Tuesday 30 March 2010

Cricket

I was watching T.V. today (I can't remember the last time I watched T.V. with ad-breaks) and I saw this advert (link) and I thought it would be an excellent strategy for our cricket team.
According to our captain we actually want to be more like this (link) because the first one made her think, and I quote, "Get off the crease, your heels are going to ruin it!" Which I think is a vital part of the strategy, but apparently my tactical thinking has been lost on her.
Back to the drawing board.

Wednesday 24 March 2010

Joys!

Today I had to get up at some horrendous hour to take Ellen to Heathrow. Which basically involved me spending a great deal of quality time with the M25. Gotta love those variable speed limits!

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Bookishness

You always read in novels and such about characters who are 'bookish'. Now I don't know about you, but I have often wondered what being 'bookish' entails. I believe that today I found out.

Ellen and I decided to go on an adventure to Jane Austen's house in Chawton, Hampshire. Once there we proceded to get over excited by the gift shop, then debate the merits of different versions of the same book based on the explanitory notes provided and how pretty the binding was (or what might be termed by smart people the 'paratext'), spend ages choosing between a postcard depicting Northanger Abbey v.s. one depicting Sense and Sensibility, get enthusiastic about Mr Darcy wrapping paper, notebooks, quill pens and other such items. I also got upset by a comic book version of Pride and Prejudice... I do not approve at all. I also made sarky comments while the old women in the shop debated the merits of Wilkie Collins over Dickens. Then we wandered around the little English village in the rain (I was with an American - she insisted) and made friends with two very excitable dogs. The big dog kept stealing the little dog's stick. On the way home we played Taylor Swift very loudly in the car. Once back in Guildford we stopped off to pick up... you guessed it! Some books. I am now the proud owner of Norton Critical Editions of 'Othello' and 'John Donne's Poetry, (for those of you who aren't excited by the fact that they are Norton's editions I'm going to assume it's because you are unaware of the superior notes and critical analysis provided in these copies). I also have Oxford University Press editions of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Other Plays by John Ford, The Winter's Tale and The Princesse de Cleves. These are less exciting, because they don't have quite such interesting notes, but there's still a decent introduction and footnotes, so I'll survive. Following this we decided to frequent the Oxfam Bookshop, only to find, much to our chargrin (question: does anyone know how to pronounce this word? Ellen claims it is said 'shag-grin' but I feel this sounds a little lewd) that it was closed. Instead we dropped by the Library. Whilst there I remembered why I never go to Guildford Library. There is a very good reason why I never go to Guildford Library. It is because it is USELESS. All I wanted was to borrow a copy of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. Now their catalogue system is slightly naff and could not find de Beauvoir, because I stuck the de infront and it's under Beauvoir as if her name is: first name Simone, second name de surname Beauvoir. I assumed it couldn't find it because I'd spelt something wrong, so I went to ask the librarian, who despite clearly judging me for not knowing how to spell de Beauvoir, still thought that it might be in the literature section, when I explained it probably wouldn't be she didn't seem to impressed. Finally we found it listed in the catalogue under 'femminism' and went on our way to find the book. However when we got there the cupboard was bare. There was no Second Sex on the shelf. We checked the displays but nada. So I went back to grumpy mcgrumpson to ask of the whereabouts of this book. They didn't know and couldn't help. They were useless. Guildford Library is the ONLY LIBRARY IN THE WORLD that doesn't want to LEND YOU BOOKS. Grrrr and hmph. So in the end I took out The Feminine Mystique instead. Which is interesting enough. But about American Women. And I didn't want to read about American Women. I wanted to read about French Women. Bah Humbug.

I think this story perfectly illustrates what I imagine a 'bookish' person would act like.
The End.

Monday 22 March 2010

Class Choices

So I've given in my preliminary class choices for Mount Holyoke next year, in the end I went for:
  • Creative Writing
  • Literature of the Jazz age,
  • French Literature and Culture,
  • Postcolonialism and Poststructuralism
for the first semester and :
  • Austen Film and Fiction,
  • French Civilisation,
  • Literature for Children and Young People,
  • Arthurian Myths and Legends
for the second. I'm not going to lie, I'm most excited about the Austen Film and Fiction, maybe I'll get to watch Colin Firth in his wet shirt!

Saturday 20 March 2010

Oh Mister Sun

Mister Sun, Sun, Mister Golden Sun,
Please shine down on me,
Oh Mister Sun, Sun, Mister Golden Sun,
Hiding behind that (enormous rain cloud)
All us lot down here are a waitin' for you,
To come out and do that thing that you do,
Oh Mister Sun, Sun, Mister Golden Sun,
Please shine down on, Won't you shine down on,
Please shine down on me...
.... shine down on meeeeee!

I should have known the sun was too good to last! Ah well I enjoyed it yestday; I learnt how to do rugby passing and stood around outside. It was nice.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Kitchen Table Tennis

Last night was the last Cricket social of term. We had an end of term pot luck dinner, which involved everyone bringing the random things they had left over and we ate those. So we had a Cumberland pie, a haddock pie, crisps and dip, carrot sticks, mash, bacon sandwiches, quiche Lorraine, mange touts, and then this amazing fruit cake Ellen's mum made, and an amazing cinnamon and coffee cake with coffee icing which Mary made. And wine. Lots and lots of wine. Which all culminated in us playing table tennis on the kitchen table. We played a mini tournament thing, which I can't really remember the out come of other than that our esteemed captain lost. Then we decided to play round the world, which was a great idea except we didn't have enough bats, so Cecilia and Frankie had to use pans, and we didn't have enough co-ordination, so hilarity ensued. After we decided to go into town, the place we were going to go to had a couple of ambulances parked outside, so we decided to give that a miss, and go to the club, or as my father would call it, discotheque, all the cool kids go to on a Tuesday. Only we are not cool kids. So we lasted about an hour and then walked home.

This morning I had my final presentation at 9.15. And a lecture. And a lacrosse match. Then I stayed to watch the rugby, went to my music rehearsal. Then I collapsed a little. Had dinner, straightened my friends hair for her social, and then tucked myself up in bed, with iPlayer.

Good times all round!

Sunday 14 March 2010

Spring

The spring has sprung,
The grass is ris,
I wonder where the birdies is?
Some say the birdie's on the wing,
But that's absurd!
The wing is on the bird!

This morning I thought Spring was finally here, I even contemplated putting on my white jeans, and then it rained HARD. And I was very thankful that I didn't put on any white clothing today. In church they gave out flowers to the ladies, because it's Mother's Day. I wasn't sure I was a lady, but it turns out I am. Which means I have flowers in my room, daffodils and catkins to be precise. Happy Days.

Saturday 13 March 2010

Laughter

Laughter is generally a good thing. However tonight I think I slightly over did it. In that I'm having serious face cramp. And my stomach hurts. I don't think I've ever laughed so much in my life. EVER. I went to dinner at my friend Mary's house tonight, we had the yummiest lasagne, and we sat around the table, and I got a special fork with star fish on. It was generally epic. There was also fruit crumble with custard. It was actually the best thing in the world. There were a bunch of cricket girls there. And we literally laughed. Solidly. For about three hours. It was the most ridiculous thing ever. I'm telling you it's going to hurt in the morning.

Friday 12 March 2010

Various Stuffses

I haven't posted anything in a while. I've been busy; I had an essay due in this week, I was in a big concert, I've been to see a film, I've been to tea twice and today I've had a super busy day. So I think an update is due all round. I'm worried this might turn into an obnoxiously long post, so read on at your peril.

I've just sent out the essay I've been working on all week. I ended writing on Prostitution in Mrs Warren's Profession, which was actually quite interesting. The module I'm doing this term has been Historical Approaches to Literature, so I got to do a lot of research into how fallen women and prostitutes in particular were treated and what contemporary views were on the subject. I put alot of effort into doing all the referencing correctly, so I'm very hopeful that I've done it right this time. I think I've formed a sort of Referencing Neurosis. I'm pretty convinced I can't do it. It terrifies me. You have to get all the full stops and commas in the right place. It's stress.

On Monday I spent much of the day in the library, I actually had to go into a section other than the English section, and I ventured into the History section, and felt all intelligent. Until I realised that it smelt of feet in the History Section. I stayed though and sat down and made notes. They're taking all the aspestos (or what ever that toxic stuff is called...) out of the walls of the library at the moment, which is super noisy and they keep moving everything around and they've got rid of loads of the working space so it's hard to find a place to work. Pain in the butt. But I guess not dying while working is worth it in the long run.

As I mentioned I went out for High Tea TWICE this week. For any Americans who've got this far, High Tea is between like 4-6 I would say and is supposed to be a substitute for dinner, and you eat cakes and teeny tiny sandwiches and such. In reality both times it's been instead of lunch. I can't survive off cake alone. Least ways not for dinner. Anywho, point is... oh yes! So Monday afternoon I went to my friend's for tea, we had cucumber sandwiches, stroopwaafles, maltesers, crisps and cake. And it was awesome.

Tuesday I went to go see Alice in Wonderland. Since We covered Nonsense fiction in our course this term, I figured it would make sense to go see the movie. Plus I wanted to escape work. Plus I just wanted to see a film in 3D. Plus Johnny Depp was in it. Plus... well you get the picture. So yeah, it was very enjoyable. Soundtrack was pretty good. Obligatory tense music was very tense. There was a bit of a propensity towards excess CG but whatever. I thought some of it was cleverly done, like the references from the original they built in. Some of it wasn't so cleverly done. The feminism was a bit over played. I did not approve. But all in all very enjoyable and I got a pair of 3D glasses so now I can enjoy the world in 3D at my leisure.

Wednesday was the day of the great concert. I'm going to put a picture in here so you can kind of imagine what we looked like. It's from last year I think, because this year's hasn't gone up, but you get the vague gist. I was sat right at the top on the right. Just in case you've never been to York Minster, that's one HECK of a long way up. For someone who doesn't particularly enjoy heights it was a bit of a nervy experience. Particularly as every time the choir stood up to sing the whole structure shook in a slightly alarming way. The other problem was that it was absolutely FREEZING in the Minster. It's a huge building (The Minster is 158 metres (520 ft) long and each of its three towers are 60 metres (200 ft) high. The choir, which has an interior height of 31 metres (100 ft), is only surpassed in height in England by the choir of Westminster Abbey. Bit of wikipedia trivia for you there...) so I appreciate that it would be futile, expensive, not to mention disastrous for the environment to try to heat it. However I did almost die of cold.

Yesterday I went out for tea at Betty's for my Birthday Treat. One of my best and oldest friends from home gave me money to take me and a friend because we didn't end up having time to go when she came to visit. It was one of the most amazing birthday treats ever. We had a cream tea (scone with clotted cream and raspberry jam), a chocolate tort, this amazing lemon cake, a chocolate torte and this Betty's speciality which was a curd tart with peel and currants in which was also delicious. I was kind of hoping to sit upstairs because it's beautiful up there, it's based on the design of the Queen Mary Cruise Liner, it's all 1930s style glass and mirrors and everything and it's so lovely, but we sat downstairs. Which was still nice. Although when researching for this post I found out that it was a favourite in World War II with American and Canadian Bomber Pilots. Which is quite cool. Historical and that.

Today was a bit of a busy day, I had my last proper seminar for the term, since next week we're just doing our final presentations. I went for lunch with a couple of girls from my seminar group which was really nice. Then I went to Cricket. Which was actually pretty disastrous. But hey. I also played Squash for the first time ever, which was much more successful, since it's quite similar to tennis. This evening a couple of the girls from the cricket team came over for dinner, I made sausage casserole(ish) and mash. It was fairly successful. The potatoes took forever and a day to cook. It was slightly distressing.

My friend helped me mould my gum shield for my (first ever!) lacrosse match tomorrow. This was quite an operation. First we needed a whole load of apparatus (kettle, non plastic bowl, spoon, cup of water, mirror) and then we had to watch a DVD and follow the instructions precisely and it was all very tense and complicated. But eventually I succeeded and now my teeth shall be safe. Half-Pint reckons I need a special pair of goggles as well (I'll try to stick a picture in here so you can see) but I don't think we wear those when we play lacrosse in England. clearly we're hard over here. Plus, to be frank, they look quite ridiculous.

I was going to go to bed early tonight but instead I watched some stuff on iPlayer. First I watched Let's Dance for Comic Relief, and FINALLY found out who Justin Bieber is, and to be honest after all the hype and everything, I'm a little disappointed. Then I watched the program about feminism. I'm not sure why, but it seemed to include a very large number of people with very dodgy hair cuts. Anyway, from this experience I discovered that although the feminists from the 1970s think that my generation should be rising up to change the lives of women, I don't feel particularly oppressed and therefore feel no need to rise against anything. Consider the buck officially passed.

Right bed time me thinks! Wish me luck in my lacrosse match tomorrow!

Saturday 6 March 2010

Mount Holyoke College

I thought it would be interesting at this point to post 10 interesting and useful facts about Mount Holyoke, so you all know more about this important centre of learning.
  1. Mount Holyoke College is a woman's liberal arts college in Massachussettes.
  2. It is part of the seven sisters (which is apparently good) it is also (according to wikipedia...) the 5th oldest woman's college in America.
  3. It was founded in 1837 by a lady called Mary Lyon, who by all accounts seems like a pretty cool individual, in anycase she comes out with some solid quotable quotes.
  4. It is named (suprisingly) after a mountain called Mount Holyoke. Which is 935 feet (285 m) tall. So it's actually a glorified hill. But still. We get the day off to climb it apparently. There might even be ice-cream.
  5. From the pictures the grounds look pretty gorgeous. Much nicer than York University Campus. Not that this is particularly hard.
  6. In addition to the Mount Holyoke College Botanical Garden, the campus includes two lakes, several waterfalls, tennis courts, stables and woodland riding trails. According to the magic of wikipedia. This sounds hardcore.
  7. The grounds even house a golf course. Winner. Shame I can't play golf at all, even in the slightest. Not one tiny little bit.
  8. Apparently Mount Holyoke’s library includes more than 740,000 print volumes, 1,600 periodicals, and more than 140,000 electronic resources. I don't know how this compares with York, but it sounds impressive.
  9. Although Mount Holyoke only considers female applicants for admission, it will award diplomas to transgendered students who become male or identify themselves as male by the time they complete their studies. Apparently it is also the 5th most gay-friendly college in America. Interesting stuff.
  10. Emily Dickinson attended Mount Holyoke. And she HATED it.
I think you'll agree that this post has enriched your lives more than you thought possible.

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Three Things:

1. I had home-clean sheets last night. This was exciting. They smelt sooooo much better than when I wash them. *snuggles*

2. I was sent mail yesterday. Exciting mail. From America. It is a SNUGGIE! I now look exactly like this when I read:
Possibly slightly less blond. And I don't have a sofa here. But you get the basic idea. It is pretty awesome and I feel really cool. I even have that exact colour/print and that look on my face when I wear it! *snuggles*

3. My lecture this morning was cancelled, and there was never one scheduled for this afternoon, so I can stay in bed until Voices! WINNER! *snuggles*

Monday 1 March 2010

Travel

This weekend I went on exciting adventures.

But first I dropped by the sports hall to watch some Cricket in action. It was very excitable. And even though I think we lost, this was no matter for some rather marvelous cricket was played. I only stuck around for about half and hour, and I didn't really know exactly what was going on, but this is my expert opinion. This picture was taken at some time of celebration. I think we had just bowled someone out (and when I say we... I mean someone else).

Afterwards I went home. This was exciting because I had a bed and clean sheets, and someone cooked my dinner for me. Saturday I went to the Camp America recruitment fair, where I was very important and useful in weeding out the people we didn't want from the queue. I mostly weeded men and people who didn't want to live in a tent for a prolonged period of time. I think we ended up with some pretty cool new staff members. Afterwards we went out for dinner and a couple of drinks and dancing and such. Good times.

Sunday I went into Guildford with Mother to go shopping. This was very successful and led to me almost breaking my back on the way back oop north today.

My train ride was very much improved by the fact I was sharing a table with three very Scottish little old ladies. All of whom were named Maragret. They were quite excellent and wouldn't stop talking to me. One of them was very talkative and did not approve of me flicking to the back of my book to check the notes, as she said I was cheating and I would spoil the end, she was reading Now magazine in a very austere way. She also had cake and sandwiches. Another Margaret pretended to be asleep appart from when there was food. The third Maragret was bossy and told Talking Maragret off for interfering, she was reading the Telegraph, but her arms were a little short and she was struggling. Talking Maragret and Sleeping Margaret had Gin and Lemonade, and insisted on pouring me a glass in order to bring 'colour' back to my cheeks. Sleeping Margaret was a menace and kept trying to pour more Gin in when she thought I wasn't paying attention. Bossy Margaret refused to eat the sandwich Talking Margaret had brought her but was drinking straight whiskey with considerable speed and skill. I was very sad to leave my new found friends when I got off the train at York.