not enough time

British Word of the Day: nappy - (often) disposable absorbent underpants for infants and young children. (American's "diaper.") eg: "Who put the stinky nappy in the garbage can in the kitchen?"

I haven't much time.

Had much tea.

Having coffee.

Writing an essay for tomorrow on the usage of symbolism of babies and children in Macbeth. About 3/4 done, the way I see it. There was no page requirement. I'll go with 5 pages.

Going to be done soon, maybe. So much to say, but not sure it's all important and ties together.

Favourite phrase of the day: "Infantile imbecile." Approximate rhyming is also a new favourite.

Cheers!

but what about the Oxford companion?

British Word of the Day: torch - An illuminating tool, generally used while camping with an on/off switch or button. (American's "flashlight"). eg: "Quick, grab the torch! I heard something over there!"

I wonder if they storm any castles with pitchforks and torches anymore. Perhaps not.

This morning:
Greek Orthodox Church - Church of the Ascension. Much incense and gold. Was looking for the myrrh. Keep you updated. Was mostly strange and distracting and not sustaining. Baptist Church next week--for sure.

This afternoon:
Read Cymbeline aloud with Megan, a new Oxford friend. Took us 2.5 hours. It was definitely a tragicomedy. (Not everyone died in the end.)
Had a cup of excellent french press coffee.
Grabbed Battenburg cake, a chocolate digestive biscuit, a grape, and a tangerine and ran off to Wadham College for choir practice until 6:30

This evening:
Sang several songs during Evensong at Wadham College Chapel. Sang worse than in practice. Will get better.
Ate after the service for free at the church including: roast chicken with mushrooms, cheesy eggplant, delicious potatoes, carrot chips, broccoli, and all with a glass of white wine! This people know how to party--even at church!

I have much sleep to get.

Cheers!

hilary term-inal illness

British Word of the Day: Gammon steak - fleshy pork slab served atop "chips" topped with fried eggs. (American's ham.) eg: "I thought I got the Gammon steak, not the ham--oh dear."

Ordered the Gammon steak and eggs at The Eagle & Child with a Guinness. However, when I came back from getting my pint, I was surprised to find a pink hunk of ham on my plate atop a pile of chips. I ate it anyway, not about to waste a single pound.

Soon, I'm going to bed. I've read a few sections of Tennyson (it's entirely too long of a poem) and I've read Macbeth and written some notes on it. I hope to read Cymbeline for fun tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm going to a Greek Orthodox church just down the road; I'm sure that will be interesting. Very soon I need to try the Woodstock Road Baptist Church, but I cannot find anyone to go with me. Next week--it's become a mantra: next week, next week, next week.

Tired of it.

On a happier note, I've finally figured out the name of my favourite English confectionary delight:

Battenburg Cake -- a checkered inside, a marzipan outside. A wonderful joy for the taste buds.Supremely delicious Battenburg cakes. Good luck finding them in the U.S.!

We have Sunday afternoon tea tomorrow at 4:30, as per usual at Crick. I'll have to leave nearly straightaway for practice at Wadham College Chapel for Evensong tomorrow night at 6:30. I've already rooked several persons into coming Lovely!

Cheers!

one thing i know

British Word of the Day: pudding - Any kind of sweet generally eaten after dinner, following something savoury with something sweet--and NOT just liquidy tapioca, vanilla, chocolate, or butterscotch. (American's "dessert"). eg: "Is anyone else getting pudding? I don't want to be the only one; I'm getting the chocolate eclair."

I know. It's been a couple of days since my last post. It was a mad, mad couple of days. But my essay for Victorian Literature is complete (also complete-ly horrible) but it was 2,000+ words; I'll do a better one next time.

My Victorian tutor did not make me cry--she was rather entertaining. She did a bit of joking under her breath, which was really hard to catch, especially with her accent and all that. However, she's from Sydney, Australia, and I could tell immediately that she didn't have a conventional accent, and figured she was from Down Under, but I didn't want to ask.

I made bread yesterday night. I must say, not much is as satisfying as a warm slice of bread you've baked yourself with a bit of strawberry jam on it.

I'll be making some again next week, I bet. I'm almost down to half the loaf already (I split it with Amanda). The only thing bad about the bread is that we didn't bake it quite long enough, and it's quite small slices--it gets stuck in the toaster and I burn my fingers trying to get it out.)

I'll make it bigger next time.

Today, I tried out for Wadham Chapel Choir, and I made it! I was quite pleased. There's another guy in the SCIO program with me that also made it, so we see each other while we're there, but we live at two different houses.

However, this evening I made friends named Sally and Claire. Wonderful singers; there's about fifteen of us in total, of which I am a Soprano I. I love it; we've started working on a piece by Palestrina that's simply beautiful. So many pieces resound well in the chapel, but the director has chosen very renaissance (pronounced reh-NAY-sahns) pieces, and I can't get enough!

Modern Day Wadham College.

We'll sing on Sunday (every Sunday) at 6:30 for Evensong, and we get there at 5 to brush up on our songs. However, the biggest sadness: practice on Fridays from 5:30 - 7. That's a ton! Oh well. We already sounded awesome; I'm supremely excited.

This weekend I'll be reading Macbeth and Cymbeline, both Shakespeare, as well as three Tennyson plays. Both Macbeth and Tennyson will be involving an essay. Wooh! Shakespeare's due Wednesday, Tennyson's due Friday. No biggie.

Went to the Three Goats Heads pub tonight. It was fair, and the meat and ale pie looked oh-so-tasty. I actually grabbed a bite from the kebab van on the way from choir practice to the pub, so I couldn't reason spending more money on an unhealthy dinner. Next time. Next time.

I'm exhausted today. tonight. whatever it is. I have to call it a day.

Until then, cheers!

small triumphs: successfully avoided eating a slice of chocolate cake

British Word of the Day: coffee - a watery brownish substance that stands in for an alternative only when the tea cupboard has proved completely bare and one is in need of caffeine.

I kid. My coffee habits haven't changed, and so I've found the coffee in England (of my own making) quite to my own liking. The Crick House is fully equipped with two French presses and I've just bought Peruvian coffee from Sainsbury's. (It was the cheapest one...)

But Really: crèche - a supervised room, area, or playplace for young children, found helpful especially during church services. (American's nursery). eg: "Honey, could you go get the kids from the crèche? I'll get us some watery coffee."

I went to another lecture today on Realism and Romance. It's beginning to occur to me that I should have started in literature from the very beginning: the Classics. No, not the "classics." I mean Ovid. I mean Homer. I mean Aristotle.

The books that the authors I currently study have read all of these old Greek and Roman tragedies, symposiums, and myths. If one is to understand the author one is studying, I feel as though I should have started where they did.

Feeling anthropological.

I really should be finishing skimming Wuthering Heights. It's actually a terribly emotional book, especially with the famous lines the terrible Catherine (the original) speaks about her affinity with Heathcliff:

"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees--my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff--he's always, always in my mind...as my own being..."

So much to skim and type up, so little time.

I may stay up unhealthily late this evening to ensure the reading and essay will be in my tutor's hands by Friday afternoon.

Tomorrow I may attempt bread-making. Eep.

Cheers!

mellow as the month of may

British Word of the Day: bollard - a large, mechanized post that can come out of the ground in pathways to keep out unwanted motorists off of walkways. (No American matches found.) eg: "Look out for the bollard when you're walking out of the University Parks." (See Below)

Bollards.

Today was surprisingly relaxing as far as "the first day of classes" goes. Maybe it's because they're not really classes, they're lectures. My first was "The Winter's Tale: Tragedy into Romance" and the second was "Shakespeare's Late Plays", both by Dr. Pitcher. The final "lecture" of the day was actually a film screening of Shakespeare. Tonight was Hamlet, starring Ethan Hawke, Bill Murray (excellent performance), and Julia Stiles. It was quite modern, as it took place in New York City. The most wonderful / ironic portion of the whole thing was the "To be or not to be" portion. Famous lines demand much attention.

This portion took place in Blockbuster. Hamlet scans the shelves asking himself whether to live or die. As he soliloquizes for far less time in the play (yet the audience still grows uneasy and bored), he walks through several aisles of ACTION films, the pennants on either side declaring exactly what he is not doing. ACTION ACTION ACTION ACTION. And Hamlet is all talk until the very end. He waggles his gun like a baby throughout the movie, never having enough guts to shoot the incestuous murderers of his father.

Quite good.

Eric&Alex (affectionately called so), I haven't decided on a favoured reading spot in the Cam yet. I have more reading to do. Again, I'll let you know at end of Hilary Term, until then, I demand silence on this point. Or something close to it.

Yesterday I laid Jane Eyre in the dust. I would bury it in the backyard, but as it is rootless, nothing will come of it. I can give it to someone else to read.

Wuthering Heights is next. This one I'll mostly skim, as I've just recently read it (within the year).

In other news, not scholarly: I COOKED TODAY. I made a most excellent curry chicken with brown rice, apples, raisins, a LOT of onions, cilantro, yogurt, and bananas. it sounds terribly fruity, i know, but the curry over took the lot of it, and the apples especially soaked up the flavour. I wager I have never made anything more tasty than what I cooked with Amanda tonight. We also made chocolate cake in a mug, from a promising looking blogger's recipe. It turned out somewhat like lava cake, and I made whipped cream, and cut up an apricot.

This cooking thing is awesome. If you have money and time.
Both are in short supply, but I'll only be cooking once or twice a week for a lot of people. It was a thrill!

We ate rather late, so we made a starter plate of sliced bell peppers.

I haven't felt this accomplished in quite some time, which is dangerous. It makes me justify not reading and not writing because I spent so much time cooking dinner for 6 of us.

But I'm terribly happy. Dinner was so good. I made it myself.

I have to get on with things. I'm going to a Victorian literature lecture tomorrow at 12.00 so I'll get up early tomorrow and skim Wuthering Heights for good narrative conflict for Friday's 6.5 page paper.

In other, OTHER news: I saw Queen Susan from Narnia. She is quite a bit shorter than I imagined, and much to my comfort, she was walking into Introduction to Late Medieval Literature as I walked out of "The Winter's Tale." One of my new guy friends confessed his undying love for Queen Susan, and declared his wish to find and woo her. I gave him her digits. Of the classroom she went to today, that is.

Anna Popplewell as Narnia's Queen Susan.

I only looked at her once, and calmly walked away, but the first person I saw with whom I was acquainted got an earful of: "GUESS who I just saw! Queen Susan from Narnia!"

Or something like that.

There were no double-takes, I promise. But she goes to Magdalen College, in Oxford. And has a hankering for Medieval Literature, I suppose.

Much to do. (But not about nothing.)

Cheers!

you asked for it

British Word of the Day: juicy bits - Small, drinkable fruit fragments found in citrus juice. (American's pulp.) eg: "I don't like orange juice with juicy bits; buy the kind without next time."

Pictures, you say?

Good man. You know just how to ask. And I know just how to answer:

New friends Brit and Taylor pose in front of the Radcliffe Camera--my new reading spot.

At The Chequers Pub. (L to R: me, Daena, Rebekah, Anna)

Rebekah and me outside of Oxford Castle.

Christ Church Cathedral.

Painted glass window of Jonah and a not-so-eastern looking Nineveh.

Stained glass series (Christ Church)

Christ Church Cathedral Ceiling. Alliteration!

Best Photo of the Day: Christ Church's steeple.

The Great Dining Hall. (Free breakfast for season ticket holders--whatever that means.)

The East side outside of Christ Church.

A blue door & me.

Chinatown! (London's, of course.)

Jane Eyre awaits me.
Took a half-hour nap today, had some tea and digestives, and I'm set to go for another evening.

Blessings and cheers!

so tired

British Word of the Day: snippet - a small portion of description to get a feel for the whole, especially in library catalogues. (America's "abstract.") eg: "Quick, read the snippet, so you'll know if you want the book or not."

Today's entry will be short. Sound the alarum.

Went into London today, with Jane Eyre in my bag. Came back and she was still in there. And I still wasn't through with her. I don't believe I will be until tomorrow evening. 150 more pages to read in that one, and then on to Wuthering Heights.

I, I will survive.

Tomorrow is church. Today, I guess. That really means I should go to bed.

London:
-Saw St. Paul's Cathedral on the inside. It was spectacular--much more than my liberal arts math project on architect/mathematician Sir Christopher Wren could ever have shown. There was so much detail and there were mosaics everywhere. We had made it just in time for Evensong by the All Boys' Choir at St. Paul's. The music was so beautiful, so pure, and so rich that it sounded as if the Cathedral was singing itself, from its very soul--from the inside out. I can't imagine a more beautiful choir. I nearly wept during the first song.
-Ate in Chinatown. Was hungry an hour later.
-Saw Piccadilly Circus. Was under the impression that it was called "circus" not because there would be exotic animals, but because the general layout of the place was rather like a circle. It's hard to judge when one is in media res. I still don't know what the "circus" is all about. I could google.uk it, I suppose. No one would know, except for you, reader. (Dear reader, Jane Eyre has already had a disadvantageous effect on my writing style. Disaster will ensue; I am sure of it.)
-Went to / Came back on a rather expensive bus that took 2 hours to take us back (about average.) So, no, Oxford is NOT in the middle of London, contrary to popular belief.

Yesterday:
-Visited The Trout Pub. There was about an hour of trudging involved, as it had just rained that afternoon. I cleaned my new Chucks thoroughly upon my return. The Pub was nice. Not going again, unless I feel the need to work up an appetite for my next round of fish and chips and Guinness.
-Attempted to complete Jane Eyre. It was a hearty attempt--over 150 pages done this morning, afternoon, and night.

Conclusions:
-Jane Eyre is no good the second time around. You know the exact plot, and you dread the 30 pages of her wandering through the heath. Any minute now, I'll come up on the page where she deserts Mr. Rochester and Thornfield and I'll skip those long, boring pages during which a missionary tries to subdue her feminine will by whisking her away to some foreign land.


Fool! Jane Eyre cannot be had. Neither by me, nor by any. Every one of Jane's relationships is a failed one. (Credits to Elisabeth Wenger for that last idea, at its most basic.)

How do I expect to receive knowledge from Jane Eyre--is not it a relationship of book to reader? Of character to consumer?

I'd really like to put it away and dwell more on Heathcliff and Catherine and the incessant darkness of Wuthering Heights, but that shall come soon enough.

Cheers and good night!

P.S. St. Aldate's church tomorrow. I hear it's charismatic. (By whose standards, I know not.)

a good start (un-serious tone)

British Word of the Day: cling film - a clear, thin, plastic sheet torn from a tube to cover left-over food items. (America's "Saran-Wrap" or "Cling-Tite" for those of you with cheaper tastes). eg: "Put the cling film on tighter, so the food stays fresh."

Went to Christ Church College today. Saw oodles of stained glass, some medieval, some obviously not (placing toilets anachronistically and discreetly in the background of a medieval depiction of Frideswide, who is buried in the Cathedral.)

It was simply beautiful there, and we also saw the hall in which a portion of Harry Potter was filmed. Hogwarts isn't a real place, but Oxford is. And I'm living here. Surreal.

There are memorials to several people including the father of William Wilberforce, first name Samuel, W.H. Auden, John Locke and other wonderfully lofty people.

In scholarly/mathematical news:

I have to read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Hoping to do this ere the weekend is through, so I can devote a lot of time to attending lectures throughout Oxford. I must be missing the logical portion of my brain.

Jane Eyre = 447 pages
Wuth. Hts = 414 pages
-----
861 pages + (2,000 word essay) = V1

I'm not exactly sure how one would add those up. But I can explain this: the constant, V, is for Victorian. The 1 subscript is for the first week.

With that fully explained, I think it's obvious that my work is most certainly cut out for me.

Also, today. An example of my bad cooking skills. I attempted to make hot chocolate this evening with baking cocoa. Brilliant!

Cheers!

her goal in life was to be an echo

British Word of the Day: sharon fruit - an orange-red fruit that is edible only when ripe. (America's persimmon.) eg: "Don't eat that sharon fruit yet, you'll be poisoned!"

Well, last night after I did my daily blog, we all went out to Chequers. "HISTORIC PUB" it read as I entered the doorway. There was a "poet's bench" though I didn't look closely enough to find out why it was historic, exactly. My pint of Strongbow was too good and the friends were too captivating.

However:

Today I received a different reading list, because they switched my tutor for Victorian literature. To be frank, I was not pleased. But it's not going to be horrible, since I didn't do too much preparatory work for the course. In fact, I should be doing some right now. However, the reading list is a bit up for debate, my tutor said.

The narration and character of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are the essay topics for next 2,000 word essay due next week Friday. I have a reasonable amount of time to re-read those classics and get to work on an essay, all while going to London this weekend, visiting a baptist church 30 minutes away with free lunch, and going to tons of lectures this week.

This Oxford stuff is crazy business. My sister Reanna joked with me and told me, "You should go sit down in the library and be surrounded by books you know you'll never have time to read." In this city of 11 million books (probably more) reading one at a time is torturous, treacherous, terrible!

I need to make so many adjustments to the way I spend my time, including doing this "daily" blog. (I've already ruined that one, haven't I?)

I'll need support from back home. Emotional and especially spiritual. I obviously can't do anything by myself, and I'll be the first to admit it. Please keep me in your prayers as I go through the semester, and don't forget to write! Message me if you need the mailing address or my e-mail address.

Please pray for: my sanity throughout the semester, my spiritual life to get back on track, the reading to be quick, and my writing to come easy (within reason).

This will be a learning experience of every kind, and I don't doubt that there will be some rough parts, but I pray that I learn from those as much as from the easier parts of the term.

Blessings, and cheers!

British Word of the Day: expiry - (eks-PI-ree) an ending, a cut-off time (American's "expiration") eg: "Well, did you check the expiry date on the milk?"

I didn't blog yesterday. I can't believe it. Please forgive me.

Today was another orientation day (shocking, I know). I'm listening to Pink Floyd's "Goodbye Blue Sky" not to be creepy, but because it's English, and means more than war--it rained today, and there will be about 179 more days of that weather business by the end of this year, I've heard.

Simon Lancaster, an Scholar's Semestre in Oxford's go-to-guy, said, "In England, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes." I enjoyed him immediately. (It also helped that the evening of the same day, he had Katie Melua and Andrew Bird playing on his computer.)

This evening, I have some soup to make. We have cooking groups here at Crick House and I've joined one with a girl that's already made two loaves of bread for everyone since we've been here. I have a lot to learn, and I figure she might be a bit more experienced than I.

I need to contact my professors as well, so we can make a meeting time. They're both within reasonable walking distance of The Crick (probably within 10 minutes). The other house is huge and amazing, and everyone there seems like bundles of fun, but they're on the upper edge of Oxford, making walking cause blisters and sore joints and muscles. They'll get more exercise that way, but many of them will buy a bike before the week is through, is my bet.

Until next time,
Cheers!

mac and cheese, thinking outside of the blue box

British Word of the Day: litter (pronounced LI'-tuh) - refuse, waste, garbage. (An American's trash) eg: "Put that in the litter bin, under the sink."

Today was another one.

I'm quite exhausted, but I've decided that there will be more days like this, more worthy of my exhaustion--probably days that I actually read more than 2 pages at once.

I attended two church services today. Both in the morning, incidentally, at St. Andrew's church, a parish church. I attended the 8 AM and the 9:30. The first had no music and we read several times out of the book of common prayer, which was new to me (the book, at least.)

During the services I was struck in two ways:
1) How heathenistic does our communion sound to those who have never heard of drinking our Saviour's blood and feeding on his flesh? (This was simply because the Book of Common Prayer worded it differently than I'd ever heard before.)
2) How religiously-based Oxford really is, compared with the rest of the spiritually dark Europe.

St. Andrew's has a wonderful programme for everyone that is young of age (me three years ago, say) and has several different names for them, very active, like, Crawlers, Creepers, Jumpers, Soul Survivors, etc. It sounds almost like a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, but it seems to have gone in the other direction: wonderfully right! There were children galore in the service, along with plenty of participation from the youth. St. Andrew's is completely thriving, in a very healthy way, it seems like.

Tomorrow is orientation--serious business. With a planned schedule from 9-4. I really am a professional student these days. On Thursday we'll stop with the orientation business and finally get to have free time again--to meet with our tutors and decide when to meet with them each week (primary tutors) and when to meet with them fortnightly (every two weeks, secondary tutors).

I look forward to it all.

Cheers!

P.S. If you wonder about the blog titles, just ask; I'll be happy to tell. I'm not certain if it's exciting blog material or not.

bobbies without guns

British word of the day: tea towels - a towel used for drying off dishes, not decorative but not to be soiled with wiping up messes (America's dish towel)

Today was a good day. I have a feeling there will be a good amount of these sorts of days. It was still a bit cold, but I woke up at 7:30, and upon noticing my roommates still fast asleep, decided to sleep in until a very luxurious and unusual 8:00. I began a few postcards, and drank some more tea.

I ate my first digestive biscuits today--they are cookies that aid in digestion that have one side dipped in chocolate (which, in turn, makes them slightly more appealing than just calling them "digestives") Unfortunately, I find myself eating nearly anything that is dipped in chocolate. This isn't the worst thing I've eaten after getting here. Much better than mince pie:

We went for a jaunt about Oxford this afternoon, and it was fun to see things, and actually recognize them from my trip to Oxford during the Beatles interim in England. Surprisingly, I arrived exactly one year later in the UK than I did last year--the immigrations officer was extremely confused as to why I had a stamp from Heathrow with exactly the same date. She excused her mistake with her forgetfulness of the new year--I told her that I still had trouble that I was remembering it was 2009 instead of 2008. I do like writing 8's so much better than 9's. An unfortunate year change (as far as writing numbers goes.)

Today I saw the covered market, which is one of my favourite places here--there's a coffee shop that I was told about that has a really cutesy, girly name, with pink and purple things everywhere. (I may be in line for the next Queen of Ambiguousness--splendid.) And now I've forgotten who told me the place--I'll have to ask around because my memory seems to fail me so often. I'll find it sometime.

I also saw St. Mary Magdalene's church; it's beautiful and apparently they have a modern praise and worship. Not exactly what I'm looking for. And tomorrow, I believe I'm going to the 8 AM service at St. Andrew's. I've heard it's fairly popular with the students at SCIO, but I'm going to try to find a smaller church later on and get to know the people there really well, and let them get to know me, and recognize my face when I come in. But the preaching must be interesting, good, and quite anecdotal. It will be a "Rog" stand-in, I guess.

Saw a Starbucks today. Disappointed. Although, the Brits do have both Costa Coffee and Caffe Nero, both chains, and not much different. No strange creature for the logo, though.

We start our term the week after next; until then, it's orientation, orientation, orientation.

Until tomorrow (I hope), cheers!

arrivals & discoveries

British word of the day: queue - a standing line (eg: "Please form a queue behind the counter.")

I've landed, if you couldn't tell.

We made about four circles 'round a city name Something-Upon-Something (the exact name escapes me) and then finally landed in London/Heathrow.

From there I took a rather EXPENSIVE coach to Oxford and then took a taxi to Crick Road. This will be home for the next 3 months. The bathroom smells like fresh paint and there seems to be an endless supply of tea. What kind of island is this?

Because of impending jet lag, many girls at the Crick went for a walk with a girl in her second semester. It was cold, brisk, invigorating (yes, all that) and within minutes, I couldn't remember whether I had toes or not. I checked when I returned and indeed i did have them. I placed them immediately above the room's heater.

i have some clocks to reset and some e-mails to respond to as well as a bit of skype-ish things to download, so excuse me.

cheers!
marissa

inner nets

struggle between getting worthless ethernet connection fixed and [ab]using the wireless connection here at Trinity.

struggle?


constant.

but i will do this--following is a video of singing a happy birthday song for my sister, Reanna. She is in her last year of 20's: twenty-nine. maybe she'll turn 29 again next year.

i did forget the words for a second, but i come back strong, and aaron certainly reinforces it with ample facial expressions.