Day Five (coming to you from Day Six!)

Thursday was a day in which some work got accomplished but I was really just primarily social again. I spent the morning and early afternoon reading the works of a man named Joseph Priestley. Mr. Priestley is honest-to-God the 18th century's answer to The West Wing. He is probably the most idealistic wonderful writer I've ever read. The particular tract of work I read yesterday was called "On the Present State of Liberty in Great Britain and Her Colonies" and was a whole long essay written in question and answer format about his thoughts on government and what should be done. The question of "my government is infringing on my rights whatever should I do?" came up more than once and Priestley's answers just knocked my socks off. He starts off with these firey, impassioned calls to action. You expect that he'll be raising a militia any moment but then it turns out he's talking about launching a gigantic letter writing campaign since what good-hearted public official couldn't help but be moved at such an outpouring of unhappiness from his fellow countrymen? It's fantastic. He also says that we'll know the bad ministers who need to be impeached because they are the ones that stand up and say "I like tyranny." His faith in the goodness of people and the natural trustworthiness of government is wonderful.

After getting Priestley's work under my belt, I actually went to tea since my throat was still burning and I thought some tea might help it out. Just before tea, I was slipped the information that peanut butter had been spotted at Sainsbury's so, of course, I made a mad dash over there to get a coveted jar before they ran out and decided to stop stocking it. After getting the peanut butter (in a cute little glass jar), I came back to Trinity and couldn't decide what to do. At that point Mike wandered by my window, saw me looking undecided and came in. I guess that's one of the bonuses of being on the first floor. Were I on any other floor, people couldn't see me looking undecided and rescue me from my own indecsion.

Anyway, Mike and I set out, cameras in hand, to be the best, least annoying tourists we could possibly be. After wandering north for a bit (and seeing St. John's College) we headed west towards Oxford Castle. Oxford Castle is quite the impressive thing and was a jail (or "gaol" as they say here) up until ten years ago. Mike seemed to think that it's now a hotel but I didn't see any signs to suggest that. There's also a gigantic mound next to the castle which I'm assuming is some kind of Celtic fort/archaeological site. Sadly, to go into the castle or climb about on the mound, you need to pay so, after being shouted off the mound by some sharp-eyed employee, Mike and I headed away. We kept wandering around Oxford, went back to Christ's Church College, which was already closed because everything in Oxford closes at five. (Seriously. It's really annoying. Courtney and I are thinking of opening up a 24-hour Costco kiosk just to combat this horrible British early closing thing.) Anyway, the gardens were still open so we wandered about in there. Mike's taking the Oxford architecture class so he was occasionally able to provide some interesting tidbits about some buildings.

After an excellent dinner (it was completely unidentifiable but it tasted fantastic!), Courtney had to go to a film screening for one of her classes. Mike and Courtney had wanted to go out again tonight but I sensibly pointed out that we had to get up for the hike in the morning so they both got equally excited about staying in and watching West Wing. Because it's like crack.

But, anywho, Courtney had this movie screening thing so Mike got his computer and--low and behold!--he had at least four Eddie Izzard shows on there! So Mike was totally da man and we listened to two shows I'd never heard before. I love Eddie Izzard, it was so, so much fun to listen to him! After the two shows, Courtney showed up and we watching West Wing until about 1am. At this point, I was thinking in my head, "When I said we shouldn't go out because we have to wake up, I did not mean 'let's stay in and stay up equally late.'" So the point was kind of missed, but we were watching the best show in the world, so I was basically fine with the whole thing.

About 12:30, my nose suddenly decided to take my throat's side of things and become irritating/irritated itself. By the time I got to bed, my nose was in rare form and I tossed around, sneezing and blowing my nose until 3. I dozed in and out of sleep but eventually just konked out.

Day Six

I awoke this morning to my alarm and immediately realized all was not well in the state of my head/neck. My throat was burning, my nose was spewing yellow goop and my head was throbbing. This was a bummer since the hike was in an hour and fifteen minutes. I was not feeling at all well but I really wanted to see this hike. I stumbled to the dining hall to see if some tea would revive me. No dice. By this point, Lauren had also woken up and was debating not going hiking herself since she was exhausted. So we both sort of vascillated for an hour until she conferred with Amanda and decided to go, screw exhaustion!

I, meanwhile, had basically decided not to go since I was feeling pretty icky, it was cold out and I just wanted the whole thing to go away before Monday. I didn't want to aggravate it and do anything that would cause it to realize how great a living situation my body provided. So Courtney and Mike stopped by, made their sympathetic faces and still went. Happily, Mike brought me some orange juice. I have great faith in the restorative powers of some OJ. So off everyone went and I'm still here, trying to decide whether to go back to sleep or start reading the parliamentary debates regarding the Stamp Act. Decisions, decisions...

So, anyway, feel free to call at any point since I'll be here the whole day, no doubt. I don't know when everyone's getting back but I'm feeling slightly better post-OJ so I should be able to go out to the pub tonight. (This being an actual pub with food for dinner not the Purple Turtle which is really just a glorified bar.) I hope the moving thing goes well for you both today!

Love,

Daughter Corey