Oxford 6

They say that time flies when you are doing other things. Unfortunately, those 'other things' do not include writing in my blog. I've just come back ('just' as in 'last night') from a Bing-sponsored weekend trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. In the course of running around medieval castles, musing at modern art, drinking strawberry beer and watching Eurovision (Jedward should have won!!), I have amassed a substantial homework debt. Let me not linger on that, but suffice it to say that there would probably be better uses of my time right now that writing a blog post.

However, there are worse allocations of procrastination time. For example, the 23 games of free cell that I won last week and the 3 games of free cell that I lost. The majority of those were played between the hours of 11 pm and 6 am. Poor life choices...

Allow me the brief space to loosen up my writing muscles for the essay I am about to write, by offering a brief ode to Scotland.

O! Scotland! City of moss and mist and rain and witch trials and Sir Walter Scott and kilts and 6-story tall split level buildings perched on granite rock. You are wonderful. Everyone who visits the UK should also visit you.

Ok, so that was not very profound or serious. A poor indication of my time in Edinburgh since the emotions that the trip incited actually tend more towards the profound and serious. I love cities of intense juxtaposition: old/new, high/low, nature/culture. That first category is satisfied by almost anywhere that I might travel in Europe or the UK. It is impossible for Europe to hide the remnants of centuries past. Edinburgh seems to glory in the close proximity of the old and new. As for high/low - I don't mean social class. I'm thinking of geological levels. The city is built on an ancient volcanic rift that provides massive rock protrusions with rugged cliffs - that is, the perfect locale for an optimally defensible medieval castle! Within the city itself, this extreme topology means that you can think you are entering the first floor of a building when it is actually the fourth floor of a split-level construction. It's not unusual to realize that you are on a bridge three stories above a street that you were just walking on, without remembering the ascent. As for the nature/culture juxtaposition, it is undoubtedly the chief attraction of Edinburgh from my perspective. Green - seemingly evergreen! - hills linger in the distance, spotted with sheep. The rugged lay of the land inevitably leaves areas that no person ever saw fit to build upon. Look up 'Arthur's Seat' to see what I am talking about.

Oh, and did I mention the accents?

I've just left, but I am already imagining ways in which I might be able to return to the city some day. For now, to the land of Narnia! (with a brief excursion into 18th cent. London and Bristol in Frances Burney's 'Evelina')

Oxford 5

Imagined one-way conversation between me and my computer:

"Hello, it's me again. I know it's been a long time. No! It's not you. It's me. NO. It isn't someone else either. YES, I still care about you! Yes, I still want to share every waking moment of my life with you! (Well, not really. It's just a matter of speech...) But it's difficult sometimes, you know? I've just been... busy."

You may ask: what has this selfish, unsympathetic, one-sided person been 'busy' with?

Well, since you asked:

-Pubs
-Salsa lessons
-Royal wedding (tv)
-Tortoise wedding (live!)
-Laundry
-Waking up at 5 am on May Morning
-Listening to choristers singing from the top of Magdalen tower, me, surrounded by people in the middle of High Street at 6 am on May Morning
-Reading smutty 17th century plays and novels (for class!)
-Contemplating an orange and writing about it (for class!)
-Composing a piano piece and playing it, embarrassingly (for class)
-Going to afternoon tea at Corpus Christi
-(15 minutes later) going to afternoon tea at The Rose
-Reading about C.S. Lewis
-Writing about C.S. Lewis
-Walking around Oxford searching for things related to C.S. Lewis
-Dr. Who
-Dr. Who
-Dr. Who
-Shocking my tutor with a well-written but severely over-interpreted thesis
-Dr. Who
-Practicing my British accent
-Making British friends
-Practicing my British accent for my British friends
-Hearing my British friends attempt an American accent (with the expression "Fuck yeah, America!" proposed by Molly)
-EVEN better, hearing one British friend do an impression of his impression of ME that sounds something like this: "HELLOOO! I AM HEIDI, SON OF THORRRR. I like to study MYTHOLOGY, especially VIKING MYTHOLOGYYY!!!" - as the wise Peter Pham once said, I have become a parody of myself
-Eating paninis beside the Magdalen deer park
-Cooking by throwing things in a pot until it tastes good
-Plotting a costume for the "dead famous" themed "bop" - it's like a dance
-Failing in the first round of a pub quiz
-Failing miserably in the second round of a pub quiz
-Failing passably in the final round of a pub quiz
-Resolving to go to another pub quiz sometime that doesn't involve exclusively British knowledge ("If you were watching cricket near Pemberley and were forty kilos from Southampton and one-hundred and twenty meters from Kent and thirty quid away from Manchestertonvilleburgh and miles and miles away from understanding this question, where would you be?")

I write all these things with the understanding that, once again, it will be impossible to convey the bulk of the things that I have been doing, enjoying, exhausting, and laboring over. I started this list with the intention of going into more detail, but now I am hungry and well on the way to convincing myself that this list is actually a pretty accurate description of the present.

Parting is such sweet-but-actually-savory-in-this-case-because-its-lunchtime sorrow! The rest is silence. Farewell, fair cruelty! Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

O brave new world, that has such people in it!