nothing with a 'healthy choice' label emblazoned on it is likely to be as virtuous - or as delicious.

In which the hamster escapes the tyranny of language policy and mulitlingual nation states by going to Brussels

I went back into Oxford on Thursday (for some reason I said in my last post I went to Brussels the next day - it wasn't true) to get my boots reheeled and then had to hang around and wait for them, which was a fantastic piece of work-avoidance. I ended up traipsing round the cooking sections in both Boswells and Debenhams and fantasising about, at some point in the future, having a large, well-equipped kitchen where I could make soup and jam and all those other things. Sigh. I bought a hand blender for a tenner and made stilton soup, as Nik's mum had kindly given me approximately 200g of strong stilton on the verge of going mouldy that went out of date about two days afterwards. There was an exciting Mozart concert on Radio 3 and I sat and listened to it and pondered at what point I had turned into the kind of person who rated buying a kitchen gadget as the high point of their day. Then I listened to Choral Evensong and packed and then got up early on Friday and went to Brussels.

Firstly, the Eurostar is fantastic. Even including the Oxford Tube journey, getting the tube to Waterloo and checking in and waiting for the Eurostar, I still got from Oxford to Brussels in the same time as it takes to get from Oxford to Newcastle. Madness! Even more madly, I got in before Livvy and waited around, reading, in the station (my bag being too heavy to permit much window-shopping) and then met her off the train. Heehee. We went back to her house and drank a pint of tea in the new mugs I'd got her and then went to the supermarket to get olives and pizza and salad and wine and came back and made dinner. Then we drank a pint of coffee and stayed up until 3 a.m. talking, amongst other things, about how annoying it is having a boyfriend who doesn't appreciate Radio 4.

We had made such great plans for Saturday, but, after the exuberant conversational exertions of the night before, overslept rather dramatically, so (with further encouragement from the rain) decided against the lengthy but scenic walk into the centre of Brussels. We fare-dodged on the tram and took a perfunctory look at the Grande Place, then went and had coffee (which came with free chocolate mousse!!) in a pretty shopping arcade with lots of funky small boutiques with beautiful shoes and bags and gloves and suchlike. Livvy then urgently needed my opinion on a pair of boots, so we went to Zara, lost each other in the seething mass of undignified humanity that was trying on jumpers and leaving them in untidy piles so no-one can find a V-neck, proceeded to H&M and forgot to go to the musical instruments museum. We had lunch in an earthy, whole-foody type place, though my eyes proved bigger than my stomach and I ate my tuna and wheat salad on the train the next day, and were torn between excitement that someone had left an English newspaper and disappointment that it was the Daily Mail. We read it anyway and felt dirty and angry afterwards. Hissss. My personal favourite article was: 'Why joining the EU has led to the loss of civil liberties, the decline of British values and a glut of immigrants taking our jobs!' Livvy enjoyed the expose about Lembit Opik and the Cheeky Girl's sex life.

Having abandoned any hope of being cultured and touristy, we carried on looking at shoes until it was time for live jazz at an exciting bar. We sat upstairs and had coffee, and then Livvy had another coffee and I had a cocktail (cos I was tired and needed the sugar rush) until we got too hungry and restless to be assuaged by free peanuts and went to the supermarket and bought chicken for dinner. We ate it with the world's finest chips and, as Nik had requested any present "as long as it's worth millions" and had only agreed to me bringing beer on condition that the bottle was encrusted with diamonds and rubies, I spent the evening sticking nail decorations onto a beer bottle to create said effect on my shoestring budget. (He had also stipulated it was to be brewed with liquid gold, but the only beer claiming to have anything to do with gold had a nasty plastic top, while the one I chose had a funky wooden cork and had already been approved of by Jon and Rob.) Then we watched 'Coupling' on YouTube (which was annoying cos the clips only last 10 mins and we had to keep changing them), cackled extensively, and then, again, talked until far too late about philosophy and politics and history and linguistics and literature and culture, or at least insofar as they relate to sex. Oh, and we tried to decide what we'd take on Desert Island Discs. I entered into the spirit of this rather too enthusiastically, imagining I really was going to be abandoned on a desert island and therefore choosing a wide variety of long things with good tunes so I wouldn't get bored, until I remembered it was really a sort of musical 'This is Your Life' and Livvy suggested I follow the more general tactic of choosing either my favourite things* or things that reminded me of certain points in my life. Ahem. Yes. Of course. We both agreed choosing one book was the hardest part of the whole endeavour. Livvy wanted to take a piano and limitless supply of music. I can't decide if my luxury would be unlimited paper and pens or an espresso machine.

Ooh, ooh, yesterday I bought a stovetop espresso maker with 2 porcelain cups and saucers with a pretty pattern on them for an extremely bargainous price in the Boswells sale AND made successful espresso (minor spillage incident, probably design flaw, kitchen otherwise unscathed). On the strength of this, the cafetiere and the new teapot, I am going for the title of Aldate's hot beverage queen HT07. Must now resist utterly pointless urge to buy more mugs and a mug tree in complete denial of proximity to overdraft even before paying battels.

On Sunday, we again overslept, though less dramatically, and went for a brief wander through the market (fresh vegetables! cheese!) and had a brief but chocolatey pain au chocolat to curb my hunger cravings. I wish I weren't grouchy and prone to dizziness until I've had breakfast. It seems very indelicate. Then I got the train home, and again it was fast, clean, cheap, efficient, environmentally friendly and pleasant. I was sitting next to someone from SOAS, but I decided against plunging into conversation with him as 'Ooh, I nearly went there for my degree but decided I'd rather do linguistics than Chinese and went to Oxford instead, and then I nearly went there again for postgrad, but then I decided I wanted to do literature, and then I thought this would be damaging to my writing, so I've decided not to do postgrad, at least not yet, but I have no interest or aptitude for anything else, so... - what do you think I should do with my life?' was not an opening gambit conducive to other people's high estimation of my sanity.

I got home and felt tired so I went to sleep in the afternoon, woke up grouchy and was too bored to cook and sent Nik out in the rain to get a kebab with our meagre cash. Classy. I was speaking to my mother while he was out and told her he'd gone to get a take-away. She asked me what we were having. "Err... I don't know - it's a surprise!" I said. Then we watched excessive amounts of 'Coupling' and yesterday I finished a book and started another and we went for dinner with Rami and people in the evening. Yay.

Gaah, I have a seminar in two days and I've read one book and 50 pages of another out of the whole reading list. Where did the vac go??? Why am I in bed, writing this, instead of working??? I keep telling myself I need a break, in a calm-before-the-storm sort of way, heedless of the fact that the storm would be calmer if the calm was a bit stormier. Balance. Moderation. Being sensible. New Year's Resolution anyone? My tutor sent me an email asking if I could come to a meeting on Thursday about teaching arrangements. I replied, saying I would be in said seminar. I received this:

Do you mean that teaching is already beginning this coming Thursday, in Oth Week, before term has begun??

I was tempted to reply simply by saying 'Yes'. I haven't yet come up with a more elaborate response, so it's still sitting in my drafts folder.

Anyway, I'm hungry. I will go and have some soup and read like a wee beastie, as Catherine would have said in first year, until Nik gets home. Which will be in about two hours. Hmm.


*"These are a few of..."

Happy New Year!!!

Gaah. They've changed blogger again. It's no longer beta, whatever that means, which I'm not entirely unhappy about, cos it was faffy and annoying, but I can't find any new cool stuff on this thingy, whatever it may be.

My camera is playing up. It keeps freezing up and not responding when you press the buttons. Suggestions, anyone?

I'm now back in Oxford, theoretically working. I went to my Auntie Margaret's for lunch on Saturday, which was great - we had yummy pie and I got given a teapot. My cousin has a new car - a swanky BMW with all sorts of hi-tech thingummies including self-dipping headlights (which nobody can figure out how they work*, but they do) as a wedding present from his fiancee's father. Eek.

I went down to London for New Year's Eve, and managed to get the bus to where I was supposed to be all by myself. Nik and I were at a party with one of his friends from school and his uni friends. I had a great time, managing not to get horrendously drunk and was compos mentis enough the next morning to fry eggs for everyone who was up. Hurrah. Here are some highlights from the evening when enthusiasm for Jenga waned, and certain people among us decided to instead play 'How many Jenga bricks can you fit in your mouth?', thus proving the victorious Nik's claim that 'everything is a competition if you want it to be.'
All the other photos on Facebook were a result of flagrant camera abuse by other people. Nik is a hero for making chilli at 1 a.m.

We went back to Surrey afterwards and sheltered under a blanket in front of 'Jeeves and Wooster'. I want to live in the 1930s. Lots of jazz and men in suits. Mmmm, Stephen Fry. Mmm. Too much Jeeves led to an after-dinner departure back to Oxford, and now I'm back in Nik's room where my stuff takes up half the floor space. This is supposed to be a comment on the size of his room, not on the amount of stuff I have. However, I do have more stuff. I wanted to buy some stuff in the sales, so I started in New Look, thinking I'd then move on to some real bargains, and pick up some lovely, well-cut, non-boring-high-street-chain-store clothes elsewhere, but no other clothes in Oxford fit me at all. Particularly jeans. I'm just too short. So I resigned myself to this and went and bought lots of tights to go with my two skirts from New Look. Hmm.

Off to Brussels tomorrow, yayayayayayay.

Am just going to listen to Just a Minute and then go and do something useful like post my brother's birthday card and get my boots reheeled. And make some soup with the enormous quantity of Stilton Nik's mum kindly gave me.

"Hey Churchill, are you the First Lord of the Admiralty and war-time Prime Minister who kept the Nazis from our shores?"

"Oh yes."

"Were you invested as a Knight of the Garter, bestowed with a Nobel Prize for Literature and voted the greatest Briton of all time?"

"Oh yes, yes, yes, yes."

"And are you pleased to have those achievements commemorated by a talking, nodding insurance dog?"

"Errr... no."

*Oh lord, my first thought on typing that sentence was 'I'm sure I've written a syntax essay arguing why this is an impossible sentence'. Am now filled with vague uncomfortable twitchy feeling.