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!