it's all over now

Today was our last day in Oxford. It's so surreal. Walking into town for the last time tonight, I just couldn't believe that it actually was the last time. Erin and I are coming back to Oxford and staying in the backpackers' hostel the day before we go home, so I'm not leaving Oxford forever, but it's not the same.

Yesterday after we turned in our last papers (woot!), I did Christmas shopping and acted like a complete Oxford tourist, which was pretty entertaining. Except that tourists don't have Bodleian cards and can't go into the Duke Humphrey library and the Upper Reading Room without supervision. Yes, it is true; after we finished our work for the semester, my roommate and I went to a museum and the library. We are special. I also got some awesome pictures from the top of the University Church tower (like the one above).

Since our tutorials ended last week (for most of us anyway), we had two more papers to write: our long essay, on a topic of our choice that we had to plan out earlier this term, and a take home exam essay, on a question related to our field of study. We decided the take home was stupid (for lack of a more intelligent word), and I wasn't terribly fond of the long essay either. Several long days in the library recently, that's for sure. The English Faculty Library and I got to be very good friends. But one by one, we got finished with everything on Wednesday night, and much screaming of joy ensued. It is very strange not to have any work to do.

Now I'm attempting to pack. I need to wait till my laundry's done to pack my stuff for our trip, and I am not terribly motivated to pack everything else. I have so much stuff. It's actually rather obnoxious. But I donated some superfluous things to the next generation of SCIO "scholars," including the main parts of my pirate costume from Halloween. I'm sure that lovely green vest will go quickly.

I'm going to miss Oxford. And all the people... especially the lovely Lodgers. Nobody's living in our little cottage next term because they don't have as many people coming. So that's too bad for them, because it's awesome out here... except one of the lightbulbs in our bedroom went out last weekend, so it's been rather dark in here recently. But I really can't believe this is over and that I'll be home in a ten-ish days.

Well, I have three epsiodes of Grey's Anatomy left to watch, and then I'll be all caught up to the present... except for the new episode that was probably on in the States last night. So Erin and I are going to have popcorn and hot chocolate and watch Grey's and definitely not finish packing yet. I don't think I'll be sleeping much tonight.

By the way, one of the weirdest things going home will be the whole driving-on-the-right-side-of-the-road thing. We're so used to the left side now that when my roomie and I were in Berlin, we definitely looked the wrong way several times, and luckily we weren't hit by any cars. Just being in a car will be weird (haven't done that since leaving home)... and driving, don't know about that.

Anyway, better get going. Pray for us... we're off to travel eastern Europe starting tomorrow, and it's gonna be crazy. :)

over my head...

I figured I should probably update this thing.

Is it possible that we only have three more weeks of term left? That our programme ends in less than a month? Nope, I didn't think so.

Good times were had in London and Madrid. Now I'm home and trying to get myself motivated to do work. Another crazy three days before hopping on a plane to Berlin.

Time for preregistration again. It's going to be quite sad to have my days full of classes again. It looks like I'll have four classes on MWF and one on TTh. Meh.

My aesthetics tutor is pretty much obsessed with Oscar Wilde. It's quite entertaining.

I've had the songs "Over my Head" and "How to Save a Life" by The Fray in my head all the time for about a week now. It's all Lauren's fault. She started it.

Off to read The Picture of Dorian Gray. And then to translate some more Beowulf. And then maybe to eat some galletas from the nuns in Madrid. Or... maybe I'll make tea and have a penguin. That would be good too.

Have a wonderful week.

traveling muffin?

It's the start of fourth week. Somehow.

Erin and I had a successful trip-planning, money-spending afternoon. We are traveling to four countries in ten days at the end of term. Well, five, if you count the U.K.... and six if you count the U.S. Here 'tis: London to Salzburg to Prague to Warsaw to Bratislava to London to HOME.

We are going to be exhausted. But it will be awesome.

I'm going to London to see Char and Jocelene this weekend...

And I might go to Madrid next weekend...

And Lauren and I are probably going to Berlin the weekend after that.

I have a ton of work to do in the meantime.

Keep breathing.

rain rain go away

Ok, real update this time. You know, one that actually has to do with my life and not just baseball...

So. Right now we're in the middle of the first week of the eight-week Michaelmas term at Oxford. My term will consist of weekly meetings for my primary tutorial, Old English Literature; biweekly meetings for my secondary tutorial, Aesthetics; a lecture series to correspond with each of my tutorials; two lecture series to correspond to my English seminar; weekly meetings with the rest of the SCIO students; and many many hours in the library reading and writing papers. But my first meetings with my tutors are both tomorrow morning, so I haven't had any work to do for a week now. It's rather a strange feeling, just sitting around killing time and going to the occasional lecture.

We had our mid-term break a week-ish ago, so my parents and my lil sis came to visit. I showed them around Oxford, and we went to Blenheim Palace (where Winston Churchill was born), Stonehenge, Salisbury, the Cotswolds, and Windsor Castle (the royal residence). It was a good time... Rachel got to miss school to come, but then she really really didn't want to go back. Ah, high school. Don't really miss it that much.

What else... I'm trying to plan various excursions for the semester, because I want to go to Spain to see Charlene, and Ireland and Scotland and Wales, and Paris... sadly, there aren't all that many weekends in the term, plus there's probably gonna be a lot of homework to do in there somewhere. Oh, and I'm delaying my homecoming from December 9 to December 19, because Erin and I are going to go to Bratislava, Vienna, Salzburg, and Prague. It's gonna be awesome... Austria at Christmas? Yay.

Requisite A's update: I stayed up till 3 a.m. last night trying to listen to Game 1 of the ALCS, but went to bed when the A's were down 5-0. That was a crappy game. But they play again tonight, which means less sleep for me, but hopefully a win for them.

Well. I should go wash my dishes from dinner. I don't know what else to write about on here, so if you have any questions, leave me a comment. :P

in case you were wondering...

The A's swept the Twins in the ALDS (the first round of the playoffs). So now they're finally going to the ALCS!!! :D (And the Tigers eliminated the Yankees. Ha!)

A's vs. Tigers. Game 1, Tuesday, 5 p.m. Pacific... which is 1 a.m. here. Dilemma: sleep or baseball. Whatever shall I do? ;)

They were a little excited. Hee hee. :)

insert random title here

First things first: if the A's win today's game against the Angels, they will officially have clinched the division. Yes, they are that awesome. (And yes, I have a one-track mind.)

I had an amazing ice cream sundae tonight. Well, honestly, I sort of had two, because I wanted another brownie and all the ice cream and stuff was just there, waiting to be eaten...

Anyway. This post is a product of me not wanting to work on my paper. Due to some technical difficulties, our timetable for the last few weeks got squished down into basically having to research and write two ten-page papers in two weeks. At this point, I'm mostly done with the first one and starting up on the research for the second one. It's great fun. The Radcliffe Camera Lower Reading Room is my friend.

Benjamin Britten, however, is kind of a creepy guy. Well, I guess I should say "was," since he's not exactly alive anymore, but whatev(er). I think I shall have to skip over the slightly disturbing parts of his biography and go to the parts that will be relevant for my paper. The hard part is deciding the direction of my paper. Boo.

It's quite entertaining to attempt to have a conversation with my mom through skype. From my experience, moms and technology aren't the best of friends, and it can be a little difficult to reconcile them... but it sure is fun to watch.

I feel like I should have more to say, but my one-track mind keeps being annoyed at me trying to multitask and wants to return to the A's game, so I think I shall have to end this... end it with that picture of Dayna I mentioned last time that she has no recollection of (which doesn't surprise me) and that still makes me laugh...

Yay Dayna! :)

well.

This post is dedicated to Smooth Joe. For more info, read on. :)

I'm here, after a 10-hour plane flight, one-hour bus ride, and a 10-minute walk (while lugging two 50-pound suitcases). And it's actually going fairly well. Phew.

Today, after sleeping in, we did a little bit of exploring of Oxford-- found the supermarket, bought a hairdryer and a planner (which is called a "mid year diary") and laundry detergent... it costs something like 1.40 (in pounds, of course, but I don't know how to put the symbol in) to do a load of laundry here, so 75 cents at Dordt doesn't seem so bad.

And tonight, eleven of us went to a nearby pub for dinner. Apparently it was karaoke night, and this cute little old man sitting near us got up there and dedicated his song to "the girls in the corner." It was awesome-- he sang "I just can't help falling in love with you." Sooo cute.

Picture!

My flash didn't reach to the front of the pub, so you can't see him very well, but he's up there with his mic. They called him Smooth Joe. We laughed sooo hard when he got up there.

And it turns out, that instead of being in the 40+ person house, I'm in a little cottage (the Lodge) with three other girls. We're right next to the big house (called the Vines) but we have our own kitchen and bathroom and two bedrooms. It's pretty awesome.

More pictures!

My roommate Lauren at her desk.

My side of the room... the desk chairs don't rock back like the ones at Dordt (although they do have more cushion), so hopefully I don't fall over backwards too many times this semester.

So I tried to upload more pictures, but it's deciding not to work. And I don't really have the patience for that, so no more pictures for the moment. (A minor complaint: the wireless internet here is actually pretty slow. But I guess that will curtail the aimless web surfing, although it may make it harder to watch future A's playoff games on mlb.tv if the streaming video doesn't work very well. And yes, I am (pretty) confident the A's will be going to the playoffs, with an 8.5 game lead over the Angels right now. Good times.)

Oh, and Dayna, if you're reading this-- I have that picture of you and Karyn from James's barbeque on my wall-- the one from the swing and you're making this crazy awesome face. It makes me smile every time I look at it. :)

Ok, that's all for now. I should probably get some sleep. This time difference thing is weird, man.