To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

Now, two years after I was there, Exeter Uni does something cool. Feh.

Ennui, thy name is me. I have no desire to do anything today, much less work on my Satire essay. (This may have something to do with the depressing weather. Exeter has developed the capability to be both warm--well, "warm" in the sense of "not exactly freezing"--and clammy at the same time, not to mention completely clouded over. It's amazing.) I should be excited about this essay. It's Serious Academic Work on Wonderfalls and Alice in Wonderland, and what's not to love about that?

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I desperately need a haircut. It's touching my shoulders, which it hasn't done since I was seventeen. It's gotten to that stage where it's all limp and greasy except for a few hours right after I shower. It's falling out in, well, not clumps, but in alarming amounts. The split ends are out of control. It's kind of neat to be able to put it up in a ponytail and have almost all of it go in, but Chandra, at some point this week, I must set up a time to have you chop of some of this mess.

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My trip to Wales (Monmouth, Symond's Yat, Tintern Abbey) looks less and less likely, as the one hostel I found in the area (possibly the one hostel in all of southern Wales, or at least the only one within walking distance of a train station or bus stop) seems disinclined to return my e-mail about booking a bed. I might try calling them, but the more I think about it, the more I think I might rather spend those three days catching up on my day trips. I still need to go back to the cute little town of Topsham and have a cute little cream tea and see if the guy at the cute not-so-little used bookstore will take some of these 40-odd tomes I got for classes off my hands. And we still haven't gotten to the miniature pony center or the otter & butterfly sanctuary on Dartmoor. Plus there's the crazy spinster house in Exmouth that I want to see (and possibly copy when i get to the crazy spinster stage myself). And Stonehenge or Avebury would make good day trips.

Still doing the Kent trip at the beginning of next month and the Loch Lomond/Loch Katrine/Alnwick Treehouse Thingy towards the middle. Hey, vallentine, are train tickets from Stirling to Edinburgh cheap if you buy them the day of? National Rail says they're £3.75 for singles to and from if I buy them online, and it would be easier just to buy them when I get there, 'cause I'm not exactly certain what time I'll be going in either direction.

The Lake District idea died an ignominious death with Whitney bowed out and I decided I wasn't all that interested. Maybe when I'm older and richer and can come back here and rent a car. (Trying to organize June via public transportation has been especially difficult, moreso than any other trips I've planned. Argh.) There might be punting in Oxford with Certain People before I fly home. We will do our level best to emulate Three Men in a Boat, I'm sure.

*hack hack* I sound like a consumptive, for God's sake. Ecchh.

Anyway. Time wastage abounded this morning, so my Ireland photos are now online for all to see. As an added bonus, you get pictures of the last two pretty sunsets in Exeter.

Okay, so did my flat get the gimpy router or something? The entire flat's 'net connection went out between 5 and 7 PM last night. At least they fixed it this morning, but this is the second time in as many weeks it's been out for more than twelve hours. Um, £60 ResNet fee? Grrr.

So of course, since I couldn't get online to research for my papers, I did other forms of...research. Heh. Okay, I did some legitimate work by watching Farscape, since it seems my paper is going to at least have a significant section on "Revenging Angel," and it may turn out to be best if I structure the entire paper around the episode, describing how it takes Looney Tunes tropes personas and transfers them into a larger plot context that manages to say things about love and identity and power through hermaneutic references to said tropes and personas.

I swear to God, that is the kind of sentence you would read in a postmodernist essay.

So, yeah, two solid pages of notes on that episode. And then I had to go help Ellen watch three Wonderfalls episodes after I finished the Farscape. Of course... Heh. Am still contemplating writing my next Satire essay (the one due in June) on that show. There must be a way.

NOTE: z

No smoking around icepixie. Thank you for your co-operation.

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From Go-Quiz.com

SO. FREAKING. ACCURATE.

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Also, choir tonight could've made the baby Jesus cry. I had no idea that "E" was actually eight notes in one, all of them flat. *cries*

Well, we finally have our dates set up for spring break. I have it all on a big calendar I made with Sharpie in my room. *whew* Looks like spring break will have six components:

1. rowdycamels and I are spending three days in Lucerne, Switzerland (plus two days' travel to and from). Mountains and lakes and quaint little cities, oh, my!

2. I'm spending two days in Salzburg, Austria, with Annie (plus two days of travel, so this probably really works out to 2.5 days). There will be much geeking about Sound of Music and singing in the hills.

3. I'm doing some laundry in Exeter, and then Pez is going to the Lake District for a few days as a group.

4. We're seeing some horse thing (something with those Lipizzaner stallions...Apassionata? Something like that) in Manchester and then heading back to Exeter for a couple days' rest.

5. Paris for varying amounts of days. Looks like softstepshoes and I are staying for six. Maybe there'll be a day trip here and there, especially to Versailles. fiara, prepare for the bombardment of Pezzers.

6. And, finally, we have a week and a half all over Ireland with the Kenyon/Exeter group. After which we will collapse and generally be exhausted before remembering we have these classes we have to go to...

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Lovely day today. Sunny and warm-ish, though a bit windy. *wipes up the dripping sarcasm* I went to Exeter's museum, which is way bigger than it looks on the outside. It's a strange combination of natural history, world cultures, and art gallery. There was everything from Constable sketches to Japanese samurai armor to a room full of dead starfish. Um...I guess a lot of people donate collections of odd things for display? Anyway, they're currently running an exhibit on Norman Thelwell, whom I can only assume is the British version of Norman Rockwell. He did covers of Punch for years and years in the middle of the century, as well as various comics, in which he created such characters as a little girl and her fat, recalcitrant pony. Funny stuff, and a lot of it, too.

And then I went grocery shopping and bought two more boxes of teabags to add to my growing collection. So now I have 80 bags of Tesco tea (regular black stuff), a few of herbal peppermint, a few of herbal peach/passionfruit (that I totally brought back with me from the US...because England isn't associated with tea or anything...), 50 of Ceylon, and 20 of herbal honey/vanilla/chammomile. (I thought that one was real tea, but alas, it is not.)

Everybody needs to start having tea parties in my room right now.

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Um...yeah. That's about it. Whee, travel!

The weather is terrible. It's windy and drizzly and chilly and grey. Typical February day, really. (I always feel a bit disloyal when I criticize February, as my birthday is in the month, but it and January really do have more than their share of nasty days.) Made worse by the Guild travel office not having any internet access and thus being unable to sell us tickets for our next class trip to London, so we had to walk into town to get them. And then I promptly forgot to ask if we could go ahead and buy the train/bus/admission to Leeds Castle from London while we were there. Argh. Another trip to the Guild office!

So, yes, was in a bad mood this afternoon, but seeing a few more daffodils (two-toned ones this time! Orange and yellow! Still haven't seen any white-and-yellows, which are my favorites, though) in someone's front patch of green on the way back to campus lifted my spirits some, as did the pretty fall of plum tree blossoms that happened as I was walking up the alley back to Lafrowda.

I've had the soundtrack to The Village (which I still haven't seen) stuck in my head all day. It really goes quite well with this weather. Lots of frantically-somber violins and flutes and things.

Oh, and I managed to get my hands ona copy of "Threads." Will ramble about that and "The Seige" later on. Will also reply to comments later, too. Maybe once I get some dinner...

The second semester started in earnest today. I had Satire in the morning and Comedy, Comedians & Romance (a film class) in the afternoon. Were I a real British student, I'd only have classes on Tuesdays. (Well, okay, there are screenings for the film class on Thursdays and Fridays, but you can do those any time in the library, so they don't count.) But us Kenyonites are more special, so I continue to have the Kenyon seminar on Monday afternoons and Wednesday evenings. Which is a good thing, otherwise I'd go out of my mind without enough to do. I still don't understand how the English majors here at Exeter can consider themselves educated after having taken a total of twelve courses before graduation. Yes, some of these classes are ever-so-slightly more intense than ones at home, but we take thirty-two courses over four years at a minimum at Kenyon. Most of us take a few more than that. The mind still boggles.

Anyway. I think this semester will be better, class-wise, than the last one. There will never be a dull moment in Satire, at any rate. The professor is--well, opinionated, obnoxious, antagonistic, incendiary...take your pick of adjectives, really. He does rather fit the stereotype of the obnoxious New Yorker. We were told today that anyone insulting Judy Garland would be taken out back and shot. Indeed. And he insulted Kenyon and Ohio again; apparently we're all insane for wanting to go to school in Gambier. Still, I get the impression that he's all bark and no bite, to use a cliche, and really just puts on the act to keep us on our toes. Plus, y'know. Satire. Fabulous reading list. And it appears (so far) that there will not be any of the group presentations that the professors here seem so enamored with, to my great delight. Glorified busy work and an excuse for the rest of the class not to do the reading, those things are.

Unfortunately, the film class appears to be using presentations, although with any luck they won't be the half-the-class-every-week style from Shakespeare. Other than that, it looks like a fun class; the prof didn't make much of an impression on me, but any class where we're watching When Harry Met Sally, Bringing Up Baby, The Shop Around the Corner, and City Lights can't be all bad. Essay topics are already percolating in my brain, which is always a good thing.

Speaking of essays, if I ever go to graduate school, first knock me upside the head for even thinking of such a thing, and then if I still insist on doing it, remind me to do my thesis/dissertation on Yeats. Writing an essay on him and William Morris at the moment for Matz's class, and wow. So much more excited about this one than I have been about anything the entire past semester.

Speaking of which, I should probably go work on that...

Um. I didn't know it was possible to sleep for eighteen hours straight, but apparently it is, 'cause I just did it. Around 8 PM, my eyes pretty much shut of their own accord, and didn't open back up until half an hour ago. Possibly the mini-cold I have on top of the jet lag has something to do with this.

And now I have to go grocery shopping. *sigh* No desire, man, none whatsoever.

(P.S. Flight was delayed two hours, but otherwise fine. Train ride was nice and long, but sleepable. Warm and sunny yesterday in London, which made me question which country I was in, but Exeter has succeeded in bringing the drizzle. Ah, well.)

I trekked down to the post office today and mailed my twenty-odd cards and packages today, so everyone who gave me an address should all be getting mail within a week or two. Woo!

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Now that I've finished the theatre review, I have nothing left to do before break! Notice how I said before...'cause break will consist of me playing with Jstor and various other online databases so's I can research my two papers that are due after we come back...have I mentioned how much I dislike this practice of ending the semester two weeks after winter vacation? Argh.

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Also, pictures from my trip into town, mostly of the cathedral (which is right across the street from the post office). It was sunset (at three frickin' thirty), there were picturesque clouds...yeah.

Distant steeple from on a hill.
Cathedral, with lighted tree.
Cathedral tower with pretty sky and lamp.
Cathedral with lamp.
The dark bulk of the cathedralw ith a pink sky and a barren tree.
A whomping willow, except it isn't a willow.
Neat storefronts across from the cathedral yard.
Abstract cathedral part and a blue sky.
Sunset over the railroad tracks. (One of the five best pictures I've taken this year. I love how the colors of the sky are reflected in the rails.)
Wider shot of the same.

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And, finally, awesome instrumental mp3s here: Manhattan Beach Symphony. They're a concert band that does music by American composers and arrangers (Shenandoah, Simple Gifts, Train Heading West--typical high school band fare), and I think has some connection with arranging pieces for school bands. Anyway, great mp3s, and free free free!