La Vague, Irrésolue(™?)

2007-05-10T16:17:00.000+01:00

Under der linden
and der heide,
dâ under zweier bette was,
dâ mugent ir vinden,
schône beide,
gebrochene bluomen unde gras.
vor dem walde in einem tal,
tanadaradei,
schôene sanc diu nahtegal.

Ich kam gegangen
zuo der ouwe:
dô was mîn fridel kommen ê.
dâ wart ich enpfangen,
here frowe,
daz ich bin saelic iemer mê.
er kuste mich wol tûsentstunt,
tanadaradei,
seht wie rot mir ist der munt!

Dô het er gemachet
alsô rîche
von bluomen ein bettestat.
des wirt noch gelachet,
innecliche,
kumt iemen an daz selbe pfat.
bî den rosen er wol mac,
tanadaradei,
merken wâ mirz huobet lac.

Daz er bî mir laege,
wessez iemen
nu enwelle got! sô schamt ich mich.
wes er mit mir pflaege,
niemer niemen
bevinden daz, wan er und ich,
und ein kleinez vogellîn:
tanadaradei,
dez mac wol getriuwe sîn.

2007-05-10T16:11:00.000+01:00

Ich stuont mir nehtint spâte an einer zinne,
dô hôrt ich einen ritter vil wol singen
in Kürenbergs wîse al ûz der menegîn.
er muoz mir diu lant rûmen, alder ich geniete mich sîn.

'Nu brinc mir her vil balde mîn ros, mîn îsengewant,
wan ich muoz einer vrouwen rûmen diu lant.
diu wil mich des betwingen, daz ich ir holt sî.
si muoz der meiner minne iemer darbende sîn.

2007-05-10T15:51:00.000+01:00

Ich zôch mir einen valken mêre danne ein jâr,
dô ich in gezamete als ich in wollte hân
und ich im sîn gevidere mit golde wol bewant,
er huop sich ûf vil hôhe und vluoc in andriu lant.

Sît sach ich den valken schôene vliegen,
er vuorte an sînem vuoze sîdîne riemen,
und was im sîn gevidere alrôt gûldin.
got sende sie zesamene diu gelieb wellen gerne sîn.

Tout de Bon

2005-10-11T15:34:00.000+01:00

Herbsttag

Herr, es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren lass die Winde los.

Befiehl den letzten Früchten, voll zu sein;
gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Vollendung hin, und jage
die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.
-Rainer Maria Rilke

The Summer WAS really great. Yet the Rolex rolls on. And it's time to go.

The carrots from the village fair were good. And the vendanges is the reason there have been so many flies. But the grapes were good, despite not being seedless.

The asia quake is kind of a punch in the side when you've already got stiches from something else. Should I bring my stationery?

2005-09-26T22:33:00.000+01:00

One last glass of Sub-Zero(tm?) Brita(tm) water. One last cough for the summer weed, and one last rock in your mocassin, before it gets too cold not to wear socks.

Goodnight Boston

2005-09-26T02:36:00.000+01:00

Addio, monti sorgenti dall'acqua, ed elevati al cielo, cime ineguali, note a chi è cresciuto tra voi, e impresse nella sua mente, non meno che lo sia l'aspetto de' suoi familiari torrenti, de' quali si distingue lo scroscio, come il suono delle voci domestiche; ville sparse e biancheggianti sul pendio come branchi di pecore pascenti, addio! Quanto è tristo il passo di chi, cresciuto tra voi, se ne allontana!

Here's to You

2005-06-08T10:30:00.000+01:00

Who would have thought that it would have been such a nice day when Mrs Robinson threw in the towel? I bought British Strawberries (Class A) at the Coop this morning and am planning a picnic while I still can. And can't believe I have to close up shop for a while here.

I will saw one thing though about survival and that it is worth fighting for. The Standard Tandoori on Walton Street NEEDS to become more consistent if it's ever going to survive this eviction notice from St. John's College. Save standing out on the street with wih a picket sign saying "Capitalism too hot for you Tikka?", I will tell tell thim this: sort our your Palak Paneer!!!

It's always delicious but on any given night, this Indian restaurant will prepare one of about ten different versions of Palak Paneer. Sometimes the cheese is softer, sometimes there is more coriander, and sometimes there is none. Soemetimes they forget entirely to put in the onions. This can make for a nice taste in itself, but to survive - one needs to be consistent. How can anyone get an idea of how to judge you (which is everyone's favorite activity/job in this town), if you keep changing like a kaleidoscope? Keep the coriander, or throw it out with the bathwater (or whatever you have been boiling Okra in). Consistency is the key to at least giving someone a vague idea.

Take a hint from a landscape that always stays the same. The Salève never gets evicted you know.

Consistency can be no fun too. I always get a cold in June

the shittiest dressed couple in the world

2005-06-01T21:37:00.000+01:00

"I can't imagine living in Oxford for all my life" she said, "but I can't think it's worse than the military. I think than anyone thinks that they're living in a machine."

But he could think of staying in Oxford. He could think of it being entirely possible to spend the rest of his life. Partly because in a small part, he was still the same person he used to be. Or whatever, because whatever he was now, it hadn't been since high school that he had given a fuck about anything.

It was something in the blue out his window though, and the accent of his dealer, that told him in England that anyone could make it if they tried. On his feet, the hard heeled suede loafers gripped his feet like hot hands. "This is" he said, and paused: "our gilded birdcage.

"Do you think I can borrow some socks?" she said. He rummaged in his dresser and pulled out a ball of navy blue.

"What are they dirty?" she gasped. "AAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaah!"

"Well I think I might have worn them once or twice" he replied, after giving the socks a good sniff."

""You really don't have any socks?" she moaned. "aren't there any in there", pointing to the laundry basket. "Oh no, you don't want to look in there. "Why? is it dirty?" she asked. "It's my everything basket. It's for laundry but also for just throwing things in." He ruffled through it though, and came up with a pair of navy blue cashmere socks.

"I don't want to lend you these." he said, standing up: "they're too sentimental."

"Ill give you some weed next week when I buy more" she said. And giving in he gave her the socks. "They're still a little damp from the laundry" he said. What he didn't say was that it had been three days since he had done laundry.

"How do you like my get up?" The cashmere socks - blue - over her tights from the Coop(tm) all under a Black shoe Sylvia Plath would have gotten excited about, looked, in fact - like shit. She looked like a greek peasant in her black dress, that had somehow gotten lost in Oxford by way of the mid-nineties. And one could have gotten the impression that she may have been through secretarial school from her jacket.

And of course, she was offended when he told her so.

"Do you realize you're worrying about how people will think of you when you want down the High Street? It's kebab hour - everything is ugly now" he said.

She proceded to bitch, but then he reproached her:

"I'm here, and you're towering over me like a Canadian librarian. And you know, you really ARE a bitch, if you can come here, and CRITICIZE the way someone does their laundry and where the fuck they keep their toothbrush. Get thee fucking gone, you gaping axewound. Fuck you."

But when they stepped into the night blue - more green and blue though, there was something that turned the green more vivid or the tulips at least, a little less excitable.

barely daring to breathe or Achoo

2005-05-30T03:04:00.000+01:00

It will be so sad if the Standar Tandoori really does get evicted by St. John's College. I am super-patronising them with obsessive purchasing of their Palak Paneer.

Ahime.

toke-a-cola?

2005-05-26T01:40:00.000+01:00

Sometimes in life, the only way to be nice to a person, is to be completely indifferent to them. Still, do we use this too often as a justification to be indifferent to those we're sure we don't care about? What, it there is such a thing, requires us to be kind to other people, in and of itself?

cashback?

2005-05-25T00:26:00.000+01:00

Last night, in my weariness I forgot to mention - there was an altercation last night in the Coop. I was in the self check out line. Two of the machines, call them 1 and 3 were closed and I was going to be next on 2 when the man had taken his change, receipt and groceries with him out of the store. So...just as I was about to pay the 84p for my bottle of Volvic, this swarthy man comes in off Walton Street looking like he has seen a ghost. He approaches a member of the late night skeleton crew and starts yelling at the poor woman about the noise emanating from the self service check out. You can hardly blame anyone in this situation: the swarthy man who evidently lives above the Coop's self check out section (that would be too much!) clearly is bothered at night by the computer voice of the self service check out yelling at everyone (three at once) telling them to "remove the last item from the bag, and place it on the scanner". At the same time, the Nigerian check out lady can't care much for Robot Rhonda as she takes away jobs yet creates a LOT of extra work for all the humans who work in the store. For an example of this, just think of any time I have tried to buy a croissant from the self check out till on a visa debit card and it's required the assistance of the check out human across the room punching something in, and the awkward guy who works in the back opening up the machine with his keys.

Still what struck me about the situation last night was then, not the absurdity of the self check out and the noise it made, because I could see everyone agreeing that it was unpleasant. What really shocked me was the violent nature in the swarthy man towards the check out lady when he told her the machine should be turned off at 10 pm. We don't see violence much in the world today, certainly not in grocery stores where the heartiest decent meal you could buy is a Linda McCartney line Chili Non Carne.

I'm not going to go the Coop anymore really. I was with Rebecca recently in the big Sainsburys' and was reminded of how they have a much better food section and certainly more healthy.

morning hymn

2005-05-24T10:07:00.000+01:00

Did you know that only Alpen(tm?) Muesli has three royal warrants? That's fine and it is nice to know that one can eat on the same standards as the Queen or the Prince of Wales even at 9:30 in the morning but one thing kind of took me aback. The third royal warrant says: "BY APPOINTMENT TO HER MAJESTY H. M. QUEEN ELIZABETH, THE QUEEN MOTHER: MANUFACTURERS OF BREAKFAST CEREALS, WEETABIX LIMITED, BURTON LATIMER." (no tm). Well what's kind of creepy is that this could be read as Alpen advocating their product as sustenance suitable for corpses. With all due respect to WEETABIX LIMITED, BURTON LATIMER, but shouldn't you take the royal warrant off the product one the royal is dead? If you don't, the customer is likely to think they're food is pretty old - whether it means they've had the cereal in their kitchen since before she died, OR that it means it was a lot older than you'd like to have thought, when you bought it. The cereal is not even particularly good, so they are in danger of giving the impression that they're not marketing they're product to whomever will like it, but instead to whomever will eat. As you can imagine this leaves gaping open the possibility of diluting the royal warrant and it's significance. If you will bear with me, maybe you can understand what I mean. If royal warrants can be given by dead people, what's to stop them from being given by non-royals or indeed people who don't exist at all? As a case in point let us imagine there is in America a gourmet soup company. The director of marketing sees underperformance by a luxury mixed vegetable soup of theirs, which he believes is capable of being a lot more powerful in the soup sector and on the shelves, if only people would buy it. It may happen that one day companies such as this one would give in and label the product with a "Terry Schiavo Official Warrant" to make the product more appealing. This just deludes the customer thinking they are getting a celebrity quality product, when they are really getting the actual celebrity, blended and in a can. The problem with fame, celebrity and indeed breakfast cereal is that their only common and potentially humanising attributes let us slip so easily into a place where we prefer to exploit people the only time and place we're in a position to help them. No?

hot ice and wondrous strange snow*

2005-05-24T00:59:00.000+01:00

Did you know that the Coop now has frozen spinach for £1.25? It is by no means on par with the frozen spinach available in France or Italy or Switzerland, but it is good. I think it comes from Spain actually. In a sense, I have been torn on what to buy when it comes to spinach these days. As I see it, there are both advantages and disadvantages to frozen over fresh spinach. For example, fresh spinach is more expensive. £1.25 at the Coop and £1.15 at Sainsbury's will buy you 500g of spinach from either Spain or Italy, whereas £1.25 at the Coop, and £1.29 at Sainsbury's will get you nearer to an entire kilogram of the frozen plant. I was never very good at math, but it is clearly the case that frozen spinach is, financially speaking, the advisable option. On the same side of the scale as this is the fact that spinach can often be a hassle to clean. Fresh spinach, and from Spain especially, needs to be thoroughly washed because it is often very dirty. Because spinach grows in sandy soil, it is the migrant workers in whatever country (except Switzerland of course) who shoulder the burden of how clean it will be at the time of packaging. In this light, the question is: what is the advantage of fresh spinach? To its credit, fresh spinach tastes better and you can make it in a salad. Of course with this comes the fact that it will not keep for the entire length of a term like it will frozen and you will need to remind yourself that it is waiting to be prepared. Faintly we hear an echo of Petrarch's words: "cosa bella mortal passa, e non dura", and cannot without a heavy heart buy frozen spinach in our concesson to the transience of earthly life. It seems too much time is spent on buying green plants in Oxford.

What I really wanted to show here is that I think we waste a lot really enjoying life in a possible and indeed feasible way, because of the obstacles of time and money. You can melt St Augur over anything and it will taste decent and peperoncino is also good, but how much more aren't we really saving when we don't go for the microwaved life? Next: Volvic and Tap Water go head to head. It just kind of sucks when transience makes it into your grocery bag.

Finally: something that tastes good, ovvero Hermès: Part Deux

2005-03-08T21:35:00.000Z

You can't exactly buy a very slimming piece of self confidence on Bond Street let alone at Sainsbury's(tm?). But you can buy spinach. I recently went back to that derelict rathole that is the Broad Street Oxfam and a small part of me died when I realised how many square centimeters of French printed silk I had literally let slip through my fingers by not buying the second of the two ties. This sentiment was redoubled because I had gone to said rathole early on my way to an especially boring weekly on German culture, wherein, my tutor - it being her very last lesson to teach before returning to wherever it was she came from in the Eastern Block(tm?). It was very disenchanting because - maybe she had been drinking or something (not gonna speculate, ok?) but she was overtly excited about never having to teach us again. She make jokes, laughed, in a certain sense, came across as a generally amiable person, who was able to see the ridiculousness of us sitting in at 16th century room in Southwest England discussing issues in German contemporary social policy. (n.b. what I mean is that she saw how little one can actually learn about somewhere and someway of somewhere else, not actually being there - the things in themselves are of course valid).

Well anyway, everything has culminated in what I feel to be one of my most defining decisions. Fucking boil it. I was walking down St. Giles (which is a very multicultural thoroughfare and the widest street as in not Boulevard, Avenue, Champs-Élysées™, etc...) and I asked everyone I passed (as in mentally interrogated them) with the "how many of you have had a baguette for lunch today?" The statistics were very alarming and support my theory that only like 11% of the food one ever eats in Oxford is part of a warm meal.

So what to do? How do you skirt this problem if you fit into the is incredibly busy/quasi on a budget category. Fucking boil it. I found out you can boil anything. For example: spinach. Take a pot, fill it with water, boil the water and add the spinach, boil it and remove it. Press out the excess water, then put it back in the pan with some (preferably alpine or Bavarian unsalted) butter and simmer the spinach for a while and I like to add crushed red peppers and lemon juice to make it hot/lemony. This has been really good to know, because after like 3 years of cooking classes in Switzerland, becoming a Vegetarian in England leaves you a lot to be unsure about as to what the hell to eat and not get Salmonellosis.

The point is, Spinach costs around £1.20 (approx. : Sainsbury's = £1.15 for class 1 Italian, organic; Coop = £1.25 for class 2 Spanish (I know - go figure...) and is very easy to cook and nothing to be ashamed of having eaten (not that baguettes are either every once in a while, but if you have more than 2 a week in my opinion, it indicates some sort of loose living.).

Coming next: Leeks™!

The Student Formerly Known As Betta

2005-02-26T18:50:00.001Z

So as I get to the bus station on the way to Rome, I rool up with my blue carryon wheelie and I have no idea, of course, what terminal I'm sposed to get off at right? So the bus driver takes one look at me and says: "Easyjet® right?" I certainly hope there hadn't been anything about me that day that could have led a perfect stranger simply to assume I was a no-frills kind of person - but this is a big issue we must address whenever we interact in cities with people we don't know.Ok. So I had forgotten all about that trouble until yesterday when I was, recovering from Salmonellosis(tm?) making my way through Oxford very slowly because I am still pretty weak. So I paid the Broad Street Oxfam - I don't know why - I don't go there often. So I was looking around and what I guess you would call "knick knacks" or general gimrackery and then I went downstairs and thinking I wasn't going to find anything, was very excited to find a pair of brand new - as evident from their unscathed soles - Tod's loafers. Ok so I tried them on and walked around in them and really liked them in principle and at £20 was tempted, but then remembered that Cognac is a drink, a relatively boring region of France, but unfortunately not a colour. I told the woman thanks but no thanks and I was putting them back was overjoyed though to find not one, but two brand new Hermès ties. The salesclerk was very talkative and very clearly drunk or retarded or both too and she started going on about how so many people just buy things, never wear them and then just give them to Oxfam and she can't comprehend the how or why. I want to be polite but since she is clearly drunk I'm not that interested and so offhandedly I say "yeah - I suppose some people can do that..." And so then she says she guesses some people can, (and remember - these are the people who came up with the Soup for Seated is the new Thursday Night idea...) but that she certainly can't and looking me up and down (and in this town, her being related to said bus driver is not improbable) she says that "from the looks of you, you certainly can't either" (!!) What the hell was I sposed to say? Thanks? At £3 the tie and my self esteem had each undergone a (approx.) 97% reduction by the time I had left the store. I hope these are what I keep hearing about as "seasonal reductions" and that some day soon when the weather takes a turn, perfect strangers will stop going out of their way to tell me I look awful. Fuck you Lady. I hope that full beard God(tm?) gave you at 30 keeps you warm at night...

They say...

2005-02-08T14:46:00.000Z

that politics is show business for ugly people. Ok. But we don't have to look that far back, or that far south of the United States to see that there are plenty of people that don't cop out and take that excuse.

Super Kawaii -

2005-02-07T02:27:00.000Z

that means super cute in Japanese! My total expenditure for today was £1! I think this is a first and definitely deserves mentioning! All I survived on were two diet cokes, and some lettuce that I had bought before the weekend, but I think that still counts. This is just a one degree of a turn on the road up Purgatory for this weekend in London but it's a start. On the other hand, the most I accomplished all day was changing my buddy icon and maybe thought about what I have to do tomorrow. Dry cleaning, presents for Italy, gym, groceries...and somewhere in there a few lectures...the time is going really quickly this term though! I feel semiquasi guilty for taking the coming week 'off' but if things go well it will have been very useful for my Year Abroad...I'm gonna make a special trip to the McDonalds in Piazza Mastai -not that I like McDonalds at all but I love the Italian McToast(tm?) but now they also have it in France, but everyone in Rome is always so much better dressed than anywhere else...

2005-02-03T05:22:00.000Z

There comes a certain rush, that I had forgotten, in purchasing airline tickets on impulse.

Maybe if I smoked less, and cut out the gym membership...

2005-02-02T22:00:00.000Z

At only £165, who could possibly resist Gucci's BRANDER. This is a godsent when I think of all the times I've been out on the range and not had the appropriate equipment to burn a huge double G into the side of a cow. And the keeping of the bamboo theme gives that lighthearted 50s 'dopoguerra' dolce vita vibe, but doesn't compromise on durability. There's NO chance say you were out in the country and it started raining when you wanted to BRAND something, that the handle on this thing didn't just fall to pieces...my only question is really, what the hell are people going to think of us when they unearth this thing?

Café oh Gross

2005-02-02T21:17:00.000Z

If anyone is familiar with Roman Polanski's 1965 film Répulsion, they will of course remember the figure of the rabbit left by Carole's sister when she goes away with her boyfriend, and had been Carole's excuse not to go out with Michael or whatever his name is. And by the end as it decomposes and she's carrying it with her to the beauty salon, the rabbit is a sign of the degree to which Catherine Deneuve's character is fucked up. Basically. I just thought of that because my room is being thoroughly cleaned (thanks scout, for not coming once this term) and I found a glass of coffee with milk in it from my second to last all niter. But this made me wonder even more about Polanski's film. The movie's 'sposed to be about how Carole is completely repulsed by sex right? And so the movie follows her, isn't he distracting us from the central idea by filling the apartment with so many repulsive images (such as the rabbit or the sister's boyfriend's toothbrush)? So that made me ask why I find this glass of coffee disgusting. Is it for it's evocative powers in reminding me of the anguish of an all niter? NO. It's because it's a gross, skanky glass of old coffee which never was good in the first place because I decided to buy fair trade. And no amount of Spenda(™?) can make poorly executed good intentions such as the local Coop's(tm?) save the rainforest by buying crisps and smoothies scheme. The same goes for the rabbit, but it must be owned that I am better at keeping my room clean than Carole.

The Road to Positivity:

2005-02-02T01:18:00.000Z

involves a lot of tripping. Today (meaning the past two and a half days) has been very eventful, but I couldn't really say I've accomplished much. Except for one major achievement which was my Petrarch essay. I have no idea how I once again put off writing an essay that I had two weeks to do, until the night before it was due. Amazingly, I told myself at eight thirty last night to take a twenty minute nap, then got up when my alarm went off (including token 30 mins of snooze) and set out to plan an evening or serious work. Somehow I managed to read an entire English translation of Petrarch's Secretum, an entire article in Modern Languages Notes, which is in itself a fantastic discovery - I don't really sit around and read literary journals, but this one seems pretty good stuff - AND wrote a "serious" (-my tutor) essay on the lyrical sequence of the Canzoniere. Whatever. It's not going to happen again. Cause when I had finished the essay, I took a friend's advice and celebrated. Unfortunately, as I am still trying to figure out my year abroad, when 20 minutes later this morning, the person that handles a certain internship I covet called about going to Rome for an interview sometime next week. Needless to say the lack of sleep and other factors left me very confused. I forgot ALL my Italian and started laughing so I hope things actually work out in the end.

SO - With my weekly essay out of the way, Tuesdays are for organising myself. Imagine then how every notion of doing such was thrown to the wind when I received the following email:

Dear XXX,

We've recently opened up thefacebook at a school you requested! Go to www.thefacebook.com to register and make sure to tell your friends!

thefacebook team.

I don't think I'm going to get anything done this term.

UGGGGGHHHHH

2005-02-01T04:23:00.000Z

I think I literally AM gonna shoot myself in the foot next time I end up pulling an all niter writing a bad essay, instead of always doing the metaphorical foot shooting. I bet that's so much less painful than this...and I have a TERRIBLE feeling that my twitch is back. The twitch that I had in my eye for over a year in high school and then this Dr Yang or whatever told me that the only way to get rid of it was to Botox(™?) it but I would lose control of the muscle in my eyelid so I would look like the cartoon Droopy, or maybe Sophia's friend Esther with one eye shut all the time. I think it's stress related but I'll laugh at the next one who tries to tell me I'm stressed. The Botox(™?) solution was enough to scare the twitch away, but Dr Yang is in Wisconsin and probaby CAN'T WRITE ESSAYS ON LYRICAL SEQUENCE IN PETRARCH'S CANZONIERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

I forgot that I go to school...

2005-01-30T06:14:00.000Z

in POLAND. So much for jump starting my day with a nice hot 6:15 (approx.) a.m. bath. This country is thought of as cold, because it's frigid on the inside not the outside.

Burp!

2005-01-30T05:59:00.000Z

I have a tendency to eat my weekends and I don't think I've gobble up this one entirely yet - it's not even light on Sunday yet - it just makes me wonder where the time goes. It would be really nice to go somewhere warm like Greece or Italy and have mediterranean food - that's all I'm asking for is something that tastes good with a little bit of lemon.

Woah!

2005-01-29T16:32:00.000Z

Sunday Morning, by Maroon 5 is JUST as good on a Saturday afternoon. I don't think I'll be leaving my room cause it's so comfortable now, so I will be reading some books and drinking tea or just falling back asleep.

I swear

2005-01-28T10:46:00.001Z

there are wAY not enough social events taking place at like 10:30 in the morning. Because I am up at that our and I am feeling veryr social. Ekcept I just burnt my finger and I have nothing to do. I really wanteed to sleep atfeter my german tutorliaal but I'm kind of awake. Hmm ..s hould I go get some thing to eat? I would really like an egg beaters omelette with extra cheese, extratomaois and some onions not too many please? And then I would put some tobasco sauce on it but only on a small part and then I would eat it,,,I really miss the peach juice or pineaple juice or whatever that was good at the upper. I wish there were some party too go to now. My Romme is such a mess now I need to clean up my room soon. I know I 'mg oing to go to the art museum now. And they have a cafe there so I could get something too eat. I am so hunbgrty.

Hey Julie

2005-01-27T21:10:00.000Z

Don't worry - help is on the way. I have a pretty good feeling if you all start sleeping more at night, and being awake more during the day, we can all drag the warmer weather and lighter sentiments kicking and screaming better than ever this year. Christmas was already a long time ago, so this is the good part.

Do Something Useful!

2005-01-26T20:08:00.000Z

This week, for some reason, everyone is talking about their stances on animal cruelty. This has included warnings for a university riot/demonstration that will be taking place in Oxford at some point this weekend. I thought this picture was also especially au courant, because it also falls into the vein of something else that is very popular now: humanising celebrities. At least here Joanna Lumley is being productive, by helping this lamb. I am totally not in favour of this trend of putting celebrities (approx. 6) in a small German apartment together and forcing us to watch them on reality tv as they cook pasta and walk around in their pyjamas bitching at each other.

Working for the Weekend

2005-01-26T15:52:00.000Z

I have so much work it's literally unbelievable: as in I myself, to dull the pain, am procrastinating in pretending I don't actually know I have so much work. This weekend will be VERY brief. This weekend will actually only be Friday day and Friday night, so I'm going to have to fit in some "gaga" time, a movie, drinking, dancing, and lots of transatlantic phone calls. I could be that really irritating person at the movies that seems to be doing all of these things at once, but seeing as there are NO interesting movies playing in this town at the moment, I might just have to deploy these all in the usual my room/park bench/bus/backstreets scenarios. And then, mark my words, Saturday and Sunday will be EXCLUSIVELY workdays, with 'gaga' time ONLY relegated to when I would be not working anyway. OK. Sorted.

I MISS YOU GUYS!

2005-01-26T01:24:00.000Z

Remember in the 90s? When we watched television shows, at home, while we did our homework? When we had the time to envelop our interests in to the recurring dramas of California teenagers, as if they were the most important ongoing issues in our life? That's back when High School was Cool, and when just saying cool made us feel cool. What does it mean that from the time we start choosing for ourselves, how to spend our time, we have made conscious decisions to involve ourselves in fiction? The lives of television characters have taught us how one vision directs - overrides - pursuades the next generation of visions. I sure wish I were having a burger at the Peach Pit after a day of classes and surfing. I'd like to have a reunion with all of them, except for the one played by Tiffani Amber Thiessen. And I would make sure that Brenda came back from Minnesota or wherever she went, and TRY not to talk to the retarded one. And the one that got pregnant with Steve's baby, when she was in med school, and who works exclusively for Lifetime™ now. She could just stay home and take care of the kid. She was the shows, 'homewrecker' of sorts: having to deal with more mature issues, like pregnancy, was a huge step from dealing with Tori Spelling's learning disabilities, or even Luke Perry's, and later David's drug addictions. The girl was shorter than the original characters, not as fun and clearly not as savvy, for getting knocked up in the first place. Oh well.

When the Going Gets Tough...

2005-01-24T01:23:00.000Z

A lot of people turn to crack. I had planned on doing so much homework this weekend, and once again, it's slipped through my fingers without leaving a trace.

When the Lights are too Bright

2005-01-23T21:18:00.000Z

When you wake up in the evening after passing out/taking a nap in the mid afternoon, and it's already become dark - I hate that feeling as though you've wasted an entire day. In a sense I miss the routine of Saturday classes, at least then, I felt like someone else was wasting my time for me. I also find it pretty irritating that the batteries I bought on Wednesday at the covered market - 24 for £1.99 as opposed to 8 for £3.89 - were no real bargain at all, as I've already run through all of them at a rate of about 4 batteries per half hour.

Travel Advisory:

2005-01-23T11:44:00.001Z

I am a big fan of the Southwest, but have never been to Rancho Tampico. But I would have to say, that bad enough living in a town of population 8, it's all the more worse to always be on the lookout for a CHUPACABRAS! I've long followed the myth/legend of the Chupacabra - it's Central America's equivalent to the Lochness monster in Scotland. As the name suggests - "goat sucker" - it's a hybrid vampire goat that plagues many a flock of sheep in the night and at the top of the Mexican farmer's least favourite things to happen list. Given that they look like this and unlike the Lochness monster, which remains unconfirmed, the Chupacapra is an animal that definitely exists, but is just especially endangered), I can't imagine that Rancho Tampico is really that much fun, having only 8 potentially interesting people to meet there, and the constant threat of running into a Chupacabra.

Three Gorges? Damn!

2005-01-22T14:25:00.000Z

Last night I ate WAY TOO MUCH food! I had been very health all day - After my German translation tutorial, I had taken a slight nap, then cooked some Sainsbury's "Just Cook" chicken in the oven for like 30 mins, and made an awesome salad. Not ONLY should you put excessive dollops of Maille(tm?) whole grain mustard into your cruet, but what I discovered is that sticking wedges of mandarin organges(tm?) into your salad dressing bottle and giving it a good shake, gives you an unresolved wave of tang. To say it is unresolved is that being citrus, it strives at preconceived notions of lemon or grapefruit, but since it's only really a mandarin orange(tm?) at the end of the day, the taste it leaves you with is rather more gentle and watery. It sort of raises a wave of expecting bitter, which disappears before the end of the bite. Where does it go? I have no idea. In any case, I then went to the gym, earlier than usual because a dear friend from primary school had called requesting dinner and dancing in London in the evening. We started by going on a lovely romantic walk through St. James' Park near the royal stable's gate by the little boat house. For some reason, we were all of a sudden really hungry and headed towards Soho for dinner. Oh wait. I keep forgetting, that was AFTER we ate Pizza in Soho. So then we go to an Indian restaurant and everything was so spicy!!! So to cool the throat, Chinese food was much needed. I ended up gorging THREE TIMES last night and didn't even feel disgusting about it. Is this an accomplishment? Disgusting behaviour? In any case, getting back to Oxford I was proud to support Fair Trade with two bars of white chocolate and collapsing in bed.

Conspicuous Consumption: Sin or Just a Bit of Fin?

2005-01-21T11:10:00.000Z

I've never been particularly religious so I've come to this realisation/conception in kind of a roundabout way. My favorite food for a long time has been Pad Thai, as you know, an literally mouth watering conglomeration of noodles, shrimp spring onions, peanuts and those little bean shoots that are very pale and seem more like an afterthought, but balance well with the crunchiness of the peanuts on top. I have also found, that the best Pad Thai I am able to find anywhere has been at Rod Dee, quite likely the tastiest and best value restaurant in Boston. In anycase, I was browsing Google image search this morning, in search of something shocking to post, and under the search word "disgusting," I came across a picture of a Shrimp, and not less than several websites about the sin of consuming crustaceans and other sea dwelling creatures with exoskeletons. Let's get the terminology right: the citation that incriminates eating shrimp as a worldly sin is Leviticus 11:9-12, and while this remains the first time I've ever had to cite Leviticus or any part of the Bible IN MY LIFE, I do so because I believe the issues the passage raises for not eating shrimp (or anything that hath not scales of fins...) are interesting. The issue does highlight the fact that a shrimp is more likely to talk to a COCKROACH [one of it's closer cousins] at a party than a seared tuna steak - and when I remember dissecting grasshoppers in eighth grade bio, I remember learnining that it's closest relative was a lobster (also clearly a sin). I've never liked Maine or Maine culture, so I'm glad to hear it's well on its way to digging it's own grave, should this all have any resonance in a world beyond. But where does this leave me? I would not stop eating Pad Thai on religious grounds because I've never functioned like that - but the distinction made higlighting the shrimp as a disgusting scuttly insect kind makes me think. Don't you remember in the rhetoric of late 80s to mid 90s television, how having shrimp at a party was indicative of status? Murphy Brown is what immediately springs to mind.

warte nur balde

2005-01-21T10:52:00.000Z

I know it isn't anywhere near Summer yet, which - if you ask me, is a good thing, because I'm so disorganised that I couldn't deal with Summer yet - it IS almost the end of Second Week. Which on the one hand is encouraging cause I think I'm being productive this term and am therefore satisfied with the time that's already passed, but on the other hand is kind of irritating cause where is all the fun going to? In any case, this picture of summer is just nice I thought.

Skandal!

2005-01-19T01:36:00.000Z

I had an experience this evening, that at this point, seems rather commonplace. I go to the grocery store, my local Coop without the slightest idea of what I want to by, but with the knowledge that I am very hungry. The Coop, like most grocery stores is circular in shape, and starting at the cash register by the door, you can walk past the bread, down the aisle of refrigerated thngs, along a wall of ready-meals that are disgusting (I tried a lot of them LAST year, the year of shameful behaviour, not this year) and then taking a left down the vegetable aisle you get back to the £££ cash register. I go/went around in this circle like 4 times slowly tonight not being able to find anything that I wanted/need. SO: I walked all the way to my Sainsbury's local. Sainsbury's vs. Coop = no contest. I only go to Coop cause it's across the street. If you think about it, it's more expensive, smells bad and Robots Ramon and Rhonda sometimes have an attitude that I can't deal with. Whatever. Now you know where I get my groceries. Good night.

Ok - once more for argument's sake/fun:

2005-01-18T13:35:00.000Z

Italian cool:

German Cool:

An ad with penguin in it.

Torn

2005-01-18T11:33:00.000Z

One of the really important things in my life right now is sorting where I have to go for my recquired (ugghhh) year abroad next year. It's so close, so I can't say yet whether I prefer beautiful...

Germany:

or Italy:

Well if it hadn't been for the rampant displays of lewdness in German Burger Kings(tm?) that I read about here, maybe the decision wouldn't be so easy.

Much Needed Chaser

2005-01-18T11:01:00.000Z

to help swallow the last disgusting photograph.
(even these hyenas were grossed out)

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

2005-01-18T10:36:00.000Z

I would usually want image and text to speak for themselves and make their own connexions, but this one deserves a bit of an explanation. These are some German people in a Burger King(tm?) in Berlin in the Summertime. Though this does not needing pointing out, but notice the mullet. And this photo was taken in Berlin THIS summer. I guess they take "Have it Your Way" a little too literally, and to mean something along the lines of "Do Whatever the Hell You Want." Now you know why the Oktoberfest is so much more popular than the Augustfest. At least they're WEARING the Lederhosen, not slapping you with them for some thing they call Das Fetischwhopper...

Day and Night Nurse

2005-01-16T15:02:00.000Z

I think the only time in my life that I have been sicker was when I was in Mexico and started bequeathing my worldly posessions on the back of an Aeroméxico vomit bag. Somehow I got Influenza A, or not really somehow, no because I was too lazy to get a FLU SHOT last term. I seem to have lost two entire days of being in bed coughing and sneezing wishing I were in some cushy bed eating pad thai and watching the Golden Girls. I scraped up enough energy last night (yesterday I could not see or walk properly) to buy some Tropicana(tm) orange juice with lots of pulp, or 'with juicy bits,' as it is called here, and discovered in my very friendly pharmacy on Woodstock Road, "GSK Day&Night Nurse" which had me feeling better and I don't know how. I am still unbelievably weak but I am going to try and make it to the gym to see if the steam room and pool are helpful. They could be very bad for me, but I need to leave my room and get some fresh air. I also plan to purchase a scented candle, so my room can smell really nice. But, if you REALLY hate someone, I have come up with several things that can ruin their lives temporarily: a) flood their house, b) give them carpet moths (or clothes mothes), c) give them the flu, d) give their names to the LDS people, who will not leave them alone for a very long time. I know this last one for a fact to be true cause I once did it to a teacher, whom I adore, and I meant it as a joke, but they are REALLY persistent so things got out of hand.

"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys."

2005-01-14T18:45:00.000Z

"What is that?"

"Disillusion."

Damn straight. I just finished reading the Picture of Dorian Gray, which, to the extent to which it is a famous book, and everyone like's to say it's their favourite, it was kind of a yawn. It would've been far better if he had developed, um...maybe DORIAN GRAY'S character a bit more? I understand that the narrator wasn't asking us to sympathise with the guy, but at least he should have brought it up to the point where we actually cared what happened to him by the end of the book.

Invalid

2005-01-14T18:29:00.000Z

So today was the day that I was going to get a lot of work done, because yesterday I set aside work for doing all the things I needed to do which weren't academic so I could get them out of the way. These included buying a lot of lettuce, some salad dressing, lots of batteries, organising my room and getting my computer set up again. Someone, who is nameless, but obviously stayed in my room over break for the admissions interviews week, made off with my ethernet(tm?) cord. I sure hope such a thing as karma exists, cause that poor idiot is not coming here next year if it does. So what I should have been banking on was that naturally, the first day back in Oxford that I can work and get things accomplished, is the day I get sick. Also the day I get assigned my first Petrarch essay due tuesday. I imagine the people here don't bathe as much as other places. Why is a normal person's immune system conditioned such that every single time they come back to a place for the first time in a while, it is the only time and place that that person gets sick? The streets are small here and the whole city is people living in condensed, albeit very comfortable accomodation, but still, couldn't the NHS throw them a bone, or mandatory bar of Dove(tm), in this case?

Battle of Hastings

2005-01-14T14:44:00.000Z

Hopefully this £10.66 will proove to be a historical event in my life - my first receipt back in England:

You were served by Robot Ramon

VALPOLICCELLA/RED £3.19
STEAK CRISPS £1.49
SUNSILK £2.09
AA/BATTERIES £3.89

BALANCE DUE £10.66
Items Purchased 4
Cash £11
Change £0.34

In case you are wondering, Robot Ramon is one of the three self checkout machines at the Coop. I forget which one he is, he's never formally introduced himself. I know that the one closest to the door is called Rhonda, and is usually most unhelpful beacause she can't deal with all butter croissants, cause they don't scan and require extra authorisation from the Indian woman at the till. Whatever. The wine was really bad, but it was cheap and helped me to get on schedule for my first night of horrible jet lag. The chips or "STEAK CRISPS" are the WEIRDEST things because they actually do taste like a steak. I suppose I reationalised that sort of gorging after a day on the back of a plane. Thanks American Airlines. My new term's resolution is to completely organise my life, and put all other priorities AFTER that one. So far so good but I already have a cold.

Best Kept Secrets in Boston

2005-01-10T23:23:00.000Z

Last night Emily and I were watching a really good show, which is this multipart series on BBC America that is called the Canterbury Tales, that presents believe it or not, the Canterbury Tales. I loved the Canterbury Tales when I read them in high school for humanities, and I think it was for the Pardoner's tale that I wrote my first essay, for which I enjoyed looking stuff up. Anyways, the Wife of Bath's tale was finishing and I looked over at Emily and said "I'm hungry, do you want to go get some Pizza?" There is a pizza place here called the Upper Crust which is really good, but unfortunately really expensive. So just after eleven, my sister and I went out to the back of it, and did what we've started doing, which is liberating still warm boxes of delicious pizzas of every flavour from the dumpster. On our walk home my sister said to me "We're eating pizza out of a dumpster!" I just think it's funny that we had to finish the pizza before it even occurred to us that we were eating from the dumpster. There were and still are no qualms about it. Because it's four and a half hours till closing time, and I don't know if I'll be hungry or not.

Also, another too well kept secret of the savvy Bostonian is - Green or Red line out or inbound from Park Street station. Take the gimp elevator from the corner of Winter and Tremont streets, and PUSH the gate when you get down to the lower level. It LOOKs like you're trapped in a steel cage, and it TELLS you that you need to ring for assistance getting out (presumably you'd be in a wheelchair, remember?) But as the nice lady who lives in the intercom told me, all you need to do is push. The door ISN'T EVEN LOCKED. Thanks for reading. That'll be $11 for the pizza and $1.25 for the ride...

Maybe they're messing with the figures...

2005-01-10T16:51:00.000Z

but in respective transatlantic informercials, i've been told that in Britain, the leading cause of house fires is, [sic] chip fires (as squalid as it sounds, if ten mansions in Belsize Park go up in flames, like six of them will be from chip fires. Right...) And that in America, the leading cause of house fires is dryer fires - meaning the ones that start from not cleaning out the lint compartment in before you load the machine. But what does this mean? You'd think the Americans would get into more trouble for deep frying all the time, and the British that eat and fry chips in their own houses and who really don't seem to care how they leave the house looking would appear to be more conscientious about reading the care labels on their clothes. I watched the weakest link today and did laundry, so maybe that's what they do over there. It certainly provides enough brakes in which to go and check lint build up.

2005-01-05T07:21:00.000Z

It's when you look at all of the wonderful things you've ammassed in your life, that you are stuck with amazing sadness at realising how much time you've already spent collecting.

How Time Flies!

2005-01-03T01:43:00.000Z

I haven't been on in forever, because the Brookline wing of the Tsunami passed through our living room while we were in Washington, exploding our house via frozen pipes. It was a real intoperspectiveputter, in light of how bunk I had thought the antidiluvian part of my vacation had been going. What really crushes me is that since the house froze, and though thankfully nothing really important was damaged, I'm most lamenting the loss of a certain rubber tree plant. My mother had gotten it for me in my second week of high school at a Manchester, New Hampshire home depot or something and I had forgotten to take it into my dorm, so it had ended up in the living room in Boston for - jeez - five and a half years?! It sat next to the door to the balcony, so you always had to walk past it whenever you were in the living room and it is sorely missed. But the leaves had turned brown in the cold and the branches were all wilty and oozy even when the house got warm again. It literally crushed me when I cut off its arms to fit it into the trash, one by one, and then lifted the crock it had been sitting on, out of the bronze planter. Underneath it all there was a Friday December 15th 2000 New York Times. Priced one dollar, the cover reads: "House Leader Differs With Bush On Across-the-Board Tax Cuts and has a picture of George and Laura. Even THEY look more innocent back then. The other leading story is "AOL AND TIME WARNER GAIN APPROVAL FOR HUGE MERGER BUT WITH STRICT CONDITIONS" I NEVER read the newspaper, but even I remember that story. So much has changed since December 15th 2000! I think the world's a lot rougher - or at least I've realised that it's rougher than I had thought as a freshman. I think one of my resolutions this year is to read the newspaper, whichever one that is, more. I've already broken the one I had so much wanted to keep. My biggest resolution this year is though, that I'm not going to try and impress people anymore. Well whatever. The ticking crocodile is coming soon to get us all so I'm going to have fun with my hook until then.

2004-12-24T04:23:00.000Z

I swear this must happen only once in a blue moon, so to speak. My favourite colour has ALWAYS been blue. I even chose my University for it's chromatic identity among other things. But then I saw a pair of lime green loafers in the SoHo flagship store that shall remain nameless (they don't even put the name on the door anyway) and I couldn't afford them, so they are just illustrative anyway. But there is something astounding about the colour green, specifically lime green. I've always liked citrus A LOT, so unless you like drinking blue Curaçao, you can't really enjoy the taste with your favourite colour there. So today when I was having a moment buying a diet coke, the fact that some douche had STOLEN my lighter from the King's Arms in Oxford, which was a REALLY good use of £1.50, I had to buy another lighter. The selection was the usual 99cent bic variety, so it might as well have been arbitrary, but my hand was drawn (some may have noticed that ALL hand involving actions for smokers are passive, and the smoker has no control over what he does) to a lighter of an amazing green colour. It's lime green transparent. Oh wait, I should mention I had watched at South Park Christmas special the night before in a Westchester motel room, and a visit to Canada was modeled after The Wizard of Oz. The Parliament was modeled on the Emerald City, which I must own is probably a REALLY cool place to hang out. But I still haven't figured out what to make of my shift in favourite colour. I have a feeling it means a lot. I hope it signifies a recognition of being young and capable for a short, albeit meaningful length of time in one's life. For someone who thinks they live in a semiotic universe, colour is incredibly important, so it bothers me that blue is no longer as cool (in the chromatic sense) as it had once been. Don't critics always say that blue is sposed to be relaxing? And green is so lively! (BTW the Dartmouth variety is never being considered. That's not lively at all)

It's as Simple as That

2004-12-21T21:28:00.000Z

This wasn't meant to be 'entertainment' just so you know.

Killer Writing

2004-12-17T02:19:00.000Z

Jessica Fletcher is AMAZING. After Golden Girls, Murder She Wrote has got to have been the best TV Show ever made. Or maybe I have a granny fetish. Anyway, I first watched this amazing show growing up in Italy, where it still plays and is simply called "Jessica Fletcher" and ever since, this crime solving woman never ceases to impress me with her ability to simultaneously shmooze AND solve murders. For instance today (I watched 3 episodes on A&E), and in the more noteworthy one, Jessica left Cabot Cove to go to LA (her first visit) to sort out a movie director who was adapting her bestseller "The Corpse Danced at Midnight" (which incidentally, is another great episode in the show). Well. Fast forward, obviously the director is murdered on, where else but the studio's graveyard set. And she just HAPPENS to be there with her flashlight, finds and identifies all the button and cigarette butts in the vicinity and then exposes the murderer. The peak of the show's dramatic flair was when she was raising a toast to 'all my newfound friends (the cast of the movie, that had all become her BFFs since she had excuplated them from having killed anyone, of course!). Like how does anyone DO that? Go to LA, not know anyone, but solve a murder and then befriend a fleet of Hollywood actors and then go home to Maine to write a book about it? AMAZING. The best part was when, after her toast. she said to screenwriter eyeing the Champagne (no wait - it's California - must have been sparkling Chardonnay), of whom we had learned earlier in the show, was a recovering alcoholic:
"Maybe you'd prefer a diet cola?" Can SHE run for president?

Meine Damen und Herren,

2004-12-17T01:51:00.000Z

I have very mixed feeling about fur and fur farms. Actaully since I'd never wear fur ever for any reason, I could take a position of being against it. On the other hand, I have been informing myself lately, since I saw a sign for CEASE, a Massachusetts animal rights organisation. So I checked out their website, and to be fair I'm not convinced. For example: the picture of the squirrel is VERY sad. and it obviously had an AWFUL death. On the other hand, it's not good ammo for this organisation, cause who the hell wears squirrel? I just think animal rights can get out of control like that. Like beating a baby white seal over the head with a club, then leaving it cause it's too small? That's just awful. But then again, remember when Dorothy Zbornak moved out of the house, and the Golden Girls became "The Golden Palace" and was completely dedicated to animal rights? That was the downfall of the best show in television history. You know all those people are STILL alive, and could have been making great shows still. Whatever. Let's mourn this Squirrel, but to be fair, he looks kind of staged.

2004-12-15T02:28:00.000Z

I am beginning to think that all in the world is response to a question. Everything, everything, everything IS a response to some sort of question, or expectation, I suppose is what I mean, proposed by whatever sensibility to which whatever THING is responding. Right? Ok but this all falls apart when we ask ourselves, or try to imagine, "what was the first question?" We cannot avoid, in discourse such as this, slipping into describing investigating interrogatives to investigate interrogatives. We shouldn't do that, but when the question is, "what was/(is?) the question that all in the world is trying to answer," well since we don't really know, uncertainty breeds faster than Cochons d'Inde. Maybe I should have been clearer. This was all raised by my observations of that certain art form that isn't ever thought of as one: subway station decor. Like for instance Trafalgar Square. Even if it's not your stop, you know where you are when the train stops, and exactly what you're right under. There are graphics lasered on to the wall of some of the more iconic things in the National Gallery. You get the picture, so to speak...but what strikes the passenger is this subterranean geography, that is not visibly at all related to the City above, is relying on, and playing with our expectations of what Trafalgar Square means. So the brown and white Holbeins lasered on the wall are the response to what we ask whene we look out the train window. Take also Kenmore Square on Boston's oh so grunjy Green Line. The artwork, which if not amazing, becomes certainly endearing after a few rides, tells us, "yes" when we remember our impressions of Kenmore Square. I'm not sure. It's very exciting when we wonder that the world might have started with one AMAZING question, that all in the world is still trying to answer, no?

Pence and Sensibility or Why I'll never be an Investment Banker

2004-12-14T01:27:00.000Z

Ok. I take it all back completely. This country is not any less expensive than England, but then why do we like to label it as being so expensive at the moment? In general, expensive things seem to be expensive by virtue of the fact that they ARE expensive things, but for this model, expensive things generally cost the same everywhere right? Uggh...I don't think I have the time or dignity to discuss this in full, but I get the impression that we label Britain = London as being so expensive becuase what's cool or in over there never comes at a bargain. It has to do with an entirely different sensibility for what is what right? For instance, in contrast to Boston, which is a huge University town too, Oxford doesn't have the proliferation of huge and very cool second hand emporia that sell things for like 2 dollars. This in Oxford would be incredibly cool in many ways, especially for my grocery bill. But on the other hand, that would dramatically change the face of Oxford. Right? I mean they have 'Charity Shops' but it's all stuff that should be DONATED to charity, not sold for it's profit. This cannot be said of the Boston set, wherein you can usually find something really decent, and cool because it's obviously second hand everyone know's that's what you were going for. Another thing is this unifying theme of groceries. Well, it IS the way we go through daily life no? Ok so I was eating a head of Boston lettuce tonight, and I looked at the $1.79 label. And said a few wtfs to myself. Round lettuce, which is Boston lettuce's hydroponic pseudonym in England costs 34p! Shut the fuck up Touré, who on VH1 bitched about the 2 to 1 exchange rate recently. Put that on your playlist.

In other news. I have resolved not to attend, as a rule, plays, of which the casts are over fifty percent recorded as "townspeople." Long story involving a lot of inappropriate laughing at a school play which wasn't sposed to be funny at all. And since when did Salem Witches wear fake tan. Ugggh...

Appell an die Vernunft

2004-12-13T05:05:00.000Z

Dear Boston Public Library,

Will you help me please? Help me sort my life slash work out? That would be very sweet of you. May I compliment you on your Sargent murals and extensive collection of audiobooks? In any case, I hope to see you soon.

Very best,
Me

Paper or Plastic?

2004-12-13T02:46:00.000Z

I am the most disorganised person since the invention of disorganisation. I went to the Stop and Shop this afternoon for some octopus lettuce (very yum) and some shoe polish. It was both depressing to FIND Le Petit Ecoliers in the cookie aisle sleeping next to Chips Ahoys (sp?) but at the same it reminded me of how my disorganisation has led to some recent grocerial fuck ups:

- HP Sauce. I don't think you can get it here and it's SO good on ANYTHING. And I MEANT to buy LOTS of it in Oxford and bring it back to enlighten people Stateside with it.
- Lemon Curd?!! Is that even what it's called? I always see it in the aisle at Sainsbury's cause it's above the Rose's lime juice of Gimlets' fame and it's always been one of those things that I can't afford or would want to buy in term but would like to bring back at the end of term because it's so quaint.

One thing about England that ISN'T quaint is my workload. This vac I MUST work so I don't spend all next term wishing I had just done all the reading when I had had the time in the previous vacation.

In other news, this Croation red gets points for trying but still an F. For eFFort. What am I talking about? - It's not that bad at all, what is bad is getting to the point where you don't want to offend your wine. My magic 8 ball, in regards to the advent of a certain Thai fried noodle dish says it's sources point to yes. Hopefully sometime soon.

Letter from America

2004-12-09T01:14:00.000Z

Ok so brief recap: So EVERYONE knows the Abbey Road album cover. Therefore, whenever I cross that famous thoroughfare of northwest London, I'd want the experience to be fittingly iconic. Unfortunately, crossing in the rain, with two suitcases veering towards my 64 kg Warsaw convention weight allowance, a laptop and carryon (plus, the new GQ London ads like another pound) just doesn't always help you out. Also, unlike the Beatles, I don't have that gait that comes along with a million pound record contract, so when the wheel of my suitcase that I had broken in the Munich red light district this summer hit a rock, leaning over in the middle of traffic to retrieve my pillow from a slimy puddle was also not so glamourous. The tube journey is pretty easy though, if you dodge the ASL 'moms' pushing strollers veiled in fleece. There was ONE funny episode when I changed at Green Park station and this Vietnamese woman obviously thought she was Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors cause when the train pulled off before she could get one, she started to bitch (I think) about how her life was so much worse that she didn't catch her train. And it's so nice to know that American Airlines is aiming as high as it flies: exhibit A: Microwave Pizza????????! Exhibit B: $5 for California WINE??!! Exhibits C, D, E and F: Elf, Everybody loves Raymond (not funny at any altitude), Without a Paddle (hadn't heard of it either...) and a biopic about Ashlee Simpson's SNL fuckup. Thanks to Miss Marple and her Carribean Mystery, which I willingly watched three times, getting to Boston was bearable. But the 27 degrees wasnt. More to come...

You Probably Think I'm an Alcoholic at this Point...

2004-12-05T04:05:00.000Z

Oh - And how inconsiderate? How could I leave the best isle of beauty with out one last, symbolic though heartfelt shout out to my best belgian friend Stella. Oh how I'll miss you. I mean the wine, is fine and dimensions more sublime when I need it, but Stella you're always there for me when cold and refreshing are the day's magic words. Fuck the American drinking laws. But then again, I wouldn't want to subject you to some sleazy bar in Boston anyways. Promise you'll be here waiting when I get off the plane in January?

love,
me

Il Bicchiere Svuotato, La Sigaretta Spenta

2004-12-05T01:35:00.001Z

Whatever your outlook, as soon as the bottle is empty, there is nothing left to debate about the fullness of the glass. Term is over and despite all this finality that surrounds me, packing has reached no arguable level or completion. There's no such thing as being 'half packed,' especially when I'm officially squatting this room, since I was sposed to have moved out at some point yesterday. Nevertheless, I've done my best to squeeze the last few drops out of MT 04 and they've been OK. Tonight's selection was of the New Zealandese variety (Oddbins was closed). Not dry enough, and for better or for worse, mild enough not too lead any extreme impression one way or the other. Unrelatedly, I'd illustrate one of the subtleties between Oxford and London that most guide books will overlook: Say you call one of those cherished numbers in your phone in London and say: Hey, Raj it's So-and-So, I'm a friend of So-and-So's, are you working tonight? - About one taxi ride and £20 later you're all set and rearing to go for a sensorily enhanced night on the town. However, the "Hey, are you working tonight" line, in Oxford is taken more literally, and usually follows a "yeah mate, my extended essay's due the first of eighth week, how about you." Awkward conversations full of botanic inuendo are likely to ensue till the person gets a clue why you are calling. I think it's a worthwhile tale of the two cities. I don't know how useful, but useful nonetheless.

Vacuum bags are DEFINITELY the way to go. All you need to find is a Vacuum, but then Voila! What had been fields of cashmere and poplin and crumples of denim and anything else you need to pack, is, in a matter of seconds rendered to something that resembles the Appalachian chain, albeit it looks REALLY uncomfortable for the shirts. And what the hell am I going to do with/to my plants at this point?! Leave them in my room? I think I'm actually going to stick them in the college garden in the main quad, pretty concealed among things that are actually GROWING, so that they might enjoy salaried watering. I've failed them so it's the least I can do. Tomorrow = Christmas shopping. Tomorrow = feeling depressed that I can't afford anything in London anymore. Tomorrow = the joy of finding out what tomorrow equals.

Vivat Bacchus

2004-12-03T14:36:00.000Z

So sad. I hate the kind of sad that comes out of extreme happiness. I just had my last tutuorial, so I am officially done with the term. Oxford becomes especially serene at times like these. When you don't have to worry about work and it's all there to enjoy. But of course then you have to leave. Three cheers to the folks at Chateau Haut Lignan who have supplied my celebratory bottle of Claret. It's nice. Not fruity and very dry. 2003 - not that you had to drink Bordeaux to already know this, was an absolutely great year. In principle I'm all for drinking wine young. Especially since the guy at Oddbins just told me the 2003s have a nice dry crispness that goes away after year for a while. But it's nice to think of drinking wine young. Like memories, the further back you reach the sadder you get. Oh and these Chinese white pears from the farmer's markey are especially juicy.

In other news, I found my iPod and absence DOES make the heart grow fonder. But on the other hand, trashy techno music also makes the earphones fuzzy. I'm looking forward to an Orange Julius if I have to buy another pair. Whatever. My Bonsai tree is dead. Though I'm not mourning it. It sucked from the beginning. You can't blame it though, though the website should have mentioned the mortality rate of such creatures in countries that have NO sunlight ever. The theme for the rest of the day is catharsis. I will be throwing away all the crap that I was too sentimental about earlier on when I didn't have having to move out looming in the very very near future. Maybe I really can pull this Shaker thing off...

In Memoriam

2004-12-02T23:49:00.000Z

It's so sad. I went to Coop, where after eleven pm they put all the things nobody ever buys on sale. I have no problem with no one buying the groty liver, so they mark it down to like 5p. BUT and this was unbelievably sad: there was this little trout - wait let's capitalize him: There was this little Trout, who no one bought. He was individually wrapped and originally like £2.09 or something, who cares, but since no one bought him, he was marked down to 20p!!! I am positive they threw him away that night, packaging and all. Can you imagine if he KNEW that he was born to be caught, killed, packaged and MARKED DOWN, before being thrown away? Well, at least now he's famous.

My Amazing Conversion

2004-12-02T18:13:00.000Z

Simplicity. That's right. It's the new black I heard. I mean why NOT become a Shaker? Shaker's don't deal with the shit most of us deal with: the rankness of old, overflowing ash trays (to the point where you can't read the name of the Parisian restaurant from whence 'twas pinced), they don't deal with crap under their beds that accumulates over the length of term. Shakers, if they indulge in the occasional diet Coke, they probably make some swift and deliberate action to throw it away, or make the can into something else, BEFORE it is joined by a family of like creatures over the course of a week. Shaker's don't have very many clothes, cause the white linen bonnet/overalls look just never get old, and they get enough excersise going down to the river to wash them, so that they don't have to hate themselves for not going to the gym. For Shakers, every thing, from sweeping to carving chairs and making ladders has gotta be as simple as it is exquisite, so I have to say I'm hooked. But the question is do they have any fun. The very idea of having to dismantle and pack up my entire court here into a few plastic receptacles from Boswells, and put it all in the damp caverns beneath my college for the next six weeks is uh...daunting? Fuck. And what about the shoes? The count is now 11 pairs here, none of which I really want to subject to neither the dampness of the Somerville underworld, nor the Boston salt that has cut down so many in their prime. What to do? If I were a Shaker, I wouldn't have to deal with all this crap, and could glide into duty free at Heathrow in four days for some leisurely pre-flight shopping. Then again, if I were a Shaker, I wouldn't have my wallet, or want to buy anything. Unless Pink does anything that looks good next to a pitchfork. I really do love flying out of Heathrow though. There's that one rasty pub that does like pints for three quid, but it's just worth the experience of going there cause you can smoke and meet other people going other places. It's like an anomalous (sp? (is that even a word?)) place in space that shouldn't technically exist, and the people who meet - well there conversations shouldn't even ever have happened. Cause airports aren't real places. Fuck. That's deep. Nobody steal that. I'm so much better than Calvino. I have to go.

Wine

2004-12-01T23:53:00.000Z

OMG. Why do I CHOOSE to be DIZZY? South African bad wine. At £3 pounds a pop it's so fucking bad. I haven't slept in SO long...I am very excited to go to bed. No more coffee. No more cigarettes. It's so bad. I hate it. I hate my dependencies. Ugggh...It's time to go to bed. America in 3 day. Yes. America = Pad Thai. So good and so soon.

Meaning

2004-12-01T11:08:00.000Z

I'm pretty dreary at this point. But I think this is apropos:

Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen
Die da träumem fort und fort
Und die Welt hebt an zu singen
Triffst du nur das Zauberwort. (Eichendorff, 1835)

I really think you can find meaning in even the things that seem the most tedious and prosaic. For instance, this morning - there really IS a reward in a disgustingly procrastinative all nighter. Besides finishing the essay, Magdalen Street Sainsbury's - the taste of two (one of which will be regretted) all butter croissants that are STILL WARM, and enjoying them at a time when you'd otherwise still be in bed. And the feeling when you finally finish the essay. The next song that comes on your computer just sounds better. The next cigarette tastes just a little bit sweeter, and the feeling of climbing into bed for the rest of the day. I think I work best when on all nighters. Besides the incentive from the fact that I've left an essay I had two weeks to do, till 3 am the day it's due, isn't there something to be said for what you learn about how you use time when you really need to? That probably sounds like period, cause I need to go sleep like RIGHT NOW (11 am) but at least I'll remember enjoying the experience.

It's December?!!

2004-12-01T02:37:00.000Z

Little Clarendon Street looked like the great flood today. I think a water main broke, so there were a lot of people in North Oxford this afternoon, testing the endurance of their driving shoes. Other than that, it's getting fucking cold here - and very very expensive. On www.xe.com it's crushing to see that the exchange rate is virtually 2 to 1 now. My back hurts like a mofo and I went to the doctor today - my first (and last, methinks) runin with the NHS. When I told her that I had almost fallen over in a fit of puking in Wellington Square this morning, and that the only time my back doesn't give me unbelievably huge and unfair amounts of pain, is when I'm in the bath - her recommendation was 'have some lemonade [read: soda] and some paracetomol [read: really low grade tylenol]. My thoughts were more along the lines of why did I waste part of my day coming to see you at all...I could have followed her prescription with 50p, a soda machine and about three seconds. I guess med school must be much more about socializing or something else than they let on. But wtf??? I'm fucking twenty and just BARELY twenty and I have back pain? The best remedy so far has been tying my SPS red sweat pants around my middle in a kind of homestyle triage. It looks unbelievably stupid but it is dulling the pain. America in...5 days...Essay in?...9 hours. Fuck.