Monday, November 30, 2009

Last Week's Happenings Part 4

On the same day my home town had its annual Christmas parade, Oxfordians were crowding the streets more than usual for the Christmas Light Night. The whole of the city center was transformed as traffic was blocked off and stages were set up for musicians and dancers. Booths of sugar-sprinkled holiday delicacies, roasted chestnuts, hot drinks, and artisan crafts lined Broad Street.

At the heart of the night was the lantern procession featured in my pictures below. Those forming the procession were mostly high-school students carrying paper lanterns designed by local artists. Leading the way was the large replica of the Radcliffe Camera, the focal point of Oxford libraries. The best part was that museums were open late and brought in Christmas musicians along with purchasable hot drinks and goodies.

I took the opportunity to run through some places I haven't seen yet, like the Oxford Museum (featuring all things Oxford) and the Ashmolean Museum (featuring everything else). I hadn't visited the History of Science Museum yet because I thought it would be boring---I was way wrong. It was like walking into a page of Jules Verne. They currently have a Steampunk art exhibition going on---too cool to explain. Stick "steampunk" into Google images, and you'll see what I mean. (Not you, Mom, because I'm taking you there.) I had a great time all around.







Last Week's Happenings Part 3

I have started carrying my camera around to take pictures of everyday sort of stuff. Here is the lecture theatre in which I have most of my lectures. As you can see, it is not much to look at. For comparison's sake, I threw in a picture of the Divinity School underneath. In a way, I expected everything in Oxford to be old and gorgeous, but the buildings done during or after the 1960s have a tendency to be pretty dull, just like comparable buildings in the U.S.



Last Week's Happenings Part 2

There often are musicians and entertainers set up on Cornmarket street, some good some bad. Walking back from the library last week, I ran into a loose circle of people who were making quite a fuss. Turns out they were marveling at fire jugglers. These guys drew a really big crowd for a chilly evening.




Last Week's Happenings Part 1

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

--Abraham Lincoln 1863

Last week I had two Thanksgiving dinners: one small one with a few friends on Thanksgiving day, and another massive one on Saturday with the whole of my program. For the latter, I and few others narrowly escaped preparing 15 kilograms of sweet potatoes. The preparations were divided into food groups, but at the last minute sweet potatoes were axed from the menu because of the strain on time, the budget, and our sanity. So my group was spared.

I was able to call home via Skype and talk with family (and my cat). It is a bit weird not having Thanksgiving. For one thing, that vacation always comes right at the moment when most students' academic energy has ebbed to the speed of an amoeba. But after a weekend of food and football, the end of the semester isn't so bad.

I have only one week and three days--then I'm done with essays! That's eleven essays down, two to go. And the last one is....the big one. The Long Essay. The one I'm supposed to use for graduate school applications (no pressure).

But........after that I get to have pure distilled fun. My Mom is coming! And we're going to do everything there is to do in Oxford. Then.........I get to go home for Christmas.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Swing Dancing

















I have absolutely loved swing dancing every week.


Occasionally during the week, I get the Gershwin song "I'd Rather Charleston" stuck in my head, specifically the version found in Kenneth Branagh's movie version of Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost, in which he mixes Gershwin-era songs with the play, which completely works. The link below goes to the clip of that song. The play focuses on four guys who swear an oath to fast one day a week, eat but one meal all the other days, sleep only three hours a night, never be seen to yawn, and never be in the presence of a woman for three years so that they can focus on studying.
(I found it a rather fitting film to watch while at Oxford.)

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Not the End?

I can't believe it's almost the end---and then again I am getting a little tired. It will be nice to be home for Christmas. But, I still have a little time to do some great stuff before I go. For now, I'm putting my nose to the grindstone, e.g. getting through papers quickly. I figure if I can finish tutorial papers early, I can start on the epic "long essay" a few days early, finish it without stress, and then hit the city like there's no tomorrow....because there isn't. Even if I come back to Oxford later in life, it will never be quite like it is now. These have been the best weeks of my life. I always called Oxford my dream, but I have come to feel like it is a new reality. I want to finish it off with some of the best memories yet. I am a different person in some ways, but more on that later. It's midnight here, and I should be asleep.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Talking About the Weather

The weather has turned English at last. It does rain here, I'm convinced now. October was unusually pleasant, say the locals, but November is giving us a taste of what it is really like. I love it. I admit I'm enjoying a milder climate, rain and all. Fall happens at a different pace here. In Minnesota, as soon as colder nights set in, the trees all freak out at once, turn colors, and drop their leaves quick as they can because they're panicked---they know that up next will be blisteringly cold snow storms and weeks of sub-zero temperatures. Here, winter does not make quite the bold presence. Fall is a slow decay, I was never really sure when it started or ended. It happens by degrees--some trees and bushes change in September, some in October, and some are just changing now. They have their own time, like drops of water evaporating one by one. I took these pictures a few weeks ago. Now all that's left are the stems. The leaves have been rained on and trampled into a mat on the sidewalk. But I like to remember the way they were.












Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Paradise Lost

I love this city. I think that every time I walk down the streets at night. Tonight I went to a performance of John Milton's Paradise Lost. To know how exciting that is, you'd have to know that reading Paradise Lost when I was fifteen is why I wanted to study literature. Milton's Satan is one of the most gripping characters I've ever read, and tonight I saw an interpretation that matched the intensity of the text. Using physical theater, it brought Milton's projection of the cosmos into a blackbox space.

The actor playing Satan was just what I hoped--tormented, gritty, and seductive. And he actually came off as the villain! That's the thing with Paradise Lost--everyone likes Satan better than God or Jesus because Satan is psychologically complex and fascinating. Milton's version of the Trinity is pretty....well, boring. Perfection doesn't come off as complicated...or interesting. But, in the performance, the actor playing Christ made him a much deeper figure. As well he should be.

I love this city. I can't say that enough. Really--where else would I be seeing a live performance of Milton? Adapting it is not the easiest thing to pull off---Milton was writing epic poetry, not a script. They clearly had a passion for the text or they wouldn't have tried, and they knew that in Oxford they have an audience. I feel so, so happy to have seen something like this...I think I'm going to try stealing a poster once their run is over.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

More about my friends in Stratford

I met Lissy while waiting in line for student tickets to the Royal Shakespeare Company when I went to Stratford the first time. Turns out we are both paranoid about getting there early enough before the ticket office opens at 9:30 to get spots. As it happened, no one else showed up for another hour and a half. We hit it off, which is why I was so excited to spend the weekend with her and her mum Jan. When I said I was from Minnesota, Lissy started talking about the movie "New in Town," which I had not seen. It's about a Miami girl surviving a winter in small-town Minnesota.
Tapioca pudding plays a crucial role in the film actually: one of the main characters makes masses of it (using a secret Atkins diet recipe she keeps from her snooping neighbor Trudie). Lissy had no idea what tapioca was and asked me if it was real. That was of course funny to me, so my mum mailed a tapioca pudding mix to me so that I could make it for Lissy and Jan when I stayed with them. They were so surprised! And the best part was that I got to see that movie while I was there. It was unsurprisingly a quirky version of all the stereotyped Minnesota attributes. At the same time, I thought it was sweet, and saw a bit of the real quality of my home state through the humor and over-done accents. So, the picture below is of me making tapioca pudding, which I've never done before but went quite well. I haven't had tapioca in years.





Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Recent happenings

So, I'm back in Oxford once more. I'm writing two essays at the moment, and tomorrow my tutor is taking me out for coffee as our tutorial meeting. I've been learning to Lindy Hop at swing dancing classes every week. It's finally started to get rainy and chilly. Not cold compared with Minnesota of course. I went to a dinner at the Jewish Society this week which hosted a few Holocaust survivors. They were children at the time who made it to England on kinder transport, and they had some very moving stories. I've also been going to a Bible study at Mary Magdalene's every week. It's fun that a bunch of the people there have degrees in theology from Oxford. I keep up well enough thanks to NWC's core curriculum, but the conversation can lose me when it involves Catholic or Anglican doctrines I am unaware of. I'm trying to catch up, and I think I'm at the point when I want to ask the vicar a few specific questions. I'm also obsessively plotting how I'm going to play my flute in Mary Magdalene's at least once. I've been learning "Reflections on a Medieval Chant" by Katherine Hoover--and I firmly believe that piece and that building were made for each other (it is a Medieval church after all). It's my goal now to play it in the church, but I don't know how that will go over; physical representations have more significance here, and I'd hate to violate the sanctuary in any way.

Pub




On Sunday we went to an English pub in the country for lunch.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Pictures




Back to Stratford

I am so, so behind on blogging. This week has been packed with experience. It started off not-so-great. I had a huge issue with the topic for the term-long essay we have to do--the essay that's worth about four credits in itself. Not having a working topic is not good. I did get through the trauma...I just had to start over. A little stressful. Ok, quite stressful. The essay is due in four weeks, but now my topic will work. I hope.

The week went on to better things. Fantastic things actually. I went back to Stratford for the whole weekend. My dear friends Lissy and Janice whom I met the last time I was there had me stay with them and see Twelfth Night at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The show was so uniquely done--the ending projected a deep and unsettling melancholy I haven't seen in other interpretations.

But the show was only the beginning. Lissy and I stalked the door where the actors came out and got almost all their autographs. Then we went to the Dirty Duck pub where the actors relax after shows and had a fantastic conversation with Pamela Nomvete who played Maria. She is from South Africa and so is Lissy. She spoke with us for about half an hour and was absolutely lovely. Lissy is going to be applying for drama school in London and elsewhere, so Pam talked to her about getting into acting.

I told her that I was studying Shakespeare at Oxford, and we started discussion my impressions of the way they had interpreted the ending. Her face got really animated as she listened to the questions their performance had raised in my mind. She told me about preproduction and how those choices had been made. She seemed extremely gratified when I told her that I saw the play in a completely different light after seeing the show.

And now I get to put my conclusions into words in my next essay for my Shakespeare tutorial. I tell ya--it's so hard doing my homework here. Absolute misery, believe me. Research is a total drag---attending live performances of Shakespeare: drudgery.

And I just laugh.