thoughts from where i am now

Somewhat coincidentally, I learned yesterday (4th of July) that I had passed my exams and was free of the Brits. They still haven’t posted our results, but when we met our supervisor for dinner last night she congratulated us and opened a bottle of champagne. Given that it was pretty obvious she just went ahead and told us our results.

Now I’m just hoping my college will get the results in time for everything to get sorted for graduation in two weeks.

http://www.break.com/index/america-rules-england-sucks.html

Either I passed all my exams or my supervisor really hates me.

I received an email from her in reference to a dinner her supervisees are having with her the day after we receive our exam results that said “(and I believe there may be something to celebrate)…”

Given that I don’t think she hates me, I think I passed. Or she’s giving me millions of dollars, which would also be something worthy of celebration. Actually, I think i’d rather have the millions of dollars because I can always resit exams, but you don’t always get millions of dollars handed to you.

If I write a horrible blog post tomorrow all about how much life sucks, then I obviously misread my supervisor’s hint and she is neither given me millions of dollars nor did I pass. Maybe I’ll be celebrating the fact that I get to come back in September to resit an exam.

I sat and watched the Oxford vs. Cambridge cricket match today in the University parks and it was well nice. We finally had a full day of good weather (although a storm is coming around 10pm), and i’ve got the beginnings of a sunburn. I also wore sandals all day and i’m definitely looking forward to being back in California if for nothing else but the fact you can wear sandals almost all the time.

I’ve started re-learning french and coming at it after two years of Arabic makes me appreciate the Romantic languages. Because I only really need it for reading purposes the hardest part will be building up the vocabulary again. Bleh.

I’ve registered for classes at UCLA and i’ll be taking The Study of Religion, Persian, and Abrahamic Faiths. I’m not sure if another class is feasible, but if I’m allowed, i’ll probably add an Arabic course just to keep it fresh.

After rush-cleaning the house because a prospective tenant was coming for a viewing, we realized quite a bit last night how amazing the house we are living in is. We’ve done a pretty darn good job furnishing it, the ivy in the back is taking over and really looks nice, our new table in the garden is great for enjoying the occasional warmth, and we live in a great part of town close to the city centre.

I don’t want to leave.

Before I begin, let me first say that I have been a tourist, am related to people who have been tourists, and will be a tourist again quite soon.

All that said, Oxford at this time of year is quite an interesting place. Tourists from every corner of the globe descend on the town, hoping to catch a glimpse of a student in academic dress, the inklings, or harry potter. They often leave disappointed though, because almost all the students have left, Harry Potter isn’t real, and the Inklings are dead. Oxford: what a buzzkill.

What strikes me as funny though is that tourists need, and i mean NEED, snacks. Many a time have I walked by a tourist who has some sort of pouch devoted exclusively to snacks, reaching in, grabbing a handful (snacks generally coming in the handful variety) and munching away. They offer them to their large group of fellow tourists and trade them like baseball cards or stocks (trail mix with M&M’s monopolizing the market while the carrot and celery stick man only shifts his product by equal amounts of pity and health consciousness).

What is it about being a tourist though, that makes one need snacks? While I haven’t done a survey yet, I imagine that if I were to ask all these tourists with their pouches of snacks, only a small few would say they also carry around a pouch of snacks while not on vacation. Why? Because obviously vacations and touristy endeavors like riding on a tourbus and walking to dinner takes a lot out of an individual and snacks are a way of coping with the extra strain. That, or we think we can get away with wearing a sidepouch full of snacks because people expect tourists to look like idiots and do idiotic things.

When my parents and sister come to visit, and we visit france and italy, i for sure plan on looking like an idiot with snacks in my backpack.

Now that i’m done with exams, my life has been a bit less hectic. I’ve read some books, cleaned up the house and my room as it had gotten to quite a state during the last week before exams, and gone on some bike rides.

I killed a pretty big spider that was crawling on the wall right next to bed. I really hate spiders because they’re sneaky, and they bite, and you really only find out once it starts to swell. I would be ok in a world without spiders. or snakes. No, i’m not a girl. I just don’t like small creepy things that have the potential to kill me unawares.

When I went to bed last night it was still light out. While it was somewhat early 10:15ish pm, it wasn’t early enough for the sky to still be light. I feel like i’m living in Alaska, only without the snow or bears. I’m crossing my fingers for the northern lights.

I went on a bike ride today up into summertown, took a wrong turn and ended up on a bypass road (highway). What was supposed to be a morning bikeride to get some exercise in for the day ended up being a tour of Oxford’s outskirts until i figured out how to get home.

I had to print off a page from my loan providers so i can defer my loans for the summer and the printer in my department wasn’t working. I decided to try out the local internet cafe’s and realized that no matter which country you go to, if you’re looking for dodgy eastern european men who apply thick amounts of grease to their hair and smell strongly of cheap cologne barely masking their aversion to bathing, find an internet cafe.

I think i’m going to start looking into setting up my plan for my phd tomorrow, go into the library while it’s still available and start reading what I need to and finding manuscripts that I will need to translate. Should be a good time and give me something to do while I wait for my exam results.

I bought a table for the garden recently because during summer one is supposed to be able to sit in one’s garden, drinking pimm’s and reading one’s way through the Richard and Judy book club list (like Oprah’s, but British). Unfortunately, there has only been one or two days of sunshine since that time, and it’s still been slightly cold. I’m almost beginning to understand why the Brits think California weather is great, and then I’m reminded that it’s 112 degrees at home and i think to myself, “self, a cold, rainy summer in England is better than a painfully hot summer in Southern California.”

I’m sure there’s more to say, but i’ve got to save something for future posts.

Part of the reason i’ve been avoiding blogging lately is that my life has been consumed by the library and prep for exams. I had five total this week, each three hours, and they were crammed into 3 days. I finished off one and a half pens in writing and have a fancy new callous on my right ring finger. Although, as the fingers started to cramp and the blister was turning into a callous i attempted various unorthodox pen-holding positions that certainly didn’t help my already poor penmanship.

Unfortunately, the two last exams we were flying somewhat blind in that we weren’t completely sure what they would be about. I’m not going to say I did great on those ones, and if i pass, i’ll be happy. The first three exams went really well, and i’ve got a good thesis, but i’ll have to wait and see how things went down overall.

I’ve taken the last two days off from everything really and caught up on some neglected sleep. If anyone has any book recommendations, i’ve got lots of free time now that i’l be devoting to that. I might even see a movie at some point. I also plan on biking along the canal walk and spending lots of time in coffee shops. I might take a bus and see some places too. Look forward to more regular blogging.

The heading just about says it all.

These are pictures from my new camera with color film. Not really a fan.

My digital camera broke last week and rather than spend far too much money to replace it with a digital camera, i decided to go old school and get a film camera.

Once i get back to the US I’ll probably try to develop the rolls myself to save money, although that might take a little while to master.

Here are some from my first roll.