SNOWSNOWSNOW

Remember the circular park? The pretty bench? The grass and the yellow leaves?

Here it is now.

YAY SNOW!

typos galore: printing class, part 2 of 3

When we last spoke, dear readers, I had set about half of my type. The following week, I set the rest, including the title which is massively annoying to set because it requires three hair-spaces (which are made of paper) between each letter--unless the letters are kind of big. And then maybe they only need two. Or maybe one. Did I mention they're made of paper?

But I finally got it done. Yesterday, therefore, our intructor Paul helped us lock the text into frames so that we could take proofs of our printed material. The above photo is a closeup of the bottom of my poem. You can see where it says "H. Corinne Smith" at the bottom, though it's backwards and upside down.

Then we inked it (with the aid of what essentially amounts to a fancy and extra-heavy rolling pin), put a page down on it, and closed 'er up. I got to crank the machine, which basically rolls the whole tray under heavy pressure so that (hopefully) it inks equally. Then we open it up and cut the paper into pieces, as by this point it  it just one large sheet with eight poems upon it.

Then comes the proofing. I thought I'd done well, but my proof was riddled with errors: sometimes letters are upside down, sometimes--probably because they were in the wrong spaces in the type-case--lowercase Us and Ns get swapped, and the same is true for Bs and Ds. In one case, my lead spacer was sticking up too far and received some ink, creating what looks like a stray mark. So I carefully proofed it three times over, checking every word: it's surprising how easily your eye can glide over an upside-down letter, your brain telling you nothing is wrong.

Jen and Brendan fixing errors in the press. My poem is next to where Brendan is working right now, which is probably why I'm taking photos instead of working. 

And then we go fix it in the press. Taking tweezers, we must very carefully pull out the offending letter, turning it over or replacing it. If the replacement creates spacing issues, we have to do the finding-the-perfect-spacing-combination thing again. When it's all done, we do another proof. And another, if necessary, and another. Fortunately, mine popped out all right the second time round. I've had to take out two stanzas so that my poem will fit on one page--alas! But that's all right. We haven't started printing yet, but we think we can get it all done next week. We'll make 100 copies: so we'll have to ink the type, put in a piece of paper, close the press, roll the tray, push the press, unroll the tray, open the press, and take out the paper one hundred times, which shouldn't take that long once we get into a rhythm of it. And that way we each get three copies of our finished product with a few left over.

In other news, it's fairly cold but refuses to snow. Sigh. But I'm going to a ball tonight, accompanied by the lovely Sophie and Rowena--I'll keep you posted.

education for the nation!

I'm not sure how much coverage this issue has gotten in the States (though here is a link to CNN's recent report), but there have been protests all over the UK about the proposed tuition hikes which are part of a massive educational budget cut from Parliament.

Basically, there's now a cap of £3k on tuition fees, and this would remove that cap. They may remove it entirely; they may cap it at £9k--I've heard both. Now, we who all just came out of (or are still in) US universities start thinking to ourselves, holy cow that's low. It is. It's really low compared to the junk we go through. But the UK doesn't have the system set up like we do: the student loans, the FAFSA, the private grants, the merit-based scholarships. This limitless tuition fee is really scary for the students here, and it's felt extra keenly at Oxford, where women and minorities historically excluded from participation in the University are only just now coming into their own.

The protests have been good. We hear stories about people who are arrested and injured, but it's actually been really peaceable. However. I have some problems with the current protest that's being staged...




This one takes place at the gorgeous Radcliffe Camera, a historic Oxford site as well as a member of the Bodleian Libraries. Some students have decided, in protest of the financial nonsense going on, to occupy the Radcliffe Camera. Occupy it. What is it, France?

The Rad Cam happens to be not only my favourite Bodleian reading room, but the major collection of English and History books. I cannot use it. I am, I think understandably, annoyed.

But that's not even my main problem. A protest ought to be symbolic: the location, the manner, all of it should have some meaning. On the High street, that protest said, we are so righteously indignant about this issue that it's spilling out of the classrooms and into the streets: not just the University, but this city and this country will change for the worse. And that's a good message, I think. That's why I went.

Ultimately, the basic message we should be sending is this one: I value my education, and I won't let you take it away from people like me--women like me, state-school kids like me, middle-class people like me, smart but unconnected people like me. The choice to render a library--which is itself highly symbolic (for the love of knowledge that we supposedly cherish, for the storehouse of great thinking that Oxford has become)--useless doesn't say I value my education. It locks up the protest: we can't see the faces and hear the voices and see the signs. And the inconvenienced are the ones who haven't done anything wrong...us. Me.

But no...they're dancing. Just a good old-fashioned dance party in the Rad Cam, for, um, like change or something.

When I lead the protest (which I won't, because I'm not a UK citizen or even going to be here for more than 10 months), we'll go to a government building. The protest should be against the perpetrator, not the victim. And then we'll fill up every available space--the reception room, the front lobby, the steps outside, the curb--and we'll pull out books and we'll read. We will take learning from them, if they won't give it to us.

back it down, stern pair

Twice a week, I set my alarm for 5:30. If I'm smart, I go to bed early on these days; I am not frequently so self-possessed. Morning comes and the darkness outside is oppressive. The sun won't rise for two more hours, and the temperature generally hovers right around freezing. I dress as warmly as I am able and walk down to the boathouse: half an hour's walk away, giving me ample time to eat my morning banana. The grass is bathed in frost; the sharp wind cuts through all my layered clothing. Once everyone arrives, we pull out the boat, which bruises our shoulders to carry. Slipping my feet into the boat's built-in shoes is sometimes wet, and nearly always cold--very cold. By 6:30, we are off. Our boat cuts silently through the icy water, but the thick purplish fog ensures that we wouldn't be able to tell black water from black sky even, perhaps, were it not before sunrise.

Why do I subject myself to this twice-weekly torture? Well, the short answer is that I don't know. Every time I leave my warm bed for the cold torture of a rowing outing, I ask myself the same thing.

Someone told me the other day that he didn't think anyone simultaneously loathed and adored their sport so much as rowers. Definitely true. We complain constantly. We joke about how crazy we are and how much we wish we were back in bed, or at least back at Starbucks. Don't let us fool you, though: we love it.

Here's the senior crew--the Regent's Women's A Crew--in our race at Nepthys last weekend

Last week was intense: we had Nepthys regatta at the weekend, and three of us on the novice crew (two stroke-sides and a bow-side, which refers to our rowing positions) were temporarily promoted to senior crew, which means that we had two races at Nepthys, along with the associated practice sessions.

The novice crew: coaches Rosie, Lottie, and Fran are on the ends. Lottie is our main coach, and she's the shiny one. We rowers all have matching novice-crew shirts, and our coxswain Chella is the one crouching. 

This weekend is Christchurch Regatta: the big novice regatta of the year. We go up against Mansfield's novice A crew on Wednesday. If we win, we race again Friday; if we lose, there's a repercharge and we therefore row again on Thursday. Either way, we've come a long way in two months, and I'm proud enough of us for constantly braving the early-morning dark and cold that it doesn't much matter how we do in the race.

In the meantime, though, I'm getting some respectable rowing calluses on my hands, and I fancy that I'm coping better with the cold than I did at first...

which is good enough for me.

ink-smudged hands and faces

I've been taking a printing class this term, in which we learn all about historical methods of printing: how paper was made, how expensive paper, vellum, parchment were, how books were bound, how the printing press works and how it changed the system, all the way through how digital printing affects the industry. You have no idea how complicated paper folding can be: folios and quartos are simple enough, but once you hit octavo it all becomes a bit incomprehensible, and most books in my time period were published in duodecimo. Eep. That might sound boring (though I like it), which is why I haven't written about it. But now we're doing something that is SO FREAKING COOL that you're wrong if you think it's boring.

Starting yesterday, the rest of the term is us actually printing. We each get to pick a text (sonnet length is ideal) and set it ourselves in type, make our own proof, and ultimately mix up the ink and print it. Then we have to fold the pages up and it'll make a little book! 

Here are some of the workstations: the one nearest is mine. Each person gets an upper case and a lower one--the white pieces of paper above each set of cases is the map of where the different characters are. 

First, though, the setting-of-type bit takes awhile. I take the printer's stick in my left hand and, with my right, grab each tiny character individually and slide it in, remembering to put spaces in between each word. Between the lines we put little lead spacers, too. It takes awhile: we worked for two hours straight yesterday and some people only got three or four lines, though a couple of people have made it hard on themselves by choosing works written in a foreign language (and one in a foreign alphabet!). Apparently my years of crafty doings, sewing and crocheting and the like, have prepared me for the repetitive motion of type-setting, as I'm a good twice as fast as most of the rest of them. I got fourteen lines down, and I didn't see anyone else with more than eight. Still, fourteen lines in two hours' time is a little depressing when I think about how the poem took me significantly less time than that to compose. 

Once we've filled up our stick--for me that was eight lines--we have to very very carefully slide it off and onto the plates. Then we start over! The printer's sticks get quite heavy before we really notice, but the little metal characters' weights really add up when you've got several lines down. My wrist hurts a bit this morning.

Here's my stick right before I slid off my first set of lines. I've got eight lines on here, and each character, including the spaces, is its own little piece. The words are backwards here, of course, but if you look closely you can read a couple of words--the word "ground" in the sixth line seems to be in particularly sharp focus. At the end of the line, we fill the rest of up with spaces. The lines have to be really tight, and finding the right size spaces to perfectly fill the line is often the hardest part. We even have to use hair-spaces made of paper (or equally thin metal, so basically razor blades) to get the right fit sometimes.

Most people picked poems that they just happen to like, though a couple of us chose things we'd written.  If you're curious about what I chose, it's my poem "Curiouser and Curiouser" from the Alice cycle of poems I did for Dr. Johnston's class last semester. The poem's full text is after the jump, plus a bonus picture of a smiling Jen setting her Baudelaire poem. 

english autumn

England is beautiful this time of year. The leaves are changing and falling, and the wind blows them everywhere. The above photo is of the garden just outside my building, which is absolutely gorgeous when carpeted in bright yellow, and in fact I took this photo as I was headed to that very bench to go eat my lunch.

Unfortunately, I must admit that I don't have oodles of time for photo-snapping and leaf-watching. Or even lunch-eating, many days. My draft of my paper for the term--which doesn't have to be long, but has to be good which is much scarier--is due on Friday, and I've been spending entire days locked up inside various Bodleian reading rooms, knowing in a no more than indirect way about the existence of sunlight, or freedom.

Bleak as it sounds (and let me tell you, the life of an Oxford student is rarely glamorous) it's actually quite enjoyable. I have it on good authority that my argument for my Austen paper is somewhat a new one, which is exciting. I've gotten permission to cite a forthcoming article that won't even be published by the time my essay is due, and it's by a woman who is, in the Jane Austen world, something of a scholarly rock-star. All in all, the library days are nice, in a way. It really makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something, unlike those occasional (well, okay, maybe more than occasional) times in undergrad where I felt like I was just treading water--writing moderately well about old ideas has never gotten anyone's blood pumping.

Anyway, I have time still for some fun. Last night I went to Angel's cocktail bar with some college mates, which was lovely. Tonight I had a fish-and-chips date with Brian at this nasty-looking little fish place that was fantastic. Oh, and they had deep fried Mars Bars--! It made me miss Georgia. Brian and I split one, needless to say.

I'll close as I opened--with a photo celebrating English autumn, this one taken from the aforesaid (and, um, aforepictured?) bench, facing my building of residence (the one on the left--though my window faces the other side, which is a lovely bustling street with cute little shops). Not pictured: my delicious curry-filled jacket potato from Green's, my tattered copy of Mansfield Park. Life is good.

remember remember the fifth of november

If you'd told me a year ago that I'd have spent last night eating fried doughnuts and watching a giant burning effigy representing a Catholic terrorist, I might not have believed you.

Bonfire Night--or what we'd be more likely to call Guy Fawkes night, and let's be honest, we mostly only know that from V for Vendetta--is bigger here than I'd anticipated. We went down to Headington where they had some fireworks. We basically found ourselves in the middle of a huge field, surrounded by hot dog and burger and toffee apple and doughnut stands, with a gigantic wooden statue of sorts in the middle. We'd stood around and eaten junk for awhile when the fireworks started!

The fireworks were quite nice and I was only moderately terrified that the entire grassy field was going to go up in flames. Then the real fun started--the bonfire. The vaguely person-shaped blocks of wood were let aflame, and when they'd done, it revealed a metal understructure that looked sort of like a devil. Pretty frightening, actually. It was a huge fire! We were standing really quite far off and we could feel the massive heat from it.

After the giant Guy Fawkes was burned, there was still a sweet bonfire for awhile. We basked in its glow for awhile before heading to the pub for some mulled wine. A good evening.

I have things to update about! Like rowing, and my printing class. Once I obtain photos to accompany these things, you will be hearing more from me. I promise.

Until then, I'm writing a paper about which I'm actually quite excited. It has to do with Mansfield Park and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I won't bore you with details...but I'm enjoying my research. I'd better be--I spent something like eight hours straight yesterday in the library. And as soon as I click "Publish Post" I'm going to do some more work. Sigh.