Patronage

Yesterday was the day of our patron saint, Catherine. There was a fancy dinner, but I didn't buy a ticket for that, and I heard it was rubbish. Instead, a friend and I went out for pasta. After the dinner was the last entz, but I couldn't stay long or have too much fun on account of the early morning race (see below). It wasn't fancy dress this time but smart dress, so I was very happy to dress up fresh.

Gotta Lotta Regatta

After an intense week of bookwork, my schedule has not let up. The Christ Church Regatta, which I guess is a race of all the novice boats among all the colleges (though who everybody really was, I'm not sure), ran from Wednesday to Saturday. I haven't been payed much attention by the Catz crew, and while they don't practice often, they put me on the list even less frequently. I had been on the water all of twice when I got an email on Friday asking me to sub in for someone who would miss Day Two of the race. The regatta was double elimination, and they split their two races the day before, advancing farther than our other two boats. The boat, arbitrarily nicknamed 'Hurricane', is the one I had been out with before, so I guess I was on the bottom of their list. The seat I was asked to fill was a stroke-side oar (i.e., port, i.e., off to the right as the rowers face, i.e. facing backwards), and I have for ever rowed on bow-side (i.e., the other side), so that was pretty disorienting. It didn't matter too much, though, because we won that race.

The race was standard fare, although maybe some of you have never seen one before. Marshals wearing bright coats and connected by walky-talkies stand at intervals along the river, overseeing all the traffic. They race two boats at a time, starting one half a boatlength ahead of the other, and after a little nudging this way and that ("Boat A, take one stroke, too far, Boat B, take one stroke"), yell, "Attention!...Go!" There's a flurry of oars, frantic splashing, and within two minutes it's over. Then there's the game of getting back to the boathouse, ours being very near the start of the race. The first day I raced, there were still many crews in the competition, so we were inching along the wall in a line of thirteen boats, waiting for races to pass so that we could, one or two at a time, cross over to the other side of the river and dock.

Winning our third race kept us in for today's races. The seat I subbed for on Friday was filled, but someone else didn't show up so I had his seat, and thankfully it was a bow-side oar. Actually, it was 'bow', the seat in the front of the boat but in back of the rowers (hence the identification of the starboard oars as "bow-side"). Oh, just a note: In the states, we use port and starboard to name the oars, which is much more sensible, since not all boats are rigged the same way, and in some the stroke (leading oar) is rigged to starboard and the bow to port.

I'm running out of storytelling energy, and I didn't start with much. Point is, we won our first race today but lost our second. In the first race, after we had pulled to a comfortable lead, our stroke (once again, the rower sitting in front of all of us who everyone else is supposed to follow) 'caught a crab', meaning he did not successfully lift his blade from the water at the end of his stroke, so the river grabbed it and it was dragged along parallel to the boat. It can be extricated from such a position, and was, but had the race been closer, this event would have affected the outcome.

Overall, the regatta was a pretty miserable experience, but it was a rich experience nonetheless. It was cold and wet both days. In a boat you get cold and wet no matter what the weather, so those things were compounded, and the boathouse isn't heated either. The crew, being slightly-trained novices, has yet no sense of balance, so the boat was never 'set', even when we weren't moving, thus we were doing a lot of crooked sitting. Then of course rowing is hard, especially with a novice crew with no sense of balance who like to rush up the slide and then rush the stroke. But winning is fun, and we did some of that.

Idol Worship Pt. 2

Today was the organized trip to Warwick ("War-ick") and Stratford-upon-Avon. I initially knew about the latter destination and not the former, but Historybuff Ted told me this morning we were going to a castle. I said no, we were going to see Shakespeare. We were both right.

Warwick Castle was alright, but Ted was disappointed that they focused mostly on its 19th century life rather than the other eight centuries of its history. My guess is that Madame Tussaud's people had a hand in the displays, as there were very lifelike versions of a multitude of characters (including the current Queen, in the room in which she ate lunch in 1996--such was Ted's gripe) populating most of the rooms. There was an impressive collection of pikes, spears, swords, and daggers on display. But it was, overall, very beautiful.

But then we got to Stratford, and I became especially interested in how many ways the local businesses could use Shakespeare references in their promotion. The winners were Will's Shakes and Shakespearience. We really didn't have much time there, especially since we decided to have lunch upon arrival (where the menu featured a caricature of the poet enjoying spaghetti). The only historical location we hit was Shakespeare's grave, which was pretty neat. I wanted to buy some liquor for a libation, but it's a good thing I didn't, because he's buried inside a local church.

The best thing we found just as we were heading back to the bus: A statue of a dancing jester, placed on a base that featured various quotes about The Fool in the plays. The best, the best.

I bought a "dingly-dangly" Shakespeare magnet which is awesome and will soon (too soon!) be available for viewing on my refridgerator. I also bought a block-printed postcard with a quote from King Lear: "When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools." I love it. Maybe it seems a little bit downish to some of you, but it makes me smile every time I look at it, and I will be doing a good bit of that.

It's time to eat fish and chips at Hall, and I'm pretty hungry.

Powerhouse

The paper on Book Four is MUCH, MUCH better than the paper on Book Three. My tutor loved it.

You Know

Below is the essay I wrote last week for my primary tutorial. I had to make a change because of a flaw in the translation, which accounts for the lag. As always, don't even THINK about taking my ideas, and if you do think about it, don't actually do it.

Holy Crepe

Walking back from the pool session (see below), I encountered a street fair on Broad Street. I got a tin full of meat and potatoes (what else?), and then I got a crepe. A french guy made this crepe right in front of me. Poured the batter on the griddle, made it really thin, turned it over, sprinkled chocolate chips on it, folded it, folded it again, wrapped it in wax paper, took my money, and gave me the greatest crepe I've ever tasted ever. It was warm and chocolatey and soft, soft, soft dough. I'm not sure how I got home, because all I could see was this crepe.

It deserved its own entry on the blog.

The Deep End

Today I went to a meeting of the University pool club at a local pool hall. Thank goodness I've been practicing on the JCR tables--what I've called "silly" and "small" they call "English pool." It's not the sized-down bar entertainment I took it for initially. Essentially, it's harder than "American pool." Because the balls are smaller, there is less to work with. Remember how pool works: You don't just try to hit the one ball with the other ball; you aim for a point on the target ball. Here, the target is smaller.

My original plan for joining this club was to have them show me where I could find a "real" pool table. That's obviously not what happened.

There were eight other guys, most of whom brought their own cues (in cases of unusual length). They were all very good. So here I was, a) an American and b) a new kid, playing a game I thought I knew by new rules, and with new equipment. For the first several games, I felt like I had just been thrown in the water and forgot I could swim. We played sets of three, and I lost the first two sets 2-1 and the third 3-0. Yikes. This, after days of handily beating the Americans in the JCR.

But my main worry at the outset was that I would really, really stink. And I did. So once I didn't have to worry about that anymore, I loosened up and improved considerably, winning a few sets. We played for three hours. I think I'm twice as good at English pool now. And I hope I get an email about next week's session.

Back to High School

It's a beautiful day here.

Last night was another Entz (St. Catherine's > Catz : Entertainment > Entz), a "fancy dress" (costume) party in the JCR with music, dancing, flashing colored lights, etc. The theme was American High School. It was really great to see what these people think of us in such a bold way. Some of the costume highlights:

A guy wearing a TV on his head.
A girl wearing a pot on her head (i.e., a pot-head).
The Pink Ladies from Grease.
Several people wearing stuffed shirts and pants.
A guy who kind of had a 'fro to begin with, in a velour sweat suit with sagged pants (i.e., a black guy).

And the rest were mostly stock characters: Preps, geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, football fans, hayseeds, Uncle Sams. One guy had a Confederate flag, but when one of the other Americans asked him about it, he said that it only reminds Brits of the Dukes of Hazzard.

None of the Americans chose the ironic costume of British schoolboy. We had a few Jersey boys (apparently that's a type called "guido", I've learned), a Catholic schoolgirl, some more preps and jocks, a "gay best friend," a Southern frat boy. I did the long-sleeve-under-short-sleeve combo with a backwards baseball cap and jeans, trying to look as American as I could. I actually met a Brit whose costume was also a backwards cap, and we bonded over this. I think we had the most true-to-life idea.

It was a good time. I won't promise pictures, though.

The Norm

I popped into the JCR (the college bar) for a few games of pool for a break in my after-dinner reading. For 30p, the silly tables they have are not a bad deal, and I've learned to use them. I've written about this before, I think, but to remind you: The tables, cues, and balls, are very small. According to my acquaintance, Sean, these are the norm here.
While there, I learned that tonight is a major event in rugby initiation--the night initiates have to run around the quad naked. My granny always said, Don't be in a frat. I think her reasons were different, but this kind of shenanigan is enough to keep me away from such groups, so when it comes time for me to pass on wisdom to my grandchildren, I'll extend it: Don't be in a frat or on a rugby team.

Getting Wet

I realize I’ve been slacking a bit on my reporting here. My bad.

Saturday was a busy, busy day. I was finally scheduled in a boat with the college crew team. I’m in with the novices, and there are two novice men 8-boats, each with a roster of more than eight people. They shuffle us in and out, and I’ve been mostly out. But the weather was perfect, between a morning and evening of rain, so maybe I should count myself lucky.

The river Isis is mainly for crew teams. There are, at any given time, probably eight crews out, maybe more. The coxswains know the river etiquette and do their best to avoid the other boats, but it gets really interesting when boats need to turn around. Usually, someone with a bullhorn and a bike rides alongside a crew, to watch and coach. There is a small path on either side of the river leading to the many boathouses and beyond. Some of the Oxford colleges have their own boathouses, but some, like St. Catz, share a divided building with a few others. The University College boathouse is p-i-m-p. Ours doesn’t look like much, but it has a comfortable rec room with kitchenette and bathrooms. We also have a mostly empty trophy case. I wonder what some of the older college trophy cases look like (I bet they’re awesome).

Our novice boat went out and did our thing. The balance was fairly shaky, but we rowed “all eight,” which is an achievement for novices. My hands took a beating and I got splashed a few times, but I was none the worse.

I had less-fun crew obligations later. To row officially, you need to pass a ‘swim test’. There are 38 colleges, each with a crew team (I think), and they all have this test together in the pool at the Iffley Road sports complex. This was, as you may imagine, a wet mess. Groups of six at a time, dressed in shorts and shirt, had to swim normally down the lane, then backstroke on the way back, then pick up a brick, then tread water for a minute. Water is not my environment, so this was a bit of an adventure, but I succeeded, the last of my group. It really killed me though.

I had little time to feel sorry for myself, or spit out the water I swallowed, because immediately after that there was a small party with the baseball team. It was hosted by Tom, the British grad student who drove us to the tournament. It was a nice time, and I got to meet some of the regular players who weren’t at the tournament. They are mostly non-Brits. Some awards were presented for this year’s season, among them Best British Player, which went to Tom. A good time was had by all, and although I was rained on some trying to get there, it was a nice place to be for most of the bad weather.

After that, I met up with some of the Americans from my program to celebrate a mate’s birthday. That was fun too.

And that was my very busy day.

Working You Into A Pattern

You knew what was going on. I was working on papers. Posted below is the most recent Lucretius paper. Once, again, don't steal my ideas.
My Tragedy tutorial is, for our third session, about Hamlet. Awesome. This time, I get to read the commentary, to figure out what kind of effect Hamlet has on those who have tried to figure it out. The trick is, it's a mirror. It makes fools of us all.

Pyrotechnically Speaking

Tonight, those pops in the distance are definitely fireworks, because I can see them from my window. It’s Guy Fawkes Night in the Empire. For those who need a little background, part of the rhyme goes,
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, twas his intent
To blow up the King and the Parli’ment,
But they caught him and that’s why they celebrate. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that James I should have been killed, but this particular holiday seems like a frenzy over the protection of tradition. Thank goodness, the monarchy survived.
I’m personally thankful to be from a country that, in the same frenzied way, celebrates a successful revolution rather than a failed one.

Also, people in the Black Country of England (a region so named for the side-effects its coal, iron, and steel production) tonight are eating groaty pudding, also know as groaty dick. I think I'll stick with potato salad.

Kind of Like the Tooth Fairy

It's almost two in the morning here. I've been watching CNN in the JCR for two hours, and I actually know nothing about the election. The energy in the room peaked when the pizza arrived around 11:30. But from the number of people in the room then, the buzz drowning out the TV, the printouts of American flags and pictures of candidates, I knew they weren't there just for the pizza.

I saw Chicago on TV a lot. To the Brits, I would guess this meant very little, the way Gloucester or Nottingham would mean little to me aside from not being London. But I missed it.

It's amazing how much the heads can talk without any prompt. But, from what I've read, this election is finally something they can't capture in their analysis. I take it on faith that the people on the mainland know what's going on, because they're the only ones who really can know.

This is really exciting, but I'm going to be asleep for the best part.

I've heard some sentiment about this election being a turnaround, a righting of long wrongs, an overcoming. I believe it, but from the perspective of my generation, this is the kind of thing that can happen, and say, why hasn't it yet? I don't know what to say to mark the occassion.

Update: I just checked 538.com, and it sure looks like the bag is filling. A good day for America, the rest of the world, and a good morning for me tomorrow.

Lucky Post #27

The fat L on the forehead of England is London, our host this weekend for a series of program-organized events and shameless tourism. I had far the easiest weekend among the St. Catz representatives, since I succumbed to fatigue both nights instead of fighting on into the early morn through the club scene. So I mostly have straightforward place-to-place recollections instead of the stories I’ve been hearing all of today during the debriefings (which are wild stories sans the -to- between places, in a few cases, of debriefings). Some of you (my parents, grandparents) are no doubt glad for this fact; some friends might be disappointed.

Friday was “Mexican” food. They just don’t get it over here (or they don’t get Mexicans). One might call their attempt ‘wack’: They had some meat, plenty of beans and rice, some salsa, no sour cream, no onions, and, WORST of the WORST, no cilantro. And they barely had tortillas. We had to wait for tortillas. What? I felt like I had no silverware. But I ate it anyway, and once I had my tortillas, I put ice cream in one, which turned out to be delicious.

That night, a group of us went to the London Eye, which is a very tall Ferris wheel on the Thames (“tems”). I was brought there unwilling, but it was worth it. The ride is really long, and the wheel is quite tall, affording riders an excellent view of the city lights. Thankfully it was a clear night. In several places in the city, fireworks were happening, probably just for our benefit. Comparison: The London Eye is way, way, way better than that thing on Navy Pier, mostly because it doesn’t look like McDonald’s fries containers.

Saturday was our full day, and our London Eye crew (perhaps the London Oglers?) met up bright and early. We hit Westminster, the big church with stuff in it. A Shakespeare note: They put up a little monument to the author in the room that commemorates many other writers, among them Samuel Johnson. That’s Dr. Johnson, prolific reader of Shakespeare whom I disagree with most of the time, and he’s right in front of the S’peare nook. That moralizing SOB would love it.

But actually, Westminster was pretty neat. Over the Great West Door, they had a series of statues erected in 1998 celebrating modern Christian leaders, featuring among others MLK and Oscar Romero. Some of you may be interested to learn that. I learned a bunch of stuff that I forgot some of.

Next, we went to see the famous Changing of the Guard at the Queen’s house. For those who are unfamiliar with this, you may wonder why it’s famous if all they do is change the guard. Well, it left me wondering the same thing.

Then we went to the Churchill War Museum at the War Rooms, the actual center of strategy during WWII. Churchill and his generals used the bunker under some other building for six years, and then when the war ended, they turned off the lights and went home. The museum turned the lights back on, and tacked on a deceptively large exhibit about Winston C himself. He was a powerful character to be sure, and the War Rooms are a fascinating relic from WWII. Their walls of maps are still hanging, pocked by pinholes.

I should point out that, so far in the day, we had done nothing that I wanted to do. I was a good sport nevertheless, and I’m glad for it, because two of those three things were really cool.
Whatever, though, because the last thing on the list was MY thing, the Globe Theater. By this time, the weather had gone from just gray (what I like to call ‘the English sun’) to raining hard. But I wasn’t about to call this on account of rain, and like Lear on the heath (but with a raincoat), I stuck it out. I guess the rest of the group, like Fools, followed me.

Once there, the heart within me was divided. I couldn’t decide whether to be moved as in a near-religious experience, or to see through this tourist nonsense to the truth: This Globe is a reconstruction, a block or two off the original site. A high fidelity reconstruction, to be sure, but built on top of a museum. A stage just like Shakespeare’s, but host to some high school kids prancing around reading very non-Shakespearean scripts.

I still had a good time. I’m glad I saw the stage, regardless of the rabble running rampant on it. I have a place to imagine (an image, if you will) when I read the plays. I’ve now been to that bend of the river which the theater rests in, where Shakespeare walked to work. But the building itself and the people that work there—and good God, the gift shop—all represent the aspects of Shakespeare’s legacy that are no good, but were bound to grow up around the plays as time went on and his idol grew. I’ll leave them to it.

After that, we fought once again through the pouring rain to the nearest Tube station. By then and now, I was and am very good at taking the London Underground. It’s just a (very efficient, timely, clean) subway. I stand on it the same way I do on the El, i.e. a little aside from the group of loud Americans sharing it with me.

Saturday night was the boat cruise on the Thames with all the students studying in England through the same program. It was alright, but by that time I was tired and not ready to dance or anything else.

Then Sunday I came back, and heard about everyone else’s crazy time. I took a few pictures, which are sitting with the rest of my pictures, which, I know, are not yet posted. Sigh.