Guilty Post

Hello everyone! I've been feeling mega-guilty lately for my serious lack of posting, and lack of entertainment when I do. I've been feeling pretty envious lately of a lot of my friends who are abroad and meeting tons of people. The one thing they DIDN'T use to intimidate us on our way to Oxford is that it's a pretty solitary experience. Unlike school, I don't have real classes, so I don't have that vehicle to meet people, and unlike school, I'm making my own meals for breakfast and lunch, so that socializing opportunity goes out the window too. So pretty much I don't see anyone until dinnertime, and then only for an hour, and then back to the grindstone.

Speaking of the grindstone... at the risk of kicking myself later for many an varied reasons, I have to say...Oxford just isn't that hard for visiting students. God knows I'll be milking this experience for all it's worth when it's on my resume, but after I got my grades on my first set of papers, I knew that I wouldn't be killing myself working here, like I did when I took a summer neuroscience class at Brown. To be fair, I haven't been given assignments as long as some of my friends here, and because I can't do real research, most of my papers are literature reviews on whatever topic. It is, of course, a different story for the real students here, who have lectures and exams to deal with as well. Of course, this leaves them with even LESS time for socialization and consequently, leaves the visiting students much to themselves.

I found out yesterday that (hopefully) next term I will be taking "Modernity's Effects on Psychology" with topics like advertising, body image, etc, and "Contemporary Interpretations of Greek Myth" in literature and film. Anyway, the coordinators for our tutes are arguably somewhat incompetent, so we'll see if that works out.

In other, better news, I finally have my laptop ("Li'l Cutie" for those of us on speaking terms) back in my lovin' arms, and through some professional grade finagling, my dad convinced Apple to fix it for free. They ended up replacing the hard drive, the motherboard, and RAM, so I basically have a new computer. Additionally, it was astonishingly easy to restore files from Time Machine files on my backup HD, so I got all my music, bookmarks, and docs back. Also, my debit card issue was FINALLY resolved (knock on wood, I'll be eternally suspicious now), so this weekend I went around and finally bought all my train tickets and reserved hostel beds for Spain.

Speaking of break, I'll certainly be posting from abroad. My schedule is this, for those who'd like to follow along:
- March 12-18: Paris
- March 18-27: Lyon
- March 17-30: Madrid
- March 31-April 5: Barcelona (on my own)
- April 5-12: Barcelona (with my family)

But for now, let's take a trip down memory lane, now that all of my pictures are loaded on this computer...

HOMESTAY WEEKEND IN WORCESTER:


Anna (Oxford buddy) and homestay daughter Hannah


Comics follow me wherever I go...


Worcester Cathedral's original wall



Cloister wall



One of many many ornate doors



The faces were scratched off during some religious dispute (it's been a month, okay?)



Huge huge huge pipe organ



There were a LOT of tilty houses in Worcester



More photos later today, including London weekendstraviganza.

dear internet friends...

Ughh I am so sorry about neglecting this blog. People told me I would, I insisted I wouldn't, but I have. I will now blame it on a number of things:

- My ATM card still not in my wallet
- Separation anxiety from my Li'l Cutie computer, in the Apple hospital
- Lots of work (kind of)
- Internet TV (check out ninjavideo.net)
- It's really freaking cold here

On that last note, I watched a loon (maybe a coot) WALK ACROSS THE MOAT. YES WE HAVE A MOAT (kind of). YES IT WAS FROZEN THIS MORNING.

Jesus, Oxford, get your act together. Other than that, not a lot of eventful things have happened in the last week and a half. I am off to London this weekend with all the IFSA Butler kids in England, and it should be a pretty wild party. I will definitely be recording that for posterity. Less than a month until our mondo-long break. I'm listening to Bob Marley to try and trick myself into thinking that if I open a window I won't immediately need three more sweaters.

I'll leave you with that, internet friends, and I hope you're all doing well.

About a million things

...have happened since I last posted. Most notably, I went on a homestay in Worcester last weekend. If you want to read about how good and awesome homestays can be, head on over to Nicko's blog and check it out. Mine kind of sucked, to be honest. I was staying with Anna, another girl at St. Catz, and we were with a family with a single mother and two daughters, and a boyfriend for one of the daughters. And a boyfriend for the mom. It's not that they were mean or didn't feed us, they just didn't seem to care that we were there. Other families took their kids to pubs and on outings. I mean, ours packed us lunch. Not toooo exciting. We mostly did homework / took showers / wandered around shopping. Speaking of shopping, I did find out that someone in Vancouver has my check card information and is buying things. AWESOME.

In happier news, I've joined the Oxford University Company of Archers. At my first practice, I completely tore up my left arm by repeatedly letting it get whacked by the bowstring. This happened because I was locking my elbow instead of using my back to pull back on the bow. This has resulted (it's been a week) in a technicolor dreamcoat of bruising. It's sort of liver colored now. BUT I am getting better, and only hit myself once last practice.

I'm sucking up my insecurities, and joined the Oxford University Drama Society, which is mostly a bulletin board for auditions and stuff. But I do think I'm trying out for Cymbeline this week, which it nerve-wracking and thrillling simultaneously.

I had my first secondary tutorial yesterday, and I love my tutor. She is this amazing, old-school British lady, and rather than having me read my essay aloud and interrupting when she has a comment (as my other tutor does) she reads it the night before the tute and we go over it together, mentioning parts that were relevant and good points. I knew I was really going to like her when we were discussing Life-Course Theory, and she said "The way I think about theories, I have to ask myself if they make sense, and then if they do, I know they're good theories." Good GOD! A psychologist who thinks about whether things make sense? I've died and gone to heaven.

To celebrate my success (she graded my first paper Beta + which is an A- in America), I bought an eclair at the great bakery that's around the corner from my tutor's office. Then I went home and ate it. Great day.

I just rearranged my furniture, so that I get sunlight (inasmuch as it exists here), and I'm satisfied, but now I need extension cords.

This weekend, Dara and I are planning a walkabout in Oxford, so many pretty pictures coming soon. But for now, enjoy this shot of my arm:



Oh, and a ton of shots of Worcester Cathedral are up next, which was really the only great thing about Worcester.

I AM TWENTY-ONE!

Thanks to my parents for a kick-ass care package. I had a bunch of friends over last night and we just kicked it and LEGALLY DRANK VODKA-CRAN-OJ's. It was great. I wore gold pants. When's my next long post, you ask? Here's a joke to tide you over:

Were you aware? The British don't believe in fitted sheets.

No seriously.

One of the odd things that I've come to expect here is a mix of things I'm not used to paying for costing money, and things I'm accustomed to doing for myself done for me. Case in point: dinner. Actually, there are two dinner services here. One is called "scaff" (a contraction of "Pete's Cafe" or something), which is an informal, self-service dinner, which I have not been to yet. It has faster (read: fatter) food items like pizza and chips. "Hall" is a formal (by American standards) three-course dinner. The way Hall works is you HAVE to show up around 7, they will not let people into the dining hall after 7:15. My friend Dara wasn't let in the first night at Oxford because of this. Anyway, we all file in as we show up, but you HAVE to walk in with friends because not only do they dislike seat-saving, but they won't allow any gaps in between students. We all sit and chat (hopefully, sometimes conversations can stale if you're one-on-one with another person) until the fellows of the college walk in. Although we don't have to dress formally for dinner (some colleges at Oxford do), the fellows are always dressed nicely. While they file in, students stand up and quiet down a bit (though it's not totally silent), until one of the fellows bangs a gavel and says "Benedictus benedictum" at which point the fellows sit down at the high table (much like Harry Potter). After this, we are served appetizers, which in the last week have ranged from the delicious (I think tonight is hummus and pita, last night we had onion soup) to the mundane (wilty green salad). The servers are pretty pushy and are encouraged to keep things moving as quickly as possible, so the moment you put down your fork, they whisk your dish away. Main courses vary even more. Last night was pretty godawful, some kind of grey rumproast (a real Marie Doliva classic, for the family in the house). But apparently, the head chef in the kitchens is actually a pastry chef, and as a result, almost every desert is amazing. The British are VERY fond of custard-soaked cakes, which are AIGHT, but the winners are the chocolate deserts. I had a great bittersweet tart one lunchtime. Dinner usually lasts from 7:15-8PM, but there's coffee at the end of the hall, which is nice, because at school, we sometimes hang out long after eating is done, just talking. There's a considerable absence of socializing here, since we're all meant to spend 9-5 working, and the libraries are certainly not made for group study.

So that's a little food-rant for you. Tomorrow I have my first tutorial meeting, and present my first paper to an Oxford scholar. Fingers crossed for me, and I'll let the internet know how it goes!

Also, yes, there are no fitted sheets here, and my hospital-corner skills seem to be greatly lacking. But they DO give you clean linens every week, so there's that.

Ta!