Giving Thanks

Well, I totally failed at NaBloPoMo, but I did post significantly more often this month than I have in recent months. So that is a success.

This year was my fourth Thanksgiving in England. In the previous three years, I had gone to the College's Thanksgiving dinner. They were fun, but I was ready for a change. So this year, when I realized that (a) I wasn't close with many Americans in my College any more, (b) the ones I'm friends with had other plans that night, and (c) we weren't allowed to bring guests (which made some of the previous years so much fun), I decided to take matters into my own hands and make alternate arrangements.

I managed to convince Elizabeth that we should have our own Thanksgiving this year. She was gracious enough to host it at her house (a plus because she has an oven and space to actually have people over), and we encouraged enough of our non-American friends to help us ring in one of our more important holidays.

We were all very nervous about how it would turn out. Elizabeth and Andy made the turkey, something none of us had ever done before. We didn't own many of the cooking utensils required for such a large scale meal: I bought mixers and measuring spoons, Elizabeth bought a meat thermometer and a baster, we both bought all matter of roasting pans. It also took a bit of effort to find everything we needed. Elizabeth had to special-order a turkey from the butcher because they don't normally do them this early. Her mom sent her corn bread mix and canned pumpkin, which we put to good use. I also had to hunt through several stores to find sweet potatoes and had to search the Internet for a pumpkin cheesecake, as ready-made pie crusts are impossible to find and I don't have the resources/space to make my own.

But in the end, the result was impressive. The turkey was delicious, and all the sides came out great: Andy and Andrew made two kinds of mashed potatoes (one had cheddar cheese on top), Corwin brought peas, Elizabeth made stuffing and cranberry sauce, I made sweet potatoes and corn bread. Mark kept us well stocked with wine and Elizabeth made Christmas Glug, a Finnish mulled wine-type of drink (she used to live in Helsinki). Eleanor joined us later on just as we were finished stuffing ourselves, and then we all had pumpkin cheesecake (made by me) for dessert.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It's hard to mess it up. The most recent ones have been a little strange because I haven't been with family, but I like the idea of sharing American traditions with my non-American friends and spending time with them.

Check out the photos on the Flickr.

Betty's dress code

I was watching Ugly Betty yesterday when I had this realization. If you watch the show, have you ever noticed how Betty has a thing for scarves and bowties and tying weird things around her neck in general? Observe:
The bottom one is from the most recent episode, and it made me think of a few things:

• I know some of the clothing combinations she wears are hideous, but part of me thinks that if she'd lose the thing around her neck, the outfit wouldn't look quite so ridiculous.
• What 24-year-old ties scarves around her neck in that way? I do wear/own scarves, but I don't tie them around my neck like I'm a secretary from 1983. I know some people march to the beat of their own drummer, but Betty feels so eager to fit in that it surprises me that she doesn't try to dress more like people around her.
• This is the big thing: don't big deal companies have a dress code? I know the standard is more business casual these days, but even business casual companies have guidelines of what is acceptable. I would think this would especially be the case in a fashion magazine, not unlike the way they were in The Devil Wears Prada when Miranda was around. Not that I have any fashion magazine experience, but I feel like Christina and anyone else in wardrobe would be dropping dresses and Jimmy Choo heels at Betty's desk and telling her to wear them the next day.

I know this is supposed to be all played up for laughs, but the more I looked at Betty's ridiculous outfits last night the more I thought, "This would never happen in real life." Don't get me wrong - I l o v e the show, and if Betty started dressing normally, there wouldn't be a show. I just never realized how much of it is played up for laughs/dramatic effect.

Little black dress

I'm in the market for a dress. I don't really need one, but I like shopping for dresses. In particular, I'm looking for a dress for my friend's wedding in June (and since I'm going to weddings in July and August, I'll probably wear it then as well). So I've been surfing the websites of some of my favorite shops for ideas.

I've noticed that if you click on "dresses" on these websites, it brings you to a lot of subcategories, including "black dresses."

Have a look at this page of "black dresses." Does it seem like there's one that doesn't really belong?I know it's got black on the bottom, but would you really call that a "black dress"? Just wondering.

Whoops.

I guess I missed posting yesterday, and I didn't even remember until it was far too late to backdate something. Oh well. It was a weird day, with meetings, not feeling so hot, and unbloggable stuff (nothing bad, just the nature of what we do). I don't know how I feel about this writing every day thing - I guess it's good practice, but when I don't have anything to say, it sure feels like a chore.

Tonight is another Entz night. So I'm gonna be busy. Fingers crossed that it's a quiet night.....

Random Bullets of Waiting for the Laundry to Be Done

• Lately I've been having a lot of activities - meetings, etc. - that take place in the middle of the day. I feel like it's hard to get work done around them - I'd be a lot more focused if I could get something done and have a big chunk of time to do other stuff.
• Of course, it would also help if I were a morning person. When I absolutely have to get up, I can do it. My last three trips home involved ridiculously early flights, including one where I had to wake up at 2 am. And I did it every time.
• Today I had my first lecture on Rhetoric and Golden Age Literature. It's not absolutely necessary, but it's a good review. I love the lecturer, because he actually lectures in Spanish. That's very rare here. But I love it because it forces me to focus and it keeps my Spanish up.
• The mysterious illness has been a semi-stomach bug (everything I eat bothers my stomach, not much appetite) and a cough. Thank God I am well-stocked with Robitussin.
• The college just got ten new washers and ten new dryers this summer (August). Three months later, five of the dryers are broken. I know it's ridiculously unproductive, but they should shut off five of the washers as well so the washing doesn't get backed up while people try to cram their stuff into half the number of dryers.
• I also think the dryers are much smaller than the ones in the past. And we're getting charged the same amount. Ripoff!
• I discovered today that the notebook where I keep all my Cervantes-related notes is almost full. (Last year, after realizing I had notes in three different notebooks, I transcribed everything into one.) I actually like the feeling of finishing a notebook and starting a new one. Unfortunately, I'm addicted to buying stationery, so I have lots of unused notebooks waiting to be filled up!
• The theme of the College's undergraduate party this weekend is "American High School." I'm very curious to see what they'll do for it - I'm guessing lots of jocks, cheerleaders, girls in school uniforms. I almost thought about having my parents ship my high school letter jacket so I could wear it. (Yes, I have a letter jacket. I lettered in softball and volleyball, but only because they gave letters to the managers!)
  
• It was very cute to see what they did for their 1990s party, as many of them were born in 1989-1990 and probably don't remember the decade all that well. A lot of them showed up in neon, sporting the Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan kind of look. Umm, no, sorry. The 1990s was the grunge era - we wore flannel.
  
• I can't believe how fast these months are flying by. Christmas is any day now.
• And I'm thinking Christmas is a good time to ask for one of these.
  

Getting all researchy up in here

If I make it through NaBloPoMo, it'll be the most posts I've ever had in a month on any of my blogs. Hell, it will be equal to 36% of all the posts last year. And if I want to be sure you're still reading by the end of it, I've got to keep the topics a changin'.

My research keeps me busy, as does Junior Deaning. But as the nature of Junior Deaning is not really bloggable (we deal with a lot of confidential issues), I'll talk about the research.

This year I'm trying to plow through three chapters, in preparation for the confirmation of status exam I'll do at the end of this year. The confirmation of status exam is an exam we take by the end of our third year (most people do it just after their second), in which we submit a 15,000-word paper and have a viva voce exam. Since the DPhil is all thesis*, all the time, they want to be sure that we're not on vacation the first two years and freaking out by the third. Anyway, the point of getting through three is so I can choose the best one and fix it up to submit it.

Right now I'm working on the Second Part of Don Quijote, published in 1615. The issues of literary authority get a bit complicated in this one, as the characters find out that a First Part is published about them and that people have read it. This affects the people's interactions with don Quijote and Sancho in good ways and in bad. They also find out that some other author has published a phony and poorly-written Second Part about them, which leads to a lot of discussion about who is "the real deal." So it makes for some interesting reading and writing.

When my supervisor and I set out the thesis outline last year, we had planned for five sections in this chapter. Looking at the chapters a bit more carefully now, I think it would be better off with eight. Is an eight-section chapter too much? The problem is that I only have about 20,000 words max for this chapter, which is not a lot. Also, the sections do not address equal amounts of content. Two very important sections address three chapters of the Quijote each, while another section addresses about 34 chapters.

It's going kind of messily right now, but I usually get a sudden surge where everything comes together. Any Quijote readers out there? If so, I'll start talking shop; otherwise I don't want to bore you. ;)

I'm getting better slowly but surely. Tomorrow I have an important lecture - I hope I'm not coughing my way through it!

* The UK does the whole "thesis/dissertation" thing backwards: the Master's one is the dissertation (and undergrad ones too), and the doctoral one is the thesis.

Blaaaaaaaaaaaargh

I'm siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.

Well, perhaps it's not dramatic enough to have drawn it out that much, but it's one of those days where I just couldn't get anything done. I've got whatever's going around - the congested plus stomach bug extravaganza. I went out for a bit to go to the store, but I didn't want to go to Hall much because I felt like I was contaminating everyone (we sit so close) and I didn't want to go to the library because I felt like my sneezing and nose-blowing would just annoy everyone.

I've slept on-and-off very badly since last night. I'll try to hit the sack now, but this doesn't mean I won't be up wandering around again very soon.

Ugh.

Explaining my photos, episode 2

I've been really bad about labeling my photos in the past few years, so this whole "Explaining my photos" series is an effort to remember why I took the weird photos that I've taken.

In our last episode, we looked at Spain. Today's episode is about San Francisco.

As a recap, I went to San Fran over the Easter vacation to visit my friend Chrissie. I've never been to the West Coast, so it was very exciting. I had a great time, and Chrissie is a great host because she took me everywhere and didn't get bored with it, even though she's probably been to all those places hundreds of times.

This was a shop somewhere in Fisherman's Wharf. It had some of the tackiest statues I've ever seen, including this one of two dolphins and a soccer ball. If you know someone who would buy this, you win a prize in my book.

I saw these trees everywhere. I am guessing they are West Coast trees, because I have never seen them before. I do not know what they are - can someone identify them? This was taken at Berkeley from the Mario Savio Steps.

While in Berkeley, we visited the Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore. I cracked up at this shelf, which had the following topics from top to bottom: Linguistics, then Sign Language, then Dope. As you can see from the book titles, I am not joking.

Also at Shakespeare & Co., we found The Pop-up Book of Phobias. It is exactly what it sounds like, which is hilarious.

I don't know what I'd expect to find in a place called Grandma's Cocktail Saloon. This was near Balboa Park, methinks.

I am, as you know, an ad geek. So whenever I see ads in places I do not expect, I get very excited. This one was presented in such a way that you could see it as you approached the stairs of the BART.

This, my friends, is no ordinary curved staircase - it is a curved escalator. Yes, it goes up in a curve. My friend Mark, a Brit who works for Google, has been to San Fran on business before, so I asked him for suggestions of what to see. He forwarded me a list he had made for his brother, which happened to include a lot of shopping places - mostly because the dollar was taking a beating against the pound, so prices were fantastic for them. Anyway, among the shopping places on his list was this mall with the curved escalators. I think Chrissie was a bit surprised when I asked to see it, but she took me there without complaints. (I certainly didn't complain, as it also contained a Hello Kitty store.)

That's about it for now. More NaBloPoMo goodness tomorrow!

Memetacular

I should be working, but what am I doing? That's right, a blog meme.

Seen over at Lori-Lyn's.

What is your occupation right now? I have a few. I'm a perpetual grad student, first and foremost. I'm also a Junior Dean. On the side I teach the occasional web seminar for my old uni, which pays amazingly well considering how little I have to do to prep for it.

What color are your socks right now?Tan. I never wear tan socks, but my pants are long enough for me to get away with it. ;)

What are you listening to right now? My fan. I keep it on for the white noise, and because I don't like being excessively warm.

What was the last thing that you ate? Some Nice biscuits. Yes, that's what they are called.

Can you drive a stick shift? Nope. Trust me, you don't want me to try.

Last person you spoke to on the phone? Haris, when I called him to let me in to a building when I had trouble with the code.

How old are you today? As of right now: 28 years, 7 months, 1 week, 5 days, 18 hours and 10 minutes old.

What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Gymnastics, ice skating and college basketball.

What is your favorite drink? Fruit punch, which I can't get here, unfortunately.

Have you ever dyed your hair? Nope. One of my favorite things about me is my hair color.

Favorite food? I'd have to go with pasta.

What is the last movie you watched? Quantum of Solace (last night).

Favorite day of the year? Thanksgiving and my birthday.

How do you vent anger? I will copy Lori-Lyn's answer, because it's true for me too: I cuss and make a lot of dire proclamations then I usually cry. It's really nice and a joy to witness I'm sure.

What was your favorite toy as a child? I can't think of a specific toy, but I always thought it was cool when my sister and I "collected all four" of a particular Happy Meal toy series. Back in the day, they'd only do four - now they do dozens, in both boy and girl styles.

What is your favorite season? The Spring-Summer transition.

Cherries or blueberries? Blueberries, but in things rather than straight up.

Living arrangements? I live in college accommodation. A single room with my own bathroom, in a building with about 15 or so undergrads.

When was the last time you cried? At the end of Ugly Betty last night. *blush*

What is on the floor of your closet? Suitcases, as I have no other place to put 'em.

What did you do last night? Went to the movies and then to the pub, then Teresa came over and we watched Ugly Betty.

What are you most afraid of? The easiest answer is getting lost. I'm terrified of getting lost.

Plain, cheese, or spicy cheese hamburger? Cheese, definitely.

Favorite dog breed? You really can't go wrong with dogs, although I prefer the little ones.

Favorite day of the week? I like the later half of Friday, when you've got all these free days ahead of you. I'm also fond of Wednesdays for some reason.

How many states have you lived in? Just one, but I've lived in two countries.

Diamonds or ruby? Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

What is your favorite flower? I like Gerbera daisies, orchids, calla lilies and peonies. But not all together.

A confession

I have a confession to make. Despite having thrown a legendary James Bond party in my second year, and despite having met one of the more legendary James Bonds, I have never actually seen a James Bond film.

Yep, that's right. I know *of* them, I can name some of the films and the Bonds, but I have never seen one of them. This will change tonight: I am going with some of the Spanish girls to see Quantum of Solace. I'm looking forward to it.

It's a busy weekend up ahead: after the movie, it's drinks with the lawyers. Then tomorrow it's my friend's 30th birthday party, and then Sunday it may be ChCh brunch. I haven't had a good social weekend in a long time, and I'm really excited about it. :)

I'm still awake, so this counts.

OK, OK, OK. I may or may not have back-dated this just a bit so I could get in my post for the day. I haven't gone to sleep yet, so it still feels like it's yesterday anyway.

A number of the law students from two years ago have come back for their graduation this weekend. Two of my favorites, Haris and Fabrizio, arrived this evening. I had dinner with Haris, and they joined me and Teresa in the MCR until very late.

The wonderful thing about seeing them again was remembering all the fun we had. They both said that as soon as they arrived, it felt like they had never left.

Ahh, the good ol' days. I missed these guys.

On victories large and small

As I mentioned before, I voted for one of the other guys (and no, not McCain). This doesn't mean, though, that I am anti-Obama. I couldn't help but tear up over this:

He's got a big job ahead of him and, I think at the very least, the prospect of change in the White House (not just in ideas, but in demographics) will give people a positive outlook. Also, I hope that having a president who is widely supported in other parts of the world will improve our international image, which in turn should help towards solving some of our problems. I will follow the news with interest in the coming months, as he shapes up his plans for the White House.

In smaller news, I met with my supervisor yesterday. I was dreading it, as I usually do. But even though he said my most recent chapter draft will need major restructuring, he approached it with enthusiasm and gave me the impression that it was promising. He even read out parts that he liked and said were well-written. Those little things give me the push I need to keep going, which is always a plus.

And on that note, I went to see Jorge Cham give a talk today. His talk was about "The Power of Procrastination" and was basically a motivational speech for grad students. His comic strips encourage people that they're not alone when they're doing a doctorate, which is something I think we all need to be reminded about from time to time. I didn't get a picture with him, but I bought one of the comic books and had him sign it. I also had him sign my copy of Don Quijote, which may sound weird, but hear me out: if his strips motivate people to get through their doctorates, I thought having a drawing of his in the book I research would provide a little spark of motivation from time to time.

I told Jorge that the topic of my research goes really well with the topic of his talk: I'm trying to show how Cervantes makes a case for the value of fiction, showing that reading books for the sake of entertainment only can be beneficial to the reader. Having a rest and a change in mental activity can be stimulating if you're studying all the time or dealing with difficult stuff. Fiction can provide us with this mental escape and, as Cham argues, so can procrastination.

Maybe that's a little far-fetched, I know. But it sparked in my mind while he gave his talk, so I figure, why not?

Public Service Announcement

I voted about 5 weeks ago. I know lots of people who voted early, either by absentee ballot or the early voting allowed by some states. And I know some others who, at 7:39 this morning East Coast time, have already been to vote and had to queue for several hours. That's a good thing.

Yes, I'll be like everyone else and tell you to vote. No, I won't tell you who to vote for. I don't like it when people say, "Go vote, but if you're voting for [x] stay home," or "A vote for [y] is a wasted vote." Our country has a hard enough time getting people to vote, so if something some candidate says gets a person to vote, so be it.

There are actually a lot of parties going on tonight to watch the election coverage. We'll see what happens.

So go vote, please. You can't complain unless you've had your say.

Plastic Jesus

I don't care if it rains or freezes
'Long as I got my plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Through my trials and tribulations
And my travels through the nations
With my plastic Jesus I'll go far

Because England doesn't have Thanksgiving, the decorations in the stores leap right from Halloween to Christmas. It always takes me by surprise - it feels like it's just too early for Christmas. (Well, it feels like that in the States too, but even more so here.)

Anyway, this evening I had dinner with Andy, Elizabeth and Andrew at Andy's house. I had never been there before, so I set out a bit early to get there. By the time I hit the center of town, I felt like I was going to be way too early, so I stopped at the local Borders to have a look around for a few minutes. (I ended up overshooting it and being about 10 minutes late!)

This Borders had a Paperchase section in it, which I always like, and they were setting up their Christmas displays there. They had some cute decorations that I liked, but there was one thing I saw that left me in a state of shock:

silver glittery plastic Jesus statues.

And that's not all: they had pink glitter Virgin Marys and also Jesus bath gel.

I wonder what type of person would buy these things. And oh, how I wish I had taken a picture (I didn't want to because the shop worker was lurking around), because I am so not doing it justice.

Would you buy a silver glitter plastic Jesus? And if so, where would you put it?

Edit, 9:21 a.m., 11/4/08: I found a picture of it! Only you have to imagine it to be glittery, not the stony look it has here.

Differences

One of the main differences between the Oxford system and the United States system is the types of people with whom you get to interact. In the States, for the most part, undergraduates interact with undergraduates and graduates with graduates. The only real exception to this would be if you were a graduate TA teaching an undergraduate lab course, or perhaps if you were in an intro grad course that is open to senior undergraduates as an elective. But in those cases, you don't really become friends with those people - there's still a hierarchy.

And within the graduate subsystem, I don't think graduates tend to interact with those from other degrees unless they're very similar subjects (i.e. different sciences interacting, or a Communication graduate doing a marketing course in the MBA department). You wouldn't normally see linguists hanging out with lawyers and med students and philosophers.

Here, things are very different. Undergrads live with grad students, and people of all different degree programs are mixed together. On top of that, we get people from all over the world here. Not only does it help to gain different perspectives on what you're studying, it helps to gain perspective on the world in general. I've learned about food preferences and job interview styles and the correct way to pronounce hundreds of different names. (Whenever I am teaching or working in the States, the last one surprises people. I get a lot of "That's the right way to say it, but no one ever says it like that!")

I know I say things like this all the time, but even in my fourth year here it still amazes me. I may have become oblivious to other out-of-the-ordinary things (I've been known to say things like "I'm so tired of guinea fowl..."), but I still find it cool when I sit down with 8 people in hall and every one of them is from a different country.

Back to work now. Bis morgen!

NaBloPoMo

With 38 minutes to go on 1 November, I've signed up for NaBloPoMo. Those of you with more time left today (i.e. in the United States) should give it a shot as well.

I know I could be using this time to write more important things, but I've always wanted to try one of these projects. I don't think I'd have the momentum for NaNoWriMo, and I'd probably forget after a while about the 365 project, so I thought would be a reasonable goal.

What will I write about? I don't know. Maybe once in a while I'll talk about my research. I'll dig up old photos. I'll tell you about things I've promised to tell you about but never got around to it. Hell, give me topics.

This week coming up is going to be a busy one, I can tell. Today was a light day, as we had an Entz last night and they kept me busy. I think Halloween is a rowdy night in general, and when you have it on a Friday.....

I learned something interesting, though. Here, Halloween costumes are more about Halloween itself - witches and mummies and monsters and dead people and all that. The Brits tell me that when they see someone in a random non-scary costume at Halloween (like a princess or a spaceman or something), they know it's an American.

One down, 29 to go.....