weather

For weeks, I had very little in terms of a life. I've spent virtually all of my time in the library writing, sans rowing and friends and adventures and anything that would be worth writing about (and dangit, I can end my sentences in prepositions if I want). My Mansfield Park paper got to make its merry way to the Exam Schools on the 16th for its due date, and since then I have lost zombie status. The side effect of all of this writing is that I have absolutely not felt like writing when I didn't have to: hence, the recent dearth of blog posts.

Recent news: snow.

It snowed perhaps 8 inches one day--which is just as astonishingly much in Oxford as it would be in Atlanta, really--and the country essentially shut down. English people have a curious and unique relationship to weather: on the grand scheme of worldwide weather, England occupies a niche whose greatest variance "mostly cloudy with light rain" to "somewhat sunny with occasional sprinkling". The weather here is profoundly uninteresting, and Englanders have the benefits of not knowing natural disasters or heavy rain or extreme heat or cold. This does not, of course, stop them talking about the weather; in fact, they talk about the weather all the more, as if to prove to the world that it is in fact interesting. People walk around all day, cheerfully remarking, "horrible weather, innit?" to anyone they pass. The weather isn't that horrible--it's cloudy, yes, but it is barely sprinkling and one does not even need an umbrella--but I guess it's England-horrible, and Britons are cognizant enough of their mild weather to be cheerful about it. 

Since I didn't have anywhere to be, however, I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Sophie and I had an entire day devoted solely to the snow, in which we got soaked and freezing but didn't care. Snow all over us, gamboling and prancing like five-year-olds, we took photos all over town until sunset and even after. 

Fortunately, the snow did not affect my family's flight--though lots of people here were stranded for quite a few days, unable to get flights out of Gatwick and Heathrow. I know, I know: it doesn't seem like that much snow to necessitate the absolute closure of two gigantic airports. But give them a break...they don't know what horrible weather means, after all. 

productive. as usual.

So, you might ask (or maybe you don't; that's fine). What does an Oxford postgraduate student really do?


You conjure in your mind images of stacks of books reaching floor-to-ceiling, nineteenth-century manuscripts strewn with their accompanying magnifying glasses upon my desk, the passage of time marked only by a furious clicking of computer keys in desperate attempt to reach the word limit in the time limit. Snow swirls outside. A light steam rises from my cup of tea.

That stuff happens sometimes. But here's what I'm doing right now:

Books: check, but closed.
Doctor Who mug: check. Skim milk.
Galaxy chocolate: check. Delicious.
Flash game with explody things: check.

yes I take classes in handwriting

Our handwriting exam was today. Before you ask if I'm a second-grader--it's a class in other people's handwriting. For example, Gerard Manley Hopkins is killin' me:

Though he actually has quite modern writing, so it's not as bad as some. But Hopkins does these weird symbols on occasion...


Our exam consisted of reproducing a Charles Lamb sonnet, and not a good one. The only tricky bit was reproducing the part that Lamb had crossed out and written over, since he didn't cross it out with a nice easy line, preferring instead a series of X's. Oh, and he uses silly words like "Sabbathless" and "turmoiling" and "worky-day". Like I said: not that good.

But I love love love handwriting class and I'm quite sad that it's over. Our professor, Clive, is great...and I will miss him. Sigh. I think I did quite well on my exam, though. Clive looked over it for a moment or two and told me it looked perfect, which would definitely be a first. Especially with silly Charles Lamb not ever crossing his T's. I feel like they can't be properly called T's if they're not crossed.

Anyway, did you know that when people ran out of space in writing letters, they would turn the letter 90 degrees and continue writing the other way? Their letters cross each other and it looks really bizarre. Every time we start a piece of work in handwriting class, I think to myself, oh gosh this is hard. But after a couple of hard-earned sentences, it all starts to flow a bit more. The purpose of all of this, of course, is to prepare us for working with manuscripts in our fields. Not that I feel prepared to do anything of the sort.

Speaking of "extremely awesome classes that I'm taking", we're finishing printing tomorrow--I'll keep you posted.

Apologies for poor photos: the light in my room isn't very good.

OH AND IT SNOWED TODAY. Not as much as in London though.