Happy New Year!

I don't want to end the year with a post on identity fraud (thank you, by the way, for all your advice, lovely readers!), so I thought I would take a moment for a nice end-of-year message.

While I continue to love Oxford every day that I'm there, the latter part of the year has been full of hurdles: laptop stolen, visa delayed, cancelled email/library card/phone when I arrived, injury, illness, broken glasses, death in the family, and now this credit card fraud. But as my friend Seth said, maybe this is all out of the way now to make room for a fabulous new year.

Despite all this crap, I am still very happy. I am so thankful to have been given the chance to stay in Oxford for another year, allowing me to see my lovely old friends and to make some lovely new friends. I love the fact that I sent just as many Christmas cards to Asia this year as I did to the United States. As I've said before, the people I've met in Oxford are the people with whom I'll want to stay in touch for the rest of my life.

I am excited about the chance to pursue a doctorate in Oxford, which I hope will open up opportunities for me when I am looking for a teaching position. And I love having the chance to play such an active role in the college life - while planning parties may not seem very scholarly, I feel like I've learned so much from it.

I hope I get a chance to travel in 2007, to get a good chunk of my dissertation done, and perhaps to write something for a conference or publication. Things are very optimistic in terms of finances and scholarships for 2007-2008, which will take a lot of pressure off of me and give me time to focus on my studies.

I wish you all, wherever you are, a very happy and healthy 2007!
Much love,
Kaitlin
xxx

PS - Keep your fingers crossed for me as I start teaching on Tuesday. It's a new course for me teaching-wise, but it's a course I took as an undergraduate. I'm very excited (finally, no more intro course!), but very nervous...wish me luck!

Just when I thought this year couldn't suck any more...

...I open the mail and find out that I've been the victim of identity theft.

Yes, that's right, someone in North Carolina opens a Lowe's credit card in my name and buys a $1000 gift card.

I've never shopped at Lowe's, ever. I've never been to North Carolina. Hell, I was out of the country when the whole thing took place. Now I have to get a new social security number and notify my other credit cards, my job, and about a dozen other people that I've changed my social security number.

This sucks.

From the Department of Profoundly Cute Utterances

A while back, I told you about the funny things my brother PJ says at church. He's 13 and autistic, so he's not much of a conversationalist, but sometimes he says things that are so true and funny that you wonder where he got them.

Ever since we - my brothers in particular - were little, my mom would sing You are my sunshine to us (I'm linking to it here in case my non-US friends do not have the song in their home countries). She would sing the first part of each line, and we would sing the last word.

Tonight, my mom and I went out with PJ and Maggie for dinner. As we were leaving, my mom and PJ and I stopped at the bathroom. To make sure PJ wouldn't wander off, my mom started to sing the song. She started with, "You are my..." and waited for PJ to sing the rest.

His response? "Mom, I'm your son. I'm not your shine."

This is one of the things I'll think about at random from now on, and it will make me start giggling. :)

Feliz Navidad

Wishing you all - wherever you may be in the world - peace, love and happiness in this holiday season, and all the best for 2007.

Much love,
Kaitlin
xxx

Because I'm too busy to produce any actual content...

...I'll do what all the cool kids are doing and put up one of these voice recorder thingys. C'mon, leave a message, and I'll leave one too if you have one of these.

Sorry to all my friends from the Land of Ox, I'm afraid this only works if you are willing to dial a US number. But if you are stateside, leave some audio love! :)

Peace out,
Me
xxx

Get Your Own Voice Player

Manage

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Hey kids, it's my last post from the land of Ox for a while. The next time you hear from me, I will be stateside.

Catch you on the flip side. Yo, check it.*

Much love from the UK -
Kaitlin xxx



*Loooooong story.

Rumiando

A veces me pregunto si vale la pena todo esto. Este trimestre ha sido difícil, pero ¿quizás ha sido así por culpa del estrés o los nervios? No hubiera sido la primera vez que ha ocurrido algo así. Mi madre, que es enfermera, cree que mi tos de cinco semanas fue la pulmonía. No sé si uno puede contraer la pulmonía por culpa del estrés, pero no me sorprendería.

Tengo un amigo que estudió aquí el año pasado, haciendo la maestría como yo (pero en otro idioma). Ahora está trabajando, y le encanta su trabajo. Estoy muy envidiosa de él. Estoy muy envidiosa de mi hermana también, que ha encontrado un trabajo que va perfectamente con lo que ha estudiado, y está muy feliz. Aunque me gustaría mucho obtener el doctorado, me gustaría también tener un trabajo, dinero, seguro médico. Me gustaría tener una vida que no está dividida en semestres o trimestres, donde tengo que buscar trabajo durante las vacaciones.

¿Es típico pensar así? He estado muy triste últimamente, muy insegura. Quizás es normal – pues acabo de empezar, y he cambiado mi tema completamente este año. (Típicamente los que hacen la maestría siguen con el mismo tema para el doctorado. Como ya sabéis, el año pasado estudié el misticísmo, y ahora estudio Cervantes.)

Voy a estar triste cuando salgo este martes, pero quizás es mejor estar fuera de aquí por un rato. De verdad echo de menos a mi familia.

Perdonadme por haber escrito en español, a veces lo hago cuando solo quiero hablar y no discutirlo mucho. Gracias por escucharme.

"Show me the way to go home..."

Thank you all, lovely people, for your kind thoughts during this difficult time. My grandfather was suffering for a long time, so it is comforting at the very least to know that he is finally free. But it doesn't make it any easier. He was my dad's last surviving parent, and it was very hard to be away from my family for the funeral services today.

I went to church at the Oratory, Oxford's Catholic church (the only one, as far as I know). It was a very quick mass, since it was a weekday. I was going to stick around to pray the Rosary, but I couldn't find my Rosary beads, so I didn't stay. I lit some candles there and at the Christ Church Cathedral, and wandered around and prayed a lot. It helped a bit - I felt better after I did it.

On Tuesday I will be packing up to head home after another busy term in Oxford. This was not the best term ever - I had a bad fall in Week 1 (knee is still swollen), had a horrible cough for five weeks, broke my glasses in half, and had a death in the family. So it has not been easy. At the same time though, the more I am here, the more I want to stay here. The people are lovely and kind and wonderful and brilliant. I feel like I fit in far better here in Oxford than I ever did in college or even high school, and that these people are the ones I'll want to stay in touch with years from now.

So, as much as I want to go home and see my family, I feel like I am leaving a great piece of myself behind in Oxford each time. They always say how friends are like family for twenty- and thirtysomethings, and I know without a doubt that this is true.

Stay tuned...

bonita la gente que estuvo y no está

Requiscat in Pace James Avery Walsh Sr.
1925-2006

I just got the news from my father. My grandfather had been very ill for well over a year, and he passed away this evening.

I'm not in a really good state for words at the moment.

And it kills me that I can't be home right now.

Todo me parece bonito

Wow, I've forgotten how much I love Jarabe de Palo. I just downloaded their 2003 album, "Bonito." I love the title track:

Bonita la gente cuando es de verdad
Bonita la gente que es diferente
Que tiembla, que siente
Que vive el presente
bonita la gente que estuvo y no está.

And I love it that one of the songs that they wrote for Ricky Martin, "Cambia la Piel," is on this album. I loooove that song, and I especially love it now that I get to hear the Jarabe de Palo version.

And I love it that there are two hidden tracks on here. Cool!

Seriously good stuff.
xxx

On relief and course enrollments

Whew. I just checked my roster for the winterterm class that I'm teaching, and I'm up to six students. There is one other class with six in it, so finally it is not the lowest enrolled section in the department.

I was worried for a while that the class might be cancelled, but I think six is a comfortable number to ensure that it will still go on. I hope I am right here - it is an intensive winterterm class, so it doesn't attract the huge numbers that the fall and spring sections bring in.

At the same time, I hope it doesn't get much larger than six students. In a winterterm class, where I need to have a very quick turnaround time, I want to have enough time to grade papers AND do course prep each night. (I am not the kind of person who can have it all done well in advance. I need to gauge how they're doing each day and plan accordingly.)

Now if only I could find the time to write that syllabus...