Hi There

Goodness, it’s been over a week since I last posted. You’re probably all thinking I went and signed up for that pain experiment after all and lost all my fingers or something. Because that is the only thing that would stop me from writing. In actuality though, I’ve been incredibly busy and just haven’t had the time or the energy to look around meditatively for a good story. (Oh, by the way…that last entry about science was supposed to be light and funny and the responses I got all seemed pretty concerned. I’m fine! Lighten up!) But I do feel pretty guilty about leaving you all in the dark for so long, so I’ll include a couple of diary-like snippets from the past week or so to let you know how I’ve been doing. It’s been a real rollercoaster! Wooo…

Right, so the first thing you’ve missed out on would be my whirlwind illness which struck in one day, caused me to briefly lose my mind (out of my nose?) and then slunk away, allowing me to shakily recover just in time to correct my drug-addled essay of the week. Thanks to John, who brought me some bananas, a good old US of A pb&j, and some cold meds. I also recovered just in time to go to an Arsenal! game in London with Dave and John, although I think the only thing that would have stopped me would have been if, when I tried to walk out the door, I literally began vomiting fonts of blood. Dedication. And too much information.

So, the game was pretty fantastic – I am infatuated with London, and getting there from Oxford (wonderfully surreal as it is) for a bit would have been totally worthwhile even if there wasn’t football/soccer/calcio (no!) to be had. And there was. After an exciting meal of Lebanese food just outside Paddington station, we boarded the tube to Arsenal! along with an enormous crowd of hooligans. Actually, the crowd was not as raucous as I had expected…sure, they were lively, but their main activity consisted of shouting, “Arsenal!” in different intonations. And nearly everyone was sober; no drinking is allowed in the stands, and not many people wanted to abandon the match to drink a beer in the cold and windy corridors. Still, it was very very exciting and lots of fun, etc. and afterward, Dave, John, John’s friend Andrew, and I went back to a pub called The Mitre for some ciders while we waited for our late-night train back to college.

Speaking of, I’ve now got a secondary tutorial. And oh…my, this tutor is quite the experience. I mean, walking the line between biology and psychology, I’ve started to suspect that a large percentage of the people who go into study of “the mind” aren’t entirely in their right one, but Mrs. D takes that to a whole new level. She’s clearly brilliant – trying to have a conversation about acquisition of mathematical ability with her that didn’t make me look like an infant was a heart attack and a half – but something is funny about her, and not in a ha-ha kind of way. I can’t quite put my finger on it…she wears crazy old lady clothes, seems not to brush her hair, gesticulates compulsively when she talks, and has a voice that is squeaky and creaky and gravelly all at the same time. She doesn’t often look you in the eye. But that doesn’t really capture it. While Jane, another American from LMH who takes tutorial with me, was taking up Mrs. D’s attention, I sneakily (and horribly) recorded her talking on my phone. You can’t really distinguish the words, and again it doesn’t really give the full effect, but now I can show it to Dad and see what he thinks. Autism? Savant syndrome? It sounds like Monty Python in drag.

Last night I stayed up very late writing an essay for my primary tutorial. At around three in the morning, I took a break from books and brains and drowned out the sounds of late-night rain with the Ramones’ Beat on the Brat (oh yeah oohoh) while eating pomegranate seeds and pine nuts. I finished my written obeisance to the splendiforous nature of the brain a bit after that to the stirring measures of the Ride of the Valkyries. I’ve reached new heights of absurdity. Also, my essay habits are almost certainly ruined for when I go back to college in the States; I start papers the night before and slap them together in this crazy fashion I won’t get into, but suffice it to say that I’m enjoying living on the edge of deadlines a little too much.

I’ve made a few new friends, though, despite all of the work (shocking!). Of course, there’s David and John, my Arsenal! buddies…we’re kind of like the three musketeers, if two of the three musketeers had decided to periodically gang up on the other one. But it’s all in good spirits. I’ve taught them how to iron and make tea and so on and they’ve taken me to see Shimon Peres speak at the Sheldonian Theatre. Which, by the way, was an incredible night that started with picketing Palestinians and rickrolling and ended with everyone going out to Tolkein and Lewis’ (and the rest of the Inklings’) favorite haunt, the Eagle and Child pub. I’m also friends with most of the other Americans – I mentioned Jane already, and there’s Katie, who helped me beat D&J at a homemade game of trivial pursuit, the stakes of which were a trip to an icecream parlor. Katie and I apparently really know our wars. Maybe.

Most of the people I’ve met have been either internationals or first years…there’s Owen, who I’m trying to pry away from his law books to translate for me some songs I know in Welsh; there’s Kalpana and Anya, who can usually be counted on to take up feminist arms against John or Dave’s teasing remarks; I now know Sophia (German) and Rafi (Jewish), two second-years who I’ve met in my psychology lectures. I’ve also got a bunch of acquaintances from LMH Food Club who I think I can bribe into full-blown friendship with a second round of chicken piccata and rocket salad. And I’ve pulled some strings to meet some Oxford veterans: third- and fourth-years and graduate students, like the painfully shy Stefan-the-Brandonite, a geologist who showed me around the city, or Simon, a biochemist I met at a little hipster coffee shop who seemed cute and friendly, but who I think I may have blown it with by shouting stupid things at high speeds at him for a half hour (I was feeling a bit wired after a near-death bicycle experience). Anyway, he has a girlfriend. Although we did bond over how we both have Indian friends who might take us to India and wouldn’t that be fantastic. Oh and there is my Rhodes scholar/Richmond connection Scott and his girlfriend Nina who have taken me to a Rhodes Scholar lecture and the MCR – a kind of graduate common area full of free port and whiskey and a dartboard and a Wii. And now this paragraph is getting really long and I think I’d better cut it off, even though I haven’t really described anyone to any degree of accuracy and someone is probably taking offence right now because I haven’t included them on “the list.”

Anyway. The point is, that everything is really good and I’m busy and panicky but also having as much fun as I’ve had in a long time. And I’m generally very happy! And I’m using exclamation points…call the National Guard.