Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

I just found out this earth-shattering information: the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" thing is indeed accurate. Actually, for me, there are only five degrees between me and Kevin Bacon:

1.) Me to my dad
2.) My dad to Gene Pitney (one of his distant cousins)
3.) Gene Pitney to Kirk Douglas in Town Without Pity (1961)
4.) Kirk Douglas to Marisa Tomei in Oscar (1991)
5.) Marisa Tomei to Kevin Bacon in Loverboy (2005).

I'm too tired to link all of these, but you can confirm them on iMDB. And you can check out other people's Bacon numbers here. But I can tell you this: if you know ME, then your Kevin Bacon number is six. And there you have it - six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

As one of my classmates used to say, ayyy que profundo!

Edit, 11:24 a.m., 2/28/06: I just realized that some of you can skip over the link to me because you've met my dad. So if you know me AND you know my dad, then you're a 5. ;)

Oooohh!

I just got an idea for a series of posts to contribute to the March Teaching Carnival. I'll be posting them over at my teaching blog soon, and I hope you will stop by and give me your feedback. (If you don't have the link for my teaching blog, leave me a comment and I will send you the link.)

I owe you some posts, but...

...I'm not in the mood for full-scale blogging lately. I have not been sleeping well, and for the past few days I have had a headache. Ugh. But I wanted to bring some things up:

• I was out of bottled water, among other things, so I went to Sainsbury's today. For some reason, I purchased two 2-liter bottles of Sainsbury's Basics Still Table Water for 17p each. I'm starting to wonder if that was such a good idea. (In case you're wondering why I don't drink better water, like Evian for example, a lot of the fancier waters have too much calcium for me and it's not good for my kidneys.)
• I don't get enough opportunities to wear my gown here. I don't have to sit for any exams (just a viva in the end), and we don't have formal hall in Catz...plus I have not been to high table yet. Since I am only here for a year (as far as I know), I would like more excuses to wear my gown and make the purchase worth my while. And I'm not big on the idea of wearing it just for fun while I'm out and about...I would like a specific purpose to wear it. So if anyone has any suggestions or would like to invite me to formal hall, please leave me a comment. ;)
• For the past few days it has been annoyingly windy. If it had not been so windy, it might actually be kinda pleasant out. But the wind makes it much colder than usual. And for some reason, I keep going to lectures, etc. that are on the very opposite end of town (like at Nuffield College), which feels like miles away even though the town is not very big.
• Question: Is it worth it to upgrade to pro on Flickr?
• I owe you posts about the blogging lecture I attended on Friday and the Valentine's Day bop, among other things. I also owe you a number of photos.

I think that's it for now. G'night!

Edit, 10:35 pm, 2/20/06:

• I tried the 17p water. It wasn't bad.
• Oh yeah, I also owe you a post about the Oxford-Cambridge basketball game.

Postcard iffyness

I have a feeling that some of my postcards have gotten lost in the mail. Last term I sent ones to Cheeky and Gwen, and I don't think they ever arrived. And very early this month I sent ones to Profgrrrrl and Scrivener, and I don't think those made it either. Oh, boo.

I promised a postcard to comebacknikki as well, and I think I will send new postcards to all those other folks at the same time. So some of you may get two postcards from me in the end...

Anyone else want postcards? Leave me a comment and I will get in touch with you for your address.

Seventh-inning slump

That's a baseball metaphor, I know. Doesn't really work when talking about being in England. But I don't know any cricket, rugby or football (soccer) metaphors, so we'll have to leave it at that.

I seem to have hit some sort of slump. After Tuesday I just crashed all day yesterday, and although I was supposed to get back into the swing of things today, I crashed again today.

I was going to try going to this lecture on Rinconete and Cortadillo, but it didn't happen. In addition to being at 9 am (nope, sorry!) it was also for first-years, so it probably wasn't worth my while. Most of the things they do in the freshers' lectures are things I could do on my own time, even if I haven't read the work before.

My usual lecture plans for Thursdays are the intertextuality in Golden Age Spain lecture at 10 am, and the literary theory lecture at noon. I missed both. I was actually out the door and down the street, but I got as far as Jowett Walk and said forget it. I actually wasn't feeling so great anyway. So I came back and went back to sleep for a while.

I made it into town for about 3:30 for a late lunch (3:30 is an average lunch time for me since I go to bed and get up so late). It was quite convenient today: I went to the Covered Market for a pasty, and the girl gave me a second one for free! I guess they had a bit too many in the oven, and since they were getting ready to close up for the day, they wanted to get rid of them. On top of that, I also got a free soda with my student ID. So the whole thing came to £2.60 (for takeaway) when it might normally come to about £5.90. After that I did a bit of pickup shopping at M&S (I forgot some stuff yesterday), and went back to Catz.

Tonight I was going to do one of two things: either go to the Merton MCR to see Mar Adentro, or go to the Catweazle Club with the Oxford Muse people. I think I will decline on both, and just get caught up on laundry. I think I am getting sick anyway (stomach bug, plus possible pinkeye), so I want to be careful.

I guess this means that it is time for what my prof calls BE GOOD TO KAITLIN TIME.

Decorate your room, cheap grad student style!

So as I mentioned yesterday, I got a lovely bouquet of flowers from my parents for Valentine's Day. I had planned on buying a vase, but the flowers desperately needed water in the meantime, so I made my own:

I always buy these big water bottles because I refuse to drink the tap water here (it's really gross in the college), and I hate just throwing them out, so I recycled some of my old bottles. Here's what the bottle looks like:

I cut the top off of one bottle, but it ended up being too short (it kept tipping over), so then I cut the top and bottom off of a second bottle, and taped the two together. Here's the finished product:

It's a little too tall, but remember two things: (1) I do not own a pair of scissors to trim either the bottle or the flowers, and (2) I did this at 3 am. Note how I tied the raffia bow that came with the flowers to cover the tape. (It was pouring out, so when I walked back to my room, it got a little wet.)

I ended up going out today to look for a vase, but all of the vases were too small and too expensive for my budget. I think I'll stick with my homemade version, which cost me a little over £0.84 (roughly $1.60) to make.

Craftiness is an underrated skill.

Here's looking at you, kid

Valentine's Day didn't start out so swell for me, but as the day progressed, things got better. I woke up feeling kinda crappy and depressed, primarily because I had to get ready for the horrible Literary Theory presentation I had to do on Lacan and psychoanalysis in literature. Lacan is a pain in the @$$ to read, especially in English translations, because he turns out little gems like this one:

"It is not a question of knowing whether I speak of myself in a way that conforms to what I am, but rather knowing whether I am the same as that of which I speak."

and on a simpler level,

"I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think."

Oh, it was fun. But Jenni and I did well, I think, so we're happy. And more importantly, it is now done.

After that I had to go to a Spanish sub-faculty meeting, but when that was done Jenni and I went out to dinner to a lovely Italian restaurant, and I had proper spaghetti (as opposed to the microwave crap) for the first time ever here. It was lovely and fun, even though we were the only people there not on a date, I think! It was also kinda funny because I think that since we were nervous about our presentation, neither one of us had eaten all day...

After dinner we went to get Sarah (another one of the Spanish students) and her friend Dave, and we went to see Casablanca at the Ultimate Picture Palace, a very cool vintage independent cinema that shows not-so-mainstream movies. I had never seen Casablanca before, so it was great to see it in a vintage theatre. I loved it and I don't know why I never watched it before yesterday.

I came back at 11:30ish and found out that I had received a lovely Valentine's Day bouquet from my parents. The only trouble was that I had no vase, so I had to make one by cutting up some of my big water bottles and taping them together. It was quite interesting, but at least I have a vase now. :)

Today I have no pressing academic matters, so I am going to r-e-l-a-x. I need it, seriously.

Hope all is well with everyone, and that you all had a fabulous Valentine's Day.
Kaitlin

Half done

Well folks, I've made it past the halfway point of my time in Oxford. One term and four weeks down, one term and four weeks to go. Thanks to all of you who have been reading along the way so far.

Now I'm faced with a huge question: do I stay or do I go when I'm done? There are benefits and disadvantages to each.

Staying would mean massive financial organization, another visa, and less teaching than I would like for the next three years, but it would also mean that I would get to experience this wonderful city for three more years (and also have health insurance!). And how wonderful would Oxford look on a CV?

Working would mean $$$ but it would mean delaying the PhD and paying off loans again. Plus there is the whole matter of, oh, finding a place to work.

And a PhD elsewhere could possibly mean that I would get to combine my studies and get to teach again, plus a more likely financial aid package, but it would also mean starting over again and possibly not finishing for much longer than it would take me to finish here. And again, plus there is the whole matter of finding a place to get a PhD.

And people wonder why I agonize over decisions...too many things to choose!

Something that might convince me to stay in the UK

Primark has landed in Oxford.

That's right, two humongous floors of All-American Pure British Shopping Goodness, here in Oxford, at the Westgate Shopping Centre.

Let's put it this way: even with the exchange rate, the prices are insanely cheap. It's like a British Target or Old Navy. I don't think I saw any women's clothing over £10, or any other item over £25.

I was worried how I was going to manage a summer wardrobe on Oxford prices. I'm not worried now, thankyouverymuch.

Back to papering. Weekend's almost here, folks!

Keeping in touch

Just out of curiosity, how many of you keep in touch with people you knew in high school?

(This is more relevant if you're about my age or older - if you're 19 and you read my blog, it doesn't really count.)

I was all into keeping in touch with people when I left high school. And then we all just sort of drifted apart: in the first semester of college, we emailed each other all the time. By our junior year, the emails were far less frequent and were more along the lines of, "so where do you go to school again?"

I think the same has been true for all of the school levels I have attended. When I was little and moved from Enfield to Windsor, I would have my Enfield friends over all the time. After a while they faded into the background to make room for my Windsor friends. The same was true from high school to college, college to grad school, and grad school to Oxford (which is also grad school but you know what I mean).

Don't get me wrong, I still talk to a few people. I get emails here and there from college and high school friends, random invites to parties, and Facebook pokes or Friendster visits. But it's not a consistent thing. The really weird thing is, when I run into some people who were close friends in high school, it's really awkward now: I really have no idea what to say to them. It's so strange.

Although I hate change, I think it's inevitable. Whenever I start a new chapter in my life, I end up meeting new people who have more in common with me than the old people did, or at least they do at the time. As I'm starting to figure out what I want to do with my life, I think these later friendships will be the ones that last the longest (I hope!) because I have the most in common with these people.

My 10-year high school reunion is 2 years from now. I wonder what it will be like. Will it be just like old times, or will it be stuffy and stilted? Will I be able to resist comparing myself to everyone else there? (Not that I feel inadequate or anything, but that's something that just happens when you see people you haven't seen in a while.)

I've been thinking about this because when I was home for the break, I ran into a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while, and was surprised at how some of them had turned out. And when I logged onto Friendster recently, I noticed that some people I knew vaguely from high school had been viewing my profile.

Any thoughts on this?

Friday Poetry Blogging

Since a bunch of people have started doing Friday Poetry Blogging, I thought I would join in. Now that the dissertation topic is pretty much finalized ("Paradoxes of seeing, knowing and understanding as spiritual guidance in selected works of San Juan de la Cruz"), I thought I would share one of the poems that I am writing about for this. San Juan's "Fonte" poem is one of his minor works, but I like it because it is full of paradoxes, and is very much in the spirit of Spanish mysticism. Here we go:

Cantar del alma que se que se huelga de conocer a Dios por fe

Que bien sé yo la fonte que mana y corre,
aunque es de noche.

Aquella eterna fonte está escondida,
que bien sé yo do tiene su manida,
aunque es de noche.

Su origen no lo sé, pues no le tiene,
mas sé que todo origin de ella viene,
aunque es de noche.

Sé que no puede ser cosa tan bella,
y que cielos y tierra beben de ella,
aunque es de noche.

Bien sé que suelo en ella no se halla,
y que ninguno puede vadealla,
aunque es de noche.

Su claridad nunca es oscurecida,
y sé que toda luz de ella es venida,
aunque es de noche.

Sé ser tan caudalosos sus corrientes,
que infiernos, cielos riegan y las gentes,
aunque es de noche.

El corriente que nace de esta fuente
bien sé que es tan capaz y omnipotente,
aunque es de noche.

El corriente que de estas dos procede
sé que ninguna de ella le precede
aunque es de noche.

Aquesta eternal fonte está escondida
en este vivo pan por darnos vida,
aunque es de noche.

Aquí se está llamando a las criaturas,
y de esta agua se hartan, aunque a oscuras,
porque es de noche.

Aquesta viva fuente que deseo,
en este pan de vida yo la veo,
aunque es de noche.

About writing

I have an irresistable urge to write something publishable or presentable. Not in Spanish literature, though...in communication, or educational technology.

I don't know why, but since I've stepped away from it, I've come up with all these ideas. I want to do some sort of case study or content analysis of online communities, or online relationships taken offline. In the educational technology and pedagogy side of things, I'm very interested in instructors' subject areas and confidence levels as factors in technology use, as well as perceived levels of skill (I get a lot of people who say, "I'm no good at this stuff," when they are actually quite good!). I also want to write a more trade publication-ish article about Blackboard, most likely about how the virtual classroom has affected my teaching.

I should just go ahead and do it. I don't know what's holding me back. I have a master's degree, and people with master's degrees write publishable and presentable stuff. Fear of inadequacy, maybe. Confusion, perhaps. Now that I've come across this whole new writing style (as I wrote about in my teaching blog), I don't know which format I prefer.

Maybe I should start small, as a co-author, or part of a panel or something. Work my way up to first authorship. What do you think?