We're all mad here.

[Eva Cassidy - "Songbird"]

Everyone is going CRAZY working on their long essays. Here's the basic assignment: approximately 4000 words on a topic of your selection. Not too bad, right? It really isn't, but what with the trying to pack, clean the house, getting hostels and plane tickets and bus passes, eating, maybe sleeping -- and, most of all, trying to spend as much time together as we can before we NEVER SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN.....Well, all that is making 4000 words stretch out like the Neverending Story.

The coffee I'm drinking right now (which I stole from Christine's cupboard) tastes kind of like a combo of coffee, black licorice, and burnt wood. Ugh. I guess that's what you get for stealing people's things.

(Daniel just gave me a piece of beef jerky! That goes with the burnt wood taste of my coffee.)

My long essay topic (which I wrote for myself and got approved by the Oxfordian powers that be -- ie, the head of my program):

In his essay "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to be Said" C. S. Lewis claims that through fairy stories, truth can be "smuggled" into the imagination and "for the first time appear in its real potency." Is myth appropriate in children's literature as a means to approaching truth and why?

Is that not the most fantastically interesting paper topic you have ever heard of in your life? I'm pretty excited about it -- so excited, in fact, that I think I'm going to recycle it and build on it for my SIP (Senior Integration Paper -- ie, senior thesis).

In other news, last weekend, I found my favorite pub: The Perch. It's set right in the middle of Port Meadow, nestled in a cluster of thatch-roofed houses and it has fairy-lighted gardens in the back. It is magical. Other notable pubs in Oxford.

-The Bear, the oldest pub in the city. It's oooolllllld, with really low ceilings (Nick and Sam B-T don't really fit in it) and a wobbly floor. In the cramped back room, the walls and ceiling are covered with the stubs of people's ties. Kind of like those restaurants where people pin a dollar bill to the walls.

-The Turf Tavern: probably the most famous pub in Oxford. It's really hard to find -- the only way to get to it is down an extremely narrow, dark, winding alley near the Bodleian. This is the pub where Bill Clinton didn't inhale when he was here as a Rhodes Scholar. Pretty much everyone famous who has lived in/been to Oxford has visited the Turf.

-The Eagle and Child. Duh. The Inklings met here. However, a less well-known fact is that, when the ownership of the Eagle and Child changed, these old guys decided they didn't like it anymore, so they moved across the street to:

-The Lamb and Flag. Cozy. Fireplace. No tacky music. Awesome.

-Bookbinders. They have board games in one of the back rooms.

We're all going to miss the "pub culture" over here in Britain. There's not really an equivalent to it in America. (I mean, seriously, can you imagine after church on Sunday night, a big old group of people - all ages - "Let's go grab a drink at the bar!!" Just doesn't work like it does here.) Sure, you go there to get some good drinks, but mostly you just go as a place to hang out, talk, chill, be cozy and loud with your friends. It's more down-in-the-earth than a coffee shop and much more family-friendly than a bar. What fun to grab a group of friends and walk a couple blocks down to the Rose and Crown for fish and chips or just sitting around.

When I finish this paper, I will officially be finished with my term at Oxford (and my junior year!). It was one of the best experiences of my life.