Cinnamon Rolls

My roommate's close high school friend came and visited us for two days! As a result, Tuesday and Wednesday felt like weekend days. I'm now highly disoriented.

We made cinnamon rolls, from scratch, for kicks and because she's a bamf. Here are the before, during, and after shots. Sorry that the light in the kitchen makes everything kind of a sickly green.

The padawan, with the master looking on.

They look a little ugly at this stage, but soon they will be transformed...

...done!

There were lots. This is about half way through.

A message of hope

This was sent out to the Corpus email list. By our "poet laureate," Thomas White:

The snow has settled on the meadow,

The snow has settled on the Bod.

The pelican is shivering, gently,

Waiting for spring to wake her quad.

Over the city the blanket is itching,

Plumping its feathers, looking to fly;

Just below, the chimneys, smoking,

Long for winter's hearth to die.

Where are picnics by the river?

Where has welfare football gone?

Merton Street is stretching, gasping,

Too depressed to struggle on.

Still, the JCR stays lively:

Weekly pizza, daily tea

Drags the Corpuscles from their vigils

Deep in the tombs of the library.

The times give birth to hopeful babble:

Corpus quivers with the sound.

Soon the frost will be forgiven,

When it shrinks back underground.

Yet we know that when the sunshine

Finally brings crimson joy,

Then the worming essay crisis

Will our newborn lives destroy.

Crepe

Unrelated to anything, but in importing the photos from today, I came across all the ones I took of New Years Eve, when we had a make-your-own-crepe dinner. The texture in this picture makes me hungry.

Snow

I've decided that I really like the snow. Sure, it's cold outside and bundling up is a little bit obnoxious. When the snow turns the ground into mud, or when you slip on some ice and nearly break your neck, it's never fun. But otherwise, it's great. I catch myself walking around with my mouth open to try to catch some snowflakes.

Today I took a bit of a stroll to the bookstore, Christ Church meadows, and then Corpus. A few shots came out of it, but nothing spectacular; unfortunately some snowflakes landed on my camera and prevented me from trying out some more. Once I got to Corpus, I tried taking some shots of the courtyard but was yelled at by the porter before I got a good one; he thought I was a tourist. I embarrassingly explained to him that I'm actually affiliated to Corpus through the Stanford program. He still wasn't very nice. I now feel kind of sheepish, but oh well.

Here are a few photos, posted from the comfort of the library (where I should be working on revising my essay).

This is the sun. 

Trees, chilling.

These dead leaves give a strange rattle as the snow hits them.

The snow in focus.

Week 1.5

First snow: the view from our kitchen.

Hi all.

So, a few facts are going to strike you as extremely obvious. 1) This first post from Oxford is unbelievably, unacceptably belated. 2) I have not taken nearly enough pictures here (read: almost zero).

It's snowed twice. The first time it snowed, it started late at night and I was so excited that I got out of bed to rush to the hallway window to witness it. Today, it snowed quietly but constantly for the majority of the day, and enough so that there was a good lasting blanket of it everywhere. It was so beautiful. I wish I had my camera with me, but of course I didn't.

Corpus had a snowball fight out on the meadow at 3, and then we had tea in the JCR (Junior Common Room) at 4 as always. All in all a great afternoon full of caffeinated library-ing and trying to remember names recited to me in thick accents.

Corpus is the college I'm affiliated with. It's one of the smallest of Oxford's 38 colleges at about 200 people. That's great, because almost everyone knows everyone and I'm already starting to see plenty of familiar faces when I go to the library or dining hall. Everyone is also very nice and welcoming. We're all assigned "college parents" to serve as hosts/guides/mentors for our time here. I met my two dads for coffee yesterday, and they were both unbelievably nice.

Sorry, I feel like this post is crazily disorganized, because so much has been experienced already. Maybe I need to make it neater, like into topics or something. Oh well.

The food is so far pretty good, not too many potatoes yet. Unfortunately only fish and chips once, but they were the best I've had, and in an authentic location to boot: a super narrow little pub a few steps below ground level. A delicious sandwich shop is a short way away right across the street. My favorite so far is the smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich with tomatoes, salad, and tapenade on a brown baguette. The man who works there is so French it makes me smile. He says "Voila mademoiselle" in a thick accent each time. A coffee shop a few doors down is the oldest still operating in England -- established in 1650. Some nights we've cooked, with varying degrees of success, but it's always fun.

Here are a few pictures. I really will try to take more, and maybe even some of people too! There's a lot left to talk about, and I hope I'll get to doing more posts really soon. Finally starting to settle in, and it's a good feeling. Cheers :)

Dinner one night. Rice with "Indian" food: garbanzo beans, sauteed onions, carrots, and spices. Served with strawberry cider.

Somehow all of this stuffy made it here with me. Not sure how I'll be able to pack to bring it all back, but not trying to think about that yet. 

The Bodleian Library, austere and unfriendly, but beautiful when tinged by an early sunset.  One of the oldest libraries in Europe!

Plane

(Sorry I've been slacking. Here's the first of the study abroad-related blog posts! Me merping on the plane, on the way to Oxford for a quarter of adventure)

I'm sitting on the plane. I'm highly discontent for a number of reasons, which I will proceed to enumerate below.

First of all, who invented economy class? It's meant for skinny midgets, which if I had to guess make up 0.2% of the population. Or maybe even less! You feel like you're oozing over your seat space and can only fit your knees if you scrunch to the side.

There are no personal little screens on your flight. You are forced to watch the movie on the “big” communal screens, so the only choice you are given is whether to watch it with or without sound. You opt for sound, knowing that this usually helps a movie seem better. Doesn't work this time. Turns out to be some horrible baseball movie that has managed to spend virtually their whole budget on collecting a few stars. Clearly, none of the funds go to a competent screenwriter.

When the flight attendant comes onto the intercom and tells everyone to return to their seats and fasten their seat belts in a little bit too urgent of a voice. A minute later, the other flight attendant power walks by with a life jacket in hand, while the other does something mysterious to the emergency doors. Your palms begin to sweat. Seeking some sort of assurance amongst the bumps and jolts, you change your channel to the one where they pipe whatever is coming out of the flight deck. They're talking lots, all right, but it's all in completely incomprehensible jargon, with more numbers than words. You realize that you're probably going to die over Canada, next to this town that starts with Ed- that you've never heard of.

You don't have any Star Wars Legos with you and your ten year old neighbor is taunting you with his set. The jealousy burns. Seven and a half hours left to go.

You decide to listen to something other than K-Pop, J-Pop, C-Pop, or Teen Pop – United's offerings. So you turn on your trusty laptop only to remember that you are 30,000 miles in the air, and that itch that you get to check your facebook every time you open up your computer can't possibly be satiated. It's almost painful. You realize you have an addiction, and then realize you already knew this to be the case.

Oh dear. Some more apocalyptic flight attendant scrambling. And look! Another horrible movie is starting! How perfectly timed. I must go.