Pineapple-Flavoured Bubblegum

Yesterday, it rained. A good, strong, melancholic British rain. Today, the sun burst up like a bubble of pineapple-flavoured gum and seems to have gotten stuck all over my window. I suppose the man in the moon will have to come and clean it off tonight, but for now, it's stuck for GOOD.

Today we have our last lecture of our integral course, something on the Middle Ages and the Church and Heresy. That should be interesting ...

And agenda for the weekend: Study, Sleep, Study, repeat. We have our integral exam a week from today, and I'm gonna ace it if it kills me! *cross fingers!*

After that, it's Dante, Austen, and Romance. Of the Rose. Y'know, the medieval kind ...

AND induction into the all-exclusive, uber elite club of the century: the BODLEIAN.

*geeky moment*

Silence in the Library!

Blenheim Palace

Yesterday afternoon, a few of us decided to take our own mini field trip to Blenheim Palace, home of the 11th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and birthplace of England's most famous prime minister: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill.

You can read about his life in detail, whether online or in a book, but here are a few facts:

Churchill was born 30 November 1874, two months prematurely. He graduated from Sandhurst after failing his exams not once, not twice, but three times ... ! He served in Bombay and India, then during the First World War as First Lord of the Admiralty. He served two terms as Prime Minister, painted (very well!) as a hobby, smoked Havana cigars, was made an honorary Citizen of the United States, and was related to Diana, Princess of Wales (nee Spencer).

Unfortunately for us, we were unable to photograph the inside of the palace, but if you visit the website, you should be able to find some pictures:

http://www.blenheimpalace.com/

We were, however, able to visit and photograph the extensive gardens, to our great content! The estate is over 1200 acres, containing many gardens, fountains, wooded areas, a hedge maze, rose gardens, and a butterfly house! Here are some fun shots of these areas. Enjoy!

The Blog

To all my dear readers:

Many, many thanks for reading! To my great astonishment, my blogger stats page shows over 1,000 page hits since the end of August! I am amazed; I had begun this blog as a convenient way of keeping a handful of family and friends up-to-date with my adventures, and it seems that it's reached a lot more people than expected! A fabulous and frightening proof of the incredible powers of the internet!

... unless all the hits were from one person, a thousand times over ... hmmm, highly suspicious.

Anyway, updates soon!

Word of the Week! #2

APHAERESIS

1) leaving off the beginning of a word, used often by poets and hillbillies
- example: 'coon for racoon, 'nuf for enough, 'gain for again, 'mongst for amongst

2) extracting part of the blood from a sample and using it for something and putting the rest back in. Not sure what that's used for, but probably good to know.

FYI!

Windsor!

Today, we had our last - but most emphatically not least - field trip: Windsor Castle. The entire trip was absoulutely fabulous; the castle, home to Her Majesty the Queen, was beautiful, inside and out; unfortunately, for privacy reasons, we were not allowed to take photos of the inside, so I'm afraid you'll have to make do with googling them, if there are any! However, I don't think I missed a single angle from outside; here's a couple, so enjoy!

The gardens were beautiful, even this late in the season; the guards amused us with their stoicism. Inside, we saw the most detail-oriented dollhouse I have ever seen, enough to make even Playmobil grow green with envy (if ever possible!).

The St. George cathedral, located within the castle walls, presented another fine specimen of medieval architecture.

Having completed the tour, we all broke for lunch and then went along our merry ways to explore the town itself. A friend and I took a journey down the river Thames - not by boat, but along the shore - to gaze upon the fowl there. Did you know: all the swans in England are owned by the Queen?

After deliberating over ice cream, not once, not twice, but three times (and coming away empty-handed each time), we took ourselves off down High Street (NB: it seems that every largish town in England boasts a High (i.e. "Main") Street, a Queen Street, a Market Street, and a St.-Somebody-or-Other Street, or some combination thereof) towards Eton College (no worries, to those concerned that we were depriving ourselves of edible enjoyment. We eventually settled quite contentedly for tea and scones).

Ah, Eton. This prestigious "college" is not an American idea of "college," or even an Oxford idea of "college," but rather a French idea of "college," or high-school. We were curious to see Eton, maybe some ancient architecture, maybe a rugby game in a faraway field ... did someone say culture shock? We paused our walk momentarily to step into a nick-nack shop, only to be confronted by half-a-dozen teenage boys in tails. Coattails. Vest, tie, collars, trousers, and coattails. Immensely impressed, we quickly ducked out to continue our promenade ... and soon found the entire area swarming with uniformly-clad peers (not the noble kind, the social equal; though I daresay enough of their percentage would have been aristocratic enough for the term to be so used). After discovering that the college buildings were none of them open to satisfy public curiosity, we sauntered back up the hill towards the castle, where we eventually found a little tea shop and sat down to rest our feet.

I would have taken pictures of the uniform, had I not felt that would have been slightly inconsiderate and disconcerting to the young gentlemen. You can probably google up some images of "Eton uniform" and see for yourselves ... FYI, some notable Old Etonians include George Orwell, Bertie Wooster, Ian Fleming, James Bond, Hugh Laurie, Lord Sebastian Flyte, Bear Grylls, Captain James Hook, Captain Arthur Hastings, Lord Peter Wimsey - not to mention the royal princes William and Harry.

After tea, we made our way back to the bus, for an hour-long trip home of eavesdropping on fellow students discussing health care and the second amendment. I could only think to myself what a pain it would be to have to wear an Eton collar, all day long ...

You Know You've Had Too Much to Read When ...

A little bit of Lewis and Lewis and Lorris and Lewis goes a long way.

Enjoy.


How is it that, in lines so pat
These geniuses describe
A chair, a pen, a big fat hen,
A mouse or dastardly bribe,

A wishing well, a sleeping rose,
Two crumpets, cup of tea -
All sorts of things, like chess-piece kings -
With such simplicity?

They know, you see, just how to turn
The key into the lock;
It wiggles ‘round, with hollow sound,
Until it goes “click! Clock!”

The old clock shrieks, and then it cries,
“Oh, no! Not there! Don’t go!”
But Scribbl’r grins; with slipp’ry fins
He glides and giggles low.

And there he peeks and sees the jewels
Imagination hides:
Pictures, Words, a landscape bright;
They all sit there inside.

But Scribbl’r, ah! Now Scribbl’r fights
To pull these jewels away;
He wants them, oh! He needs them out;
He wants them out to play.

But Doubt and Shame and Reason too,
They sternly shake their heads;
“You’ve better, more important things
- Like HOMEWORK - to do instead.”

And Scribbl’r pouts, and Scribbl’r stomps,
And shakes his little fist;
What can he do but sit and sigh?
Le pauvre! Qu’il est si triste!

And Scribbl’r turns to leave the room;
He drops the key behind;
But Hope comes out, wipes off the pout
And smiles soft and kind.

“No worries, now! My Scribbl’r dear,
Just wait a while and see;
You’ll grow up soon; just take your time;
Relax; come ‘long with me.”

And Scribbl’r grins; he knows it’s true
That soon enough, one day
Experience and Common Sense
Will let him come and play.

Until that time, he works, he waits;
He watches others who
Already know what they’re about
And let him practice, too.

And someday soon will Scribbl’r spring
From Immaturity’s chains;
Imagination’s room will swing
Its doors wide open: BANG!

And there he’ll see the jewels again:
Rhythm, Sound, and Sight;
He’ll take them up, and shape them up
All to Hope’s great delight.

And there it is that Scribbl’r does
What only Scribbl’r can:
That is, craft tales and poetry
For happiness of man.

And Scribbl’r gives to all the world
The work of his two hands
But now,especially, you'll see,
To Bug, who understands.

FYE #3

Between "Hansel and Gretel" and "The Snow Queen," Jacob Grimm seems to have dabbled in linguistics. Look up "Grimm's Law," and if you can get past the three parts of the chain shift in the Proto-Indo-European stops and fricatives, go out and treat yourself to an ice cream cone!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm's_law

Reason

"Unfortunately for Reason, the world has changed. No one speaks 'properly' nowadays, and language has become opaque, an impediment, rather than an aid, to understanding. In such a world, it is no surprise if Reason's discourse falls on deaf ears."

Romance of the Rose, introduction. And right on the nose.

"Oh, it's a nice day today, let's have a Renaissance!"

It didn't really happen like that, though. Not even for the 12th century one. But of course historians like to keep their history all cut and dry, separated into little cubes of people and families and facts and dates and places and things and countries and such. And professors like to have it all cut and dry, with little paragraphs in your papers about such-and-such and and then another about this-and-that. But it doesn't really work ... as exemplified by our lecturers. They would love to have it all cut and dry, but they know better. They are wise. They know that maybe, just maybe, it's all just a 'sublime meaninglessness!' They know that it's all a bunch of wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey stuff. They know that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that Europe didn't just happen, and that the Wales-England border, known as the "March," sort of merged into a weirdly non-homogeneous mixture of Welsh-English which exists to this day. They know that courtly love was neither loving nor courtly, and that the Norman conquest wasn't really all about conquesting. They know that it's how people today think about the past that creates a national identity, eternally inseparable from that nation's history. They know. They know.

*sigh* Back to noting quotes.

Word of the Week

CEPHALAPHORE

I'm so tempted just to make you look it up, but I'll be nice ... this time!

It's a head-carrier - a saint who has been beheaded, and then picks up his head and walks around with it. Example: St. Denis. Martyred at Montmartre, France, then picked up his head and walked to the present-day location of the Abbey of St.-Denis. Just FYI.

Christ Church

Hello all! It's been a busy weekend, so my apologies for my silence ... though actually, you were all probably really enjoying that respite ...

Anyway, so, on Thursday a few of us toured Christ Church Cathedral, not only the church for the college but also for all of the C of E diocese of Oxford. Christ Church College is one of the more prestigious colleges, also famous as the setting for the Harry Potter films (For those of you interested, we got to see the "Moving Stairs," but as a non-fan,I'm afraid I couldn't appreciate their significance, besides the architectural value). Also, for fellow nonsense-nerds, Charles Dodgson came to study maths at Christ Church. But that's another story. :D

The cathedral is small (comparatively) but pretty. Here are photos of the altar, organ, and a beautiful rose window!

I am right now taking a five-minute break from prepping my integral essay; there were numerous essay topics, including "in what way did this period of history see the making of a common European identity?" / "how far was artistic and/or architectural development driven by technological change?" / "how useful a category is 'medieval political theory'?" ... but I chose none of these! I am going to talk about literary genres in the Middle Ages - cool, huh? Yeah. That's my topic!

Anyway, Wednesday we are taking a trip to ... guess where! I guess you'll see! :D

The Knight with No Name

Once upon a time, there was a lady who fell in love with a knight. He was the handsomest knight around, and the lady wished to be his, but alas! the knight had no name, and therefore, how could the lady ever address him properly? The knight grew forlorn, for he loved the lady dearly, but alas! with no name, how could he approach the lady? And thus, the knight set out on the quest for a name. He knew not what perils or dangers lay in wait for him, but he set out upon his brave charger, and with a sweet "Godspeed!" the lady watched as her knight rode off into the horizon.

*TBC*

[isn't he adorable? I picked him up at Winchester. He's about an inch tall! I still can't think of something to call him, though! Any suggestions?]

QUOTE! #2

The awesomest. C. S. Lewis, in his "Discarded Image," quotes G. K. Chesterton, speaking under what circumstances, I haven't the faintest.

There is something sinister about putting a leprechaun in the workhouse. The only solid comfort is that he certainly will not work.

Someone explain, please?

HELLO STONEHENGE!

Today, our field trip was scheduled for Wells Cathedral and the ruins of Glastonbury abbey. Due to unforseen events, plans were to change - although with a pleasant surprise as side-effect.

Wells Cathedral, built in the 13th and 14th centuries, is entirely Gothic in style, with no Norman or Anglo-Saxon structure or design to speak of. The cathedral was built near the Wells of St. Andrew, the town's source of water - hence the name. The cathedral also boasts the oldest-working clock ... in the world! [sorry the picture is so terrible; it was very dark in that particular corner. If you really want, you can probably find something better online at Google Images or whatnot.] It's a pretty neat little piece, too, with knights who joust around together, and one poor chap get his head knocked off eight times each quarter of an hour. That's four million times in his existence. If ever there were a purgatorio for wooden soldiers ... talk about a contropasso!

The ceilings were also magnificent! I don't know about you, but I love this amazing fan vaulting, and here in Wells, the painting ... absolutely gorgeous!

The cathedral itself, from the outside, is magnificent as well, imposing, very well preserved (to my amateur eye).

During our lunch break, we enjoyed strolling through the open-air market in Wells. We bought bread and cheese for lunch (stilton with cranberries. ALMOST my favorite!) and then some people bought fudge. I treated myself to a bit of turkish delight, and although it was good, I don't think it would be my first choice over everything ... even if it is magical!

Unfortunately, because of some bunch of cyclists calling themselves the Tour de Britain, we couldn't get in to Glastonbury and see the ruins. I think our guide and professor was even more dissappointed than we were, but we did get to see a bit of a glimpse from outside the fence.

On our way home, we passed STONEHENGE, which was absolutely amazing; perfect timing, with the sun setting in the background, clear sky, etc. Last time I passed Stonehenge, it was at five in the morning and the foggiest night ever ... but that's another story!

We had our first "colloquium" (from the lating from "speak together," or conversation) or seminar yesterday, where we discussed St. Augustine. Thankfully, I've had considerable experience in this, and I felt I did remarkably well (Dr. Bart, my greatest gratitude!), so I am looking forward to next week!

Tomorrow a small group of us have a local field trip to Christ Church, here in Oxford ... so be on the lookout!

I can't think of a good title so I'm not putting any. So there.

Today we had our lecture on Anselm's Proslogion (pronouced pros-LOG-i-on, with the emphasis on "log" and the G hard) which was fascinating, compared to the work itself. It was all about logic and syllogisms and the difference between a valid and a sound argument, and that than which no greater thing can be thought to exist ... ! Ahhh! *nerdy moment!*

And then I took a stroll around the shops, just for the fun of it. We did so much walking the first few days, that I'm beginning to get cabin fever, spending all the time in the dorm and lecture hall. It's very interesting to see all the stylish clothes; there's quite a bit I haven't seen, but perhaps I just don't get out to NYC often enough to notice!

What else is new ... ? Not much. Life is becoming routine, and it's a jolly nice routine, but as you can see, not a lot of pictures. I might perhaps go out some time and take pix of the streets round here; that could be very pretty. I'll think about it.

For now, a quick skim through some more books on Medieval Europe, and then one on chivalry; we have a lecture on chivalry tomorrow, which should be interesting!

QUOTE!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am one of the least original creatures on this planet, and that my keenest delight and joy is theft.

I steal words. I love words. Words are cool. They can be big, they can be small; they can be ancient as the sun, or new as the moon. And they are sprinkled across the galaxy like twinkling diamonds across blue velvet, ready to be snatched up by a cool, quick leather glove. *whoosh!* And they are gone! ... tucked neatly into my little book of memorable words, to be held captive for eternity between the lady-like flowery covers of my QUOTE BOOK.

During my homework today, I have plucked the newest flower and added it to my bouquet.

And today, in my gracious capacity as fairy godmother, I here proffer a token of gratitude to all my favourite readers. You are all my favourite, because you are all my readers.

Here is my gift:

"If it is [God's] will [that I die], I shall gladly obey, but if He should prefer me to stay with you just long enought to solve the question of the origin of the soul which I have been turning over in my mind, I would gratefully accept the chance, for I doubt whether anybody else will solve it when I am gone."

Many thanks to St. Anselm for these profound and ever so slightly pretentious last words.

How do you pronounce "Proslogion"?

*

I think I've been in the dorm too long.

Academics

Well, that is what I am here for, really ...

So, of course, the British school system is different from the American school system, just as the American school system is different from the French school system, and so on and so forth. In England, "college" refers more to the high school years, while "university" refers to college or university as we know it. It only lasts three years, though, and not four. The lucky ducks only have two exams ever: mods and prelims, which come at the end of the first and second years ... if I am corret. Not sure on that one. But they do have other papers and such inbetween, so it's not like they spend all their time out at pubs or anything ...

The academic year is split among three trimesters, not two semesters as we have it; the first is Michaelmas, the second Hilary, and the third Trinity, originally named for holidays falling within those three time periods (roughly: fall, winter, spring respectively). A "full term" consists of eight numbered weeks, starting with Sunday as the first day of the week. My "1st Week" begins 10 October, and "8th Week" ends 3 December. The week before 1st Week is known as "Nougth Week" (is that how you spell it? maybe "Naugth"? "Noughth"?), where "freshers" come up to the uni, get settled in, etc. The week after 8th Week is known as "Ninth Week," where things wind down, students leave the uni, last-minute papers are frantically written and handed in, etc. Unfortunately for sanity, neither Nougth nor Ninth are officially part of full term. Are you still with me???

- For me, these four weeks before Nougth are an "Integral" course for international students [read: Americans] and part of the exchangey program I'm in. It's not really an exchange program, because no one at home is having to deal with a British equivalent of me (can you imagine??? just too bizarre. Would she try to imitate the American accent? would she get excited over Poe and Twain? Would she yearn for french fries and shakes? Weirdo ...) but that's beside the point. During these four weeks, we have lectures, little seminars, and field trips and such to work on assimilating ourselves into (does one assimilate to or into?) the environment and getting accustomed to the teaching style and also introduce ourselves to the Middle Ages. Hello, sweetie. Haven't we met before ... ?

Anyway, so you've been seeing the amazing places we've been visiting on field trips (and by ourselves!) and Wed we have something else coming up - Wells and Glastonbury, so that ought to be a treat. Our head prof has been giving us lots of good advice regarding how to deal with stress and depression ("there's always a box of tissues in my office ... and a cup of sympathy") and how to balance study and leisure time and how to take notes ("I've seen grown men cry" because they forget to write down page numbers) and how to keep track of appointments (advice to Henry Higgins: "buy a diary") and how to define Oxford University ("a non-ontological state of being") and such things as that. He did remind us that "Alice was the brainchild of an Oxford don, and ... couldn't have been invented anywhere else" - so that's a very insightful point on the character of Oxford, in my opinion. But don't think about it too long, or you'll start seeing white rabbits.

There are 30 undergrad/grad colleges, with 6 grad-only, and two very special colleges: All Souls', which you can't even apply for, they pick you to join the club; and Kellogg (aka Cornflake College - ouch) which ... is very confusing. Like, I think it's a bunch of profs or something ... not sure. They're not big on concise definitions over here.

St. Peter's College, with which my program is affiliated, is a rather new college, founded in 1928, with 458 students, just under the average size. "Gown" (i.e. academics) vs. "Town" has been a point of discord for quite some years, and in 1209 "the weaker bretheren fled to the East ... and founded some sort of a nursery school" ... what did they call it? Coolidge? College? Cambell? Oh, Cambridge. Yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar ... "Oxbridge" is known as THE rivalry of the milennium; can you imagine an American football game between Army and Navy? Times infinity. Huge.

And when I say huge, I don't mean big, I mean downright GINORMOUS.

Oh, and the word "quite:" when used as "quite heavy" it means "very;" when used as "quite good" it means "almost." Or "sort of, but not ... quite."



"Just think, Eat Me, Drink Me, magic mushrooms ..." ... says the prof. "I did tell you this was the land of Alice."

The Kilns

Today! Today was super cool. Today we saw C. S. Lewis' house, the Kilns. There are actually real live people living in it (like at Jane Austen's) but because this weekend is Oxford's "Open Days" where they let the normal, general population act all touristy and go see cool buildings and places for free, they let us pop our heads in at the windows and see the muddy pond where Lewis used to go punting ... though how he managed, I've no clue; honestly, it wasn't any bigger than our pond at home! I'm guessing he did more sleeping in the punt than punting ... though the punt was actually there at the house, very very very old and all that; the house and property have all been restored and kept up and everything, but it's pretty much impossible to restore a wooden punt, so it's a bit out of shape. But still cool.

And on the pond were some funny black ducks with white bills; perhaps the ornithologist at home might be able to place the curious creature ... ?

It's a very cute house, as you can see, with lovely flowers bordering and encircling it. The current owners are American, ironically enough, but it sounded like they put a lot of time and money into restoring and keeping up the old place, which is awfully cool. I think when I die, and my house becomes famous, I'd like some Brits to move in and keep it up. Oh, wait, I don't have a house ...

After that, we went to visit the courthouse, where the Knave was on trial for stealing the Queen's tarts. The rendition of the famous court scene was masterfully portrayed by a fabulous Hatter, until he left off Caroll's version and began making up his own ending to it, which I found rather lame. And he said that the raven and writing desk have quills in common: plain old boring old quills. I thought that a remarkably stupid answer to the riddle, compared to good old Poe, but perhaps he felt disinclined to credit an American writer with any ingenuity. But the tea was good, and everyone clapped, and in the end no one was beheaded, which was a mercy, and everyone went home happy and content.

After a rather long day's outing, I was disinclined to study, but I peeked in between the pages of a book on medieval Europe, and as it happened to be well-written and a fairly easy read, I took to it and made some considerable progress. For dinner, I treated myself to some crackers, some brie, and a pear, and let me tell you, it is a dinner fit for queens, red or white. Positively scrummy. A quick stop at Sainsbury's [the local grocery store; similar to Meijer's] and a quid-fifty [little more than $2] offered more satisfaction and delight than many a painstakingly-prepared cafeteria meal. Why, oh why, must they insist on serving us three squares a day, when we can have all the geometric shapes in the world?

There was a point to this, and I have forgotten it, and it will return as soon as I post this. Murphy's Law, don't you know.

The Eagle and Child

So, tonight - being Friday, and the weekend - a few of us went out to the Eagle and Child, famously known as the Inklings' hang-out. The pub has been around since 1650, amazingly enough! I forgot to take my camera, but will do so next time I walk by, so you can all see it :) Some people got beer, but by far the majority got Pimms' and lemonade (I ordered first, and then everyone else played copy-cat!Thanks for the recommendation, E, it's definitely a keeper :), which was very good; very sweet and sparkly, kind of like an alchoholic Shirley Temple! Then someone insisted on buying a round of vodka shots ... and people started getting loud(er), so a few of us bowed out gracefully and came home. Now for some reading on the development of Medieval Europe ... though I heard someone was making cookies, and she'll probably need my expert help in that ... ;)

Missing y'all, just in case I hadn't said so recently! Keep in touch; email me!

FYE #2

This sign hangs on the wall just down the hall, and every time I pass by, I think of all of you :) I thought you'd appreciate a bit of a laugh!

When in Rome ...

When one travels to a foreign country, unless one holds a deep and passionate desire to make as much of a fool of oneself and one's country as possible, one generally avoids such behavior as might put oneself in a socially unacceptable position.

When in Rome ...

When one travels to France, for example, one does not go about speaking through one's nose. When in Spain, one generally controls one's unsatiable urge to run through the streets shouting "toro! toro!" When visiting Germany, one stops oneself before mentioning Nazism, or how one's ancestors fought in the World Wars.

When in Rome ...

Americans are, sterotypically, loud, obnoxious, insistent, irksome, easily aggravated, fat, obese, gluttonous, stupid, ignornant, rude, discourteous, talkative, self-conceited, self-centered, self-conscious, undisciplined, entitled, uncontrollable, demanding, and, moreover, terribly, terribly un-European, perhaps the worst crime of all. And so, when visiting a foreign country, one generally avoids (if one happens to be American) - one generally avoids displaying any of these beforementioned stereotypical qualities or characteristics.

When in Rome ...

The English are known for their soft tones of voice, shy manners, hesitancy, extreme urgency to avoid all conflict or embarassment, strict attendance to propriety and customary politesse, consideration of others, generousity of spirit, personal reserve, and general hospitality. Despite this latter quality, the English are also sensitive to any breach in propriety shown by others, and are easily offended by such behaviour.

When in Rome ...

Upon the basis of this observation, one should generally avoid (if one happens to be American), I say, one should generally avoid such stereotypical American behaviour (listed above) when one visits England.

When in Rome ...

One should refrain from constant chatter.

One should refrain from speaking incessantly.

One should refrain from speaking incessantly without pausing to breathe.

One should refrain from speaking incessantly without pausing to breathe or to let others enter the conversation.

One should refrain from speaking incessantly on topics of interest to no one but oneself.

One should refrain from speaking incessantly regarding one's love life (and all the details which follow).

One should refrain from speaking incessantly regarding one's opinion of subjects about which one had no clue what one is saying.

One should refrain from speaking incessantly about such politically- or morally-sensitive topics as abortion, human trafficking, modern "lifestyles," torture, capital punishment, religion, etc., particularly when the occasion (i.e. at a meal, or in public) generally demands polite conversation (i.e. the weather, fashion, literature, the arts).

One should refrain from referring to oneself.

One should refrain from referring constantly to oneself.

One should refrain from referring constantly to one's "exploits."

One should refrain from referring constantly to one's fascinating beer-pong skills.

One should refrain from referring constantly to one's favorite music, films, books, food, clothes, etc, etc, etc. ad nauseum.

One should avoid stepping into the street in front of a bus, unless one knows precisely what one is doing, for if one does not know precisely what one is doing, one will show oneself to be a foreigner and thus offer oneself for ridicule.

One should avoid speaking, talking, singing, or shouting loudly, particularly in stores, shops, or through the streets.

One should particularly avoid speaking, talking, singing, or shouting loudly in stores, shops, or through the streets when one is attempting pitifully and painfully to mimick the British accent.

In fact, one should avoid mimicking the British accent - whether malevolently or benevolently - at all times, unless one has a particularly good ear and soft voice, and one is among friends.

One should avoid demanding things of shopkeepers, waiters, bus drivers, or any other persons of public services.

One should refrain - whether intentionally or not - from walking into others, knocking others over, swinging doors in front of others, slamming doors in others faces, or causing others to drop, damage, or bruise either themselves or their belongings.

One should avoid smelling of any uncouth odors, particularly of excessive perfumes and colognes.

One should refrain from asking stupid questions.

One should, at all times, refrain from speaking discourteously of anything or anyone, particularly of royalty and the peerage.

One should refrain from questioning the food which one is served.

One should refrain from avoiding unknown foods, merely on the grounds that one is unfamiliar with that particular dish.

One should try to assimilate oneself as much as possible, not in the interest of losing one's identity and patriotism, but in the interest of avoiding social conflict.

One should attempt learning as many synonyms as possible for one's own words in the foreign country.

One should learn to appreciate the customs, traditions, and manners of the country.

One should avoid ridicule of the country's customs, manners, speech, diet, etc. etc. in order to avoid making oneself out to be an American ignoramus.

When in Rome ...

Do as the Romans, please.





Caveat: one speaks in generalizations, sterotypes, and exaggerations. One does not wish to identify any individual with any particular quality - either malevolent or benevolent - mentioned above. One merely suggests a short guideline to proper etiquette when visiting any location situated outside of the American continent.

Jane Austen :D

So, as a bit of a surprise, we found Jane Austen's tomb in Winchester. :D One of my fav authors, and the topic of one of my tutorials this semester! She died in a house just down the road from the cathedral, and then was buried in the cathedral - in the floor. I would have missed it completely had there not been huge blue arrows pointing to it ... ! And the house (which we saw, but unfortunatley I have no photos at the moment because my battery became "exhausted," but others got pix so I'll get them from them and upload them asap - the pix, not the friends) was quite unimposing as well ... v. cute and little and yellow, with a modest plaque above the door which no one would ever read because Brits all walk with their eyes cast down, minding their own business. But there is really someone living there, just a normal sort of bloke, I've heard, who wears khakis and polos (I wasn't there, but supposedly one of the girls went up to the house and brazenly rang the bell. The forwardness of these Americans ... !) After sort of mumbing an apology, she said, that he said, that it didn't matter, he gets people stopping by all the time ... and well I can believe it, poor fellow - though any man who lives in such a place where such a woman lived ought to consider the amount of heroine-worship which might be thus attached. Though he probably didn't think that all through ... though why it matters, I've no idea.

Anyway, here are three pictures of her tombstone, as it is jolly long and I wanted to get a good enough view so we can actually read what it says. If you can't actually read what it says in that dinky little photo, I can, because I have the original photo which is much bigger. My fav part of it goes something like this:

"... the benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections."

- and, if you look at the last sentence, those words are "soul" and "sight," not "foul" and "fight" - you have to watch for the old letters :)

Winchester Cathedral!

[Firstly, my apologies for having all the photos scrunched up together, and all the words thrown into a heap. Maybe it's the other way around, but I've always appreciated having pictures to go WITH the words, not before or after or sideways or whatnot. So, sorry for any irritation, aggravation, or whatever; just be happy I managed to figure out how to post pix at all!]

So, today we visited Winchester Cathedral. The transept, or side-sections, were Norman (i.e. early 12th century), while the majority of the nave (body of the church) was built in the Perpendicular style in the 14th century. The Cathedral is not only the antagonist of a song (google it!), but also serves as a shrine, in a sense, to one of literature's greatest heroines: Jane Austen. Throughout the cathedral are also buried many war casualties, and there are literally volumes of names of the dead open throughout the cathedral.

The second photo shows a lion and a unicorn - the two "mascots" of England - grinning at you from within a glass box. Originally, these two creatures flanked the enormous organ (which I did not show; sorry.Just picture lots of glittering pipes lined up in straight rows. There you have it!)

And a view of the amazing mural-which-isn't-a-mural-because-it's-on-the-ceiling of the angels. I don't know what you call it when it's on the ceiling and not on the wall, but essentially it's a mural. Just on the ceiling.

lol

It's dark; it's cold; it's hardly eight-thirty, and there are people staggering about in the street below my window. They are laughing; they are singing; they are shouting - though not at the top of their lungs - and I am highly amused. So unlike my quiet college back home ... :)

FYE (for your entertainment) #1

I have now heard the terms "dodgey" and "wonky" used legitimately in grammatically-correct conversation on two separate occasions - "dodgey" used in two separate conversations itself - by perfectly respectable British individuals. I am amused.

Berkeley!

Welcome to Berkeley Castle, home of the Berkeley family, known for their Square in London and for having lived in their present home (shown above) for nearly nine hundred years. Photos of the inside are not allowed, and all furniture, paintings, and decorations are not behind glass, as the current Earl of Berkeley refuses to live in a museum (and I wouldn't blame him!). There are, however, some photos of the inside, and fascinating historical stories listed on the website which you must visit if you cannot see the castle in person:

http://www.berkeley-castle.com/index.php

A couple facts:

Elisabeth I was known to have visited Berkeley (pronounced "Barkley") on numerous occasions, in order to hunt and bowl.

The castle boasts a bed in which Sir Francis Drake was said to have slept.

King Edward II was imprisoned and supposedly murdered in the castle's tower (his body was then buried with all due respect by those responsible for his murder - in the Gloucester Cathedral).

William Shakespeare wrote his famous play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," for the wedding of a family member. How would you like a wedding present from Shakespeare?


Oh! And I think I finally identified the smell of English air. It's the smell of damp ground, and cows in a nearby field, rain in the air, and hot tea with milk sitting on the kitchen table. It all gives it a sort of moist and musty smell, and I like it :)

Gloucester!

So, yesterday we took an amazing trip to Gloucester, home of Beatrix Potter's tailor and this beautiful old 11th century cathedral. Unfortunately, there happened to be a modern-art exhibition being presented at the time, actually set up right there throughout the cathedral, which was very depressing. It's difficult to wander among miracles of art in stone, glass, and precious metals, such as those pictured above, with gigantic monstrosities of tin foil and plastic and paper-mache set up in the aisles and poking out from the corners and even sitting complacently upon the consecrated altars of a once-sacred house of God, grinning out at you, knowing that they have every "right" to be there, in the name of equality, ecumenism, and political correctness.

Nevertheless, the building was beautiful, and these are only three of the dozens of photos I shot there, cataloging man's extraordinary abilitiy to create great and wonderful things when he puts his mind to it! Our professor gave us a wonderfully detailed explanation of all the different parts of the cathedral, and what styles came from what ages, and how such-and-such an arch was from the Norman times, and this other from the Romanesque period, etc. I won't recount it all to you now, as it would take a history bookful of time and more than my memory to bring it all alive for you :) However, I will say, thank God for heating and kneelers, as it would have taken an awful lot of gumption to stick it out for long on those slick-as-ice stone floors in the middle of February ;)

Not quite sure ...

My apologies to all factually-organized individuals in the world; I grew so anxious to get photos of this amazing building that I can't remember what it is! I think it's Balliol College, but it might be Trinity ... if I go past it again, I'll clarify for you. But it is an amazingly beautiful college; I'm afraid the photo doesn't do it justice by half. You all must come and see for yourselves!

Bridge of Sighs

Here is a really cool old bridge at Hertford College, which Evelyn Waugh used as material/background for his famous novel "Brideshead Revisited." I think they might have even filmed the mini-series there, as I seem to vaguely remember seeing the bridge sometime, somewhere before ... but that might just be me. The college was designed by the famous architect Christopher Wren, and just down the street from the bridge - sister-bridge to the Bridge of Sighs in Venice and in Cambridge - there lies the Turf Tavern, famous, I believe, as the oldest pub in Oxford, and for figuring frequently in the Inspector Morse TV series.

Pix!

Hurray! One picture up! This is, in case you haven't guessed, a telephone box. The old ones say "Telephone" where here it says "Coins," while the really really old ones were blue ... but that's a different story. I've heard they are also terribly nasty and dirty on the inside, but I might have to just risk the germs once for some photos ...

Oxford: the City

My jaw is nearly broken from yawning, and yet, I write. Inside, all is silence. The stairways stop creaking. The shower timidly stops the waterflow through the pipes, and throws its doors open wide to allow a soothingly theraputic humidity out into the hall. The roomate lies still as a curled-up statue buried and swathed in muffling bedclothes.

Outside, there is life. The great clock tolls at the quarter-hour, every quarter-hour. Street musicians drone their soulful songs in tones of piercingly complicated rhythms. Small parties of pub-and-club-goers [read: college students] dance [read: stagger] through the alleys - dark and deserted - to join their fellow merrymakers [read: more college students] for a friendly pint [read:one too many to count]. Amusing entertainment for the curious observer!

As a whole, Oxford city is quite beautiful. The architecture is AMAZING, lots and lots of old Romanesque and Gothic buildings, all in stone, scattered about with tiny, twisting, cobblestone lanes scurrying in between them. [ I am taking pictures, but somehow we're experiencing a bit of operator failure with posting pix, sooo ... the management excuses itself with a thousand apologies, and hopes to remedy the situation in the near future. ] There is a covered market down the road, where you will find not only fresh fruits and vegetables, but also a butcher's shop (with fresh meat hanging from the ceiling!), a fish shop (smelly), a CHEESE shop (soooo tempting, but very expensive), a milkshake shop, a hat shop, a cake shop (where it looks like they specialize in fondant figures, which is super cool!), and a cobbler's shop, as well as accessory shops, eateries, and a crepe stand. Savory AND sweet. Yum. :D

There really are street musicians; I don't know how qualified the majority of them are, but they will open their guitar cases and set out a donation cup and start singing! Some are better than others; some set up on prominent corners with microphones and such, others just sit down on the ledge of some building and start strumming away. It's lots of fun when you are walking down the road, among throngs of really-well-dressed people with amazing accents, and all of a sudden, from out of the blue you hear a song you know and love and can sing to :) - not that I speak from experience, of course!

And they really do have red call boxes scattered throughout the city. And their adorable red mailboxes. And the crazy red double-decker buses, though most of them are actually single-decker and a lot are green. And everyone bikes all around, and the bikers are very aggressive drivers, so it's almost more dangerous to step out into the road in front of a bike than a bus ... again, not that I speak from experience or anything!

And a friend and I were walking around and we stepped into a Barbour shop, which is a very famous British company that sells a lot of winter/fall/cold/farming clothing and gear, such as warm scarves and gloves and big plastic-coated jackets and such, often associated with Hunter wellies. And the really cool thing, which I had not realized before, was that the Barbour company has recieved three separate recognitions or awards from members of the Royal family, including the Queen, the Duke of ... I think the saleslady said York ... ? and the Duke of Wales! She even showed us one of the jackets that the Queen herself wears! Which was super, super cool; and I was very much surprised, because it didn't seem like a queenly sort of jacket to wear (though it was expensive enough!) but hypothetically speaking, I could just go and buy the exact same coat that the Queen of England has, tucked into her mud-room closet somewhere! Can you imagine?

Tonight, a few of us girls went out to an Irish pub (ironically enough!) for dinner, and I had my first legally-bought-though-under-age drink, which wasa really cool feeling. :D A lot of the girls were having smirnoffs or rum-and-coke, but I bought a glass of merlot, and it was really really good. And no, I didn't start singing The Wild Colonial Boy or dancing on the table or anything like that; I'm saving that for end-of-semester ;)

Anyway, ought to toddle off to bed ... tomorrow, we have our first field trip, to Gloucester and Berkeley. PHOTOS!

Missing all of you! Hope everything is going well; don't forget to email!

~ C :)

Wandering ...

Breakfast was served at 8 am this morning; besides the usual American cereal and yogurt, there was also eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, and some sort of waffely-french-toasty something. No kidneys - at least for us Americans. Along the table there lay pots of tea and coffee, with carafes of water and milk, very evocative (for me) of boarding school. Ah, boarding school ... !

After breakfast, I became very bold and went wandering around the block by myself, which was actually quite a pleasant little trip up and down the few streets I had already traveled with some of the others; the bright early-morning sun met the brisk early-morning air with a cheery early-morning greeting, and promised to be good for the entire day. This time, I found some of the clothes boutiques and smaller shops I had missed the first time around, and wandering in and out of them, I almost felt like I blended in, which was a wonderful feeling :)

Now, we have more orientation, and then "official" Oxford tours this afternoon, during which I will play the tourist to perfection, accent my accent, flash my camera as much as I like, and come home with PHOTOS to share.

Until then,
~ Catherine :)

Aaaaand, One More Time!

My apologies to those of you who are unfamiliar with my terriblly careless and, I am sure, irksome habit of sending many missives with tiny bits of information which could be all brought together under one package had I enough sense to do so ... to those of you familiar with this habit, you recieve no apologies.

The cool thing is, when we first arrived, each student recieved a number of token Oxford nicknacks (including hard candies and an awesome "do not disturb" sign) to make us feel at home. One of these was a little mug with the motto of the CMRS (Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies - the Centre or specialized section of Oxford at which I am studying) JCR (Junior Common Room - both the physical four-wall-space which serves as lobby/TV room/rec room/hangout and the actual members of that room (undergrads) at Oxford. The motto runs something like this:

Virtus ab anno MCMLXXV / Ex umbris et imaginibus in vertitatem

... which, loosely translated, means Oxford is cool and you should all come visit. Maybe that's too loosely translated ...

Slightly more accurately (if my six years of Year-One Latin do not fail me) it says "Virtue/Manliness from the year 1972 / From the shadows and images in truth"

Not sure how virtue comes from the shadows of truth, but it sounds cool ... any scholars, please correct my pig latin if I am missing the gist (which I seem to be ... !)

Oh! Again!

So, these posts are all going to come up backwards and in the wrong order, but you just have to read them upside-down and everything will come out Ok. Something like that. You know, wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey stuff ... Ok, never mind.

Anyway, so, just remembered: there was something I did notice along our journey through candy-land today, besides edibles, and that was postcards. Lots and lots and dozens of 'em. So, I'm planning on buying out the whole city's worth and sending them across the globe so! I have most people's addresses, but if I don't I can't send you anything (unless I got really creepy and visagevolume-stalked you or looked you up online or put a GPS tracker on your phone or kidnapped your roomate and tickled-tortured him/her until (s)he confessed or ... anything else of the sort, which I might be capable of, but I'm probably too lazy to actually get around to doing) ...

So, point of all that is: email me your addresses! Please. Thanks! Unless you have positive proof that I have them already. Or at least really good proof. Cool? cool.

Oh!

And I almost forgot: along our journeys through candy-land, we found TWO red call boxes. So, keep your eyes peels for PHOTOS!!!

I'm HERE!

Yeah, you know those awesome old stone buildings they show in movies like Brideshead Revisited and Inspector Morse? Well, they're REAL. :D

So, plane trip: uneventful. I amused myself by listening to the chatty Danish or Norweigian couple (not sure their ethnicity; my Danish is not very good)chat away in their own langauge; I glanced over the seat at the little old lady in front of me, absorbed in a cheap "dime-novel" quality piece of ink and paper which passes for literature these days; another little old lady sat and quietly began her diary of her trip to Europe over these next few weeks, and the amazing adventures that would occur; etc, etc.

Oh! Ok, weird: in the terminal, while waiting for the plane, I heard someone call for Benjamin Button over the intercom. Seriously, who would name their kid that?

Anyway! So, we landed, which was nice. Then, I got to go through customs, which was cool and really quick; seriously, I hardly had to wink at the guy (who, by the way, sported an awesome accent and almost looked like one of my profs, which was kinda weird)and he let me through! Ok, ok, just kidding ... ;)

But then I had to wait an eternity for my luggage. And then another eternity for the bus to the other terminal on the other side of the airport. And then another eternity (honestly, how many eternities can one endure in a day?) to take the coach (not "bus," "coach") into the heart of Oxford. Which was pretty darn cool, driving in, little by little the city peeling back its great green leaves to reveal the rosy bud inside. Sappy metaphor, but it actually works! Not that the city is particularly soft and sweet-smelling - not that it smells bad, either, but it does exude a different atmosphere than, say, Detroit. The air in England seems to have almost a different taste than that of the US; how or what, I haven't quite figured out, but when I do, I'll give you my opinion.

After descending the coach at Glouchester Greene in Oxford, some of the other students and I followed our junior dean of women (who happens to be a German with the awesome name of Bianca, who has moved to Oxford as a grad student) some three or four blocks - baggage dragging behind - to our tall red brick dorm, standing stiffly between a newer shopping mall and a road full of boutiques (can you say, SHOPPING!). Once we had recieved our keys (1 - front door of dorm; 2 - personal locker in Junior Common Room; 3 - dorm room; 4 - mailbox), we then proceeded to move our luggage from the first floor to the ... well, it's all kind of built and rebuilt and built around and built sideways and split and such, so it's kind of like the second-and-a-half floor ... meaning some 60 - odd steps to climb. Not bad, once we figured out it was better to do it in two trips ... yep. Nothing can match the facility and felicity of an elevator ... !

So, after a preliminary and cursory glance round the room, largish in size, comfy, though affording no view whatsoever, my new roomate and I took a stroll round the block. We discovered a chocolate shop, a fudge shop, an ice cream shop, two coffee shops, with numerous cafes, grocery stores, sandwich shops, and pubs scattered in between. I think there were some clothes shops too, and maybe a computer store, but all that sort of melted into the background ... never go shopping on an empty stomach.

We returned to the dorm to complete our unpacking, after which I decided to be adventurous and take a shower. Adventure was not in my mind as I formed this plan of action, but adventure it was nonetheless. For some daft reason or other, the stubborn knobs refused to cooperate. If I turned on hot, it was too hot; if I turned on cold, it was too cold; if I turned on both to the right temperature, it refused to come down from the shower head, but instead babbled angrily at me through the bath spout; when I managed one through the shower head, and tried to adjust the other, it shut down completely. When I gave up (after nearly scorching my feet in the boiling hot water in the tub) and decided to turn it all off, IT WOULDN'T TURN OFF! I spent nearly ten minutes trying to turn off the blankety-blank faucet, but IT WOULDN'T TURN OFF! I coaxed, I pleaded, I threatened, I stomped and threw a fit at it; I nearly broke down in crocodile tears at the shiny, polished, inanimate object, sitting there complacently pouring forth its bowels without the slightest inconvenience to anyone but myself - in the end, I gave up completely. It had won, without lifting a single shiny finger. I threw on my clean clothes, wrapped my hair in my towel, gathered up my shampoo, and was about to walk out the door, when I turned to tap the faucet on his wrist for his terrible behavior, and IT TURNED OFF! I don't know if it's me, I don't know if it's England, but Oxford faucets have obviously never been in polite company before and have never learned any good manners. Next time, I shall be sure to give it a good talking to before atttempting to step into the tub again!

Now, we are resting and gathering up strength for the first few parts of our orientation: our "health and safety" talk and the BBQ picnic at St. Peter's, our affiliated Oxford college. Somehow, I have a feeling that whoever coordinated the talk and the picnic obviously never discussed timing with each other, because a BBQ with a bunch of college kids (I'm guessing, mostly the "frat type" - considering the drinking age over here is not limited to *ahem* "mature" 21-year-olds) does not sound like a particularly safe or healthy event. But maybe that's just me ... ?

Tomorrow, we have more orientation - lectures, fire drill (oh boy!), etc - and then a tour of Oxford, which should be really cool. I'm anxious to avoid as much as possible the "AMERICAN TOURIST" attitude which is painted in bright red all over the foreheads of certain individuals we've passed in the streets ... *ahem* ... but I do plan to take my camera and get some cool pix. In a group, it would probably be OK and less conspicuous ... maybe?

Sunday we are supposed to have our first field trip to Gloucester Cathedral and Berkeley Castle, the whereabouts of either I am as of yet in the dark, but I shall discover presently ...

Phew! That should be enough for the moment ... I'm tempted to take a nap, but I'm going to stick it out and sleep at the normal time so as to adjust more quickly to the time setting *hopefully*

Anyway, talk later!

Hope all is well back home; email me!

~ Catherine :)

Today is THE DAY!

Today, I leave for England. Today, I make history! - in a really, really, really small way, but that's okay. Only some sixteen or twenty hours from now, and I should be in Oxford ... see you then!