inyourversion http://virb.com/inyourversion Virb 2.0 (@inyourversion) en It Just Takes Some Time http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/811717 According to Ellie, who is reading the funny papers, hedgehogs are immune to snake venom. This little tidbit makes me realize that I need to read more--not read more of things I'm reading, like high school literature and the Epic of Gilgamesh and eight hundred pages of this and forty of that. I need to read more things like poems, like short stories about a boy who works at a movie theatre, like news articles summarizing the presidential candidate's speeches, because I didn't get to watch them because I was...reading.

I'm not going to summarize my life because I think I just did.

I am trying to be more positive. Trying to remind myself that time does keep going and that it won't run me over; that I can somehow make it to mid-December, when everything will be clear and clean and manageable.

I am catering to my personality by fantasizing about future living, when I'm not in an on-campus apartment with a baby-vom pink couch and limited closet space. I went with my mother and Ellie yesterday to pick out a bridal shower gift for a friend, and was blown away by the options for choosing fine china. I thought, "Oh, I guess I'm an adult now," because when I was a kid I hated the housewares section, and now I just want to pick out dishes and bedspreads in the hopes of strangers making my purchases for me.

Sorry bout the seemingly run-on sentences today. I don't know what my problem is.

Anyway, so I bought these coasters at Anthropologie, and that makes me want to buy curtains and rugs and prints for the walls, just to prove that I Am Not Living in a Dorm Anymore; that Somehow I'm Successful.

Last weekend I went to visit Jake in Kansas City; we spent a few days in Omaha with his family. I have decided I am in love with the Midwest. On the ride between KC and Omaha, I saw miles and miles of corn and soybean fields, everything properly accented with silos and dilapidated barns. We went to the zoo and hung out with Jake's family and spent lots of time with Garner and Emily, and we had long chats and played name-that-tune on the radio for hours at a time.

And my parents will be home from church soon, probably wanting Mexican food even though I'd rather eat left-overs whilst remaining in my pajamas. I must go with the flow. I must not freak out about school, about grad applications, about the GRE which I still haven't taken, about how I haven't read for my history class all year long, about how I don't yet know my Spanish vocabulary for the test on Wednesday, about how there is no way I'm reading Pride & Prejudice by Friday, and I will be accessing Sparknotes and / or Colin Firth, about how I'm unsure in my relationships and don't know if people are as into things as I am, about how all of my extra-curricular activities are way more stressful than entertaining, about hedgehogs, because they'll be okay in the end.


]]> Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:04:39 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/811717 Get Excited: It's the Semi-Annual Bi-Monthly Nearly-Never Update http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/748014 I'm listening to Pandora's interpretation of my music tastes; I'm getting really scared about the future; summer's almost over.

I taught for three weeks of camp this year. It's much easier than it was the first year, but not less tiring. I'm also in the midst of a standardized patient case for the med school. Trying to scrape up baby paychecks.

I move in next Friday. I've been buying too much junk lately. And my mom has. She's the best. Tomorrow I'm getting a television (the first one I've ever owned--just mine, no one else's) so that I can have movie parties in my apartment, which will be decorated with my photographs and my lamp that is breaking and ugly Mercer furniture that's never quite big enough.

My crap laptop, free gift a la freshman year, has finally died. We got the verdict yesterday--fortunately, they can save my hard drive. I've ordered a Mac to replace it--Blackbook, as I'm calling it, seeing as I splurged for the computer with the million gig hard drive.

I've hated spending the past month and a half without a computer. It messes with my organizational sense of what-is-right. I need to be able to access my files or upload photos when I like.

I did a little bit of research on my personality type (ENFJ), and realize that I am prone to look forward to future events more than I relish the actual present. Though this is kind of depressing in and of itself, it explains a lot. I guess now I can just look forward to things and know it's normal. Just be happy being excited about the future and excuse my present boredom.

Things I'm looking forward to:
1. Fresh clean apartment to decorate
2. Living alone-ish
3. Taking a poetry workshop again
4. Visiting Jake in Kansas City

Things I'm dreading:
1. MFA applications
2. Stupid core classes that I don't care about but I know professors will take seriously
3. The GRE
4. being so busy I can't function

I know I'm a really bad blogger and only write about really boring things like plans and assumed futures. I can't help it. Here's something cooler:

Lately I've been having really weird dreams. Last night I dreamed I was in a train with some of the guys from Oxford; one wouldn't pay attention to me. Then the train turned into a boat. Also dreamed the other day that Whitney and I were in her car in a parking lot, and some creepy man convinced us to help him with his car. Then he kidnapped us and beat us up.

Also cooler:
Batman.]]> Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:40:30 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/748014 Sleep and Plans http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/636489 I need the summer off.
I need the summer off so I can think about everything I've seen. All the stupid images that I forgot to write down that I'm really going to need if I ever want to write poetry again. I'm forgetting them already--the little boy named River who was on the first leg of our Egypt tour; there with some relative for what seemed to be a sympathy trip. The memorial in the stones of a Munich university--looked like scattered pamphlets on the ground, anti-Nazi propaganda. Those students got killed for it. The woman in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh who showed her granddaughter Monet's The Church at Vetheuil, reaching up with a naked finger to run her print across the canvas.

I decided what I want to do for the next three years, which is a big step considering Oxford has left me completely devoid of any academic interests besides twiddling my thumbs and goofing around. I want to do really well on the GRE, spend next year photographing everything that goes on at Mercer, hang out and have a bit of fun, then please please get into UGA's MFA program so I can live with Ellie for two years and write before I come to terms with either (a) real job or (b) teaching highschool or (c) going for a degree that might get me somewhere else. I want to get a Collie and have a big bookshelf and a very comfortable chair and write really neat, organized poems for two years while I think about what I'm doing with myself.

I'm afraid of anything else, mostly because I've inherited Papa's condition of needing to take naps all the time. I've noticed it getting worse over the past few years. I'll be working, then I'll get incredibly sleepy and unable to concentrate until I have a fifteen, forty-five, or sixty minute nap. Jake says, "Why are you sleeping? You sleep all the time. You're always sleeping." And I say, I know. I eat the right things. I go to bed before 1.00 and wake up before 9.00. It's not a case of getting too much sleep and therefore tricking my body into wanting more.

I digress. I need the summer off to get back into the habit of taking really good notes. I'll only get six weeks, but somehow I have to be relaxed and lazy enough to get pumped up for a million hours of boring academia in the fall. Boring Spanish, boring boring history, boring literary theory, boring Brit lit that I probably already know.

It's ironic, really. Tomorrow I have to write a paper on whether Tom Stoppard's plays are "too intellectual"--when I'm coming to think that everything and everyone is too intellectual. I want to photograph weddings or lead punting tours down the Thames or work behind a desk somewhere backwoods, where I have the best grammar and neglect to use it by choice.

]]> Mon, 26 May 2008 23:00:13 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/636489 Blergh. http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/634164 It's Sunday morning, and raining. The rooftops are wet, and I am staying inside all day. I should be reading Tom Stoppard plays, so of course I'm writing a blog.

Jake and I went to Cambridge yesterday to visit his friends Garner and Emily. We went punting (somehow we had missed this excellent phenomenon until now) and had a picnic and saw a whale skeleton. We also saw the new Indiana Jones movie, and decided that the next installment should be Indiana Jones and the Loch Ness Monster.

I have four tutorials left--three weeks, and then it's finally summer--I am dreadfully tired of writing essays, but I do not want to leave Oxford. And at the same time, I want to go home and hang out with Ellie and Lily and Meagan and everyone. I want to take long summer days. Go camping or take a beach day-trip. Document everything extensively with pictures. There are so many photoshoots I want to do.

I had a dream last night that I quit my camp job because the kids were so bad. I hope it's not a premonition.

I'm having a rough time because I'm the type of person who is very incentive-driven--I like to have the feeling that my work is done. I like to think about the fun things I'm going to do next year--mess about in the drama department, take photographs for the newspaper, fix up my tiny apartment , hunt for good MFA programs. So I'm thinking forward because all this schoolwork is annoying, but these are my last three weeks here. There's so much I have to hang on to; so much I have to do one last time. Walk in Christ Church meadow, have a G&D's ice cream, have fish and chips, hang out at St. Aldates, climb Headington Hill, chat in the basement with Penelope and Kristin. It's making my stomach hurt.
]]> Sun, 25 May 2008 06:56:42 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/634164 If You're Feeling Sinister http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/597630 It's May now, which means in a month and a half I'll be back in Georgia complaining about the weather. Oxford has an annual May day celebration which mostly involves all the uni kids staying up all night getting really trashed; the next morning at six, everyone goes down to Magdalen college and hears a choir. I went, but too late--missed the choir. St. Aldates had three pound pancakes, though, so the early morning was rather worth it. Pancakes with maple syrup for us American saps.

Tutorials are progressing wretchedly. I hate theatre history, and I'm terrible terrible at it. Every week I go in and have lovely chats with my tutor, but I know that I completely miss the mark with my academic work. My minor's going okay, I guess. I'm finding Virginia Woolf's later works to be a little too spacey to hold my attention for very long, though.

Yesterday I burned myself really badly on the arm whilst reaching over the hot water heater for the sugar. That was stupid. I have this scar on my ankle from when I was a kid and I yanked a curling iron down on my foot. I don't know how bad that burn was, but if this one leaves a scar like that one, I can never model gloves.

I've started being really neurotic; getting bored with fashion, so I bought a bunch of two pound t-shirts in solid colors from Primark, and I'm wearing them every day. All of my courses and grades and things at Mercer are really messed up, and I wish I could be back in the states to fix them. No one reads the entirety of my emails, it seems, so things only get half done. Half straightened out.

Here's some stuff:
That I've been listening to.
That I've been reading.
And also I like to watch Peugeot commercials when I feel uninspired.]]> Fri, 02 May 2008 08:18:37 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/597630 Good fer Nothin' http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/553771 Yesterday, my housemates and I celebrated warm weather by wearing cute skirts, admiring flowers, eating ripe fruit, and generally rejoicing over the change in England's usual dreariness. This morning, I looked out the window, and this is what I saw:

alt
Oh, well. Too bad about spring. We made a snow goddess (too shapely for a snowman, I fear) and traipsed around a bit in scarves and rainboots.

alt
I then proceeded to spend the day like I've spent most of the past week--holed up inside taking naps and watching movies. I've got another week, roughly, before academic obligations kick in, and frankly, I don't think I'll be ready. Living the slob's life doesn't much appeal to Sarah, who paces around and goes to the library for substantial literature, but I think I'm perfect for it.

It makes me think of high school--all that dead time--makes me feel like getting really crafty. Making collages, writing really horrible poetry and the like. Fortunately for everyone, I don't have access to super glue or a piano, so I'm making do by listening to lots of Cat Power, drinking what Jake refers to as my "hippie fruit tea," and huddling under my flannel blanket for unreasonable amounts of time.

I'm doing a lot of scheming and plotting for next year's activities. Due to my most excellently lucky computer-generated housing lottery number, I have reason to believe that I'll be living in a two-person apartment with Marj next year. Also, despite my disgusting schedule packed with required core classes, I've invited myself into Dr. Mitcham's lovely poetry workshop. I have put far, far too much on my plate, and I don't care. I like thinking about these things--about decorating an apartment not plagued with pea-green walls--rather than the inevitable monsters of next year: the GRE, grad school applications, real life.
]]> Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:20:16 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/553771 Walk Like an Egyptian, Climb Like an Egyptian, Ride Camels Like an Egyptian http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/540597 Sporting a farmer's tan and a suffering bank account, I have returned from two weeks of international gallivanting. The house is a mess and I have about eight loads of laundry to do, but I'm generally satisfied.

After a mild mental breakdown a few weeks ago in which I realized that I was traveling to Munich alone without knowing a word of German, I managed to convince myself to trek to the bus station to begin the first leg of my journey. Fortunately, with the help of the lovely German people who all seemed to speak English, I was able to meet up with Eleta, Sarah, and Jessica in Munich. The lovely Mary Kate met up with us later at the Hofbr]]> Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:47:38 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/540597 I Have So Much to Blog About http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/483191 ...or at least that's what Eleta and Ryan are always saying. Apparently, I don't have much to blog about, because I never do blog. Pathetico.

Hilary term is winding down. I can't help feeling smug as I view the facebook statuses of my friends in the states who are in the midst of midterms. I love Oxford. Instead of midterms, we get a five week spring break.

Annnd for that spring break (which, for me, is six weeks because I started tutorials early), here are the things I am excited about:

1. The lovely Whitney Drew is visiting next week. We are going to see Tegan & Sara in concert and have lots of exciting London / Oxford adventures.

2. Then Katy Charles and Ellie are visiting the following week--more adventures!

3. Going to Munich with Eleta and Sarah for a few days.

4. EGYPT. I kind of can't believed it all worked out, but I'm going. Expect pyramid pictures.

5. Lounging around in Oxford, which includes lounging around in meadows, reading non-academic books, and being extraordinarily lazy.

Before all that, though, I have to finish this week--tutorial today, then preparations for my last tutorial with Francis on Friday.

And, since I love lists, here are some things that I like lately:

1. Three-year-old Beatles fans.
2. Sandwiches.
3. The latest blarn mix.
4. The first episode of America's Next Top Model Cycle 10, because Shaya go'n be Shaya.
5. Parties with the OOSC-ers.

altMore "later" which will surely turn into "eventually." Blerg.
]]> Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:14:29 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/483191 Last Night Like Rain on Chalk, It's Gone http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/425105 I think it's the end of 1st week, now. I'm a little confused about the academic weeks because I started early with Francis, so I'm working on my assignments for tutorial number three, approaching week number two. I am reading Ibsen; I am in love. I am also working on a very haphazard little play about a boy and a girl in a Laundromat who aren't sure about their lives.

From the third story window of the house, I can see floodwaters. It hasn't rained much today so far, but the 5-day on Google shows no chance of sun till Tuesday. Peter, our downstairs neighbor, is supposedly moving out because he's tired of being flooded.

Look behind the fence:

altalt

In other news of the unfortunate, Bill Clinton is speaking at Mercer on Monday, and I am in the wrong country. Eleta, housemate, has fallen into a noticeable depression. I just don't understand why I got to go to Francis Collins lectures (um, gag) and now Bill Clinton comes while I'm gone.

As for other celebrities, we saw Bhutto's son on Friday night. We've fondly christened him "Baby Bhutto," and the sighting was a rather big thrill; we verified our identification skills with his friend, but did not approach The Great One. Hah.

Jake and I are trying to piece together plans to go to Egypt for spring break. We'd do a two-week tour and see all the cool stuff. Pyramids. Museums. Camels. Camping in the desert. It's kind of getting to the point now that if I don't get to go, I will cry a lot. Unfortunately, the getting-to-Cairo bit may prove more expensive than we can manage. Airline prices are really ridiculous.

I am also most likely going to Scotland on Tuesday to visit Amy and Paul. I am not sure yet as to whether I'm going to Glasgow or Edinburgh, but either way, I'm taking the dreadful night bus. I am not much looking forward to sleeping in cramped quarters and stopping off in Milton Keynes, home of nothing, for a bus change-over. But getting out of Oxford for a few days will be fun.

And on that note, I'll close--I have to finish my major work before I leave, or I won't be able to function. Hmm. All my work in three days. This is getting really familiar.

]]> Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:31:17 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/425105 It didn't rain today. Miracle. http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/419084 Half the neighbors are fighting and the other half of the neighbors are providing a strange other-worldly music as a soundtrack to the fighting.

I talk too much about the neighbors in blog intros. I just find it so strange that we're separated by such thin membranes. We get the neighbors' packages. Sometimes we get messages from them. I look out my window and see everything that goes on in their backyards. If we pass on the street, though, I have to double-take to decide whether or not I know them. Even if the answer is yes, we don't speak.

Role reversals: I am becoming more fond of British food and less fond of British fashion. I hate sweater dresses. I hate wrinkled boots. I hate ugly colors and ugly hairstyles.

In other news, my tutorials are much harder this semester. I have discovered I am alarmingly bad at writing plays. I want more than anything to revert to poems--to comfortable waters. Also, children's lit is turning out to be more of a comparison between children's and adult lit, which means I have twice, or often three times, the amount of reading I had last term. On top of this, my scheduling is awkward. I am trying very hard in my day-to-day life not to whine so much, though, because I think everyone is beginning to hate me.

I am experimenting with going out of the house more often. I decided I like studying at G&D's ice cream shop, but I hate studying in the Union Library. Everyone there looks so official and important, and I get nervous that I'm making too much noise when I type. We're also going out to pubs more,* which has been interesting--I like feeling out the different environments of each pub. It's kind of like visiting lots of different people's houses. We went to Sunday roast at The Turf*** this past weekend, and it was definitely my favorite as far as food is concerned--the environment would have been better had it been warmer, because they also have an outdoor tavern part.

Anyway. Any more stupid paragraphs and it will become ridiculously apparent that I'm only writing this to avoid writing a stupid paper on Strindberg-the-Woman-Hater. Peace.

Last note: Jake & I popped into McDonald's so he could get a cheeseburger earlier, and Rilo Kiley was playing. Anybody else find that odd?

*Last term, practically everyone had significant others, so we stayed in a lot. This term, I'm practically the only girl who isn't single, so everyone wants to go out all the time. It's exhausting. I have very little energy for meeting people who just want to make fun of me, and then who won't want to talk to me once they realize I'm neither attractive ** nor available.
**Dressed slutty.
***Where Bill Clinton didn't inhale.
]]> Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:34:59 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/419084 Maybe I Would Have Been Something You'd Be Good At http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/404610 I love being back in Oxford before the academic obligations begin--I have preliminary meetings with tutors on Wednesday, but until then, I can just kick back and relax. And go to lectures for three hours a day.

Today's lectures weren't bad--talked about Samuel Pepys and the Caroline poets & such--but I have a dark and suspicious feeling that tomorrow's might be about politics or history, in which case some caffeine substance abuse will most likely be in order.

I'm enjoying new house mates and missing old ones. I am loving wearing my Eskimo jacket but hating the rain. It's odd to be back; I miss home, and yet I'm oddly comfortable settling back into things.

The second (but since we're in England I guess it's the "first") floor of our house has turned into GirlTalk Land. This means we raid each other's closets, bemoaning our different shoe sizes. This also means that I ramble on too much about body image and later follow it up by eating too many HobNobs. Baby, I'm bad news. Also, the "That's what she said" jokes are getting out of hand, and I like it.

Other things I like:
(a) Guilt-free television marathons.
(b) Anticipation of visitors and concerts (Whitney & I got Tegan & Sara tickets for March, omg.)
(c) The internet was broken, but now it works.
(d) Tomorrow we're going to London to see Much Ado About Nothing; the production's gotten reviews beyond the category of "rave."
(e) My tutorials cleared this morning: Francis Warner is taking me for a major in playwriting, and I'll have Jacquie Rawes for children's lit = best term ever.

Mmkay. Now I'm just avoiding sleep, which is never a good pastime.

And so, to bed.]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:44:02 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/404610 lazy and silly. http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/389536 Today's one of those days when I really just want to leave everything that I've presented on the surface. I want to start a new blog, where I'll write in all lowercase letters, post fuzzy photographs, and write entire entries that say:

"Not letting the cat in! She make my face stuffy! Sewed buttons on my green green coat, and am glad about it. Everything's sturdy."

Then I'd call it a day.

But I won't do that because I've only had about eighteen million blogs in my life, and one more isn't going to make me a better person, but rather even more of a hipster poser.

Things:

1. My aunt and uncle gave me an eBay gift card, and I am discovering that The Rush of Bidding is Fun and Yet Mildly Infuriating! I am bidding on some soft Minnetonkas, and if I don't win them, I will cry crocodile tears.*

2. Last week I listened to grating folk-pop, and this week I'm winding down, just like xmas break. I've been spending little snippets of time with friends. I saw Anna Kate last night. We stayed up late and cuddled with the dog and whispered under the covers, just like we've been doing for the last five years. Meagan came for a surprise visit on Christmas night, and I almost died I was so happy to see her.

3. I am going to Orlando tomorrow, where I will try to make a good impression & also try not to be a disaster in the kitchen.** I am looking forward to spending the next five days with Andrew, but I'm also sad because at the end of those five days, another four month separation stretches out ahead of us, and there's nothing to be done about it.

4. How I'm feeling lately:alt
*And then probably cough up the money to buy them new off the website, like a dumb person.
**80% inevitable.
]]> Fri, 28 Dec 2007 07:20:52 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/389536 Christmastime is Heeeeere http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/351381 I am home in Georgia, reveling in southern accents and friendly waitresses and meeting the eyes of strangers in public.

Mum & I went shopping at Publix for dinner-foods; we saw a rotisserie chicken that was $6. I think, "Wow, only 3L for a whole chicken?" and she says, "This one's too expensive. Go get the one on the sale shelf that's $2.99."

I am also now the owner of jeans that don't make me look like a bag lady. This excites me way more than I should. In the Warner Robins Poor Excuse for a Mall, I ran into two or three people I knew in high school, and it was strange. I'm never self-conscious about meeting people unless they used to know me before. Then I blush and get all awkward. I cannot explain it.

Wil & I went to the Perry Christmas parade this afternoon to watch Lily twirl a candy cane with the color guard. Saw lots of pageant winners & motorcyclists and fat women being pulled in miniature carriages by Shetland ponies.

Annnnd the house almost caught on fire tonight. Wil bumped his head on the light fixture, and a few seconds later, it exploded.

I think vacation's going to be exciting.
]]> Sun, 02 Dec 2007 00:24:12 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/351381 Jinglejingle. http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/344775 I am listening to Sufjan Stevens's Christmas albums and feeling very jolly about it. I never allow myself to listen to Christmas music until very, very late in November on account of liking so very few Christmas songs and then tiring of them before the twenty-fifth. But today, in my last poetry tutorial with Francis, we talked about the origin of Christmas carols, and it got me in the mood. Apparently, the carol was actually a spring song, sung in conjunction with a ring dance. Lots of skipping about in the warm weather. Then it became a winter thing, meshed with some pagan ballads, etc.

Rather fun. The important part of all this, aside from being Christmas carolly, is that I am finished with ALL my work for the whole term. I have one final meeting with Barry tomorrow morning, but my essay is finished and printed, and there's no turning back.

For the next few days, I'm going to do maximum slumming and bumming. I am going to see that August Rush movie that made me cry in previews, and I'm planning little good-bye outings with the other study abroad kids. And at some point I have to pack. Ew.

In other news, Andrew got his plane tickets to come visit me in April, and I am excited in advance. I'm also going to visit spend some time with him in Orlando over break, which will be so lovely. He makes me happy.

Hoorah, vacation!
]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:34:14 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/344775 Short & Sweat. http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/329541 There's a dang spider in the kitchen window again. He looks like he's sitting on something. He hasn't moved in about seven hours, and I am Afraid to kill him.

In other news, I do dishes at one in the morning. I am awake when I should be sleeping, and sleeping when I should be awaking. It's a very bad habit, but somebody's gotta do it.

I thought today was going to be ultimately unproductive, because Jake & I went on a study location adventure and came up empty. Starbucks at Borders (usually the most emptiest) was slam pack full whoa too many people, and some guy told us we couldn't go in the Oxford Union because they were setting up for a ball or something. A ball? Really? Okay.

But still, I managed to get Ellie a birthday present (!) plus do two (2!) poem critiques. Now all I have to do for my Tuesdaytorial is write a poem in dactyls, which shouldn't be too hard.

Dactyl means finger in Latin. A dactyl in poetry goes long-short-short (like "let the swans" or "there she goes"). Your finger goes long-short-short. Just look between the joints on your pointer finger. The divisions. Long, short, short.

My nerd is showing.

Here are some Important Links, because I am tired of writing for today.

Here is how I'm getting my hair cut.
I would also like this for Xmas, but it's not gonna happen. (in a medium. in green. hint.)

AND THIS IS WHO IS COMING TO OXFORD AND I GET TO SEE HER ON FEBRUARY 8TH AND I AM SO EXCITED I AM ABOUT TO DIE!

Fin!
]]> Sun, 18 Nov 2007 02:43:27 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/329541 Ramble McRamble http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/321563 Sadly, I actually did end up writing about pot heads for my tutorial for Francis. I wrote a pair of heroic couplets for degenerates (or un-heroic couplets) & scraped by amazingly well. Hah. Stupid. Now I only have two more weeks of poetry work with Francis plus one more essay for Barry, and then I have five whole weeks to read Whatever I Want. Somehow I fear this will mostly consist of whatever teeny bopper magazines Lily's bought over the past three months and the scrolling movie descriptions on the TV Guide channel.

Street person quote of the week: "Woman with the scarf, are you in a good mood?"
I think this means I'm developing a habit for glaring on Cornmarket Street. Seriously. Every single time I walk down it, someone approaches me trying to sell me something. Sometimes I ignore them. Sometimes I glare and shake my head as if to say, "Uh-uh, you better get away from me or I will shoot fire out of my eyeballs at you." Most of the time, I put on a faint British accent and say, "Sorry, I'm late." If they hear the "Americano"* then they'll assume I'm even more financially solvent & continue to follow me.

I had a very lovely birthday-weekend. On Friday, Mikey, Ryan, and I went to London for the Andrew Bird concert. We got an amazing view--right up by the stage. Andrew Bird's terribly quirky. Nervous tic motions of the head to the left, and all. Sometimes he played the violin like a guitar; other times he recorded layering violin tracks. All live. All wonderful. We met up with cute Hannah Jacobs earlier in the day at the British Museum. She told me all about her academic program at Regents Park College in London, and it made me realize exactly how very strenuous the Oxford workload is & how this university is full of only hardcore academic enthusiasts. She said her classes aren't difficult at all, and are mostly populated by the daughters of Middle Eastern oil tycoons. They rarely come to class, but when they do, they're decked out in Gucci and glare at the Americans in their track jackets and blue jeans.

On my actual birthday, I had Thai food with the housemates & went to see a lovely Irish film called Once. Times like those--exploring Little Clarendon street, oggling the shoe store on the end of High Street that I always forget about during the day--those times make me realize what kind of a life I'm living here. A life where I can just walk into town anytime I want and get a gingerbread latte or sit in the Oxford Union library with its Beauty and the Beast bookshelves and the snoring don in the corner. Where I can walk outside at night and never think about running into sketchy people** with guns; where if I'm hot, I can open a window and all my problems are solved.

For as much as I miss my family and can't wait to come home sometimes, I know I'll miss the Oxford lifestyle. I'll most certainly miss it next fall when I have to get up at eight a.m. for a Spanish class instead of sleeping in and doing my "class" work in the comfort of my own pajamas.

In other news, this week we're going to Stratford to see Henry IV Part I, I will be home in two weeks and three days, I have so dreadfully much Christmas shopping to do, and these are things I like this week:

The Frames.
Someone could get me this for Xmas (in red.)
Brown gloves I got for 50p at Primark.
Pears.


*The old guy who sometimes works the Posh Nosh van called me an Americano last night because I asked for tomatoes like toMAYto instead of like toMAHto. I say, let's call the whole thing off. Gimme my dang chicken sandwich.

**Sketchiest Oxford encounter on the streets at night: woman comes swooping out of the police station, across the street to where we're walking. She says, "Do you have a fag? I've just got out of prison and I'm desperate!" Once we figured out she meant she needed a cigarette, we apologized for being without, and she moved on.
]]> Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:05:24 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/321563 I'm Writing an Awful Lot of Stupid Blog Entries Lately. http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/310511 Peter lives downstairs. His television is so loud tonight that I can feel it with the pads of my feet through the carpeting, our floor, and his ceiling. I wonder sometimes if Peter is deaf. For as much exposure as we have to his television, we ought to be paying some of the tax that goes along with owning one here.

I had stupid chips and stupid barbecue sauce again from the Posh Nosh van tonight, even though I'd already had a million calories in the form of a mini chicken pot pie. I think my body is rebelling against getting fat again--the barbecue sauce blistered the inner lining of my cheek on one side. I keep running my tongue over the little ridges and hoping I can still go down a pants size when I get back home.

I'm getting upset because the amount of pages read in my book keeps getting bigger and the amount of pages unread gets smaller, and it's one of those books I want to cling do, despite the fact that I have a paper about it due in a week.

I'm changing my flight date back to the states. Moving it up about twelve or thirteen days. I'm very pleased about this. Thinking about filling the time between term's end and my flight home was really starting to give me a stomach ache. Heroic couplets are also giving me a stomach ache. Food is grossing me out a lot lately, and I think it's because I don't eat breakfast soon enough. I bought some cereal with raspberries and cranberries and cherries in it. I'm hoping for a miracle.

England is weird today: A man on Cornmarket Street approached me and said, "Do you study music here at Oxford? You look very musical." I shook my head and sped up my pace, and he left me. Nothing really went wrong at my tutorial this morning, but I feel like it was a failure because I can't get the hang of analyzing rhythms because I don't have a good, ingrained British accent and sense of how things should sound out loud. Also, one of my housemates just came downstairs with his hair all askew and his sweatshirt half on, saying he was "just going for a walk." It's quarter to one in the morning.

I think tomorrow I'll sleep late and then go to the Union to mope* and try to decipher the differences between Donne's heroic couplets and Byron's and Keats's and God knows who else. I think I'm going to write heroic couplets about total losers. Or maybe potheads.

Oh glorious plant that grows from the backyard
in careful shade so no one will regard.
I roll you tightly; you I do admire--
with all my love, I light you bright on fire!

Huh huh huh. Francis would say this is inappropriate subject matter, and draw attention to how my couplets are sloppy because they are enjambed instead of closed.

'Night, y'all.


*and watch for Neville Longbottom, who has been spotted there. Lame!]]> Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:38:40 -0800 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/310511 Boom http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/304806 Outside, fireworks are going off. They sound like bombs, and sometimes they last for an hour. Ryan says it's because of Guy Fawkes Day, but that's on the 5th. I think something severely celebratory is going on behind my back.

I'm reading a shifty-perspective book about World War II. In it, a soldier at war has a pet mouse. A girl in Greece has a pet pine marten, which is somewhat like a weasel-fox-cat. I realize that I have a recurring tendency to really want a pet, especially when the only animals I see around here are the scruffy dogs that belong to the homeless people selling The Big Issue outside Borders and Beaverbrooks. I just really wish we could sneak in a little kitten or puppy or rabbit type thing to cuddle. It gets dark earlier and earlier. I think that calls for an increase in snuggly things, like pets and hot chocolate and warm towels* and the scarves Andrew sent me.** It's very sentimental and stupid, really. I should really think more rationally and say that it's good that it gets dark because that leaves more time for fireworks. Bombs.

I just finished chatting with Lily-sister online. I love that. We need to do it more, but she's always locked away in myspace land or else she's busy chasing the boys away with sticks or winning play competitions or something. Lily keeps me updated--lets me know who at the high schools is cheating on their boyfriend & who got pregnant & who the baby-daddies are. She's living such a different life than I was at her year. I keep pseudo-stalking my old private school classmates on facebook to see who's gotten fat or who has too many drunk photos, and I realize that if I met these people now, we'd probably be pleasant acquaintances. I just cast them in such a bitter aura for so long that it's almost awkward to think about. Hmm.

Tomorrow I might go thrifting with Jake, which will be difficult because we only have about twenty pounds between the two of us. I had to buy food today (which was a nightmare because city centre was crazy), so my buying-eccentric-English-gift money has been forked over for rice & cheapo pineapple pizza.

I heart Survival.

*Which we can't have because our dryer is broken.
**My boyfriend is better than yours. ]]> Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:46:44 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/304806 Lazy http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/302383 I'm in the living room again. This time I'm playing DJ. We listened to 90's music for awhile, but now I'm playing mopey folk songs as a nice soundtrack. Jake & I have been down here in and out all day. He's writing a paper. I'm not writing anything. It's been a completely unproductive day. Eating too much junk food. Pajamas all day again, except for when I put on jeans to go get Posh Nosh, and then I promptly got a dollop of ketchup on them, which I take to be A Sign that I violated the sacred rules of pajama day & I get what I deserve.

I went to Edinburgh last weekend. I cannot even begin to describe how beautiful it is without being cheesy like old people who want to talk about scenery. But the scenery. It was truly unimaginably beautiful. We stood on top of a hill looking over the city, and the wind tried to knock us off. It was amazing.

I stayed in my first hostel last weekend, too. It was actually "quite posh," as I heard murmured by a girl in the elevator. Since we had a group of three, we only ended up with one roommate. She was this kind of crazy middle aged woman from the Caribbean who made lots of noise coming in at night. Coughing and hacking, rattling paper bags, squeaking the doors and then telling them to "shh." In the morning her alarm clock went off and she couldn't find it--it had fallen somewhere. She asked us if we had an eyebrow pencil sharpener. We said we didn't. She said we all had beautiful eyebrows. It was all rather puzzling in a generally non-threatening way.

Tomorrow night I'm going to see a ballet with some of the girls. Theatre in England has proved thusfar to be much less formal than it is in the states, so we've all brought tons of dressy clothes that we're yet to wear. Tomorrow, though, we're dressing up, even though one of our lecturers says that no one dresses up for anything but opera, and then only opera in London. We're rule breakers. We do what we want.

In other news, my tutorials are still going really well. I kind of can't believe it's November already. I feel like I'm pretty much the luckiest kid ever getting to do a poetry tutorial with Francis Warner. I'm getting so much out of it, and I'm trying desperately to cling to these final weeks--stretch it out, somehow. Now I just have to decide what I'm doing with my life. I've studied with so many excellent poets, and I really just want to keep going with the writing thing. Yet, career-wise, it scares me.

Worries for another day. Time for some Diet Coke and more Beth Orton. ]]> Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:53:59 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/302383 Better http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/274891 I have not lost the Oxford Fifteen. Even though I'm walking at least an hour a day, my diet has shifted from being mostly vegetable to being mostly carbs. Like my new love affair with scones. I eat them in bed with water, and I bite the little raisins between my teeth. British eating's cruel. Like how I've suddenly reaccepted french fries (chips) as a part of a healthy diet even though I've been ignoring them for the past year--curling my lips and turning up my nose and asking the O'CheddarCharleyChili's server what the "steamed veggie" option is, thanks.

In other news, I've joined the Magdalen Film Society, which means I can return to my movie addiction. Maybe by the end of the year I can keep up in an artsy film conversation that ventures beyond the realm of Wes Anderson. Last night we saw Volver and Talk to Her, both of which moderately eased my fears about taking Spanish next year.

I'm finally settling into the schedule enough to plan things on weekends. This weekend, I'm going to Bath for a day trip. The following weekend, I'm taking a longer trip to Edinburgh. The part of study abroad that people reminisce about is finally beginning.

And, for the first time, my major tutorial wasn't disastrous. My stupid sonnet was only half wrong, and I'm actually getting excited about working with rhythm.

And, most victorious: I made it inside before it started raining. ]]> Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:45:25 -0700 http://virb.com/inyourversion/posts/text/274891