WOW. I am now on summer vacation. This is incredibly weird. I'm pretty much in denial, my favorite life strategy. At noon Thursday, our last papers were due. It was basically better than New Years. We grabbed pots and pans from the kitchen and used them as excellent noise-makers, to the sure delight of our next-door neighbor, who hates us, and sometimes barges into our house at midnight and yells at us to be quiet. He is probably a very nice man, sadly driven to insanity by the constant (academic) partying that happens in this house. Or he is just jealous of our crazy paper-editing good times. Either way, his frustration/jealousy is understandable.
But it is pretty miraculous to be done. As of my last paper, I have:
-written 44,463 words
-which is 127 (British) pages
-and read TENS OF THOUSANDS of pages, mostly in the Bod.
Yes I absolutely took the time to add that all up. I clearly had to do some math to balance out all that English.
By the end of this, I was transforming into a British person. I honestly starting automatically replacing all my “z”s with “s”s (analyse, realise, etc.) and adding “u”s where they clearly don't belong (colour, favourite, etc.). I still have not learned to look the right way when I cross the street, but the pointless spelling differences, I've got that down.
I continued to celebrate my accomplishment by A) buying pretentious Oxford apparel (expect me to whip that out frequently – don't worry, I got a sweatshirt from my college, like all the legit students... but I may have possibly also gotten actual “University of Oxford” apparel, giving in to all my noob/American tendencies. I mean, know one's heart is made of iron, right?) and B) having a barbeque with SCIO. IMPORTANT NEWS: Remember when I documented the hotdogs that were slanderously labeled “American”? At said barbeque, I had an “American” hot dog, AKA it came out of a jar. A jar filled with unidentified fluid. With enough ketchup, I could pretend it was American. But needless to say I am looking forward to the real deal. Also I had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese today. I had forgotten HOW WONDERFUL that stuff is.
Also, I should mention that I balanced out my pretentious clothes-shopping with some truly tacky/hideous purchases. I don't know if you've heard, but there is some sort of shenanigan about a royal wedding of sorts in about two weeks. Apparently, this is a big deal. I'm pretty confident in saying this, because yesterday we discovered you can by flags, shot glasses, calenders, magnets, spoons, and yes, pillows with pictures of the FACES of the happy couple on them. And today, I found socks featuring a nice little, creepier than you can possibly imagine, animated Kate and Will with the words “my favourite pair” (notice the unnesseary “u”) for a mere two pounds. For reasons that I cannot determine, the Kate and Will on the socks do not have mouths. This is probably deeply symbolic. Also I found British flags socks for the low low price of 1 pound. It's really a toss up as to which purchase I will get more enjoyment out of, the British socks or the University of Oxford sweatshirt.
I can't believe I will be leaving this beautiful beautiful place on Sunday! The good news is, I'm going to France and Italy with some wonderful SCIO people. The bad news is, I really, really love it here.
To show you just how wonderful it is....
Random Awesome things Lisa has Done in Oxford the Past Few Days To Try to Cram Everything In Before She Leaves:
Harry Potter: I mean, not only does it have a Harry Potter atmosphere (academic, British, gowns, magical) they actually filmed some parts of Harry Potter in the various colleges and libraries. For example, the pivotal scene where Malfoy gets turned into a ferret? Filmed in Oxford. Yeah, I know, it's impressive. Obviously, we made a point of visiting this spot and reenacting the moment...
Jake = Harry Potter, Max = Mad Eye Moody, Chris = Malfoy/Ferret
Oxford also includes the infirmary/the place where they learned to ballroom dance (the Divinity School), the Great Hall (Christ Church Dining Hall), the library (Duke Humphrey's library), the staircase where the first years wait before getting sorted (Christ Church College), and the place where Cedric tells Harry about the dragon egg (New College Cloisters). I don't know why I put the parenthetical translations, because obviously he Harry Potter significance is more important. Of course, I visited all these locations.
Punting: This is an excellent classically tourist thing to do. Actual British people do it as well, but mostly tourists. You can tell because when you walk along the Thames, you see these groups of preteens punting, insulting each other in French and wearing Oxford apparel (you may remember that this is a classic sign of noob). I have yet to see one fall in, but there's still hope. You can also tell its a touristy thing to do when the people working the punting rental hate you on principle. It's great fun. No, honestly, I would definitely recommend this experience. About 17 of us went, splitting up into four boats, being careful to put a guy in each boat to do the actual punting. Half-way through the punt, one guy, Trinity's own Mr. Jake Slaughter, was still punting, although I understand some of the other guys were talented as well. Although I will admit that it was tricky. It is basically taking a large metal pole and propelling yourself along the River by pushing said unwieldy pole into the ground and pushing off from it. That was my refined (clearly explained) technique anyway. I did it for about ten minutes, and then I went back to my various roles as figurehead, punting model, and sun-basker. I made a good choice. Again, unfortunately, no one fell in, although I tried my best. You see, it was easier to punt the further you stood back on said punt, but it was a wee bit more wobbly back there. My crew voiced the concern that I was going to A) fall in B) tip the boat over, although believe it or not, they seemed to be considerably more concerned about the latter situation.
Lovely punting picture:
Jake totally got the nod from a British guy for punting three such lovely ladies around.
And speaking of figureheads, check out the ones we saw in Portsmouth!
As Anna says, BATGIRL!
As per Speckhard tradition, “Just Around the Riverbend” was sung. Definitely by the whole boat and not just me. Although they did join in for a little Grandmother Willow/Little Mermaid moment when we accidentally punted into a willow tree.
Ashmolean: I went to the Ashmoelan again (Sans the backpack this time. I'm a fast learner) with one of the lecturer's from SCIO, Mr. Jonathan Kirkpatrick and 5 other SCIO-ers. It was great, because as far as I can tell, Jonathan has remembered everything he has ever read about anything in the Museum, so I got to learn lots of fun facts that aren't on the signs. Even if they were on the signs, I didn't have to read them, because Jonathan would tell them to us. This, my friends, is education at its finest. For instance, did you know that someone broke into the Ashmolean in 2000 on New Year's Eve by throwing a smokebomb in through a skylight? Causing the fire alarms to go off, and security to evacuate the building? Leaving the villains alone to cut out some very valuable painting? I submit that you did not. How cool and Oceans 11-y is that?
The Kilns: I made a recent visit to the Kilns, former abode of C.S. Lewis, because the same Jonathan Kirkpatrick lives there now. I felt so literary slash cool to be where the Narnia Chronicles were written. My favorite part was the attic, mostly because the Magician's Nephew is my favorite:
A wardrobe in the Kilns...... (oooooooh)
Iffley Track: In the last 3 days that I have been at Oxford, I have increased my physical activity by approximately 400%. Some of this new physical activity was Ultimate Frisbee, which was great. Some of it was Kathryn and I running (appropriately) to Iffley Track, historic site where Roger Bannister first broke the 4-minute mile. Kathryn and I can run a 3 minute mile, probs, so it's really not that impressive, but you know, you have to do all the touristy things while you have the chance.
Pitt Rivers/Natural History Museum: The draw of the Pitt Rivers Museum is apparently the shrunken heads from Figi. The draw of the Natural History Museum is supposedly the most complete remains of a Dodo, but is really that in their vast array of taxidermied animals, you can find almost EVERY ANIMAL FROM RESCUER'S DOWN UNDER:
Wilbur, the Albatross
(My hands obviously represent Bernard and Miss Bianca)
JOANNNNNNNNA!
Me riding Marahute:
Tragically, I can't find the Frankie picture, but he was there too.
Alas, now I must pack up all my possessions, and like, figure out what we're doing in France and Italy or something. I will perhaps write uno mas post when I am back in the states, to update you all on my European adventures? Until then, know that I am enjoying my intellectual freedom and plan not to think for the next three months. This could lead to some unfortunate life choices.
