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.