Magdalen Boat House:


On Thursday and Friday, we bumped again! Hooray! Both were pretty quick bumps. Wednesday was St. Peters II, then Regents Park on Thursday, and St. Catherine's II yesterday. Torpids is hilarious. A boat concedes if the coxswain puts their hand in the air. And there is tons of fowl play to get them to do so. Whenever we get close to another boat, Taz, our cox will tell us if we're half a boat length, quarter of a boat length, etc. away. And then the girls in our bow, which is closest to their boat start screaming "concede!" It just makes me laugh; I can't get myself to yell it. It's just silly. If they don't concede early enough, the chasing boat is allowed to hit their boat and try to damage it. Rosie, our captain, kept telling us to just whack their boats and they'll concede, but Magdalen never concedes because we're rich so we can buy new equipment. Hilarious. Yesterday, it was taking a little while for St. Catherine's to concede, and the girl in our bow, little Imogen, actually hit their cox in the back with her oar. I don't think Imo actually meant to, but we were so close, and she was still rowing, so it just happened. But that made them concede. And it's all perfectly legal.

W2 pushing off up the river.

Down the river:


We found out on Thursday that during the W1 race on Wednesday, a girl from a different college was flung out of her boat by catching a crab (improper rowing technique causes your blade to go too far under the water, so it's too strong to pull through, and your blade can get caught, so it pulls you out of the boat). On Thursday I managed to catch one. Sometimes they aren't bad, but I had to duck to get out of the way of my blade, and then it was parallel with the boat, and I was just like ummm now what? But I got it back and we bumped, so it was no big deal. At least I didn't fall in the river.

Thursday photos: http://www.bigblade-photos.com/rowing/events/2009/ot09/thursday/Magdalen%20W3.html

Thursday after our race, I was convinced to stay and be a marshall for the next two hours. That really sucked because I had an essay to write, and I ended up staying up late to finish it. But no matter. Marshalling was lame though. Basically, they just line about 15 people up the river with radios to make sure the coast is clear for the start of each Division. It was pretty boring, but I got to see some good rowing, so that was neat.

The rest of the Boat Houses:


Then yesterday, it was supposed to be a really long, tough race, so we were pumped full of adrenaline, and Rosie, who sits in front of me, fell off her seat during the start. She pushed back so hard that her butt was in the air and the seat rolled forward. She was so surprised and struggled to get her seat back. I had to concentrate so hard on rowing so that that wouldn't distract me. Hilarious. Then we bumped. These other crews must be terrible because we have made so many ridiculous mistakes. Everyone does though I guess.

Friday photos:
http://www.bigblade-photos.com/rowing/events/2009/ot09/friday/Magdalen%20W3.html

I didn't get to go to the Gordon Brown lecture on Friday because of racing. But I think it was worth it. Ryan went, so he'll have to tell me all about it. Amanda and I are missing a trip to Cambridge today. But, oh well. I am so happy to be a part of this team. It feels really great to be competing again. It's funny because even when I was on OWU's soccer team, I didn't really care if we won or lost, but now that I am really a part of it, I care about Magdalen a hell of a lot. It's fabulous.

Unfortunately, we didn't bump today. It was really sad. We thought that we were going to be chasing a really terrible crew, but it turns out we were chasing St. Peter's I, and they have been training for two hours every other day for the past few weeks. We hadn't even been in a boat with everyone before Sunday. So we still did really well. We got bumped by St. Catz III, which was lame, but then we were being chased by Trinity throughout the whole course, and they never caught us, which was awesome. How exhausting to have to row the entire course! When it had only been a few minutes, it wasn't bad. But to row as hard as you can for about eight minutes.. that is painful.

W3 from Left: Imogen, Amanda, Kaci, Me (duh), Rosie, Clare, Alice, and Ruth holding our coxswain, Taz. Love them. We're in rowing order.


We ate lunch at the Head of the River pub after our race today. It was nice to spend non-rowing time with the girls for once. I am so excited to spend next term here as well, because I feel like I'm finally starting to fit in and feel perfectly comfortable. Since this term has been amazing, I can't imagine how fabulous next term will be. I am so excited for punting and croquet and blooming flowers in the botanical gardens! I'll never want to come home.

Torpids dinner tonight! The entire boat club rents out a place to have a fancy meal. I haven't gotten all dolled up in a while, so that'll be fun.

Day 1 Photos...

http://www.bigblade-photos.com/displayimage.php?src=http://www.bigblade-photos.com/rowing/events/2009/ot09/wednesday/&im=OT09_02571

Again, keep hitting next. This was obviously after we had already bumped because were are laughing...

Pulling pants in my pidge in the plodge

Earlier in the week our coach, Dee, sent us all an e-mail to check our "pigeon holes" (mailboxes) in the porter's lodge (info station/magdalen welcome center) for a little surprise. When I took the envelope out of my pidge, one of the porters leans over the desk and says, "sorry, but if you can, will you tell me what's in there? all the rowing girls have been walking out with them, and i'm very curious". I opened it up, and pulling pants were inside. Aka: a thong with crossed oars on the front of it. So awkward and hilarious at the same time. We are going to wear them over our pants on Saturday, apparently? I don't know.

We had a water outing yesterday to work on our starts, and thank goodness, because it is a ridiculous set of strokes. Total chaos. It's basically to just get your boat going as fast as possible from rest, but it's awfully hard. Today was our first race of Torpids. Our start was atrocious. I splashed Rosie, the girl ahead of me, so much. But, we bumped in about a minute, so obviously the terrible start didn't matter. Very exciting stuff. Ben took time out of his paper writing to come cheer us on. Bless his heart. Sadly, we had bumped before he got there, so we were done with the race. But he did get to take a photo of us at the boathouse:

Then I had my tutorial with Gareth. He said that he could tell that I was having a busy week because my paper seemed less fluid than usual... Whoops.

Amanda and I went to Hall for dinner, and then we went to see Jane Goodall at the Oxford Union.


It was only two pounds to see her speak. She has a pretty fascinating and inspirational story. After telling a brief autobiography, she talked about how similar chimps and humans are; their genome is less than 1% different from ours. She thinks that the key difference is the development of our language. Oral and written history, and then the ability for debate and discussion are what make us us. Then she went on to talk about her animal rights, humanitarian, and environmental campaigns. She mentioned Roots and Shoots, which is a program for education and action about the terrible state of our environment. I had never heard of it before, but it sounds like a really neat program. It started in High Schools, but it has moved to both elementary and university student groups. It was a very nice lecture, and I feel lucky that I got to see her. Hooray for environmental activists. And for getting a book signed...

Rowing Photos

http://www.rowphoto.co.uk/events.php?event=torpids_2009&image=IMG_TOR09_0558.jpg&crew=All%20Rowing%20On%20Div%204


558 to 572 is our crew. Just keep pressing the next button. Heinous.

Rowing On

Rowing on is a qualifying race that we participated in yesterday. We did extremely well, and apparently this is the first time in a decade that Magdalen has had three women's crews. And, we were not far behind W2, so we could theoretically bump them in Torpids, which starts on Wednesday, and runs through Saturday; there is one race a day. When I was practicing with W2, they were actually really nervous about being bumped by W3, and I told this to the W3 girls, and they got pretty excited about it. It would be very humiliating for W2 if we bumped them. I really hope we do. That'll show them for demoting me...

Torpids dinner is on Saturday night, and I wanted to buy a new dress for it, but I decided to buy new shoes instead and just wear a black dress that I bought. I am slightly obsessed with the shoes. Photos to come.

Tyler (a friend from Hopkinton who is studying in Ireland this semester) is coming to London with two of his friends on Thursday, and they are leaving on Monday. Good thing he picked the busiest weekend of my life to come to England. Hopefully I will get to see him for a little while, though. It may just make me incredibly homesick... We'll see.

Moshing and Ministers

On Thursday, I went out to dinner with my friend Chelsey. We went to the Eagle and Child, and for pretty much the most famous pub in town, the food was no good. But whatever, it was fun anyway. Then we were going to meet Ryan at "Thirst Lodge" for a jazz society thing. We wanted to go last week, but ended up getting side tracked until it was too late. So we were determined to go this week. Little did we know, it was the night of some themed pub crawl. While Chelsey and I were walking to the venue, we saw tons of groups of kids wearing the same shirt as well as pirate attire. They were also accompanied by guys in neon orange vests. When we got to Thirst Lodge, the bouncer asked if we were there for the jazz thing, and then he asked us to wait outside. We did, for a half hour, and the jazz thing still wasn't starting because all the pirate kids were still buying drinks. I was studying one kid's shirt, and it had all the big clubs on the back with boxes next to the names where you were supposed to check after you had been to the club. There were hundreds of these kids about. In groups of about twenty or so, but they were all over town. It was freaking me out. And they seemed like they had just turned eighteen. When I got home, I googled "Stamina" because it was on the back of their shirts, and sure enough, it's some website where you sign up to be a part of a giant pub crawl. It freaked me out. And we went home without seeing any jazz. Next week!

I was sick on Friday. But I still managed to put together a decent Biochemistry essay. Then Amanda and I watched No Country for Old Men. It was really interesting. I can't say that I enjoyed it, because it was very depressing actually, but I do think that it was a fabulous movie.

Yesterday was a glorious day. It was so beautiful out, so Amanda and I went shopping for a bit. Then I got some reading done before my Biochem tutorial. At the end of the hour, we always decide when we will meet next, and Rob suggested Friday afternoon, and I told him that I actually didn't know when I would have a race, so then he was muttering to himself about when else to meet, but the he was like, "well since the Prime Minister is coming, I'd like to meet at this time..." "What? Gordon Brown is coming?" "Oh, yes. No one's supposed to know that it's him giving the lecture at the Sheldonian, but I know (because he's the almighty Dean)." "Ummm Can I go?" "Sure. You'll have to apply for a ticket. Find out in the Porter's Lodge". So I went to the Porter's Lodge, and a sign was up about the next Romanes Lecture. This is a free, public, annual lecture given at the Sheldonian Theater in town, and it has been going on for over a hundred years, and they speaker may talk about pretty much anything. The flier said that a "Senior Cabinet Minister" would be speaking at 1.00 pm on Friday the 27th. They don't want all the publicity about who it actually is, I guess. Thank goodness for crazy Rob! I ran home, emailed the University events administrator, so hopefully I get a ticket. And hopefully I don't have a race at that time on Friday...

Then, last night, Amanda and I went to a concert. We missed the first opener, but oh well. Suburban Legends was the second opener, and they played the Ducktales themesong. Blast from the past. I loved it. Then Reel Big Fish came on.


I think Amanda was scared for her life the entire time. We were pretty close to the front, and once they started playing, the crowd got pretty rowdy, and we were pushed about the entire time. At one point, we were standing right at the edge of the major mosh pit, so we were sucked in a few times. I just kind of went with it, and pushed/punched back, but Amanda was in total shock. I felt bad for her, but I'm glad that she went with me. I was actually surprised at how moshy the crowd was. At one point, Amanda got pushed to the ground, and I was like a mother trying to save her baby. We were separated by a few people, and I pushed them away so hard to get to her and pull her up. She also ended up breaking her earring and her bra because we were smashed up against people the entire time. What a great first concert experience for her... Other than a couple bruises that I woke up with, I didn't incur any damages.
Before:

During:

We were surrounded by very tall, very sweaty, guys. It was impossible to see the band and/or escape the madness.
After:

You can't really tell, but my face was so red. I was a dancing fool. Amanda on the walk home: "I don't know how you were laughing and singing along the whole time"... It was wild. I had a lot of fun.

This afternoon, we are supposed to row in order to qualify for the tournament this week, but the river may be too high. I haven't been told whether we're rowing or not yet...

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on"...

Stratford-Upon-Avon! Such a cute little town. We first took a tour of William Shakespeare's home:


They had tour guides in each different room, and they were all exceptionally creepy. They made sure to tell us that we were walking on ground that Shakespeare walked on, and that is pretty cool I guess. And I learned that the phrase "sleep tight" originated from trundle beds that were just a mattress atop a rope wound between the wooden structure. After being slept on, the rope would slacken and need to be tightened, so "sleep tight"... Makes sense. I never think about random phrases like that, and it's kind of fun to learn where they come from.

Ryan, Amanda, and I went to dinner at one of the first pubs in Stratford. But beforehand, we went to a little ice cream parlor:

We had been CRAVING ice cream very badly. We tend to crave things quite often. And then hate them after eating them for a week. The parlor was also a candy shop, so I bought some Turkish Delight. I had no idea what it was before I got it, and I don't know what Edmund Pevensie thought was so great about it...

Then to see The Tempest!

I really enjoyed it. They did a great job. But, that's to be assumed. The Royal Shakespeare Company really shouldn't mess up a Shakespearean play in his home town. It was a very African version of the play, complete with bongo drums playing with the orchestra. The costumes were great too. They made huge, brightly colored puppets to represent the spirits. It is a shame that photography was prohibited during the performance because I really can't do everything justice with words. The set was very minimal, which is to expected of a deserted island setting:


The lighting was funky, but you get the idea...
Then on the way back to the bus, we came across this sign:

"Elderly People". What? Greatest sign ever.

I slept entirely too late today, but I guess I needed it. My Egyptology tutorial was at 3.00, and I had not attached my essay when I sent an email to Gareth before leaving for Stratford. I sent it as soon as I got home and read his "I didn't get it" email, but I felt badly for sending it so much later than he prefers. But it didn't really matter. I got to the cafe before Gareth, and when he arrived, he was all excited about my essay. It was about the Hyksos Dynasty. Hyksos means "rulers of foreign countries"; they were from around Palestine and they ruled Egypt for 100 years or so. But there is no written testament of their dynasty by them.. only from later Egyptians. So it is all very interesting because the Egyptians make us believe that the Hyksos were terrible people and they destroyed pretty much everything from the Hyksos period. Anyway, they used the term "Hyksos" in a very negative manner, but I couldn't figure out who used it first. I suggested that maybe the Hyksos used it first, to refer to themselves in their own history, because they were ruling in a foreign land, Egypt, and then later Egyptians twisted it in order to make them look bad. Apparently this is a new idea. Gareth said he had never come across it before, but it was incredibly interesting, and he asked me if he could look into it and perhaps write a research paper about it. So that made me feel pretty good. He always tells me that it's fun to read my papers because I have the outlook of an "outsider", meaning I haven't studied this stuff non-stop, so my opinions haven't been shaped like typical Egyptology students' have. Fun stuff.

We had rowing in the gym tonight. Some of the other girls showed up this time. Yeah! Our tournament is scheduled for the end of next week, but it may be canceled because the river is too high from all the snow that melted. I say "all the" as if there was a lot. Three inches. Maybe four. But it had a significant impact on the river. Plus, it has been raining a bit. I will be very disappointed if it's canceled.

I finally went grocery shopping tonight. One can only eat stuffed baked potatoes so often...

Stratford today! I am very excited.

Amanda and I watched Babel on Saturday morning. Terrible movie. I was disappointed in Brad and Cate. Then I had my Biochemistry tutorial, and on my way out I read a text from Amanda saying "something just arrived for you!" My first thought? "What? My boyfriend has zero dollars." But then I got home and saw these:

From Patti, Bob, and Laura. My three true loves. (Just kidding Griffin! Paris will be enough)
Anyway, they are absolutely beautiful and I can't believe how happy flowers make me. They didn't come in a vase though - just a random bag of water. I can't really explain it, but it was strange. Last night, after Amanda had been suggesting it for the past few days, I separated the flowers into smaller bouqets and put them around the house:


I am really proud of this one:

Doesn't that look great? The Starburst lillies are just starting to open, so the house is going to smell absolutely divine tomorrow. I went to see Cabaret last night with Ryan and Amanda. I had never seen it before, and I loved it! I really had no idea what it was about, and I was surprised by the whole Nazism theme. Anyway, after hearing Liza Minnelli say it for two hours, I have decided that I am going to start using "divine" more often. What a great word.

On Saturday night, the Magdalen Welfare committee held a Mr. and Miss Magdalen competition in the college bar. I went to watch one of the rowers (who ended up winning) make a complete fool of herself along with the five other competitors. It was a drunken mess that I would be embarrassed to describe to my grandparents, but it was hilariously fun to watch. The Mr. and Miss Oxford University competition is tonight, but I cannot go because of Stratford. Hopefully Colleen wins though. She is too cute.

On Sunday morning, my Biochem tutor gave the sermon because it was Evolution Sunday. It was pretty good; it compared the idea of scientific discovery based on observation with how what we witness on Earth leads to our belief in God. He is such a nervous guy though, and he always has a furrowed brow.

We had a tank session on Sunday, so I got to meet the rest of the W3 girls. They seem nice enough, but it's kind of awkward that I only got a few weeks to get to know the W2 girls and now I only have a few weeks with W3. Oh well.

I got my tutor assignments for next term. I'm going to study the Tudor Period, but my tutor is a grad student who is on W2. I don't know how I feel about that. At first, I was extremely uncomfortable and I wanted to ask for a different one. Now I think that I am just going to talk with Dr. Jacobs (advisor at Magdalen) to see what he thinks. But I'm sure she has already gotten my name, so it will be awkward if I switch and don't talk to her too. So, I guess I need to do that. I didn't know she did tutorials though, so I'm guessing that this may be one of her first ones. Hmm...
I am also taking Shakespeare, but I couldn't find my tutor's name on the Oxford website, so I'm guessing he's a grad student too...

I got an email from Tim, the director of the Program. He told me that Dr. Jacobs had just told him that I would be staying for the next term, even though about a few weeks ago I stood in front of him, clarified who I was, and asked if they knew that I was staying for Trinity Term. He also asked if I wanted to move into the Christ Church Annex, but he neglected to tell me that it would be an extra $2000. Good thing I just happen to know that. He's a fishy character.

And the trees in the field will clap their hands.

I was feeling homesick last night (it has passed) so I looked through some facebook photos. And I came across one from my room last year. And in it was a framed print that my friend Jenn had done and given to me. I had completely forgotten about it, and seeing it put me in an even more sour mood. Damn that storage unit fire! I loved that print. And I was telling Amanda about my scottie dog sweater yesterday. Am I ever going to get over this? I feel so materialistic. But that print was really neat.

Amanda and I were the only two from W3 to show up for rowing last night. I can't decide if it's due to the others' lack of commitment or the fact that Amanda and I are out of the loop. Who knows.

I got tickets to see Reel Big Fish next Saturday at a venue here in Oxford. The undergraduate student body president sends out an email every week, and he mentioned their show in it. I went out to get tickets immediately. I am so excited. One of the girls from W3 is in an opera next week, apparently. So that would be neat to go see too.

I walked by Anna Popplewell outside of the library today. She was talking to a kid, and I thought to myself, have I met her, because she looks very familiar. She plays Susan in the Narnia movies. Celia on the rowing team had told me that she was a second year at Magdalen, but I forgot. And then I saw her today, and when I realized who she was, I got unnecessarily excited. My head was immediately swarming with ideas about how to meet her and become her best friend. But alas, I just walked on by so that I could sit with other lowly citizens and read about diabetes. I can't imagine being her, or someone like her. She's just a normal girl, going to college, reading English. But she also happens to star in blockbuster movies and have random Americans wish they were her friend. How strange.

The library was absolutely freezing. It was so cold that it was actually distracting me from my work, so I came home to drink tea and finish my essay.

I booked a flight to Rome this morning. Several kids from Hopkinton are going to be there the first full week of April. I am very excited. To people who know my Hopkinton friends: Julien is studying in Rome. Blackmer is coming from Germany, Sarah Brown is coming from France, Pat McNicholas is coming from California, and Barbara Anne, who was an exchange student my junior year, is coming from Germany as well I think. I think we are going to rent an apartment or something because staying in Julien's apartment might be a tight squeeze.

I just got back from a lecture by Mark Thompson, the Director General of the BBC. The title of the lecture was something along the lines of "Values in the Media". It was a pretty good talk about how coverage has changed over the years to account for changes in social values. Afterward, he allowed questions/discussion for about an hour. It turned into a pretty heated argument about the BBC not covering the DEC's appeal for Gaza as well as past decisions that the BBC has made that didn't seem impartial to some people. I give him a lot of credit for keeping calm when people were essentially yelling at him about his decisions. Oh, and the Pro Palestinian student group was outside screaming protests throughout his lecture. It was really interesting.

No tea with Lizzy

I worked on my Biochem essay all day on Friday, and Rob really liked it. It's pretty unfortunate that I my grades don't count at Ohio Wesleyan because I am doing better here than I do there. I only get credit for the classes I take, if I get a C- or better. That really just encourages people to drink heavily every day and barely do their school work when they are abroad. What is the message we are sending here? Study abroad seems to be an excuse to take a semester off. I feel like I would be shot in the face if I didn't get anything done here. It would at least cause an extremely awkward hour long one-on-one discussion.

Speaking of sending the wrong message... As we were walking back from the boathouse Saturday morning, someone mentioned how inconvenient the Thresher's being closed a lot lately is. Thresher's is the 1/4 convenient/grocery store 3/4 liquor store underneath the Fresher's dormitory. Then someone pointed out the pharmacy that I had never acknowledged. So, alcohol and access to the morning after pill right underneath all the first years. Perfect.

Anyway, after my tute on Saturday, I went to the Choral Evensong at Magdalen Chapel. The organist is retiring at the end of term, and he has been here for about eighteen years, so they had a special service with him. The New College choir sang with the Magdalen choir, and it was quite a service. So many people were there that they had to keep adding seats outside of the chapel.

On Saturday night, a few others from the program came over before we all went to the Magdalen Bop. Theme? "Gritty". What does that mean, you ask? Who knows. I don't think the guys who organized it even knew. They sent out an email saying either dress to the theme or wear black pants, a white tops, a red hat, and eye makeup. Needless to say, it was a flop. There were very few people there, and terrible music was played. We ended up going out for kebabs and then to Tibeault's (British kid whose room I had gone to before) to hang out and meet some new people.

We were supposed to go to Windsor Castle yesterday, but since the weather has been "bad", it was postponed. I was really excited about it. Stratford next week though! It better not snow again, because these people don't know how to handle it.

We had a tank session yesterday afternoon. Then at two the team had a tea party/picnic in the captain's room. It was really nice to go to. Awkward at times just because I have no idea who anyone is that they talk about, but oh well. They are so intense about rowing though. It's awesome. I got an email last night about rowing with W3, so I may have been booted off W2. But I'm not actually sure because I've been told to do things with W2 as well. Hmm.

Biochem lecture in an hour. Then Egyptology reading all day long. Pyramids! I need to go to Egypt. After Europe, that is the next destination on my world tour. The Ashmoleon Museum is a museum in Oxford that has a lot of Ancient Egyptian artifacts, and I hadn't been able to go until last week. But when I tried to go, I found out that it is going to be closed for renovations until November. How disappointing. No worries, the gift shop is still open though. I was just really excited to see their exhibits because in all the books I read, there are photos things in the Ashmoleon. I will go to the British Museum in London, but the Ashmoleon would have been so convenient. Also, there is a lot in the MFA in Boston, and I haven't been there in a while. I'll have to stop there as soon as I get home. Luke: do you get free passes of some sort? Do it, and we'll have an adventure before I leave you for Delaware.

Four Weeks!

I was downstairs chatting with Amanda, and I realized that we have been here for four weeks today. And then I realized that it was pretty much exactly four weeks since I arrived in our flat because I got to the office around 4:00. It's funny to think about how lost I was that night. I didn't want to go to the welcome party because it was dark and I didn't know my way, and my roommate wasn't home to figure it out with me. (thanks a lot Amanda. ha) Now I make that walk every day.
Since it's been a while:

Sunday: Chapel. We found the fuse box. I had seen it when I looked in the garage, but I didn't have a light to know that it was the fuse box. Ryan brought a lamp over though, so we could see in the creepy garage. There's a kayak and a grill and benches in there. Very odd. I went to see the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch with a kid named Heath who is in the program. The Magdalen Film Society put it on. I joined so that I force myself to go out and see interesting films. I had seen a clip of Hedwig at ASP, so it was really great to see the whole thing. It's amazing. Really, really weird. I loved it.

Monday: I worked all day long on my Egyptology paper. Stressed out hard core. Turned it in at midnight, five hours past when it was due. It snowed about an inch. People went nuts. Rowing in the evening. Tommy (maintenance man) came to fix our laundry machine! Yay! I had broken it the very first night... And he gave us light bulbs and hung up the mirror we stole from the guys.

Tuesday: Rowing on the river at 7:00 am. Freezing. Gareth sent me an email telling me that I turned my paper in too late, so we would have to meet on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. I thought I had a lecture at 9:00, but when I got there, I apparently didn't have one. I went to the library to get books for my Biochem paper. Amanda finished and submitted her application for the Truman Scholarship, and I had been in a funk, so we decided to go to dinner. Ryan came too. He told us he got into St. Andrew's for grad school, so it was pretty much a celebratory dinner. Meeting deadlines, postgrad acceptance, and the dismissal of a funk. Perfect. We went to this really nice Italian place that is in an Oxford guidebook. Our waiter looked like Will Ferrell. An Italian Will Ferrell. I got stuffed quail:

Isn't that beautiful? It was delicious.
And then after dinner, these egg jellies came with the check:

What an odd place.
(Photos courtesy of Amanda's blog. No plagiarizing at Oxford.)
Then Tuesday night we watched Memento. I had seen it before but I had forgotten about it, and it was really great to see it a second time. It is a really great film.

Wednesday: Read for Biochem. Had my tutorial with Gareth. He loved my paper when I had, again, thought it was awful, so that's good news. I went to see Heavenly Creatures at the Film Society. It was one of Peter Jackson's (director of Lord of the Rings) early movies. He and his wife wrote it, and he directed it. Kate Winslet was in it when she was nineteen years old - three years before Titanic. It was messed up. By far the strangest movie I have ever seen.

Thursday: I went rowing really early this morning, and it had snowed four inches. It was absolutely beautiful. When I got to the gym a girl was biking and she absolutely ecstatic and she said, "Isn't this wonderful! I haven't seen this much snow in forever! And it's my birthday!" She was adorable. Everyone was so happy, it was great. Mom, when I read your email saying that God sent England a bit of NH to help my homesickness, I laughed it off because it was such an insignificant amount. But when I woke up this morning, I thought of it again because it hasn't snowed this much in a while. It definitely makes me curious... It was warmish though, so by the time we got outside with our cameras, it was rather ugly out.
Our neighbors made a snowman, and then we dressed him up:

And to make him look even more scholarly:

Then I realized that I hadn't taken a photo of our flat yet:

I don't know what that random shopping cart is from...
View from our door of the creepy alley:

And Amanda...
River Cherwell from Magdalen Bridge:

St. John's Quad at Magdalen College:


We had lunch in Hall with this kid Patrick that Ben met in a debating society meeting. He went on a walk with us afterwards. And since I finally had my camera with me:

The middle portrait is of William Waynflete, the man who founded the college. The dorm that the rowing gym is under is called Waynflete after him. It is the only one of the three buildings designed by some guy who killed himself after the other two fell apart. So they are kind of obligated to keep it around even though it is awful. Celia, a girl on the rowing team, was telling me this. The building is so bad that the pipes broke one year, and sewage was leaking into a kid's room for a few days. Gross.

Stained glass windows in Hall.
Snowball fight in front of New Building - one of the dormitories/all purpose buildings.

After our walk, Ben and I went to have tea (and a lemon-poppyseed muffin) in the college bar:



Then to the library to pick up a book. On my way home, two girls were walking toward me, and one starts asking me a question. I had my earbuds in, so I took them out, and she goes "Sorry, but do you know where [enter street here] is?" "No, sorry..." I don't know what it is about me, but this scenario has happened several times. People stop me, I have to turn my ipod off, and then I tell them that I know about seven streets in town. I would probably seek out the person who isn't wearing headphones...

Goal: Meet at least one new person each day from here on out. There. It's in writing. Now I have to do it.

Karma?

I came home form rowing yesterday morning, turned on the ground floor lights, and they went out. So now the entire flat was pitch black around 7:00 pm. I thought I was so lucky to be in Ohio when the electricity was out for days in NH. I mean, we do have electricity. But not being able to see is quite a problem. I'm hoping to go get candles today. We went over to the guys' flat last night to (try to) get some work done. Their new flatmate arrived a few days ago. Karl. He's Swedish and he goes to Oxford Brookes University. He's really outgoing and great. And he loves Americans. And Boston. And he hates Britain. Go figure.

Swim test last night. I passed. Whew.