Goodbye, Oxford

My sentiments exactly.

Family tomorrow; Germany on Monday.

Carrick-a-Rede

I walked across that rope bridge--in a very high wind, which made it rather more exciting--to a little island covered with the springiest grass I've ever walked on. Like wearing moon boots. The view of the coast of County Antrim, north of Belfast, was amazing. I met a nice Chinese man who wanted me to take his picture and then offered to take mine. I'll have to show you that picture and the rest from Ireland when I get back, because I don't have any more room on my Photobucket accounts and don't want to make a new one.

I can't believe I'm almost done here. The papers are done at last--15 of them, for a grand total of 142 pages written since January. Oy.

That's all I got this morning...tell you more stories when I get back.

All Downhill From Here

George Orwell has some kind of preoccupation with suet pudding. He references it in all his essays. Strange...perhaps I will write my essay on the symbolic significance of suet pudding in British politics.

The Integrative Seminar Paper (shall we call it Masterpiece? I thought so) has been turned in, and it was a whole two hours before the deadline. One measly little Case Study left, a test of some sort, and then--ah, bliss!--four months of not writing papers! Well, actually, it seems to me that the prospect of not having the next paper to write immediately upon finishing this one is a good thing, but I'm not sure I remember what it feels like.

The weather has been getting nicer, which, added to the pending paperlessness, has made everyone considerably more buoyant. Today, though, it was finicky: this morning sunshine, then in the space of time it took to check out some books in the English Faculty Library, clouds came over and it started raining. Sara and I were on the way home, through University Parks, and got rather wet. ("Rather" may be an understatement.) As soon as we got home, the rain promptly stopped and the sun was out again. Reminds me of South Dakota!

Belfast tomorrow, after a highly anticipated [read: obligatory like the rest] field trip to a museum in London.

New Pics

The beautiful River Avon, source of inspiration to the Bard himself, if you believe the romanticized version of his biography. I sat here for a while and watched some Asian teenagers try to row around in one of those boats...their steering wasn't quite refined, because they ran into the bank on first one side of the river and then the other...

And a bit of idyllic English countryside, on the way to Anne Hathaway's cottage about a mile out of Stratford proper.

More pics of Stratford at Photobucket.com.

Running On Fumes...

It's taken me some time to muster up the energy for a new post. This is because I'm more or less brain dead. Sara and I have decided that we must be, by this point, racking up an academic intelligence deficit. We've used up whatever smarts, paper-writing ability, logical processes, etc that we came with and will have to find some way to pay back the extra that we're now borrowing from...somewhere...in order to finish out the rest of the term.

Well, I use "term" lightly, since it's nothing truly Oxonian anymore, just program stuff.

I'm still doing fine, just feeling the effect of 12 weeks straight of writing papers. It's the constant output that's draining.

Easter break was somewhat relaxing. I spent a day in literary pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's birth- and burial-place. Then I went to London and spent some time with Heather May. I'll put pictures up later from Stratford.

Ken Bratt, the honors guy from Calvin, is here evaluating the program cause he's an advisory board member. He took me and the other two Calvin students here out for dinner tonight, which was nice. (Especially since pounds sterling are proving as hard to come by, as of late, as brain cells!)

We have another day-long field trip tomorrow, to Winchester. It would be nice to have the excuse not to be researching all day, except that the time that could be spent researching is so badly needed!

All right, back to linguistic theory...

Don't Tell Me

No, hearing the British accent every day hasn't gotten old yet. It's especially nice coming from select lecturers with pleasant voices, young children, and most automated things. (For example, the bodiless female voice in the grocery store who, with considerable excitement, tells customers waiting in line, "Cashier number FOURTEEN, please!" And the lady on the other end when you dial the number on the phone card: "Please entah your PIN numbah.")

I've been warned, however, about a certain syndrome which afflicts many Americans re-entering the States after an extended amount of time spent in Britain. The symptoms are as follows: attempting to use "cheers" and "mate" in everyday conversation, calling cookies "biscuits" and French fries "chips", and possibly evidencing a disproportionate affinity for tea. They call it "a case of the Madonnas". (After the starlet herself, who basically decided she was British and everybody went along with it. Probably for the same reason she can get away with having no last name.)

Let's hope I'm cool enough to avoid developing a case of the Madonnas. (I'd appreciate a few swift kicks to the shins if the contrary turns out to be the case.)

Push Soft Once, Wait Hard Twice

Sara and me at the Mediterranean! And here are the other lovely ladies with whom I spent the weekend in Barcelona:



Becca, Christy, Sara, Krisalyn, and Bethany.

The weather was great. It was a weekend of café hopping and sightseeing. We survived entirely on coffee and chocolate, and the occasional loaf of bread--or, as we preferred to call them, flying saucers. Relaxing...except for the part where we trekked across the entire city. Really, I'm only exaggerating a little bit. This picture is taken from Parc Güell (where we went on Monday) which is on a hill on the opposite side of the city from the castle we were at on Saturday. (It would be off the picture to the right side.) The towers I circled on the picture (yes, I know my MS Paint skills are unbelievable) mark the location of the beach we were at on Sunday. Our hostel is somewhere in the middle.

We saw La Sagrada Familia and decided it was weird-looking...and then went to get more coffee. We went to the beach. The Mediterranean is beautiful. Here's my self-portrait in the Mediterranean. (Now marvel at my unbelievable photography skills.) Lots more pics up on Photobucket.

Sadly enough, we had to come home. Waiting in the London Luton airport, we finished out the weekend with another good dose of chocolate and coffee, and muffins this time since they didn't have flying saucers. Here's Sara after the last hurrah. We got home to Oxford at 5 am Tuesday morning. Here we are waiting at the bus stop at Heathrow between legs of the journey. Here's the bird who lived in the bus stop (which was really more of a glass box in front of the spot where all the buses stop).

And since I must now, once again, frantically catch up on the paper-writing, I'll leave you with this picture, which pretty much sums up how much fun the entire trip was. Words can do no more.