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