a typical friday night

After two full terms at Regent's, I've fallen into the easy familiarity of a Friday-night pattern. First we have pre-formal drinks: we gather in the MCR (the Middle Common Room--blog post on its many joys forthcoming?) and drink wine provided by our sommelier, Chris. We mingle with the other postgraduate and visiting students until it's time to head up for dinner, and then we wander up to Helwys Hall to sit. 

Dinner is a three-course meal, and it's almost always amazing. We're all quite formal in our black-tie garments and our Oxford gowns. Each week, two MCR members sit on High Table--which is where the principal, the tutors, and all of the senior people sit; this is an honour that I've held twice this term--and the free wine flows, well, freely. 

After three courses' worth of food and talk, we all head up in droves to the JCR for cheap beer and some brief relaxation. There, we take lots of photos (though not enough!, as I always lament the next day) and hang around until we get tired, where tired is code for "annoyed with drunk undergraduates."

Often enough--actually, nearly every week--something specific is going on in the JCR. Above-pictured is our hospital-themed bop: some people dressed up, and there were shots of tasty things in test tubes and syringes littering the tables of the JCR.

 Many of us--hideously uninteresting and getting old--leave quite early, but it's still a fun night. And the best thing is, it'll happen again next week! The only downside is that I am quickly running out of pretty dresses, because they've seen me in all of these at least twice...

traditions

Last night I went to my first formal hall. Basically, we all get to wear pretty dresses (and our postgrad gowns, which are extremely dorky-looking but in an endearing sort of way) and eat in the hall together: think Harry Potter. There are all sorts of rules: you can't talk about the paintings on the walls of past heads of the college--and no, I can't tell you why, because I wasn't allowed to ask!--and if you leave the hall for any reason during the meal you have to bow to the head table on both exiting and reentering. Anyway, the food was fantastic, and it was nice to see everyone all dressed up.

As our slightly less classy follow-up to formal hall, Regent's had its first bop of the year! A bop is a themed party with dancing and cheesy music and costumes. Our theme was "alphabet bop": come dressed as something starting with the first letter of your name.


Being lame--and not wanting to spend money--I came as "Colourful" (if you just did a double-take and said to yourself, wait a sec, colourful doesn't start with an H!, then you've missed the memo: I go by my  middle name here).

Many people's costumes were lamer than mine, especially the other postgrads'. However, Celeste's Cruella Deville happened to be fantastic, complete with black-and-white wig and vintage fur stole. Anyway, the bop was super fun, and I suppose constitutes another equally legitimate, albeit more recent, Oxfordian tradition.

Another tradition: rowing! In a fit of doing-things-I-wouldn't-normally-do, I signed up to be on the Regent's crew team with Celeste, Nitya, Charlotte, and Karith. I'm going to be awful--but hopefully, with the exception of Celeste who has rowed before, we all will. We have our first practice today, so I'll keep you posted. Unfortunately, I'm sort of sick right now, so I'll be extra-awful. Hurrah! But I figured, you can't come to Oxford and not try rowing at least once! Even if you're awful...right?

i have an address!

Last night we went out to Fire & Stone, which is a sweet pizza place in city centre (the photo is of me with the lovely Nitya, who is a member of the business school but finds time in her busy schedule to hang out with us Regents folk). F&S organizes the menu in a really cool way--it's by continent, and within continents are cities. Each city is the name of a pizza. I had the Melbourne, which involves sliced brie, roasted butternut squash, roasted red onions and toasted pumpkin seeds on top. Pretty much best pizza ever, and it was a LOT of food. And only four pounds. Yay Rowena and her coupons!

Oh, but the real subject of this post: my address. You should all send me letters and food and sweaters:

Room 327
25 Wellington Square
Oxford OX1 2JH
United Kingdom


Yes? Yes. Do it.

sincerest apologies: rambling meditation in place of photos

So, I've left my handy photo-uploader-doohickey (strangely, Chrome's spell-check recognises "doohickey" but not "uploader") in the luggage that I checked at the hostel, so unfortunately I seem to be unable to upload photos for a few days, unless I go down and get it. Which is a major hassle.

A pity, because I have a good photo of the group of us at the Eagle and Child. Ah well. Will upload in a few days! I promise! At any rate, the E&C was fun, and it was nice to talk to people from all over the world.

This next bit seems obvious, and I suppose this is the case at every university, but I've never felt it so strongly as here: it's just simply fascinating to hear people talk about what they love. No matter how boring I think economics is or how much I dislike philosophy (if you're reading this Mark, Brian or Sungwoo, sorry but it's true), I could listen to people who really and truly love those things talk about them all night long, because the honest and sincere love of something transforms it in every case.

Like I said, I've noticed this at Mercer. I could listen to Cameron talk about engineering or Corey about mathematics or Leeanne about photography or Abby about music no matter how little I know (or, in some cases, care) about such things. I think that most of y'all would be at least moderately interested in feminism and poetry when it comes from me, since it's clearly a realm of sincere interest. But that impulse, that magnetic attraction to any academic subject when a fellow conversationalist is head-over-heels in love with it, has never felt so strong as here, where people are just really good at what they study.

Oh bother. I'm getting all pretentious and snooty already, and I haven't been here a week. As Olga would say (there now, I've mentioned all four of you by name!), it's time for a good dose of pop-culture whoredom. Good thing there's a new Glee tomorrow, eh?

a few golden english days

Corbin and I are certainly doing our best to get our four days' worth. We have walked all over this city multiple times, eating at fun places and visiting pretty things. Every day in this adorable B&B starts with our home-cooked full English breakfast, consisting of toast, bacon, fried sausage, an egg, beans/mushrooms, and of course a nice hot cup of tea.

Today we had the advantage of a particularly beautiful day--yesterday was quite cloudy--and we walked for awhile along the Thames before heading into town. The absolutely beautiful Christchurch (you know--the Harry Potter Great Hall?) has particularly fantastic gardens, so we took our Sainsbury's purchased Kinder Surprise eggs and our cameras there to relax.

To the right are the products of our Kinder Surprise fun: I got the Donkey from Shrek, which I put together, and Corbin got a rather complicated little sailboat. Naturally, Donkey had to take a trip around the meadows! We plan on playing with the sailboat in the bathroom sink in a bit.

Come tea time, we headed to Cafe Loco for a traditional cream tea, which consists of--along with tea, obviously--some delicious scones with real clotted cream and strawberry jam. We gobbled them up and then sipped tea for awhile before heading back to the bed-and-breakfast, which is where we are now--resting our poor tired feet, browsing the Internet, and in some of our cases, updating a blog and researching the best pay-as-you-go phone plans. I'm currently leaning towards T-mobile, if you were concerned.

Anyway, it's probably nearing dinnertime, and we should start thinking about where we want to eat/drink/be merry. We have one more day together before Corbin has to leave, and by George, we're going to do some awesome stuff!