It’s been a little while since I have written - partially because of the overwhelm I experienced getting here, as well as the adjustment I’m undergoing whilst settling in. Sometimes (and I can only speak for myself), there can be so much going on that I cannot focus on writing, even when there is a plethora of “things” to write about on a daily basis. Though this piece be short, it will allow me to get back into the groove of reporting on my experiences, impressions, and on-goings here in Oxford.
I recognize the scope and scale of my decision to continue my university education here. Where I knew what to expect in California and the better part of the U.S. educational system, I am clueless as to what the rigors of studying will be come September 28th. I can’t imagine a better place to “be” - on a day-to-day basis; there are so many wonderful people with whom I’ve become friends, and my fondest memories in adulthood, to date, resides with me here. I can walk wherever I want, or hop onto any number of local buses that traverse Oxford. My spirit has once again been freed.
Making such a huge decision with respect to my education has, at times, been a frightening prospect; not knowing what is around the next academic corner with respect to finances, living arrangements, and possibly a degree or degrees (if I am so fortunate) has, of recent, created a tinge of paralysis regarding my writing. I suppose that that big jump from familiar surroundings to any new locale tests one’s mettle, so in that respect, I am in good company with my fellow classmates who are now attending various universities (or are about to embark on such).
It took years for me to come to this juncture of my life, but of those lost years between then and now, I am finally beginning to see myself as my own person, with my own concerns, and my own plight ahead of me. There are no short-cuts or easy ways out - the only way to the finish line is through the gauntlet, whether it be at PCC, Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell, or in Oxford. There are times when I feel like I will have to stand alone along this line I have drawn in the sand - until I look around and recognize so many people cheering me on and embarking on similar journeys. Further, while I am physically removed from my family, friends, and familiar surroundings (of which I speak of my many years living in Los Angeles), I do not feel in any way that there is permanence to be reckoned with; all things being transitory, we are given to the illusion that time stands still. I am here, and I am there. From here, I will continue forward, and will contemplate where I was: there.
There is only the here and now. With that in mind, I will do the best I can in each endeavour. That is all there is for me to do at any given moment…
Friday, 4 September 2009
Thursday, 20 August 2009
A Thousand Bee Stings
With exception to those who suffer anaphylactic shock from a single bee sting, the rest of us are relatively unscathed by the same. But a thousand bee stings can kill a person, or at the very least, be a real buzz-kill (pun intended and not). So goes my odyssey back to Oxford as a real student who will be living there for approximately one year – or one year at a time. And so went my day from hell when I awoke to find a few official-type emails indicating that I had not fulfilled the plethora of requirements to gain such lengthy access to the U.K.
Everything had been in order: my airplane ticket had been purchased, I had my offer and visa letters from Oxford, my passport, my bank matters straightened out, bank statements printed out, my agenda for what I was to do when I got to Oxford, my schedule, and so on. I had chatted at length with my dear friend Julie in the U.K., and had spoken with Sib; we had planned out the details of meeting at Gloucester Green on Friday. I was in heaven; that was Monday. I was very excited and could barely contain myself – I was going to the place I had grown to love, was going to see the people I loved, and would soon be reunited with him.
By Tuesday, everything was thrown into the air – including my airline ticket. This is part of the education I suppose, and in hindsight, though I am terribly heartbroken about certain things, it is better to find out and deal with things now, as opposed to later on in the U.K. I experienced Charlie Brown’s famous line: “Just when you figure out the game, they change the rules…” In August of this year (this month, coincidentally), a new system or a new addendum to the current system was implemented to obtain visa clearance. The powers-that-be on both sides of the pond have plans to administer national identity cards for folks like me. I thought that I had done everything, but this was not the case. The very worst part was that I had to make that awful call to Sib and break the bad news: my flight would be delayed (for a few days – but what a heartbreaker!).
I was told to rely on the internet to guide me through the international student vis process, but I must say, there is a downside to the internet: there are just too damned many links, links to links, and permutations of the heading, “visa requirements” that can baffle even the most prodigious boffin out there. It is my belief that I have clicked on every link and website at least once, if not several times when websites would reroute me to some site I’d already visited. To make matters worse, there were too few humans with whom I could speak, and when I managed to find telephone numbers, asterisks littered these numbers: $3.00 per minute for toll-free calls; $12.00 flat fee to be charged by credit to speak to a knowledgeable person (of which I have thus far spent $24.00 for assistance), or recorded lines that hung up on me stating something to the effect of, “Please contact [the contracted service (the one that costs $12.00)] – call volume is too high for us to respond to your enquiries.” Click.
On the upside, after my second $12 purchase, I received a list (not a link) of licensed “visa expeditors/agents” recommended to assist people like myself. I decided to personally contact and hire the expert myself. I called Jack at Advanced Visa Service who informed me that many students travelling abroad for school were similarly pulling their hair out and quite stressed. This didn’t make me feel any better; it was not a kumbaya moment for this momentarily disenfranchised student. Apparently, things “are getting much tighter since 911…” as if it hadn’t been from the start. The Department of State and the U.K.’s equivalent (as well as other countries) are set on creating a system that would prevent fraud and illegal immigration, and would create a more global database, as well as ways to deter further acts of terror, and so on. To add to this, there is now a Points-Based System (PBS) wherein international students are recommended to score 40 points so that they can have the full privileges of a Tier 4 Student visa. Students have to show that they have enough money to cover tuition and ₤600 per month for two months for living expenses. If they’ve done this and gotten their bioscans and whatnot, they can work up to 20 hours, open a bank account, and study. I will have achieved this IF I get my feet on the ground in the U.K. I will kiss the ground in Oxford when I arrive (for sanitary purposes, I’ll most likely simply blow a kiss at Oxford and touch a grassy patch therein).
Upon Jack’s advice, I went directly to another biometric processing center on a walk-in basis and the proceeded directly to see him in Arcadia. Another knock on the internet: they didn’t mention that one can simply walk in and get the biometric processing done; they give out sparse dates from which to choose to make an appointment. Had I known that, I could have simply walked in and gotten everything done much earlier on – all in a ten minute span without as much as a wait! Who puts these websites and systems together? What are they thinking? To what end? Organization? Pox on gigantic systems that move like the Titanic!
I was bent on getting as much as possible done – even if I wasn’t flying to the U.K. on Thursday as planned; I’d be damned if I had to prolong my stay here! Truth is – I’ll probably end up being damned for my pit bull doggedness. Jack immediately sent me over to my bank to get an official statement of my finances and then to the nearest passport photo venue in the area. I did as I was told and brought everything back to him. Here’s the scary part: I had to relinquish my passport, my offer letter, my official bank statement, and my biometric processing papers to him so that he, in turn, could take these items to the British Consulate to have the visa stamp applied to my passport, which would authorize me to study in the U.K. from a purely border crossing perspective. Upon doing so, I wrote a check for $99.00, and sighed heavily.
For the next day-and-a-half, my fate rests upon a man and a process I barely understand. Meanwhile, I added everything up, including the change of flight penalty and additional fees to book a different flight (profit-making redundancy once again), and I ended up spending a LOT of money. It’s not like I have that kind of money to dump; I am literally (after tuition is paid) a starving student. Furthermore, I had placed several calls to the U.K. earlier in the day, and had to do a lot of asking-around. To roughly quote a postcard I bought in Oxford, “The more I know, the less I know…” Visa-speak has its own lexicon, and the more complicated the terms and procedures get, the more lucrative the contracts will most likely be for those who sign on to explain the same to travel-ignorant people – to people like me. I think I got stung a thousand times on Tuesday, but I’m starting to recover – even if I’m still hurting a bit and am a lot sad… I will get there! Intact. I will not be defeated, yo.
Everything had been in order: my airplane ticket had been purchased, I had my offer and visa letters from Oxford, my passport, my bank matters straightened out, bank statements printed out, my agenda for what I was to do when I got to Oxford, my schedule, and so on. I had chatted at length with my dear friend Julie in the U.K., and had spoken with Sib; we had planned out the details of meeting at Gloucester Green on Friday. I was in heaven; that was Monday. I was very excited and could barely contain myself – I was going to the place I had grown to love, was going to see the people I loved, and would soon be reunited with him.
By Tuesday, everything was thrown into the air – including my airline ticket. This is part of the education I suppose, and in hindsight, though I am terribly heartbroken about certain things, it is better to find out and deal with things now, as opposed to later on in the U.K. I experienced Charlie Brown’s famous line: “Just when you figure out the game, they change the rules…” In August of this year (this month, coincidentally), a new system or a new addendum to the current system was implemented to obtain visa clearance. The powers-that-be on both sides of the pond have plans to administer national identity cards for folks like me. I thought that I had done everything, but this was not the case. The very worst part was that I had to make that awful call to Sib and break the bad news: my flight would be delayed (for a few days – but what a heartbreaker!).
I was told to rely on the internet to guide me through the international student vis process, but I must say, there is a downside to the internet: there are just too damned many links, links to links, and permutations of the heading, “visa requirements” that can baffle even the most prodigious boffin out there. It is my belief that I have clicked on every link and website at least once, if not several times when websites would reroute me to some site I’d already visited. To make matters worse, there were too few humans with whom I could speak, and when I managed to find telephone numbers, asterisks littered these numbers: $3.00 per minute for toll-free calls; $12.00 flat fee to be charged by credit to speak to a knowledgeable person (of which I have thus far spent $24.00 for assistance), or recorded lines that hung up on me stating something to the effect of, “Please contact [the contracted service (the one that costs $12.00)] – call volume is too high for us to respond to your enquiries.” Click.
On the upside, after my second $12 purchase, I received a list (not a link) of licensed “visa expeditors/agents” recommended to assist people like myself. I decided to personally contact and hire the expert myself. I called Jack at Advanced Visa Service who informed me that many students travelling abroad for school were similarly pulling their hair out and quite stressed. This didn’t make me feel any better; it was not a kumbaya moment for this momentarily disenfranchised student. Apparently, things “are getting much tighter since 911…” as if it hadn’t been from the start. The Department of State and the U.K.’s equivalent (as well as other countries) are set on creating a system that would prevent fraud and illegal immigration, and would create a more global database, as well as ways to deter further acts of terror, and so on. To add to this, there is now a Points-Based System (PBS) wherein international students are recommended to score 40 points so that they can have the full privileges of a Tier 4 Student visa. Students have to show that they have enough money to cover tuition and ₤600 per month for two months for living expenses. If they’ve done this and gotten their bioscans and whatnot, they can work up to 20 hours, open a bank account, and study. I will have achieved this IF I get my feet on the ground in the U.K. I will kiss the ground in Oxford when I arrive (for sanitary purposes, I’ll most likely simply blow a kiss at Oxford and touch a grassy patch therein).
Upon Jack’s advice, I went directly to another biometric processing center on a walk-in basis and the proceeded directly to see him in Arcadia. Another knock on the internet: they didn’t mention that one can simply walk in and get the biometric processing done; they give out sparse dates from which to choose to make an appointment. Had I known that, I could have simply walked in and gotten everything done much earlier on – all in a ten minute span without as much as a wait! Who puts these websites and systems together? What are they thinking? To what end? Organization? Pox on gigantic systems that move like the Titanic!
I was bent on getting as much as possible done – even if I wasn’t flying to the U.K. on Thursday as planned; I’d be damned if I had to prolong my stay here! Truth is – I’ll probably end up being damned for my pit bull doggedness. Jack immediately sent me over to my bank to get an official statement of my finances and then to the nearest passport photo venue in the area. I did as I was told and brought everything back to him. Here’s the scary part: I had to relinquish my passport, my offer letter, my official bank statement, and my biometric processing papers to him so that he, in turn, could take these items to the British Consulate to have the visa stamp applied to my passport, which would authorize me to study in the U.K. from a purely border crossing perspective. Upon doing so, I wrote a check for $99.00, and sighed heavily.
For the next day-and-a-half, my fate rests upon a man and a process I barely understand. Meanwhile, I added everything up, including the change of flight penalty and additional fees to book a different flight (profit-making redundancy once again), and I ended up spending a LOT of money. It’s not like I have that kind of money to dump; I am literally (after tuition is paid) a starving student. Furthermore, I had placed several calls to the U.K. earlier in the day, and had to do a lot of asking-around. To roughly quote a postcard I bought in Oxford, “The more I know, the less I know…” Visa-speak has its own lexicon, and the more complicated the terms and procedures get, the more lucrative the contracts will most likely be for those who sign on to explain the same to travel-ignorant people – to people like me. I think I got stung a thousand times on Tuesday, but I’m starting to recover – even if I’m still hurting a bit and am a lot sad… I will get there! Intact. I will not be defeated, yo.
Monday, 20 July 2009
Reflections
The time is drawing nigh – this dreaded series of heart-breaking, gut-retching closing pieces that I will write prior to my imminent departure from this wonderful place of magic and life-altering experiences. The die is cast; the tides have reached back from its ends and looped a knot through the vast expanses of time, to slip back past the beginning to seek out a new balance and center until the next cycle washes more relics ashore and etches new meanings again. The circle has been drawn and it is complete, and in a moment will be started anew, to greater depths and hopefully with further details waiting to be written upon its shores and stories.
In the beginning there was school and nothing but the work I had tasked myself to do by committing to the Oxford Study Abroad Program. I didn’t know if Oxford was going to happen – it almost looked as if it wouldn’t because of the logistical matters and financial aid. There were times when I was cornered for time and pressed for deadlines. I managed to jump through a series of hoops and meetings until one day, in early March, I arrived in the U.K., and uncertain as to whether or not I could manage studying abroad while taking in Oxford. I wasn’t prepared for anything else except to be blown away by merely being in the U.K., in Oxford. At the end of that exercise, I finished rather unscathed, plus or minus some minor bruises and projects, and succeeded beyond my imaginings.
School allows for a certain certainty that one can achieve something if enough work and effort go into the task-at-hand – no matter how difficult or tedious. One simply ploughs through it – passionately or dispassionately or otherwise. Scholarly education focuses one to develop certain mental muscles with a modicum of intellectual curiosity, emotional resistance, or pain – all with an end towards grades, transcripts, scholarships, transfers, and degrees, not to mention enlightenment.
The real education – that brand of education that cannot be bought, beggared, earned, or prepared for – the real education was in learning how to live, stretch, and become alive again. It came to me when I no longer had to be beholden to multiple syllabi or bound to prepare for tests, papers, and miscellaneous other obligations that come with being solely a student of school. Life happened, and I found myself not knowing, learning what I did not know, and trying to understand what I did – which shifted daily, depending on the confluence of events or the elements in play. Coming back to life again is a scary place to be.
I first learned this when I became attached to the now notoriously beloved The Corridor on Cowley Road. I’ve written plenty about it in my pieces, but there is another side to it that brought me weeks of turbulent not-knowing, painful insights, happy highs, crises of confidence, and dreary lows that ended in question marks. That education disallowed questions, preparation, note-taking, strategizing, or analyses because at the crux of it was a derivation of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle wherein that which is being observed is affected by the mere act of observing it. Whatever I thought I knew, I no longer did, and I struggled in my attempt to understand the ever-pervasive “it.” I found myself in uncharted waters. The bottom line was that I found friends, a place that I felt more and more attached to, I became somewhat known, and was invited into the lives of very special people who have taken me in as their own, and walked me through the great divide between “what you know” and “what you don’t know” words of kindness.
Where things started to get mired is in a complicated cacophony of the words swirling in the back of my head to the effect that my days were marked which is highly caustic to being in the moment for whatever the moment was. This was juxtaposed with time nipping at my heels, and, alas, love – that awful thing that I want to instinctively chuck in the nearest biohazard bin and irradiate at times. Love is definitely not academic – that much I can say with a degree of accuracy. Had I not gone to Corridor, but instead stayed at The Star Pub, I would have been home right after my birthday, which was far more than a month ago and things would definitely have been much simpler.
It has been exactly two months that I’ve lived here as a “civilian student,” and in those two months after the end of the semester, I have been reshaped in so many ways I would have never imagined before setting off to the U.K. on fateful day back at the beginning of March. The world is no longer the same place I came from and I am no longer the same person I arrived as.
More to come…
Upcoming features:
Cornwall – a Week of Splendor
Brookes: Do or Die?
Come What May
Synthesis
The End of an Era
Extemporaneous Entity
In the beginning there was school and nothing but the work I had tasked myself to do by committing to the Oxford Study Abroad Program. I didn’t know if Oxford was going to happen – it almost looked as if it wouldn’t because of the logistical matters and financial aid. There were times when I was cornered for time and pressed for deadlines. I managed to jump through a series of hoops and meetings until one day, in early March, I arrived in the U.K., and uncertain as to whether or not I could manage studying abroad while taking in Oxford. I wasn’t prepared for anything else except to be blown away by merely being in the U.K., in Oxford. At the end of that exercise, I finished rather unscathed, plus or minus some minor bruises and projects, and succeeded beyond my imaginings.
School allows for a certain certainty that one can achieve something if enough work and effort go into the task-at-hand – no matter how difficult or tedious. One simply ploughs through it – passionately or dispassionately or otherwise. Scholarly education focuses one to develop certain mental muscles with a modicum of intellectual curiosity, emotional resistance, or pain – all with an end towards grades, transcripts, scholarships, transfers, and degrees, not to mention enlightenment.
The real education – that brand of education that cannot be bought, beggared, earned, or prepared for – the real education was in learning how to live, stretch, and become alive again. It came to me when I no longer had to be beholden to multiple syllabi or bound to prepare for tests, papers, and miscellaneous other obligations that come with being solely a student of school. Life happened, and I found myself not knowing, learning what I did not know, and trying to understand what I did – which shifted daily, depending on the confluence of events or the elements in play. Coming back to life again is a scary place to be.
I first learned this when I became attached to the now notoriously beloved The Corridor on Cowley Road. I’ve written plenty about it in my pieces, but there is another side to it that brought me weeks of turbulent not-knowing, painful insights, happy highs, crises of confidence, and dreary lows that ended in question marks. That education disallowed questions, preparation, note-taking, strategizing, or analyses because at the crux of it was a derivation of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle wherein that which is being observed is affected by the mere act of observing it. Whatever I thought I knew, I no longer did, and I struggled in my attempt to understand the ever-pervasive “it.” I found myself in uncharted waters. The bottom line was that I found friends, a place that I felt more and more attached to, I became somewhat known, and was invited into the lives of very special people who have taken me in as their own, and walked me through the great divide between “what you know” and “what you don’t know” words of kindness.
Where things started to get mired is in a complicated cacophony of the words swirling in the back of my head to the effect that my days were marked which is highly caustic to being in the moment for whatever the moment was. This was juxtaposed with time nipping at my heels, and, alas, love – that awful thing that I want to instinctively chuck in the nearest biohazard bin and irradiate at times. Love is definitely not academic – that much I can say with a degree of accuracy. Had I not gone to Corridor, but instead stayed at The Star Pub, I would have been home right after my birthday, which was far more than a month ago and things would definitely have been much simpler.
It has been exactly two months that I’ve lived here as a “civilian student,” and in those two months after the end of the semester, I have been reshaped in so many ways I would have never imagined before setting off to the U.K. on fateful day back at the beginning of March. The world is no longer the same place I came from and I am no longer the same person I arrived as.
More to come…
Upcoming features:
Cornwall – a Week of Splendor
Brookes: Do or Die?
Come What May
Synthesis
The End of an Era
Extemporaneous Entity
Monday, 6 July 2009
Blind and Deaf, Not Mute
Monkey see, monkey do
Hear no evil, see no evil
But by all means, do tell the truth
Let me hear the words so shrill
They address what they do not see
And respond when they do not hear
And profess to knowing my nature
When they have defined the terms
I am neither blind nor deaf
But my words have long since left
Because I see and hear what is tacit
I cannot find words that are succinct
A writer and poet I am
Because I cannot speak –
These words are meant to be oblique
Because I cannot be seen or heard
I would otherwise become unnerved.
~J. L. Tornquist
Hear no evil, see no evil
But by all means, do tell the truth
Let me hear the words so shrill
They address what they do not see
And respond when they do not hear
And profess to knowing my nature
When they have defined the terms
I am neither blind nor deaf
But my words have long since left
Because I see and hear what is tacit
I cannot find words that are succinct
A writer and poet I am
Because I cannot speak –
These words are meant to be oblique
Because I cannot be seen or heard
I would otherwise become unnerved.
~J. L. Tornquist
Holiday
I’m going to take a holiday
Away from human nonsense
I’m going to go away
To a place with deep trenches
And tall fences…
I’m going to take a sabbatical
A sabbatical away from this
Backward life
I’m taking a trip away from hell
To find my peace
Apart from your kind of strife
I’m leaving you earthlings all behind
Leaving to find some sort of peace
Because I’m not born of your form or kind
I come from an advanced and alien race…
I’m going to find my spaceship
And find my fellow aliens not of here
And then we’re going to take a trip
Into the stars until they all disappear.
~J. L. Tornquist
Away from human nonsense
I’m going to go away
To a place with deep trenches
And tall fences…
I’m going to take a sabbatical
A sabbatical away from this
Backward life
I’m taking a trip away from hell
To find my peace
Apart from your kind of strife
I’m leaving you earthlings all behind
Leaving to find some sort of peace
Because I’m not born of your form or kind
I come from an advanced and alien race…
I’m going to find my spaceship
And find my fellow aliens not of here
And then we’re going to take a trip
Into the stars until they all disappear.
~J. L. Tornquist
Ode to Captain Ahab
I am an anchor cast into the great and unreserved deep
Of long ago – from all places near and distantly far
The tension that holds what lies above in keep
Are fastened below by the constellation of stars
The vessel that rests upon the above-waters that is afloat
Is in my custody – it is my duty to hold it firmly with my hands;
But for this tethered ball and chain that I am to the wretched boat
My home is buried beneath a billion grains of sand
What it is I ever possessed I no longer fathom to know
Storm-tossed and weather-beaten, said abode drifts afar
Sporadic undercurrents lift me upward in hostile throes
Thrashing sediments against my intractable despair
The journey has ended thus abruptly for to-day
A thousand storms and twice as many fair sunlit days
Have jostled the feathery ship from whence I came
No human can alter the now toughened hearts so dour –
Resolved toward some end; what “end” being unknown to all
An irreverent, thankless and merciless lot: the sum
Resisting momentum and therefore itself being forestalled
Damned be these dreary, stagnant, and putrid doldrums
A stench that reeks of death by far and worse than any carcass;
Where is that Great White Whale that stirs the souls of men?
Engage this craft towards some higher and loftier purpose
Leave me then in the deepest deep where I may be avenged
If not that, then release me from my mortal obligations
So that I may find my heaven in the depths beneath
For a meager object as myself is nothing without direction
Lest I be a noose from below for those who force to keep –
My fate in such station so as to serve what has already passed
Chasing ghosts that reside in the twilight blanket of fog
Silt slipping between their fingers, the subtle ilk of time so vast
Adrift within unrequited pasts and trapped in lonely bogs
Raze this anchor for once and for all; be done with it alas!
Set sail immediately and let your hearts become your compass
Be free, be free! And let the ocean carry me where it may
My Great White Whale awaits my due arrival, and I my fate.
~J. L. Tornquist
Of long ago – from all places near and distantly far
The tension that holds what lies above in keep
Are fastened below by the constellation of stars
The vessel that rests upon the above-waters that is afloat
Is in my custody – it is my duty to hold it firmly with my hands;
But for this tethered ball and chain that I am to the wretched boat
My home is buried beneath a billion grains of sand
What it is I ever possessed I no longer fathom to know
Storm-tossed and weather-beaten, said abode drifts afar
Sporadic undercurrents lift me upward in hostile throes
Thrashing sediments against my intractable despair
The journey has ended thus abruptly for to-day
A thousand storms and twice as many fair sunlit days
Have jostled the feathery ship from whence I came
No human can alter the now toughened hearts so dour –
Resolved toward some end; what “end” being unknown to all
An irreverent, thankless and merciless lot: the sum
Resisting momentum and therefore itself being forestalled
Damned be these dreary, stagnant, and putrid doldrums
A stench that reeks of death by far and worse than any carcass;
Where is that Great White Whale that stirs the souls of men?
Engage this craft towards some higher and loftier purpose
Leave me then in the deepest deep where I may be avenged
If not that, then release me from my mortal obligations
So that I may find my heaven in the depths beneath
For a meager object as myself is nothing without direction
Lest I be a noose from below for those who force to keep –
My fate in such station so as to serve what has already passed
Chasing ghosts that reside in the twilight blanket of fog
Silt slipping between their fingers, the subtle ilk of time so vast
Adrift within unrequited pasts and trapped in lonely bogs
Raze this anchor for once and for all; be done with it alas!
Set sail immediately and let your hearts become your compass
Be free, be free! And let the ocean carry me where it may
My Great White Whale awaits my due arrival, and I my fate.
~J. L. Tornquist
And the Bough Breaks
They will have their time of glory
The arrogant – consumed by greed –
Heavy-handed deeds ordained
Power lorded over those beneath…
They will have their gold and jewels
And their land and money –
For a time they will possess
Over those possessed of want
Their kind will flourish;
They will pass on their spoils
To those whose blood is as rich,
Shedding blood to advance further…
They will have their golden ages
Bought, on the backs of the poorer,
Purchased and conquered;
They will enjoy their spoils
For a time,
Before it crumbles,
As it always does,
As history has predicted…
But they will grow fat and slow,
Flaunting appearances to impress
Consumed and consigned to fire –
Of Vanity, Gluttony, Indulgences,
By any form of Drug known to all
By Sex and Substance and Vice
By Food and Drink to waste;
And most of all, possessed of Self,
Looking relentlessly into mirrors
Seeking out all their reflections,
Pining over others’ riches as if poor
Pettiness harvested by envy
While lesser people relent
To comfort themselves
With faux comforts of the same,
Emulating definitions of the rich
Proclaiming:
The measure of a man
Is in what ownership reveals
And not from within –
Not in honor or integrity
Not requiring sacrifice;
Remorseless and unmerciful…
Great empires have fallen hence
As history has predicted:
The arrogant are always overcome;
In their hubris lies reality –
In the hour of blindness
The bough will break,
Taking all the king’s men…
All is revealed –
In parts –
Until the sum of all fears
Becomes apparent;
That these realities forged
Were but the greater illusion
Reluctantly giving way
To ordinary things and people…
Then the tides of words will declare
Rebellion against the complacency
That hubris had eroded of humanity
In the name of the same;
The lowly will rise up
Just as history has predicted,
Becoming known
Challenging past status quos
Until it all begins again,
And,
Until the next golden age.
~J. L. Tornquist
(First written in March 2005 and updated in January 2009)
The arrogant – consumed by greed –
Heavy-handed deeds ordained
Power lorded over those beneath…
They will have their gold and jewels
And their land and money –
For a time they will possess
Over those possessed of want
Their kind will flourish;
They will pass on their spoils
To those whose blood is as rich,
Shedding blood to advance further…
They will have their golden ages
Bought, on the backs of the poorer,
Purchased and conquered;
They will enjoy their spoils
For a time,
Before it crumbles,
As it always does,
As history has predicted…
But they will grow fat and slow,
Flaunting appearances to impress
Consumed and consigned to fire –
Of Vanity, Gluttony, Indulgences,
By any form of Drug known to all
By Sex and Substance and Vice
By Food and Drink to waste;
And most of all, possessed of Self,
Looking relentlessly into mirrors
Seeking out all their reflections,
Pining over others’ riches as if poor
Pettiness harvested by envy
While lesser people relent
To comfort themselves
With faux comforts of the same,
Emulating definitions of the rich
Proclaiming:
The measure of a man
Is in what ownership reveals
And not from within –
Not in honor or integrity
Not requiring sacrifice;
Remorseless and unmerciful…
Great empires have fallen hence
As history has predicted:
The arrogant are always overcome;
In their hubris lies reality –
In the hour of blindness
The bough will break,
Taking all the king’s men…
All is revealed –
In parts –
Until the sum of all fears
Becomes apparent;
That these realities forged
Were but the greater illusion
Reluctantly giving way
To ordinary things and people…
Then the tides of words will declare
Rebellion against the complacency
That hubris had eroded of humanity
In the name of the same;
The lowly will rise up
Just as history has predicted,
Becoming known
Challenging past status quos
Until it all begins again,
And,
Until the next golden age.
~J. L. Tornquist
(First written in March 2005 and updated in January 2009)
Completing the Circle
Now it is time to close the circle from whence I drew much strength and hope from, and now the time is near to begin concluding in the lines of the greater circle drawn. I’ve lived and have seen a new world and this new world has been very kind and accepting of my presence. Yet, life proceeds. It is a difficult tearing away of a paradise that holds a special place in my heart for numerous reasons. Time marches forward, and I’ll never be the same for these experiences. I cannot begin to contemplate the numerous occasions in which I have been the fool – the court jester – that desperate pitiful creature who forgot herself amidst the elixirs of life-giving life that will never be fully expressed or understood. For these things I am grateful and will carry back a delicate new self made strong by laughter and pain, made vulnerable through the love of all things.
It is difficult being so attuned to the world, and worse yet to be sensitive to all manner of elements that dissonance construes, and a thousand-thousand writers throughout time have pontificated upon the depths of life and living. I find myself having become a stranger to myself at times; where certainty once carried me, I have lost a little of that balance and am slightly off-center. I’m afraid I can no longer return to the self I once was for too much would be at stake, so I struggle with my newfound growing pains, hoping for the best yet expecting the worse at times. Sometimes life is too beautiful and it doesn’t take a writer and artist much to be knocked senseless by the enormity of the wonders I behold. Gratitude trumps all else.
It is difficult being so attuned to the world, and worse yet to be sensitive to all manner of elements that dissonance construes, and a thousand-thousand writers throughout time have pontificated upon the depths of life and living. I find myself having become a stranger to myself at times; where certainty once carried me, I have lost a little of that balance and am slightly off-center. I’m afraid I can no longer return to the self I once was for too much would be at stake, so I struggle with my newfound growing pains, hoping for the best yet expecting the worse at times. Sometimes life is too beautiful and it doesn’t take a writer and artist much to be knocked senseless by the enormity of the wonders I behold. Gratitude trumps all else.
Friday, 26 June 2009
The Art of "Chilling"
I’ve learned to not watch television constantly as I did back in the States while being here in Oxford. This leaves me with a different kind of free time that I’ve grown to appreciate – the kind of “chilling” that isn’t in a pub or at parties – that brand of just “being” and using my time to be creative, write, and help out around the house. It is a good feeling to simply sit outside, take in the day, and not have to say much. When I do catch television here, I am more distracted than without it. This is not to say that the television shows and news here are not up to par; I just require far less of that passive kind of “zoning out” that I experienced back in Los Angeles. I don’t need to be distracted to enjoy myself here – perhaps it’s because of my sense of belonging as well as others’ more slow-paced and interactive nature. It’s quite liberating to be able to simply get things done that I might have avoided back in the States. Part of the freedom and casual lifestyle is due to the fact that I don’t have to drive places – I can take a bus wherever I want to go, or I can walk – nothing is too far away, relatively speaking.
The home which I am currently staying in is occupied by various students and people from around the world and locally who merely seek out a room and are content to live communally. This communal lifestyle is something I’ve always wanted to experience – where people are mindful of others, and relaxed about who has to do whatever task is at-hand, or who hasn’t done something. When a mess lingers somewhere, I just take on the task, as do others, and there is no finger-pointing and badgering. When an item is used up in the refrigerator or otherwise, we just go to the local market and fill it back up; there is an unspoken obligation to top up when supplies get low.
The only time I saw people at this house get perturbed was when one person took advantage of this system and took without replacing or asking. The other day, Sib came down to eat dinner – fish sticks and potato wedges that he had bought – and when he pulled the fish stick package out of the freezer, there were only two pieces left. He was not happy to be left with a mere two small fish sticks for dinner. There has to be group cohesion and personal responsibility in these kinds of settings because one person can upset the entire flow of life. Needless to say, the proverbial “one person” left, and things are very quiet now. I love this place – it feels like home to me and I hope that I can come back if I am able to get into Oxford Brookes University. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment; all I have is today, and today is a great day, like all the preceding days here.
I look forward to the afternoons and spend my days writing and reading mostly. Sometimes, and to a much less degree than before, I go to The Corridor and catch up with friends and chill out over a few drinks and whatnot. There is no rush to be places, to avoid traffic, to leave, etc. People stay until they’re ready to go, and sometimes, “ready to go” is when the establishment closes down. Protocol is different here – people are far more independent in general, and that is refreshing. They seem to be more pragmatic and self-sufficient, and that too is liberating.
Other than young college-aged students who often go to pubs or bars for the sole purpose of getting drunk, the older crowd all mingle and look after one another while getting their fair share of alcohol, albeit at a slower pace. I have my friends here – friends whom I have the great fortune of meeting, and we recognize and talk to one another at these places. Further, because it is a small community, there is little to no anonymity (a wonderful change for me) which for me was the norm back in the States due to the great distances that need to be traveled, as well as the hurry-up-and-serve-the-customer-and-get-the-next-party-in ethos of many food and bar establishments. I’m sure there is the type of cohesion I write about of Oxford in smaller towns or areas throughout the States. However, I live in Los Angeles, which is like spilled milk over the entire Southern California region wherein nothing is nearby, and people keep to themselves locally.
To be fair, when I’m in school taking classes, I rarely practice “chilling” because studying becomes the central focus of life for however long my classes last (usually 15 weeks). I treat school as if it was a job, and that means that there is a minimum eight hours that have to go into the combined time of the classes and studying afterwards. Furthermore, the eight-hour rule is just a rough guideline because there’s always homework, papers are become due, notes must be copied and organized, and tests are inevitable. Generally, that’s about 12 hours of school a day, minimally, once everything has been completed.
I chose the path of not being a “tourist” who merely stopped over for a few months to study. I ended up getting my four A’s and it didn’t have to be so difficult. My schoolwork got done when I was in school, and will continue to get done when I return. But I’ve realized that it doesn’t have to get done in a vacuum – there is room to sit down and enjoy an evening. This will change, of course, when I return because I simply can’t be bothered to transport myself here and there and everywhere – driving is time, and time is for studying. I hate it, but that’s just the way it is. Even if I lived here whilst in school, I wouldn’t have the same freedom as I do now. However, I would have a choice to meet up with friends from time-to-time and could look forward to finishing a day’s worth of studying whenever possible and thereby rewarding myself with a drink or two without having to drive home.
This is what I’ll take back with me when I return to the States: the knowledge that communities do indeed exist in certain places and the sense that there is the hope that I can return to this place and be remembered. Because of the proximity of places and things in Oxford, I’ve learned to take my schoolwork as seriously as before, while at the same time finding the ability to put my books away once the tasks are done and thereby allowing myself to relax. There will never be another Oxford, and this time I’ve spent here cannot ever be replicated.
The home which I am currently staying in is occupied by various students and people from around the world and locally who merely seek out a room and are content to live communally. This communal lifestyle is something I’ve always wanted to experience – where people are mindful of others, and relaxed about who has to do whatever task is at-hand, or who hasn’t done something. When a mess lingers somewhere, I just take on the task, as do others, and there is no finger-pointing and badgering. When an item is used up in the refrigerator or otherwise, we just go to the local market and fill it back up; there is an unspoken obligation to top up when supplies get low.
The only time I saw people at this house get perturbed was when one person took advantage of this system and took without replacing or asking. The other day, Sib came down to eat dinner – fish sticks and potato wedges that he had bought – and when he pulled the fish stick package out of the freezer, there were only two pieces left. He was not happy to be left with a mere two small fish sticks for dinner. There has to be group cohesion and personal responsibility in these kinds of settings because one person can upset the entire flow of life. Needless to say, the proverbial “one person” left, and things are very quiet now. I love this place – it feels like home to me and I hope that I can come back if I am able to get into Oxford Brookes University. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment; all I have is today, and today is a great day, like all the preceding days here.
I look forward to the afternoons and spend my days writing and reading mostly. Sometimes, and to a much less degree than before, I go to The Corridor and catch up with friends and chill out over a few drinks and whatnot. There is no rush to be places, to avoid traffic, to leave, etc. People stay until they’re ready to go, and sometimes, “ready to go” is when the establishment closes down. Protocol is different here – people are far more independent in general, and that is refreshing. They seem to be more pragmatic and self-sufficient, and that too is liberating.
Other than young college-aged students who often go to pubs or bars for the sole purpose of getting drunk, the older crowd all mingle and look after one another while getting their fair share of alcohol, albeit at a slower pace. I have my friends here – friends whom I have the great fortune of meeting, and we recognize and talk to one another at these places. Further, because it is a small community, there is little to no anonymity (a wonderful change for me) which for me was the norm back in the States due to the great distances that need to be traveled, as well as the hurry-up-and-serve-the-customer-and-get-the-next-party-in ethos of many food and bar establishments. I’m sure there is the type of cohesion I write about of Oxford in smaller towns or areas throughout the States. However, I live in Los Angeles, which is like spilled milk over the entire Southern California region wherein nothing is nearby, and people keep to themselves locally.
To be fair, when I’m in school taking classes, I rarely practice “chilling” because studying becomes the central focus of life for however long my classes last (usually 15 weeks). I treat school as if it was a job, and that means that there is a minimum eight hours that have to go into the combined time of the classes and studying afterwards. Furthermore, the eight-hour rule is just a rough guideline because there’s always homework, papers are become due, notes must be copied and organized, and tests are inevitable. Generally, that’s about 12 hours of school a day, minimally, once everything has been completed.
I chose the path of not being a “tourist” who merely stopped over for a few months to study. I ended up getting my four A’s and it didn’t have to be so difficult. My schoolwork got done when I was in school, and will continue to get done when I return. But I’ve realized that it doesn’t have to get done in a vacuum – there is room to sit down and enjoy an evening. This will change, of course, when I return because I simply can’t be bothered to transport myself here and there and everywhere – driving is time, and time is for studying. I hate it, but that’s just the way it is. Even if I lived here whilst in school, I wouldn’t have the same freedom as I do now. However, I would have a choice to meet up with friends from time-to-time and could look forward to finishing a day’s worth of studying whenever possible and thereby rewarding myself with a drink or two without having to drive home.
This is what I’ll take back with me when I return to the States: the knowledge that communities do indeed exist in certain places and the sense that there is the hope that I can return to this place and be remembered. Because of the proximity of places and things in Oxford, I’ve learned to take my schoolwork as seriously as before, while at the same time finding the ability to put my books away once the tasks are done and thereby allowing myself to relax. There will never be another Oxford, and this time I’ve spent here cannot ever be replicated.
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Summertime in Oxford
It's getting warm here in Oxford, and because of the rain & greeness, the price to pay for it is humidity. But, it's appreciable because the early part of March through mid-May was fairly cool/cold intermittently and now it's warming up. Still, it's humid.
Yesterday, we went to the Thames River and walked alongside it - there were SO many geese, ducks (of all kinds and their offspring) and swans (along with their gangly, fuzzy grey children) parked alongside the river banks just taking in the sun and plucking their feathers.
I haven't just sat on the grass for a LONG time and doing so was nostalgic. We eventually found a place to basque under the sun & fluffy white clouds for a while and then grabbed some ice cream before heading homeward.
It stays light until 11:00 p.m. or thereabouts - the 21st of June being the "longest" day (summer solstace), which we observed on a fairly clear eve and it was spectacular (still is). There are so many trees and so much greenery, alongside an assortment of animals and different species of birds as well, singing their songs. Further, the skies are actually blue and not a hue of brown as it is in Los Angeles.
As always, I am stunned by the beauty of this wonderful place - it never ceases to amaze me. I think back to one of the books we read last semester: Clutch of the Constables by Ngaio Marsh, wherein Constable was an painter of the classic English scenery that captures the feeling of this land. A picture is sometimes worth a thousand words...
Yesterday, we went to the Thames River and walked alongside it - there were SO many geese, ducks (of all kinds and their offspring) and swans (along with their gangly, fuzzy grey children) parked alongside the river banks just taking in the sun and plucking their feathers.
I haven't just sat on the grass for a LONG time and doing so was nostalgic. We eventually found a place to basque under the sun & fluffy white clouds for a while and then grabbed some ice cream before heading homeward.
It stays light until 11:00 p.m. or thereabouts - the 21st of June being the "longest" day (summer solstace), which we observed on a fairly clear eve and it was spectacular (still is). There are so many trees and so much greenery, alongside an assortment of animals and different species of birds as well, singing their songs. Further, the skies are actually blue and not a hue of brown as it is in Los Angeles.
As always, I am stunned by the beauty of this wonderful place - it never ceases to amaze me. I think back to one of the books we read last semester: Clutch of the Constables by Ngaio Marsh, wherein Constable was an painter of the classic English scenery that captures the feeling of this land. A picture is sometimes worth a thousand words...
Sometimes
Sometimes
I don't know
How to be
Or not to be
Sometimes
I am lost
When I am
Not alone
Sometimes
I don't understand
What happens to Alice
When she falls down
Sometimes
I soar with the birds
I'm the fool on the hill
Life is passing by
Sometimes
I don't know
What to say
Things having been said
Sometimes
I know
These are the best of times
And the worst of times
Sometimes
I know
I have time in a bottle
And a picture of 1,000 words
Sometimes
It hurts
Not to know
What already is
And sometimes
Knowing is worse.
I don't know
How to be
Or not to be
Sometimes
I am lost
When I am
Not alone
Sometimes
I don't understand
What happens to Alice
When she falls down
Sometimes
I soar with the birds
I'm the fool on the hill
Life is passing by
Sometimes
I don't know
What to say
Things having been said
Sometimes
I know
These are the best of times
And the worst of times
Sometimes
I know
I have time in a bottle
And a picture of 1,000 words
Sometimes
It hurts
Not to know
What already is
And sometimes
Knowing is worse.
Innuendo
Quiet murmurs
Filling the air
Spreading fervor
In the lair
Swirling 'round
Towards the center
Away from its bounds
All in quiet banter
The stillness remains
The silent refrain.
~J. L. Tornquist
24 June 2009
Filling the air
Spreading fervor
In the lair
Swirling 'round
Towards the center
Away from its bounds
All in quiet banter
The stillness remains
The silent refrain.
~J. L. Tornquist
24 June 2009
Monday, 22 June 2009
Nonsensically Beautiful
There is nothing I can add to what people have been writing about since the beginning of time: “friendships,” “relationships,” “love,” “community,” “affection,” “like,” “adoration,” or whatever else word(s) appropriately describe this odd creature that I cannot make sense of. It has been a freefalling journey that has rushed up against my daily life and has seeped into every part it, asserting itself upon my every thought. I suppose that the more one tries to figure these things out or control them, the stranger they become, and the less likely it might be to truly grasp events. I have been struck by the very virus of all that is nonsensically beautiful, and I don’t want to forget.
Every day I wake up, and every night before I go to bed, I thank whatever deity is out there, if not the universe, for my truly good fortune to be here in Oxford and the greater U.K. I couldn’t have asked for more – this is my magical spring and summer – of 2009, and I suspect it will be awhile before I see or experience something similar in the future. I take snapshots of all that has become familiar so that later on, I can conjure the images and memories in the vacuum of California. I have to remember I am a student on a mission, and being here has brought me down to a crazy new reality that makes me forget; I have partaken in the elixir of traveling and meeting new friends in ways I could never have imagined prior to coming to Oxford.
Overall, Oxford has been a life-altering experience from which everything in my life has shifted in its definition. Sometimes, I think, “Why does life demand we ‘return’ to something or head towards something else? Why can’t people find their Zen in other ways outside of the parameters of ‘normal’? That would be ‘unrealistic’ to say the least by common standards. If one can provide for one’s self and is responsible, then why can’t he or she decide how that will unfold?” Instead, there seem to be a series of hoops through which I know I have to jump just so that another party will get to give its “acceptance” or “declination” notice. But then, pipe dreams are what keep us going.
Starting this fall, I’ll have to start applying for different universities. It is a nerve-wracking process designed to maximize neurosis and minimize chances, and I will have to jump into the deep end of that pool of water sooner than I wished. I wish I could make sense of that process as well, but that is not mine to question. My task is to simply stay on task. I have decided to apply to the Oxford Brookes campus just to see if I have a chance, since I have taken to this place like none other. People I’ve spoken to have told me that my grades and studies should carry me without a problem and I’m going to visit their office soon. I’ll still apply to Cal Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell, and other similar schools in the States because I have to, and because I can’t put all my eggs in one basket. For once in my life, I feel like I belong some place.
Every day I wake up, and every night before I go to bed, I thank whatever deity is out there, if not the universe, for my truly good fortune to be here in Oxford and the greater U.K. I couldn’t have asked for more – this is my magical spring and summer – of 2009, and I suspect it will be awhile before I see or experience something similar in the future. I take snapshots of all that has become familiar so that later on, I can conjure the images and memories in the vacuum of California. I have to remember I am a student on a mission, and being here has brought me down to a crazy new reality that makes me forget; I have partaken in the elixir of traveling and meeting new friends in ways I could never have imagined prior to coming to Oxford.
Overall, Oxford has been a life-altering experience from which everything in my life has shifted in its definition. Sometimes, I think, “Why does life demand we ‘return’ to something or head towards something else? Why can’t people find their Zen in other ways outside of the parameters of ‘normal’? That would be ‘unrealistic’ to say the least by common standards. If one can provide for one’s self and is responsible, then why can’t he or she decide how that will unfold?” Instead, there seem to be a series of hoops through which I know I have to jump just so that another party will get to give its “acceptance” or “declination” notice. But then, pipe dreams are what keep us going.
Starting this fall, I’ll have to start applying for different universities. It is a nerve-wracking process designed to maximize neurosis and minimize chances, and I will have to jump into the deep end of that pool of water sooner than I wished. I wish I could make sense of that process as well, but that is not mine to question. My task is to simply stay on task. I have decided to apply to the Oxford Brookes campus just to see if I have a chance, since I have taken to this place like none other. People I’ve spoken to have told me that my grades and studies should carry me without a problem and I’m going to visit their office soon. I’ll still apply to Cal Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell, and other similar schools in the States because I have to, and because I can’t put all my eggs in one basket. For once in my life, I feel like I belong some place.
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Sheer Silliness
There are not many people in this world who bring me the brand of laughter that makes me nearly cry. Yesterday was lovely. I had been battling a migraine (still am) for days, had taken two Maxalts, and was resigned to the prospect that I would simply have to endure the pain because it had a foothold on me. Nonetheless, I decided on a whim to go to The Corridor, semi-migraine in tow, and just write or draw or whatever.
Sib was present and it was good to see him. It was Friday, and the mood was generally relaxed and relieved all-around. He was going to go home to shower, but one beer (pear cider for me) after another later, we amassed some semblance of inebriation, helped along with some other factors. We got to talking about many different things – all of which are always very interesting and sometimes unusual subjects, and sometimes the actual fact of a matter is so true that it becomes funny.
The biggest bang of our discussions was about how many people erroneously label the moon as having “zero gravity.” I remember having asked this question in my Physics class because in my mind, I viewed the moonwalk as evidence of gravity, despite the light weight (pull/force) on the moon; astronauts did always seem to land back onto the surface. My professor informed me that while there is less gravity on the moon, gravity definitely exists. That part I knew. There is a gravity well that keeps the moon tethered to the earth, and the earth tethered to the sun, etc.
It started to get very strange and hilarious when Sib pointed out the error of “experts’” postulations of “zero gravity” on the moon and explained to me that he had told the experts that if there was “zero” or “no” gravity, the moon would simply “piss off.” There would be only one tide, which means there would be no tide really, and people could cross vast expanses of the ocean and return relatively quickly, like, “See you in a couple of weeks…”
Up until yesterday, when I thought of the moon, I had a pleasant sort image of it dating back to nursery rhymes and old sayings: the man on the moon, the cheese in the night sky, cows jumping over it, the smiling face of the moon seen in lots of art, and so on. The thought of the moon “pissing off” on account of there being zero gravity sent me on a lengthy laughing spree. But it is true. If the moon was “zero gravity,” then it would whiz on past the earth and keep moving forward at its own velocity relatively quickly, like, “Hello, good-bye.” In space, I think, without gravity, objects continue to travel in their trajectories unless something gets in its path, and then… well, objects still collide with tremendous force. I was also thinking that if the moon didn’t whiz by, but instead continued on a trajectory (in its zero gravity state) and the earth was in the way, there’d be no time to say, “Excuse me…” That would be that.
And, if that hadn’t been a big enough lengthy bit of laughter, there was already the precursor in play of something that struck me dumb silly: “A camel is a horse designed by a committee.” I had to ask Sib to repeat his comment, and then wrote it down. Immediately I broke out into laughter and couldn’t stop laughing. Camels are willful creatures, don’t do what you tell them to when you want them to do something, spit at you, are cantankerous, and regardless of whether or not they have one hump or two, they are still not horses. Or, could camels simply be “horses in drag”?
Finally, somewhere between all this laughter, we got into a discussion about mediocrity. I am passionately against mediocrity, or settling for anything less than one’s highest aspirations. I know that things get in the way of plans unfolding properly, but life is meant to be lived, and to be lived with full participation within it. Sib said something that, at the time, sounded hilariously apropos (to which I also laughed lengthily) but was actually very true. He said, “The height of mediocrity is ultra individualism.”
With all this laughter going on, people wanted in on the joke, but the problem was that there really wasn’t any joke. One person asked if we were talking about him while I was laughing uncontrollably. I’m sure I looked foolish, but sometimes the truth can be awfully hilarious. We would have had to retrace the premise of zero gravity on the moon and explain why it cannot be so, and then all of the sudden, it would have become un-funny. It’s priceless.
Sib was present and it was good to see him. It was Friday, and the mood was generally relaxed and relieved all-around. He was going to go home to shower, but one beer (pear cider for me) after another later, we amassed some semblance of inebriation, helped along with some other factors. We got to talking about many different things – all of which are always very interesting and sometimes unusual subjects, and sometimes the actual fact of a matter is so true that it becomes funny.
The biggest bang of our discussions was about how many people erroneously label the moon as having “zero gravity.” I remember having asked this question in my Physics class because in my mind, I viewed the moonwalk as evidence of gravity, despite the light weight (pull/force) on the moon; astronauts did always seem to land back onto the surface. My professor informed me that while there is less gravity on the moon, gravity definitely exists. That part I knew. There is a gravity well that keeps the moon tethered to the earth, and the earth tethered to the sun, etc.
It started to get very strange and hilarious when Sib pointed out the error of “experts’” postulations of “zero gravity” on the moon and explained to me that he had told the experts that if there was “zero” or “no” gravity, the moon would simply “piss off.” There would be only one tide, which means there would be no tide really, and people could cross vast expanses of the ocean and return relatively quickly, like, “See you in a couple of weeks…”
Up until yesterday, when I thought of the moon, I had a pleasant sort image of it dating back to nursery rhymes and old sayings: the man on the moon, the cheese in the night sky, cows jumping over it, the smiling face of the moon seen in lots of art, and so on. The thought of the moon “pissing off” on account of there being zero gravity sent me on a lengthy laughing spree. But it is true. If the moon was “zero gravity,” then it would whiz on past the earth and keep moving forward at its own velocity relatively quickly, like, “Hello, good-bye.” In space, I think, without gravity, objects continue to travel in their trajectories unless something gets in its path, and then… well, objects still collide with tremendous force. I was also thinking that if the moon didn’t whiz by, but instead continued on a trajectory (in its zero gravity state) and the earth was in the way, there’d be no time to say, “Excuse me…” That would be that.
And, if that hadn’t been a big enough lengthy bit of laughter, there was already the precursor in play of something that struck me dumb silly: “A camel is a horse designed by a committee.” I had to ask Sib to repeat his comment, and then wrote it down. Immediately I broke out into laughter and couldn’t stop laughing. Camels are willful creatures, don’t do what you tell them to when you want them to do something, spit at you, are cantankerous, and regardless of whether or not they have one hump or two, they are still not horses. Or, could camels simply be “horses in drag”?
Finally, somewhere between all this laughter, we got into a discussion about mediocrity. I am passionately against mediocrity, or settling for anything less than one’s highest aspirations. I know that things get in the way of plans unfolding properly, but life is meant to be lived, and to be lived with full participation within it. Sib said something that, at the time, sounded hilariously apropos (to which I also laughed lengthily) but was actually very true. He said, “The height of mediocrity is ultra individualism.”
With all this laughter going on, people wanted in on the joke, but the problem was that there really wasn’t any joke. One person asked if we were talking about him while I was laughing uncontrollably. I’m sure I looked foolish, but sometimes the truth can be awfully hilarious. We would have had to retrace the premise of zero gravity on the moon and explain why it cannot be so, and then all of the sudden, it would have become un-funny. It’s priceless.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Happily, Sadly, Tangentially
It is the day after my birthday and today, I am a bit sad and want to cry a little. I had the most phenomenal birthday ever in my life and it was all a great day, and somewhat undone by my state of inebriation wherein I probably made a fool of myself towards the end. I am left with a big question mark on one side of my state of being, whereas, lengthy dashes and pauses inhabit the other side. This dichotomy may be tugging at my heart ever-so-slightly. It is difficult to discuss, so writing about it seems apropos for the moment.
At noon, I hopped a bus to City Centre and went over to Primark where I bought my first pair of sandals for a very long time. I met Mad Mick (from Tiger Lilly) at 1:00 and we proceeded to board the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus – this time with a live tour guide as opposed to a tape recording. It was once again a stunning day and a little cooler than the last time I went on the bus tour on Tuesday. I was glad to see Mick again because we had lost contact after I completed my semester. I was flattered that someone would go out of his (or even her) way to make my birthday so memorable – something I am unfamiliar with.
After the tour, we walked around a little, took in a smoke, and headed off to the tavern where Bill Clinton “smoked but did not inhale” back in the day before anyone ever knew he would become an American dynastic power. The Turf Tavern was tucked away behind the city wall – a nook and a cranny away from the bustle of the tourists. The tavern had many layers in it and each point of egress folded out into a different outdoor seating area where graduating students – some with their gowns – sat drinking and smoking, and where balloons and glitter filled the areas.
* * * * *
When I got to the Corridor, I had already had a few beers. Coincidentally, early in the day, I ran into Kat (awesome person from the Corridor) and found out that we both shared a birthday. I told her I’d be at the Corridor later on in the evening. It was wonderful to celebrate our birthdays together, and inebriation was the common denominator between us – much more so than the rest. For once, I was content with this celebrative frame of mind, and enjoying the full-on party of sorts. Julie got me a drink, and I also got a free beer for my birthday. And the piece de resistance was a birthday cake. No apologies, no regrets, save one, which is innocuous enough of a matter, and not mentionable.
* * * * *
What I don’t understand scares me. I read about or do research on things so that I can understand the matter better when I don’t understand something. However, when “understanding something” involves a relationship wherein “something” is “someone,” I become hopelessly stupid and lost, and lose my sense of perspective. I am not the type of person to ask people what they think about me or to ensnare them with the cliché words or moves that are commonplace with respect to this matter. Better my heart break now than later, I suppose, although there is no indication of impending doom barring my eminent departure. Human nature varies from person to person, is extremely layered and complex, cannot be predicted, and books are insufficient towards answering any question that I might have.
However, I can speak for myself, and right now, I seem to be clueless and suffering from a tinge of “why?” and “how?” and so forth. I count my blessings daily, but the pain cuts deeply and without an explanation. My whole being has been touched by this wonderful and magical place, and by the people who inhabit it, and more to the point, by a particular wondrous aspect – a singularity of sorts. But I am an innocuous sort who will never be able to fathom the depths.
At noon, I hopped a bus to City Centre and went over to Primark where I bought my first pair of sandals for a very long time. I met Mad Mick (from Tiger Lilly) at 1:00 and we proceeded to board the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus – this time with a live tour guide as opposed to a tape recording. It was once again a stunning day and a little cooler than the last time I went on the bus tour on Tuesday. I was glad to see Mick again because we had lost contact after I completed my semester. I was flattered that someone would go out of his (or even her) way to make my birthday so memorable – something I am unfamiliar with.
After the tour, we walked around a little, took in a smoke, and headed off to the tavern where Bill Clinton “smoked but did not inhale” back in the day before anyone ever knew he would become an American dynastic power. The Turf Tavern was tucked away behind the city wall – a nook and a cranny away from the bustle of the tourists. The tavern had many layers in it and each point of egress folded out into a different outdoor seating area where graduating students – some with their gowns – sat drinking and smoking, and where balloons and glitter filled the areas.
* * * * *
When I got to the Corridor, I had already had a few beers. Coincidentally, early in the day, I ran into Kat (awesome person from the Corridor) and found out that we both shared a birthday. I told her I’d be at the Corridor later on in the evening. It was wonderful to celebrate our birthdays together, and inebriation was the common denominator between us – much more so than the rest. For once, I was content with this celebrative frame of mind, and enjoying the full-on party of sorts. Julie got me a drink, and I also got a free beer for my birthday. And the piece de resistance was a birthday cake. No apologies, no regrets, save one, which is innocuous enough of a matter, and not mentionable.
* * * * *
What I don’t understand scares me. I read about or do research on things so that I can understand the matter better when I don’t understand something. However, when “understanding something” involves a relationship wherein “something” is “someone,” I become hopelessly stupid and lost, and lose my sense of perspective. I am not the type of person to ask people what they think about me or to ensnare them with the cliché words or moves that are commonplace with respect to this matter. Better my heart break now than later, I suppose, although there is no indication of impending doom barring my eminent departure. Human nature varies from person to person, is extremely layered and complex, cannot be predicted, and books are insufficient towards answering any question that I might have.
However, I can speak for myself, and right now, I seem to be clueless and suffering from a tinge of “why?” and “how?” and so forth. I count my blessings daily, but the pain cuts deeply and without an explanation. My whole being has been touched by this wonderful and magical place, and by the people who inhabit it, and more to the point, by a particular wondrous aspect – a singularity of sorts. But I am an innocuous sort who will never be able to fathom the depths.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
"The Only Time You Go Punting in the Rain is to Hunt Ducks..." (Sib)
Last weekend (including Friday), the weather was absolutely beautiful here in Oxford. After a relatively strange week of miscellaneous misadventures, I was ready to get back into the swing of being here in this beautiful country. On Friday, Steve (Jennifer's partner and part of my homestay family) took me out to Cotswold in his car, and I was floored by the confluence of perfect weather alongside the quaint village backdrop where a river (Bourton on the Water) ran through it. Children were playing in the water, ducks were out in great abundance, and everywhere I looked, people were out on the grassy parks around the river lounging about and taking in the sun. It was an unfamiliar sight for this Los Angeles resident. People brought their dogs that were also joining in the aquatic fun. I have to say that the dogs here are much cuter because they’re not accessories as much as they are companions and very well-behaved at that.
Afterwards, Steve took me to one of the Inspector Morse sites that became very popular after his appearances there. The pub/restaurant was called the “Trout Inn,” and we stopped in there to have a pint. The outdoor lounge area was packed, and no better weather could have been asked for and I took several pictures that day. There is something magical about the backdrop of magnificent trees intermingled with the quaint old houses, buildings, and layered brick-work, and I cannot imbibe enough of it.
While Saturday was similarly beautiful, I misused part of it by being a useless being in a pub for the better part of the day. When Sunday rolled around, I was truly looking forward to a change of scenery. Saturday evening, I received a text from a friend from the Corridor, Cotty, who asked, “Weather looking good for punting, pick you up about 2? If you’re still up for it…” Was I ever!
At 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, Cotty came rolling up in his Honda CB1000 motorcycle, and I was introduced to riding pillion (as a passenger)! I had never been on a motorcycle before; a scooter in Japan was my only experience of motorized bikes. I was instructed on the manner in which I was to get on the motorcycle and put on my helmet so as to not look like a dunce. (It turns out that Steve had heard this lesson from his window and joked about it to me later.) Properly helmeted and with the motorcycle turned on, I proceeded to ride pillion step-by-step, and off we went. Mind you, it’s exhilarating feeling the air rushing on your face as the world speeds past you. I remember thinking, “Hang on for dear life and enjoy the thrill – this is living fully!” From time to time, he accelerated or took hard turns, where we were tilted at least at a 60 degree angle, if not even more close to the ground. We stopped off at Tescos for some strawberries, grapes, food, juice, water, and a bottle of champagne and made our way to the very place where my class went punting in the rain.
“The only time you go punting in the rain is to hunt ducks…” (Sib). I had had a negative view on punting from my last experience of it – it was a pre-planned event, and if one learns anything in the U.K., it is that one cannot foresee what the weather will do from day to day (much less weeks from a day). The “event” was abysmal to say the least. It was cold, raining hard, and so windy that my umbrella broke. Further, I was in no mood to be there, in the rain, in the wind, in the cold and soaking wet. But, to be fair, it was our farewell party and probably obligatory to show up and say the proper good-bye’s and thank-you’s to the staff at AIFS (American Institute of Foreign Studies). In reality, they were probably thinking, “Good riddance, Pasadena!”
Sunday, however, was a whole different universe. It is as Ngaio Marsh writes in Clutch of the Constables wherein one gets a sense that there is an element of timelessness, and that somehow the big busy world “out there” gets swallowed up by the beauty and peacefulness of the river. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and every aspect of green was accentuated and complementary to the canvas of nature. Iridescent dragon flies danced on the leaves and water, and various birds appeared, namely different species of ducks and geese, and a few sea gull-type birds skimming the surface for fish and water bugs. Further, the ducklings and goslings were also out, and a duck actually ate from my hand.
I was the privileged recipient of the punting, and was told that the proper way to punt is with champagne and strawberries. We took boat number 80 out and went north upon the Cherwell River. In the beginning, there were a lot of punters, a few row boats, and maybe one or two single kayakers. As soon as we were underway, we popped open the champagne, said “cheers” and started this all-day party. It was magnificent.
The further we went up the river, the thinner the punting population upon the river became, and it was as if we owned the river. We started around 2:30 and didn’t return until after 6:00 p.m. There was one red pub/restaurant along the way that looked a bit like a Swiss chalet (but not) and people were lounging around up and down the grassy areas, fully occupying the picnic benches, and playing various games. We moared the boat for about a half an hour, sat at a picnic table and “smoked a fag.” (This phrase is not as Americans would translate it; it is an extremely commonplace way of saying, “have a smoke,” and I put it in quotes because despite innocuous nature of the phrase here, I still can’t say it properly without feeling like I’m betraying an entire population.)
We continued upon Cherwell River towards some beautiful and posh houses to the left of the river bank. Eventually, the river thinned out because of the trees and shrubbery, and it almost appeared impassable. However, Cotty was very capable of handling the narrow passageway, and each time, we ended up in a new pocket of pristine nature. As the sun started downward, it reflected its light upon the leaves that shimmered with the light breezes. I was in a storybook image and wished that I could put all the beauty, sun, experience, and joy into a bottle. Alas, the next best way of properly capturing the magic for me is to write about it.
When we finally made it back to the boat house from where we first started, it was after 6:00 and the air was quickly cooling down. To top off this wonderful day, I was once again on the motorcycle – this time more relaxed, and taking in the balance of the day that sped by me with each acceleration and turn. With the wind on my face, Oxford whisked past me in a most extraordinary fashion. Perfection. Thank you Cotty!
Afterwards, Steve took me to one of the Inspector Morse sites that became very popular after his appearances there. The pub/restaurant was called the “Trout Inn,” and we stopped in there to have a pint. The outdoor lounge area was packed, and no better weather could have been asked for and I took several pictures that day. There is something magical about the backdrop of magnificent trees intermingled with the quaint old houses, buildings, and layered brick-work, and I cannot imbibe enough of it.
While Saturday was similarly beautiful, I misused part of it by being a useless being in a pub for the better part of the day. When Sunday rolled around, I was truly looking forward to a change of scenery. Saturday evening, I received a text from a friend from the Corridor, Cotty, who asked, “Weather looking good for punting, pick you up about 2? If you’re still up for it…” Was I ever!
At 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, Cotty came rolling up in his Honda CB1000 motorcycle, and I was introduced to riding pillion (as a passenger)! I had never been on a motorcycle before; a scooter in Japan was my only experience of motorized bikes. I was instructed on the manner in which I was to get on the motorcycle and put on my helmet so as to not look like a dunce. (It turns out that Steve had heard this lesson from his window and joked about it to me later.) Properly helmeted and with the motorcycle turned on, I proceeded to ride pillion step-by-step, and off we went. Mind you, it’s exhilarating feeling the air rushing on your face as the world speeds past you. I remember thinking, “Hang on for dear life and enjoy the thrill – this is living fully!” From time to time, he accelerated or took hard turns, where we were tilted at least at a 60 degree angle, if not even more close to the ground. We stopped off at Tescos for some strawberries, grapes, food, juice, water, and a bottle of champagne and made our way to the very place where my class went punting in the rain.
“The only time you go punting in the rain is to hunt ducks…” (Sib). I had had a negative view on punting from my last experience of it – it was a pre-planned event, and if one learns anything in the U.K., it is that one cannot foresee what the weather will do from day to day (much less weeks from a day). The “event” was abysmal to say the least. It was cold, raining hard, and so windy that my umbrella broke. Further, I was in no mood to be there, in the rain, in the wind, in the cold and soaking wet. But, to be fair, it was our farewell party and probably obligatory to show up and say the proper good-bye’s and thank-you’s to the staff at AIFS (American Institute of Foreign Studies). In reality, they were probably thinking, “Good riddance, Pasadena!”
Sunday, however, was a whole different universe. It is as Ngaio Marsh writes in Clutch of the Constables wherein one gets a sense that there is an element of timelessness, and that somehow the big busy world “out there” gets swallowed up by the beauty and peacefulness of the river. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and every aspect of green was accentuated and complementary to the canvas of nature. Iridescent dragon flies danced on the leaves and water, and various birds appeared, namely different species of ducks and geese, and a few sea gull-type birds skimming the surface for fish and water bugs. Further, the ducklings and goslings were also out, and a duck actually ate from my hand.
I was the privileged recipient of the punting, and was told that the proper way to punt is with champagne and strawberries. We took boat number 80 out and went north upon the Cherwell River. In the beginning, there were a lot of punters, a few row boats, and maybe one or two single kayakers. As soon as we were underway, we popped open the champagne, said “cheers” and started this all-day party. It was magnificent.
The further we went up the river, the thinner the punting population upon the river became, and it was as if we owned the river. We started around 2:30 and didn’t return until after 6:00 p.m. There was one red pub/restaurant along the way that looked a bit like a Swiss chalet (but not) and people were lounging around up and down the grassy areas, fully occupying the picnic benches, and playing various games. We moared the boat for about a half an hour, sat at a picnic table and “smoked a fag.” (This phrase is not as Americans would translate it; it is an extremely commonplace way of saying, “have a smoke,” and I put it in quotes because despite innocuous nature of the phrase here, I still can’t say it properly without feeling like I’m betraying an entire population.)
We continued upon Cherwell River towards some beautiful and posh houses to the left of the river bank. Eventually, the river thinned out because of the trees and shrubbery, and it almost appeared impassable. However, Cotty was very capable of handling the narrow passageway, and each time, we ended up in a new pocket of pristine nature. As the sun started downward, it reflected its light upon the leaves that shimmered with the light breezes. I was in a storybook image and wished that I could put all the beauty, sun, experience, and joy into a bottle. Alas, the next best way of properly capturing the magic for me is to write about it.
When we finally made it back to the boat house from where we first started, it was after 6:00 and the air was quickly cooling down. To top off this wonderful day, I was once again on the motorcycle – this time more relaxed, and taking in the balance of the day that sped by me with each acceleration and turn. With the wind on my face, Oxford whisked past me in a most extraordinary fashion. Perfection. Thank you Cotty!
Thursday, 28 May 2009
The Approximately 100 Things I'll Miss the Most (Subject to Change)
(in Alphabetical Order)
1. Accents & languages from all over Europe
2. Bartender Michael
3. Bath Street
4. Bicycles
5. Birds of various types
6. Blogging about Oxford
7. Blue skies
8. Brian (tour guide)
9. Buses, buses, buses!!
10. Carveries & Sunday Lunches
11. Chillin’ Out
12. City Centre
13. Clouds
14. Cobble-stone roads
15. Coffee shops
16. College “golfers”
17. Community
18. Corinne (AIFS)
19. The Corridor
20. Costa Café
21. Cotty (Corridor customer)
22. Covered Market
23. Cowley Road
24. David, the quiet visitor
25. Dionne (Corridor)
26. Doc Martins
27. Doodling for hours
28. Dogs in the U.K. are cuter!
29. Doug-gy (Corridor Boss)
30. Ducks
31. Easy access to many things
32. English curse words & vulgar signs
33. Eyre (Aero)
34. Fitted clothing on men
35. Flowers (especially daffodils)
36. “Football”
37. Freedom
38. Geese
39. Gloucester Green
40. Greenness everywhere
41. Healthcare system
42. Historical surroundings
43. Honest Stationary
44. Ian (Corridor customer)
45. Indian food (pervasive!)
46. Individuality
47. Intelligent conversations
48. Internet cafés
49. Jacket potatoes
50. Jennifer & Steve (my homestay family)
51. Jennifer’s cooking
52. Julie (Scottish Ian’s girlfriend)
53. Kat (Corridor customer)
54. Kebab Kid’s garlic sauce
55. Lager & stronger beer
56. Laura (AIFS)
57. Lewis (detective series)
58. Liberal use of the “f-word”
59. Living next to a river & park
60. Mad Mick
61. Mark’s & Spencer’s
62. Murdock (Canadian detective series)
63. Not driving!!!
64. Not having to tip all the time
65. Oxfam & thrift stores
66. English Pastries
67. People walking everywhere
68. Politeness even in the face of rudeness
69. Primark
70. Pubs, pubs, pubs,
71. Pullen Road
72. Rachel & her bowling hat
73. Rain, rain, rain!
74. Random conversations
75. Romance
76. Rymans
77. Samosas
78. Scottish Ian
79. Seasons that are markedly different
80. Seeing my breath in the morning
81. Sib sweet Sib
82. Slippery Nipples (Baileys & Zambuca)
83. Small cars
84. Smart people
85. Star Pub (my first “regular” pub)
86. States of inebriation
87. Swans
88. Taggart (Scottish detective series)
89. Take-away food costing less than eating in restaurants
90. Taxis (they’re everywhere)
91. Tesco’s
92. Tiger Lilly
93. Tim (Tiger Lilly)
94. Timmy (Corridor)
95. Top Gear (especially when watching it with Steve)
96. Trains
97. Traveling
98. Trees, trees, trees!
99. Twilight at 10:00 p.m.
100. Walking everywhere
101. Walking home inebriated
102. Washing machines in the kitchen
103. Watching crossword puzzle solvers
104. Watching punters & punting
105. Weather that changes all the time
106. Well-dressed people
107. Wind & breezes
1. Accents & languages from all over Europe
2. Bartender Michael
3. Bath Street
4. Bicycles
5. Birds of various types
6. Blogging about Oxford
7. Blue skies
8. Brian (tour guide)
9. Buses, buses, buses!!
10. Carveries & Sunday Lunches
11. Chillin’ Out
12. City Centre
13. Clouds
14. Cobble-stone roads
15. Coffee shops
16. College “golfers”
17. Community
18. Corinne (AIFS)
19. The Corridor
20. Costa Café
21. Cotty (Corridor customer)
22. Covered Market
23. Cowley Road
24. David, the quiet visitor
25. Dionne (Corridor)
26. Doc Martins
27. Doodling for hours
28. Dogs in the U.K. are cuter!
29. Doug-gy (Corridor Boss)
30. Ducks
31. Easy access to many things
32. English curse words & vulgar signs
33. Eyre (Aero)
34. Fitted clothing on men
35. Flowers (especially daffodils)
36. “Football”
37. Freedom
38. Geese
39. Gloucester Green
40. Greenness everywhere
41. Healthcare system
42. Historical surroundings
43. Honest Stationary
44. Ian (Corridor customer)
45. Indian food (pervasive!)
46. Individuality
47. Intelligent conversations
48. Internet cafés
49. Jacket potatoes
50. Jennifer & Steve (my homestay family)
51. Jennifer’s cooking
52. Julie (Scottish Ian’s girlfriend)
53. Kat (Corridor customer)
54. Kebab Kid’s garlic sauce
55. Lager & stronger beer
56. Laura (AIFS)
57. Lewis (detective series)
58. Liberal use of the “f-word”
59. Living next to a river & park
60. Mad Mick
61. Mark’s & Spencer’s
62. Murdock (Canadian detective series)
63. Not driving!!!
64. Not having to tip all the time
65. Oxfam & thrift stores
66. English Pastries
67. People walking everywhere
68. Politeness even in the face of rudeness
69. Primark
70. Pubs, pubs, pubs,
71. Pullen Road
72. Rachel & her bowling hat
73. Rain, rain, rain!
74. Random conversations
75. Romance
76. Rymans
77. Samosas
78. Scottish Ian
79. Seasons that are markedly different
80. Seeing my breath in the morning
81. Sib sweet Sib
82. Slippery Nipples (Baileys & Zambuca)
83. Small cars
84. Smart people
85. Star Pub (my first “regular” pub)
86. States of inebriation
87. Swans
88. Taggart (Scottish detective series)
89. Take-away food costing less than eating in restaurants
90. Taxis (they’re everywhere)
91. Tesco’s
92. Tiger Lilly
93. Tim (Tiger Lilly)
94. Timmy (Corridor)
95. Top Gear (especially when watching it with Steve)
96. Trains
97. Traveling
98. Trees, trees, trees!
99. Twilight at 10:00 p.m.
100. Walking everywhere
101. Walking home inebriated
102. Washing machines in the kitchen
103. Watching crossword puzzle solvers
104. Watching punters & punting
105. Weather that changes all the time
106. Well-dressed people
107. Wind & breezes
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Chaperoned American Abroad
There are nights that the Corridor is quite busy, filled with people coming and going – a constant ingress and egress. But, there are other days where Cowley Road is a ghost town, as if all of its residents closed their shutters and cleared away from the road. Normally, however, there is always a steady stream of regulars coming in at their respective times. The bar staff during the daytime knows certain people’s lives in a different way that the bar staff observes people at night. Using the analogy of a Venn diagram, it is common to not have any intersections between the two circles.
It is a privilege for me to been accepted into this wonderful place of regulars and the meandering college-aged groups who are on missions to drink to get drunk. We can take tours of various notable places any time. However, being absorbed by the community and vise versa is special, and I find myself looking forward to seeing the familiar faces and people who have always ever shown kindness to me. Since being here, I have observed the following: golfers dressed in neon colors, Snow White and his twenty-odd dwarves, local Brave Hearts of various colors and patterns, a bar brawl, a person who was so drunk he got hosed down with soda water for his nakedness, groups of clowns, Goths, punkers, disco, and so much more. I can’t even begin to say – this is just at the Corridor. There have been other sightings of such similar folly reported to me by my classmates when there were here.
Yesterday, I went into the Corridor to draw a picture and to check my emails. Before I knew it, it was almost sundown at 9:45 p.m.! I don’t know how time escapes me, but it is wonderful to be swept up in it. It’s the simple pleasures of life that makes it interesting – not the fancy places and activities that usher you from here to there on a ridiculous schedule. Here, I can simply “be” and, though not necessarily “alone,” it’s absolutely splendid. The introvert in me is starting to thaw out and melt into the daily on-goings of a single place from which life springs eternal – for the night at least. There was one surprise last night though: two classmates were still in Oxford and came into the Corridor last night. I had to do a double-take because I thought that everyone, save Joe, had had enough of the Oxford scene. It was good to see them; they’d been at it fast and furious by the time they arrived here, whereas, I had been sipping on my Scotch over ice and with water. Being drunk is highly overrated.
I never go to a place for the sole purpose of getting plastered. It is a bad policy in general. But on more than one occasion, I’ve started off innocuously sipping on my drinks (with plenty of water) only to find myself being poured shots of this or that… I’ve been accused of not appearing inebriated when I am indeed thusly. I have to say, “Trust me, I am quite sufficiently drunk.” Though I’ve touted the wonders of stumbling home by foot in a state of inebriation, I must say that at 2:00 a.m., the roads are much longer and more ominous for this Colonist who is unaccustomed to the very late or early hours without a car to lock, and to being vulnerable. My father, no doubt, would say, “You have to be careful – you’re a foreigner and people take advantage of tourists…” (not that I consider myself a tourist per se).
I’ve tried to explain that we, in America – namely Los Angeles – live in fear of many things: bad neighborhoods, bad guys, gangs, rapists, carjackers, and dope fiends. It’s difficult to let down those familiar guards. So, I’ve erred to the side of caution and have called for a cab a few times. Yesterday, I was “sufficiently inebriated” and was going to call for a cab but Doug intervened and told me to save the £4; both he and Dionne walked my pathetic self home; I have to say in my own defense that I am sufficiently alive and well today due in large or small part to being escorted home. It is really quite safe here in Oxfordshire and on Cowley Road. There are some strange people who look down and out at times, and the occasional hoodlum hanging around, but relative to my experiences of the States, this would be your “really good neighborhood.”
It is a privilege for me to been accepted into this wonderful place of regulars and the meandering college-aged groups who are on missions to drink to get drunk. We can take tours of various notable places any time. However, being absorbed by the community and vise versa is special, and I find myself looking forward to seeing the familiar faces and people who have always ever shown kindness to me. Since being here, I have observed the following: golfers dressed in neon colors, Snow White and his twenty-odd dwarves, local Brave Hearts of various colors and patterns, a bar brawl, a person who was so drunk he got hosed down with soda water for his nakedness, groups of clowns, Goths, punkers, disco, and so much more. I can’t even begin to say – this is just at the Corridor. There have been other sightings of such similar folly reported to me by my classmates when there were here.
Yesterday, I went into the Corridor to draw a picture and to check my emails. Before I knew it, it was almost sundown at 9:45 p.m.! I don’t know how time escapes me, but it is wonderful to be swept up in it. It’s the simple pleasures of life that makes it interesting – not the fancy places and activities that usher you from here to there on a ridiculous schedule. Here, I can simply “be” and, though not necessarily “alone,” it’s absolutely splendid. The introvert in me is starting to thaw out and melt into the daily on-goings of a single place from which life springs eternal – for the night at least. There was one surprise last night though: two classmates were still in Oxford and came into the Corridor last night. I had to do a double-take because I thought that everyone, save Joe, had had enough of the Oxford scene. It was good to see them; they’d been at it fast and furious by the time they arrived here, whereas, I had been sipping on my Scotch over ice and with water. Being drunk is highly overrated.
I never go to a place for the sole purpose of getting plastered. It is a bad policy in general. But on more than one occasion, I’ve started off innocuously sipping on my drinks (with plenty of water) only to find myself being poured shots of this or that… I’ve been accused of not appearing inebriated when I am indeed thusly. I have to say, “Trust me, I am quite sufficiently drunk.” Though I’ve touted the wonders of stumbling home by foot in a state of inebriation, I must say that at 2:00 a.m., the roads are much longer and more ominous for this Colonist who is unaccustomed to the very late or early hours without a car to lock, and to being vulnerable. My father, no doubt, would say, “You have to be careful – you’re a foreigner and people take advantage of tourists…” (not that I consider myself a tourist per se).
I’ve tried to explain that we, in America – namely Los Angeles – live in fear of many things: bad neighborhoods, bad guys, gangs, rapists, carjackers, and dope fiends. It’s difficult to let down those familiar guards. So, I’ve erred to the side of caution and have called for a cab a few times. Yesterday, I was “sufficiently inebriated” and was going to call for a cab but Doug intervened and told me to save the £4; both he and Dionne walked my pathetic self home; I have to say in my own defense that I am sufficiently alive and well today due in large or small part to being escorted home. It is really quite safe here in Oxfordshire and on Cowley Road. There are some strange people who look down and out at times, and the occasional hoodlum hanging around, but relative to my experiences of the States, this would be your “really good neighborhood.”
Time out of Place
The journey draws nigh
My time is nearly up...
Soon I will be
Subatomic particles
From yesterday
Settling further out
Out and away
Bygone
A faint memory
Forgot…
I was
Just anyone
Who once wandered
Upon the wayward path
But I will tow the line
Of all I’ve gained
Forwardly…
T’is difficult
To forget
All that is
Moving past-wardly…
~J. L. Tornquist, 27 May 2009
My time is nearly up...
Soon I will be
Subatomic particles
From yesterday
Settling further out
Out and away
Bygone
A faint memory
Forgot…
I was
Just anyone
Who once wandered
Upon the wayward path
But I will tow the line
Of all I’ve gained
Forwardly…
T’is difficult
To forget
All that is
Moving past-wardly…
~J. L. Tornquist, 27 May 2009
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Modest Pontification
The best moments are either the ones without words, or are the interactions between those who are held in personal esteem, with whom I enjoy the multitude of conversations. The worst moments are those filled with words that go in circles but never properly go down the drain and thereby jam up the flow of things. The most awkward moments are those wherein something needs to be said but there is too much on the line to act accordingly.
It has been a hell of a joyride here in Oxford and the greater U.K. in every sense of the word. I am suffering a slight pre-melancholy given the prospects of my departure. It can no longer be denied that I am almost, and will soon become history: a light breeze that whisked through Oxford for three months and then blew away to the other side of the globe. Is that what all life is – people coming and going, arriving and departing – all moving on to somewhere?
I have learned that there are many variables in life – all the variables are in play, sometimes in concert with one another, while at other times, colliding or racing away from each other. There are also constants, which can be affected by the variables in a host of different ways. There is an odd math in all human interactions and in many ways; it all boils down to something simple and elegant and many variables can be cancelled out, while you’re stuck with other ones. We all rush off to infinity, like an asymptote that hugs the zero but never – not even in infinity – touches its respective axis. Sometimes the rubic’s cube is a good analogy for the way we interact – change one thing, and four changes are automatically incurred based on that one choice.
Maybe physics points to our nature: Newton, roughly: “For every action, there is an opposite and equal action; objects in motion tend to stay in motion; objects at rest tend to stay at rest.” My mind struggles to understand whether we are linear beings, or whether we keep returning to the same point in space from various directions because that’s the nature of human beings. Words are great at trying to explain the pervasiveness of life, but insufficient in examining how much we are like one thing or another, without being a literal simile or metaphor. And, if history explains anything, it is simply that we do not learn from it.
It has been a hell of a joyride here in Oxford and the greater U.K. in every sense of the word. I am suffering a slight pre-melancholy given the prospects of my departure. It can no longer be denied that I am almost, and will soon become history: a light breeze that whisked through Oxford for three months and then blew away to the other side of the globe. Is that what all life is – people coming and going, arriving and departing – all moving on to somewhere?
I have learned that there are many variables in life – all the variables are in play, sometimes in concert with one another, while at other times, colliding or racing away from each other. There are also constants, which can be affected by the variables in a host of different ways. There is an odd math in all human interactions and in many ways; it all boils down to something simple and elegant and many variables can be cancelled out, while you’re stuck with other ones. We all rush off to infinity, like an asymptote that hugs the zero but never – not even in infinity – touches its respective axis. Sometimes the rubic’s cube is a good analogy for the way we interact – change one thing, and four changes are automatically incurred based on that one choice.
Maybe physics points to our nature: Newton, roughly: “For every action, there is an opposite and equal action; objects in motion tend to stay in motion; objects at rest tend to stay at rest.” My mind struggles to understand whether we are linear beings, or whether we keep returning to the same point in space from various directions because that’s the nature of human beings. Words are great at trying to explain the pervasiveness of life, but insufficient in examining how much we are like one thing or another, without being a literal simile or metaphor. And, if history explains anything, it is simply that we do not learn from it.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Parliamentary News
On 19 May 2009, I went to visit Parliament. The tour around Parliament itself was quite spectacular – by far the most ornate of all of the places I have had the pleasure of visiting. When you go in, you have to go through a mild security check. Security takes a digital photograph of you and then prints the picture on your “Visitor’s Pass” ticket, with a barcode and all. This, you wear around your neck on a simple black rope necklace.
What really raised my interest was when, at 11:31 a.m., a gentleman who works at Parliament (I don’t know his status, other than he is an Irish-Scot) approached my group. This man saw us and motioned to us that he wanted to tell us something. He brought us into a huddle and, in a whisper, said, “You need to know that today is going to be an historic day. You are all here on a very special day, indeed. Word has it that the Speaker (of the House of Commons) is going to resign this afternoon.” I felt incredibly privileged and had a gut feeling that such news was true and soon-to-be-fact. Historically, no such resignation in the modern body politic has occurred, so this was a first in many respects, said the man at Parliament.
I wanted to stay and sign up to be a part of the 2:30 Parliamentary session and would have stayed had we not had a play to see at the Globe Theater. My friends were skeptical of the news – they thought the man was pulling their leg, but I knew it was an auspicious day to be exactly where I was. I told my professor the news, who seemed nonplussed. Then I passed my note about the pending political stir to our AIFS staff member. I asked her if she had heard about it. She hadn’t. She must have thought I was on something because it was far-out news.
Sure enough, later in the day, when I got back on the Coach Bus, our driver, Keith, informed us that the Speaker of the House of Commons had indeed resigned. Random dates started getting bantered about – was the last time this happened, 1600’s or not since 600 years? The person at Parliament was adamant about telling us that this was indeed a first. I wish we had a little more time between events so that I could have written about this in a more timely manner since all news, once uttered, is no longer news, but rather, history. Still, I have my small moment of “knowing.” Priceless.
What really raised my interest was when, at 11:31 a.m., a gentleman who works at Parliament (I don’t know his status, other than he is an Irish-Scot) approached my group. This man saw us and motioned to us that he wanted to tell us something. He brought us into a huddle and, in a whisper, said, “You need to know that today is going to be an historic day. You are all here on a very special day, indeed. Word has it that the Speaker (of the House of Commons) is going to resign this afternoon.” I felt incredibly privileged and had a gut feeling that such news was true and soon-to-be-fact. Historically, no such resignation in the modern body politic has occurred, so this was a first in many respects, said the man at Parliament.
I wanted to stay and sign up to be a part of the 2:30 Parliamentary session and would have stayed had we not had a play to see at the Globe Theater. My friends were skeptical of the news – they thought the man was pulling their leg, but I knew it was an auspicious day to be exactly where I was. I told my professor the news, who seemed nonplussed. Then I passed my note about the pending political stir to our AIFS staff member. I asked her if she had heard about it. She hadn’t. She must have thought I was on something because it was far-out news.
Sure enough, later in the day, when I got back on the Coach Bus, our driver, Keith, informed us that the Speaker of the House of Commons had indeed resigned. Random dates started getting bantered about – was the last time this happened, 1600’s or not since 600 years? The person at Parliament was adamant about telling us that this was indeed a first. I wish we had a little more time between events so that I could have written about this in a more timely manner since all news, once uttered, is no longer news, but rather, history. Still, I have my small moment of “knowing.” Priceless.
Sometimes O.M.G.
The netherworld of buzz kills
Where nothing survives
The usurping
Usurping life’s oxygen
Of silence, stillness
Sucking my air away
With the constancy of words
Rush! Mad Rush!
How so very alone are we!
Lost cavernous souls
Wandering hitherto
Watching shadows
At nearby distances
Ushering me away
With great urgency
A lost era drowning
Casting its net upon me
Bought and beggared
Bettered and battered
Those wandering eyes
Be swift be lost be gone be well
Good riddance, good-bye
God bless such immodest soul
One of far too many words
Little then left to imagination
Imperfect within perfection
Perfect in the realm of imperfection.
J. L. Tornquist 21 May 2009
Where nothing survives
The usurping
Usurping life’s oxygen
Of silence, stillness
Sucking my air away
With the constancy of words
Rush! Mad Rush!
How so very alone are we!
Lost cavernous souls
Wandering hitherto
Watching shadows
At nearby distances
Ushering me away
With great urgency
A lost era drowning
Casting its net upon me
Bought and beggared
Bettered and battered
Those wandering eyes
Be swift be lost be gone be well
Good riddance, good-bye
God bless such immodest soul
One of far too many words
Little then left to imagination
Imperfect within perfection
Perfect in the realm of imperfection.
J. L. Tornquist 21 May 2009
Monday, 18 May 2009
More Tales of the Haunt...
A man sprawled out upon the outer chairs, asleep, a’drunk…
Who later entered the fore a’drunk and quite nakedly so
So drunk that I watched the barkeep roll him out quite skunk’t
While I stayed to the bitter end, finding myself with no place to go.
Many went home far past midnight forthwith
Ne’er returning for their plentiful fifths.
JL Tornquist
Who later entered the fore a’drunk and quite nakedly so
So drunk that I watched the barkeep roll him out quite skunk’t
While I stayed to the bitter end, finding myself with no place to go.
Many went home far past midnight forthwith
Ne’er returning for their plentiful fifths.
JL Tornquist
Homestaying...
Before we arrived in Oxford, there were several meetings that took place towards getting us ready. One of strongest points AIFS and my university shared with us was that it would be the home-stay experience that would shape us the most. They (the university and AIFS) instilled the fear of God into us about all the things we should and shouldn’t do, as well as how much we would grow because of the shared experience of living with a family abroad. As far as home-stay families go, I think I received the trifecta and got the best family in Oxford to stay with.
Jennifer and Steve have welcomed me with open arms and their home has been a very relaxed one, not built on formalities, but on being real, relaxing, and enjoying the down-time that is either all-too-typical of stateside family evenings, or has been lost on the vast majority of my people: watching television, talking, sharing, joking, and eating dinner mostly together when I’m around – never at a dinner table, but always in the living room around the evening shows.
Jennifer works so hard and does so much for everyone. She doesn’t say much about it, but I know she has much to juggle and is brilliant at doing so. She cares about the work she does, and does her work with a full heart. She is one of the kindest people I have met in my life, and I have learned to receive what she and Steve offer in allowing me to stay here. I introduced her to my friend recently, and my friend took an instant liking to her. And not to deviate from Jennifer’s wonderful nature, she cooks terrific food! And is generous! I will miss her dinners and our moments together over a casual dinner. When I am here, and when all three of us are together, I’ve taken to the minimal task of taking the dishes and dish-holders back to the kitchen when we are finished eating.
Steve is the most laid-back person I’ve met who is, in a way, the mirror opposite of Jennifer. He works all around town, protecting establishments from the inebriated, and keeping order where chaos is certain to emerge. I’ve seen him out and about when he is working, and my friends adore him. When at home, Steve and I watch a lot of DAVE TV’s Top Gear, which drives Jennifer to bemusement. She detests the show, whereas, Steve and I watch back-to-back episodes of it throughout the day – when I am at home, which is less and less as my study-abroad program winds down to its conclusion. The three of us enjoy watching a wonderful show on DAVE TV about the Australian immigration and airport security. We’re always amazed at the things people do to bring back elicit, forbidden, or otherwise illegal items, hoping to get past customs and immigration. One night, Jennifer and I watched at least four consecutive hours of it.
Now, none of this means anything without relativity. I’ve only been to two other homes and met only two other homestay persons (not all the same ones than from the homes I visited) – both of which are different. The first house I went to was set up so that a few students at a time could stay upstairs and have their own spaces/room and a shared bathroom. It was a very nice house, and they had a beautiful and timid Siberian Husky as well as an adorable young boy. It felt a bit like old dorm days, but it was nice. The second home I visited with another friend was quite different, and very cold in its reception. My friend asked her “foster care mom” (addressing her properly: Mrs. So-and-So) if her friend (me) and she could study for a test in her room. Mrs. So-and-So looked once at me, then looked back to my friend, paused, and then replied, “Yah okay,” and then abruptly walked away. I was about to hold out my hand and introduce myself, but she did an about-face. Finally, one of Jennifer’s good friends is another homestay mother. She is so much fun to talk to, and from what I can observe, a good friend to Jennifer. I was a little afraid of her in the beginning, but then we (Jennifer, she and I) sat in the living room one evening and talked for hours while she was setting up an email account for Jennifer.
It’s hard to put a finger on what makes for a good home-stay family because it’s never any one thing. The ingredients are a confluence of personality types, preconceived notions, levels of openness and awareness, sensitivity to the differences, the spirit in which we are received (or not), the enthusiasm, the routines that settle in, the small talk as well as the deeper, more meaningful conversations, the food, and the company. This then gets bundled in the either warm and fuzzy, or cold and bleak Oxford-ness here in the brave new world that we’ve immersed ourselves in. I can’t put it into words because it is everything good, and much of it occurs without words. It’s just a feeling…
Jennifer and Steve have welcomed me with open arms and their home has been a very relaxed one, not built on formalities, but on being real, relaxing, and enjoying the down-time that is either all-too-typical of stateside family evenings, or has been lost on the vast majority of my people: watching television, talking, sharing, joking, and eating dinner mostly together when I’m around – never at a dinner table, but always in the living room around the evening shows.
Jennifer works so hard and does so much for everyone. She doesn’t say much about it, but I know she has much to juggle and is brilliant at doing so. She cares about the work she does, and does her work with a full heart. She is one of the kindest people I have met in my life, and I have learned to receive what she and Steve offer in allowing me to stay here. I introduced her to my friend recently, and my friend took an instant liking to her. And not to deviate from Jennifer’s wonderful nature, she cooks terrific food! And is generous! I will miss her dinners and our moments together over a casual dinner. When I am here, and when all three of us are together, I’ve taken to the minimal task of taking the dishes and dish-holders back to the kitchen when we are finished eating.
Steve is the most laid-back person I’ve met who is, in a way, the mirror opposite of Jennifer. He works all around town, protecting establishments from the inebriated, and keeping order where chaos is certain to emerge. I’ve seen him out and about when he is working, and my friends adore him. When at home, Steve and I watch a lot of DAVE TV’s Top Gear, which drives Jennifer to bemusement. She detests the show, whereas, Steve and I watch back-to-back episodes of it throughout the day – when I am at home, which is less and less as my study-abroad program winds down to its conclusion. The three of us enjoy watching a wonderful show on DAVE TV about the Australian immigration and airport security. We’re always amazed at the things people do to bring back elicit, forbidden, or otherwise illegal items, hoping to get past customs and immigration. One night, Jennifer and I watched at least four consecutive hours of it.
Now, none of this means anything without relativity. I’ve only been to two other homes and met only two other homestay persons (not all the same ones than from the homes I visited) – both of which are different. The first house I went to was set up so that a few students at a time could stay upstairs and have their own spaces/room and a shared bathroom. It was a very nice house, and they had a beautiful and timid Siberian Husky as well as an adorable young boy. It felt a bit like old dorm days, but it was nice. The second home I visited with another friend was quite different, and very cold in its reception. My friend asked her “foster care mom” (addressing her properly: Mrs. So-and-So) if her friend (me) and she could study for a test in her room. Mrs. So-and-So looked once at me, then looked back to my friend, paused, and then replied, “Yah okay,” and then abruptly walked away. I was about to hold out my hand and introduce myself, but she did an about-face. Finally, one of Jennifer’s good friends is another homestay mother. She is so much fun to talk to, and from what I can observe, a good friend to Jennifer. I was a little afraid of her in the beginning, but then we (Jennifer, she and I) sat in the living room one evening and talked for hours while she was setting up an email account for Jennifer.
It’s hard to put a finger on what makes for a good home-stay family because it’s never any one thing. The ingredients are a confluence of personality types, preconceived notions, levels of openness and awareness, sensitivity to the differences, the spirit in which we are received (or not), the enthusiasm, the routines that settle in, the small talk as well as the deeper, more meaningful conversations, the food, and the company. This then gets bundled in the either warm and fuzzy, or cold and bleak Oxford-ness here in the brave new world that we’ve immersed ourselves in. I can’t put it into words because it is everything good, and much of it occurs without words. It’s just a feeling…
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Time Flies…
There is no greater experience than to be lost in time, completely enjoying life, and simply “being” at peace with everything, despite the moments of frustration that occasionally occur. I don’t recall a time where I’ve ever felt completely connected to my surroundings and wake up thanking the Universe or God for each day I get to be at a place. Oxford has made me a convert of the local life, wherein one can simply step out be or do what fits for that day. Once classes are over (next week), I plan to fully take in the scene and go on the one-day trips that have been so elusive throughout the past few months.
It is difficult to “get away” when assignments and homework nip at my heels, so I’ve stayed close to home just to keep myself in check. Mostly that has been to my advantage, although I have to confess to not completing Death and the King’s Horsemen and didn’t do so well on a quiz. In part – my sole minor defence – and not a good one, is that I was recovering from a very bad cold. But, all things being equal, that is not a good enough excuse. So I’ve stepped up and now I’m back in the flow of everything.
Sadly, “the final flow of everything” is the culmination of my two English classes wherein the dreaded group project is falling upon us like a blunt axe. Three people of the seven will be in another country, two will be “here and there” on a couple of the days, and I’m not sure what else could possible collide with us to scatter us any further than we are. We are the embodiment of both fission and fusion. Seven women in one group – each with their own strong wills and good intellect and ideas, packed into the small of a pub/coffee shop, and sooner or later, the end-result is a massive explosion. Too much energy in one area… And then, there's a dull thud. It is a very unsatisfactory thump that we feel as things move quickly towards nowhere in particular.
BUT, school itself is actually over, barring this “play” or “production” and then the real fun can happen. I’ve realized that I actually don’t have to go to Amsterdam to achieve what was originally sought out to be achieved and am quite satisfied with my stay and adventures here. Everything is cogent. So in the weeks to follow, I will be sufficiently busy with my own business and with the friends I have made at The Corridor, save one. But life is not perfect. Doug, you rock!
Finally, I will be writing significantly more once I am finished with the “play.” I will be writing about my mis-adventures and have some wonderful tales to spin. Things only a traveller can tell about… To be continued...
It is difficult to “get away” when assignments and homework nip at my heels, so I’ve stayed close to home just to keep myself in check. Mostly that has been to my advantage, although I have to confess to not completing Death and the King’s Horsemen and didn’t do so well on a quiz. In part – my sole minor defence – and not a good one, is that I was recovering from a very bad cold. But, all things being equal, that is not a good enough excuse. So I’ve stepped up and now I’m back in the flow of everything.
Sadly, “the final flow of everything” is the culmination of my two English classes wherein the dreaded group project is falling upon us like a blunt axe. Three people of the seven will be in another country, two will be “here and there” on a couple of the days, and I’m not sure what else could possible collide with us to scatter us any further than we are. We are the embodiment of both fission and fusion. Seven women in one group – each with their own strong wills and good intellect and ideas, packed into the small of a pub/coffee shop, and sooner or later, the end-result is a massive explosion. Too much energy in one area… And then, there's a dull thud. It is a very unsatisfactory thump that we feel as things move quickly towards nowhere in particular.
BUT, school itself is actually over, barring this “play” or “production” and then the real fun can happen. I’ve realized that I actually don’t have to go to Amsterdam to achieve what was originally sought out to be achieved and am quite satisfied with my stay and adventures here. Everything is cogent. So in the weeks to follow, I will be sufficiently busy with my own business and with the friends I have made at The Corridor, save one. But life is not perfect. Doug, you rock!
Finally, I will be writing significantly more once I am finished with the “play.” I will be writing about my mis-adventures and have some wonderful tales to spin. Things only a traveller can tell about… To be continued...
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Other Morsels of Future Memories
What I also appreciate so much is that if I want to get away from the mayhem or monotony of wherever I am, I can simply walk to or take the bus somewhere with no hassle. Perhaps I’ve overstated the whole “walking freedom,” but there is a soul in being able to do the activities and go to the places where people are the central players and not cars. Here, cars heed to the will and purpose of pedestrians, unlike my experience of the states wherein your life is at the mercy of speeding vehicles that are detached to what humanity is about.
I knew this in Japan, but rarely, if ever, have I seen this in the states, save San Francisco and Manhattan, as well as certain parts of Denver. The latter (Denver) required cars for all its vastness. Cars rule the society in which we live, which alienate the population who simply want a sense of community. Cars can provide a sense of independence or freedom in that one is not beholden to anyone else’s agenda or schedule. However, in my experience as a Los Angelian, cars are a form of imprisonment for us State-siders who can’t get where they need to go without one. Especially in Los Angeles, where the mass-transit system is a joke and carries a stigma, we suffer without our cars.
Cars, as the sole mode of transportation are, in my estimation, a bad idea because they serve to isolate people and create a sense of disconnection. When people have to pass one another’s space through walking or biking, somehow a certain respect is generated for the various personal spaces, whereas, cars give people a sense of allowance to act with blatant disregard for one another – yes, guilty as charged.
I knew this in Japan, but rarely, if ever, have I seen this in the states, save San Francisco and Manhattan, as well as certain parts of Denver. The latter (Denver) required cars for all its vastness. Cars rule the society in which we live, which alienate the population who simply want a sense of community. Cars can provide a sense of independence or freedom in that one is not beholden to anyone else’s agenda or schedule. However, in my experience as a Los Angelian, cars are a form of imprisonment for us State-siders who can’t get where they need to go without one. Especially in Los Angeles, where the mass-transit system is a joke and carries a stigma, we suffer without our cars.
Cars, as the sole mode of transportation are, in my estimation, a bad idea because they serve to isolate people and create a sense of disconnection. When people have to pass one another’s space through walking or biking, somehow a certain respect is generated for the various personal spaces, whereas, cars give people a sense of allowance to act with blatant disregard for one another – yes, guilty as charged.
The Wonderful Nature of Pubs
I know I’ve written about this in a few of my blogs, but I am constantly fascinated with the laid-back pub scene that the U.K. has. It is not socially frowned upon to go to pubs here in the U.K. – all the way around: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Woodstock, Stratford Upon Avon, and finally, my favorite place by default: Oxford. I can’t get over how kind people are here; perhaps I’m simply naïve in my anonymity of being a foreigner, but I just get the sense that I am accepted, regardless of my sex, nationality, bright false red hair, and peculiarities.
I have established myself at regular places where I find my moments to “download” when I need to get away from the people altogether. Sometimes I get to the point where I’ve had enough of what I know and of people’s routines and have to just get away. I think I shall miss this experience the most – moments of “my” pubs where people know who I am, talk to me as any other person, and where I can simply be the many faces of me”: scholar, academician, lone traveler, introspective, introverted, friendly, reserved, and whatever other spirit that moves me.
One place I’ve found refuge in of late is the Corridor Pub http://www.thecorridoroxford.co.uk/ on Cowley Road. Oftentimes, during the first part of any given day, after I get out of school, or during the weekend, I come here and do my schoolwork over coffee. I usually go through two coffees before I’m ready to switch over to something of a reward: a more relaxing scotch on the rocks (or two or thereabouts) before I pack it in. No one gives me any nasty looks or grief for doing so. Students also get certain discounts (which I haven’t redeemed thus far because of my choice of drink). I feel like Colin Dexter’s “Inspector Morse” as I nurse my drinks and contemplate simple and complex matters of little relevance.
The other day was May Day. On May Day in the U.K., students (namely) and otherwise sober people celebrate the coming of summer. People start celebrating before or at sun-up at the bars and pubs and usually get quite inebriated. Some places actually serve up breakfast with drinks. Here at Corridors, this practice of feeding students wasn’t successful because alcohol was the primary objective and a lot of food went to waste.
Many of my classmates pulled all-nighters for May Day but I was (and still am to a degree) sick with a bad cold. I knew I wouldn’t be a direct eye-witness to the mayhem of May Day. I don’t think I would have participated anyway. I’ve been there and done all that and being severely drunk is highly overrated. Being violently sick from alcohol poisoning (which is what “really drunk” is) is the farthest thing from fun that I know from personal experience.
Saturday was an experimental day. It was quite an expensive experiment at two pounds per shot, but I did get free pastries to tide me over. I wanted to see how long and slowly I could drink without becoming inebriated. I’ve lost count of how many scotches on the rocks I’ve taken in because I’ve been here for hours, and because I drink slowly to savor the drink and enjoy the relaxing time, ambiance, and people I meet along the way that accompanies the drink. Long gone are the days of shots and forced drunkenness where the price was too high. If in the States, I’d have been ushered out or given not-so-subtle hints that I had overstayed my visit. Further, I would have had to drive home, and if any police officer might have pulled me over after such a long day, I would have been hauled away for driving under the influence. They (the States) really could do a better job with “bars” (or my favorite establishment, “pubs”), but drinking places are still fairly reserved for the male-biased, as I previously alluded to in my other blog.
As a woman – as a single woman – I can say with certainty that I really dislike being hit on by men who have the wrong idea about my presence at drinking establishments. I truly enjoy conversations but many such conversations go south as soon as the guy gets the wrong idea and “makes a move.” I can’t count the times I have encountered the cliché, “So what’s a nice, attractive lady like yourself doing here all alone at a place like this?” Buzz kill. At that point of the evening (usually it doesn’t take long), I fold in my cards and call it a night, even if I don’t want to. Oh well, it’s all cool on some strange level, I suppose…
I have established myself at regular places where I find my moments to “download” when I need to get away from the people altogether. Sometimes I get to the point where I’ve had enough of what I know and of people’s routines and have to just get away. I think I shall miss this experience the most – moments of “my” pubs where people know who I am, talk to me as any other person, and where I can simply be the many faces of me”: scholar, academician, lone traveler, introspective, introverted, friendly, reserved, and whatever other spirit that moves me.
One place I’ve found refuge in of late is the Corridor Pub http://www.thecorridoroxford.co.uk/ on Cowley Road. Oftentimes, during the first part of any given day, after I get out of school, or during the weekend, I come here and do my schoolwork over coffee. I usually go through two coffees before I’m ready to switch over to something of a reward: a more relaxing scotch on the rocks (or two or thereabouts) before I pack it in. No one gives me any nasty looks or grief for doing so. Students also get certain discounts (which I haven’t redeemed thus far because of my choice of drink). I feel like Colin Dexter’s “Inspector Morse” as I nurse my drinks and contemplate simple and complex matters of little relevance.
The other day was May Day. On May Day in the U.K., students (namely) and otherwise sober people celebrate the coming of summer. People start celebrating before or at sun-up at the bars and pubs and usually get quite inebriated. Some places actually serve up breakfast with drinks. Here at Corridors, this practice of feeding students wasn’t successful because alcohol was the primary objective and a lot of food went to waste.
Many of my classmates pulled all-nighters for May Day but I was (and still am to a degree) sick with a bad cold. I knew I wouldn’t be a direct eye-witness to the mayhem of May Day. I don’t think I would have participated anyway. I’ve been there and done all that and being severely drunk is highly overrated. Being violently sick from alcohol poisoning (which is what “really drunk” is) is the farthest thing from fun that I know from personal experience.
Saturday was an experimental day. It was quite an expensive experiment at two pounds per shot, but I did get free pastries to tide me over. I wanted to see how long and slowly I could drink without becoming inebriated. I’ve lost count of how many scotches on the rocks I’ve taken in because I’ve been here for hours, and because I drink slowly to savor the drink and enjoy the relaxing time, ambiance, and people I meet along the way that accompanies the drink. Long gone are the days of shots and forced drunkenness where the price was too high. If in the States, I’d have been ushered out or given not-so-subtle hints that I had overstayed my visit. Further, I would have had to drive home, and if any police officer might have pulled me over after such a long day, I would have been hauled away for driving under the influence. They (the States) really could do a better job with “bars” (or my favorite establishment, “pubs”), but drinking places are still fairly reserved for the male-biased, as I previously alluded to in my other blog.
As a woman – as a single woman – I can say with certainty that I really dislike being hit on by men who have the wrong idea about my presence at drinking establishments. I truly enjoy conversations but many such conversations go south as soon as the guy gets the wrong idea and “makes a move.” I can’t count the times I have encountered the cliché, “So what’s a nice, attractive lady like yourself doing here all alone at a place like this?” Buzz kill. At that point of the evening (usually it doesn’t take long), I fold in my cards and call it a night, even if I don’t want to. Oh well, it’s all cool on some strange level, I suppose…
Monday, 27 April 2009
Lone Traveler
There are no days that I regret traveling alone. There are, however, some days I regret traveling with a crowd, and given the choice, I would rather be the lone traveler who sees the world uninterrupted by those who cannot decide which avenue to take. While I am not the most adventurous of the bunch, I enjoy taking time to take in everything, down to the minute details. I don’t need to go terribly far in a foreign land to find a new adventure of sorts.
The Bar/Pub Scene...
In America, I cannot simply meander into a pub or a bar as a single woman and do my homework over a scotch or lager without attracting the attention of individuals who presume that I was at such an establishment because I was somehow “loose.” Here, I can walk down the street to any pub (I have my favorites) and drink in peace without rude or presumptuous intrusions. I am learning about the different locations – Oxford being amongst the more permissive of the places where I am left alone or am free to strike up a conversation without innuendoes that I would very much prefer to avoid. Ireland was different though. I got hit on by so many drunk and sober men that I found myself wanting to return back to Oxford by the end of my one week there.
It would seem that some places are not ready for women going into bars or pubs alone, or women taking on the role of a lone traveler. Most of the men I encountered in Ireland (in pubs, cafes, and hostels) asked me how it was that I, as a “beautiful woman,” could travel alone … "didn’t men (like them) constantly and incessantly bother me?" I smiled and knew they were answering their own questions. By the end of my week in Ireland, I found myself staying in the hostel at nights, having purchased a couple of large cans of Guinness along with a sandwich or some strange concoction that many convenience stores sell for weary travelers like myself.
However, in Oxford, I find many who are like me who simply stop off at coffee shops or pubs and are left alone, save a friendly conversation here and there – always welcoming of my presence. Also, in London, I went to a pub/restaurant and the server there was more than cordial. We talked about where she was from, and she gave us helpful ideas of where to go while traveling there. They actually have a pub map that connects various unrelated pubs onto a “go five times/to five noted places and get the sixth one free” model which I found refreshing. Alas, I don’t seem to have the time or money to take them up on their offer, but if I did, I surely would do so!
The Friends Scene...
While I enjoy the one-on-one company of others, I enjoy just taking my time and not rushing off to the next new thing. I don’t think I’ve ever been in that much of a hurry. Instead, I enjoy just taking in everything – every innuendo of a place; I enjoy imagining myself as part of that place or establishment as if I lived there. The experience of knowing that I have a place to go home to – here – makes the experience more enhanced. That I can walk around and mosey through the various shops freely or visit an internet café at the hefty price of one pound makes me happy. That I can walk to anything that is integral to my life makes me feel incredibly privileged. Back home in Los Angeles, I have to drive everywhere, and that makes me incredibly unhappy.
It’s nice to mix and mingle with friends in this land abroad, but my greatest satisfaction is in the conversations, the background intonations of different languages and accents, the various cultures intermixed, the random conversations with local and foreign others, and the ambiance that Oxford and the greater U.K. provide that enhances the one-on-one interactions. Perhaps because I am older, I don’t have a sense of urgency in all things and places. My urgency rests in the here and now in whatever I am engaged in at the moment, whether it is a conversation with a friend, writing this piece, or studying for my classes in a pub. I don’t like the question, “So what do you want to do now?” It suggests an inability to be in the “here and now” and misses the point of being abroad for me. I suppose it could be argued either way that life is too short to not take in as much as possible – to (a) take in as many countries and pubs as possible, or to (b) take in as much of one thing as possible to incorporate one’s existence into its existence. For better or worse, I am the latter. Too often, I find that people are rushed and wanting too much of any given moment.
I have decided that my study abroad program is not a time to go everywhere all the time or to do every conceivable action until I drop dead with exhaustion at the end of it. For me, the best moments are about taking in a variety of sights and scenes, while at the same time, taking time to reflect on the highlights of each day. The little things are what stand out for me: cobblestone roads, color building-fronts, brick buildings, very small cars, the sound of the various languages, or watching other people watch me. If “Plan A” doesn’t pan out, then it’s not a loss because I am in a new place, surrounded by new and unfamiliar things – things I could only imagine before. So it’s always a win-win situation.
The Bar/Pub Scene...
In America, I cannot simply meander into a pub or a bar as a single woman and do my homework over a scotch or lager without attracting the attention of individuals who presume that I was at such an establishment because I was somehow “loose.” Here, I can walk down the street to any pub (I have my favorites) and drink in peace without rude or presumptuous intrusions. I am learning about the different locations – Oxford being amongst the more permissive of the places where I am left alone or am free to strike up a conversation without innuendoes that I would very much prefer to avoid. Ireland was different though. I got hit on by so many drunk and sober men that I found myself wanting to return back to Oxford by the end of my one week there.
It would seem that some places are not ready for women going into bars or pubs alone, or women taking on the role of a lone traveler. Most of the men I encountered in Ireland (in pubs, cafes, and hostels) asked me how it was that I, as a “beautiful woman,” could travel alone … "didn’t men (like them) constantly and incessantly bother me?" I smiled and knew they were answering their own questions. By the end of my week in Ireland, I found myself staying in the hostel at nights, having purchased a couple of large cans of Guinness along with a sandwich or some strange concoction that many convenience stores sell for weary travelers like myself.
However, in Oxford, I find many who are like me who simply stop off at coffee shops or pubs and are left alone, save a friendly conversation here and there – always welcoming of my presence. Also, in London, I went to a pub/restaurant and the server there was more than cordial. We talked about where she was from, and she gave us helpful ideas of where to go while traveling there. They actually have a pub map that connects various unrelated pubs onto a “go five times/to five noted places and get the sixth one free” model which I found refreshing. Alas, I don’t seem to have the time or money to take them up on their offer, but if I did, I surely would do so!
The Friends Scene...
While I enjoy the one-on-one company of others, I enjoy just taking my time and not rushing off to the next new thing. I don’t think I’ve ever been in that much of a hurry. Instead, I enjoy just taking in everything – every innuendo of a place; I enjoy imagining myself as part of that place or establishment as if I lived there. The experience of knowing that I have a place to go home to – here – makes the experience more enhanced. That I can walk around and mosey through the various shops freely or visit an internet café at the hefty price of one pound makes me happy. That I can walk to anything that is integral to my life makes me feel incredibly privileged. Back home in Los Angeles, I have to drive everywhere, and that makes me incredibly unhappy.
It’s nice to mix and mingle with friends in this land abroad, but my greatest satisfaction is in the conversations, the background intonations of different languages and accents, the various cultures intermixed, the random conversations with local and foreign others, and the ambiance that Oxford and the greater U.K. provide that enhances the one-on-one interactions. Perhaps because I am older, I don’t have a sense of urgency in all things and places. My urgency rests in the here and now in whatever I am engaged in at the moment, whether it is a conversation with a friend, writing this piece, or studying for my classes in a pub. I don’t like the question, “So what do you want to do now?” It suggests an inability to be in the “here and now” and misses the point of being abroad for me. I suppose it could be argued either way that life is too short to not take in as much as possible – to (a) take in as many countries and pubs as possible, or to (b) take in as much of one thing as possible to incorporate one’s existence into its existence. For better or worse, I am the latter. Too often, I find that people are rushed and wanting too much of any given moment.
I have decided that my study abroad program is not a time to go everywhere all the time or to do every conceivable action until I drop dead with exhaustion at the end of it. For me, the best moments are about taking in a variety of sights and scenes, while at the same time, taking time to reflect on the highlights of each day. The little things are what stand out for me: cobblestone roads, color building-fronts, brick buildings, very small cars, the sound of the various languages, or watching other people watch me. If “Plan A” doesn’t pan out, then it’s not a loss because I am in a new place, surrounded by new and unfamiliar things – things I could only imagine before. So it’s always a win-win situation.
Relative Education
Studying abroad is the most eye-opening experience I have undertaken in my relatively long or short life, and it has changed me profoundly in every area of my life. Every day, I take in as much as I can with the persistent thought that time is constantly nipping at my heels, reminding me to observe, form solid memories, and to never take for granted the beauty and history of a kind I will not see in Los Angeles or any car-driven city wherein walking is not a luxury. Los Angeles is like “spilled milk” – it spans for miles and miles, which takes away from the community, the mass-transport system, and easy-access trains. I love walking up Headington Hill (as much as it pains me at times) to get to Oxford Brookes College. There is no question in my mind that my education here is more than the sum of my classes – it is a kind of global learning, not made of by books alone, by tests, or by papers, but through living.
There are times when I question the wisdom of allowing certain individuals into a program that demands flexibility and open-mindedness that doesn’t exist for a few. Most of the time, the case is that the authority figures are preaching to the proverbial choir, but some may have, under this metaphor, never been a part of something other than themselves and therefore have no sense or context to the “outside world out there.” It is, as many metaphors go – metaphors that are almost certainly known by all along the lines of, “One rotten apple spoils the barrel…” I don’t presume to know what goes through the minds of others because everyone has their own reason for being the way they are, but when the behaviors start encroaching on my education and learning process, I become upset, and I feel disrespected. At the same time, I refuse to let the actions of a few disrupt my process, despite my anger for inexcusably rude actions and words.
We are guests in a nation and privileged to be in a program that few are given the opportunity to live out. That we pay to be here is inconsequential – life is such that all things cost money and time. Further, respect has to be earned and learned, and until we act maturely, respect is a one-way street. Grown-ups get to be grown-ups because they’ve grown up. We’re treated like children when we behave like children. We teach people how to treat us. If we go out of our way to be foolish, we will treated likewise as fools, and talked to in like fashion. I have little to no sympathy for those who would take the whole lot down for their lack of sensitivity and maturity. However, I question the process that allows them into an intense program – those who are not ready to experience adulthood beyond hard-liquored nights and regular absences.
Studying abroad is not only about this wonderful cultural exchange that we receive into our life experiences, but it is, as the term suggests, “studying” abroad – an academic program. It requires actively participating in one’s education and attending school just like it is attended where we came from. Education is an often arduous process and our professors have been very patient with us because they understand that we are taking in many activities at once and are constantly adjusting to our brave new world. However, at the end of the day, we are students, and we are working towards new insights and ideas that our classes open out to us – all while being graded. It is true that we have paid good money to be here, but that money is not meant to bend the will of the people who we are guests to or under the tutelage of. There is a hierarchy that needs to be maintained and honored, and at least a modicum of order that demands to be sustained amidst moments of high drama and chaos.
There is an inevitability that certain dynamics will crop up in programs such as studying in a foreign country. I’m sure a lot of hard work goes into creating the program guidelines; the authors of these programs have no doubt worked tirelessly to be as thorough as possible. Quotas need to be filled, and care must be taken to not exclude those who might otherwise learn by studying abroad. Consideration must be made so that opportunity exists for everyone. My contention is that a good majority of students are present for their academic endeavors and are serious about studying; the disruptions created by those who are in these programs as an exercise of fun and folly are deeply felt by the majority, and are, at times, bitterly resented. Amongst ourselves, we talk about the selection process and question how seamlessly the “unready” become accepted into such a serious life-changing program. No one presumes to know, nor do they want to feel that they know “more than” anyone else. The frustration is a shared one, and we all try to incorporate our efforts in a way that is inclusive towards others, and we try to pull each other up. The majority study hard and do well, and it is not problem that a few do not care except that that very majority has to endure the effects of the messages not intended for them, but are instead for the ones who blatantly disregard and disrespect others. In solidarity and individually, we work for our grades and our progress, and we take our classes seriously. A test is a test, and a paper is a paper. A grade, likewise, is a grade. Relativity being almost everything in a classroom, unequal opportunities for those who would rather not care seems unfair. Nonetheless, life is not fair and here we have the classic “case and point.” However, education is relative to the person who is its recipient…
There are times when I question the wisdom of allowing certain individuals into a program that demands flexibility and open-mindedness that doesn’t exist for a few. Most of the time, the case is that the authority figures are preaching to the proverbial choir, but some may have, under this metaphor, never been a part of something other than themselves and therefore have no sense or context to the “outside world out there.” It is, as many metaphors go – metaphors that are almost certainly known by all along the lines of, “One rotten apple spoils the barrel…” I don’t presume to know what goes through the minds of others because everyone has their own reason for being the way they are, but when the behaviors start encroaching on my education and learning process, I become upset, and I feel disrespected. At the same time, I refuse to let the actions of a few disrupt my process, despite my anger for inexcusably rude actions and words.
We are guests in a nation and privileged to be in a program that few are given the opportunity to live out. That we pay to be here is inconsequential – life is such that all things cost money and time. Further, respect has to be earned and learned, and until we act maturely, respect is a one-way street. Grown-ups get to be grown-ups because they’ve grown up. We’re treated like children when we behave like children. We teach people how to treat us. If we go out of our way to be foolish, we will treated likewise as fools, and talked to in like fashion. I have little to no sympathy for those who would take the whole lot down for their lack of sensitivity and maturity. However, I question the process that allows them into an intense program – those who are not ready to experience adulthood beyond hard-liquored nights and regular absences.
Studying abroad is not only about this wonderful cultural exchange that we receive into our life experiences, but it is, as the term suggests, “studying” abroad – an academic program. It requires actively participating in one’s education and attending school just like it is attended where we came from. Education is an often arduous process and our professors have been very patient with us because they understand that we are taking in many activities at once and are constantly adjusting to our brave new world. However, at the end of the day, we are students, and we are working towards new insights and ideas that our classes open out to us – all while being graded. It is true that we have paid good money to be here, but that money is not meant to bend the will of the people who we are guests to or under the tutelage of. There is a hierarchy that needs to be maintained and honored, and at least a modicum of order that demands to be sustained amidst moments of high drama and chaos.
There is an inevitability that certain dynamics will crop up in programs such as studying in a foreign country. I’m sure a lot of hard work goes into creating the program guidelines; the authors of these programs have no doubt worked tirelessly to be as thorough as possible. Quotas need to be filled, and care must be taken to not exclude those who might otherwise learn by studying abroad. Consideration must be made so that opportunity exists for everyone. My contention is that a good majority of students are present for their academic endeavors and are serious about studying; the disruptions created by those who are in these programs as an exercise of fun and folly are deeply felt by the majority, and are, at times, bitterly resented. Amongst ourselves, we talk about the selection process and question how seamlessly the “unready” become accepted into such a serious life-changing program. No one presumes to know, nor do they want to feel that they know “more than” anyone else. The frustration is a shared one, and we all try to incorporate our efforts in a way that is inclusive towards others, and we try to pull each other up. The majority study hard and do well, and it is not problem that a few do not care except that that very majority has to endure the effects of the messages not intended for them, but are instead for the ones who blatantly disregard and disrespect others. In solidarity and individually, we work for our grades and our progress, and we take our classes seriously. A test is a test, and a paper is a paper. A grade, likewise, is a grade. Relativity being almost everything in a classroom, unequal opportunities for those who would rather not care seems unfair. Nonetheless, life is not fair and here we have the classic “case and point.” However, education is relative to the person who is its recipient…
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Conundrum of Spring Break
It almost seems perverse to contemplate studying whilst I am in Ireland over my spring break. Yet, I have brought at least one text book, a play, and a mystery novel with me and its presence intrudes upon my stay. The fact is, school is going to return with a fierce vengeance once we return to Oxford. I don’t want to study – it just seems so contrary to my being here. But I know that if I don’t do at least the minimum work, I will be unable to keep up with all the assignments and tests that are going to occur. So here I am, in Ireland, trying to find an excuse to study – somehow the words “hostel” and “school books” do not seem to belong in one sentence.
I have started each of the texts named above and finished one, but I haven’t dug my heels in with the kind of intent I need to in order to really absorb the work. I really would rather do absolutely nothing but sight see, spend lots of money that I don’t have, and party until all hours but the responsible side of me says that while that’s all and fine, I’ll pay dearly if I procrastinate. Oh how I envy the care-free! What makes one able to go to many countries, party regularly and still be able to show up to class and do reasonably well? Maybe its age; I’ve “been there and done that” so all the “busy-ness” doesn’t appeal to me as it once did. I like having a pint alone and maybe a couple of pints when I’m out with friends, but that’s my nature. It’s not a curse to be shy or introverted, but it’s also not an excuse for me to hide behind.
So, I’ll stay here at Ashfield Hostel and take in the daily tours, and when I return, I’ll crack open the books. If there’s time afterwards, I’ll compromise with myself and take in a pub and a pint. Still, it is awkward being amongst my books because I see scores of students here “out there” and not studying. I’m almost embarrassed by my drive to study and do well, but I said “almost.” When all is said and done, I’ve bent my own rules numerous times, and have come through relatively unscathed. I know my limits and understand that I’ve placed a premium on being a student above being in a foreign country or studying abroad. I am here for an academic program, and sometimes the lines between school and play can get very fuzzy in a foreign land. That is why I constantly pause and take in everything I can between the tests and papers. I am truly privileged to be here in Europe as a student, and as a traveler.
I have started each of the texts named above and finished one, but I haven’t dug my heels in with the kind of intent I need to in order to really absorb the work. I really would rather do absolutely nothing but sight see, spend lots of money that I don’t have, and party until all hours but the responsible side of me says that while that’s all and fine, I’ll pay dearly if I procrastinate. Oh how I envy the care-free! What makes one able to go to many countries, party regularly and still be able to show up to class and do reasonably well? Maybe its age; I’ve “been there and done that” so all the “busy-ness” doesn’t appeal to me as it once did. I like having a pint alone and maybe a couple of pints when I’m out with friends, but that’s my nature. It’s not a curse to be shy or introverted, but it’s also not an excuse for me to hide behind.
So, I’ll stay here at Ashfield Hostel and take in the daily tours, and when I return, I’ll crack open the books. If there’s time afterwards, I’ll compromise with myself and take in a pub and a pint. Still, it is awkward being amongst my books because I see scores of students here “out there” and not studying. I’m almost embarrassed by my drive to study and do well, but I said “almost.” When all is said and done, I’ve bent my own rules numerous times, and have come through relatively unscathed. I know my limits and understand that I’ve placed a premium on being a student above being in a foreign country or studying abroad. I am here for an academic program, and sometimes the lines between school and play can get very fuzzy in a foreign land. That is why I constantly pause and take in everything I can between the tests and papers. I am truly privileged to be here in Europe as a student, and as a traveler.
Greener than England?
I have always wanted to go to Ireland – my entire life. I’ve imagined this place, with all the grass, for all the photos I’ve collected of Ireland throughout my life. The history here is rich and different from England’s, although there are overlapping events and moments that bring the countries under one umbrella, probably to the chagrin of some of the Irish.
I had the pleasure of a very long and scenic bus ride yesterday, from Rosslare to Dublin. I’ve written about how green it is in Oxford, but dare I say – it is greener here and I’m not exactly syre how that is. Perhaps there are fewer buildings, and fewer cars. On my ride over, I saw patches of land, much like the fashionable sheepskin coats we see in winter. The lots are separated by neatly cut shrubbery which gives the appearance of pieces of land fitting perfectly together, as if by art. Within each of the patches of grass are five, ten, or fifteen or more mostly black-face white sheep in need of a spring sheering. Some of the sheep were actually numbered; I hope the numbering is not for slaughtering. There were many lambs nursing, and most of the lambs were, as the cliché, “white as fleece,” although some were grey, and fewer were black. Some of the fields contained hcows or horses or a combination of animals.
I noticed that the ravens perch themselves on the sheep – some of them pecking away at the long wooly hair, while the sheep go on about their business grazing or doing nothing. I also noticed that all the headstones we passed (up to the point of losing the sunlight at least) faced one direction very uniformly. I wrote my Irish friend a postcard and asked him about these curiosities.
Once in the miscellaneous cities along the way to Dublin, we wound around in narrow roads and round-abouts that seemed impossible for the large bus were in to navigate around, but our bus driver was quite adept at maneuvering in tight 360 degree circles. Some of the roads almost seemed to bend at a complete 180 degrees backwards. A bus driver I will never be… The cars here are small, like in the U.K., which is good. Each area had its own personality, and I made mental notes with respect to places to visit.
To top things off, people are generally friendly here. When I boarded the bus from Rosslare to Dublin, a doctor started a conversation with me. He was very sociable and we talked for about 30 minutes until he got off at Wexford. He is from Fishguard, which is where my ferry departed from. When I arrived at Ashfield Hostel, I was greeted warmly as well, and my nervousness was put to rest. Despite my tardiness and special request for a single room, everyone accommodated the weary traveler that was me yesterday, in every way.
I walked around this afternoon and found my way to Dublin Castle where I had a cappuccino and an over-sized but delicious scone. I especially enjoy the out-door enclaves that some cafés have. I took time to take in the “feeling” of this café and to write some postcards. As I walked back from Dublin Castle, I back-tracked a narrow cobblestone avenue of bright storefronts to buy some batteries for my camera.
Once outside, I decided to sit down on some steps (alongside scores of people) to listen to the Irish music playing in a pub, to take in some sun, and to rest my legs. I heard a “Hello there,” and turned to find a man addressing me, and then striking up a conversation as casually as if we had spoken previously. He told (or asked) me, “You must have no trouble finding men-folk and all in America, eh?” I decided to leave it at that, rather than to say, “Au contraire…” So a beautiful place and flattery… I couldn’t ask for more! I can hear my family telling me, “Be careful – you’re a tourist and there are a lot of scams out there…” I was nevertheless amused.
As this is only my first real day here, I’m certain that there will be much more to write. For example, a river runs through Dublin and it is a sight to behold! Beautiful bridges tie the two sides of the river together neatly, and there are footpaths tiered beneath the street level along the river. Along these lower tiers, there are cafés and people taking photographs or walking (like me). On the street level, there are more pubs than I can count, and exiting the streets are smaller cobblestone deviations that lead to other layers of shops and restaurants hidden in plain sight almost. I took a lot of photos and will post them online when I get a computer that works.
I had the pleasure of a very long and scenic bus ride yesterday, from Rosslare to Dublin. I’ve written about how green it is in Oxford, but dare I say – it is greener here and I’m not exactly syre how that is. Perhaps there are fewer buildings, and fewer cars. On my ride over, I saw patches of land, much like the fashionable sheepskin coats we see in winter. The lots are separated by neatly cut shrubbery which gives the appearance of pieces of land fitting perfectly together, as if by art. Within each of the patches of grass are five, ten, or fifteen or more mostly black-face white sheep in need of a spring sheering. Some of the sheep were actually numbered; I hope the numbering is not for slaughtering. There were many lambs nursing, and most of the lambs were, as the cliché, “white as fleece,” although some were grey, and fewer were black. Some of the fields contained hcows or horses or a combination of animals.
I noticed that the ravens perch themselves on the sheep – some of them pecking away at the long wooly hair, while the sheep go on about their business grazing or doing nothing. I also noticed that all the headstones we passed (up to the point of losing the sunlight at least) faced one direction very uniformly. I wrote my Irish friend a postcard and asked him about these curiosities.
Once in the miscellaneous cities along the way to Dublin, we wound around in narrow roads and round-abouts that seemed impossible for the large bus were in to navigate around, but our bus driver was quite adept at maneuvering in tight 360 degree circles. Some of the roads almost seemed to bend at a complete 180 degrees backwards. A bus driver I will never be… The cars here are small, like in the U.K., which is good. Each area had its own personality, and I made mental notes with respect to places to visit.
To top things off, people are generally friendly here. When I boarded the bus from Rosslare to Dublin, a doctor started a conversation with me. He was very sociable and we talked for about 30 minutes until he got off at Wexford. He is from Fishguard, which is where my ferry departed from. When I arrived at Ashfield Hostel, I was greeted warmly as well, and my nervousness was put to rest. Despite my tardiness and special request for a single room, everyone accommodated the weary traveler that was me yesterday, in every way.
I walked around this afternoon and found my way to Dublin Castle where I had a cappuccino and an over-sized but delicious scone. I especially enjoy the out-door enclaves that some cafés have. I took time to take in the “feeling” of this café and to write some postcards. As I walked back from Dublin Castle, I back-tracked a narrow cobblestone avenue of bright storefronts to buy some batteries for my camera.
Once outside, I decided to sit down on some steps (alongside scores of people) to listen to the Irish music playing in a pub, to take in some sun, and to rest my legs. I heard a “Hello there,” and turned to find a man addressing me, and then striking up a conversation as casually as if we had spoken previously. He told (or asked) me, “You must have no trouble finding men-folk and all in America, eh?” I decided to leave it at that, rather than to say, “Au contraire…” So a beautiful place and flattery… I couldn’t ask for more! I can hear my family telling me, “Be careful – you’re a tourist and there are a lot of scams out there…” I was nevertheless amused.
As this is only my first real day here, I’m certain that there will be much more to write. For example, a river runs through Dublin and it is a sight to behold! Beautiful bridges tie the two sides of the river together neatly, and there are footpaths tiered beneath the street level along the river. Along these lower tiers, there are cafés and people taking photographs or walking (like me). On the street level, there are more pubs than I can count, and exiting the streets are smaller cobblestone deviations that lead to other layers of shops and restaurants hidden in plain sight almost. I took a lot of photos and will post them online when I get a computer that works.
On Hostels: Experiences in Dublin
There are many pains I could have avoided if I weren’t a first-time traveler and hostel-user. Maybe my experience can shed light to future hostel users. First, I would never have brought this laptop for all its heaviness. Second, ditch most of the school books, save one maybe. Third, some hostels, if not most, have hair dryers and what-not so that you don’t have to haul cumbersome hair dryers. Fourth, do not, under any circumstances, over-pack. For one week, I’d say two pairs of pants and maybe four shirts recycled is more than enough. Don’t get clever with accessories. One pair of good walking shoes is plenty. It’s about being a tourist, not something out of a fashion magazine. Keep it simple. On the “to bring” column, I’d say that extra rechargeable batteries, as well as the charger is necessary. Don’t forget to bring the correct wall-socket adapter; it’s different in each country so the multiple socket changers is probably the best for the brave European/”other” travelers.
For one or two Euros per use, you can get a hair dryer at the hostel. For a one-time small fee, you can store the very expensive items such as laptops and cameras if you’re planning to go out or have various room-mates and don’t want to risk leaving behind valuables. They serve breakfast as part of the fee, which, all in all is pretty filling and plentiful. The hostel I’m staying at, Ashfield Hostel has two computers and it cost 2 Euros for 45 minutes (continuous) and 1 Euro for 15 minutes. They do not, however, supply toothbrushes – the one item I forgot to pack! Small purchase. I wish I would have gotten some more Euros though, but this is an example of “live and learn…” It happens that a couple of buildings down, there is a market that has an ATM machine, and hopefully, I’ll get some money out of it…
I got in late last night and was very exhausted. I’d never been to a hostel before. I wanted a single room because of my problems with sleeping. Insomnia is an expensive disorder to have… They obliged me, but I had to sleep in a bunk bed, which wasn’t bad at all. Once I got signed in and everything, they gave me a set of sheets and a pillow case, as well as two towels. So nix bringing towels as well. At Ashfield Hostel, there is a private bathroom for each room, which includes a lovely shower – sight for sore eyes, back, and feet! But do bring shower slippers if you’re the type who worries about germs and all. After I made my bed, I fell asleep very quickly. I am glad that I brought earplugs because, as I said, I’m a very light sleeper who pays a price if I don’t get my sleep. It got a little noisy around 2:00 a.m. – probably after people came back from a night’s partying.
When I got up this morning, I went downstairs and found breakfast, and more importantly, one of two forms of caffeine, of which, the coffee was not good, but the tea was. Still, I think later, I’ll try to find a coffee shop and get some real caffeine. I got on the internet, answered a few emails, and sent a few reassurances that I got here all right. I looked over the Dublin map and calculated what I might be interested in doing. Today, I’m mostly going to walk up and down different streets and mosey about lazily. I’m still a little tired from yesterday’s long odyssey. I think I can get to some of the more ancient sites within the city itself, and then I’ll plan to visit Ireland’s “highlands” and this week, I’ll also book a couple of tours. There is a hop-on-hop-off bus that I’ll probably take when I get my bearings. It seems fairly simple and the cost is about 15 Euros. Just hang on to the bus stub. I’ve also learned that there is a nice tram in the city, but I haven’t learned where I can get it.
One week later…
Now, the down side after almost a week… I didn’t know that there was an online site to book my stay here – if I would’ve known, I could have avoided paying so much. But I didn’t; there was no website for this place on the handout I received, so I booked the old fashioned way: by telephone. Further, I had to play musical rooms because of my shortsighted and forced planning. It’s stressful having to move luggage and belongings from the room to the storage area, then leave, and then come back to do the same thing over each day. Today will be the first day that I won’t have to do that, in that I have already paid for two days for a private room. Tomorrow will be my day, which is a kind of day I feel I really need – “down time” which introverts like me occasionally have to undertake. Too much hustle and bustle without a break or a time of introspection, contemplation, and writing, and I become overwhelmed by the constant input of information.
My lack of full internet access is frustrating because I can’t get onto my sites to post things or communicate with my friends, so I feel quite isolated in all of this. I don’t have a usable phone here, and that further increases my sense of disconnect. My wi-fi isn’t really set up to receive the signals properly, and I haven’t been able to find any internet cafes when I need them. But that’s not anyone’s problem but my own.
I do think that with the haphazard planning I undertook, in hindsight, I could have booked a cheap hotel or a bed and breakfast for about the same amount of money. It’s a matter of living and learning, I suppose. I do like the sense of community that hostels have – having breakfast has a new meaning for me, and I am starting to like the idea of it, as long as it’s a shared event. I do miss the full night’s sleep that has been quite elusive during the past week as a whole though. It’s fairly noisy here because it turns out that Ashfield is located next to a nightclub and there is a lot of traffic immediately outside. That is my problem though, because I am a chronic insomniac. This is the great frustration and challenge of my life: sleeping, and once asleep, staying that way.
I’ve really enjoyed talking to the staff here – especially Connor, the person who greeted me when I arrived, the young lady I shared my Oscar Wilde book with, and the gentleman who booked my tours. I’ve had many good conversations on a level I could appreciate, and learned a lot about the attitudes and ideas that people have here. This would not have been achieved at a tourist-attraction restaurant or pub that is too forced. That, however, is for another entry. People don’t need to aim to please – just being real is all that I ever ask for.
I would not take any of this back for this one element: the people at Ashfield. Everyone has been more than kind, and I have asked for a lot with my “private room” requests. They’ve worked to get me places, and explained time and again how to get somewhere. They are the concierges, receptionists, tourist bureau, keepers, and cashiers – all wrapped into two people “manning” the desk. I wish we had such a system in the United States! If we could come up with one, we could offer people various ways to get around at low prices, while keeping it clean and open. I’m not sure the U.S. is ready to share their space though… Prove me wrong, people!
For one or two Euros per use, you can get a hair dryer at the hostel. For a one-time small fee, you can store the very expensive items such as laptops and cameras if you’re planning to go out or have various room-mates and don’t want to risk leaving behind valuables. They serve breakfast as part of the fee, which, all in all is pretty filling and plentiful. The hostel I’m staying at, Ashfield Hostel has two computers and it cost 2 Euros for 45 minutes (continuous) and 1 Euro for 15 minutes. They do not, however, supply toothbrushes – the one item I forgot to pack! Small purchase. I wish I would have gotten some more Euros though, but this is an example of “live and learn…” It happens that a couple of buildings down, there is a market that has an ATM machine, and hopefully, I’ll get some money out of it…
I got in late last night and was very exhausted. I’d never been to a hostel before. I wanted a single room because of my problems with sleeping. Insomnia is an expensive disorder to have… They obliged me, but I had to sleep in a bunk bed, which wasn’t bad at all. Once I got signed in and everything, they gave me a set of sheets and a pillow case, as well as two towels. So nix bringing towels as well. At Ashfield Hostel, there is a private bathroom for each room, which includes a lovely shower – sight for sore eyes, back, and feet! But do bring shower slippers if you’re the type who worries about germs and all. After I made my bed, I fell asleep very quickly. I am glad that I brought earplugs because, as I said, I’m a very light sleeper who pays a price if I don’t get my sleep. It got a little noisy around 2:00 a.m. – probably after people came back from a night’s partying.
When I got up this morning, I went downstairs and found breakfast, and more importantly, one of two forms of caffeine, of which, the coffee was not good, but the tea was. Still, I think later, I’ll try to find a coffee shop and get some real caffeine. I got on the internet, answered a few emails, and sent a few reassurances that I got here all right. I looked over the Dublin map and calculated what I might be interested in doing. Today, I’m mostly going to walk up and down different streets and mosey about lazily. I’m still a little tired from yesterday’s long odyssey. I think I can get to some of the more ancient sites within the city itself, and then I’ll plan to visit Ireland’s “highlands” and this week, I’ll also book a couple of tours. There is a hop-on-hop-off bus that I’ll probably take when I get my bearings. It seems fairly simple and the cost is about 15 Euros. Just hang on to the bus stub. I’ve also learned that there is a nice tram in the city, but I haven’t learned where I can get it.
One week later…
Now, the down side after almost a week… I didn’t know that there was an online site to book my stay here – if I would’ve known, I could have avoided paying so much. But I didn’t; there was no website for this place on the handout I received, so I booked the old fashioned way: by telephone. Further, I had to play musical rooms because of my shortsighted and forced planning. It’s stressful having to move luggage and belongings from the room to the storage area, then leave, and then come back to do the same thing over each day. Today will be the first day that I won’t have to do that, in that I have already paid for two days for a private room. Tomorrow will be my day, which is a kind of day I feel I really need – “down time” which introverts like me occasionally have to undertake. Too much hustle and bustle without a break or a time of introspection, contemplation, and writing, and I become overwhelmed by the constant input of information.
My lack of full internet access is frustrating because I can’t get onto my sites to post things or communicate with my friends, so I feel quite isolated in all of this. I don’t have a usable phone here, and that further increases my sense of disconnect. My wi-fi isn’t really set up to receive the signals properly, and I haven’t been able to find any internet cafes when I need them. But that’s not anyone’s problem but my own.
I do think that with the haphazard planning I undertook, in hindsight, I could have booked a cheap hotel or a bed and breakfast for about the same amount of money. It’s a matter of living and learning, I suppose. I do like the sense of community that hostels have – having breakfast has a new meaning for me, and I am starting to like the idea of it, as long as it’s a shared event. I do miss the full night’s sleep that has been quite elusive during the past week as a whole though. It’s fairly noisy here because it turns out that Ashfield is located next to a nightclub and there is a lot of traffic immediately outside. That is my problem though, because I am a chronic insomniac. This is the great frustration and challenge of my life: sleeping, and once asleep, staying that way.
I’ve really enjoyed talking to the staff here – especially Connor, the person who greeted me when I arrived, the young lady I shared my Oscar Wilde book with, and the gentleman who booked my tours. I’ve had many good conversations on a level I could appreciate, and learned a lot about the attitudes and ideas that people have here. This would not have been achieved at a tourist-attraction restaurant or pub that is too forced. That, however, is for another entry. People don’t need to aim to please – just being real is all that I ever ask for.
I would not take any of this back for this one element: the people at Ashfield. Everyone has been more than kind, and I have asked for a lot with my “private room” requests. They’ve worked to get me places, and explained time and again how to get somewhere. They are the concierges, receptionists, tourist bureau, keepers, and cashiers – all wrapped into two people “manning” the desk. I wish we had such a system in the United States! If we could come up with one, we could offer people various ways to get around at low prices, while keeping it clean and open. I’m not sure the U.S. is ready to share their space though… Prove me wrong, people!
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