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.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
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?
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?
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
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.
Bah.
Friday, January 26, 2007
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.
Which means that if I drink two bottles of wine a day, I can justify the amount of hot beverages I consume.
Monday, January 22, 2007
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??!!!!!
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
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:
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..."
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..."
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
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 ha
d 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.
*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.
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 ha
d 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.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Heedless of the wind and weather
I came to my room with the intention of writing another section of my extended essay, but have spent most of the time faffing about putting photos on facebook. (This is always irritating cos for some reason I can't do it on Firefox and have to use Explorer.) However, festive pictures should now be there for your delectation.
Got home today after a week traipsing round England in what seems, in retrospect, like an extended wine-tasting. It started in London (after a prolific bout of work on the East Coast main line) for an exciting AV reunion, where there was much ooh-ing over Nat's new flat and Wellers's engagement (congratulations!!) and I thought how much we've grown up since we all met at the airport four years ago, untravelled and fresh out of school. We went out for a lovely meal in Chiswick and caught up and reminisced lots and pouted in lots of photos, and then unfortunately I had to leave cos it was Nik's birthday the next day and I was going to stay with him. However, due to the combined incompetence of my timekeeping, late-evening holiday period tube services, London Victoria's ticket machine provision and the slow man in front of me in the queue, I succeeded in missing the train and dragging Nik out to fetch me from Epsom at 1 a.m. in the freezing fog (I can't deal with these harsh southern climes) with the remnants of a cold. Oops.
Still, his birthday was fun - he beat me and his sisters resoundingly (twice) at his new Friends trivia DVD game (surprise, surprise) and we had a nice meal and a very competitive game of Trivial Pursuits. (Snowflakes have 6 sides. I knew that, but did they listen...?) On Christmas Eve his mum was giving a huge party which was really cool, but I had to leave after a couple of hours (and spent those gripped by train paranoia) and go to my grandparents' where we had a very traditional Christmas (turkey, flaming puddings, board games, carols). Nik came up on Boxing Day and coped admirably with my mad relatives and their perishingly cold house.
Took my brothers to London yesterday (though Davy would like it to be known that he is an adult and capable of taking care of himself) which, despite more train madness (sodding Virgin, bunch of incompetents), ended up being fun. Charlie is just young enough for it still to be rewarding when you take him to something he enjoys, even if he is old enough for you to take to Avenue Q. Which was, overall, excellent. The second half seemed like a desperate attempt to cobble together a coherent plot from the various amusing songs and characters and consequently the ending felt rather unsatisfactory, and the tunes weren't very memorable (which, considering that the words were, was disappointing) but, overall, excellent.
Back from Warwickshire in the car today, hate car journeys, esp in the back, esp with bony boys with their iPods turned up too loud. Ah well.
Soooo much work to do. Depressing. Just want to lie comatose and eat chocolate. Grr.
Still, can get a bargainous ticket to London for New Year. Carrot.
Got home today after a week traipsing round England in what seems, in retrospect, like an extended wine-tasting. It started in London (after a prolific bout of work on the East Coast main line) for an exciting AV reunion, where there was much ooh-ing over Nat's new flat and Wellers's engagement (congratulations!!) and I thought how much we've grown up since we all met at the airport four years ago, untravelled and fresh out of school. We went out for a lovely meal in Chiswick and caught up and reminisced lots and pouted in lots of photos, and then unfortunately I had to leave cos it was Nik's birthday the next day and I was going to stay with him. However, due to the combined incompetence of my timekeeping, late-evening holiday period tube services, London Victoria's ticket machine provision and the slow man in front of me in the queue, I succeeded in missing the train and dragging Nik out to fetch me from Epsom at 1 a.m. in the freezing fog (I can't deal with these harsh southern climes) with the remnants of a cold. Oops.
Still, his birthday was fun - he beat me and his sisters resoundingly (twice) at his new Friends trivia DVD game (surprise, surprise) and we had a nice meal and a very competitive game of Trivial Pursuits. (Snowflakes have 6 sides. I knew that, but did they listen...?) On Christmas Eve his mum was giving a huge party which was really cool, but I had to leave after a couple of hours (and spent those gripped by train paranoia) and go to my grandparents' where we had a very traditional Christmas (turkey, flaming puddings, board games, carols). Nik came up on Boxing Day and coped admirably with my mad relatives and their perishingly cold house.
Took my brothers to London yesterday (though Davy would like it to be known that he is an adult and capable of taking care of himself) which, despite more train madness (sodding Virgin, bunch of incompetents), ended up being fun. Charlie is just young enough for it still to be rewarding when you take him to something he enjoys, even if he is old enough for you to take to Avenue Q. Which was, overall, excellent. The second half seemed like a desperate attempt to cobble together a coherent plot from the various amusing songs and characters and consequently the ending felt rather unsatisfactory, and the tunes weren't very memorable (which, considering that the words were, was disappointing) but, overall, excellent.
Back from Warwickshire in the car today, hate car journeys, esp in the back, esp with bony boys with their iPods turned up too loud. Ah well.
Soooo much work to do. Depressing. Just want to lie comatose and eat chocolate. Grr.
Still, can get a bargainous ticket to London for New Year. Carrot.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Ooh, ooh, just one more...
"Oh, come on, it's not like men have never used sex to get what they want?"
"How can we use sex to get what we want? Sex is what we want!"
------------------------
"You think my wiles are masculine?"
"How can we use sex to get what we want? Sex is what we want!"
------------------------
"You think my wiles are masculine?"
Thursday, December 14, 2006
"They're blue... to match your... lips, when they're cold..."
I'm supposed to be working... Shh... Don't tell anyone... I'm lying on the sofa watching Frasier, MSNing Liv, sipping red wine and giggling out loud. I was meant to be reading some articles that I printed out (I'm halfway through my print quota already???!!) but I can do it on the train on Tuesday. Along with reading all the books on francophonie... and planning the damn essay... and writing an introduction... and the 12 WW1 novels (why? why? why would I do that to myself?)... You can bet this will be the one time I don't get stuck for 3 hours in Doncaster...
Gaah, sodding Windows keeps trying to restart my computer. No, I want to install updates when I'm finished, thankyou.
I have Bod-madness. I've been in that (or Rhodes House, queen of libraries) since Monday, from as soon as I can drag myself there until the tetchy librarian comes round and wrenches the books from under my pale, nervous grasp. (Is anyone else worried that the abyss below is going to swallow their books at the end of the day? I always have to expressly tell the librarians I want to see the books again tomorrow - no, I don't want to restart my sodding computer - and they all think I'm neurotic and irritating, but I just can't trust the this-side-goes-back-to-the-stack-this-side-goes-back-to-the-shelf' system.) I am suffering with the almost total lack of literature on Togo (i.e. on half my essay) except for the absurdly technical of articles in French and the thing that sounds like it's exactly what I want, but it's in German. But, there we go....
"... whose ancestors were once heard to remark, 'Oh, that's a nice wooden horse, sure I'll sign for it!'"
NO! COMPUTER! NO! STOP IT!
"I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with a guy whose favourite T-shirt reads 'Seattle Hooter inspector'."
Sorry, I will cease the Frasier-quoting.
Nik is in Manchester using big manly chemist machines, which is great because it meant I got to do my 'you're leaving me alone' eyes and make him walk all the way to Jericho to watch political documentaries! The U.S. vs John Lennon was very interesting, if rather obvious parallels. 'America has this mad president. He's curtailing civil liberties and fighting this mad war in some faraway country in the name of democracy, but it's messy and not working... hmm... Just what are we alluding to? What?!' And they kept going on about how John Lennon could make a really serious point because he was a brilliant artist, but the film itself was just a lot of old interviews and concert footage interspersed with people talking. But it made me think. We don't really have anyone like that. If the world is, as I sometimes think, doomed, there isn't really anyone who (shut up windows) has the same influence. Lennon was such a threat to the establishment because he was so famous the press jumped on anything he did. Who do we have now? Paris Hilton?
"Why is it so easy to love your family but so hard to like them?"
"Ah, Daphne, that's one of the questions that makes life so rich... and psychiatrists richer."
I've bought a cardigan. Another one. It's big and pinky-purpley and warm and snuggly and I love it and it was in the sale but I think it's mumsy and makes me look like I'm 35.
"Isn't it sad when bad things happen to good sentences?"
Ack, I have to be a soprano again tomorrow. I've been croaky all week. That doesn't bode well. Especially for the Messiah on Saturday. I got an email from someone at Oxford Phil saying Nik could have a free ticket if he agreed to sell CDs. I very nearly replied thus:
"She deserves a doctor... or a lawyer... someone for whom a T-shirt is an undergarment."
All right, Bill Gates, you win!
xx
Gaah, sodding Windows keeps trying to restart my computer. No, I want to install updates when I'm finished, thankyou.
I have Bod-madness. I've been in that (or Rhodes House, queen of libraries) since Monday, from as soon as I can drag myself there until the tetchy librarian comes round and wrenches the books from under my pale, nervous grasp. (Is anyone else worried that the abyss below is going to swallow their books at the end of the day? I always have to expressly tell the librarians I want to see the books again tomorrow - no, I don't want to restart my sodding computer - and they all think I'm neurotic and irritating, but I just can't trust the this-side-goes-back-to-the-stack-this-side-goes-back-to-the-shelf' system.) I am suffering with the almost total lack of literature on Togo (i.e. on half my essay) except for the absurdly technical of articles in French and the thing that sounds like it's exactly what I want, but it's in German. But, there we go....
"... whose ancestors were once heard to remark, 'Oh, that's a nice wooden horse, sure I'll sign for it!'"
NO! COMPUTER! NO! STOP IT!
"I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with a guy whose favourite T-shirt reads 'Seattle Hooter inspector'."
Sorry, I will cease the Frasier-quoting.
Nik is in Manchester using big manly chemist machines, which is great because it meant I got to do my 'you're leaving me alone' eyes and make him walk all the way to Jericho to watch political documentaries! The U.S. vs John Lennon was very interesting, if rather obvious parallels. 'America has this mad president. He's curtailing civil liberties and fighting this mad war in some faraway country in the name of democracy, but it's messy and not working... hmm... Just what are we alluding to? What?!' And they kept going on about how John Lennon could make a really serious point because he was a brilliant artist, but the film itself was just a lot of old interviews and concert footage interspersed with people talking. But it made me think. We don't really have anyone like that. If the world is, as I sometimes think, doomed, there isn't really anyone who (shut up windows) has the same influence. Lennon was such a threat to the establishment because he was so famous the press jumped on anything he did. Who do we have now? Paris Hilton?
"Why is it so easy to love your family but so hard to like them?"
"Ah, Daphne, that's one of the questions that makes life so rich... and psychiatrists richer."
I've bought a cardigan. Another one. It's big and pinky-purpley and warm and snuggly and I love it and it was in the sale but I think it's mumsy and makes me look like I'm 35.
"Isn't it sad when bad things happen to good sentences?"
Ack, I have to be a soprano again tomorrow. I've been croaky all week. That doesn't bode well. Especially for the Messiah on Saturday. I got an email from someone at Oxford Phil saying Nik could have a free ticket if he agreed to sell CDs. I very nearly replied thus:
Yes, that would be fine. He hates classical music and would be thrilled not to have to part with beer money for the concert. Does he need to wear a shirt?
"She deserves a doctor... or a lawyer... someone for whom a T-shirt is an undergarment."
All right, Bill Gates, you win!
xx
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Carols, ice-cream and postcolonial language policy
Ow. I don't think I was designed to sing soprano. Not judging by the pain, and the hoarseness, and the coughing, and the croaking.
Had my arm twisted into helping out St John's for their staff carol service, as their entire soprano section has gone ski-ing, which was presented to me as general carol-type shenanigans, with a couple of choir items... except these turned out to include Jesus Christ the Apple Tree (which is lovely, but those top Gs come out of flippin' nowhere) and I Saw Three Ships (which is all pitched about half an octave above my comfort zone).
And, to top it all off, during We Three Kings, some people traipsed up to the crib with a (fake) gold crown, some frankincense and some myrrh, which was hugely exciting, as I've never seen that before, but smokey and had me hacking away!
But it was fun, and I'm doing it again next week.
Afterwards I raced to Cafe Opium to celebrate Holly's birthday, ate a funky chicken dish with mangoes in, then sat around in G & D's having peculiar conversations. When we finally dragged our weary selves away, Zhenia's bike key snapped off in the lock, which happened to me over the summer and is really irritating, and we all faffed around trying to snap it, wondering how to get the bike over the top of the sign, asking the nice man in G & D's for a pair of pliars, only to find (when he appeared, bearing said useful implement) that it actually came away quite easily in James's hands...
Entertained me, anyway!
Otherwise, have done extremely little - theoretically I'm working like a Trojan (that warrior race well-known for their vicious use of OLIS stack requests and violent assaults on unsuspecting reading rooms) but due to residual term-fatigue, have been less productive than I'd like. Though I have discovered the wonderful Rhodes House, which is by no means least among the libraries of Oxford. Massively impressive and exciting building, rotunda, huuuge wooden staircase, pictures of venerable people, calls its toilets 'cloakrooms', friendly, smiley staff... That chemistry guy Nik was talking about probably took pictures of it. I should try and find them.
Though I am tired. So not now.
I will just listen to the end of Choral Evensong (from Newcastle), and then I will sleep.
Had my arm twisted into helping out St John's for their staff carol service, as their entire soprano section has gone ski-ing, which was presented to me as general carol-type shenanigans, with a couple of choir items... except these turned out to include Jesus Christ the Apple Tree (which is lovely, but those top Gs come out of flippin' nowhere) and I Saw Three Ships (which is all pitched about half an octave above my comfort zone).
And, to top it all off, during We Three Kings, some people traipsed up to the crib with a (fake) gold crown, some frankincense and some myrrh, which was hugely exciting, as I've never seen that before, but smokey and had me hacking away!
But it was fun, and I'm doing it again next week.
Afterwards I raced to Cafe Opium to celebrate Holly's birthday, ate a funky chicken dish with mangoes in, then sat around in G & D's having peculiar conversations. When we finally dragged our weary selves away, Zhenia's bike key snapped off in the lock, which happened to me over the summer and is really irritating, and we all faffed around trying to snap it, wondering how to get the bike over the top of the sign, asking the nice man in G & D's for a pair of pliars, only to find (when he appeared, bearing said useful implement) that it actually came away quite easily in James's hands...
Entertained me, anyway!
Otherwise, have done extremely little - theoretically I'm working like a Trojan (that warrior race well-known for their vicious use of OLIS stack requests and violent assaults on unsuspecting reading rooms) but due to residual term-fatigue, have been less productive than I'd like. Though I have discovered the wonderful Rhodes House, which is by no means least among the libraries of Oxford. Massively impressive and exciting building, rotunda, huuuge wooden staircase, pictures of venerable people, calls its toilets 'cloakrooms', friendly, smiley staff... That chemistry guy Nik was talking about probably took pictures of it. I should try and find them.
Though I am tired. So not now.
I will just listen to the end of Choral Evensong (from Newcastle), and then I will sleep.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Sod Facebook.
Oh dear. Oh deary me. Deary, deary, deary me.
I've been sucked in by YouTube.
I thought it was just a conduit for amateur porn, other people's children's school plays and things that weren't funny enough to get on You've Been Framed.
How wrong, how wrong I was.
Monty Python sketches... Rowan Atkinson's Welcome to Hell... French and Saunders' Titanic... All the bits of Father Ted that Catherine and Paul have been quoting for the past three years...
It's all here, in tantalisingly short and watchable snippets - "Oh, just one more before I go to sleep!" I said, two hours ago. TWO HOURS!!!!
My soul is damned for ever. Damned.
I've been sucked in by YouTube.
I thought it was just a conduit for amateur porn, other people's children's school plays and things that weren't funny enough to get on You've Been Framed.
How wrong, how wrong I was.
Monty Python sketches... Rowan Atkinson's Welcome to Hell... French and Saunders' Titanic... All the bits of Father Ted that Catherine and Paul have been quoting for the past three years...
It's all here, in tantalisingly short and watchable snippets - "Oh, just one more before I go to sleep!" I said, two hours ago. TWO HOURS!!!!
My soul is damned for ever. Damned.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
I know I should feel Christmassy, but....
The brain fog lifted at the weekend and the return to normal life would have been blissful, had it not been accompanied by a massive backlog of work. Consequently, we have two days left till the end of term, and I still have two essays to write. Which means I have to spend my last Christmas dinner with Symbolist poetry nagging annoyingly at me. (Oxford has surpassed itself, and achieved what it has been attempting for three years: this year, Christmas comes before Advent.) Fortunately, Nik will be there, and has an interview tomorrow morning, so with any luck he'll drag me home in time for him to get an early night, and therefore I'll be able to tease my inchoate thoughts on Mallarme into something resembling a structured argument of 2000 words, unimpeded by hangover and tiredness.
I had thought Christmas would be doubly exciting and magical, having been away last year and missed out on carols, mulled wine, tinsel and the like last year, but aside from the choir festivities, it feels rather like a party for the first and second years. The theme is 'Oscars' and there are Queen's 'Academy Awards', where you vote for the fittest people, the lewdest public display of affaction, the best sportspeople etc, and when I got it in my pidge I immediately thought, "Ooh, that'll be so-and-so... oh no, he's left..." It really just made me feel old. And boring. And like I've done nothing but work all term. Socially, I feel like I've left already.
Have decided to put postgrad plans on hold, partly cos I don't know whether I want to do literature or linguistics, and partly cos the AHRC form scares me. In a way, I'm really just postponing the decision, which is rather cowardly and probably ultimately unproductive, but it is possible that another term, finals and results will indicate if I have a strong inclination or ability for one or the other.
Annoyingly, while I'm quite happy to wander through life without any fixed purpose (so long as I don't actually starve), I would quite like to know, materially, what I'm going to be doing next September, when the student loan and subsidised accommodation are no more. I'm twitchy like that. I thought about doing something dictionary-related (and got all enthused by meeting a real-life lexicographer last week) but then I would either have to stay in Oxford or move to Glasgow, neither of which I really want to do. Applying for any corporate graduate scheme makes me want to gnaw my arm off, so I'm really down to scouring Guardian jobs for something that takes my fancy, probably something arts or heritage related. There was a gorgeous job at English Heritage, but unfortunately they probably aren't looking for someone to start in several months time. Same goes for anything else I'd have to apply for on a job-by-job basis. Dammit.
I made roast dinner for the first time ever on Saturday, and didn't poison anyone, which made it in my eyes a triumph. I know feel ready to take on knitting, parents' evenings and all the other trappings of domesticity. Emboldened by last week's success, Nik and I have now decided to make chicken in beer, which I had on Christmas Eve last year and remember being nice, and appealed to him for... some reason... can't work out what...
Conversation in the linguists' kitchen a while ago:
"How is it lunchtime already?"
"How is it sixth week already?"
"How is it fourth year?"
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?"
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.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
My nutritional intake today (barring my usual healthy breakfast) has thus far consisted of a cafetiere of strong, black coffee and half a chocolate orange.
Previous to this I was so tired I fell asleep on my books.
Yesterday, I wrote an essay.
On Thursday, I wrote an essay until 3 a.m.
Today, I have to write another essay.
Please, please, please can I sleep now????
Previous to this I was so tired I fell asleep on my books.
Yesterday, I wrote an essay.
On Thursday, I wrote an essay until 3 a.m.
Today, I have to write another essay.
Please, please, please can I sleep now????
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Procrastination rocks!
 I've visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited? made by marnanel map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey. © Crown copyright 2001. |
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Musing...
I think I might become addicted to cocaine.
Then I wouldn't need to sleep.
It would make life easier.
In some ways.
Then I wouldn't need to sleep.
It would make life easier.
In some ways.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
I've had more bike locks than you've had hot meals...
Well, perhaps I haven't. But sometimes it feels like it. I'm on my fourth since June.
Actually, the latest thing to have gone wrong with my bike, is the rusty chain. While this has, I admit, been a problem roughly since I got the thing in first year, recently it has started to make clunking noises and threaten to snap if I go uphill. Or even flat. Or indeed anything other than quite steeply downhill. I did buy some oil, but I promptly left it in the changing rooms at New Look and couldn't go back to claim it till Tuesday. And it comes in a spray can and has one of those funny, tiny plastic straws that I don't know where to put and... meh. I just can't be bothered. So, I've been walking everywhere, which is good to do once in a while cos it uses different muscles, and enables you to carry an umbrella and hence not get soaked in the rain.
Incidentally, we were promised rain and floods of Biblical proportions on Monday, and none have materialised.
This is brought to you from the computer room, which I feel bad using for non-work things, except that a vast proportion of people seem to be checking Facebook, so perhaps I'm being too harsh on myself. I did say earlier that my twitchiness and disinclination to work were solely a result of my anxiety about getting my extended essay form in and promised myself (and Holly, who is my conscience incarnate) that after taking that fateful piece of paper to Wellington Square, I would sit in the library (or the OTR, which is cosier) with my old friend Mr Carnie and get reacquainted with the advantages of X-bar theory. However, I am still feeling restless and scared of syntax, and totally unmotivated by the fact that my tute is in less than 48 hours and I've read about 10 pages on the (rather complicated) subject, so clearly that was just an excuse to play Tetris.
But, hey, how cool does, "Language planning and language policy: a comparative study of East Africa and Togo" sound?!
Oxford is much the same as it ever was - busy and meteorologically dubious - except for the fact that I have a kitchen, and only know about 4 people. In fact, I spend a lot of my time sitting in said kitchen with other linguists, bemoaning the fact that I have so much work and know so few people. I have been to the pub a total of twice, and drunk two halves of Kronenbourg. (And a lot of wine at Liz's party on Saturday.)
I've also been struck by the urge to do an MA in something other than linguistics. After a suggestion of African Literature from my tutor, I browsed the SOAS website and am now sooooo tempted by the Anthropology of Food. I did want to do French, and have switched to an option in WW1 literature (which will doubtless be a far cry from A-Level Eng Lit with Ms Clare, but probably fun nonetheless) instead of Semantics, on the basis that Semantics fills me with fear and panic. And I love literature and I don't want to stop studying it. And I love linguistics (most of the time) and don't want to stop studying that either. Aargh! It's like UCAS all over again. So, yes, my tutor suggested African Literature or African Studies, which sounds exciting, but rather like the sort of thing my parents would think was mad... The more I think about it, and the more I think about other options, the more attractive an option I find academia, but, meh - host of choices, little time to decide. I suppose whatever I choose I'll have some regrets, and if I do do linguistics (as I've planned for, what, a year?) it's not like I'll never read a book again, and if I do something literary, it's not like I can't learn Swahili on the side, but I was so lucky to find a degree that allowed me to do both, it's rather a shock having to choose now.
Bah.
Actually, the latest thing to have gone wrong with my bike, is the rusty chain. While this has, I admit, been a problem roughly since I got the thing in first year, recently it has started to make clunking noises and threaten to snap if I go uphill. Or even flat. Or indeed anything other than quite steeply downhill. I did buy some oil, but I promptly left it in the changing rooms at New Look and couldn't go back to claim it till Tuesday. And it comes in a spray can and has one of those funny, tiny plastic straws that I don't know where to put and... meh. I just can't be bothered. So, I've been walking everywhere, which is good to do once in a while cos it uses different muscles, and enables you to carry an umbrella and hence not get soaked in the rain.
Incidentally, we were promised rain and floods of Biblical proportions on Monday, and none have materialised.
This is brought to you from the computer room, which I feel bad using for non-work things, except that a vast proportion of people seem to be checking Facebook, so perhaps I'm being too harsh on myself. I did say earlier that my twitchiness and disinclination to work were solely a result of my anxiety about getting my extended essay form in and promised myself (and Holly, who is my conscience incarnate) that after taking that fateful piece of paper to Wellington Square, I would sit in the library (or the OTR, which is cosier) with my old friend Mr Carnie and get reacquainted with the advantages of X-bar theory. However, I am still feeling restless and scared of syntax, and totally unmotivated by the fact that my tute is in less than 48 hours and I've read about 10 pages on the (rather complicated) subject, so clearly that was just an excuse to play Tetris.
But, hey, how cool does, "Language planning and language policy: a comparative study of East Africa and Togo" sound?!
Oxford is much the same as it ever was - busy and meteorologically dubious - except for the fact that I have a kitchen, and only know about 4 people. In fact, I spend a lot of my time sitting in said kitchen with other linguists, bemoaning the fact that I have so much work and know so few people. I have been to the pub a total of twice, and drunk two halves of Kronenbourg. (And a lot of wine at Liz's party on Saturday.)
I've also been struck by the urge to do an MA in something other than linguistics. After a suggestion of African Literature from my tutor, I browsed the SOAS website and am now sooooo tempted by the Anthropology of Food. I did want to do French, and have switched to an option in WW1 literature (which will doubtless be a far cry from A-Level Eng Lit with Ms Clare, but probably fun nonetheless) instead of Semantics, on the basis that Semantics fills me with fear and panic. And I love literature and I don't want to stop studying it. And I love linguistics (most of the time) and don't want to stop studying that either. Aargh! It's like UCAS all over again. So, yes, my tutor suggested African Literature or African Studies, which sounds exciting, but rather like the sort of thing my parents would think was mad... The more I think about it, and the more I think about other options, the more attractive an option I find academia, but, meh - host of choices, little time to decide. I suppose whatever I choose I'll have some regrets, and if I do do linguistics (as I've planned for, what, a year?) it's not like I'll never read a book again, and if I do something literary, it's not like I can't learn Swahili on the side, but I was so lucky to find a degree that allowed me to do both, it's rather a shock having to choose now.
Bah.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Making hot drinks, Hannah-style
- Infuse caffeinated substance in hot water.
- Leave to brew for twice as long as anyone else would.
- Do not adulterate with milk or sugar. Slices of lemon are acceptable in Earl Grey.
Jesus, this essay malarky is a lot tougher than I remember it. I don't have the stamina I had in first and second year, either. I worked till 12 last night, and it's totally knocked me out today!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
YES!! WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!!!!
Firstly, everyone should eat Tyrrells crisps. Not least because they are delicious, for I agree this is an important incentive to purchase foodstuffs, but also because they stopped Tesco marching all over them, just because they're a big supermarket and Tyrrells are an independent producer.
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1875532,00.html
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1874707,00.html
I've been at home for a couple of days now. It's still at the stage where it's wonderfully relaxing to be looked after and have all my books around me, but I can feel the 'I'm a grown-up, I can do my own damn laundry' complex simmering away inside somewhere. I suppose the most irritating thing is the excitement of having a decent-sized kitchen, sufficient equipment and someone else to pay for the ingredients, only to remember that my dad has very rigid (carnivorous-British hybrid) ideas of what constitutes a meal, my mum is on the Atkins diet and my brother is twelve, and fussy. So far I have made a vat of ratatouille.
However, as I feel increasingly demographically abnormal (drastically lowering average age of Radio 4 listener, too many operas on iTunes, shopping at markets), it is nice to know that there is some reason for it, whether genetic or due to the mad atmosphere I grew up in.
I've almost finished Qu'est-ce que la litterature? which is a relief as it's taken me the entire summer. I've been rather academically disillusioned since I found out I couldn't do my project, and now don't even know exactly what papers I'm doing this term, and I don't seem to get on with Sartre. My mum asked me earlier, 'Was there a Betty Muriel?' After leaving me baffled for a while, she explained this was his wife in a Monty Python sketch. 'Umm, well, Beauvoir, kind of... never mind...'
Nik interrupted a very interesting debate on The World Tonight (last night) about Richard Branson's pledge to research ways of cutting carbon emissions and corporate social responsibility and whether we should all be taxed for the bad things we do to the environment, when he rang me up to tell me he was researching hydrogen fuels. I've already forgotten what this entails, but I think it's something along the lines of combining water and sand in order to create something other than sludge and thereby to power cars. This requires reading 1920s research papers and buying silicone from catalogues. I didn't even know you could do that, but the project sounds very useful and topical, and I approve. And it means no more people saying, 'Ooh, your boyfriend's working with diamonds, lucky you!' and me having to explain that these aren't the interesting sort that you can, like, wear, and see with the naked eye and stuff.
Dammit, after the end of the Leeds Piano Competition, which I was listening to, I skipped forwards five minutes to see why there was an extra hour and a half of Performance on 3 which hadn't been there when I'd caught the end live, and have now found some interesting choral music, which I'm having to listen to in order to find out what it is. And I foolishly told my mother to wake me up at a sensible time tomorrow morning so I could have a vaguely productive day. I must get back into a routine of working, or I'll never get anything like enough reading done before term starts. This apathy doesn't sit well with the smiley version of me that has to tell all my parents' friends I intend to do this MA. Maybe I should become a teacher instead. They get paid. Students don't. And I'd also be morally obliged to read the Guardian, drink lots of wine and be cynical and irritable - which is fun. Except I don't want to teach French. And you generally need two languages and ich habe fast alle mein Deutsch vergessen.
Hopefully when L'Invitee wings its way to me in the next few days, I should get some enthusiasm back.
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1875532,00.html
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1874707,00.html
I've been at home for a couple of days now. It's still at the stage where it's wonderfully relaxing to be looked after and have all my books around me, but I can feel the 'I'm a grown-up, I can do my own damn laundry' complex simmering away inside somewhere. I suppose the most irritating thing is the excitement of having a decent-sized kitchen, sufficient equipment and someone else to pay for the ingredients, only to remember that my dad has very rigid (carnivorous-British hybrid) ideas of what constitutes a meal, my mum is on the Atkins diet and my brother is twelve, and fussy. So far I have made a vat of ratatouille.
However, as I feel increasingly demographically abnormal (drastically lowering average age of Radio 4 listener, too many operas on iTunes, shopping at markets), it is nice to know that there is some reason for it, whether genetic or due to the mad atmosphere I grew up in.
I've almost finished Qu'est-ce que la litterature? which is a relief as it's taken me the entire summer. I've been rather academically disillusioned since I found out I couldn't do my project, and now don't even know exactly what papers I'm doing this term, and I don't seem to get on with Sartre. My mum asked me earlier, 'Was there a Betty Muriel?' After leaving me baffled for a while, she explained this was his wife in a Monty Python sketch. 'Umm, well, Beauvoir, kind of... never mind...'
Nik interrupted a very interesting debate on The World Tonight (last night) about Richard Branson's pledge to research ways of cutting carbon emissions and corporate social responsibility and whether we should all be taxed for the bad things we do to the environment, when he rang me up to tell me he was researching hydrogen fuels. I've already forgotten what this entails, but I think it's something along the lines of combining water and sand in order to create something other than sludge and thereby to power cars. This requires reading 1920s research papers and buying silicone from catalogues. I didn't even know you could do that, but the project sounds very useful and topical, and I approve. And it means no more people saying, 'Ooh, your boyfriend's working with diamonds, lucky you!' and me having to explain that these aren't the interesting sort that you can, like, wear, and see with the naked eye and stuff.
Dammit, after the end of the Leeds Piano Competition, which I was listening to, I skipped forwards five minutes to see why there was an extra hour and a half of Performance on 3 which hadn't been there when I'd caught the end live, and have now found some interesting choral music, which I'm having to listen to in order to find out what it is. And I foolishly told my mother to wake me up at a sensible time tomorrow morning so I could have a vaguely productive day. I must get back into a routine of working, or I'll never get anything like enough reading done before term starts. This apathy doesn't sit well with the smiley version of me that has to tell all my parents' friends I intend to do this MA. Maybe I should become a teacher instead. They get paid. Students don't. And I'd also be morally obliged to read the Guardian, drink lots of wine and be cynical and irritable - which is fun. Except I don't want to teach French. And you generally need two languages and ich habe fast alle mein Deutsch vergessen.
Hopefully when L'Invitee wings its way to me in the next few days, I should get some enthusiasm back.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
"That's not the can-do attitude that created the giraffe!"
Interestingly, if you type 'rejection' into predictive text, it comes up as 'selection'. This made me giggle. And, also, it made me almost send a message saying the opposite of what I meant.
I'm feeling very grown-up tonight, as I've just had an email from Mslexia saying one of my poems got shortlisted - last 60 apparently! Obviously, they didn't want to publish me, but I wasn't really expecting them to, and I'm not feeling disappointed, just, as I said, grown-up.
I'm addicted to Radio 4. It makes me happy.
I'm feeling very grown-up tonight, as I've just had an email from Mslexia saying one of my poems got shortlisted - last 60 apparently! Obviously, they didn't want to publish me, but I wasn't really expecting them to, and I'm not feeling disappointed, just, as I said, grown-up.
I'm addicted to Radio 4. It makes me happy.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
I've spent all day trying valiantly to read the book about literary theory which I've had on the go since the beginning of second year, but I've finally cracked and looked up 'postmodernism' on Uncyclopedia.
"Recently, postmodernism has fallen out of favour with authors, because they like to eat."
Hehehehehe.
I think I may be unsuited to a future in academia.
Must... take... incomprehensible... theorising... seriously...
PS - In a similar vein, I have also discovered Encyclopedia Dramatica.
"Recently, postmodernism has fallen out of favour with authors, because they like to eat."
Hehehehehe.
I think I may be unsuited to a future in academia.
Must... take... incomprehensible... theorising... seriously...
PS - In a similar vein, I have also discovered Encyclopedia Dramatica.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
"Watch out! A GIANT MONGOOSE!"
Well, given my laziness, I don't get to write a timely, irate post about the Facebook feed thingummiwhatsit (though the following is still included for sheer comedic value) cos they've gone and changed it. I signed in and asked it not to tell everyone I've ever sat next to in lectures or stumbled into in the beer cellar whenever I join another pretentious group in an attempt to prove I'm too cool for the whole malarky, but this didn't really bother me: I don't really do anything of note on facebook and the only thing I'd be ashamed of is people seeing how much time I waste online. So really, they've done me a favour by threatening to reveal the extent of this to the world and making me waste it in the jasperfforde.com forums instead. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way of stopping it telling me pointless information about other people. "So-and-so has added someone you don't know as a friend." "X has joined 'We hate the news feed!" "Y is unpacking." "Mr Thingy likes toast." Yes, you can call me a reclusive, self-involved intellectual snob if you like - it's actually something I'm proud of - but I don't really care. I think I shall be spending less time on Facebook in future. In fact, I'm convinced this was all just a publicity stunt and I'm already playing into their hands by even writing about it. Bah.
Big Brother
At the start of September, Big Brother took over Facebook, and as part of the world's backlash against Steve Irwin's death, decided to inform everyone on Facebook of their friends' every move.
For example, the average user can now know with a simple view of their Facebook homepage that:
- Their best friend opted to join the "I hate Oscar Wilde" group and declined their invitation to their newly created "Gru Lovers" group at 8:15 pm (when they said they wouldn't be home)
- Megan T removed "fuzzy socks" from her interests at 10:37 pm
- James B replied to a post in the "I'm a closeted terrorist" group at 6:28 pm
- Lisa H complained about her history professor in a note posted at 3:35 pm (ironically during her history class)
- At least 5 of their friends are in constant relationship flux (signifying extreme Borderline Personality Disorder) going from "Single" to "It's Complicated" to "Broken up" within 15 minutes
- little Kate P from that high school down the street from them will be attending an event nearby at 11 pm tomorrow night
The aim of this exercise is uncertain, but it seems to be a ploy mainly to make everyone extremely paranoid and piss them off in equal measures.
- from Uncyclopedia
I think I'm in love with Jasper Fforde. Giggle-out-loud-in-public-places in love. Much to the mortification of the boy, who has read the beginning of The Big Over Easy and is somewhat baffled. I keep reading passages aloud for the edification of thoes around me, but, alas, I seem to be a lone crusader.
"But all of this was scant comfort to Mr Wolff, who went to his casket unavenged, and parboiled."
"'First name?'
'Otto,' he replied, then added by way of explanation: ' Palindrome as well. My sister's name is Hannah. Father liked word games. He was fourteen times world Scrabble champion. When he died we buried him at Queenzieburn to make use of the triple word score.'"
I like the Nursery Crime books, because they're much more independent. The Thursday Next series, while fantastically clever and entertaining, reference so many works of great literature that the novels themselves cannot possibly stand out in comparison, whereas these are convincing detective stories in their own right. The man is a genius, writing books which combine my love of satire, wacky humour, word games and references to the English literary canon.
And now, back to the cryptic crossword!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Thoughts on learning Swedish...
I think my degree has made me very bad at learning languages. I can't learn to count to ten, without stopping to initiate an involved discussion about phonology or to introduce myself without heavy morphosyntactic analysis. I find myself asking: is there a case system? how rich a verb inflection system is there? And if that weren't impediment enough, the level to which I now speak French, means I find any lesser degree fluency in a language highly irritating. Memorising simple phrases is so frustrating compared to discussing politics and poetry, especially as I am clearly not a nice enough person to find common courtesy a more compelling reason to learn a language than reading gloomy literature.
Stansted at 3, oh joy...
Stansted at 3, oh joy...
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Stuck in the middle with...
Well, aside from imparting useles information about household pests or quoting obscure French bands, I should probably talk about myself extensively and boringly, seeing as this is what I started this for in the first place.
Work finished, in a haze of sulky, bitchy classes and white wine spritzers, sadly not simultaneously. Overall, I enjoyed the six weeks, but it ended on a rather sour note, leaving lovely colleagues, the local pub and good pay as higher-ranking rewards than, like, the warm, fuzzy glow from helping shape young minds and inspire the generation of tomorrow, etc, etc... Wednesday was fab, in that I was in the fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on which way you look at it) position of being offered two fancy meals, with wine, paid for by someone else, at the same time - and it was too rainy and far away to do the Mrs Doubtfire thing of running between them both. The two occasions were Nik's mum's birthday and the celebratory end of summer school dinner, so I sandwiched dinner at the Randolph between an afternoon in the pub and an afterparty which, if the smell of wine emanating from my dress the next morning was anything to go by, saw my hand-eye co-ordination hit a particularly low ebb... Also, the next morning, I was unable to get out of bed or eat anything until about 3 p.m. I blamed certain people, who have refused to acknowledge responsibility.
After a couple of days faffing and feeling purposeless, punctuated by trying to learn something about language policy and/or planning, the boy and I decided on the spur of the moment to go home to Northumberland, where we were well-fed and it rained a lot. We went into town, where I bought some humongously exciting books, I did the obligatory tour of A.N. Other piece of Hadrian's Wall and we met Sarah for drinks, quiz machines and curries in Hexham last night before driving back at some ungodly hour this morning.
"We haven't had that spirit here since 1969"
My wikipedia search for 'nasal vestibulitis' turned up no results but a link to 'sexology topics'. Dear God. The good news is the consultant says that I don't need rhinoplasty. Hurrah.
The American Election board game being designed by everyone in the house but me is in the next trial phase. It's not a fantastic spectator sport, but has kept Nik and Jamie quiet for quite some time.
I have another teaching job for next week and the week after. Hurrah. And I get to go to Oxfam tomorrow, which means more batty old ladies, biscuits and books!
Work finished, in a haze of sulky, bitchy classes and white wine spritzers, sadly not simultaneously. Overall, I enjoyed the six weeks, but it ended on a rather sour note, leaving lovely colleagues, the local pub and good pay as higher-ranking rewards than, like, the warm, fuzzy glow from helping shape young minds and inspire the generation of tomorrow, etc, etc... Wednesday was fab, in that I was in the fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on which way you look at it) position of being offered two fancy meals, with wine, paid for by someone else, at the same time - and it was too rainy and far away to do the Mrs Doubtfire thing of running between them both. The two occasions were Nik's mum's birthday and the celebratory end of summer school dinner, so I sandwiched dinner at the Randolph between an afternoon in the pub and an afterparty which, if the smell of wine emanating from my dress the next morning was anything to go by, saw my hand-eye co-ordination hit a particularly low ebb... Also, the next morning, I was unable to get out of bed or eat anything until about 3 p.m. I blamed certain people, who have refused to acknowledge responsibility.
After a couple of days faffing and feeling purposeless, punctuated by trying to learn something about language policy and/or planning, the boy and I decided on the spur of the moment to go home to Northumberland, where we were well-fed and it rained a lot. We went into town, where I bought some humongously exciting books, I did the obligatory tour of A.N. Other piece of Hadrian's Wall and we met Sarah for drinks, quiz machines and curries in Hexham last night before driving back at some ungodly hour this morning.
"We haven't had that spirit here since 1969"
My wikipedia search for 'nasal vestibulitis' turned up no results but a link to 'sexology topics'. Dear God. The good news is the consultant says that I don't need rhinoplasty. Hurrah.
The American Election board game being designed by everyone in the house but me is in the next trial phase. It's not a fantastic spectator sport, but has kept Nik and Jamie quiet for quite some time.
I have another teaching job for next week and the week after. Hurrah. And I get to go to Oxfam tomorrow, which means more batty old ladies, biscuits and books!
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Propaganda pheromones
Here are some interesting facts about ants:
Ants communicate mainy through pheromones. When a forager finds food, she will leave a pheromone trail along the ground on her way home which other ants will follow, thus reinforcing the trail and attracing more ants.
Crushed ants emit an alarm pheromone which in high concentration sends nearby ants into an attack frenzy and in lower concentration merely attracts them. Some species even emit propaganda pheromones to confuse their enemies.
They even exchange pheromones as compounds mixed with food to share information about one another's health and nutrition
Ants can constitute up to 15% of the total animal biomass of a tropical rainforest; in the Amazon the combined weight of the ants is said to be four times larger than that of the tetrapods in the same area.
In some parts of the world, large ants have been used as sutures by pressing the wound together and applying ants along it. The ant in defensive attitude seizes the edges in its mandibles and locks in place. The body is then cut off and the mandibles can remain in place for up to three days closing the wound.
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Stage one of battle: know your enemy. B******s keep invading our cupboard.
Ants communicate mainy through pheromones. When a forager finds food, she will leave a pheromone trail along the ground on her way home which other ants will follow, thus reinforcing the trail and attracing more ants.
Crushed ants emit an alarm pheromone which in high concentration sends nearby ants into an attack frenzy and in lower concentration merely attracts them. Some species even emit propaganda pheromones to confuse their enemies.
They even exchange pheromones as compounds mixed with food to share information about one another's health and nutrition
Ants can constitute up to 15% of the total animal biomass of a tropical rainforest; in the Amazon the combined weight of the ants is said to be four times larger than that of the tetrapods in the same area.
In some parts of the world, large ants have been used as sutures by pressing the wound together and applying ants along it. The ant in defensive attitude seizes the edges in its mandibles and locks in place. The body is then cut off and the mandibles can remain in place for up to three days closing the wound.
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Stage one of battle: know your enemy. B******s keep invading our cupboard.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Ramble, ramble
St John's Wood is the only one of 274 London Underground stations to contain none of the letters of the word 'mackerel'.
In the 1950s Jericho was a red light district and the Phoenix was a pornography cinema.
35-40% of all household waste which ends up in a landfill begins life as a purchase from one of the big five supermarkets.
I might have a rant soon. Can't decide.
Sleepy. Have spent all evening reading articles on Wikipedia and anti-supermarket websites in an attempt to keep myself awake until the boy comes back from work and we can watch the next episode of 24. ("Can you call in sick? I want to find out what happens.") It's that bizarre self-delusion thing again, where for some reason, even though you know you can't possibly watch the entire series at once, just seeing the next one would help, whereas in reality the cliffhanger at the end of that will just leave you with another insatiable itch to dive further into the story...
Circle. Vicious.
One more week left at work. It's been fun but I think any longer would probably kill me. There was a moment last week where I was so tired I came home and collapsed on the sofa, rousing only when coaxed by the boy to eat some dinner.
I want an MP3 player but there are so many and they're all so shiny and gadgetty that I get flustered and confused whenever I look at them. Humph.
In the 1950s Jericho was a red light district and the Phoenix was a pornography cinema.
35-40% of all household waste which ends up in a landfill begins life as a purchase from one of the big five supermarkets.
I might have a rant soon. Can't decide.
Sleepy. Have spent all evening reading articles on Wikipedia and anti-supermarket websites in an attempt to keep myself awake until the boy comes back from work and we can watch the next episode of 24. ("Can you call in sick? I want to find out what happens.") It's that bizarre self-delusion thing again, where for some reason, even though you know you can't possibly watch the entire series at once, just seeing the next one would help, whereas in reality the cliffhanger at the end of that will just leave you with another insatiable itch to dive further into the story...
Circle. Vicious.
One more week left at work. It's been fun but I think any longer would probably kill me. There was a moment last week where I was so tired I came home and collapsed on the sofa, rousing only when coaxed by the boy to eat some dinner.
I want an MP3 player but there are so many and they're all so shiny and gadgetty that I get flustered and confused whenever I look at them. Humph.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Funky cartoon - click here
Hehe. I love those chickens. I also feel pleased that I've finally found an internet cartoon of my very own. Cos I'm not competitive. Oh no. Particularly not with the boy. Ahem...
It's about 8.40 and I'm already up. Amusingly, it's Wednesday and I'm reading the Times magazine from Saturday, although the novelty of these staggered weeks is starting to wear off, and instead I'm just annoyed that on the one day in about a fortnight I'm going to get a lie-in, some ingrained habit caused me to wake up for 7 a.m. prompt and a month of having too many demands on my time and energy has made it impossible for me to lie in bed doing nothing. Ergo, I got up and am now listening to Bach, both I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue and Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive having finished while I've been 'away'.
Part of my acquiescence in the face of such a life-consuming job is due to a more-or-less enjoyment of it. Yes, it's tiring; yes, some of my kids sit in class scowling and refusing to participate and then give me bad feedback; yes, teenage boys think it's funny to draw naked people while storyboarding a Simple Plan song; yes, I didn't get home till 11 on Friday and Saturday, yes, I got soaked on Saturday night. Still, there aren't many jobs where you get to discuss censorship, play scattegories, draw cartoons and compere karaoke in one day. "Never dull" - such a cliche, and I'm not naive enough to believe that any teaching job would be like this, but it's a far more rewarding way to spend a summer than temping or working in a supermarket would be. With this and volunteering in the Oxfam bookshop on Wednesday afternoons, I've met so many interesting people. There's this sort of belief that because all Oxford students are so clever, it must somehow be the most stimulating society to live in, but in truth I find many people remarkably boring. All my enthusiasm for coming back hangs on my course and the people whose company I genuinely enjoy, but no longer meeting people with a plethora of different experiences and opinions is the definite flip side. I feel about five years older than I am.
In fact, I feel like I'm turning into a thirty-something, Times-reading liberal, without the pretentiously-named children. I'm frustrating the boy with my anti-supermarket campaign and turning my fresh, locally-grown ingredients into increasingly peculiar dishes. I'd like to direct my social conscience and domestic drive towards clearing my stuff out of our housemate's room so she can move in, or doing some laundry. Alas...
I invited Matt over for dinner on Monday and he arrived while Nik, Jamie and Debbie's nascent board game was entering the test phase. Jamie and Debbie initially felt rather embarrassed, but when I explained, "we're designing a board game based on the American election," Matt's eyes lit up. People should not underestimate my ability to choose my friends. We all had a fantastic evening (I think) and afterwards Nik and I sat on the sofa listening to music and talking, which had a slightly alarming feeling of novelty to it, but was lovely nonetheless.
And today I am relishing the prospect of a trip to the market to rectify the 'no fruit and veg' situation and an afternoon fondly caring for old, yellowing, dusty-smelling books. And tomorrow I have to test new students but afterwards I get to go to London for lunch and African story-swapping with Nat. And soon I should get paid and then I won't have an overdraft any more (unless I get seriously carried away with the white wine spritzers and crinkly Cheddars in the pub). And in two weeks I will be free to do more reading for my project. And in September I'm going to Sweden.
Ack, I have purpose, and to a lesser extent money. Life is good.
One green bottle, drop it in the bank,
Ten green bottles, what a lot we drank,
Heaps of bottles, and yesterdays a blank,
But we'll save the planet, tinkle tinkle clank.
It's about 8.40 and I'm already up. Amusingly, it's Wednesday and I'm reading the Times magazine from Saturday, although the novelty of these staggered weeks is starting to wear off, and instead I'm just annoyed that on the one day in about a fortnight I'm going to get a lie-in, some ingrained habit caused me to wake up for 7 a.m. prompt and a month of having too many demands on my time and energy has made it impossible for me to lie in bed doing nothing. Ergo, I got up and am now listening to Bach, both I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue and Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive having finished while I've been 'away'.
Part of my acquiescence in the face of such a life-consuming job is due to a more-or-less enjoyment of it. Yes, it's tiring; yes, some of my kids sit in class scowling and refusing to participate and then give me bad feedback; yes, teenage boys think it's funny to draw naked people while storyboarding a Simple Plan song; yes, I didn't get home till 11 on Friday and Saturday, yes, I got soaked on Saturday night. Still, there aren't many jobs where you get to discuss censorship, play scattegories, draw cartoons and compere karaoke in one day. "Never dull" - such a cliche, and I'm not naive enough to believe that any teaching job would be like this, but it's a far more rewarding way to spend a summer than temping or working in a supermarket would be. With this and volunteering in the Oxfam bookshop on Wednesday afternoons, I've met so many interesting people. There's this sort of belief that because all Oxford students are so clever, it must somehow be the most stimulating society to live in, but in truth I find many people remarkably boring. All my enthusiasm for coming back hangs on my course and the people whose company I genuinely enjoy, but no longer meeting people with a plethora of different experiences and opinions is the definite flip side. I feel about five years older than I am.
In fact, I feel like I'm turning into a thirty-something, Times-reading liberal, without the pretentiously-named children. I'm frustrating the boy with my anti-supermarket campaign and turning my fresh, locally-grown ingredients into increasingly peculiar dishes. I'd like to direct my social conscience and domestic drive towards clearing my stuff out of our housemate's room so she can move in, or doing some laundry. Alas...
I invited Matt over for dinner on Monday and he arrived while Nik, Jamie and Debbie's nascent board game was entering the test phase. Jamie and Debbie initially felt rather embarrassed, but when I explained, "we're designing a board game based on the American election," Matt's eyes lit up. People should not underestimate my ability to choose my friends. We all had a fantastic evening (I think) and afterwards Nik and I sat on the sofa listening to music and talking, which had a slightly alarming feeling of novelty to it, but was lovely nonetheless.
And today I am relishing the prospect of a trip to the market to rectify the 'no fruit and veg' situation and an afternoon fondly caring for old, yellowing, dusty-smelling books. And tomorrow I have to test new students but afterwards I get to go to London for lunch and African story-swapping with Nat. And soon I should get paid and then I won't have an overdraft any more (unless I get seriously carried away with the white wine spritzers and crinkly Cheddars in the pub). And in two weeks I will be free to do more reading for my project. And in September I'm going to Sweden.
Ack, I have purpose, and to a lesser extent money. Life is good.
One green bottle, drop it in the bank,
Ten green bottles, what a lot we drank,
Heaps of bottles, and yesterdays a blank,
But we'll save the planet, tinkle tinkle clank.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
The madness begins....
Well. One week down, three (or five) to go.
I have survived, I have done parts of it well, I have enjoyed parts of it, and other parts have been hell. My class are lovely - very quiet, well-behaved and hard-working, though I took until yesterday to get them to loosen up and have fun - by planning a lesson on football (yes, yes, I know) that involved lots of competitive games, and then taking them outside to have a lesson on the grass. Heehee. In the afternoons, though, I was talked into taking a class on international affairs for 16-19 year olds, most of whom didn't care about anything I tried to talk about and spent the entire time sniggering and talking. I offloaded the particularly unpleasant Spanish boy (subsequently put on his final warning for pinning a kid half his height to the ground and pouring pepper in his eye) onto Matt, my colleague, who also found him obstreperous and disruptive, so I don't feel too bad about not being able to control him, but his six remaining friends still managed to ruin the class for the Germans and Russians who were very motivated and serious. Oddly, a workshop on international affairs with students from many different countries has mainly reinforced a lot of national stereotypes.
I have been asked to provide lessons on music next week, and my class's suggestions included: 50 cent, Eminem, Dido, Britney Spears, James Blunt, Green Day. Any ideas as to how this could be incorporated into a coherent lesson plan that will appeal to more than two individual students greatly appreciated. Also, Jaime has requested 'no more paper with things to do', which does limit things somewhat.
Still, there always seem to be plenty of other teachers around for a consolatory pint (or half) afterwards. I seem to have overcome my silly mental block about not being able to drink beer in England and the prospect of having some money means I've got less stingy. Yesterday was lovely and sunny, so we went to the Trout, had random conversations (why Matt is like a duck, why Christ doesn't wear underwear), listened to Chris playing the mandolin and drank Pimm's in the sunshine. Then there was a formal dinner, nominally to encourage us to bond with the Canadian teachers, regular school teachers and New York Film Academy people also on site, but I ended up sitting at a table getting rather drunk and talking rubbish. For a long time. Oops.
And even though it's my day off, I'm still planning lessons, cos I have to help supervise a trip tomorrow and won't have any time to do it before Friday.
Sorry. I have just rambled about my job for longer than you probably want to read about it. I just haven't done anything else and won't for the foreseeable future. I'll try and confine it to comic anecdotes rather than extensive complaining, but can't make any promises....
I have survived, I have done parts of it well, I have enjoyed parts of it, and other parts have been hell. My class are lovely - very quiet, well-behaved and hard-working, though I took until yesterday to get them to loosen up and have fun - by planning a lesson on football (yes, yes, I know) that involved lots of competitive games, and then taking them outside to have a lesson on the grass. Heehee. In the afternoons, though, I was talked into taking a class on international affairs for 16-19 year olds, most of whom didn't care about anything I tried to talk about and spent the entire time sniggering and talking. I offloaded the particularly unpleasant Spanish boy (subsequently put on his final warning for pinning a kid half his height to the ground and pouring pepper in his eye) onto Matt, my colleague, who also found him obstreperous and disruptive, so I don't feel too bad about not being able to control him, but his six remaining friends still managed to ruin the class for the Germans and Russians who were very motivated and serious. Oddly, a workshop on international affairs with students from many different countries has mainly reinforced a lot of national stereotypes.
I have been asked to provide lessons on music next week, and my class's suggestions included: 50 cent, Eminem, Dido, Britney Spears, James Blunt, Green Day. Any ideas as to how this could be incorporated into a coherent lesson plan that will appeal to more than two individual students greatly appreciated. Also, Jaime has requested 'no more paper with things to do', which does limit things somewhat.
Still, there always seem to be plenty of other teachers around for a consolatory pint (or half) afterwards. I seem to have overcome my silly mental block about not being able to drink beer in England and the prospect of having some money means I've got less stingy. Yesterday was lovely and sunny, so we went to the Trout, had random conversations (why Matt is like a duck, why Christ doesn't wear underwear), listened to Chris playing the mandolin and drank Pimm's in the sunshine. Then there was a formal dinner, nominally to encourage us to bond with the Canadian teachers, regular school teachers and New York Film Academy people also on site, but I ended up sitting at a table getting rather drunk and talking rubbish. For a long time. Oops.
And even though it's my day off, I'm still planning lessons, cos I have to help supervise a trip tomorrow and won't have any time to do it before Friday.
Sorry. I have just rambled about my job for longer than you probably want to read about it. I just haven't done anything else and won't for the foreseeable future. I'll try and confine it to comic anecdotes rather than extensive complaining, but can't make any promises....
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
I am sitting in the computer room in college with a new bike lock and a package from my mother, neither of which I can get into. The woman has used epic quantities of sellotape, even for her. So now all I have to do is persuade the porter (who took a while to be convinced that I was even a member of the college) to lend me some lock-cutters, walk all the way down to Cardo with them enduring, doubtless, suspicious looks, break into my own bike and then take it all the way back to Botley Road, on the way buying fruit and veg, a birthday present for my mother (more sellotape?) and going to explain to the Oxfam bookshop that my job is going to allow me next to no free time, ever. The last isn't really on the way. Sigh.
Last week was fun. I didn't do a whole lot, but it was probably good for me to get out of Oxford. We went to one of Nik's friends from home's birthday party, where I got rather drunk, but don't think I disgraced myself. We also went to his mum's graduation, and then I spent the weekend lazing around by the pool while Nik went off to another party/slept.
On Monday I came back to Oxford and after a brief period of uncertainty where it transpired that nobody was really expecting my arrival, I managed to get in, have dinner and make some progress on Debbie's jigsaw. Yesterday I had my induction day at work, which was... an induction day. I was absolutely terrified to begin with. Everybody seemed to know each other, have taught there before and have been teaching for ages and I felt hideously lost and newly-qualified. Then, I was told I'd have to design all course programmes and lessons myself, provide enough detail in my plans so that someone else can teach my lesson if I'm ill, include lessons to be taught by the changeover teacher in my schedule and generally, like... be good at this. I also have to run activities and it looks like it's going to take up horrid amounts of time. Bah. And I have no idea what level I'll be teaching till tomorrow night (though I know all my students will be aged 12 - 14) so I can't use today to do any planning. Grrr. Still, we were all given pizza and wine and I got talking to some of the other teachers properly, and actually, they don't all know each other, and some of the others haven't been teaching for very long either, and they were lovely and took me to the pub and showed me a short-cut into Oxford along the towpath. Still glad I'm not living on site though - it'll be nice to escape at the end of the day.
Also, when did 'sunny' come to mean 'unpleasant'? I'm sure when I was little, when the weather was nice it was, well, nice. Now, whenever it gets hot, it doesn't stop until it gets far too hot, and you don't actually want to go outside and do anything. Damn global warming.
Hmm, anyway, I have a bike to sort out and errands to run, so I'd best stop procrastinating and go and brave the lodge.
"... all the signs are that the European Union is developing a policy of particular complexity and interest..." (from a book on language policy)
Last week was fun. I didn't do a whole lot, but it was probably good for me to get out of Oxford. We went to one of Nik's friends from home's birthday party, where I got rather drunk, but don't think I disgraced myself. We also went to his mum's graduation, and then I spent the weekend lazing around by the pool while Nik went off to another party/slept.
On Monday I came back to Oxford and after a brief period of uncertainty where it transpired that nobody was really expecting my arrival, I managed to get in, have dinner and make some progress on Debbie's jigsaw. Yesterday I had my induction day at work, which was... an induction day. I was absolutely terrified to begin with. Everybody seemed to know each other, have taught there before and have been teaching for ages and I felt hideously lost and newly-qualified. Then, I was told I'd have to design all course programmes and lessons myself, provide enough detail in my plans so that someone else can teach my lesson if I'm ill, include lessons to be taught by the changeover teacher in my schedule and generally, like... be good at this. I also have to run activities and it looks like it's going to take up horrid amounts of time. Bah. And I have no idea what level I'll be teaching till tomorrow night (though I know all my students will be aged 12 - 14) so I can't use today to do any planning. Grrr. Still, we were all given pizza and wine and I got talking to some of the other teachers properly, and actually, they don't all know each other, and some of the others haven't been teaching for very long either, and they were lovely and took me to the pub and showed me a short-cut into Oxford along the towpath. Still glad I'm not living on site though - it'll be nice to escape at the end of the day.
Also, when did 'sunny' come to mean 'unpleasant'? I'm sure when I was little, when the weather was nice it was, well, nice. Now, whenever it gets hot, it doesn't stop until it gets far too hot, and you don't actually want to go outside and do anything. Damn global warming.
Hmm, anyway, I have a bike to sort out and errands to run, so I'd best stop procrastinating and go and brave the lodge.
"... all the signs are that the European Union is developing a policy of particular complexity and interest..." (from a book on language policy)
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Found it!
The Words Continue Their Journey
Margaret Atwood
Do poets really suffer more
than other people? Isn't it only
that they get their pictures taken
and are seen to do it?
The loony bins are full of those
who never wrote a poem.
Most suicides are not
poets: a good statistic.
Some days though I want, still,
to be like other people;
but then I go and talk with them,
these people who are supposed to be
other, and they are much like us,
except that they lack the sort of thing
we think of as a voice.
We tell ourselves they are fainter
than we are, less defined,
that they are what we are defining,
that we are doing them a favor,
which makes us feel better.
They are less elegant about pain than we are.
But look, I said us. Though I may hate your guts
individually, and want never to see you,
though I prefer to spend my time
with dentists because I learn more,
I spoke of us as we, I gathered us
like the members of some doomed caravan
which is how I see us, traveling together,
the women veiled and singly, with that inturned
sight and the eyes averted,
the men in groups, with their moustaches
and passwords and bravado
in the place we're stuck in, the place we've chosen,
a pilgrimage that took a wrong turn
somewhere far back and ended
here, in the full glare
of the sun, and the hard red-black shadows
cast by each stone, each dead tree lurid
in its particulars, its doubled gravity, but floating
too in the aureole of stone, of tree,
and we're no more doomed really than anyone, as we go
together, through this moon terrain
where everything is dry and perishing and so
vivid, into the dunes, vanishing out of sight,
vanishing out of the sight of each other,
vanishing even out of our own sight,
looking for water.
Margaret Atwood
Do poets really suffer more
than other people? Isn't it only
that they get their pictures taken
and are seen to do it?
The loony bins are full of those
who never wrote a poem.
Most suicides are not
poets: a good statistic.
Some days though I want, still,
to be like other people;
but then I go and talk with them,
these people who are supposed to be
other, and they are much like us,
except that they lack the sort of thing
we think of as a voice.
We tell ourselves they are fainter
than we are, less defined,
that they are what we are defining,
that we are doing them a favor,
which makes us feel better.
They are less elegant about pain than we are.
But look, I said us. Though I may hate your guts
individually, and want never to see you,
though I prefer to spend my time
with dentists because I learn more,
I spoke of us as we, I gathered us
like the members of some doomed caravan
which is how I see us, traveling together,
the women veiled and singly, with that inturned
sight and the eyes averted,
the men in groups, with their moustaches
and passwords and bravado
in the place we're stuck in, the place we've chosen,
a pilgrimage that took a wrong turn
somewhere far back and ended
here, in the full glare
of the sun, and the hard red-black shadows
cast by each stone, each dead tree lurid
in its particulars, its doubled gravity, but floating
too in the aureole of stone, of tree,
and we're no more doomed really than anyone, as we go
together, through this moon terrain
where everything is dry and perishing and so
vivid, into the dunes, vanishing out of sight,
vanishing out of the sight of each other,
vanishing even out of our own sight,
looking for water.
Monday, June 26, 2006
To continue last week's theme of using this as a vehicle for self-indulgent rambling...
Hmm. I'm plucking my eyebrows while Nik is pollyfilling cracks in a bathroom wall. Is this some form of hideous stereotype I promised myself never to become? If so, when did this happen?
Regardless, it's very peaceful. I've never been so relieved to get out of Oxford before, which feels very weird. It's only through getting out and coming back that you realise how much of a bubble the place is. That used to be part of its charm, but I spent most of the last few weeks railing frenetically against it in a desperate bid to seem happy and fun by drinking more Pimm's than anyone else. No, it didn't work; yes, I felt hugely silly; yes, the second I got outside the ring road I felt much freer than I had previously. Ah well. When I get back next year I'll have my own space, my own keys and my own life and (I hope) won't feel a huge sense of purposelessness in an atmosphere where you thrive on being manic and forever bouncing from tute to worthy activity to social to squeaky college single bed.
9th week was quite a lot of fun. I proved (three times) that it was possible to go out and enjoy myself without drinking, once in Kasbar, once for the football (people I texted for an alternative, I am disappointed in you) and once for the end of Tim's exams, and also proved (once) that curling up in bed with a bottle of red wine, some jam doughnuts and lots of episodes of Scrubs is something that must be done once in a while to restore sanity. I cooked a moderately exciting meal and swore at facebook a lot. On Friday in the Raddy, there was a large group of loud people sitting near us and one girl was insistent that it was possible to use three had's in a row in a sentence, though could not justify this with an example. However,
This is my last week of respite before actually beginning to earn some money in July. I feel dimly that I ought to go home-home, but I've been banned until my brother finishes A-Levels and it doesn't seem worth spending a grand total of 16 hours on trains and buses for the two days I might get at home. Particularly when I can't afford a ticket. Particularly seeing as here there is wireless internet and a pool, even if I was cruelly prevented from swimming on the day it was actually warm. Damn biology.
I was feeling old, but last night we watched the first ever episode of Spitting Image. And didn't really get most of it. So now I feel less ancient. Hurrah. And today I bought a lovely birthday card for my mum and found the shampoo I used to love and haven't seen for over a year and now I have a short-haired, new-shoed boyfriend.
Regardless, it's very peaceful. I've never been so relieved to get out of Oxford before, which feels very weird. It's only through getting out and coming back that you realise how much of a bubble the place is. That used to be part of its charm, but I spent most of the last few weeks railing frenetically against it in a desperate bid to seem happy and fun by drinking more Pimm's than anyone else. No, it didn't work; yes, I felt hugely silly; yes, the second I got outside the ring road I felt much freer than I had previously. Ah well. When I get back next year I'll have my own space, my own keys and my own life and (I hope) won't feel a huge sense of purposelessness in an atmosphere where you thrive on being manic and forever bouncing from tute to worthy activity to social to squeaky college single bed.
9th week was quite a lot of fun. I proved (three times) that it was possible to go out and enjoy myself without drinking, once in Kasbar, once for the football (people I texted for an alternative, I am disappointed in you) and once for the end of Tim's exams, and also proved (once) that curling up in bed with a bottle of red wine, some jam doughnuts and lots of episodes of Scrubs is something that must be done once in a while to restore sanity. I cooked a moderately exciting meal and swore at facebook a lot. On Friday in the Raddy, there was a large group of loud people sitting near us and one girl was insistent that it was possible to use three had's in a row in a sentence, though could not justify this with an example. However,
"The good times she had had had been behind her for ages."
This is my last week of respite before actually beginning to earn some money in July. I feel dimly that I ought to go home-home, but I've been banned until my brother finishes A-Levels and it doesn't seem worth spending a grand total of 16 hours on trains and buses for the two days I might get at home. Particularly when I can't afford a ticket. Particularly seeing as here there is wireless internet and a pool, even if I was cruelly prevented from swimming on the day it was actually warm. Damn biology.
I was feeling old, but last night we watched the first ever episode of Spitting Image. And didn't really get most of it. So now I feel less ancient. Hurrah. And today I bought a lovely birthday card for my mum and found the shampoo I used to love and haven't seen for over a year and now I have a short-haired, new-shoed boyfriend.
Monday, June 19, 2006
"Excuse me, can I interest you in buying this dead horse?"
I had such good intentions. I came to update this virtually the second I'd come into the room, and it refused to work. Grrrrr. I pressed 'Refresh' a lot and then got sidetracked listening to I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, and checking my email (oddly enough I didn't have any new ones since checking half an hour previously), and trying to destroy a paying-in receipt with nail clippers.
It has been quite a long time since I actually provided any illuminating information about my life, as opposed to pointless yet amusing quotes or photo-spam. This may be because the last posts went roughly along the lines of: "Ooh! Oxford is sunny! All my friends have finished finals and nobody has anything to do except sit on lawns and drink Pimm's or (once the bank statements come through) Blossom Hill." There have been several inclement breaks in the sunniness, but not frequent enough to prevent my back turning bright pink. Other than that, my life has really changed very little, except that Nik is no longer doing finals and is now able to watch epic quantities of 24 with me.
I could talk about various difficulties (re-)fitting into already established social groups (that I may once have been part of); or feeling like an appendage to the boy (a dull one, that gets sleepy at parties and nags him about finding a job) instead of an actual person; or not having a particular purpose now the mad Italians have gone home and finding a life of unmitigated hedonism rather unfulfilling having not just finished some very stressful exams; or general distress about The Rest Of My Life.
This last is, actually, rather unfair. I have a plan, involving postgrad funded by EFL tutoring and translation/proof-reading and then becoming a critically acclaimed novelist, and if this falls through (i.e. the idea of stringing together enough words to constitute a respectable thesis or novel overpowers me) then a helpful website has thrown up several more career options which had me raving about becoming a lexicographer (can't you so see that happening?), and it doesn't bother me at all that of the handful of jobs I liked the sound of, in 90% of them financial reward plays "no part". It is hugely self-indulgent to worry about all this now when a large proportion of my readership consists of jobless ex-finalists for whom this angst is a good deal closer than a year away (*hugs* to all in this predicament), but the astonishing number of transitions, goodbyes and departures I've endured this year has given me a peculiar twitchiness and an irritating tendency towards self-analysis.
It's just that sometimes I feel like the quote in the introduction to all the Folio editions of Beauvoir, that quote that I can't remember or translate about feeling torn between living life and writing about it; like how I updated this almost every day in Lyon, because I was bored and miserable, but as soon as Sainsbury's has Pimm's, Cava and strawberries on special offer, I can go days without stringing words together; and this choice between dullness/misery and productivity versus (most of the time) contentment, good company and not feeling the need to lock myself away with a computer may replicate itself later in life with something (I hope) of more worth than this. I feel passionate about so many things, but at some point I have to stop them, and describe them, or else I go mad.
My problem is not that I don't know what to do: I've known that since I was 5. My problem is that what I want to do scares me.
I'm scared that I'm not as good at it as I think I am. I'm scared that I won't have the discipline to find out. I'm scared the fear of rejection will turn me into the sort of person who hoards things in drawers and that all my descendents will find fourteen unfinished novels and say I could have been quite good, it's a pity I wasn't. I'm scared the ancestral curse will get me, and I'll give up being creative and notable in order to breed prolifically, like all the women I'm related to did while my Grandpa gets a CBE. (Sorry. Just had to drop that in.) Indeed, in a Shakespeare's sister sort of way, we could extend this beyond my immediate family, but that's a whole different ball game. I'm scared it may be incompatible with a normal life, whatever that may be, and whether I even want it.
There's a Margaret Atwood poem which sums up how I feel pretty accurately, but not even Google can find it. It begins "Do poets really suffer more than other people?" if you want to look it up. (And I recommend you do.)
And now I'm going to curl up in bed, with my diary, and Le Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs.
oh but now, old friends, they're acting strange
and they shake their heads
and they tell me that I've changed
well, something's lost and something's gained
in living every day.
It has been quite a long time since I actually provided any illuminating information about my life, as opposed to pointless yet amusing quotes or photo-spam. This may be because the last posts went roughly along the lines of: "Ooh! Oxford is sunny! All my friends have finished finals and nobody has anything to do except sit on lawns and drink Pimm's or (once the bank statements come through) Blossom Hill." There have been several inclement breaks in the sunniness, but not frequent enough to prevent my back turning bright pink. Other than that, my life has really changed very little, except that Nik is no longer doing finals and is now able to watch epic quantities of 24 with me.
I could talk about various difficulties (re-)fitting into already established social groups (that I may once have been part of); or feeling like an appendage to the boy (a dull one, that gets sleepy at parties and nags him about finding a job) instead of an actual person; or not having a particular purpose now the mad Italians have gone home and finding a life of unmitigated hedonism rather unfulfilling having not just finished some very stressful exams; or general distress about The Rest Of My Life.
This last is, actually, rather unfair. I have a plan, involving postgrad funded by EFL tutoring and translation/proof-reading and then becoming a critically acclaimed novelist, and if this falls through (i.e. the idea of stringing together enough words to constitute a respectable thesis or novel overpowers me) then a helpful website has thrown up several more career options which had me raving about becoming a lexicographer (can't you so see that happening?), and it doesn't bother me at all that of the handful of jobs I liked the sound of, in 90% of them financial reward plays "no part". It is hugely self-indulgent to worry about all this now when a large proportion of my readership consists of jobless ex-finalists for whom this angst is a good deal closer than a year away (*hugs* to all in this predicament), but the astonishing number of transitions, goodbyes and departures I've endured this year has given me a peculiar twitchiness and an irritating tendency towards self-analysis.
It's just that sometimes I feel like the quote in the introduction to all the Folio editions of Beauvoir, that quote that I can't remember or translate about feeling torn between living life and writing about it; like how I updated this almost every day in Lyon, because I was bored and miserable, but as soon as Sainsbury's has Pimm's, Cava and strawberries on special offer, I can go days without stringing words together; and this choice between dullness/misery and productivity versus (most of the time) contentment, good company and not feeling the need to lock myself away with a computer may replicate itself later in life with something (I hope) of more worth than this. I feel passionate about so many things, but at some point I have to stop them, and describe them, or else I go mad.
My problem is not that I don't know what to do: I've known that since I was 5. My problem is that what I want to do scares me.
I'm scared that I'm not as good at it as I think I am. I'm scared that I won't have the discipline to find out. I'm scared the fear of rejection will turn me into the sort of person who hoards things in drawers and that all my descendents will find fourteen unfinished novels and say I could have been quite good, it's a pity I wasn't. I'm scared the ancestral curse will get me, and I'll give up being creative and notable in order to breed prolifically, like all the women I'm related to did while my Grandpa gets a CBE. (Sorry. Just had to drop that in.) Indeed, in a Shakespeare's sister sort of way, we could extend this beyond my immediate family, but that's a whole different ball game. I'm scared it may be incompatible with a normal life, whatever that may be, and whether I even want it.
There's a Margaret Atwood poem which sums up how I feel pretty accurately, but not even Google can find it. It begins "Do poets really suffer more than other people?" if you want to look it up. (And I recommend you do.)
And now I'm going to curl up in bed, with my diary, and Le Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs.
oh but now, old friends, they're acting strange
and they shake their heads
and they tell me that I've changed
well, something's lost and something's gained
in living every day.
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