I Capture the Castle.

It's a Wonderful Life

2011-08-16T02:09:00.011+01:00

I have a little house. It is kind of a box. It has six rooms with a kitchen and bathroom attached. The floor in the front rooms slants away from the floor in the back rooms. When I sit with my back against the couch, my legs go downhill. I think the house was once filled with water and faced with the problem of how to drain itself. The walls are all unsure about which way they are supposed to tilt, so they do as they choose and try not to match the angle of their windows too closely.

Three girls live in this house with me. And, together, we have undertaken to make this house a home.

I am Mary Bailey in my mind. I can hear the deep celestial voice narrating my life, and see her athletically wallpapering as I brush paint onto my own walls. It fits, since she is my inspiration for everything.

I think I may have reached a manic state of homemaking. Every morning, I brief the cadets (ie, Hutton and Oatis, my roommates) on the day's activities.

"Did you see the grass outside?! The Round Up worked! Today we are planting the garden! And we need to finish painting and buy mulch and get curtain rods and light bulbs! and oh I almost forgot! the kitchen smells funny so we need candles! and can we get some furniture for the dining room because I hate it right now! and we need to do the dishes also and clean out our windows and do we have a hammer?!?"

Of course, only one or two items from the morning's list actually get accomplished by evening. But each day, a bright change is felt and seen. My room painted. A curtain up with twinkle lights. The windows cleaned outside the kitchen. Wall hangings going up. Blankets appearing. A piece of furniture rearranged. Added. Each change is a beacon raised for beauty, a buffer against chaos and dirt and darkness and, of course, ants.

As any good thing, it takes time and I want to jump ahead of myself. But as the time slowly creeps along, the house not only transforms visibly, but begins to take on that unmistakable, though invisible, mark. THIS IS THE WORK OF MY HANDS, it says.

This is my 320 Sycamore.

I did NOT take this picture crooked.
Yes, the door is THAT crooked.

2011-07-26T22:05:00.067+01:00

Today I decided it would be a great day to get a tan. If I had made a For and Against list to "Getting a Tan," it would've looked like this:

Yes, these are the conditions
in which I decided to get a tan.

For:

-I am not tan.

Against:

-"Extreme Drought Conditions"

-"Heat Advisory"

-99 Degrees Fahrenheit
-Humidity: 50%

Foolishly, I did not make this list.

Instead, I made today's decision much like I make most of life's important decisions: I judged by my feelings on the matter.

I stepped outside the back door to "test the temperature." Though I admit I was at first unable to breathe, my ultimate conclusion was that it didn't feel as hot as yesterday. True: yesterday was 105 degrees. "It's cooler than 105 degrees" is like saying "She's prettier than Alice Cooper." No shit.

But I didn't think about that. I just took one look at my fading tan lines and thought how fun it would be to get some sun. I got my bathing suit, towel, and Communion with the Triune God.

(Yeah, that's right. Reading John Owen while tanning takes the edge off first-world guilt. Though at the time I just grabbed it because it's what I'm reading.)

Guys, it was so hot I legitimately thought my nail polish was melting. But I got a nice base.

In the meantime, I also discovered a new casualty to drought conditions: Playing in the hose. Like this. No more of that if you care at all about your greater farming community. This realization, punctuated by a moaning cow over the fence, marked the low moment of my day.

I eventually trooped back inside. I say "trooped" because I felt like a Calvin and Hobbes strip. You know, the one where he's complaining about being bored, so his mom sends him outside and he begins screaming about heat stroke or something. It took me about an hour to return to room temperature.

Lesson for all you kids out there: Being bored does not mean it's a good idea to ignore all parental and governmental warnings and think you can just go outside when the whole world is under a heat advisory.

I wish I were a writer.

2011-07-20T04:20:00.005+01:00

I just discovered one of those old drafts of blog posts that, in writer's block or creative despair, are consigned by their authors to lie forever dormant and dusty in a draft folder in a private account in a gigantic impersonal blogging site. The kind of draft that gets tapped out in straggling enthusiasm only to be left with a huff of tears and a "I'll never be good at this, why do I try??!!"

This particular draft only had two words.

"Ugh, writing."

Writing is like dredging up from the closet the skeletal structure that you suspect could be all of yourself and holding it up to the light of day. It looks different every time - sometimes gruesome, sometimes almost pleasant, humanlike - but your fear each time you stare at the closet door, wondering if you should unearth the monster within, is not at all, "I wonder what it will look like? I hope it will be one of the good times!" (Of course, that's definitely a concern that might flit across the "Less Important" list in your mind. The one that's okay with fooling people.) But no. Your fear is to see again the hollow spaces between the ribs, between the chest cage and spine, inside the gaping mouth. My fear, as a wanna-be writer, pulling the writing out of myself, is that it will prove to be empty, a grinning specter, posing as a human being and only more grotesque in its likeness.

I mean, come on, I'm using skeletons as a metaphor for writing. How tepid is that? Gross, gross, gross. It's a good thing I don't take anything seriously.

"Being a writer" is such a fad.

Ugh, writing.

How to Be Good at Being Grown Up: Ep. 2

2011-07-19T20:20:00.004+01:00

Yesterday an insurance salesman came to our house. Because I am a recent college grad and despite my vigorous attempts to insist that I understand finances, Mom said, "It would be a good idea for you to sit at the table with us and try to learn something."

(I also had to clean my bathroom.)

So, at about 2:15 exactly, in strides our insurance salesman, young, grinning -- sporting his class ring, well-coiffed, highlighted hair, and the boyish look of a high-school football champ. (He also turned out to be a jovial family guy who actually encouraged us to do what was best for us financially. A+, sir.) He dialogued comfortably with my parents, cracked jokes, apparently made lots of sense to them, and left us with generally happy feelings.

But the table-talk was an enormous personal disaster for Yours Truly.

Look. I've taken economics classes. I got A's in math. I graduated with a killer GPA and I understood Inception after only one viewing. But apart from a couple grade-school analogies that Mr. Insurance threw out for me in desperation, I understood about zero percent of what was said around that table that day. If you are a recent college grad, this may happen to you one day, too. And you, like me, will probably feel like this.

So, recent college grad, I've collected some ideas for what to do when the dreadful day of life insurance-purchasing comes. Fear not, here are eight failsafe ways of preventing yourself from looking like a complete dingo. You may learn nothing about life insurance, but you will look intelligent and that's all that matters in the real world.

1. Make cookies. This only works if you are a girl. But if you have cookies and lemonade prepared (and a pleasing presentation), most people won't notice much of anything.

2. Smile a lot with eye contact. It makes you seem charming which makes you seem engaged which makes you seem smart. This also may work better if you're a girl.

3. Nod regularly.

4. Ask lots of really generic questions that don't really apply but make you seem engaged, like, "So if I died tomorrow . . . . [significant trail off] . . . ?"

5. Write stuff down. A short year of journalism has taught me the invaluable lesson that if you have a notebook and are scribbling frantically in it, people think you know what you're doing. And they are intimidated. (Good.) Feel free to simply doodle whimsically across the page. Just guard and hide it carefully like it's your family's financial statement or something. (Do people hide those? Whatever.) Combine this with #4 for maximum effect, as follows: "Right, so could you explain the ROTH IRA one more time? I'm definitely interested in pursuing that and I want to write it down."

6. Use words like "pursuing," "researched," "funds," "analysis," "crunch," "numbers," etc.

7. Mention your accountant friends if you have any. Example: "Yesterday I was having wine with an accountant friend of mine and he said...." (At this point, you should be thinking about getting one.)

8. Above all never, never, never, never, never ever let on that you are as clueless as you are. God forbid they think they have something to teach you.

As I did NOT follow any of these tips very faithfully and as my parents RATTED ME OUT ("Oh, Hannah's going to just sit here because she wants to learn how all this works!"), I was forced to learn about life insurance. I also learned, through a deft word-picture by Mr. Life Insurance, the difference between stocks and mutual funds. A stock is like one broken pencil. Mutual funds are like one broken pencil in the middle of a bundle of unbroken pencils. Life-enriching stuff there.

Till next time.

Beauty Hurts

2011-06-27T04:10:00.000+01:00

My twin sister got married last weekend. What was it like? I wish you could have seen her: all the curly-haired playfulness of the toddler I toppled out of wagons with; all the early morning brown-eyed wonder of the young girl I thought I could protect from all worldliness; all the full body of a woman grown beyond me in love and wisdom; all the pristine white glory of a bride in her Bridegroom's cathedral.

The glorious affair was so rich, exhausting, beautiful, shocking, altering, that I don't have many more words for it apart from hours upon hours of stories that will be slowly unwound at family get-togethers for the rest of our lives. And everything else about it is hidden in my heart because it has washed over me and surpassed me. I can't talk about how it feels to see your beloved sister walk down the aisle.

She's beautiful.

Providing Food for the Family, or How to Grill Burgers

2011-06-07T01:25:00.007+01:00

So, since I'm a grown-up out of college now, a big part of my life is figuring out exactly how to BE a grown-up. What better way to document the learning process than blog it, right?? SO, here is the first installment of "How to Be Good at Being Grown Up." This episode of "Providing Food for the Family" involves: "How to Grill Hamburgers." Enjoy my wisdom gleaned from my first experience grilling. Your very own How-To Kit.

Step 1 – Cut up any vegetables you want on the burgers: onions, tomatoes, peppers, etc. Prepare all that extra stuff so that when the patties are done, you can eat them right off the grill. Otherwise your patties will be cold when you eat them and you'll hate yourself.

Step 2 – Empty the grill. Take the rack off and dump the old coals and ashes out. Feel free to scatter them joyously across the back of the yard and imagine volcanoes as the ash engulfs your face.

Step 3 – Fill the grill with new coals. In my case, you may discover that you don’t even have enough coals left in the bag to fill the bottom of the grill. In which case you should call your dad and ask him where the new bag of coals is. When he tells you there isn’t one, you will then proceed to collect all of the used coals that are now scattered across the back of your lawn and pile them back into the grill. This may take some time.

Step 4 - Pile coals into a mountain. Make sure there’s one layer across the whole bottom and then the rest form a pyramid. If you are a perfectionist, this may also take some time.

Step 5 – Soak the bujeezus out of the coals with lighter fluid.

Step 6 – Set them on fire. The coals will ignite quickly and you will want to make sure your face is well out of the way.

Step 7 – While the coals are getting nicely hot and whitened on the edges, go inside to prepare the meat. Break the ground beef up in a platter and pour the marinade all over it. Work the marinade in with your hands. You want the meat to be a nice brownish color when you’re done. I use Dale’s seasoning and it’s magical, I swear. Also good and easily available: onions, garlic, salt and pepper.

(Note: If you happen to have forgotten to remove the meat from the fridge in advance of Step 1, it may be cold enough to numb your entire arm while you rub the seasoning in. In this case, my best advice is to suck it up and be the man or woman that you are. You’re grilling here, not watering daisies.)

Step 8 - Roll the meat into tennis-ball-sized balls and flatten them into patties. Layer them on a second platter.

(Note: Your mom may tell you to roll the meat into golf-ball-sized balls. What she means is tennis ball. That golf-ball-sized patty will – trust me – shrink into an oblivion of grease and ashes.)

Step 9 – Go back outside with your platter of patties. Spread the coals out with your grill tongs, flat enough to fit the rack back on top. At this point, it’s probably a good idea to scrape and brush the rack so all the nasty goop on it gets incinerated into relative sanitation. (All the goop, that is, that ISN'T on your hands and arms and possibly your face.)

Step 10 – Place patties on rack. Give them about five minutes to a side. (IE – Five minutes on one side, then flip. Five minutes on the other side, then done).

Step 11 – Serve on buns with whatever toppings you please.

Insider tips for maximum effect:

-Play “Pet Sounds” while grilling.

-If you are a girl, which I am, wear a pretty apron. It will make you feel 1950s - but not subordinated, because you’re grilling.

-If the beef cows in your backyard come up to the fence during grilling, DO NOT LOOK INTO THEIR EYES.

Overheard in the Classroom, Episode 2

2011-05-31T01:41:00.000+01:00

"Come on, electrons, come on!" -A reporter encourages his computer charger

"I'm teaching young character assassins." -Dr. Roy Atwood reflects on training journalists

"Oh I'm assuming I'm gonna get a very breezy draft." -Dr. Atwood announces his expectations for our first draft which is deadlining in an hour

"I mean, this is like trying to kill a mouse and taking a sledgehammer to everything!" -Dr. Atwood weighs in on the education debate

"The short version is I don't know what I want to do and the long version is that my parents have a vineyard, and I know that in ten years I will have to take care of the vineyard with my husband who will be toiling in the vineyard." -Rosella, my roommate

I am REPORTER.

2011-05-24T05:08:00.003+01:00

I made a conglomeration of bloopers for you! (I feel like that should be followed with "Happy Birthday!") Take it, cherish it.

(The actual finished product is here. It's not nearly as good as this one, though. I mean, OBVIOUSLY. Work of genius, this.)

My Apartment

2011-05-22T00:48:00.002+01:00

We moved into the apartments of The King's College on Wednesday (at least I think it was Wednesday but all the days are running together into years). Now, I know "the Wolcott Hotel" probably sounded ritzy and great and, judging from the lobby, I thought it would be, too. And it was pretty great except that I think it was built for humans when they were the size of the Borrowers. Or Stuart Little. All I'm saying is I probably could've brushed my teeth over the sink while sitting on the toilet. Not that I would but I could, you understand.

Needless to say, spacious apartments are nice. This is my favorite part about it, though:

My spot in the window.

My view from the window.

Making a Video

2011-05-21T15:23:00.001+01:00

Today we're putting together the video component of our stories. I forgot everything I knew about wide shot, mid shot, close up, pan.

WHAT AM I GONNA DO.

Overheard in the [class]room

2011-05-21T04:22:00.000+01:00

(It's like "Overheard in the Newsroom" only it's not exactly a newsroom.)

"Does this recording sound like rain or a machine gun?"

"This dude's name is Chase Lawless."

Reporter: "Do you mind if I clip the mic to your lapel?" Source: "You can do anything to me, baby."

"I am an expert sound splicer, thank you very much."

"God is a provider of donuts!"

"Instead of getting the interview, I just spazzed out!"

Using the Subway

2011-05-19T17:50:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I got lost in the Subway. Actually, to my credit, I didn't get lost. I just I had no idea where I was going. However, due to my excellent direction-following skills and ability to theorize about maps without the help of one, I made it safely to my destination and back without taking one extraneous subway trip.

Now that I've gotten all my self-congratulation out of the way, let me explain the real problem: Figuring out which stop you want and where the nearest subway station is to any given point. However people do it - and I assume they do - remains a heavily veiled mystery to me. WHO KNOWS? Nobody.

I got on the A-C-E blue line and realized I had no idea which of the zillion available stops and connections would land me closest to my target: Great Jones Street. Instead of consulting a map (because - surprise! - there ARE no maps once you cross the entrance meters and descend into the bowels of the city), I tried to remember what Manhattan had looked like on google maps when I looked it up three hours before. I remembered 4th Street and it being somewhere around Broadway Ave. Lucky for me (/sarcasm), the stop was only called "4th Street," giving zero clues as to how far east or west from Broadway it settled.

So I got off the subway on W 4th St. and ended up having to walk ten blocks in the direction of what I thought might be my target (after pleading with an amused shop-owner, "Can you PLEASE tell me where Broadway Avenue is?"). With only the vaguest suspicion that I might be in the right neighborhood, I literally stumbled upon my destination twenty minutes later. Luck? An instance of brilliant personal resource? Obviously both.

The place is Great Jones Cafe and my story will be posted on my OTHER blog soon. It's your basic run-of-the-mill restaurant feature, but it's been really fun to shoot and the people are priceless.

I'm planning on having dinner there tonight. Lesson taken to heart: I will plan EXACTLY how to get there BEFORE departure this time.

Second Night in Manhattan

2011-05-17T22:25:00.032+01:00

I’m sitting on a hotel bed in the Wolcott Hotel smack in the center of midtown Manhattan. I’m wearing leggings and a giant sweater and eating veggie chips and vanilla oreos. (I am healthy college student.) Got out of the basement classroom of the Empire State Building about fifteen minutes ago. It’s 10:10 pm. These things all add up to only one conclusion: I just had a 14-hour day: I am exhausted. (So exhausted, in fact, that I’m acting like a five-year-old, according to Lindsay Burkholder. But really I was just sucking orange juice off my fingers when she said that.)

Here are some things I learned today:

-Journalism requires endless energy and incredibly thick skin. But will reward you with travel perks, interesting people, fairly unremitting adventure, and only slight commitment issues. If you make it. Mantra: No guts, no glory.

-How to do video reporting. WATCH OUT, HOLLYWOOD. (Just kidding. I’m super rubbish at it right now.) This morning at 9:00, after an 8:30 brief, we heard from Russ Pulliam of the Indianapolis Star. He's a big-hitter in news-writing but he also spends time teaching homeschool kids how to write. He's one of the gentlest souls I've ever met. Then Paul Glader, recently with the Washington Post, whizbanged through here like a bolt of unbelievably-successful-young-journalist enthusiasm and told us how to do the whole "being good at this and getting jobs" thing. Clayton Sizemore, from CNN, spent the afternoon teaching us how to make a video story. He sent us out to the surrounding neighborhood (midtown Manhattan) to "find and shoot a story," with some guiding principles such as: wide shot, mid shot, close-up, pan. We got back at 5:30, started writing the narration, recorded the narration, and then put the whole thing together to create a video story of no more than two minutes length by 8:00. Then we watched them all until 10:00. WHEW!!

-The NY Public Library is serving ice-cream at 1:00 pm tomorrow.

-The NY Public Library is full of friendly staff.

-The NY Public Library is also full of obnoxious tourists. Of which I am one. Here’s my theory about tourism. You have to embrace the fact that you’re a tourist for the first week – take pictures, ask millions of questions, look a little lost when you meet a nice person so that they want to help you “get to know the city” – and then, after a week of this binge-touristing, see if you can’t act like a native.

Well, it's about time for me to start thinking about crashing into my puffy white bed.

The city is full of sounds.

NEW BLOG!!

2011-04-14T01:48:00.000+01:00

That's right, I've got a new blog: Pocketbook.

I have a sneaky suspicion that I mostly made it because I burn out on old stuff and I like making new stuff that I'll be interested in as long as it's new and then burn out and make something else new to be interested in.

But it's also practical, as I explain in my inaugural post. I'm going to be learning and practicing online journalism this summer and one of the most basic aspects of such journalism is having a blog. I got a new address and site for the same reason you changed your email address from sparklyshinygirl16 to something that might not get you unconditionally jeered at till the end of time.

Check it out.

Covenant, Covenant, Covenant

2010-08-08T05:05:00.006+01:00

[Laura Marling - "I Speak Because I Can"]

A week and then I will be at Covenant. A wonderful week at home during which I am anticipating long talks, lots of coffee, drives to Shreveport, movies, etc. Delicious.

And then -- The MOUNTAIN! It's been hovering like a hazy journey's-end all summer. I know I went back for a week after England, but a week is nothing and I am really just ready to get my butt back up there.

I can't wait for:

-My new room. Evaluating, deciding, decorating. Making it rad-awesome, is what I meant.

-Every. single. person.

-Chi Alpha girls. WOAH. Why yes, new party hall on campus, coming right up.

-Jackson Pond.

-Campfires.

-The walking bridge at night with the lights sparkling on the water and the city on both sides and the feeling of summer and freedom and life ahead.

-The river.

-THE YELLOW DELI.

-New things in Chattanooga I have yet to discover.

-Items on my bucket list to be ticked off. (I don't actually have a bucket list yet. I probably won't ever actually make a material one. But . . . hypothetically . . . .)

-O-TEAM! NEW FRESHMEN. I am burning with curiosity.

-Tea breaks. With all them Oxford girls.

-Kate Harrison's house.

-My dearest friends in the world.

-Oh yeah, we take classes at school --- mkay, I'm kinda excited about that, let's be honest. Everyone knows I like school.

-Walking into the Great Hall: the corner-eye glance to strategize where to sit without looking like a friendless fool. The feeling of realizing the PERFECT table of the PERFECT people does, in fact, exist, right there in open view (not behind the freaking pillars -- WHO SITS THERE?? SNEAKY PEOPLE.)

-Yup, even work study. I like the people who work there. :)

-Off-the-wall conversations after midnight.

-Mid-morning naps with Nat.

-Coffee breaks with people at inexplicable times.

-The Psych Commons.

-The oncoming of Autumn. Yeah, I know I'm a loser for already looking forward to it, but YOU CANNOT CRUSH THIS ENTHUSIASM.

-Figuring out how to not stress. (Riiiiiiiiiight.)

-Forcing professors to become my life mentors.

-O-team professor: Huffines. I almost died of happiness.

-Everything about it. How can I be disappointed when it's Covenant? I can't.

All manner of thing shall be well.

2010-07-26T23:51:00.009+01:00

Why must it be that there are so many thoughts but so little skill to express them?

If one thing has defined my summer (other than heat, youth, fun, BR, etc.), it has been the swirling mass of thought processing that has been almost constant inside my head. Sure, my head is almost always like that, but there are times when I'm so occupied with the occupations (yeah, occupied...occupations...) of the outer world that I'm not so hyper-aware of what's happening inside my head. This summer it's like my thoughts have been screaming too loudly to ignore them any more.

Maybe it's because I have a lot to process. That's true. And when I have fewer people to hang out with, I suppose it allows me to talk to myself more. (College is just a barrage of people: who can introspect when surrounded by a couple hundred friends all the time?)

Am I alone in the way that I consistently stop, look, and evaluate my life?

I am holding half an acre / torn from the map of Michigan. / And folded in this scrap of paper / is the land I grew in.

What is it about the past that it walks with you? How and in what way do we allow ourselves to be defined by something that no longer exists? Or maybe never existed in reality? Is it a prison or a door to a path toward freedom if we could only unlock it? A secret garden of nostalgia or Pandora's Box?

Will I always wonder why I ended up here and how I got the way I am? Will I wish it had been different or will I be glad for every experience? Will I learn to let it go in wisdom and time or will I continue to draw wisdom from the past itself holding on and not forgetting? Or is there a middle way?

And what about the people? Can we pass on from them or will they always be a part of us and have a part of us in them? Is God restoring the years that the locusts have eaten in those lives?

Think of every town you've lived in / Every room you lay your head. / And what is it that you remember? / Do you carry every sadness with you, / Every hour your heart was broken, / Every night the fear and darkness / Lay down with you?

How are we so defined by our pasts? Or is it just some of us? I've been talking with a girl in my youth group whose past has been blown open and every ugly, frightening, hurtful part of it is running wild and free wreaking havoc on her life. Ultimately, the fact that it has come to light and she is dealing with it is the path to freedom. But right now it's only scaring the hell out of her and leading to self-destructive habits.

I'm thankful that my past is not such a monster. But at the same time, mine, too, can so often have a death-grip on my present life. I was talking to Jessie about this girl and she gave me wisdom as always:

"Do you think it would help if she realized that this is only a small portion of her life? A small blip in the huge picture of her existence. There is so much hope. Storms never last forever, you just have to have enough courage to continue to sail through them . . . . The devil likes us to think when we're in the troughs that this is what life is made out of. In a couple months your girl will be a new person, by the grace of God."

I told her thanks for the advice about that other girl, I'll take it for myself.

The ultimate reality is God's sovereignty and our relative ability or inability to trust Him with all of what defines us. Sure, everything would be easier if we knew why and what for but then where would be the need for dependence? And without the need for dependence, where would be the relationship - the one thing that makes it all beautiful in the end?

Life is a continual uplift of the eyes, upturn of the hands - a continual cry: "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You." (2 Chron. 20:12) The past is behind us down the long lane covered by trees leading into obscurity, dark and still. My fluttering worries and panicky grasp for control in the dark can be transformed into an exhilarating release.

Of course T. S. Eliot has the beautiful words for everything. :) I read through The Four Quartets and my mind is blown because he asks the same things but with so much more breadth of understanding. "Time past and time future" and the still point that is the dance. For us on earth it's all hints and guesses - we don't know why or what for, but we are a part of the music after all, being led by the great conductor. Sometimes we need to just shut the thinking down for a while and remember dependence. The past is darkness and stillness.

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing."

OVERACTIVE IMAGINATION.

2010-07-18T04:44:00.006+01:00

Collette just dropped me off at home after watching Inception. I was in post-movie daze with the added semi-stupor of Inception's twisted plot. Grandad's car wasn't in the carport. At 11:00 p.m. After staring at the forbodingly empty space in the carport, I had the presence of mind to remember that he went to pick Gran up at the airport. Mind still slightly boggled, I walked courageously into an empty house.

Lights on. TV set on the classical music station. Volume up. Grandad's blanket casually lying on the couch. Things sitting around like people are home. But everything is TOTALLY STILL. Because no one is home. Seriously, my skin started crawling.

I - literally - thought for a moment: "Is this real life??!?"

It's kind of cool what movies can do to you, huh? It is the most deliciously dreadful feeling. It doesn't even have to correspond to the actual facts of the movie: just a feeling.

A song just came on the TV station and I was like "I swear I know this song! I think I've played this song! HOW DO THEY KNOW?!?!?" Paranoia/they're following me/etc. Then I realize: it's Fur Elise.

People seriously need to come home. The movie wasn't even about serial killers.

HOLY ------, the toast just popped.

Guiding Principle Number 2:

2010-07-12T20:05:00.002+01:00

(Sarah drew me a diagram)

Try --> FAIL

etc.

Try --> die.

>>Success.

is NOT being perfect.

is being a glorious imperfection in the Kingdom of God.

2010-07-12T02:09:00.002+01:00

[Diana Panton - "If the Moon Turns Green . . ."]

"Hannah and I have to go to church and let this church group in at ten. They're from .... from .... what's that .... big .... place called? . . . . . . . . San Antonio!"

^^ Sarah's conversation on the phone with Collette as I'm typing. I laughed really hard at her because she sounded dumb, but it's also a pretty good description of our lives. Church, church groups, and having random tasks to do for them at exceptionally random times. Flexibility is the keyword of summer.

Latest update on my flexible summer schedule: According to all original plans, I'm supposed to be on a beach somewhere in Texas right now at YCM's Fun in the Son conference. (Clever title, no?) However! Because we had such a large group in Jamaica, none of the kid's parents wanted to fork out another $500 bucks on another youth trip so soon. (Understandably.) So only two girls signed up. AND plans were rearranged and Hannah is not going. Hence me being online updating my blog.

Probably one of the best turn of events this whole summer.

I'm tired of running around and around and going out of town all the time. Yes, I know that's shocking to people who know me really well and how NOT a home-body I can tend to be, but I'm not a total travel junkie, either, I'm beginning to realize. I was subconsciously dreading having to pack and leave for yet another wonderful-yet-emotionally-draining trip. (Actually the dread was totally conscious I just didn't tell anyone other than myself.) Especially since when I got back from Fun in the Son, I had less than twenty-four hours in Baton Rouge during which I would sleep, repack, teach Sunday School, and then hop on another bus for yet another youth trip. The prospect was daunting to me.

Instead I have a week to recoup, do things that have been neglected because I've been so on the go (like write LETTERS), etc. I am very much relieved and looking forward to more of a down week to process summer and the coming end of it.

Things I shall be thinking about/doing/having fun with this week:

-Barnes and Noble. Sarah's and my favorite place to escape. White mocha, poetry, journal, novel -- presto, a good day.

-Have you ever tried on various personalities? You know, to see which ones fit? Well, I am fascinated by the concept of personalities and I don't really understand the Myers-Briggs thing all that well. SO, I try those on. This week it's INFJ. It's interesting but I don't know . . . .

-Letters.

-A specific crafty project I have under construction. I am hitting some hideously jolting roadbumps as crafty projects DO NOT come naturally to me. But I feel very much like the mom in Elizabethtown, staring down her car's engine, declaring, "You will not defeat me."

-Hanging out with Collette and Sarah, of course. Doing ridiculous things that seem totally normal at the time.

-I'm pretty sure some of the girls in youth group want to have a movie marathon sleepover. After a pool party. Oh yeah.

I miss Covenant.

"Get yourselves sorted out and shut up."

2010-07-04T02:18:00.007+01:00

-Michael Caine, 1969 version of The Italian Job

I was at TCBY tonight and as I waited for the guy behind the counter to finish my chocolate Shiver-ma-jig with Butterfinger swirled in, I found myself perusing some boring calorie chart taped to the plastic divider. My eyes skimmed over it and suddenly locked in on "Less calories then--" and that's as far as I got. I jabbed a finger towards the offending sentence, sputtering, "SARAH, LOOK!!" ::sigh:: It's what we call the curse of the English Major. We should all be consigned to an eternity of proofreading as penance for our insensitivity. I mean, this TCBY chart was as well-meaning as a Salvation Army Santa and all I can think of is "SOMEBODY HAS NO IDEA HOW TO USE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!!!!!"

How often do I meet life in general with criticism? How often do I want things to be different from how they are and endlessly move to make it so? How often do I forget to just throw my hands up at the kinks and bumps (even if sometimes they hurt) and just soak up the joy itself alone. Like in The Darjeeling Limited when Francis and Peter and Jack are stranded in the desert night and Jack says, "Wouldn't it be great if we heard a train go by in the distance?"

Peter: "Not really."

Francis: "It'd probably be annoying."

I can so be like Jack, just waiting for the train to come back, to take me on, instead of waiting and watching and sitting in silence as Clair de Lune plays in the background. (OK, so maybe minus the personal soundtrack.) I rarely realize that the train would be SUPER ANNOYING. Just chill out.

I think what I need right now is a lot more starry night and a lot less train whistle. Because of my job, I can't stop traveling, working, pouring out into people. But I can make time to hold the stillness before me and think.

"One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on." -D.H. Lawrence

I need to get myself sorted out and shut up. :)

So hot we'll melt your popsicle. (Or, Summer in Baton Rouge)

2010-07-01T21:14:00.004+01:00

Baton Rouge is HOT. Like, I'm not just complaining and I'm not just being a wimp. I've been to hot places. And Baton Rouge is one of the freaking worst. The real problem isn't the 100-degree weather, but the fact that you step outside and it feels like you are U N D E R W A T E R. Your lungs desperately attempt to breath air and suddenly you're waterlogged, gulping like a big ol' bullfrog for something other than humidity. Oh! and you're drenched.

However. Baton Rouge also has the most beautiful clouds that I have ever seen. In the late afternoon and evening those puffy masses of condensation are like a panorama of the Old West. And they also bring hurricane amounts of rain which cools things down.

So I'm saying that right now it's only 80 degrees outside and that's a miracle and I'm glad for it. The crepe myrtle buds are drooping and dripping outside the window next to me and even though everything looks soggy, it also looks fresh. (By the way, what's the noun form of soggy? I was trying to figure that out the other day because I said that my cereal had become one big "sog" and then I realized that probably isn't a word at all.)

Sarah and I have a new pastime while we're driving around Baton Rouge: Calling KLSU (the college radio station in town) with song requests. I mean, we get so excited about this you'd think it was Christmas morning or something. (Maybe I'm exaggerating a little.)

Friends seeing Sleigh Bells tonight: I momentarily feel a lot of resentment about this.

Hurricane season is coming -- rather, it's here. AAAGGGH!!! Only visible signs of it in Baton Rouge thus far: every other house on our street is having major trees cut down. That's the worst. I mean, I know you don't want your house getting all smashed down by a giant oak, but seriously, what is all that money you spend on insurance for anyways?? And now you fork out even more to kill a neighborhood tree that's probably been around a lot longer than you just on the off-chance it'll suddenly decided to kamikaze into your roof. Ugh.

Something I really love about Baton Rouge is that nothing is pronounced the way it is everywhere else in the world. Like, every reasonable pronunciation rule you ever learned -- out the window. Think French. It's not "Richard," it's "Ree-shard."

Summer: joie de vivre.

Looks.

2010-06-30T23:57:00.001+01:00

This new design template thing is kind of awesome. Kind of dumb. Kind of hard to figure out where the top of a post is. But I'm trying it out.

This is happening.

2010-06-30T02:16:00.001+01:00

I am going to the midnight showing of Eclipse tonight.

Even more shocking, I am super pumped.

BAM.

Be Here Now.

2010-06-28T16:52:00.004+01:00

After a brief three-week hiatus or something like that, it's hard to know what to blog about when a lot has happened but I'm not really sure how to describe, explain, or summarize it. I mean, there's always your basic: I went on a mission trip to New Orleans and then went straight to a family vacation in Pensacola (sans oil-spill mess!) and straight from there to a mission trip to Jamaica. Now I'm back. C'est tout.

For some reason, I've been feeling generally distracted all summer. I don't know what it is. Whether it's that I'm always thinking of next week or always thinking about something in the past. Whether it's questioning or just not paying attention or just the way time passes and I've never noticed it so much before. Of course, there's always the obvious explanation that I've been back and forth between a dozen different places (countries, states, cities, continents) over the past month-and-a-half. So maybe I'm just understandably a little discombobulated.

At the same time, all this travel has turned into an exercise of "be here now." Because I've been flung far and wide, I am having to make a focused effort not to think about last week or next week, but only RIGHT NOW.

In Jamaica, I felt more focused than I had all summer. More present in my life, I guess, because I never really knew what time it was and even if I did, it didn't matter because it was Jamaica and time doesn't really exist there. You just experience time as it passes and everything just flows into everything else. "No worries, friend. Soon come, man, soon come."

Now that I'm back, I feel more aware of the things I'm doing. Pouring my morning coffee, painting my nails, all those summery things -- I soaked in the lovely extravagance of them for what feels like the first time. It's wonderful -- sitting in a Barnes & Noble, sipping a white mocha, reading whatever book I want, talking to Collette and Sarah between pages. It's luxuriant, rich, delicious. I'm so thankful for the pleasures of my life, and so thankful that I've seen with my own eyes many times what a rare blessed life I lead. But it's not an insulation.

Here's what I'm thinking about today:

Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears / while we all sup sorrow with the poor. / There's a song that will linger forever in our ears. / Oh, hard times, come again no more.

Do I HAVE to??

2010-05-24T22:03:00.003+01:00

Now that we're in Baton Rouge, with jobs and a car, Sarah and I are apparently going to start living a disciplined life. This involves getting up early every morning (well, like 7:30), working out, running regularly, reading regularly, and --- here it comes, eating healthy. Which, with our summer beach trip only two weeks away, really means eating next to nothing. At least, that's what it seems like to me.

Background: I've never dieted a day in my life -- unless, of course, you count the times I rode the curve of Sarah's sugar-purging frenzies. Those lasted a week at most and were generally just well-intentioned fanaticism. My role in these crazes was typically little more than bemused observation and maybe smaller bowls of ice-cream than usual. I don't even know how to count calories.

But NOW, Collette, Aunt Jill, and Sarah are on a strict regimen of yoghurt and fruit and granola and eggs and I really am pretty sure that's just about it. At my dismayed "But I'll be hungry all the time!!" they stared at me in surprise and said, "Duh." THEN, to top it all off, Collette almost didn't let me eat a bowl of Big O's because "THIS WILL GO STRAIGHT TO WHERE YOU DON'T WANT IT!!!!" I was horrified. My conclusion to all of this is that dieting sucks.

This was all discussed in great detail yesterday, with varying levels of enthusiasm from all parties involved. I'll be honest, despite my misgivings, I can get excited about a new scheme for a new life of health. How bad could it be? Being healthy is fantastic. Resolutions are fun if just to see how long they last. So, the plan was set and had only to be set in motion.

Then, last night, after a day full of healthy and delicious yoghurt and starvingness, Collette, Sarah, and Hannah (third person) drove out to find a movie to watch to celebrate a summer together. When we got to the register to rent the movie, the movie-store guy said, "We have a five for five special and you can get two candies, two drinks, and a popcorn." Five minutes later, we drove off with Cokes, Butterfingers, Nerds, and Extra Butter Popcorn in the back seat.

Oh, summer, I love you with your good intentions and grace to break them from time to time.

[Addendum: I feel I should inform the world, in case it's worried about me -- my ultimate decision about the summer is to eat whatever the heck I want and just exercise regularly, like you should in the summer. :)]

Words for Everything.

2010-05-21T00:42:00.005+01:00

You ever sat down to write (specifically, blog) and just not felt the muse? You know, you've done everything else you can humanly think of to do: read for hours, taken the car to get an oil change, made coffee three times, tea twice, watched two episodes of Scrubs, run around screaming in the Texas downpour, shopped for a new phone, made dinner for the family, made a playlist to clean the kitchen, cleaned the kitchen, tried to avoid checking facebook obsessively, sketched a picture, read everyone else's blogs -- I mean, after all that, what else is there to do but blog?

But the muse just isn't there. All you really can do is sit and suck on your spoon of chocolate ice-cream and wish you had something to say. I've been reading a lot this past week -- Kerouac, Neruda, Dillard, Salinger -- and thinking a lot and a lot has happened (even today), but for some reason it's all mulling itself over in my head but not ready to articulate into words. Which is fine, I guess, it just doesn't help me to entertain myself with writing about it.

Part of it could be that I've been realizing how sometimes the most important things don't have words for them (unless, of course, you're Leo Gursky in The History of Love -- that guy had the words for everything).

Like when, after hours of total agony and lawyers and arguments and sobs and yelling and fears, your child is finally returned to you after two months of tremulous despair -- Well, who can really understand the depth of what happens between a mother and child, separated after eleven days of life, reunited, or a father with his three-month-old son back in his arms? I sure don't. When Mom and I were lying, exhausted, on the couches in our living room after Tuesday's court ordeal, all I could say was: "Mom, I don't think I will ever fully understand what the heck just happened. Like there is seriously no way I will ever get how profound that all was." I know only that it was surpassingly meaningful.

Reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard has a lot of words for things, but they are all hints and suggestions that really say, "GET OUT TO YOUR OWN CREEK AND BE SILENT AND WATCH!!!"

I get stir crazy in small towns and long for, say, the Big Apple where ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE right now. But I think we need these small-town moments to force reflection on our overcharged minds. Or I do. Probably not having words all the time is a really good thing. For me. :)

Little Bambino

2010-05-18T17:41:00.002+01:00

Today is the scheduled hearing for our foster baby, to decide whether or not he can go home to his real mommy and daddy. (He was taken from them by Child Protection Services after an accident for which his mother was accused.)

Mommy Ashley and Daddy Barney are here at the house right now, cooing and giggling over the new contraption they bought for Junior -- a little baby carrier that hangs on Barney's chest. Cries of "Oh! my boy! my boy!" are coming from the living room. They are here to get him all spiffed up for the hearing and hoping with tearful strenuousness that their baby comes home to them soon. It's so wrong and awful to see families separated.

If you (whoever you are) think of it today, pray for them and for the judge and for little Bambino.

Summer Reading

2010-05-15T17:56:00.002+01:00

There's a new "gadget" on the side of my blog, in place of my old To-Do list, titled "Summer Reading." Reading for fun is probably one of my most-anticipated parts of summertime. What with travel and youth ministry, I sometimes don't have as much time to do it as I dreamily imagine during the school year, but I still can get through a lot.

So I've listed some books I'm thinking about reading/rereading this summer, but I am also SUPER open to SUGGESTIONS!!!

WHAT SHOULD I READ??

Everyday Experiences

2010-05-14T18:04:00.003+01:00

-I have drool on both shoulders and my clothes smell faintly like baby formula.

-The bartering system in our house had undergone a few subtle changes:

“Hey.”

“Junior has a poopy diaper.”

“And?”

“Will you do it?”

“Is that a real question?”

“I’ll straighten the house before Mom gets home.”

“What about the dishes?”

“I’ll do those, too.”

“Deal.”

So I changed his diaper this morning.

-There are about four half-drunk Fresca cans spotted around our kitchen and living room. They are mine. I don’t know why but I can’t drink a whole can of soda. I’ve tried. I’ve tried asking you people to finish them for me. I know you don’t understand, but I JUST CAN’T, OKAY??!?

-Question: Is it "soda," "Coke," "soft drink," or "pop"? Or some other word I have yet to discover. Soda-pop?? That one's pretty fun.

-IT IS SO HOT OUTSIDE.

The things I did and the things I didn't.

2010-05-13T18:16:00.004+01:00

Robbie pointed out I should update the To-Do list that has been on the side of my blog for the past five months. So I'm changing it and in this post I shall assess the damage (i.e. go over the list and see what I actually got around to doing).

"Observe everything." Absolutely done.

"See Paris." Well. I saw it sort of from an airplane......? I guess I'll just have to save this one for some romantic day in the future. :)

"Walk across London Bridge." Well, technically London Bridge was moved to Arizona (DUMB), but I walked across the one that would be London Bridge if London Bridge was still in London even though it's technically not called that. I walked on a bridge IN London OVER the Thames. Boom. That was the point.

"Visit the Kilns." Done.

"But a ticket in King's Cross." Done.

"Buy a drink in the Eagle and Child." Done over and over. I am C. S. Lewis.

"Find Hogwarts." Done, done, done. (See pictures below) I actually even went into the real place where they shot a lot of the movies (the library scenes, the dance scenes, the Great Hall scenes, the staircase scenes) but I don't have pictures of a lot of them for various reasons.

“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”

2010-05-12T18:05:00.005+01:00

[Billie Holiday]

A week after arriving back in my homeland, I packed up my duffle again and hit the road for the east. A roadtrip is exactly what my American plains-starved soul had been craving. As Claire Colburn said in Elizabethtown, "Everybody's gotta take a roadtrip once in their lives." Or over and over and over again in their lives. Like Sal in On the Road, which I am currently devouring for the second time.

I wound my way up the mountain, hugging oh-so-familiar curves, and wondered. I wondered lots of things, of course, but especially: What will this be like? Will we all be the same or will we all be different? Will we fall into the same comfortably-worn patterns of talking, relating, enjoying one another? Or will there be a big silence made of the gap between December and May? Processing questions like this is always good. But I shouldn't have worried.

The minute I stepped out of my car and was attacked by Nat Weber I knew that I had been really starved for everyone at Covenant who, I came to realize over five months of missing, really are the butter to my bread. I spent one glorious week squealing, squeezing, swimming, screaming, and - I've run out of s words - generally catching up and basking in the presence of Covenant people. Amazing what five months away will do to renew and refresh your love for a place and the people who are part of it. The lovely spires and cobblestone sophistication of Oxford are perfect in the same way that the trees and ponds and wide-open hills of east Tennessee are perfect. The loveliness of the one in no way diminishes the magic of the other. Maybe it even adds to it.

So. On May 22, Sarah and I will be driving the four hours down to Baton Rouge and moving in for the summer: heat, humidity, family, spicy food, and being a summer youth intern with First Pres again. PARTAY!!!! The rest of the summer is mission trips, summer camp, family vacation, and weddings. Until then, I am at home in Marshall, Texas with Mom, Dad, and Sarah, just like it used to be. Except one difference: we have a baby. :) Three-month-old Junior is our foster child for the next couple weeks and he is both depriving us of sleep and giving us an excess of delight we haven't felt for some time. (Right now, Sarah is sitting on the couch in front of me, burping him, and his little wide eyes are staring at me and his mouth is beginning to turn up in an impish grin.)

I feel like a Walt Whitman poem and just getting into the deep down glory of summertime.

"I felt like a million dollars; I was adventuring in the crazy American night."

(I really should read On the Road every summer.)

My back is sunburned.

2010-04-28T03:56:00.002+01:00

[Nickel Creek - Why Should the Fire Die?]

He had dark cropped hair, a trim moustache, a big ol' lone star pin, and a comforting Texas drawl -- the kind that is both a reassurance that all is well and a warning to toe the line. He was the man checking my passport before Customs in the DFW airport. To my surprise (grown accustomed to British reserve), he returned my perky smile with that funny half-smile that moustaches make.

"Now what have you been doing all the way over in England?"

"Studying in Oxford for four months!" Or maybe my whole life.

"Well then, welcome home, ma'am. We're glad to have you back."

Ahhhhhh, I've been anticipating this feeling for so long. The wide-open, personal, exuberant, endless-possibilities, frontier taste of America. And the direct look in the eye, the chatty intimacy of strangers. It's actually taking me longer to warm up to it than I thought it would. I forgot that transitions take time. But, gosh, culture is so amazing. And ours is a lovely, vast, many-colored tapestry that I love.

But now I have a few new traditions to add to the book called "My Life." Like tea with milk and sugar. And scones with clotted cream. And cloth shopping bags.

Today when I was on a run, every person I passed looked up, smiled, and gave a little wave. ::sigh::

Transitions are just a part of the rich fabric of life. My life is really blessed.

And my back is sunburned. Thank you, Texas, for sunshine again.

Time flies when you're fun.

2010-04-26T17:38:00.002+01:00

Right now I am sitting on the kitchen counter - my usual perch for telling Mom stories - reaching over the guitar in my lap to type stories to cyberspace. I'm at home. Marshall, Texas, where the air is warm and sunny and smells a teensy bit like cows and not at all like Oxford.

I'm home!! It's really blowing my mind. Every night when I lie down in bed, I kind of expect that I'll wake up in the basement of Crick as usual and hear Angela in the shower and Amy breathing gently next to me or typing at her desk. And Genny and Carl talking up a storm in the kitchen above my head. Then when I wake up, I think I'm there for a second and then I hear Mom. It's happy-sad. REALLY happy and REALLY sad.

I had one of the best four months of my life in Oxford. I feel so overwhelmed and filled to the brim with glowing memories, loved faces grown so familiar -- and 10,000 hours of stories. As I walked through Oxford for the last time, I remembered the first time and how everything was so wonderfully new and strange and beautiful. Now the streets, corners, facades, spires, places of Oxford are so familiar -- every little piece of architecture that was once a strange face is now layered with memories.

That monument is where we ate burritos from The Mission and Hutton's tongue burned off. | That curb is where Daniel got falafel every night during Lent. | That corner is where that girl wiped out on her bike and Nick laughed and then felt bad. | That's the lane I walked down every Monday to meet with Josh. | Emily and I talked about life along that river. | That library is where I studied. And studied. And studied. | There's my church. | There's where we got ice-cream almost every night at the beginning of the term. | There's the coach station, there's Sainsbury's, there's Addison's Walk, there's Frewin Court, there's Port Meadow. | There's Crick.

It seems like it just started and yet it seems a lifetime ago I trudged the snowy streets of Oxford wondering what the next four months of my life could possibly hold. Now I have stories to tell, friends to love and try to stay in touch with, a new stage of life to look forward to. Time flies when you're fun. :)

"What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from...."

Not fare well,

But fare forward, voyagers.

Today.

2010-04-21T17:18:00.006+01:00

I taught myself to play "Leaving On a Jet Plane" on the guitar. I thought it might be a good luck charm.

Nick transposed "Leaving On a Jet Plane" into a key I could actually sing it in. I taught myself that version (and learned a new chord!).

Emily, Nick, Daniel, and I climbed the tower of the St. Mary's and saw the dreaming spires from their own level.

Emily, Nick, Daniel, and I went to Merton again: the college where I had my Shakespeare tutorial and also the place where people like T. S. Eliot and J. R. R. Tolkien went and worked when they were here. Oh, also: second-oldest college in all of Oxford. No big deal. ;-)

Nick, Daniel, and I went shopping for food and clothes. I am proud to say that with our help, the not-a-natural-shopper Nick ended up with a great new pair of jeans. And I have food.

Now I am making cookies, listening to my "For Fun" playlist (which is currently on Elton John), and enjoying the late-afternoon sunlight filtering through the windows.

"We haven't located us yet."

2010-04-20T18:09:00.004+01:00

[Music: Nick playing "Running to Stand Still" on the guitar -- he just taught me how to play it!!]

So the quote is from Darjeeling Limited, one of my favourite movies EVER!! Haha, it's also about stranded people. :) ("How can a train be lost? It's on rails.")

Still in the "wait and see" kind of phase right now. Apparently the volcano started erupting again and my flight for tomorrow was cancelled again. Now I'm supposedly flying out Monday. (MONDAY!) But a few people in the house still have flights scheduled for tomorrow so we're all crossing our fingers that they'll make it.

Today was another "one of the best days ever" in Oxford. We started off with coffee, porridge, and Mario Kart, during which I got REALLY MAD at Shane and Nick who were antagonizing me because I'm not very good (but I ALMOST BEAT NICK ONCE......sort of). Then we ate lunch and then we went out to the University Parks and played a really weird version of Ultimate Frisbee which involved Emily and me playing against Shane and Nick but really just jumping on them and trying to beat them up/get the frisbee from them. It was SOOOO cathartic.

Then we made a big ol' macaroni casserole for the whole house (I guess there's about sixteen of us left) and now we're about to head off to the Vines for some homemade chai tea and Heavyweights.

That's the wonderful news: underneath this, not everyone is adapting quite as well to the waiting game and it's definitely been an emotional up-and-down for a couple people. We just got news that Jen, who took a bus to Heathrow earlier today, had her flight cancelled and is coming back. She's gonna get some major TLC tonight.

"Has anyone said yet that this is a pain in the ash?" -Carl

The Eyjafjallajokull Diaries: Day Four.

2010-04-19T11:48:00.002+01:00

It is now the fourth day of my extended stay in Oxford. I'm sitting out in the back garden enjoying the sunshine, wondering where this blasted ash cloud is. If it's causing so much chaos, why is the sky so very blue and the sunlight so very clear? Who knows. Talk about disconnect.

Though I'm getting quite desperate to see my family and eat some crawfish étouffée and drink coffee with chicory in it, I am still really enjoying the extra few days here in Oxford. I guess since I spent so long trying to prepare emotionally to leave right away, now I feel like every extra minute is borrowed time -- little moments magically stolen from What Should Have Been. The city of dreaming spires has never been so beautiful.

Jay left on a bus this morning after reading Wendell Berry's short story "Are You All Right?" from That Distant Land. (It was deemed the best selection because it's about people being stranded.) After he hugged everyone around the circle and walked out the front door, down the little dirt path to the street, and disappeared down Crick Road, Kate said, "A piece of the Crick soul just left." Then we all got really mad at her.

Then the girls decided to watch Friends because it would make us feel better and "In Jay's memory, we'll do something he definitely wouldn't have wanted us to do." :)

There seem to be some positive reports right now about the ash cloud and flights picking up again. We're cautiously hopeful, but ready to wait it out.

Sheer Insanity

2010-04-18T01:16:00.002+01:00

(Just try to believe half the things in this post. Try. If it was in a movie, we'd all say, "Yeah, right.")

So here's the thing: There's this volcano erupting in Iceland. And before I even get to the point, let's just consider the this volcano's name. Unbelievable Fact #1: "Eyjafjallajokull." That's sixteen letters. SIXTEEN. Speaking of numbers, Unbelievable Fact #2: The last time this volcano erupted, in 1822, it went on erupting for TWO YEARS. So there's some scope.

Why is this so important? You probably already know Unbelievable Fact #3: We're all stranded in Oxford. Basically every airplane in Europe is grounded indefinitely because of this ENORMOUS cloud of ash that's now covering most of Northern Europe. It's completely surreal. Most of us should have left by now and we're all still here in Crick, trying to get our bearings and figure out how homeless we are. Our program - SCIO - is being magnificent and extending stays and inviting us over for lunch. One of the most incongruous parts of it is that the last two days here have been the absolute best weather we've had in Oxford all semester. Exquisite spring days. It's so hard to believe in this cloud that's casting major shadows over all our plans.

By this hour in American time I should have been sitting on Sarah's bed in her dorm room in Jackson, Mississippi. Instead, I am still an ocean away, crossing my fingers and hoping against hope that my flight that is now on Wednesday will not be cancelled again.

*cue Paul Simon "Homeless"* "Somebody cry why why why??!!"

Honestly, I feel like it's an adventure. It's slightly apocalyptic (you know, ash taking over the world and planes being grounded and thousands or millions of people being stranded without much recourse -- basically nature reclaiming her own), totally discombobulating, and really really funny when we stop to think about it. But a lot of girls have been crying and everyone is going TOTALLY CRAZY. Or, to Britishify it: "Really rather in a frenzy."

And yet. We're all together. All in this together. And it's a blessing to have a few more days with these people I love and this place I've learned to love, too.

But I really hope I can get home. Soon.

The Final Stretch.

2010-04-15T09:32:00.003+01:00

This is the current state of things:

1) I have two hours before I have to print off my paper and walk it down to Frewin Court at which point I will be done with Oxford and my junior year.

2) It's doable. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

3) Tonight Carl and Jay are feeding soup to our whole house. One last Crick family meal together.

4) In twenty-four hours almost exactly, I will be boarding a bus at Gloucester Green on my way to Heathrow and, eventually, home. I can't wait to be in Mom and Dad's arms.

5) I am listening to Christmas music. (WHAT?!?) Sing to me, Bing, sing to me.

6) This conclusion isn't going to write itself.

We're all mad here.

2010-04-14T10:25:00.003+01:00

[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.

"I'm your huckleberry."

2010-04-11T22:27:00.003+01:00

[Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More]

Daniel just introduced me to one of the best movies ever of all time. The guy owns Tombstone and BROUGHT IT WITH HIM TO OXFORD. Who does that??? Awesome people. Daniel Menjivar, that's who - the guy who aspires to be Doc Holliday.

DUDE. That movie is SO CRAZY GOOD!!! We just sat there with our jaws dropping and now we're all fired up to ride across the American plain and save people from bad guys. Or just be in love with Doc Holliday FOREVER. But instead, we have to sit in our house here in England and write papers. Shoot.

The thing is, it's our last week here, and even sitting in the common room of Crick writing a paper has taken on a giddy sweet charm. There is the random outburst (usually from a girl) of "Ohh nooo!! We have to leave in a week!!" which is always swiftly followed by a yell (usually from another girl...or Nick) of "I DON'T WANNA TALK ABOUT IT."

Here are some other things that have been happening in Oxford:

-Kate and I joined Jay at the Quaker meeting this morning. It was really challenging and fascinating and I had millions of questions for him afterwards. I really don't know much about Quakers at all, but I'm really intrigued to know more. I've been able to experience quite the gamut of church experiences here. While I've been very well plugged in to St. Ebbe's, I've also managed to visit churches of a lot of other traditions (Catholic, high Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Quaker, etc.) and it's been both eye-opening, fascinating, confusing, challenging, and encouraging. It has also clarified a lot of vague concepts I had about what the church should be.

-Daniel decided to ask people if he were an animal which one would he be. So I made him pick one for me, and he said a peacock. Because they explode and make loud noises when you get them upset." (In his defense, he also tried to come up with some kind of "and peacocks are pretty!") Now he and Nick won't quit saying "peacock" whenever I get riled up. What can you do to that? It's like when you're in a bad mood and your mom says, "Hannah, you're grumpy." I'M NOT GRUMPY, DANGIT. Your response just proves her whole point. Dangit.

-We went to the Kilns yesterday. I have been where C.S. Lewis lived. Oh my he is my hero. I'll have to tell more stories about that some time. Suffice it to say: I was in a blissful state, soaking in the view and the stories.

-I met up with Nick Elledge and Jared Canfield in London. It was so weird, we used to hang out during all those long tournament hours when we were sixteen. Now we're all in England together. Crazy times.

-Our field trips have been awesome. OH MY. Some pictures are up on Facebook. Stonehenge is pretty legit, guys. :)

-I took a picture with Peter Pan.

-Jay and I played badminton against Christine and Hutton today. Our team: Spartacus. We won. Ohhhhhhhhyeah.

I guess I should go do some work on my paper now. It's due at 12:00 on Thursday and it is a MEGA MEGA MEGA PAPER.

Sun It Rises

2010-04-09T06:57:00.005+01:00

["Go" - Jonsi. Oh my gosh I love this album.]

It's 7:03 a.m. on the tail-end of an all-nighter. I'm shivering a bit under a blanket, still cold from the walk I took at 6:00 into the sunrise. But the sun that I welcomed to Today is now peeking into the bay window at the front of Crick and pretending to warm things up. Jonsi is singing in my earbuds the most gloriously sublime music of morning-ness (and northerness). Nick and Christine are in here still writing papers.

OK, so in case anyone gets the wrong impression: I am not an all-nighter kind of person. I don't think I've pulled one all-nighter while in college. I just don't see the point. This is NOT to say I don't procrastinate. It's just that the way I see it, if I'm running that late on getting the assignment in, there's not a whole lot I can do at 4:30 in the morning that will up my grade enough to make it worth staying awake. I might as well not lose both a perfect grade and sleep, right?

But now I'm in Oxford living in a house of people who pull all-nighters (or about four or five of them do). And I'm leaving Oxford in less than (AGHDON'TSAYIT) eight days. So I figure, why not go all-out and do whatever the heck I want? I technically could've finished this paper by 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., but I had waaaaaaay more fun making multiple cups of coffee and tea, rolling around on the ground saying ridiculous, sugar-induced things to distract people, bouncing up and down on the living-room chairs, making paper airplanes, etc. In short, I decided to be super ADD and totally inefficient. For some reason, I never got sleepy enough to make me change my mind and go to bed like a normal person. And so I finished my paper rather leisurely around 5:00 this morning. I downed some cereal, sent my paper in, and then grabbed the blanket (that's still wrapped around my shoulders) and headed off to find a spot to watch the sun rise.

It took me a while, but I found a wooden gate to sit on overlooking a football (soccer) field and trees and fields behind it. I sat myself down for the next half hour and thought about my life and talked to God and was quiet and listened to the birds and got Fleet Foxes stuck in my head.

Y'all. The sun. It's a giant ball of liquid orange paint that's on fire. Betcha didn't know that.

(One of my favorite parts about finishing a paper I've been working on is closing all of the web browser tabs that have been open on my computer for days of research. *click* Gone. *click* Gone. *click* Gone forever.)

In approximately ten minutes, I plan on being snuggled in my bed and not getting up until it's a good solid 2:00 in the afternoon.

East Coker - T.S. Eliot

2010-04-02T16:45:00.002+01:00

[movement IV]

The wounded surgeon plies the steel

That questions the distempered part;

Beneath the bleeding hands we feel

The sharp compassion of the healer's art

Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease

If we obey the dying nurse

Whose constant care is not to please

But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,

And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital

Endowed by the ruined millionaire,

Wherein, if we do well, we shall

Die of the absolute paternal care

That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,

The fever sings in mental wires.

If to be warmed, then I must freeze

And quake in frigid purgatorial fires

Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,

The bloody flesh our only food:

In spite of which we like to think

That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood--

Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

----------------------

It's Good Friday again. And again I am reminded of Love and how little I know it and how little I profess it, but how utterly I am changed by it.

THE ZOMBIES ARE TAKING OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-04-01T18:07:00.004+01:00

Okay, so not exactly zombies, but something just as dreadful if you ask me: NOROVIRUS.

[cue blood-curdling scream]

It's kind of like the stomach flue only ten times scarier. Apparently it's one of the most contagious viruses in the UK because it spreads through touch -- entire schools have been closed down because of it and there's no way to avoid it. Once you have it, it lasts for up to 60 hours but once you're better, your immunity is gone within a few days. And we're pretty sure that's what Daniel has.

[another blood-curdling scream - just for effect]

Needless to say he's quarantined now (poor Daniel!) and the rest of of are living in terror and paranoia. (I mean, as much as we possibly can. You gotta milk this kind of thing for all it's worth.) Every hunger pang, twist of carsickness, or twitter of nerves could be the onset of "Noro." Kate and I have been making puking signs to each other ("April fools'!!!"). I've been pretty fatalistic about it ("Look, Laura, if I'm gonna throw up all night, I want this chocolate bar to be the last thing I ate"). BUT, so far no one else in Crick has gone down. WE ARE SPARTACUS. One girl from the Vines got it, I think.

It's like the Masque of the Red Death. Only no one has died yet. Minor difference. Maybe like the bubonic plague or something. Only not fatal. Whatever.

Pray for the health of your children in England. :)

People I Live With, Episode 3

2010-03-29T12:56:00.017+01:00

[The Beatles -- White Album]

So I kind of forgot about this little miniseries on Life at Crick. Seems that I got all the way to Episode 2 - describing a whopping six of people that I live with - and then characteristically totally forgot to mention the other twenty. And we only have three weeks left. (OK, talk about that is freaking me out.)

HOWEVER, the boys in the Tower (aka, the Biola Boys, aka Shane, Nick, and Daniel) really seemed to want to be featured, so they kindly reminded me. And, in gratitude for their gentle reminders, I chose to skip over two floors of Crick and go straight from the basement to the Tower!!

So: Crick House, Tower, Room #2: Daniel Menjivar, Shane Martin, and Nick Dalbey. All three of them go to Biola in Southern California. Shane is actually from Houston (yay for Southerners!) but Daniel and Nick are die-hard SoCal snobs. (I love that I get total control over what is said in this space. I hope you're reading this, Nick Dalbey.)

Daniel: Just look at that picture. That picture. Says it all. He's sitting across from me in the living room right now playing "La Vie En Rose" out loud and just said, "If I had a song I would always walk in the room to, this would be it." Basic facts about Daniel: He's into history, classy things, and board games. If he ever asks you to play Ticket to Ride with him, don't be fooled -- he will crush you. He is almost a part of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and when asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he says, "A good man." Also, I have never met anyone who can make up a more outrageously hilarious story on the spot than Daniel. The other day, he came into the living room, sat on the couch next to me and - with no other introduction - said "So once I was fighting this wildebeest." The thing about these stories is that they always come at exactly the time you need something to cheer you up. Daniel's good at that.

Today, tragically, Daniel is sick. In his honour, we shall remember only the strong and strapping healthy Daniel Menjivar. As he said when he found out I was blogging about him: "LET POSTERITY KNOW WHO I WAS!!!! Remember me in my GLORY DAYS!!!" Daniel, we will never forget.

Lastly, Daniel has a wonderful girlfriend back at Biola, Karrie, who sometimes sends him cookies which he will from time to time share.

Shane: Interesting fact about Shane: He is old chums with Sam Townes (one of the most awesome guys at Covenant :))!! OK, so, first of all, I think at least my dad should know that Shane was, in fact, named after Shane from the old Western flick of the same name. "Shane! Come back!" That Shane. Dad, the name continues to haunt my footsteps. :)

How does one describe Shane? He is an almost-Catholic, overly-analytical Romantic who loves poetry, writing couplets of rap songs, and all things that are Beautiful. He gets that pensive look on his face and you know the next question he asks is going to pin you to a wall and you're gonna have to mentally engage. Yesterday he was writing a paper (by hand) and trying to craft the first sentence with the utmost love and care. He was debating over the placing of one of the words -- "Well, if it goes before the clause, it's harder to read but the other way is just not as beautiful. I'm going with the beautiful option." And I thought, That's Shane.

Also, he will do almost anything for a Coke. Unbelievable.

I give him advice about girls. ;-)

Nick: Well, Nick goes by a lot of nicknames around here (nicknames -- HA! -- get it, NICKnames??!! BAHAHAHAA.), some of which should probably not be repeated because they are just too awesome. But, let me just say, he stars in many knightly tales, usually told by Laura Hutton, of kicking the butts of evil goblins and saving princesses (once I got to be the princess in the story -- very exciting). He has been known to randomly say, "I want to slay a dragon" and is fondly referred to as "the 70's god" by the girls, due to the way his hair falls fabulously across his forehead. We also like to refer to him as our North Star because he is 6'4" so anytime we get lost in London, we just look for his "70's god" head. It has never failed. (Though he did get lost in Paris at 2:00 in the morning a few weeks ago. I did NOT just publish that on the Internet. No worries, his mom already knows.) Nick is just one of those guys who makes you feel like bad things won't happen to you.

If you say the word "Dante" in Nick's presence, he might fall into a lovelorn swoon. If you say the words "Dante isn't all that great" in Nick's presence, he will probably cry. Or kill you with his dragon-killing skills. "Beatrice" would also be an interesting conversation-starter. He is another connoisseur of beauty and can be stopped in his tracks by a beautiful line of poetry.

The Biola Boys are the kind of guys your parents want you to be friends with. Sincere, witty, fun, easy to talk to, gentlemanly, and - most importantly! - a little outrageous. Sometimes, when Emily and I need a change of scenery, we'll climb up the narrow stairs to the third story (or "the Tower" as we have fondly named it) and read in their room for a couple hours. Good conversation, good laughs, good fun. The stuff of good memories.

I should be writing a Case Study....

2010-03-27T17:59:00.006Z

...which is why I'm blessing the Internet with my presence!!

Actually, I've been working on this case study solid for the past three hours so I figured I'd take a break from my writing and do some more writing on here! Our "Case Studies" are basically just 2500- to 2750-word papers on a topic from something in British history. I picked William Wallace as my topic and here's the question I selected to answer:

"Are most representations of Wallace 'sheer fantasy, where history breaks almost entirely loose from its moorings' (Summerson)? If so, does this matter?"

So, in my case study, I'm going to argue that, yes, most representations of Wallace are sheer fantasy and, no, it doesn't really matter at all. The point being that there is a historical Wallace (the real guy whom we don't know terribly a lot about) and a literary Wallace around whom myths and folktales have been created -- folktales that inspire Scottish national identity in a way that is almost unmatched in history. Yay for inspiration. Don't take our heroes from us, man.

France: So, I've been gearing myself up to blog about my escapades in France during Spring Break, but I haven't been able to get up the energy to do it. First of all, I put up two photo albums on Facebook which tell the story pretty well. Second of all, I just want to blog about what's in my head right now which is Oxford. BUT, here's a little summary, because it was fabulous and deserves mention.

Hunt and I flew into Marseilles and met up with Lara Berger and Will Lutz (friends from Covenant). While there, we went to the harbour, got on a boat, and motored out to the Chateau D'If which, if you are a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, you will recognize as the prison where Edmond Dantes meets Faria and from which he later escapes. Though I'm sure Edmond wasn't a huge fan of it, the place is beautiful. We watched the sun set behind it.

After Marseilles, we took the thirty-minute bus ride to Aix-en-Provence where Lara, Will, Elea Geerlings, and Matt Pillsbury (also Covenant friends) are living and studying this semester. I stayed with Elea who is renting a room from Monsieur Ganet, who is this wonderful elderly Frenchman who speaks very little English. The first day I was there, he told us in rapid French about how he had gotten hit by a car earlier that day. To our SHOCKED responses, he merely waved his hand dismissively.

It was SO wonderful to stay with Elea and just be able to hang out with dear friends for a few days. We drank in every minute we all had together.

We spent the next couple of days climbing Mont Sainte-Victoire, hiking around the village streets and coastal cliffs of Ciotat, and exploring the cafes, boulangeries, and shops of Aix. I practised my French a little and had my first real French crepe and ate through a bajillion baguettes. We also made legit American chili for the French family that Lara and Pills live with and spent the evening with them -- the kids performed magic tricks and played their instruments for us, and then we all played a game together around the table. Which Hunt lost mostly because he was the only one who couldn't understand a word of French.

Everything was so utterly French. Exotic and Mediterranean and luscious and tasty. The architecture was tall and tilted, the narrow windows reached from floor to ceiling and had real shutters and wrought-iron balconies on the top floors.

Flowers and poodles and fountains and food and crazy alleys.

Also, the women in southern France all look like my extended Gautreau family. Gran, Mom, and Aunt Jill especially would look right at home there. We ARE French, after all!!

So, that's France. Now I need to get back into Scottish mode and talk about my personal hero William Wallace. ;-)

Je vais en France!!!

2010-03-12T23:04:00.002Z

#1 - I am done with Oxford tutorials FOREVER. Right now, all I feel is relief. Soon it will feel much more bittersweet that such a challenging, fascinating, miserable, exciting, unique, difficult, INCREDIBLE period of my life is over. But right now -- oh, right now I just want to sleep for four days and NEVER write another paper ever again ever.

I survived Hilary Term in Oxford.

I feel like I should get a T-shirt.

#2 - I AM GOING TO FRANCE!!! (In case you didn't get the translation of the title.) Tomorrow morning at 6:30 I'll begin my trek to the coach station to meet Hunt and then we'll be off to the airport and then to MARSEILLES!! Lara Berger is meeting us there and she's going to show us around and then it's off to Aix (or Aix-en-Provence) to chill with Lara, Pillsbury, Elea, and Will for a coupla days. I feel like I'm going to want to sleep a lot. But something ELSE I'm going to do is put my foot in the Mediterranean. Awwwwwyeah!!

----------------------

"'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." (1 Peter 5:6-7)

In our small group at church this week, we talked about Philippians 4 and anxiety. It was so ridiculously appropriate for 8th week frenzy. Imagine exams week pressure only with papers instead of tests and in Oxford with Oxford professors and you will maybe have some conception of how overwrought we've all been this week. I can't even believe it's over, but God has been utterly faithful, as usual.

That verse up there is beauty. "Humble yourselves." Boy, that's a tough word in a place like this. But forget it: be humble, don't worry, He loves you. Wow.

"Watching the River Run" - Loggins & Messina -- Just listen to it. Your soul will thank you.

Only three more days to go . . . .

2010-03-10T09:41:00.004Z

[Music - The Dodos]

Since the morning is still new here, I figured I can update my blog without feeling too convicted that I should be doing something else. It's the last week of full term. That means that the regular Oxford students are going on holiday soon and we have Spring Break and then our British Landscapes course. Ultimately, the whole structure is going to be different now. No more tutorials (bye, Josh and Emma.....sad day). This second half is more like what Americans are used to -- lectures every morning Monday through Friday. Fewer papers. Etc.

We're just all ready for our brief Spring Break -- it's like the end of an academic marathon. I just have to finish my last C. S. Lewis paper and write my last Shakespeare paper (on King Lear). Then I will be done with Oxford tutorials forever. Weird.

So last night I made jambalaya!!!! Mom sent me some REAL jambalaya mix in the mail and I cooked that stuff UP. It was like a little taste of heavenly home. My food group was delighted by the taste of real Cajun food and everyone was happy, New Orleans style.

The other day I accidentally left my driver's license on the kitchen table and Sam Brewitt-Taylor (our Junior Dean) found it the next morning. He made sure to tell me about it and said, "Yes, well, I found a little identity card that said 'U.S. Department of State' and had your face on it. All I could think was 'What has she done now?'" HAH.

Thom Yorke lives in our neighborhood. For those of you who don't know him, he's the lead singer of the band Radiohead that in the '90s pretty much changed rock music forever. It's basically like living next door to Bono or something. (Only better.) We haven't sighted him yet, but hope never dies. Also in our neighborhood: Richard Dawkins. We have sighted him. And the neighborhood next door to ours is where Tolkien lived when he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

So this house we live in, being full of people who are crazy enough to want to study at a place like Oxford, is, as you may imagine, interesting. I keep a Word document open most of the time to write down things people say that make me smile. Here's a sampling. Hopefully you'll get some idea of what it's like here.

Me: "Everyone in this house is eccentric in some way."

Kate: "Yeah. Sometimes I'm just like . . . this place is so weird."

Nick: "Listen to what I'm studying this semester -- how B.A. is this??! *reads a piece from Beowulf* I can read that to you in the Old English, too."

Katie Powell: "Boys are people, too!"

Hutton: "No. They're different."

"Calm down, it's not like it's Oxford or anything." -Everyone

"I'm gonna do Sporkle while you finish editing my paper." -Hunt (and only if you know what Sporkle is can you fully appreciate the utter nerdness of that comment)

"That's what makes this country so great!! And when I say this country, I mean America." -Daniel

"I swear I'm more articulate than I seem." -Daniel

"Jen, I need your help pronouncing this Latin. I have to read it in my tutorial tomorrow and I don't want to sound like a dingo." -Jay

"I almost just told Dr. Kreuze that I love him." -Hutton

"Except the more I look at him the more I don't think he's attractive. Because I think I hate him." -Alison about her tutor, Tom (it was a bad day -- don't worry, she got over that outburst)

"I'm watching a video on how to make meatballs." -Nick (oh, the adventures of college students trying to cook meals for each other)

"Has anyone seen Augustine's Confessions lying around?" -Jay

--------------------------

Tim Keller (a personal hero of mine) was in Oxford last week and we went to hear him speak in Town Hall. Two things:

#1 - His American accent and Americanisms were music to our ears. It was so great to finally be on the "I get this" end of things. The Brits said when he read quotes sometimes they couldn't understand him at all. WE COULD. Wow. It's amazing how the same language (i.e. English) can be in so many ways a foreign 0ne. At one point he was like, "Oh, am I being too American? I'm showing my feelings, I'm sorry." I laughed so hard.

#2 - His message was glorious. He talked about faith and reason (so appropriate in this bastion of reason), arguing that it takes just as big (or bigger) a leap of faith not to be a Christian as it does to be one. He talked about the faith it takes to doubt God and the rational problems of explaining life without God. But then he was like, "All this is great, but reason will never ultimately move us. Only beauty and love will ultimately draw people in." And then he goes on talking about the beauty of the Christian story and the exquisite and intoxicating love of the Creator who wrote himself into our story. He quoted C. S. Lewis saying that it would be like Shakespeare wrote himself into Hamlet and then died to save them all. I was like, "He's speaking my language." C. S. Lewis + Shakespeare = My Life the past two months.

Ultimately, I am a Christian not because the prophets have shown me the way to find God but because Jesus says instead "I'm God come to find you." Hallelujah.

A break from "Hamlet in Purgatory"

2010-03-04T17:01:00.005Z

So I needed a break from homework and decided to be a minor creeper and google my Shakespeare tutor, Josh. Since he was the one imposing homework on me, I thought I would impose my break on him. Little did I know, I would spend my five-minute break being imposed-upon by his accomplishments. What I discovered did NOT surprise me, but it definitely blew my mind a little bit. I should title the rest of this post "Amazing Fantastic Things I Have Learned About Josh, My Shakespeare Tutor."

#1 - He graduated from Harvard. (Yeah, the old "I'm from Boston" -- I knew it had to mean something.)

#2 - He is a Rhodes Scholar. (Which is how he ended up in Oxford.)

#3 - The man who taught him Shakespeare is Stephen Greenblatt. As in, Stephen Greenblatt, arguably the greatest Shakespeare scholar alive. Also the guy who happened to have written the book I'm currently taking a break from reading and that I'm writing a book review of, the guy who is quoted in almost every undergraduate Shakespeare paper ever written since 19-something.

Here's Josh: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/11.30/99-rhodes.html

And here's something he wrote that I found interesting: http://www.oxonianreview.org/issues/7-2/billings.shtml

All this to say:

#1 - I knew he was a genius but I didn't quite realize exactly how genius he is.

#2 - All I want to do in our last tutorial this Monday is ask him to talk to me about himself. That would be sooooo interesting.

#3 - I am now only one degree of separation away from the greatest living Shakespeare scholar. WHOOHOO!!!

#4 - I'm intimidated. AGAIN.

[Note added later: I just wikipedia-ed Stephen Greenblatt and he apparently jammed with Art Garfunkel at summer camp and was invited to join him with "his friend Paul Simon" making music. But Greenblatt decided to go to college instead. He also used to do casual performances with the group that later became Monty Python. CRAZY.]

Wildness and Wet....

2010-02-27T10:39:00.013Z

This morning four intrepid souls from Crick Road House adventured their way to Port Meadow to see the sunrise. Kate, Nick, Jay, and I woke up at 5:30, stumbled our way to the kitchen for coffee, and set out in the dark to see the sun rise over the fields, leaving the others blissfully asleep and blissfully unaware of the mad adventures they were missing. It was gloriously dripping, muddy, marshy, wild, and - when the sun came out - all glittering. We came home three hours later with soaking feet, covered in mud, flushed, and exuberant.

This poem, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, could not more perfectly describe this morning (especially the last stanza):

Inversnaid

THIS darksome burn, horseback brown,

His rollrock highroad roaring down,

In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam

Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth

Turns and twindles over the broth

Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,

It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew,

Are the groins of the braes that the brook tread through,

Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,

And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft

Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,

O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Ireland: Bringing the magic.

2010-02-23T22:19:00.004Z

Can I just say: WOW.

We - Emily, Alison, and I - got there at 9:00 Friday morning, hit up an ATM and some coffee and breakfast, and an hour later as we walked down the middle of O'Connell Street, I said, "Guys, it may be too soon to say this, but I think Ireland is my favorite place in the world."

And Alison said, "I think an hour is way too soon to know that."

And I said, "No, because sometimes you just know. Like when you meet the right man and he just brings the magic. Dublin brings the magic."

She laughed at me then. But I was right. We had one of the best four-day weekends of the decade. I of course cannot do it justice in a blog post. But I'll do my best to paint a picture of it.

We stayed in The Shining hostel. Scary, right? Who would want to stay in a place called The Shining? I guess we're on a different continent from Colorado, so it's okay. Our room had five bunk beds, hot pink walls and flowery curtains. Roommates came and went but they were all nice and most of them went to bed early. I should mention: We never went to bed later than 10:00. BAM. It was awesome.

Bucket List: Stay in a hostel. Check.

When we got there Friday we found out we couldn't check into the hostel for four hours, so we pulled out Matt Brown's email/Marauder's Map and consulted it for something to do. We also asked the hostel lady. She said do Wicklow. He said do Glendalough. They were similar only his idea was better. So we did Glendalough.

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Day 1: Glendalough. The ruins of an old old old monastery up around two lakes nestled in the highlands south of Dublin. One of the most breath-takingly, indescribably beautiful places I have ever seen. *cue Sigur Ros song: maybe "Glosoli"* It was freezing, too, which just added to the lack of breath. I could hardly even talk, it was so gorgeous. I'll post pictures soon (probably mostly on Facebook). Dad, I couldn't stop thinking of you and wishing with every particle of my being that I could share those moments with you. You and the mountains are meant to be together. And I wanna be in the middle of that somewhere, too. Maybe....just maybe.....we'll go back some day. Who knows. :)

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Day 2: We did Dublin.

-Art Museum

-Trinity College

-Book of Kells: elaborately decorated gospels copied around 800 AD by Celtic monks

-Writers' District

-Some award-winning Yeats exhibit we stumbled upon. Fantastic - got me all into Yeats all over again.

-Dublin Castle

-Christ Church Cathedral

-St. Patrick's Cathedral

-The Temple Bar (didn't stay very long -- it was already NUTS at 5:30 pm - those Irish KNOW how to party)

-Grafton Street: muuuusaaaak! It's in a scene in Once and Damien Rice got his start there, apparently. It's a commercial street -- shops everywhere, musicians and street performers on the corners. Like Cornmarket here in Oxford only way better.

I [heart] Dublin.

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Day 3: This day we wanted to see some other random place in Ireland that would be different from Dublin. I kind of wanted to see Belfast because C.S. Lewis grew up there. But the lady at the Tourist Info place -- well, first let me just tell you about them.

[Aside about people] We stumbled upon this place within the first ten minutes of being dropped in city center on Friday morning. It was right next to the ATM we were directed to. Can anyone say: Divine guidance? :) A note about Irish people (at least the ones we met): They are incredibly friendly. It was a big change from Oxford. I'm sorry but the British don't like confronting or being confronted by strangers. Irish people, they seem to love it. We couldn't stand on a street corner for more than three minutes before someone came up and said, "Where are you trying to get yourselves to?" So the people at the Tourist Info Center loved us ("Bless me, three Oxford scholars??!?") and helped us so much. And gave Alison way more pamphlets than she knew what to do with. (I think she ended up with at least three pamphlets in French for the Book of Kells.)

Back to Day 3. The Tourist Info Lady told us if it were her, she would go to Kilkenny: quaint, quiet, snug, with castles. We thought it sounded perfect. So we took the bus for two hours to Kilkenny which is south-west of Dublin. The night before it had snowed so the bus drive was past fields and villages under a sleepy blanket of snow (also, it was Sunday morning, so everything was hushed). Beautiful. Kilkenny was just small enough to explore all day and be done with a cup of hot chocolate by 5:00 to head back to Dublin. Lovely.

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Day 4: Coastal villages around Dublin. Namely, Howth, Dalkey, Killiney, and Bray.

Howth was probably my favorite but that might be because we spent the most time there and had the most energy because that's where we started. I mean, think "Ireland" and Howth was it. Those movies you see where they're walking on a grassy path along a cliff overlooking the sea? Yeah, that's Howth. We climbed straight through the middle of town to the Summit (two or three miles? -- it felt like a freaking marathon). I think I took a million pictures. It was incredible. We also saw seals. You can ask Alison about that. It was probably the highlight of her LIFE.

Dalkey. We basically got off the train, walked through town, decided not to pay to see the castle, perused a few bookshops (because Emily was trying to find a copy of some William Blake book) and got back on the train. I feel like I should go back and do it justice one day.

Killiney. Two words: Bono's house. ;-) Yes, it was there. And I can see why. One of the most beautiful views in the entire universe, I'm pretty sure. Killiney is basically one really steep hill. Honestly, by the end of the day, between Howth, Killiney, and Bray, we had basically climbed three mountains. So in Killiney, we ran out onto the beach and skipped pebbles into the waves and then finally got up the guts to wind our way through the EXTREMELY RITZY neighbourhoods to the park on top of the hill. (And when I say "hill" think, like . . . Mount Everest.) That's where we saw Bono's house. We weren't sure which one was his at the time, so we just took pictures of all of them. His was under a tarp. I guess he's renovating.

Top of the Hill: Killiney Hill park. The park in Once where she tells him she loves him. Oh yeah.

Bray: We were so exhausted by this point (our food consisted mostly of carbs and chocolate so you can imagine how my blood sugar was not sustaining itself) that we didn't do much more than walk through town to a coffee shop. But Bray is beautiful. It has another giant hill.

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Then we headed back to Dublin and to the airport and arrived back at home-sweet-Oxford at 4:00 am this morning. Today I finished three analysis paragraphs, went to a tutorial with Josh, and cooked dinner for my food group. And it was all totally okay because Ireland is still a refreshing breeze in the back of my mind. Also, it's just good to be home again.

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Random other things we saw/did/experienced:

-Most of our meals were baguettes, cheese, and Nutella. So cheap. So NOT nutritious.

-There was almost no point in this whole trip that I wasn't cold. I seriously could not get warm. It was kind of dreadful. It's much windier on the east coast of Ireland than it is in the south/middle of England. Just sayin'.

-Let's just say we didn't shower much. I shouldn't even include that fact in this blog. Hunt won't let it go.

-I bought Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief in Dublin for four euros. Yes, I did. And I read it out loud to Alison and Emily when we waited for buses. And then they got hooked and we all three finished it before the trip was out. Now I have to locate the sequel. It's funny, I read the American version of Harry Potter and the British version of Percy Jackson. It's like I'm confused or something. (And, yes, there are differences in the two versions. Minor, but funny. Like when Percy was wearing a knitted tank-top. Wha--?)

-I thought about Sarah more constantly than I thought it was possible to think of one human being.

Wow, that was a novel. James Joyce would be proud. (Only probably not.)

Go to Ireland some day. :)

[Music - Lisa Hannigan; 'cause she got her start in Dublin, too!]

Out the door....

2010-02-19T00:21:00.002Z

...for Ireland!!!!

Be back Tuesday!!

Fifth-Week Blues

2010-02-18T15:57:00.005Z

[Music - Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker]

There's this thing in Oxford called the "fifth week blues." You can probably guess what that means. After fives weeks of research, libraries, lectures, papers, critiques, tutorials, grades, criticism, battering -- well, who wouldn't be a little tuckered out? A little despondent? Fifth week is the low point, apparently: the point during term when you suddenly realize you are rather exhausted but there are still three weeks (and five papers) left.

It's fifth week.

I'm finding the fifth week blues to be manifested in my life as missing home more. I've always missed the people at home. But this is just straight-up missing the familiarity of Americanisms. On the bus ride back from London on Tuesday, as we passed tall, narrow, stacked chimneyed-house after tall, narrow, stacked chimneyed-house, I felt like yelling, "I'M SICK OF ALL THESE TALL, NARROW, STACKED CHIMNEYED-HOUSES THAT ALL LOOK ALIKE!!!!!!" Give me a good southern wrap-around porch or I might die. I feel like I've had enough Tudor architecture to last me a lifetime.

I think it's just one of those weeks. We're tired, a bit downtrodden, and we all went to a mandatory lecture yesterday on applying to grad school after which even the boys were ready to cry and most of us were like, "Awesome. Thanks for making me feel like the rest of my life is going to suck no matter what."

Also, today the weather is just miserable. (Bear with me: I promise this whole post won't be depressing. :)) I was grumpy and slightly despondent this morning as I wrapped a scarf around my head and prepared to brave the heavy dark drizzle. I cut through the University Park to get to the English Faculty Library and the paths were a muddle of mud puddles (haha - "muddle" is like mud and puddle mixed together). It was one of those [Rosa from Sabrina's Spanish accent]: "Why God? Why I am here??" moments.

And then I looked up and realized that the soggy fields of the University Park were covered with flower buds. Fresh, beautiful, delicate flower buds. Each with sparkling drops of rain clinging on.

It was one of those most beautiful moments -- a breath caught in the chest, a bending down to touch, a soft petal on the cheek.

"It's God shining through to me, I guess."

I picked one and put it in my pocket. When I reached in two hours later and rediscovered it, it had bloomed. In my pocket!

::jaw drops::

Emma Plaskitt, my C.S. Lewis in Context tutor, told us to just get out of town and shake off the blues. She's really glad we're going to Ireland. Y'all. She is the most amazing woman. Kate, Emily, and I want to be her when we grow up. I only meet with her every other week because it's my secondary tutorial, but I look forward to those meetings so much!! It's fantastic. Everything we talk about is fascinating and exciting to both of us. Also, she really likes my writing. That's always nice. And this week was a secondary tutorial week which means I got to meet with Emma.

On a fairly disconnected-from-anything note: Here are a few pictures Kate took of the snow that day the weather was being "freaking confused." :) This was right after the sun had been shining on her picnic lunch.

(Playing in the backyard!)

(Mia, Me, and Nick -- they were all laughing at how much snow had accumulated on my hair)

So I guess my point is: Even though it's definitely been "one of those weeks," I can say nothing better than to point out that Ash Wednesday was right in the middle of it. A group of us walked down to Magdalen College for their Ash Wednesday Communion service and it was beautiful. Reminders that "From dust you were formed and to dust you shall return." But that's not the end.

This week: An exercise in JOY. :)

This Weekend....

2010-02-17T11:21:00.003Z

WE ARE GOING TO DUBLIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right now, in an effort to get all my work done before we fly out, I have to go write a paragraph each on three "gobbets" for Shakespeare. Isn't that a funny word? They're selected texts taken from Macbeth that I have to analyze, basically.

So I'm writing a paragraph of dense analysis on three monologues from Macbeth: "Glamis thou art...", "Is this a dagger...", and "To be thus is nothing...". Here's Josh's assignment:

"You should come up with a paragraph of commentary for each. The point with these is to set the passages as concisely as possible in their dramatic and literary context. What is important about these lines? What themes and images from the rest of the work do they contribute to? Why are these moments important to our impressions of the characters? Be careful to avoid restating what goes on in the passage, but comment on its place in the work as a whole. It is a difficult exercise because it requires deciding what is MOST important to say about the gobbet and play as a whole."

But it is OKAY because FRIDAY WE'RE GOING TO DUBLIN. (That's my new mantra.) And my last tutorial with Josh was actually reeeeeally good. I even got a "This is almost exactly what I was looking for" assessment of my paper. And as I was walking to the tutorial, talking to myself (you know, pep talk), I realized that the whole reason I came here was to be challenged. And this is exactly what that looks like. My academic writing is getting so much better already.

--------------------------------------

This week Elea Geerlings, Lara Berger, Will Lutz, and Matthew Pillsbury came to our side of the channel (they're spending the term in France) and visited us in Oxford! We gave them the tour and spent the evening chatting and getting all our gab out about Covenant because we finally could do it without feeling guilty. :) Then yesterday Hutton, Kate, and I went with them to London and spent the day hanging out and showing them the sights. And last night, we crashed at the house they're staying in and watched When Harry Met Sally (which I LOVED).

There is almost nothing better in life than meeting with old friends in a new and strange place.

Shakespeare and Rugby.

2010-02-14T11:12:00.002Z

[Valentine's Day jam -- Paolo Nutini. Thanks to Collette for reminding me.]

There's this part in Clueless where Alicia Silverstone's character, Cher, is talking to her stepbrother and his pretentious academic genius girlfriend in the car. And the obnoxious girlfriend is philosophizing about something Hamlet says and Cher butts in with "Hamlet didn't say that." The girlfriend looks at her like she's a total idiot and says - her tones dripping with disdain - "Um, I think I remember Hamlet accurately." And Cher, clueless but correct, comes back with "Well, I remember Mel Gibson accurately and he didn't say that. That Polonius guy did."

When I'm sitting there with Josh, sometimes I feel like he is staring back at Cher. Sometimes I just want to burst out, "Look, I'm not STUPID. I know my Kenneth Branagh."

To-Do Today: Finish paper on Henry IV, Part I, comparing the four main characters. Easy enough, right? Right . . . .

Yesterday I watched my first rugby match. I mean, it was on TV not real-life, but it was still the first time I had ever been exposed to what rugby looks like: Namely, a bunch of really scary-looking men running around and around and around chasing a ball and randomly piling on top of each other and wrestling till the ball flies out of the pile and then they start running around again. That is legitimately what it looked like. Really weird.

But Sam Brewit-Taylor, our British Junior Dean, was very available to answer all of my mystified questions (such as "Are they actually trying to get anything accomplished or are they really just running around?"). So I'm beginning to understand the game. It's like a combination of football (American), soccer, quidditch without brooms, and water polo. Boom.

THE OLYMPICS ARE GOING ON AND I HAVEN'T WATCHED ANY OF IT. ::angry face::

OK, paper time . . . . .

(Prince Hal is my Shakespeare crush.)

Happy Valentine's Day. :)

Joy.

2010-02-11T18:04:00.006Z

"It takes time to be funny. It takes time to extract the JOY from life."

[Music - Simon & Garfunkel]

I get super-creative blog ideas whenever I have to write a paper. That is actually not the case right now. But it did just occur to me as often being the case.

OK, so I have been mad-crazy in the mood to watch Elizabethtown for about three weeks now. Only I can't find it in this frozen town. AAARRRRRGGGHHHH. I love that movie so much. Katie Powell and I both realized that it's in our top ten favourite movies ever. I feel like it's one of those that is either in your top ten or you hate it. There's no "on the fence" for this one. (I mean, that's a generalization, but generally speaking . . . .) Someone who fell in the second category recently asked me how I could love it so much. I thought good and hard about it for five minutes and decided that I love it because it's about deep human suffering -- but pushing through that suffering to find the life that exists deep down through at the bottom of it. (To use an image from the film itself: like a single green vine pushing through cement.) It's about surviving. It’s about joy. Real joy, that is deep and profound because it springs from brokenness.

And this concept has been something I've been mulling over for the past week or so. Mom sent me a package in the mail last week that was full of delightful things: a "Who Dat Nation" t-shirt, four Mardi Gras masks, and Champagne for the Soul: Celebrating God's Gift of Joy by Mike Mason. That book is slowly affirming and transforming my ideas of God's purpose for His children. I have always suspected, hoped - and now have a real rationale behind it - that life is about joy. And I'm pretty sure now that it is. It's wonderfully packed with astounding statements like "Why not be happy all the time?" but also "Joy loves our brokenness best." Joy is real and deep and only becomes realer and deeper the more closely you fight for it in sadness.

I got an eight-page letter from Sarah today (we both like writing and each other more than almost anything else in the world -- thus, our correspondence requires that we overdo ourselves) and she wrote this quote from the book:

"Joy may seem an upbeat sort of feeling, but the direction of joy isn't always up. Often to be joyful we must go down -- down through the noise of racing thoughts, down through the swirling chaos of circumstances, down through the deceptive appearances of life, down into the still waters and green pastures at the heart's core."

Or, as Claire from Elizabethtown would say: "I want you to get into the deep beautiful melancholy of everything that's happened."

But also: "Make time to dance alone with one hand waving free!"

"This country is freaking confused!" - Nick Dalbey

2010-02-10T18:12:00.007Z

I'll get back to my descriptions of the people in this house, but I feel more like just describing bits and sketches from the day right now.

Nick's comment in the title of this post was prompted by the weather today. He and I spent most of our morning/early afternoon at the kitchen tables as other housemates passed in and out, some staying for a while, others just long enough to fix a cup of tea. He was working on a paper for Anne the Scary Eye-Shadow Lady (i.e. his tutor) and I was just moseying about, hypothetically reading Henry IV, Part I. Through the course of the morning, we saw rain, mist, blue skies, more rain, sleet, hail, sunshine, and heavy heavy snow.

At one point - one of the sunshiney points - Kate decided to try reading outside. She had tried this yesterday but as soon as she got settled the sky had promptly dumped a large amount of rain on her head. However, as Daniel noted, she is bad-a**, so this previous obstacle didn't foil her eternal optimism. We looked outside a few minutes after she left the kitchen and there she was, all joyfully propped on two garden chairs, reading her book in the golden sunshine. "Aw, look at Kate! She's so happy outside," was roughly what Nick said. Three minutes later - or maybe less - it was sleeting like there was no tomorrow. Kate came in, slightly wet, slightly bedraggled, and super pissed.

In the next half hour, the sleet went away, the sun came out, and then the real clouds came and dumped a good half-inch of snow on everything in sight. We played in it. ("We" being Kate, Mia, Nick, and me.) Then the sun came back out.

Our conclusion is that this country - or at least its weather - is freaking confused. Some of us girls have had a few serious conversations about how to best ward off depression if the clouds refuse to lift. But so far our precautions have been fairly unnecessary. There have been unexpected days of intermittent sunshine and honestly the weather here has never been as bad as it is up on ol' Lookout Mountain. At least we're not in the clouds.

But there was a moment today, as I was pouring my tea, that my spirits suddenly and unaccountably sank. I turned around and realized: the sun was gone.

Here's what will keep us going on those long gloomy Oxford days: I'm sitting in the warm and cozily-lit living room with Emily and Daniel and just overheard their conversation.

[totally sincere voices]

Emily: "Oh, I just love our Crick family!!"

Daniel: "Dude, we are so cool. Thank you guys for being so great."

Oh my gosh and Shane and Nick just walked in with a cup of tea for everyone.

Aw!

Time to enjoy a warm cup of tea with friends. . . .

WHO DAT?!!

2010-02-08T18:25:00.004Z

We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming for an important celebration:

THE SAINTS WON THE SUPERBOWL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE CURSE IS BROKEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HELL IS FROZEN OVER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't even begin to describe how ecstatic we all are, except to say -- if you haven't seen it yet, go find yourself a real live member of the Who Dat Nation and ask them how they feel about the Superbowl. It will be the epic reaction of the century.

I only wish I could have watched it with my family and SEEN Gran cry (and cried with her) and heard Grandad yell alternately in despair and exultation and then danced around the living room and screamed at the top of my lungs without being self-conscious, knowing that no one would hear me anyways because they're all screaming just as loud. I wish we could have gone parading down Royal Street (and Bourbon and Decatur and Canal) together.

BUT, it was still fairly awesome to watch it here in Oxford. And, in their absence, I screamed loudly enough for most of the family.

But mostly I'm still in shock. The Saints have sucked our whole lives (it feels like) and now suddenly: WE WON! WE WON! WE WON!!!!!!!!!!! Redemption, baby, redemption. It actually happened.

I love you, family -- post me some pictures of that hoppin' party I know you had.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703427704575051711620520860.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_6

^^An article I really liked -- this writer gets the spirit of it pretty well.

People I Live With, Episode 2.

2010-02-07T15:34:00.005Z

Crick House, Basement, Room #10: Emily Muilenburg, Genny Peterson, and Irene Messelt.

(Emily is the blonde and Irene is the brunette)

(Genny: there were pictures of her closer up and with people, but I really like this one)

They live next door to us and they are the ones that are awakened at mad hours of the night by our squealing and gibbering when we don't go to sleep when we should. (By "we" I mean Hutton, Alison, and I. See previous post. ;-))

Emily: Oh my gosh. Can I just say, instant soul mate? That's what she was from day one. She's one of those sweet, pensive, happy, easily touched, motherly types. She is an English Major, too, and is taking C.S. Lewis in Context as her primary tutorial (that's my secondary) so we get to read Narnia and other awesome fantasy novels together. She can generally be found curled up on the couch in the living room either sleeping or reading a fantastically interesting book. Or skyping her boyfriend, Cody, back in the states. She also spearheaded the reading-aloud of Harry Potter and keeps us on task.

Irene: She is one of the four people in the house from Biola University in California. She rivals me in loudness (but for some reason, I still get all the flack for it) and is always excited about something. She randomly decided to fly to Rome for a weekend to meet up with friends from Biola. It is a belief prevalent among the rest of us that she just went because her boyfriend was going to be there. (But who can blame her?) She wants to get TWO doctorates: one from seminary and one in psychology studies. I think she wants to be some kind of brilliant counselor.

Genny: This girl is super good at being invisible. I feel like I hardly see her. But it's only because she is an incredibly hard worker and is usually at a library somewhere working on papers. She says she's just a slow worker, but we all know she's just diligent. She kind of strikes me as a no-nonsense person, but she's still open to try any kind of silliness. Also, she has this way of asking you a question where her voice gets lower and more sincere and she leans forward and looks directly into your eyes. It makes you feel like you're the only person in the world that she wants to listen to. A good feeling.

Room 10, everyone. Stayed tuned for our next episode in which Mia, Angela, and SAM make an appearance!!

People I Live With.

2010-02-06T17:05:00.005Z

So I was skyping Sarah last night and the dear little blog came up and she had a suggestion for its improvement: Stop nonchalantly mentioning people we know nothing about and tell us about them instead.

The result of which is that I'm starting a new blog series entitled: "People I Live With." (Creative, no?)

Today's episode will be featuring my room. Crick House, Basement, Room #11. Residents (yipes! I almost said "inmates"): me, Alison Gore, Laura Hutton, and Amy Capo--Cappo--Cappa-- I obviously can't spell her last name. Amy C.

(Left to right: Alison, Laura, Amy)

Alison and Laura are both Covenant-ers. (WOOT!) Laura lived on my hall and Alison lived down the hall from me on 3rd Central. So we all know each other really well.

Alison: She is an English major so obviously she's awesome. She's studying Old English and Old Norse here so obviously she's a nerd. But a closet nerd. Alison and I cook together for our food group on Tuesday nights, which means singing along to LADY GAGA (or some other awesome music on my grooveshark, such as: Justin Bieber, Kanye, Train, Phoenix, etc.) and lots of screaming and exclaiming over the food (such as "If we cook it long enough, it can't be toxic!").

Laura: Well, she and I were really close before we even came here. She's a music major and she's studying Musicology here. She is my voice of wisdom, commiserating partner, and the one who will tell me, "Hannah, you are a great woman and great women do great things." We pretty much need each other.

Amy: She is NOT from Covenant so she is a new friend. I just want to say: She is braver than most to be able to face rooming with three girls who already knew each other! DANG. She is obsessed with leopard print, Harry Potter, and angsty teen punk music. Also, in a crowd, we can always find her because she almost always has that bright pink hat on. She also needs only about five hours of sleep a night.

Room 11 everyone. Stay tuned for more. :)

Oxford: Where your best is never good enough.

2010-02-01T23:22:00.003Z

This is apparently a tagline that graduates have given the lovely university which is Oxford. And that's how I feel every Monday at 5:00 as I'm saying goodbye to Josh, my Shakespeare tutor.

Fun Facts about the UK (inspired by Robbs). Simon told me these:

-It is illegal to die in the House of Parliament.

-Any stray whale's head on the beach is the king's property. So if you're walking along the beach and happen upon a whale's head, don't touch that thing. Also: the tail belongs to the queen.

-In York, it is only legal to kill a Scotsman if he's holding a bow-and-arrow.

I need to get back to my book (The Man Who Was Thursday). How's this for beauty:

"In the wild events which were to follow this girl had no part at all; he never saw her again until all his tale was over. And yet, in some indescribable way, she kept recurring like a motive in music through all his mad adventures afterwards, and the glory of her strange hair ran like a red thread through those dark and ill-drawn tapestries of the night."

"Childhood is short and maturity is forever."

2010-02-01T01:40:00.003Z

So live a little!!! Seriously. Kate and I screamed as we went out on the town at 11:30 last night: "YOUTH IS WASTED ON THE YOUNG, BUT THEY'LL NEVER SAY THAT ABOUT US!!!! WE'RE IN OXFORD!!" Which is basically what Calvin said to Hobbes when they went sledding instead of finishing homework.

In other news, I have been writing a paper ALLLLLL DAY (since I got home from church, that is). And it is one of those papers that does not want to be written. Like its writer, it has a will of iron and a stubborn streak as long as . . . something that is very long. And I swear it has been like pulling teeth to write this thing.

I also read way too much Calvin and Hobbes, alternately sympathizing with Calvin (who, obviously, agreed with me that I should not have to be writing this paper) and his mom (who knows the pain of trying to force little boys into bathtubs -- which can be a lot like trying to force a paper to write itself).

So I wrote this paper for hours and hours and got distracted and got in a really bad mood and went back to writing it and couldn't figure out what it was I was trying to say about Shakespeare's development of Measure for Measure and then I would write two paragraphs and erase them in fury . . . . and this all went on for forever until I finally had almost an entire rough draft that I hated. And then I wrote the last sentence and suddenly realized I had discovered my thesis. So relieving.

The Superbowl is in a week. (ohmygosh)

Phoenix concert. March 30. London. Go? Yes?

By the end of this week, I shall have been here an entire month. Wow.

I had mango sherbet tonight.

Another week in Oxford begins.

To conclude with another Calvinism (haha): "Look at all this homework I'm supposed to do! I don't want to do this garbage! I want to go play outside!"

2010-01-31T22:12:00.004Z

Explorers are we, intrepid and bold,

Out in the wild, amongst wonders untold.

Equipped with our wits, a map, and a snack,

We're searching for fun and we're on the right track!

Kate bought The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes last week to become a permanent staple here at Crick House.

Needless to say, it has brought much delight and endless distraction. So much for reading Shakespeare.

Out of the Blue

2010-01-30T21:58:00.003Z

Today ten of the Crick girls walked to Magdalen -- "maudlin" -- College to watch Grant and his a capella men's group, Out of the Blue, perform with the Princeton Tigressions, an a capella women's group from Princeton. (And when I asked Grant, "What, Princeton Princeton Princeton??" He said, "Yes, the real Princeton. In America." That Princeton.)

It was absolutely dazzling. They were soo excellent and so animated and so funny and so freaking good at singing. They opened with "Don't You Want Me Baby" and we were screaming with delight by the end.

Other songs they performed:

Stevie Wonder's "Knocks Me Off My Feet" (which, had I been standing, would have knocked me off my feet)

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

"Stacy's Mom"

"Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel)" (aaaaaahhhh!!!! one of the greatest songs ever-ever-ever)

"Pokerface" (yes, Lady Gaga)

Kate and I agreed that Covenant needs an a capella group. Officially.

Harry Potter

2010-01-27T22:43:00.003Z

Tonight's chapter of Harry Potter is being read aloud by Jonathan Kirkpatrick -- who possesses a real live British accent.

I have never been this close to Hogwarts in my life. Ever.

(JPak)

(Listening: Hutton, Emily, and Katie)

(Grant and Alison)

(One more for good measure)

(JPak is our substitute Junior Dean, by the way. "Junior Dean" = RD. "Substitute" because our original JD has been gone for a few weeks because of family tragedy.)

We Are Tourists in London for a Day

2010-01-26T21:27:00.024Z

[Music: Beach House's new album, "Teen Dream"]

Because I should be doing homework, I am updating my blog.

#1: I have a cold. (I mostly say that so my family can feel sorry for me.) Which means I have consumed even more tea today than usual. Which is a lot. Also, I probably got the cold in London. So that's kind of romantic, right? I miss how Laura used to come in the room when I was sick and start coughing pitifully and say "Pa, I think I've got the black lung!" Yes, I miss how she used to mock me.

#2: Reading for this week, GET THIS: Alice in Wonderland (Carroll), The Man Who Was Thursday (G.K. Chesterton), and Measure for Measure (Shakespeare).

#3: A Summary of the London trip:

Simon (picture below) -- our witty, jovial, sarcastic, and hilarious tour guide/student life leader/counselor -- led us through the historical sites of London for the whole day, beginning at the Marble Arch bus stop and ending in Chinatown for supper at the Friendly Inn. I swear, that man knows everything there is to know about London's history. The main thing you need to know: "This whole town is lying on blood, really."

(Simon)

The rest of this is going to be bullet-point form. Read the ones that seem interesting:

The U.S. Embassy is built on land owned by the Duke of Westminster. It's on a 999-year lease to us. It is also fantastically ugly.

The taxis are made like old cars from, like, the 30's or something.

The Monument to the Great fire of London (1666) is 202 feet high and has 311 steps spiralling up inside of it -- kind of like Dante's circles of hell, according to Emily. You have no idea how many steps that is until you've climbed about 155 up and you still have just as many more to go and your knees are wobbling. But it was so worth it.

We saw all those things you read about and hear about: the places and monuments that figure into great novels and poems and history. Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben, the Tower of London. As we walked along the Thames in the evening and watched the inky water heave and ripple and cast back sparkling reflections of all the city lights, Kate and I were awed and silenced by two things: 1) How much great literature has been inspired by this very river. 2) WHY DID WE NOT HAVE BOYFRIENDS WITH US? It was epically romantic.

Even surrounded by all those monuments, and the incredible art inside the National Gallery, I continue to be far more fascinated by the people I pass by. I love seeing the statues, but relationships between live people will keep my attention much longer.

(...what is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face, / Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you...)

(The certainty of others--the life, love, sight, hearing of others.)

(Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!)

("Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," Walt Whitman)

There was so much to see, and of course we all want to go back because we haven't begun to see the half of it. That's all I got for now, though, mostly because this post is already atrociously long and my brain is all fuzzy from the Sudafed I took an hour ago.

Thrive, cities! bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers; / Expand.

A foggy day in London town.

2010-01-24T00:19:00.004Z

We went to London today for the big tour. YEEAAAH!

I'm too exhausted to do it justice in blog form, but here's a crash course review:

Grosvenor Square, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London Tower, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge (because the actual London Bridge is in ARIZONA. WHO KNEW?? Talk about disappointing).

Also: I got hit by a cab. In London.

I am S p a r t a c u s.

Better description/pictures to come. (Of the London trip, not the cab mishap.)

Goodnight!

How Kate made Nick cry.

2010-01-22T22:26:00.011Z

OK, he didn't actually cry. And Kate didn't do anything. So you could say the title of this post is utterly misleading. But here IS what's happening in the kitchen of Crick at 11:40 at night:

Grant is staring determinedly at the water pot (I think he's trying to figure out how to open it) while Kate, Nick, and Shane are having a serious philosophical/theological discussion at the table next to me. Kate just said Dante didn't write "religious works" and Nick and Shane almost started crying. (That was hyperbole. Also where I got the title of this post.)

Laura is handling the water pot now and Grant is adding an opinion to the discussion in his gentle way.

I'm rejoining the conversation now.

[10 minute interval]

Now everyone is mad and Nick keeps prefacing what he says by: "I don't even know if I want to say this."

[4 minute interval]

NOW we all agree and Alison just joined the conversation with "Can I just ask what the heck we're talking about?"

[90 minute interval]

Topics have ranged from: reality to the Trinity to musical theory to church history to the Cross. It's a really serious conversation and the circle has grown to nine people. It's like this vortex that no one can escape. And probably something we all needed to talk about.

I still don't know how much I love this kind of discussion, though I know somewhere in my head that it's important to be able to have it -- because God is worth knowing and worth the struggle it takes to know Him. And people are worth hearing and worth the struggle it takes to understand them.

A possible ultimate conclusion to the discussion: Jesus is the one way to God, but there are wondrously and marvelously many ways to Jesus Christ: because no one is beyond the reach of God's love in Christ. And other than that, there is so much we just don't know.

Also, that we're really glad we can still laugh in the middle of this over someone's bizarre analogy and that we can still go read Harry Potter and know God loves us. And that we still love each other.

It is good to sit and talk.

Guess Who . . . .

2010-01-20T22:45:00.003Z

Emily and I walked into a lecture today slightly late, so we settled into a couple seats perched up on the side. Our seats overlooked the main part of the room, where the tiered desks cascaded away from us down to the front of the room. And as I shuffled my papers and scanned the room for interesting-looking people, I suddenly realized - right below me - she was sitting . . . . . SHE was:

Susan from the Chronicles of Narnia!!!! *GASP*

I wrote a hardly subtle note to Emily sitting next to me and we just stared at her for the rest of the lecture.

Could we be any creepier?

I submit that we cannot!!

2010-01-19T17:09:00.005Z

Sunday: I went with Shane, Irene, and Emily to the Solemn Mass at St. Aloysius ("al-uh-wish-us"). Shane is on his way to being Catholic, while Irene, Emily, and I were just curious to experience the mass sung in Latin.

It was beautiful. I tried following along in the liturgy booklet since I know enough Latin to keep up but then I realized it was much more worshipful to just listen and watch. I love the solemnity of the music, the liturgy, the smell of the incense, the beautiful architecture, the reverent expressions. It's a seriousness that's bursting -- like the angels are about to bust out with joy.

But I think I prefer worship where the people literally are busting out with joy.

So I'm trying to decide how I'm going to do church here. I love the possibility of seeing new traditions (Hutton wants to go to the Quaker meeting with Jay next week) and slightly different ways of worship -- but, at the same time, I know I need to plug in somewhere and make it home. For a home church, I want something as much like New City as I can find over here. :)

After church we went to The Lamb and Flag pub for lunch (across from the Eagle and Child and much better) and Emily and I split a steak and kidney pie!!!!! I AM HARRY POTTER!!!!! :) It was actually really good, and I hardly even noticed the slightly squishy, strangely tough bits of not-meat that must've been kidney.

Monday: I went to my first tutorial. ::gasp::

After winding my way down High Street and through criss-crossing cobbled alleys, I finally arrive at Merton College on the other side of town and stepped into the Porter's Lodge to wait for my tutor. He showed up five minutes later: skinny, bespectacled, about 28 years old, well-dressed with a scarf and sweater and shiny shoes, and topped with a mop of dark hair and a five o'clock shadow. But he's from Boston. So no accent. (BUMMER.) He led me to a big old room where we sat huddled at a table at one end near the heater and talked about Shakespeare for an hour. I think it's going to be great, especially as we get used to each other.

Today: I had my second tutorial. It's my "C.S. Lewis in Context" tutorial and we were talking about George MacDonald's books Lilith and Phantastes. IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!!! My tutor is Emma Plaskitt and she is the SHIZ, man. I feel like I just sat there and talked about all of my favorite things and then she assigned me more of my favorite things. I can't wait to meet with her again in two weeks. My next assignment is to read Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday and Alice in Wonderland. WHOOO!!!

Today also involved all of us students having tea and treats in Simon's office and then Katie and I grocery shopping because I HAVE NO MILK.

Tonight: We are going to start reading Harry Potter out loud to each other because some of our group have NEVER READ IT. Katie has Book 1 and tonight we're cracking it open.

Tea. At Crick.

2010-01-18T23:37:00.004Z

Jonathan Kirkpatrick (the previous Junior Dean at Crick House) and other Crick people from past years made up a system to tell people how to fix your tea. Here are the ones I remember:

If you want nothing in it at all, you just ask for "Object."

If you want just milk (a lot of milk), you ask for "Dracula's Dream."

If you want milk and one sugar, ask for a "Fat Cow."

If you want milk and two sugars, you'll get a "White Desmond." (As in Desmond Tutu. As in "two" sugars. Sound it out.)

I feel like there were more, but I can't remember them.

So now, instead of asking simply for a "milk, two sugars, please," you gotta remember all this about animals and monsters and world leaders. Somehow I haven't found that it simplifies anything when six people are yelling for cows and draculas and desmonds and the odd "Isn't there one about the Queen? The fat white queen?"

But the point is -- it's hilarious. So the system has been adopted.

I'll take a White Desmond, please.

London + Vampire Weekend + Free Tickets

2010-01-17T18:44:00.005Z

AWESOME!!!

Need I say more? I really don't, but what else are blogs for?

So, on Wednesday of last week, Robbie told me that Vampire Weekend was giving a FREE concert in London at the Somerset house the next day. And about twelve hours later, Kate, Alison, Laura, and I were walking through the slush to the Oxford bus station to spend the day in London, suddenly and blissfully regardless of the books to be read, sources to be sought, and papers to be written before the week was out.

First of all, I can't wait to go back and see more of it. After we emerged from the bus at the Marble Arch station, we got on the subway and headed north to hit up some of the British Museum and get lunch at a pub (which I never want to go back to -- Piece of Advice #1: don't just eat at the first quaint-looking pub you happen upon). By 2:30, we headed off to find the Somerset House, which we discovered after walking almost the whole length of the Strand. (All the people we asked for directions, "Why, yes, just keep walking that way a bit - you can't miss it.")
It's beautiful. We walked all the way round the skating rink and made it to the other side -- right under the balcony which that night would function as a stage. And, let it be known: we were the first ones there. Within ten minutes, there were four more groups of people, and within thirty more it was starting to get crowded. But we had our spots: directly in front of the balcony, backed up against the ice rink: front and center.

The concert was fantastic, charged. Everyone was giddy -- from the hundreds of fans to the band themselves. (Maybe the freezing cold had something to do with it. :)) They opened with "White Sky" and, dude, that Ezra Koenig can do things with his voice...WOAH!!!! They did some of their old ones and some new ones and we all sang along and yelled our support up to their colorful perch. We took pictures and they took pictures and everybody was laughing and singing and ecstatic. The concert had the very same giddy, frenzied energy to it that you can hear in their songs.

Then the sound blew out during "Horchata." Yeah, it was just the saddest thing ever. We all started yelling up at them but they couldn't tell what we were saying and they kept playing through. When it was over and someone told Ezra that the sound had gone out halfway through, he walked up to the mic, ran his fingers through his hair and let out the quirkiest "Well, f***!" I've ever heard. The drummer, Chris Tomson, stood up covering his mouth with his hand and made a gesture saying something like, "You'll have to excuse him - and us" and then immediately grinned and started taking pictures again. Everyone quickly rallied and they played one last song (the most energized version of "Walcott" I've ever jumped up and down to) before they breezed out.

Here's a review Kate found the next day:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20100115_vampire_weekend.shtml

I would just like to point out the part towards the end: "People in the crowd directly beneath were shouting up to them, inviting them to play the rest of the gig on ground level."

That would've been us. :)

The day was rounded off with a stroll guided by Nick through Trafalgar Square, over some bridge to see the Thames, and into The Ship and Shovel to thaw out our frozen toes (a pub I would return to if given the chance).

Now: Back to work! Tomorrow: My first tutorial.

As I hauled three heavy grocery bags the whole slushy, icy mile-and-a-half from Sainsbury's to Crick...

2010-01-11T20:27:00.003Z

...I realized that I'm going to be in great shape by April.

Over the past couple days:

-Slush

-A late evening spell Saturday night in the "Rabbit Room" of the Eagle and Child ("bird and baby") where Lewis and his cronies used to hang. Yes, it is just exactly how you pictured it. And it is awesome.

-I searched the United States for MONTHS for brown boots and navy tights. Two days here and I have both. WOOH.

-(^That^ was my sordid materialistic bullet point for the week. Don't let me do another one or I'll hate myself.)

-Two new phrases: "Kick up a fuss" (as in, I will just literally kick up a fuss if you throw that muddy snowball at my face). And "cheers." (as in, Cheers!)

-Hutton, Alison, Amy, and I rearranged our room Sunday and it is SO MUCH BETTER. Forgot to take a "Before" picture and I have yet to take an "After" picture but, trust me, it's improving our psychological health already.

-Went to St. Ebbes's Sunday for the evening service and loved it. Ohhhhh, my. I can't wait to get plugged into a church group here. One guy asked me (after assuring me he was NOT trying to offend me) whether people from Texas actually wear cowboy hats. I was able to reassure him that the stereotype is accurate, alive, and real.

GAAHHH, WE HAVE TO START BEING RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE NOW!!!!!!! (And by "responsible people," I really just mean "students." Pass your own judgment.) Guys, we are literally FREAKING out. I'm scared out of my mind.

Prayer for: Academics, that stress would NOT rule my life and I wouldn't just freak out automatically. Relationships, that I would have the energy and love to keep developing these friendships that are just starting. God, that he would be first and more dear to me than ever before.

[Tomorrow morning's playlist by DJs Kate and Hannah: "Pet Sounds"]

Hilary Term 2010: Starting now.

2010-01-10T23:52:00.003Z

[Listening: Au Revoir Simone] <--(Sarah, I'm doing this mostly for you, so we can still share music even though we aren't making each other CDs. :))

Well, kids, the leisurely and profligate days are over. No more bumming around throwing snowballs and acting like tourists: tomorrow (well, today, since it's after midnight) Hilary Term 2010 officially kicks off for us. In the words of Kate (Harrison), "Guys, we have to start actually working tomorrow!" Because we're not shelling out scads of money so I can go window shopping.

So I am glad to start the academics and learn things, but a little anxious about how it'll all pan out. Plenty of late nights and early mornings and drinking too much tea, I'm sure. (Which - let's be honest - isn't exactly an astronomic change from Covenant.) I have a lot of expectations, apprehensions, and hopes about what these next four months will be like and what I will be like when it's all over. Who knows how many of them will ever see the sheer light of day? I really have little to no idea of what to expect from what's ahead. But I have the feeling that, if I can trust it to the right hands (you know whose those are), this is going to be an important four months for me.

I'm nervous and giddy and glad.

So let the sun shine. / So let the sun shine. / So let the sunshine, / let it come. / To show us that tomorrow is eventual. / We know it when the day is done.

Oxford at first sight.

2010-01-08T21:33:00.021Z

At approximately 11:00 am Oxford time, Hutton, Al, and I arrived on the doorstep of the Crick house with luggage in tow having braved Heathrow terminals, customs, the central bus station, the Oxford bus station, and a taxi driver. After a brief pick-me-up in the form of peanut butter sandwiches and tea with milk and sugar, we defied the jet lag and went exploring!!!

Guys, Oxford is the most quaintly and exquisitely lovely place I have ever experienced. These pictures - of course - can't fully capture it (1, because it's a crap camera; 2, because I'm a crap photographer), but try to experience it with me. :)

Crick. Our house. It's a duplex like most houses here (it reminds me of The Magician's Nephew!). See those basement bay windows? Mine are just like that only in the back.

The view from our door. The basement rooms are separate from the rest of the house, so you have to come down these stairs to our doorway. It's all icy and I slide all over the place.

Then a tree attacked me. And by "attacked me" I mean a load of snow from one of its branches suddenly dropped on my head.

That car was stuck in the snow and these guys were trying to push it out. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of that moment because I was busy rushing up and offering our help. Like we could've done anything. They laughed and said "No, thanks, we got it" in fabulous accents.

We walked through a very dark and narrow doorway and found this fantastic vista that looked like Hogwarts. It was actually Keble College.

Shopping.

Then we found THIS!! (Something we later realized is quite commonplace.)

AND THIS!!!! I have yet to enter the doorway.

We're excited. :)

Five Hours in the DFW airport.

2010-01-07T22:18:00.006Z

[Current music: A folk mix that the itunes genius thing put together for me]

Three hours down and and I'm still in a really good mood! It's probably all downhill from here.

I'm slouched in an armchair in the "DFW Comfort Lounge" in terminal D, one gate away from the one I fly out of. From here I can comfortably surf the web (for $7.99) and watch all the interesting people hurrying by. Airports can be anything from creepy to boring to overwhelming, but they're always fascinating. Between the people-watching, the overhead announcements (that startle the crap out of me every time), and the phone conversations, I haven't felt stir-crazy at all.

"Leaving on a Jet Plane" just started playing. It's like God is making a soundtrack for me.

In the airport:

-This middle-aged cowboy walked by me with one of his pant legs rolled up to show his enormous tattoo to the world. I've never seen that before. I guess if you get a tattoo that big, you should keep it on display.

-A family that flew with me from Shreveport had twin baby girls. Dang, they're going to have a great life.

-The people at the information desk in front of me look like park rangers. And when I was talking to Nat, the lady turned around and glared at me. I think I was being too loud. That's shocking.

-The guy who was working in Starbucks thought I said I wanted "coffee" flavoring in my hot chocolate instead of "toffee." He made me feel stupid for not knowing that what I was ordering was the same things as a mocha. And then I was so confused I didn't correct him and so I ended up with the wrong drink AND a frazzled ego.

Welp, now I'm getting hungry. So here's the end of my last post State-side. In an hour and a half, I'll board my plane and hopefully sleep my way to snowy Heathrow. See you in Oxford!!

A place to start . . .

2010-01-06T06:24:00.000Z

The Point: So, I'm blogging again. Some friends suggested a blog as the most efficient way to share about my exploits in Oxford. After mild protesting, I realized they were right: blogging is murderously efficient. I don't even have to talk to anyone. Just about myself.

I hope this becomes a place where I can share experiences, document adventures and - most of all - keep writing.

The Name: Dad wanted it to be called "Sheep . . . Why are there sheep everywhere?" Then he wanted to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus all night long.

I picked this name because, 1) I am living in a house on Crick Road in Oxford for four months and it's practically a castle (as like a castle as a large-ish Victorian house can be). 2) I distilled it from one of my favorite books, which is also set in England. 3) I like the way it sounds. 4) Sarah and Robbie, my two main advisers for the title, like the way it sounds.

Grandad came up with the subtitle: "Well, Hannah, it's rainy and foggy and you'll be depressed the whole time so why don't you call it the 'London Foggy Blog.'" That was right before he began muttering "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, what a crazy world."

The Starting Place: An open suitcase full of books, journals, winter clothes, and Snort the Red Stuffed-Animal is sitting at the top of the stairs and tomorrow I leave the country for England.

WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"But you know no matter where we are / we're always touching by underground wires."