Travels Through Life

All the cool kids are doing it...

2009-02-17T13:31:00.002-05:00

And by that I mean Katie has shown me the light! I, too, am making the jump to Wordpress since I have now been converted and firmly believe it to be vastly superior.

So please update your links and note that I am now found at http://corrance.wordpress.com. It'll be fun, I promise! And, if that were not enough of an enticement, my newest post (only on Wordpress!) delves into the murky Mac vs. PC debate. Drama!

Thinking Buses

2009-02-09T08:54:00.006-05:00

This morning I took the bus to work. Normally, I am a strict subway girl and I only revert to the bus when the subway breaks down and I don't mind being late to work. Today I had a spare twenty minutes and couldn't really justify not taking the bus to myself. Bizarrely, the bus is a kind of a luxury to me. It offers me space, new sites and fantastic people-watching, but, most importantly and most splendidly, it offers me time. The subway is merely a way to get from A to B as quickly as possible and with as little human interaction as possible. But the bus. The bus is a time machine. The bus is affected by weather and other people and madcap taxi drivers and traffic and stop lights with the result that the bus is going to take as long as it's going to take no matter your hurry or your deadline.

To some this may seem a trifle inconvenient or even frustrating. But not to me. To me, the bus gives me the gift of this time spent in traffic that the subway so neatly avoids. On the bus you simply can't do anything other than await your stop. And this gives me the ultimate luxury: time to simply sit and think.

I always get on the bus with the absolute best of thinking intentions. I'm going to finally plan out the plot to that novel I've always wanted to write or I'm going to make a mental to-do list of things I need to buy and errands I need to run. But I never do. I've been (magically!) given an hour to just think, it hardly seems appropriate to waste it on mundane topics I could think about anywhere and anytime. So my mind inevitably wanders over topics that I wouldn't get to think about otherwise: my future life-plans (real and fantasy), my personal life, places I’d like to live, people I know, interactions I’ve had, animals I’ve seen. This doesn't make any of these topics unimportant. No, oftentimes what I think about on the bus is the most important thinking I'll do all day. It's a beautiful thing, watching the city blur by as it shifts from the residential pre-wars of the Upper East Side to the midtown glassy high-rises and back down to the low-scale of the East Village, all the while thinking about your life and the things that actually matter, not the insignificant things like errands that you must do in a day.

So I’m grateful for the bus this morning and the time it bestowed upon me and the thoughts I therefore had time to think.

Moments of Music

2009-02-04T09:39:00.005-05:00

My friend Emily recently took an education class wherein she had to write about the books that changed her as a reader. This got me thinking about all the things that make us who we are: books, music, speeches, television and conversations; they all change us in some way and form us into the person we have become. So, while I’ll probably do a book-version of this (and probably over at Literary Transgressions), here is my musical life-moments and how they made me the musical creature I am today.

Pre-1989: I don’t remember a lot before 1989 (musically or otherwise), but I do remember my mom singing “You are My Sunshine” to me a lot. This is substantiated by a story she likes to tell about a cross-country all-night flight we took when I was two or three. The plane was filled with a bunch of crabby businessmen and, as Mom and I were the only two people on the plane who didn’t care about the stock market, we apparently got a lot of glares throughout the night. But as the plane came in for a landing and the sun rose over New York, I apparently started to sing, in the middle of the hushed quiet of the airplane, my own little rendition of “You are My Sunshine.” Needless to say, I won the businessmen over.

1989: Following the success of my one-night-only engagement singing on the airplane, I proceeded to write my first song, featuring such Dylanesque lyrics as “Well, a desert is a desert, but you’ll never see a desert/Whysackyergone!” The infectious tune proceeded to be stuck in the confused heads of my devoted fans for years to come, almost all (myself included later) wondering what the heck “whysackyergone” was.

1991: A family vacation to Yosemite National Park provided five-year-old me a perfect opportunity to be quintessentially my generation when I spent most of the vacation plugged into my tape deck Walkman (heck yeah!) listening to “Little Mermaid” soundtrack. To this day, “What do they got? A lot of sand!/We’ve got a hot crustacean band!” often reminds me of Sequoya trees, pine needles, and the beginning of an ongoing and beautiful relationship with Disney soundtracks.

1995: By the mid-90s, I was listening to soundtracks and (oddly) Cat Stevens almost exclusively. It was 1995 and I was goofing around with my cousins in their basement in Indiana. We were lip-syncing to some music and just generally being silly. I didn’t know most of the songs, but that didn’t stop me from being a goofball, until the song changed and “You know you could have been a candle…” (1) boomed out of their speakers. I was completely entranced and from that moment on, I was hooked on Motown and oldies music from the 1960s. The Beatles, the Monkees, the Fifth Dimenson, the Mamas and the Papas and Oldies 104, the local oldies radio station, followed. To me, it seemed like I had discovered a magical new world of music that resulted in me knowing absolutely nothing about pop culture or the music the rest of my age group was listening to, but having a precocious knowledge of Beatles trivia. (“Hey, Dad, wasn’t that song on ‘McCartney,’ not ‘The White Album?’” “Um, yeah, I guess it was…”) This was beginning of the era when I thought people talking about Marc Anthony, meant the guy who loved Cleopatra and when they said “Leo,” they meant “da Vinci,” not “Di Caprio.”

1998: A few years later, I was increasingly frustrated by the fact that there were never any new or different songs on the oldies radio station and started rooting around from something else. Fortuitously, the late 1990s were a veritable golden age of alternative rock, so it didn’t take long before I discovered Alice 92.9 (still, in my opinion, the best radio station ever created). Just like it had been with the Temptations in my cousins’ basement, “If you would step back from the ledge my friend” was all I needed to hear of Third Eye Blind’s “Jumper” before I was hooked. I went from being the girl who, when someone laughingly explained a word association game as “We went from Seth Green to Savage Garden!” and I densely wondered how a garden could be cruel, to rocking out to the Goo Goo Dolls, Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20, the Barenaked Ladies and almost anything on the Canadian radio stations we got because we were so close to the border.

2000: By 2000, alternative rock on reached its zenith and I was entrenched in love for “Bent” by Matchbox 20, “Everything You Want” by Vertical Horizon and “Absolutely (Story of a Girl) by Nine Days. We had cable by then and I spent every morning before school glued to Vh1 watching all the latest “You Outta Know” artists and videos. Frankly, it was all musically downhill from here.

2004: In 2004, I went away to college and, like most first years, was immediately struck by how adult I was and how much mature I felt as compared to high school. I saw “Garden State” a week before classes started and I immediately began pretentiously referring to it as “the movie of my generation!” I got the soundtrack almost directly after seeing it and proceeded to immerse myself in the indie rock of Zach Braff’s choosing. I was delighted that there was this whole new genre out there for me to discover and tried to poke around and find more music I would like by the indie rockers I was now constantly listening to: the Shins, mainly, with some Colin Hay, Cary Brothers and Nick Drake. I ended up sticking mainly to the “Garden State” soundtrack and its chill tunes came to define my first semester at college.

2005: By spring, a roommate détente allowed my roommate and I to amiably spend a lot of our time listening to the “Almost Famous” soundtrack. It was one of her favorites at the time and it introduced me to a world of oldies I had never explored. Indeed, there was something beyond the 1960s and she opened the door to me into the 70s rock of Led Zeppelin, Yes and Thunderclap Newman. That spring, to me, will always be defined by the easygoing, semi-drugged out chillness of the Beach Boys’ “Feel Flows.”

2006: As I went through college and actually matured, rather than just being a week in and thinking I had, I finally started coming around to the music my parents had always loved. Summer 2006 was the peak of this, when I discovered James Taylor and, to my surprise and pleasure, my newfound study abroad friends loved him, too! Who knew? This came after the discovery of Carol King (earlier, in high school), Joni Mitchell and Aaron Copland and a resurgence in popularity for my old favorite Cat Stevens. Summer 2006, my summer in England, will forever be associated in my mind with “Mexico” by James Taylor, a new-found favorite and something we listened to endlessly in various stairwells, buses, dorm rooms and gardens. It was something everyone could agree about and I loved it.

2008: In the autumn of 2008, I had been out of college for a few months and had got my first “real” job in New York. It was at the beginning of this new life-phase that I discovered “The Darjeeling Limited” soundtrack. Like the “Garden State” soundtrack before it, I listened to intensively and it came to define that moment in my life. Maybe it was because everything felt so foreign that I felt compelled to surround myself with Hindi music or maybe because the Kinks felt comfortingly familiar even though I’d never heard their songs before. Either way, it defined me for a season. I also spent a lot of time listening to really mellow stuff as I tried to acclimate, get through personal issues and not freak out all the time. Iron & Wine, old Sheryl Crow stuff (“Strong Enough” mainly and obsessively), Jack Johnson and slow rock all comforted me, particularly as I stood on the roof of our building, wind tearing at my hair, thinking hard and feeling both the community of a big city and terribly alone.

Today what am I listening to? Well, after a brief Beatles kick prompted by a subway singer who only did Beatles music, I am now back on the Goo Goo Dolls’s “Dizzy up the Girl” and am increasingly convinced that the late 1990s was the best music ever recorded. It has become what the 60s were for my parents and that provides a nice kind of symmetry.

The Decline and Fall of NBC: A Rant

2009-01-30T17:03:00.002-05:00

I read an article today on IMDb about how NBC is continuing to fade away as they failed to place even one show in the Nielsen top ten this week. Well, jolly good I say! I like to think that this is much-deserved comeuppance for all the poorly-managed, meanly-served and high quality television shows NBC has screwed over in the past.

"Examples, please?" you say? Well, my favorite example is also my favorite show, "The West Wing." After six seasons of critical acclaim (okay, maybe not the fifth season, but bear with me), NBC ousted the show from its Wednesday night slot to Sunday nights, aka the place where television shows go to die. Unsurprisingly, viewership dwindled and NBC soon had a network-created reason to pull the plug on the show. This was infuriating enough (as many critics and talking heads alike rightfully pointed out: it was just starting to get good again!), NBC then widely advertised a farewell retrospective to be played before the final episode. Unexpectedly and about a week before this retrospective, NBC axed it too and ended up playing the pilot episode directly before the series finale. "West Wing" gets no love from the network it brought millions of viewers, a record number of Emmy awards and some much-needed class to.

Along a similar vein, "West Wing"'s Aaron Sorkin then pitched a new show, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," about all that was wrong with SNL and NBC eagerly won a bidding war to get it on their network. After only a few episodes, it was clear NBC had lost all faith in the show and it was put on hiatus for five months. Having successfully scared off any viewers who might have been watching it the first place, NBC then canceled the show but semi-graciously (and rather ridiculously at this point) aired the remaining episodes through the summer months late on Thursday nights. Ironically, those summer episodes were by far better than the original few aired by NBC, proving that had the network simply allowed the show to get its groove, it might have had another great dramedy on its hands. Mais non.

"Scrubs" has been similarly mistreated by the peacock network as it has been jumped around in various timeslots and has been put on hiatus more times than are plausible for a show that hasn't been canceled. NBC kept a death grip on the show for the last few seasons as everyone from the star, Zach Braff, to the creator, Bill Lawrence, stated that they very much wanted to leave and were sick of making the show. Instead, NBC stubbornly kept the show on the air (sort of, in between all those hiatuses) before finally releasing it into the wild this year. (Unfortunately for Braff, Lawrence and everyone else who wanted off, ABC picked it up for another, primarily unwanted, season.)

So I'm a little bitter.

In any event, I have been personally boycotting the channel for two years and I'm glad to see the rest of the nation has taken up the cause as well! (Probably unknowingly, but, hey, a girl can dream.)

Cursed book, cursed subway or cursed me?

2009-01-21T10:15:00.003-05:00

I started reading a new book on Monday that calls itself “a history of collective joy.” Since starting this presumably joyful book, the universe has done its best to prove that collectivity is anything but joyful.

Tuesday morning I got on the train as usual. As a first insult, it was unusually crowded and I was obliged to stand the entire way. Since my collective joy book is so handy and far less unwieldy than my Rutherford, I was pleased to discover that was able to read the book while standing and proceeded to do so for a few blissful stops. Somewhere around midtown, the train pulled up to a stop abruptly and this slovenly-looking man lurched into the subway car and stood next to me, gripping the metal railing in one hand and a Dunkin’ Donuts cup in the other.

On any other day, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed him and I would have gotten to work unimpeded. On any other day, I probably would have been seated and thus even less aware of his presence. On any other day, I wouldn’t have been reading standing up. As it was, all these things combined with a brake-happy conductor and, as the train lurched abruptly to a stop at the next station, the man next to me also lurched forward and sloshed a good deal of liquid on me, my book and the man sitting down in front of me. “S’okay!” he informed me and the other man in a chill, beatnik kind of voice, as if we needed to be told that it was quite all right that he had just spilled his drink on us. “It’s just water!” he added with a dirty smile at us. The smell of coffee permeated the area. I sniffed my wet hand. Coffee. I glanced at the newly-damp pages of my newly-purchased book. A brown stain and numerous brown splotches stained the open pages and had started to seep down onto others. If it was just water, then I was most certainly the Queen of England. I glared at him, a gesture to which he was utterly oblivious as he took a swig of his coffee.

He got off before I did and the rest of the ride was crowded but without incident. This morning, I got on the subway again. Admittedly, I had quite forgotten about the “water” from the morning before and was happy to give the MTA and the citizens of New York a second shot. So I got on the train, again as usual, and was again oblivious to my seat-mates, only noting them in so far as to notice that they were not very large and that we all fitted comfortably in the space allotted without anyone having to squeeze. So far, a good commute day.

This brief idyll lasted less than a stop. As I sat there, reading about collective ecstasy in ancient Greece, the woman next to me pulled a can of Crush out of her bag and—fitzzz—opened it. Unsurprisingly, it went everywhere (who in God’s name opens a can of soda after it has been sloshing around in your bag for who knows how long?!). Orange splatters flicked my face and my book’s pages. I couldn’t believe it. This sort of thing has never happened before or defaced any of my books in this way. Was the universe sending me a message?

Meanwhile, the woman stared, clearly at a loss as to what to do, at her can of soda, which was still oozing, and at the pool of sticky orange liquid that had gathered at her feet. Her friend laughed. They got off at the next stop. The next stop. She couldn’t have waited to open what she could have realized with just a little common sense would be a messy soda situation after she got off the train?! I glared after her, too, but she was long gone and all that remained was a trail of that sticky liquid on the floor to mark her presence. Someone else sat down immediately and squished me into the side of the woman on my other side. Great.

Clearly, tomorrow will be the judge of the curse. If it happens again, I’m going to assume that a) the book is cursed and there is no such thing as collective joy; b) I am cursed and the universe is telling me to stop looking for happy endings in a cruel, cruel world; or c) I should not take any deeper meaning from the situation and simply be more mindful of my surroundings and those carrying liquids around me. We’ll see what liquid the universe throws at me next!

Feminism?

2009-01-13T17:11:00.000-05:00

I recently spoke to my dear, feminist mother about changing your name. This conversation started out very generally about name-changing and quickly morphed into a minor rant on the absurd inability of men to change their names upon marriage compared to the relative equanimity with which women do so. My mom bemoaned the fact that my father stoutly (in a rather “oh but I wish I could!” kind of way) refused to change his name to hers when they got married, even though hers was by far a nicer name. And this got me thinking. So I decided to ask a male friend of mine his opinion on the matter. The resulting uncomfortable conversational shimmying that he displayed was singularly impressive for its attempt to dodge the bullet alone, but also because he illustrated a definite difference in the way men and women view their last names.

Men seem to view a last name as a legacy, as part of who they are and what their family stood for, and something that (like their freedom!) can never be taken away from them. More basically, they tend to be more plain old attached to it. Women, I find, seem to have a more fleeting relationship with their last name. It’s there, it’s nice but when that right guy comes along, it should be easily given up and traded for his name, bizarrely used here as a symbol of their unification as man and wife. (It seems to me that something that inherently requires one partner to give something up and become the same as the other hardly shows a unification so much as a hostile take over.)

Why is this? Is it simply society once again impressing something different upon little boys versus little girls as they grow up? As a female, I must say that changing my last name has always seemed inevitable if a little strange (why should I be forced to deal with the weird feeling of having a different name from my own?). Perhaps it is a generational shift that while I do assume I will one day change my last name, I still firmly insist upon “Ms.” My mother’s generation unthinkingly changed their names upon marriage and hopped on the “Mrs.” bandwagon and perhaps the next generation will not be so eager to do so and will equally unthinkingly use “Ms.” Maybe we’re just in the middle of a shift, but even if that’s the case, it still seems highly unlikely that the opinion of men regarding last names will ever be changed, judging by my dad (previous generation) and my male friend (new generation, same old protests).

The Internet's Opinion is Moo

2009-01-07T16:52:00.002-05:00

Did you ever do one of those “- is” Google searches? Well, it is simple and endlessly entertaining. One might say it is the perfect way to wile away a few purposeless minutes at work. Anyway, all you type is type in “[your name] is” with the quotes and everything into Google and see what the World Wide Web as to say about you. I did mine, of course, and here’s what I got:

Corey is the Master of Brilliance
Corey is a lifelong upstate New Yorker who recently took the plunge and moved to the city
Corey is an excellent choice for professionally-oriented student groups
Corey is keeping his or her particulars a secret
Corey is underappreciated
Corey is not a member of any Causes
Corey is a cultural clown, a parody of literacy
Corey is a great competitor, as well as a positive role model for the youth of America
Corey is top-billed as an idealistic soul who doesn't believe in killing

You try it! What will the internet have to say about you? (Yes you!)

Incidentally, if you get the reference in this entry’s title, I will…well…I’ll think highly of you for lack of a better prize. Cyber-hugs!

Also: In a move of cross-pollination and in keeping with my new title of Master of Brilliance, I direct you most humbly to Comics by Corey for some good times and great oldies.

A Year in a Brown Tweed Coat

2009-01-05T15:43:00.001-05:00

I bought a brown tweed coat about a year ago. A girl who I considered to be a mythical being finally personified, that is, the alleged best friend for life you meet in college, accompanied me and was extremely helpful since she had once worked at some sort of coat-selling establishment. She told me to stretch out my arms in front of me and make sure the back fit and then walked around the store with me to see if I was comfortable in the tweed coat. Not too hot, not too cold.

I bought the coat because it was getting warm and my winter coat simply seemed too heavy to bear. So I bought the thinner brown tweed and dubbed it my spring coat. It was more autumnal than anything with its dark brown buttons and black spots and it proceeded to do little more than take up space in my small closet for the rest of the year. As it hung forgotten and increasingly pushed to the side by brightly colored spring skirts and tops, my relationship with that girl similarly withered and was pushed to the side by new friendships and increasing amounts of unspoken misunderstandings.

I hung the brown tweed coat up on a metal hook at my still relatively new job today and for a moment pondered it. I bought the coat about a year ago, but never really used it much until this winter. My heavy black winter coat now simply seemed too warm and too dreary to come out very much and the brown tweed has become a daily part of my wardrobe. I looked at the brown tweed coat on that metal hook that would have been utterly foreign to me a year ago and is now so familiar and was struck by how much can change in a year.

A year ago, this now slightly ratty-looking brown tweed coat was completely new. The buttons were firmly sewn to the coat and didn’t dangle in a worn way when not in use. The pockets didn’t sag out a little bit from stuffing too much in them and there was no pilling on the arms. A year ago, I had this friend who I thought was going to finally be the one to carry forward. I had a great apartment and great roommates and I was a student, and all that entails. Now I come to work and hang my brown tweed up on that crowded metal hook five days a week and I haven’t heard from that friend in over half a year. School is something that exists in the past and future for me, but not in the present, and most of the people I knew there have ebbed away.

This isn’t to say everything is now a dreary overcoat. Oddly, even though retrospectively I feel like I had it all a year ago, I’m vastly more optimistic in this January moment than I was that January a year ago in Target as I perused the coats, tailed by my friend. There is more hope now and less bleakness. There are fewer friends, but more keepers. There’s a smaller apartment, but a bigger possibility. There is a thinner, more worn coat, but I like to think I have more places to hang it.

Iberian Intrique

2008-12-05T10:33:00.005-05:00

The New York Times recently published an article in their science section called “Gene Test Shows Spain’s Jewish and Muslin Mix”. This article, while on a personal level full of interesting tidbits as I am descended from those very Moors who were so violently ousted in the late 1400s, reminded me just how much the Iberian Peninsula is completely intoxicating to me.

The article, while brief, shimmies through most of Spain’s major historical events while making a broader point about Spain commonly thought of as being primarily racially pure since that 1492 expulsion is in fact much more of a mix than anyone previously thought. As I said, this is interesting as its own scientific discovery, but those brief little bullet-points of Spanish history really only got me salivating for more!

In 2007 I was inexplicably and suddenly seized with the desire to learn all I could about the royal family of Portugal. Wikipedia beautifully served here and I spent a few days utterly immersed and in awe of the convoluted and intertwining paths of the Portuguese/Brazilian royal family. It was fascinating and I couldn’t get enough. Spain holds a similar allure for me for reasons that I think are fairly basic: I am an British historian and if there is one thing I hold in common with the Britons I study, it is a firm view that Spain is an undeniable Other, one which is wrapped primarily in mystery but one that is also enticingly interesting because of that obscurity. I know very little about Spain beyond the typical things that have leaked out (expulsion of the moors, Christopher Columbus, Catholicism, etc.) and those little pieces only make me want to learn more and as quickly as possible.

To that end, I decided I wanted to know more about the period between 700-1600 in Spain, which would take me through the Muslim rule (while neatly avoiding the earlier battles of the Romans and Carthaginians) and the Spanish imperial state (before it fell into decline somewhere after the defeat of the Armada by my wonderful Brits). Searching for books called “history of spain 700-1600” unfortunately didn’t get me very far since there are both a million books answering that or part of that description and also few who cover so broad and specific a range. So perhaps I am doomed forever to the broad strokes of Wikipedia. If anyone out there reading this has any suggestions of better ways to find good Spanish history books or knows of any personally, I would be much obliged for the recommendation. Until I find that perfect Iberian history book, I shall remain intrigued and awaiting more dispatches from that mysterious historical front.

Overheard in Corey's Life

2008-12-02T14:27:00.008-05:00

If we all clap our hands and believe…

Automated Subway PA: We are delayed because of train traffic ahead of us. Thank you for your patience.
Crazy train guy: That’s what you say every day…
Train Conductor over the PA: There is an express number four train passing in front of us, please be patient. We’ll be moving in a minute…
Crazy train guy: Fuck! Damn!
In a minute, the train does in fact begin to move only to stop again a few minutes later.
Crazy train guy: What’s passing in front of us now? A pink elephant?!

--Overheard on the uptown 6 Train

They grow up so fast!

Enthused second grader to visiting educator: Oooh! Can we do research?!

--Overheard at the British International School

Cleanliness never goes out of style

Seven-year-old to his bored-looking mother as they enter the bathroom: I’m going to wash my hands! I’m going to wash my hands! I’m going to wash my hands…!

--Overheard at the outlet mall

Power to the Sisterhood

Preppy NYU girl #1: I'm sorry, but I don't know why she does this...I mean, we decide who we have sex with! We aren't desperate! We decide!
Preppy NYU girl #2: Mmm-hmm.

--Overheard on E. 13th Street

The Lost Song from The Little Mermaid

Father to super-excited four-year-old son: Yep. That's a squid.

--Overheard outside the M2M Asian Convenience Store

Got some good ones to add? Comment and I'd be happy to add them to this post! It's not as rewarding as actually being on Overheard in New York but it's an easier process and you are guaranteed a post!

Obama's Attempted Pacification of a Hillary Supporter Fails: News at 11!

2008-11-14T09:42:00.003-05:00

I feel I must at this time vent my annoyance regarding President-Elect Barack Obama. Before I do, I think you should know that I voted for him and think he is an amazing orator, a good man and an inspiration to many people, but that I am also one of those “die hard” Hillary Clinton supporters. I am still rather embittered and, though we as a group may come across as a trifle crazy, I agree with the Clinton die hard consensus that she was robbed. I know the election or the nomination doesn’t belong to anyone (which, I might add, is more or less Ralph Nader’s stance on the 2000 election, so mind your bedfellows), but, honestly, she was robbed.

Leaving that hardened bitterness aside, I turn instead to the more recent actions of our noble President-Elect. Upon his election last week (was it just last week?) I decided to let myself be swept up in the tide of optimism that he brought with him. I grew excited about the possibilities for his Cabinet rather than focusing on his election which still wasn’t really getting me all excited. A friend mentioned to me that John Kerry was vying for the Secretary of State position and I allowed myself to get all happy about the wonderful possibility of John Kerry as our ambassador to the world. I thought pleasantly back to his 2004 jaunts to France, where he exhibited his fluency in the native language. I was reminded of all the reasons I voted for him in 2004: his intelligence, his experience and his passion to change things for the better. I was reminded of Teresa Heinz Kerry’s worldliness and her own proficiency with languages (English, Spanish, French and Italian, not to mention her native tongue of Portuguese). I got hopeful and excited and I crossed my fingers that Obama would choose Kerry.

I woke up this morning to the news that is has been leaked by some source or other (“two Democratic officials in close contact with the Obama transition team,” claims the AP wire) that Obama is considering Hillary Clinton for the position of Secretary of State. This information was painted with the brush of “he’s doing this to appease the die hard Hillary people because they’re still pissed she didn’t get the VP slot.” As a die hard Hillary person who is, in fact, still pissed about not just the VP slot but the entire presidency, I cannot think of a worse way to appease me then by giving Hillary the Secretary of State position. I was all geared up for Kerry and I was all excited that his exit from the Senate would leave Hillary the opportunity to become the next Ted Kennedy, the new Liberal Lion of the Senate. Now he’s ruining that dream, too? Honestly, Mr. Obama, can you do no right by the die hard Hillary people?

I am only slightly heartened by the fact that the AP also mentioned, in a dinky sentence at the end of the article, Chuck Hagel, John Kerry and Bill Richardson as other possible candidates. All the same, I can’t help but wonder if the leak was the metaphorical test balloon to gauge people’s reactions to the idea of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. From what I understand of these matters, things do not get leaked unless someone wants the information out there. Excuse my paranoia while I go off to hope that Obama doesn’t ruin this for me, too.

Once Upon a Time in New York City...

2008-11-13T12:23:00.000-05:00

As this increasingly becomes the New York City randomness blog, I still feel compelled to share this lovely little New York love story.

Once upon a time in the West Village, there was a little apartment building with two spires that was appropriately called Twin Peaks. It was filled with little tiny wood-paneled garrets that were populated by the artsy and the literary in accordance with what the Village used to stand for. One particular year, an Italian bachelor and a French bachelorette both happened to come and try to make their way in the big city. As fate would have it, the Italian bachelor and the French bachelorette both found their home in Twin Peaks, just one floor apart.

As they came and went in the course of their new big city days, the Italian bachelor couldn’t help but often catch the eye of the French bachelorette and visa versa. One day, the apartment across the tiny wooden hall from the Italian bachelor became available and the French bachelorette, much taken by just the look of him, snatched it up and bought it.

Now that only a tiny hallway separated the pair rather than the rickety green stairs, they saw much more of each other. In fact, what began as a look and a “hello” as they entered and left their respective apartments soon became conversation and from there friendship and, soon enough, our Italian bachelor and our French bachelorette had fallen in love. They soon wed but couldn’t bear to leave the environs of their courtship. Thus, for the next eight years, the pair lived out of the both the tiny studios, trading back and forth between the apartments and generally being very much in love.

Finally, the back and forth had just gotten too much and they decided it was time for them to have their happily ever after in the country. So they put the wonderful little apartments up for sale and headed off into the sunset of Westchester or Long Island or wherever the wind would take them.

I went to the open house for one of their apartments last night and I am here to tell you that this story is even cuter once you see the apartment. A New York Times Streetscapes article for Twin Peaks is here, but that might not be enough. The listing for the apartment is here, but that might not be enough. I don’t think anything is really enough short of going immediately and seeing the place. It is wonderful and their story just makes it better.

I [heart] New York?

2008-11-12T07:55:00.004-05:00

Since my week is rapidly becoming one of those where I end the days shouting purposelessly from our roof garden "I HATE CITIES WHAT AM I DOING HERE?!" I thought it might be a good idea for my mental health to think more about what I like about cities, namely the one I'm in, New York.

1. Public Transportation! Even if the subway never seems to be at the cross-street I want and the bus doesn't come when I am passing out from walking too far, I have got to give New York some serious props for their public transportation system. I love how easy they are to use, how convenient they are (yeah, I know, I'm in Manhattan and things can get dicey in the outer boroughs, but props!) and, generally, how on time they are even at rush hour. Perhaps this is just the 6 train and I'm pampered, but at the very least New York gets props for the 6 train.

2. Parks! New York is best known for Central Park and that is probably my favorite part of the city, but there are all these other, lesser-known parks scattered all over the place to generally improve your City experience. You can go to these lovely parks and pretend you're even not in the City and try to star-gaze (although, let's face it, there's probably still going to be too much light pollution to do so). At the very least, you can vicariously enjoy some puppy love since many of these little parks have great dog runs (notably Union Square and Tompkins Square Parks).

3. Helpful Hobos! If you are ever lost in New York, odds are there will be some kind of homeless person on hand to help you find your way. As I wandered aimlessly with friends this Monday looking for a seemingly invisible Thai restaurant (see below), a Helpful Hobo helped us out and pointed us in the right direction, only afterwards soliciting us for our spare change. I happily emptied my purse of its loose change and then enjoyed some high quality dumplings. (Admittedly, you're just as likely to run into the Helpful Hobo's polar opposite, the Insane Itinerant, but here's hoping for the former!)

4. Food! Everywhere! Say you want some Thai food at eleven o'clock at night. I defy you to find a place where it would be so readily available (outside Thailand!). Any given street is entirely likely to have twelve different kinds of food so you need never be bored on your nights out. And, yes, some of the best pizza in the world is here if you want to play it safe.

5. Subway Performers! Yeah, subway panhandling can be at best annoying, but the subway performers in New York are not just asking for your money, they are playing their hearts out for it and they rock! Apparently, there is this intense interviewing process before you are allowed to play in the subway and, I have to say, whatever the system is, it works! Subway performers are remarkably talented and extremely varied in terms of their talent. I've seen a guy play a bunch of old cans and it was just as amazing as a pair of middle-aged doo wop brothers who sometimes haunt the 6. Equally impressive, I'm told, was a group of subway car break dancers seen on the R Train. And let's not forget the mournful and mysterious Chinese stringed instrument played beautifully by the old man outside the E and V trains. The list could go on, but they are all amazing, talented people and they can really brighten up a day with their music, dancing or what have you!

That said, I'm off to go partake of number one and maybe number 5, if I'm lucky.

The Fiction and Reality of Central Meeting Places

2008-10-22T13:01:00.003-04:00

As some of you might be aware, I am a rather big fan of the television show How I Met Your Mother. I see them at McClaren’s week in and week out and feel a surge of slight envy that they have their little group and their little hang and that they—gasp—actually meet people at this place. It turns out that McClaren’s is actually based on place in New York called McGee’s. It looks basically like McClaren’s and today I felt compelled to seek it out.

Like any good internet stalker, I took my first steps online to learn more about McGee’s. I found this nice little piece about it: “McGee's is a lively Irish Pub with a strong emphasis on great food and drinks as well as friendly service. Our main bar area boasts big screens, surround sound and a huge selection of draft and bottled beers. This pub offers a lot of booths comfortable for dining and sports viewing. McGee's serves hamburgers, salads, potato skins, fried calamari and a variety of other appetizers for guests to enjoy.” Sounds yummy, I thought to myself. So now McGee’s/McClaren’s is a good time, a good place to meet people and it has good food! Forgive me if the jealousy was more than a little slight at this point.

Then I stopped and thought about it. I often think wistfully back to my Northampton days as some kind of heyday that I can never replicate. There was a bit of a tradition (I say it this way because we went with only slight regularity but often enough that it could be called a tradition) for me and my three friends to go out to a place called FitzWilly’s. It too could be characterized as a lively Irish pub with strong emphasis on great food and drinks. It too has a lot of comfortable booths as well as a bar (and even more bar next door at the Toasted Owl if the FitzWilly bar was just too small for you). And it too has some great potato skins that we almost always ordered.

And that’s about when I had a rather pleasant realization. All that time I was watching How I Met Your Mother (or Friends or Seinfeld or really any show with a central meeting place) and feeling those twinges of envy, I was basically living the dream. I had my three friends and we went out to FitzWilly’s and drank and ate burgers and potato skins and laughed and generally had a good time. So while this may be bittersweet, I guess it reinforces those old lessons about being grateful for the present and being careful what you wish for. Who knows? You may have already had it.

Puffers in the City

2008-10-20T16:10:00.000-04:00

I feel like every new Life phase I enter, there is incrementally more smoking. Given logic and positivity, you would think that this would not be the case. Considering the amount of advertising now done against smoking and what we now know about the health risks, you would think that this would not be the case. And yet, it is.

When I started at Smith in 2004, I was nearly blown away (no pun intended) by the amount of puffers around campus. They seemed to be everywhere as I pointedly hacked my lungs out in front of them whenever I could. I assumed that all this sudden smoking was because everyone was basically over 18 now and could thus legally obtain cigarettes. This compared with a high school full of underage smokers where smoking was the sneaky, semi-cool thing you did back behind the football field just over the school’s property line to thumb your nose at the school’s dictatorial principal. Perhaps in college, people were just expressing their newly-found right to buy cigarettes and that accounted for the difference.

Anyway, I got used to it. I chilled out, stopped my pointed coughing and just chose to hold my breath whenever I passed a smoker. I was damned if I was going to get lung cancer because that idiot couldn’t read a Surgeon General’s warning!

And then I came to New York. If I thought Smith was bad, New York was like living in a chimney. They were even more everywhere! And I couldn’t hold my breath that consistently as I walked around the city. (For any number of other reasons, that kind of oxygen deprivation probably wouldn’t do wonders for my health any more than breathing in their smoke would.) The subway was my only refuge from these people who just can’t seem to obey common laws of courtesy by keeping their addiction to themselves in some private corner. I honestly get a trifle offended by their insistence on polluting my air as well as their lungs. It doesn’t seem fair that my health should suffer from their habit.

I had a last straw moment today in the big city in terms of smoking. We had a protest at work this fine autumnal day (I work for a historic preservation organization so it’s okay and we’re not a bunch of crazies, I promise) and, of course, it was outdoors. It was there on the curb that my suspicions about my boss were realized. In addition to being a fruit juice-loving, passionately cause-oriented, gay, hat-wearing thirtysomething, my boss is also a smoker. And he just stood there on the curb talking to me about the building we were trying to save, smoking away, blowing smoke up above our heads. With each puff my respect for him diminished. How could he do this? Why would he do this? Does he really have a death-wish?

Just to cut to the chase, it didn’t resolve in me actually doing anything about it other than writing this. Because even if a smoker can’t respect my space, my lungs and my preferences, the least I can do is respect their right to make those decisions. I can be the better person in this situation by not exploding about why in God’s name they would chose to do this to themselves. So, just like I didn’t explode at my other smoking co-worker, I didn’t say anything today. I still feel imposed upon and little disrespected in terms of personal space, but there isn’t anything to say. They know the issues and they clearly can’t stop. Perhaps the number of people smoking has gone down and that I just keep entering these bigger and bigger sample areas so it just feels like there are more smokers. At least that’s what I like to think. And hope.

New Yorkers: Some Snapshots

2008-10-16T17:33:00.003-04:00

I leave the alcove studio apartment I share with my mother at or very close to 8:20 a.m. most mornings. I take the elevator down from the twelfth floor to the shiny lobby and there encounter Melanie, the girl at the desk. She is kind of notoriously surly until you somehow pass some mental-Melanie test and you're golden. So the first three months I lived there, I was greeted every morning with a glare and silence. Now, I say "Good morning!" and she replies with a perky, "Have a nice day!" "You, too," I call back as I'm halfway out the door. It's a very strange transformation, but not at all unwelcome. In a city that is filled with unfriendliness, I would much prefer such a morning to a surly glare.

I only have to go around the corner to get the subway at East 96th Street. There, if you go before 9 a.m., there is a hunched Asian man of indeterminate years (he could quite honestly be anywhere in between fifty and seventy) handing out AM NY. He has one of this quintessentially Asian mustaches, the ones that are short above the lip and then hang limply down around the mouth, and he rarely smiles. He calls out, "Am NY! Am NY!" and attempts to foist a copy of the paper on every single person getting off the bus, going down into the subway or coming up out of the subway. The first few weeks I lived here, he offered one to me every day and every day I would shake my head with a small smile and a definite hand gesture and say, "No thank you." This daily ritual has been enough to win me over as his friend. Now, he knows me in a pleasant way that no one else in this big city has yet to rival. He sees me and grins but doesn't hand me a paper. I say "Good morning!" and he nods back with that smile on his face. The limp ends of his mustache sway a little at the unexpected smile.

Nothing happens on the train, as usual. I've heard and read so much that the train is a great place to meet people because you're stuck with roughly the same commuters five days a week on the platform and then in a tiny subway car. But the only people I ever recognize are this strangely heterosexual-looking gay couple whose only sign of their own gayness is a pair of matching, glittering rhinestone charm bracelets that they wear like wedding bands. They commute together every day down to Union Square. They get off there, like me, but I have no idea where they go. That’s kind of the thing about New York. You see people every day but don’t learn anything new. I like to think they walk each other to work, kiss circumspectly and then meet up for the commute home before ordering various kinds of exotic take-out every night because they both hate to cook.

As I trudge to and from work every day., there are these two utterly unclean old men who hang out on the stoop of a brownstone across from Webster Hall. I have no idea if they live there or are homeless, but they hang out there and sometimes one of them sings. As I was walking to work one day, I made eye contact with the African-American one and smiled (something no one in New York does, by the way). He eagerly leaned forward and grinned, "Hello!" he chirped. "Good morning," I replied civilly and continued on. These are the kind of people I meet on this street. Not international superstars. Not even people my own age. Just dirty old men.

This snapshot seems to be making an argument opposite to my usual point about New York City, that the people here are unfriendly and don't care if you live or die as long as you get out of their way. But the people in this little piece are the exception. I've been shoved by some overzealous, hurried city-person more times than I can count and the few times I've attempted to form a human bond with another pedestrian by making eye contact and saying "Hello," I've been ignored. I didn't even get past the eye contact. The people here are like this dog my high school French teacher used to impersonate: their eyes are anywhere but locked with yours. They'd rather look at a pile of garbage ("Oh how interesting!" you can almost hear them forcing themselves to say in their heads) than make eye contact let alone say "Hello." It can wear you down and I think remembering the few times someone did bother to greet you or shared a smile with you can help with the otherwise self-absorbed culture of this place.

Job Title: Gramma?

2008-10-16T10:38:00.005-04:00

Well, I didn't really think being a mother could be this official and I must say that I find it quite amusing that it can. Here's to moms who are not just mothers, but are officially deemed so by the phone book!

The Debate between the Idiot and the Articulate Person...Sound Familiar?

2008-10-07T22:23:00.004-04:00

There is a fine line between elitist and superior. Some would say that neither are good traits, especially shown off during a town hall debate, but I would say that only the latter is truly fatal. John McCain has shown a remarkably smug superiority throughout this debate which I find utterly unappealing and even off-putting. From the very second question (when he rather patronizingly commented to a young black man that "I betcha never even heard of Freddie and Fannie before"), I have never felt more spoken down to. Yes I want an intelligent leader, but I don't want one who thinks he is so godlike that he assumes all us commoners can't possibly know everything that he does.

McCain had a number of unbelievably patronizing moments in this debate, but I think it is really his policy and issue broad strokes and attempts at a folksy Sarah Palin rhetoric that will really do him in. He over-generalized complex issues to the point that he did not seem to have a firm grasp of them. It just ended up making him seem like some potty old man who can't understand complex issues let alone explain them in answer to a question. Obviously, I'm no expert, but I do have half a brain (which allows me to have heard of Frannie and Freddie and, yes, even the internet itself which Mr. McCain openly disavows) and I think this debate did John McCain absolutely no good. Once again, the republican didn't implode, but he (in this case) certainly didn't gain any ground either.

Meanwhile, I think Obama successfully sounded calm and informed rather than superior. He may have laid McCain's faults on a little bit thick and played a little fast and loose with his condemnations of his opponent's record, especially towards the end of the debate, but on the whole he was persuasive and intelligent.

A Stolen Font and a Stolen Voice

2008-10-07T18:17:00.002-04:00

A small and large frustration occurred today in my co-worker's calm usurpation of my font. This sounds rather petty, but I don't suppose one can truly appreciate the individuality or prettiness of a font well-chosen until one has taken a printing class, as I had the joy of doing. The class promised to make us view the world in a different way and, unlike so many college classes who say they'll change who you are, this class truly delivered. I do see things differently. It's like an initiation into this special group of people who notice serifs and the differences between the slant of an "e." Anyway, I now take fonts extremely seriously and thought very carefully before choosing one for my work e-mail. I chose Georgia, a relatively new typeface designed for clarity on the computer screen while maintaining the lovely look of something from an earlier age. I really love Georgia and, to my delight, received a few compliments on my font choice from recipients of my work e-mails. There were others in the little font society and I got to communicate with them! They recognized the importance of the font and the choice. "It's like a different voice," one commented. Exactly as I felt.

One of the people to compliment my font choice was my co-worker, E. She is a genuinely nice person who notices the little things and never seems to have a negative or frazzled outlook (unless anyone brings up Sarah Palin, of course, but that sort of thing can be excused). Whereas S manages to up the stress level with her involvement in anything, E brings it all down a notch to calmness and is generally a pleasant person. Thus, I was quite pleased when she complimented the font. She rose in my estimation by showing off, most basically, her ability to notice the tiny details of a font and, more importantly, her similar taste to mine in terms of a nice font. "It's so pretty I kind of want to use it as my own!" she joked and we all laughed.

Fast forward a week to today when I received a short, ordinary e-mail from her. It was just asking me to enter some information in the database in the most friendly, polite terms as she always did. But it was all in Georgia. It was jarring. I was momentarily confused. It was like hearing your own voice on a recording somewhere unexpected or suddenly coming around a corner to face a mirror, and yourself. It took me a moment to realize what had happened: font theft! E-mail identity theft! Theft of voice! I was, needless to say, peeved.

But how to explain this to someone who is genuinely and simply practicing the oldest form of flattery in the book: imitation? She really did just think it was very nice and wanted something equally nice. How can one argue against that? The answer is that you can't and I just have to let it go, but it still rankles a little.

A Citizen's Call for Substance

2008-09-26T12:45:00.002-04:00

A coworker brought up Sarah Palin’s interview on Katie Couric today at work, asking us if we saw it or what we thought. I asked when it was on, she guessed last night since the Times covered it this morning. I nodded and thought to myself, oh I’ll just read that then. No need to watch the interview because, and here’s the kicker, I realized that we have reached that point in American politics where it honestly doesn’t matter what actually happened. It only matters how it is viewed the next day. It really does matter more what the Times said about the interview than what actually was said in it. Perception has so thoroughly replaced truth that I, your average citizen, no longer even feel compelled to watch something—an interview, a debate, a breaking news story, whatever—since I know it truly will matter more in the long run of the campaign what the Times or the Post says about it. Any given candidate could be incredibly articulate, intelligent and generally erudite one day but if some blogger in Podunk, USA thinks the candidate was being—heaven’s forbid!—elitist, that’s the story. Apparently, we don’t want intelligence in our presidential race and we are apparently showing it by upholding that blogger as the voice of the American people and holding his words as more important than those of our ostensibly intelligent, committed leaders.

So here I am, throwing my hat in with my blogger comrade in Podunk. But rather than complaining about words I can’t understand in a campaign I increasingly just plain old can’t stand, I am calling out for a higher level of responsibility and intelligence in our political machine. I want it to matter what actually happened. I want it to be more important what was actually said than what was inferred. I want a system where a candidate can say something on Wednesday and then Thursday just skips the round-table debate over what the candidate ‘really’ meant. Call me idealist, elitist, wishful or a Frank Capra left-over, but I am an American voter and I am calling for a higher standard than we are currently holding ourselves to by allowing perception to triumph over substance.

2007-01-11T13:14:00.000-05:00

Corey sat in the library, the sunlight creeping towards her across the table, completely stumped. Vaguely irritated, she looked out the huge windows before her and surveyed the light layer of snow over the still green grass. She saw evergreens, dead-looking shrubs and a highway. There was an ugly office building across the highway and a traffic light blowing in the wind. A few of the leaves left of the shrubs rustled in the wind she couldn’t hear or feel and cars motored past on the highway she could only observe.

She paused to blow her nose and immediately felt unfortunately conspicuous. The Asian girl at the next table over sat in her zipped-up jacket with her backpack on, pouring over three small books she had appeared with about half an hour previously. Corey wondered what they were. A white-haired, balding man paced by, perusing the tax information provided by the library as the sun started to inch up Corey’s arms. This bothered her almost more than her inability to complete an essay. She was very sensitive to temperature and had been perfectly comfortable before the sun started to heat her up. She had already moved once and figured this was her comeuppance for sitting by the huge windows.

Somewhere behind her, a tutorial was going on. It had been since she arrived and she couldn’t figure out for the life of her what it was for. Physics, maybe. Or some standardized test involving physics. They were wrapping it up now, exchanging schedules and promising to call each other. A white minivan drove by.

Corey had come to the library to avoid her dog. This sounded rather infantile but the dog was having one of those days where she was all over the place and unhappy in all of them. This was particularly grating to someone attempting to write an essay that would hopefully secure her a place at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York City for ten weeks in the upcoming summer. But apparently it wasn’t the dog. After some serious ponderance, Corey had come to the conclusion that it was not the dog, it was not her but it was, in fact, the question. This question that she had answered a hundred times over in applying to various things. “Describe your career goals and specific areas of interest.” Tell us your story, the essay question asked politely with a fake smile and a quirk of its head intended to show interest. Corey didn’t believe any of it and labored over making the essay interesting. She doubted that she would ever been happy with whatever she wrote and longed for mediocrity so she could just have it done and perhaps fine-tune it later.

The sunlight had now almost reached her neck. It reminded her of drowning. As the sunlight went up her body, she thought that her deadline would be when it went over her head. She liked setting these random deadlines for herself. It made her complete things. Yet still she sat, ineffectually writing something that wasn’t her essay. Enlightenment did not come to her and she had no idea what to actually write. Of course she had career goals and specific interests and of course she could tell the people at the Cooper-Hewitt all about them, but now her brain seemed intent upon making the essay interesting and different. She wanted to write it like a work of fiction, like a story. History is a story, she thought to herself, hoping she had finally stumbled onto the cohesive theme for her essay. History is a story and here is mine.

That’s where she choked. History is a story and here is mine inevitably led to her story. The story she had told a million times and was sick of so doing. She was sorely tempted to just recycle one of the other essays but this didn’t appeal to her sense of improvement over the years. She sincerely hoped that her writing has somehow improved over the past years and that using an essay from a year ago would show less-than-stellar writing. Not that her current writing was stellar. She didn’t flatter herself with that. She only hoped to consider it “better.”

Looking over one of the old essays, she didn’t think she would write it much differently now. It was written in basically the same style she always wrote in. She could just use it. Edit the last two paragraphs where she mentioned “Oxford” and make them read something equally inspirational about the Cooper-Hewitt. She could.

The sun was starting to reach her eyes now. This had to stop. She couldn’t work with sun in her eyes. That was intolerable. She sighed and looked out the window again. There were no cars on the highway and the light was green. The wind seemed to have picked up but she couldn’t really tell. She longed to just write the damn essay but it would not come for all her free-writes and thinking. She imagined the shrubs making a rustling noise as they silently swayed beyond the window. She felt sorry for the fichus plant near her table. It probably wanted to be outside with the other plants but remained perpetually indoors. Thoughts like that sort of annoyed her. She shouldn’t be thinking about fichus plants, she should be thinking about her career goals and specific interests!

She had to baby-sit in about an hour and a half. She was vaguely hungry. She wanted desperately to write this essay. But she couldn’t.

Travels to Erie (and back again)

2007-01-04T15:23:00.000-05:00

After giving up on the M*A*S*H retrospective a little before eleven, both Dad and I went to bed. I slept on a couch that used to live in prominence at our house in Williamsville but has now been relegated to a mere half-life in Dad's Erie apartment. We joke about the apartment, that it is where our random things go to die. Erie is just a step above the trash heap. Things will be saved for my future, hypothetical apartment before they will be sent to Erie. I slept on one of these such relics that has gone into retirement in Erie. Dad slept in his comfy bed up the iron spiral staircase in the loft.

I awoke in the morning remarkably well rested but, strangely, itchier than I had been before reposing on the couch. Come to discover that the couch - like Posie and like the Swamp on M*A*S*H - was flea infested and that the fleas had happily gobbled on my delicious skin throughout the night! This comes after battling fleas on Posie for most of the break. Apparently, she has infested Dad's apartment, now even more pathetic because of the bug content. In any event, I am now flea-bitten in numerous spots on my legs and have dumped everything and anything that went to Erie in the washing machine. My first first of 2007: being flea-bitten. You can imagine my glee.

After this discovery, Dad decided he will set off (another) flea-bomb (yes, such things exist) in his apartment and we set off for the vet's office. Posie's flea collar was obviously not working properly. So I finally got to meet the famous "Dr. Dan," Posie's vet. He is young, as Dad said, and worked very well with Posie. I think she's just mellowing in old age, but she's less exciteable and skittish than she used to be. This does make her a fantastic driving companion, though, since she simply snoozes away in the backseat with a bark or a whine for the entire trip. What more could you ask for from a dog?

Anyway, post-vet, I returned to the apartment with Posie and Dad went to work. Dad's apartment, as I've said, is a rather pathetic dumping ground. The bookshelves from my bedroom in L.A. somehow migrated to Erie and became filled with various gifts I've bestowed upon my father over the years in hopes of bringing a little life to the apartment. Miniature maple syrup jars rest inside a disk made from an old vinyl LP. A home-made chess set - complete with pieces made out of rocks from our backyard in Williamsville - sits on a shelf unused with an old picture of the three of us from Christmas resting above it, frameless. Some pictures and comics I drew for his walls are nestled in the shelving unit and the walls remain bare. A gigantic, rock globe - a gift from Australia from Bubbie and Grandpa - also somehow went to Erie and now also lives on the shelf. An ancient television set occupies the main space of the lowest shelf, surrounded by home improvement magazines and five books. The television itself is not by any means in its prime and, if a viewer should care to flip around, he or she may only flip down in the channel numbers, never up again.

An unused treadmill and an equally abandoned miniature recording studio live in the opposite corner of the apartment. Dad's keyboard was loaned to the Erie Philharmonic and, as he sheepishly admits, he's never bothered to get it back. Two guitars are stacked in front of a mirror beside the bookshelf and our dining room table from L.A. lives almost under the iron stairs. For the longest time, Dad only had one chair since he was the only one who ever ate at the apartment. Finally, Mom and I came to visit and he had to buy two more. One as since disappeared so the table remains set for two. One chair is open for occupation and the other with a bag full of dog kibble the size of a small person living on it.

The kitchen is small but completely outfitted with appliances from the mid-1990s if not before. Commonly, the fridge houses an onion, a Brita water filter, some ketchup and whatever pasta sauce Mom made over the weekend and sent off to Erie for Dad to live off of for a week. I can only assume Dad doesn't eat at the apartment very often or that he gets take-out. Posie's dish - went she is in residence - just sits in the middle of the kitchen floor since the space is occupied so infrequently and it is in such close proximity to the enormous bag of kibble that will take her "twelve more years to get through," according to my father. But it was cheap so it came home.

The rest of the apartment consits of the loft upstairs which houses my dad's bed, closet and the only bathroom. The lighting throughout the apartment is shotty, with about two lamps and three lights. It very much suggests the life of someone who just goes to sleep when it gets dark rather than trying to artifically prolong the daylight hours. I know for a fact Dad doesn't do this (except maybe in summer when it's light until ten or later). Presumably he watches television until bed.

I don't know what inspired me to describe the place, I just felt like it. Hopefully you aren't too bored with such a description. Dad's apartment is truly something unto itself. I don't remember where I left off in the narrative but, suffice to say, on the drive home I mistakenly headed for Buffalo went I should have headed for Albany, drove around in Cheektowaga for a while and then finally rejoining the highway through a turn of luck. This eventually deposited me safely home at ten after three. All I want to do is sleep!

Auld Lang Syne

2006-12-31T12:56:00.001-05:00

It's the end of the year when people start thinking about what to do in the next one and try not to think about all they didn't do in the past one. For possibly the first time in my life, I'm not irritated by the past year or remotely exhasperated with all that I did not accomplish. This past year was also the first time I had moments where I wasn't looking to the future and thinking about how great my life is going to be. Rather, these were moments of joy with the present. For the first time in my life, I was happy with my life at the exact moment I was living it. Not in retrospect, not in some abstract future, but in the wonderful present.

2006 was the first year I can look back on without regret or unhappiness over some unfulfilled resolution. Since I haven't made any formal resolutions since possibly middle school, the year becomes less about attaining some set goal than about simply taking what comes my way and living as happily and as fully as I can. This year I feel I did. There were so many things I did this year that, if you had told me I would be doing them in, say, January, I never would have believed it. I would have thought it would be nice if that were my life, but unlikely that it would ever occur. But now I've made it my life. The misty ideal in my head has become reality more than ever before and I'm able to both enjoy my present life and still plan ahead for all the amazing things of my future.

Before this year, I was always looking forward and not stopping to take stock of the moment I was living in. College, according to practically any adult you ask, is the best four years of your life. Up until Junior year, I was dimly aware of this and perfectly content to be at college. I loved Smith, I was happy with my classes and my friends didn't trouble me overmuch. But this past semester, I really do think this is the time. This is it. This is quite possibly as good as it gets. Which isn't as depressing as it sounds. I'm not despairing of the future when all will be dull and taxes. It can be great, too. But right now is the time I'm really savouring. Right now I'm living my life and, for the first time, in 2006, I'm completely, divinely and giddily in love with it. I love my life! If I got nothing else out of 2006, that effervescent joy would be enough. But, of course, I got other, equally wonderful things out of the past year and that just adds another layer.

On home for the holidays

2006-12-25T09:02:00.000-05:00

Driving home Friday was a little difficult since it rained the entire state of New York and that particular state's size is nothing to sneeze at. It was a complete downpour the whole ride and only let up a little bit as we neared Williamsville. Even then there were semis to contend with and the spray from their wheels was even worse than the actual rain. But made it we did and in time for Friday night pizza with Dad, too! We capped off the evening with our annual watching of "White Christmas," me mocking the widescreen VHS the whole way in my efforts to attain the new, shiny DVD. (Mission accomplished, by the by.)

Saturday was superlative. I spent the morning alone at home taking care of some little, pleasant chores. I put out our nutcracker collection on the shelf by the stairs and then attempted to give Posie a bath. She was very adverse to this idea but I managed to shampoo her back before giving up entirely and letting her run around to dry off. After this, I settled down to read "King Solomon's Mines," since it is my J-term book goal. Possibly others, but mainly "Solomon." After reading for a little bit, Emily finally called me back. Earlier in the morning, I had rung up both Emily and Katie only to be put off by both (the former being in Kenmore and the latter being simply too busy). Thus, it was quite nice to hear back from Emily and we immediately decided upon taking my dad's new Prius out for a spin to Barnes and Noble (!) and the village.

So I spent most of my day inside of Barnes and Noble with Emily which, in my opinion, is one of the absolute best ways to spend a day. Emily is my best for-all-our-lives friend and I don't get to see her a lot so this was really nice. Add Barnes and Noble to the mix and I was a happy camper. After BN, we headed up to the village to hit Starbucks (to buy the aforementioned "White Christmas" DVD) and the little antique shop nearby. The shop is tiny, like I kept hitting my purse on wreaths tiny, but it was chock-a-block full of great old stuff. I ended up getting a spoon and some little ceramic dishes for my mother.

And now I would just like to take a moment to mention how completely rockin' the Prius is. It's like driving a spaceship. It's just so space-y and futuristic; I love it! Also, unlike my car, the gears switch without complaint and you don't have to be careful while you're speeding up after turning and such. It's incredible. You don't need a key! You just have this little stick and you approach the car, it unlocks and then you just press the "Power" button and off you go! Emily and I were in awe basically the entire afternoon.

We got back to my house and, happily, it was the last night of Hannukah. This, of course, means latkes! My mom's latkes are so good, Bubbie actually asked for the recipe. That blows my mind a little bit but, suffice to say, I was quite excited about the prospect of them when we got back. So, despite our lack of Hannukah candles, we all (Mom, Dad, Emily and I) exchanged gifts and had our festive Hannukah meal of brisket, latkes and apple sauce. After dinner, Emily and I did the lights on the Christmas tree and, once that was done, Mom joined in to put the ornaments up. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but Mom is very specific about the tree and what goes on and where it goes. Thus, both Dad and I have stepped off from actually putting ornaments on the tree and have been relegated to simply handing them to Mom. It was okay, excepting the excile of all my ornaments to a shoebox, but the tree looks gorgeous (of course).

Emily hung out for a little bit more and then I drove her home. Christmas Eve was less exciting but there was lots of present-wrapping and Katie found time in her schedule to stop by. I get the distinct feeling she likes her "college" friends more much of the time. It could just be a mood, of course. In any event, it was good and mildly awkward to talk to her. I wanted to hear all about Ireland (since she is newly returned) but it's hard for anyone to just go when asked about "Ireland" so generally. So I got some stories and I caught her up on "Grey's Anatomy."

Christmas Eve evening we had our traditional dinner at Gramma's, roast beef for Dad, Mom and Gramma, ham for me. Then we headed over to my cousin Beth's house since she was having pre-Mass desserts and such. I never want to go to these things and I feel pretty ridiculous about it. I don't dread family get-togethers because there will be some painful drama or two family members hate each other or anything, I dislike them simply because they are so boring and awkward. I guess I'm just not as happy to see my extended family as I should be. I love seeing and catching up with my parents and my grandmother, but beyond that I'm afraid I'm just not that interested no matter how nice my other relations are. But we went and I had some conversation with a distracted Aunt Janet and Kate and some actual conversation about whether or not Google is evil with Uncle Jim. I watched snippets of "Snow White" with Callie et al and then we were all ushered out to Mass.

We got there a mere ten minutes early so there was no room. Tons of people always turn out for Christmas Eve Mass so Dad and I were stuck in a foyer, thoroughly bored and unable to see a thing. So that was a painful hour and a half. We drove Gramma home, came home, waited the few minutes until midnight, proclaimed it Christmas and went to bed. It was an excellent two days.

Since July 28th (really just July 28th itself)

2006-08-03T12:45:00.000-04:00

Note from Corey of August 2, 2007: I've left out two e-mails because...well, I can't come up with a reason. I just did. I guess I'm still nervous about them. One of them is the "Oh my god, Mom, Mike just kissed me!" e-mail. Maybe later.

I am so infuriated with myself for not e-mailing regularly. I'm angry since I now have no records of every little thing I've done, which I wanted to have and I'm angry since you actually thought I was sick because you hadn't heard from me in days. I don't know why I've stopped but I feel like I never have time. I need to make time. This is important.

So, in an effort to re-create the tradition, here, for your edification, is a narrative detailing in not as much detail as I would like what has happened since Friday, July 28th.

Friday was the seminar trip to Cambridge. Miraculously, Mike, Courtney, Yuan and myself all gained spots on the trip. The UMass Summer Seminar is one of the most disorganized programs in the history of study abroad programs and, as such, commonly only has about 15 seats available for group trips. So people e-mail like mad, hoping to get into the trips and, somehow, we made the cut. So we woke up early, actually went to breakfast, and all crowded onto this old bus. It was a public bus that was probably last renovated in the 1980s. The air-conditioning barely blew out coldish air and it was sweltering outside. I unfortunately chose the sunny side of the bus which just made it hotter as the windows did not open. What none of us knew was that the bus to Cambridge was a not a short hour-long affair. No, no. It takes upwards of three hours to get to Cambridge. Hell was about to ensue and none of us had a clue.

In recent weeks, whenever "the crew" (Yuan, Mike, Courtney and yours truly) watches movies at night, I somehow always end up in Mike's arms. There's been lots of cuddling (Mike is a truly excellent cuddler) but this bus ride was the first time we took our cuddling show on the road and out in public. There is not much to do on a four-hour bus ride (which is what it would eventually become) so I settled on sleeping. Mike had taken up the seat next to me (another new switch since Courtney is customarily my seat buddy) and about an hour in, I was leaning on him, his arm was around me and we were both dozing in the heat.

Over four hours after getting on the bus at the Oxford bus station, we all piled out into the comparatively cool air of Cambridge. Cambridge, sad to say, was not worth the four-plus-hour bus ride. It's a lot smaller than Oxford with the result that there are really only three things to do in Cambridge: 1. go punting; 2. see the colleges; 3. go to one of many pubs. My some strange twist of fate, our crew grew to include Lauren, Amy, Christina and Eugene. We were expecting the first two but the latter two were a surprise. Eight people doesn't sound like a lot to coordinate, but it really is. It's impossible for everyone to continue on in a sane manner with eight people to accommodate. Within minutes, Lauren was stressed out and manically eating while searching for a map, Yuan had wandered off, Eugene was making arbitrary decisions for the group and Mike was being slowly driven insane by the chaos. At first I was also on the verge of angry breakdown, but then it all just hit me and I started laughing. Everyone had such different personalities, it was too funny to watch. Everyone is such a character here. We had every possible comic stereotype in our group and, while it was infuriating to be in the middle of it, I just had to laugh.

The hilarity of the situation soon wore off and was replaced with simmering displeasure. I kept my happy face firmly in place but I was very unhappy on the inside. Eugene kept making decisions that I disagreed with but not enough to do anything. After a stand-off that pitted Mike, myself, Courtney, Lauren and Amy against Christina, Eugene and Yuan, each group split off to find their own punting. The former group wanted to hire a punter because it's hard to punt your own boat and we just wanted to be able to enjoy the pretty colleges around us without having to worry about hitting a duck, other punter or both simultaneously. The latter group wanted to hire their own. Eugene had some bizarre male desire to punt his own boat, thank you very much. So they went off to get their own boat and we all huddled into a hired boat with three other Americans from William and Mary.

The forty-five minutes on the boat were by far the nicest we spent in Cambridge. "The Backs," as the backs of all the colleges are called, are just as picturesque as every guidebook and person promised. Add to that a knowledgeable tour-guide who knew all kinds of random historical trivia and I was pleased as punch with the whole situation. I liked the company, it was cool on the water and there was architectural beauty all around. It was a good forty-five minutes. Sadly, it was also an extremely fast forty-five minutes. Soon we found ourselves deposited back on the shore and having to wait for the rest of our group to return from punting their own boat. So we wasted some time on the banks (Lauren hitching up her pants and climbing into the river itself) until Eugene, Christina and Yuan returned.

Almost immediately after the threesome returned, things turned sour once more. Eight is simply too many people. Six I could probably do, five is wonderful and four is ideal, but eight is too many. So the spirits of Lauren and myself dipped and we finally were able to commiserate while being ignored by the other six over dinner at a pub. Neither of us were hungry so we sat at the end of the table, wedged against a wall, not eating and talking to each other quietly. It was nice to be able to speak frankly about the situation with someone who was feeling basically the same way. So Lauren and I had more bonding time, which was nice. Eventually we got out of the pub and I finally asserted myself and informed everyone that were going somewhere where I could buy some food for the bus ride back. I'm fairly certain Eugene definitely and Christina possibly thought this was an imposition on their time, but by that point I was getting at least one thing that I wanted that day. We found a Marks and Spencer which was blissfully open and I happily paroozed the shelves for a good dinner. I found an interesting sandwich that was pork, stuffing and apple sauce all on a white roll. Sufficiently intrigued to purchase said sandwich, I grabbed some Belgian chocolate milk and green grapes and proceeded to the check out.

By this point we only had about forty-five minutes until we had to catch the same hellish bus back. The day had gone by incredibly quickly and we hadn't even seen any colleges. Mike, Courtney, Lauren and I finally broke from the group and hung out in one of many communal parks located in Cambridge while waiting for the bus. Lauren rattled on giving post-trip analysis even though it wasn't really over yet. We all basically agreed on her repetitive points but that didn't stop her from continuing on about what went wrong. It felt good to hear it coming from someone else, though, so the whole diatribe wasn't as depressing as it sounds.

We all piled back onto the bus. Happily, the sun was starting to set so it wasn't so hot anymore. Where there had been a rather pervasive silence between Mike and myself on the ride up, there was a constant flow of conversation this way. It was extremely pleasant since I'm normally so bad at striking up conversation. It just flowed without much effort on either of our parts so we talked for most of the trip. Lauren sat behind us chatting to some other girls about us (they all decided we were very cute) and then informed us of their decision. It wasn't awkward, surprisingly. Neither Mike nor I made eye contact with the other and I couldn't really look at him to gage his reaction, but it wasn't awkward. (I know it sounds like it was, but neither of us was weirded out.) So we dozed in and out, me leaning against the window with my legs stretched out across Mike's.

Another four hours later, we were finally back in Oxford. Somehow I was persuaded to go over to Courtney's to watch some episodes of The West Wing (I say "somehow" but you basically need only mention the title to me and I'm in). I ended up falling asleep during the second episode (with my head on a recumbent Mike) but when Courtney's roommate returned and all of us, save Yuan, were half-asleep anyway, Mike, Yuan and myself all left for our respective beds.

To be continued...

Tuesday and "Who's Zoomin' Who?"

2006-07-26T09:41:00.000-04:00

After deciding that today was a day absolutely prime for sleeping in, I almost did a back-flip out of bed this morning when a loud siren noise exploded all around me. It took me a minute after sitting bolt upright and tossing Tramp across the room in fright that it was, in fact, the fire alarm. This was only slightly less alarming than unidentifiable, loud noise but I managed to stumble out of my room and into the common room. Lauren looked equally confused, staring at her alarm clock. "Perhaps we should go outside?" I pondered. "Yeah..." she muttered. "I thought it was just in my room..." (Lauren always speaks in ellipses.) So we went outside.

Had I been more awake, I would have realized at lot sooner than I wasn't wearing my glasses, that I was wearing my retainer and that I had forgotten to put on my sleeping bra the night before. Perhaps it was for the best that I wasn't more cognizant because, if I had been, I also would have realized this was one of those top ten embarrassing moments in life. Everyone else had not recently been jostled from sleep (it was 9:20am) which made me look additionally foolish. I rubbed my eyes and crossed my arms rather grumpily. Mike claimed to have just woken up as well but was miraculously fully clothed. I wished I had had such forethought.

After such a morning, I went back into my room and did not leave. I spent the day singing and reading about the legality of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. I was surprised how little I knew about it to begin with. I knew the vague basics but, for living through the period, I really wasn't very well-informed. This shouldn't have surprised me since my news-gathering skills aren't very good, but I was still a little annoyed with myself. Not that this deterred my singing! Oh, no, it was a singing kind of day and sang I did.

Law class was excellent and I was the most prepared/least confused person there short of Jillaine herself. Christina's freaking out again (unnecessarily in my opinion) and everyone seemed really confused about the whole assignment. It seemed quite straight-forward to me. I'm writing about the legality/illegality of the US-led collation invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. It's weird because I really thought I knew what was going on there (hey, I lived through the period) but I'm really poorly informed. So I'm learning a lot more about the background/history of it all, which is a plus. Other people chose the NATO invasion in Kosovo because they didn't know anything about it, but Afghanistan is equally good since I've now realized how little I know. Also, it's nice in that the US gave a statement to the Security Council outlining their exact reasons for going in so there's no speculation there. (Of course, their reasons are hogwash, but that's another issue.)

This week's lecture was Samuel Beckett. I had no idea who the heck he was prior to the lecture but now I can say that I know and I do not like his "art." I dislike performance art so much! There was this one that was just a mouth talking incessantly and incomprehensibly. It gave me a headache; I almost couldn't watch. The lectures are getting worse and worse. The first one (on Thomas Hardy as a poet rather than as a novelist) was quite good, even if you didn't like Hardy or didn't know much about him. Mary Woolstonecraft was an interesting topic delivered by a rather dull lecturerer and Samuel Beckett was just completely uninteresting and delivered poorly. And it was hot. It's always hot here. I'm just perpetually dehydrated. I am so glad I disregarded Jim Leheny's clothing advice and brought my summer attire. It rained overnight, though, so now it will be presumably cooler.

One of the defining characteristics of the participants in this program is a love of gossip. Any information is happily swapped and one of the sure-fire ways to gain entrance (however brief) to another clique is by having information to share. People bargain for information saying things like, "You tell me what you've heard about me and then I'll tell you what I've heard about you." It's absurd. Like either party is going to tell the truth. Anyway, I have, for the first time in my life, people wondering about me behind my back. I guess this is a plus since people know who I am (probably also a bit of a first) but it's also a little strange. Both Lauren and Courtney have let it slip that people asked them about what's going on between me and Mike. This makes sense since the number one favorite type of gossip is regarding who is hooking up and who might hook up and what happened last night. I find the whole titillating and I'm definitely glad that gossip never goes right to the source and asks there. I would have to come up with some kind of diplomatic, didn't-really-answer-your-question answer and I don't have that kind of instant wit. Besides the fact that I myself have no idea what's going on between me and Mike so that would cut down on my ability to answer the question even if I was inclined to do so.

Last night (Tuesday night) half the program camped out in Mike's room waiting for his roommate, Sam, to come back from escorting his very young, very pretty tutor home. Basically, the guys who were waiting wanted to beat him up because, apparently, this young tutor was quite the attractive piece of woman and the girls waiting for him wanted all the juicy details. I suppose I should give them kudos for actually wanting to ask Sam about it, rather than circle the wagons in an attempt to draw out information in some sneaky, I'll-ask-your-friends way. The whole thing makes you very careful what you say and to whom. I accidentally started a rumor about Emad yesterday when I was simply griping about Bill Speck's class to Marissa/Melissa and Christina. It was repeated back to me, word for word last night. It was weird. I guess I have to be even more guarded, which doesn't leave me with much to say.

I must go now, someone might be listening! The walls have ears!

Love,

Daughter

(note catchy code-name so no one will know who said all this)

PS - Padre, sorry I missed your call! If you want to call sometime in between one and 3:30, I'll most likely be in my room. :)

Beginning a new thing

2006-07-25T05:44:00.000-04:00

Good morning, cyberspace. Since I've been inspired both by my cousin Pedro and the fact that actual things are happening to me, I thought I'd start up this blog. The posts will be quite long since I just naturally write in long sentences/paragraphs so there's a warning for you. I'll be working on getting all my previous letters home up here. That's what this will be, these are my letters home from a summer spent abroad. I'll post pictures and video when appropriate but mainly it'll just be me.

So there's your introduction, enjoy paroozing the back-dated entries!

All the days in between (Thursday-Sunday morning)

2006-07-23T12:08:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was a wonderful mix of sociability, lack of productivity and marathon work sessions. Thursday I don't have classes so I sat myself down and made a list of all the things I needed to do. This, while helpful, wasn't really as productive as one would think. I ended up spending the day uploading pictures, wasting time and, eventually, talking to Courtney. We had yet another one of our extended, soul-bearing conversations. We talked about all kinds of things, our own back-stories and humorous anecdotes. I know I've said it a million times, but I love learning people so purposefully this way. I know I found Courtney unbelievably annoying back at Smith but that was only because I didn't take the time to know here and "get" her. Now I get her and she's great. She's just as socially awkward as I am and funny and a great listener. She's going to be a psychologist and she'll be great at it. She's excellent at listening, processing and coming back with a story that'll make you feel better about whatever you said.

Mike went into London to visit his godparents on Thursday evening which left Courtney and I to our own devices (Yuan having mysteriously disappeared as per his usual). We did a little shopping at the official Oxford store and wandered across the Bollywood film that's being shot here. People in the program have been running into them sporadically throughout our stay but this was our first encounter with them. Of course, the leads were just stunningly beautiful people. Sadly, they didn't film a musical number while we were hanging around. I would have loved that.

So Courtney and I paled around for the rest of the evening, getting very little done. As it got later, I started to get a tad worried about Mike coming back from London but he finally showed up just as we had hunkered down to do work. (Figures.) So the three of us hung out until the wee small hours again and then Mike and I trudged back to Stairwell 12. As I had foreseen, our relationship was completely unchanged by the sleeping together thing. I didn't know if this was weird or fortuitous. At lunch, Mike had made an awkward little overture while fiddling with his sandwich saying, "So, uh, thank you for letting me sleep in your bed." This made me snigger a little to myself, just the pure awkwardness of his body language amusing me. There was one other moment while hanging out with Courtney and she suggested we have a sleep-over. Mike sort of muttered to himself, "Already did that..." then sort of realized what he said and cut off, eyes widening. Courtney was too busy being post-1am ditzy and didn't hear. So things were materially the same except for that thing we don't talk about.

Friday was field-trip day here at the UMass Summer Seminar. As usual, the field trip could only accommodate a ridiculously small number of people (in this case, 15) so, while Yuan had made the cut, Courtney, Mike and I were left at Trinity. I woke up late on Friday (you can't keep me up until three every morning and not expect me to sleep in) and sat myself down to write my paper. I wasn't feeling very productive when Mike turned up to ask me to lunch. We went, came back and then Mike said he was going to the library and asked if I wanted to come. Saying "yes" was the best decision I think I've made in weeks. I was so productive at the library! I did loads of research, wrote more than half of my paper and taught Mike the word "schvitz." (To which he replied, "Wow, you really are Jewish, aren't you?" Hey! Yiddish does not necessarily equate Jewish-ness! It's just a fantastically descriptive language!) It was sweltering and uncomfortable in the library, but really productive. It was an afternoon well-spent.

Friday night we found Yuan (he lives!) and all four of us went out to finally see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which was quite a pleasant surprise. The rest of the program went to see it the weekend it came out and have since been telling us what a disappointment it was. I was not at all disappointed, I loved it and would happily go to see it again if it didn't cost me over five pounds to sit in a non-air-conditioned theatre for two and a half hours. I'll have to go again in America.

After Les Pirates, we went out for dinner at a restaurant cleverly named Old Orleans (har har) which had an alligator hanging from the ceiling and American cuisine. It amuses me that they have American cuisine here. Sainsbury's (local super market) has a sandwich series that is "internationally inspired." You would expect some Thai-flavored chicken sandwiches and perhaps something with Brie to denote France but, while I'm sure they have these things, they also have an American-inspired chicken Caesar salad wrap. I think we're well-represented even if they haven't quite mastered the chicken Caesar salad wrap. (I'm quite convinced that they just use mayonnaise for everything.) It's nice to be able to go into a restaurant sometimes and have a little taste of America.

So we all got hamburgers of some sort (Mike and Courtney bravely tried the bison burgers) and fries and had a grand old time. After dinner we turned back to Trinity to have some very appropriate rum, which Yuan had purchased on the ferry to Calais. I was hell-bent on drinking it post-Pirates and managed to convince everyone else that my idea was simply brilliant. So we set up camp on the lawn (it was still unbearably hot inside) and passed the bottle around since we all wanted to try it straight-up, Jack Sparrow-style first before mixing it was coke.

We had brought Mike's laptop out with the intention of watching a movie off of it while we were outside on the lawn, but that just never happened. We just hung out and Marissa/Melissa showed up and hung out with us...[I just took out some randomness about people not being themselves and Courtney having the unique ability to help people act naturally. - Corey of July 25, 2007]

It started to get cold as Marissa/Melissa spoke on about Blackadder, Monty Python and the children's fantasy book she's in the process of creating. I was lying on the grass, next to Mike, listening to Marissa/Melissa and watching the stars and clouds float by. I think I saw a shooting star. I know I saw a kangaroo-shaped cloud and another cloud that looked like a dragon. As it got cooler, I started shivering a little since I was ill-attired in one of my nicer sleeveless shirts that dipped low both in front and in back. "I'm cold," I muttered rather piteously. Mike grinned and jokingly asked if I wanted to be held. "Yes," I replied immediately and decisively and rolled into his arms. He seemed a little surprised that I had agreed but held me anyway.

So we spent quite some time, hours, wrapped up in each other on the lawn while Courtney and Marissa/Melissa talked. Occasionally one of us would contribute but we also talked to each other in quiet undertones. It was still cold, but at least my upper body was slightly warmer. It was a strange feeling of extreme comfort and awkwardness. The awkwardness came all from me since I'm just not normally a very touchy-feel-y person so I was at a bit of a loss as to what I was supposed to do with my hands. Short of that, it was wonderful.

As usual, time flew by and before I knew anything, it was 2:30am. I never mean to stay up so late but then I always do. It's a new running joke among us that Courtney and Mike are a bad influence on me. One of them will inevitably turn to me at any point after 1am and say, "Geez, I'm such a bad influence on you!" Which is, quite honestly, true but there really isn't anywhere else I'd rather be than hanging out with them. That's my problem really: I get completely zonked but I just love hanging out with them so much I don't want to leave or miss anything.

Marissa/Melissa was still waxing poetic about her upcoming novel which was in all honestly pretty brilliant but it was also late. So she "quickly" wrapped it up (this was after a good hour of telling us that it was almost the end) and we all headed off to our respective stairwells. Mike and I had a little moment before I returned to futzing with my keys and he, after one last look at me, fled up the stairs to his room. I honestly don't know what to think.

We all decided that Saturday was the day to go to Christ's Church. Mike had been for his architecture class and said it was well worth whatever they charged to see it. Of course, as with most of our plans (e.g. punting on Friday), this didn't happen. Rather, Courtney and I set out to shop in town, got caught in a torrential rainstorm, missed Mike and Yuan altogether and ended up dancing in the rain instead. It had been unbearably hot in Oxford for weeks and it was finally raining. The streets immediately became deserted and it was just me standing there as it rained harder and harder. It was magical, the way the streets emptied and it was raining so hard so fast. We skipped and danced and twirled and jumped in puddles and kicked up water as we walked since we were so wet it didn't matter anyway. I've never been so gloriously wet in all my life. We ran up and down the huge lawn next to the Garden Quad and twirled about in the air as we jumped up with joy and lied in the grass since it didn't matter anymore. We weren't hot anymore and we relished the cold feeling seeping under our skin.

I returned to my room as the rain let up a little, thoroughly drenched and wonderfully sated. Lauren, who had also out in the rain with us, and I ditched our wet clothing in the shower and then just hung out wearing towels for a while yet. We huddled by our open window as the rain started up again, torrentially pounding into the cobblestone outside our window. Thunder would rumble every so often but we never saw any lightening. Reports of flooded streets, fire alarms going off with no provocation and power going out in stairwell 15 circulated quickly despite the fact that no one was going outside. It was a great moment of community and wetness.

Mike turned up, thoroughly drenched, about two hours later and refused to come in because he would have inevitably dripped on everything. As it was, he only had to fling a hand in my direction to splatter me with water. So he went up to his room to dry off and shower and I tried to hunker down and do work. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get much done but I read a little bit for law and decided I would go to library that night to get more done. Courtney pulled out all the stops at dinner to try and convince me not to do work on a Saturday night (she brought in watching The American President and everything!) but I was fairly adamant. Mike eventually came up with the compromise that we would do work for two hours and then reconvene at 10:30 to watch a movie of Courtney and Yuan's choosing. (Yuan, meanwhile, had nearly died a death by Corey's death stare since he professed that he really disliked The American President and wasn't really nuts about The West Wing either. Die Yuan! Somehow he made it alive through dinner, we'll never know how.)

So we watched Batman Begins on Mike's laptop up in Mike's room. Something with Mike and me changed at some point and now we're a lot more cuddly. Previously, we would just kind of sit really close but now he's okay with putting his arm around me which is extremely comfortable from my perspective. Since I was basically falling asleep as we watched the movie, it was nice to have someone to lean on. It's much more comfortable than just letting my head fall back onto the couch's back. That strains my neck. Unfortunately, Batman Begins is quite an engrossing movie so, despite my sleepiness, I stayed awake for the whole thing. I "rested my eyes" (Grandpa style!) a few times, but I was awake throughout.

For once, I was in bed before 2am which was quite pleasant. I'm in the middle of being annoyed with Lauren and also asserting myself to her which I could probably write another page about but this is probably long enough. Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the e-mailing, I'll try to do better in this coming week so you don't get these epic e-mails. I haven't heard anything from guys, either, so I hope all is well and Mum got back to Williamsville all right. I love you both so much!

Hearts,

Corey

Paris: Part Six, the final chapter!

2006-07-20T19:39:00.000-04:00

I love you both, my loyal readers! I'll give you the last paragraph of Part Five so you get have a "when last we left our heroes"-type experience...

Lunch [at the Louvre] was quite good. We all had chicken salad sandwiches on baguettes and I got to order for everyone. Throughout ordering and conversing with the waiter in French, Mike was looking at me a little strangely, sort of bemusedly. When the waiter finally left, he grinned and said, "It's really very cute when you do that, when you speak in French. You have a cute accent." I nearly swooned on the spot but managed to just thank him and turn a little red. I internally vowed to speak more French when at all possible.

Part Six

After lunch, we all trooped off to the "Objets d'art" section of the Louvre. Mike had said that morning after inquiring what kind of things I liked to see that he didn't "want to spend all day staring a someone's silverware." Funnily enough, we soon found ourselves in front of a large glass case containing-you guessed it-someone's collection of butter knifes. I was particularly tickled by this but we moved on anyway. We saw the sculpture gardens and wandered through Babylon to get back to the pyramid and the gift shop. We were basically all Louvre-d out at this point and we were ready to spend big bucks in the gift shop.

About half an hour later we emerged from the Louvre with very little to show from our visit short of our maps and tickets. I had purchased a few postcards, the best and cheapest souvenir, and Yuan had bought a Louvre guidebook in French (to practice, he said) but other than that, the gift shops proved a disappointment. No matter, we decided, since we were on our way through the Tuileries to yet another street carnival. This one was much larger than the one Mike and I had encountered the night before. It stretched down the entire length of the Tuileries and had all kinds of varied amusements. After spotting an impressively large Ferris wheel that morning while we waited to enter the Louvre, we had all immediately decided we had to go. So it was about ten minutes later that we found ourselves all crammed into one small, round car and heading upwards.

The view from the Ferris wheel couldn't help but be spectacular. It was located basically in the direct center of Paris and you could see everything from the top. Courtney, petrified of heights and with a severe case of motion sickness, squealed and laughed nervously as we went up and around and were swayed by the light breeze. Mike, our resident photographer, filmed the entire thing using the video feature on his camera. I just grinned and laughed and let myself go. It was beautiful up there and the wind was a pleasant respite from the heat down below. We went around a bunch of times, each time spotting some new monument or landmark below us. It was exciting and, if we hadn't had time to actually visit each landmark personally, this Ferris wheel would have been quite enough to make up for it. As it was, the ride was like a checklist of all the places we had been or wanted to go while in Paris. I am happy to report we eventually saw all of them with the small exception of the Musee d'Orsay, which we saw from the outside many times but never went inside.

After the Ferris wheel we found an incredibly cheap ice cream place at the carnival and we each got a cone. Ice cream in hand, we started back towards the Seine and Notre Dame. We crossed the Seine to the shady side of the river and continued along. Rather than walk up top where all the little booths and souvenir shops were, we took a steep stone staircase down to the water level. I'd never been down there but it was remarkably different from the upper street. It was more bohemian and felt like the real Paris, not the Paris everyone wants you to see. There was a little tent village, complete with medical tent in case anyone should fall ill. There were boats strapped up next to the docks and a couple lounging in a hammock they had tied up under a bridge. It was also cooler down by the river on the cobblestone so it was quite pleasant.

We were still hoping to take a boat-ride down the Seine that night so we kept an eye out for any company who might be available to do such a thing that night. Mike found a taxi-boat service where you paid for a day and then could use it whenever, hop on and hop off. It was after five by this point so it seemed a waste to purchase such a ticket even if it would save our feet the next ten minutes of walking to Notre Dame. So we ditched the boat idea, resurfaced and paroozed the touristy stalls along the street until the Ile de la Cite came into view. Courtney successfully purchased four bottles of water from a man with a bucket and we proceeded onto the island. We walked the length of it, Mike and Courtney for once agreeing to follow my lead rather than go off on some crazy route with Yuan. Apparently the previous night's Metro debacle had boosted my street credibility.

Following the little signs reading "Notre Dame de Paris," we turned almost at the end of the island. We were immediately on a lively street with numerous cafes, shops and tons of tourists. As we continued along, the sound of bells started to be heard coming from somewhere up ahead. It was a remarkable conflict of sounds as if someone in the bell tower had just decided to ring every bell up there all at once without rhyme or reason. Every bell pealed out its particular note, competing with the other bells to be heard and to be the loudest and most often sounded. Hearing the bells created a magical moment. Notre Dame in and of itself is magical, there are no words to describe the feeling you get when you go there, but hearing the bells and seeing the cathedral slowly rise up from behind trees and buildings is indescribable. For the first time, I could perfectly envision in my mind's eye what it was like back at the time of the cathedral's height. I could see the old, crooked roads winding in and all around with the Medieval people of Paris hurrying to get wherever they were going. It was as if everything faded away around me and I was left alone with Notre Dame, her bells and the shades of days past.

Nothing could shake me from the haze of appreciation and adoration of the building. We immediately got in line to go inside and then we were in a whole other world. Almost as soon as we stepped in, the cantor stepped forward in the pulpit and started to sing the most beautiful hymn I've ever heard. Notre Dame is amazing in the silence of tourists' feet shuffling and cameras clicking. Notre Dame comes alive and becomes inexpressibly beautiful when she is in use. The bells had been calling people to Mass. We were in time for Mass.

The next hour was one of the most moving of my life. Incense poured forth from the pulpit, thicker and more potent than any I've ever seen in my life. It encompassed everything, tossing a hazy glow over the entire interior. The cantor continued to sing, the choir joined in and the monumental organ at the back of the cathedral sang to life, resonating around the stone walls. It was completely magical and life-affirming and an experience on the verge of converting me. I sat in a corner, huddled near a statue of Joan of Arc and just looked around me in complete awe. Notre Dame is always my favorite thing about Paris and there are no words that can describe why. I don't know why myself, it just enchants me and casts a spell over me. Man created all this to honor something he truly believed in. It's a wonder.

Mike joined me after a bit next to Joan of Arc and we carried on a conversation about religion in hushed tones as the incense overtook the air around us. I'm not one to talk about my beliefs very often but Mike brought it out of me. It's interesting to be confronted with the question of what do you believe. Notre Dame stirred every religious bone in my body and inspired me to believe more heartily in the plain, simple goodness of Man. The experience of sitting on a stone ledge pressed up against a soaring column in Notre Dame de Paris with Mike and Joan of Arc next to me while the choir sang on heavenly was incredible. Magical. Inspiring.

I basically had to be dragged from the cathedral. I could quite happily sit there all day listening and watching the beauty around me but it was time for dinner and even I was getting a bit peckish. We went to the café directly next to the cathedral and had a cheese plate since we all agreed we had to have crepes for dinner at least once while in Paris. So we had the cheese and then went in search of a crepes place. Rather fortuitously, the Latin Quarter, renowned for its eclectic-ness and numerous restaurants, was merely on the other side of the Seine. So we passed Notre Dame once more and delved into the Latin Quarter. I was about to somehow transfer into the most charming version of myself I've ever been.

I don't know what it was about that night but wandering around the Latin Quarter gave me a sudden new burst of energy, enthusiasm and gaiety. I became this charming woman who was slightly mysterious and said wonderful things in English and in French and could navigate to anywhere with complete confidence. I had a strut and I felt fantastic. I have moments in my life where I become different versions of myself, better, worse, dull, charming and this was the pinnacle of these moments. I skipped about and grinned and was thoroughly charming. That's the only word I can think of to describe it: charming. I wish I could be like her all the time but I don't know what switch got turned in my body to do it again. I was the best version of myself and I loved every moment.

Mike and I split two crepes (one cheese and chicken the other simply butter and sugar, both delicious) at this great creperie we randomly found down a busy side street. The crepe-maker was quite the ham and put on a great production in making our crepes. We then went up to the upper floor that no one else seemed to know existed and were able to watch the street from above. After dinner, we all just wandered around the Latin Quarter. There were street dancers and little shops that were (shockingly) still open. It was fantastic. We caught one last glimpse of Notre Dame, all lit up and beautiful at night, before Yuan stopped some people and asked for the nearest Metro stop. The night wouldn't have been complete without Yuan asking some random people where something was.

I woke up the next morning to Mike sort of gently touching my shoulder which was a nice way to come into consciousness. It was my turn in the bathroom so I got up, took a quick shower and then started packing all my stuff up. It was already the day of our departure. It was incredible that the time had gone so fast. Our plan for the morning before getting to the bus station at noon was to take the Metro one last time out to Montmartre and seeing Sacre Coeur, the last thing in Paris that I had never been to and really wanted to see. So it was with great enthusiasm that I strapped all my bags on and headed out. We stopped to take a bunch of pictures of the Hotel Tamaris before departing which earned us some weird looks from passersby.

The Metro ride to Montmartre was pleasantly surprising since it took place primarily aboveground. We got to see the city rushing by which kept me more awake than I probably would have been otherwise. We got out of the Metro and, after one right turn, there was Sacre Coeur. It just rose up, all white and shining above all the other, comparatively dingy buildings. We went towards it, snapping pictures all the way and started to climb the stairs towards the church itself. We hadn't gone more than five stairs when four black men accosted us and asked us for our index finger. Warily we stuck out our fingers and very soon discovered the men were South African bracelet weavers! Five minutes of bizarre conversation later, the four of us parted from the four of them with lovely reminders of our trip tied around our wrists and ten euros less in our wallets.

We continued climbing unimpeded (a few more South African guys tried to stop us but we just held up our wrists and they left us alone). A man had set up shop with his harp under a little blue tent and was plunking out "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic. For some reason, it worked. It seemed strange that a Celine Dion song would be remotely appropriate at Sacre Coeur, but the harpist made it work. He was very serene and dedicated to playing his music and it was quite calming. Eventually, after more climbing, made it to the church itself and wandered around inside for a little. Where Notre Dame was stunning and magical both within and without, Sacre Coeur's exterior was really all it had to recommend it. After finishing up our circle around the inside of the church, Mike informed us that we were going all the way to the top. Not for the faint of heart, I can now tell you.

It was a pretty cool Indiana Jones-like experience to go up the winding stone staircase through the very walls of Sacre Coeur towards the dome at top. There were cobwebs and poor lighting and the steps just went up forever. It was only the knowledge that they did eventually end at some point that kept me from complete despair. I could just imagine some little bell ringer forcing himself up these stairs day in and day out. At the halfway point the stairs open up to give a break and you shimmy along by the gutters. About there you realize that all these stairs are well worth it. I thought this halfway view was the actual end-game view and I was considerably awed. But it got better.

The view from the very top of Sacre Coeur was quite the sight. You can see all of Paris and even out into the countryside on a clear day. Courtney and I marveled that we could see farmland from right in Paris. Yuan accosted a friendly German man who happily took numerous pictures of all four of us from various angles and then proceeded to talk to us for a while after. We met a group of confused British tourists who kept exclaiming "But we were just looking for the crypt!" They seem to have gotten lost. After a while, we headed back down the winding stone staircase (this time down the other side). This side had an even more Hunchback of Notre Dame feeling about it. There was more skitting along gutters and climbing awkwardly down worn-in stairs. It was fantastic.

We stopped to buy three French hotdogs and flavored ices before hopping on the Metro once more to catch our bus back to London. We were right on time and all piled onto the bus. We didn't get the front seats this time but we got four seats in a row which was nice. As with the last time, Courtney and I chattered amiably for the first few hours of the trip while the boys dozed or listened to stand-up off of Mike's iPod. After a bit, I decided to take a nap. We were all quite looking forward to the ferry this time since we knew it was coming. It would be daylight and we could all go out on the deck and actually see the choppy Channel waters around us. We were quite excited about the prospect.

Sad to say, when the bus driver started following signs for the Eurotunnel rather than the signs for Calais. We had to stop twice for customs and the only upside was that we got our passports stamped. It didn't really make up for the lack of ferry-ride, but I'm all for getting more stamps in my passport. The tunnel wasn't like I imagined it at all. The bus drove into a train compartment, parked and then, about half an hour later, we were let out of the train compartment and we were in Dover. I didn't even notice us moving.

The ride back to London was uneventful. There was traffic in between Canterbury and London which delayed us a lot. We got to see the spires of Canterbury Cathedral, which was pretty cool. Our trip was allowing us to see other random pieces of touristy things that we might have otherwise missed had we taken a plane or train. But it was coming to an end and I resignedly attempted to get some law reading done.

We arrived back in Oxford around 11:40pm and walked back to Trinity. The whole experience was surreal. We had been in Paris only hours earlier and now we were in Oxford, UK. That in and of itself was still remarkable. We were home and our home was Trinity College. It wasn't even really a disappointment to have to leave Paris for such equally exciting places. Besides, I got to see everything I wanted to see in Paris without the slightest twinge of regret over anything. It was the absolute best weekend of my life, I decided and now I can just look down at my wrist and see my Montmartre bracelet and smile whenever I want.

Tuesday and Wednesday (July 18th & 19th)

2006-07-20T11:14:00.001-04:00

Tuesday I spent the day in continual mope-mode since there was still no sign of Mike or Courtney. I tried to read but was too distracted so I ended up just hanging around the room. In addition to my lack of social interaction, a massive heat wave had taken over Oxford, giving us 90-degree days and equally hot nights. I felt like my brain was melting in the humidity and everyone tried not to move too much since it was so hot. Marissa/Melissa succumbed to heat stroke on Monday and I was much more careful to hydrate after her near-collapse in law class.

I trudged over to law tutorial at three, not feeling particularly prepared and still not feeling particularly happy. I was very much reminded of the Sims when their different levels get too low and they get too depressed to do much of anything. I wished whoever was playing my game would do something to cheer me up. Sadly, however, there was no overlord of my game/life so I took matters into my own hands. After leaving a muggy law tutorial, I bee-lined for my phone and called up Courtney to ask her to help me with my laundry. I was a first-timer at Oxford and, while Mike was probably more knowledgeable about the whole process, I had already tried to find him once on Monday with no luck so I went to Courtney. Everything basically got better after that phone call.

Courtney helped me with my laundry and we discussed her paper on Anne Sexton. It was pretty wonderful since I felt genuinely helpful and able to help her organize her thoughts. I was also pleased to discover that I could help with poetry to a certain extent; previously, I had thought myself basically useless when it came to poetry. It didn't inspire me to sign up for a poetry course or anything, but I liked using that commonly abandoned side of my brain.

Since the UMass Summer Seminar was dead set on not allowing me to see my friends this week, it had assigned me to both balcony dinner on Monday and high table dinner at Tuesday. This didn't sit well with me and when Mike showed up ("You're alive!" "You're alive!"), I just told him to come get me at seven, screw going to pre-lecture drinks with the high table people. So he went off to change and I went off to collect my laundry. I got it all back (why is clean laundry always heavier than dirty laundry?) and decided in a spur-of-the-moment thing to wear my special, papaya-colored Oxford dress. I was already dressed quite nicely for the day and it could have passed for the dinner, but I wanted to look extra pretty for reasons that I think should be apparent since you know who was coming to get me for the lecture.

It was sweltering at the less-than-thrilling lecture about Mary Woolstonecraft. We were seated in our "usual" seats at the back where at least we got a very slight breeze from the open door. It was completely still in the room and everyone was just quietly stewing in their own sweat. The lecturerer droned on, totally oblivious to the heat in her passion for the subject. The highlight of the lecture came when John and Abigail Adams entered the narrative since Abigail had been a big supporter of Woolstonecraft while in London (and once back in MA). The lecturerer told us the Adamses were in London and then said, "But of course you know why." There was a continued dead silence. "Don't you?" she queried. Obviously, the room was at a loss. She nodded to herself and turned into a professor. "Why was John Adams in London at this time?" If it hadn't been so hot, I'm sure crickets would have roused themselves to do some appropriate chirping. "Anyone?" I raised my hand. "Anyone at all?" She finally caught sight of me and looked quite pleased before even hearing my response. "Yes?" "He was the first ambassador," I said clearly. She looked even more pleased and nodded her agreement. A titter swept the room and Mike leaned over to me. "Hey, are you a history major, by chance?" he joked. It was a good moment. Additionally, Bill Speck was seated at the end of my row and heard the whole thing. Take that Bill Speck!

On the way over from the lecture to the main hall, Courtney informed me that high table was more a suggestion than an actual mandate. I was pretty giddy about that and decided to just sit with my friends since I was having such a wonderful night. Dinner was lovely and I found myself seated in between Mike and Yuan and across from Courtney. This was the first formal dinner I've actually enjoyed, despite the unrelenting heat. When we finally spilled out of the main hall a few hours later (formal dinner takes forever), the temperature had dropped pleasantly and it was actually nice out for the first time in days. I was pretty giddy over this and, since I was wearing The Dress, I did a little twirl of glee. I felt about twelve, but I have never shirked from an opportunity to be a little girl again.

Mike, Yuan, Courtney and myself adjourned to my room. Courtney had an 8-page paper due the next day that she had yet to start so she left fairly quickly to go get some energy drinks from Sainsbury's and start the paper. At this juncture, Yuan asked if we could watch the Reduced Shakespeare Company! Mike groaned (he'd been battling The Winter's Tale for the better part of the past two weeks) but eventually agreed once I promised him there was only a very little history in it. We watched, we laughed (how could you not?!) and had generally good times. After the showing, Yuan headed off to bed like a good little student but Mike didn't really want to move at all. By this point, bugs had basically taken over my room and were everywhere, crawling all over the ceiling and flitting about in an extremely annoying manner. So we came up with the brilliant idea of opening the window and turning off the lights so all the bugs would realize how much lighter it is outside and just go out there. It seemed more sane than trying to kill all of them. So we turned off the lights, threw open the window and plunked down on the fainting couch to wait the experiment out.

We ended up talking for about two hours while waiting for the bugs to leave. It was nice. I know I mentioned this before, but I really like this moment in friendship when there's still so much you just don't know about the other person. There are so many mysteries and, if they're as set on friendship as you are, they slowly unveil their life for you and the number of mysteries subside. Telling someone else about your life and your context also makes you examine things that are so ordinary to you that you don't often think on them. But then you have to explain it to another person and it makes you think about it. It was quite a lovely night.

At some point Lauren returned and said we should relocate since she wanted to sleep. We were both half asleep on the couch anyway, but Mike dutifully got up and headed for the door. I just wanted to sleep at that point, so I declined his offer to come hang out in his room. So he asked what I was doing tomorrow to which I replied that I had no idea and he gave basically the same answer back to me and departed. I then spent the time in between his leaving and my drifting off to sleep replaying certain portions of our conversation in my head, trying to figure out if, like in Much Ado About Nothing, there was a double meaning in anything he had said. As ever, most things were ambiguous and could be taken any which way. But I was still highly satisfied with the whole evening and went to bed content, a first for the week.

Wednesday promised more of the horrible heat of Monday and Tuesday. I set out into town early in the day to avoid the sun but it was still quite warm out. Bill Speck had told me to get this book called Britain and the American Revolution edited by H.T. Dickinson but I had been having absolutely no luck finding it. The Trinity Library didn't have it (no surprise there), Blackwell's had stopped stocking it a few months back and I didn't have a Bodleian card. So I went to the other bookstores in town, come to find none of them stocked it. I was getting fairly annoyed with this quest and was basically on the verge of just doing without and simply sticking to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the Declaration of Independence to write my paper. I resolved to inquire if Bill Speck himself had a copy of the stupid book that he could perhaps lend me.

So I went off to Bill Speck's class. Surprisingly, it was a complete joy. Finally, a good time in Bill Speck's class! Wednesday classes are always hit or miss since there is no reading for Wednesdays so he can just throw anything at us and then get annoying when we aren't prepared for it. This week, however, he brought in eight separate accounts of what happened on Lexington Green in April 1775 and asked us to read them and rate them in order from most credible to least credible. We were in two groups, coincidentally boys v. girls ("Too bad for them!" Felicia commented in true Smithie fashion) so he was going to compare how we rated things. After rating each document, we then had to defend our position to the class so it was a really good hour. Needless to say, us girls wiped the floor.

After such a good class, I headed straight to Exeter College. I knew their library had a copy of Dickinson's book and, while I had e-mailed their librarian, I had gotten no reply so I decided to inquire in person. The porter waved me in without a second thought and helpfully directed me to the library. After a few bits of good fortune (a keypad being out of order and allowing me access into a building I ordinarily couldn't have gotten into), I found myself at the door to the library. Exeter College is about the same size as Trinity but rather prettier, like most other colleges at Oxford. Their library is quite happily situated in the middle of a lovely English garden with benches and amazingly green grass. Flowers and other plant-life climb up the walls of the little, Gothic-inspired building. The library looks like a miniature Gothic cathedral, which is pretty adorable.

So I got all the way to the door of the library only to fail there. I needed an identification card to allow me access and there was no one inside the library to let me in. Not really all that downcast by this turn of events, I headed back to Trinity to talk to our librarian to see if there was anything she could do. There wasn't (she seems pretty ineffectual) and, after thanking her profusely for doing everything I myself had already done, I headed back up to the main floor and the exit of Trinity Library. Some random nice boy leaped to hold the door open for me which was quite pleasant and I came out into the ground level of Trinity Library. I came out of the stacks, turned towards the door and who should I see staring a little slip of paper with great consternation but Mike himself. I, of course, stopped dead and he looked up. Asking me to wait for him, he slipped into a stack and started pouring over the shelves in search of his book. I took to looking around myself and found a pretty hilarious set of volumes that were simply a publication of all the random pamphlets found in some Lord's house after he died. It looked old as sin and there was quite funny account of some remarkably stubborn guy's interrogation before a judge. The stubborn man would not be remotely helpful to any of the questioning. You could just hear the judge being on the verge of completely exploding with annoyance at the insolence before him.

I somehow tore myself away from the collection and followed Mike outside. As it turned out, he was about to go scouting for some kind of architectural marvel to do his final presentation on and asked if I'd like to go see the Canterbury Quadrangle at St. John's College. I agreed and we set off once more. We ended up walking around Oxford for basically the rest of the afternoon. It was very leisurely and relaxing. I knew I had all kinds of reading to be doing (what else is new?) but it was nice to just walk about. We ended up back at the park at Christ's Church and bought some ice cream from a little vendor before wandering around in the park and along the Thames. I feel like I'm in a movie.

We eventually came back because it was so hot and we had run out of water and were sweating all over the place. We came back to my room and decided it was high time we all took a trip again. Ireland was the general plan but then we thought perhaps Wales or maybe Scotland. This was just the beginning of many hours to come of general indecision regarding future travel, eventually involving both Yuan and Courtney.

Dinner was all right, I mistakenly took a lamp kebab which Mike kindly took from me. This left me with some cheesy, fried vegetable patties, some carrots, a roll and lots of water. I tasted good and I was quite full by the time we left. Mike had a showing of a bizarre Clint Eastwood film called Pale Rider for his Romance Lit class at eight and I went along. It was an extraordinarily poorly written, poorly acted and poorly directed film that would have been great fun to mock if other people hadn't been around. I still muttered to myself sporadically and Amy or Mike would sometimes pick up on my mutterings.

After the movie, we came back to my room and were almost immediately shooed out by Lauren. I don't know when I became the crazy roommate who stays out until all hours of the night and morning and she became the one who goes to bed at ten, but we switched over at some point and it's quite discombobulating. Anyway, I decided it was high time I got some actual work done so I grabbed my laptop, my notebook and my handy copy of Common Sense by Thomas Paine and changed into my boxers before following Mike upstairs.

Mike quickly grew tired to reading both Great Expectations and The Idylls of the King by Tennyson. It was still unbearably hot and it was hard to focus on anything. So he set up shop at his computer arranging "Hotel California" for his a cappella group, Wicked Pitch. And cue awesomeness. I finished Paine at around 12:30 and then stole his camera to copy his Paris pictures onto my desktop. When it finished uploading at around 1:20, I had nearly 1,000 pictures from Paris. I think if I just get Yuan's camera, I'll be up there. I told you took way too many pictures.

Mike and I hung out watching Parisian videos he took and flipping through the pictures on my laptop when Nastassja showed up, drunk and broke into Mike's sleeping room-mate, Sam's, room. Maniacal laughter from Nastassja ensued and we weren't sure whether she was going to devour him and offer him up to Satan or have sex with him. I decided at about this point that I didn't really want to be there for whichever option Nastassja chose and said I was going back downstairs. Mike begged me not to leave him with Sam and drunken, evil Nastassja so I told him to feel free to come downstairs and set up camp there. He shrugged and said he's probably be down in a bit. I nodded, still feeling quite awake and left to the dulcet sounds of continuing maniacal laughter coming out of Sam's room.

As promised, Mike appeared a few minutes later. He hadn't really thought they would have sex but then, after pondering what usually happens with a girl shows up drunk in a guy's room at three in the morning, he agreed with my assessment of the situation. He had dutifully brought Idylls of the King was attempting to get through it. After a bit, he remarked how he really just wanted to go to sleep but he also really did not want to go back into his room. I offered up the couch, my floor, whatever but we were both pretty confused about what to do since neither of us had ever been sexiled. You won't believe it, but we actually ended up deciding that it would probably just be the most comfortable for all parties if Mike slept in the bed with me. I'm not even sure how this went down and I was there.

Surprisingly, it wasn't at all weird. Probably because we slept next to each other in Paris. The bed was actually bigger than I thought and we both had plenty of room. (When I say "plenty" I mean we weren't hitting each other in the face with our respective elbows, but it was still tight.) I find my life increasingly like the life of some other girl who is way cooler than me. This girl is awesome. She attends Oxford University and goes off to Paris for a weekend holiday and is totally chill about letting guys crash in her bed. She even says witty things occasionally and has moments of social competence. I really can't believe this life over here is actually me living it. Things are actually happening to me over here! I'm finally getting to have a life that I can tell other people about without having to worry about boring them to tears.

Mike's alarm went off at eight and he scooted out and back to his room. Happily, Lauren was still asleep or I would have gotten quite the interrogation from that quarter if she had seen Mike leave my room at eight in the morning. I haven't seen him since so I don't know how this will change anything, probably not at all. I starting to think there is some supremely unkissable, undateable quality about me. I should just buy ten cats and an old farmhouse and be done with it. So now I'm sitting here at my computer, pondering over everything and basically letting my little crush wane. Crushes never last very long with me, probably because they never really go anywhere. This was the first time probably since Evan I've had a crush on someone who might actually have reciprocated at some point. But I forgot to factor in my undateable quality so now I'm back to being perfectly happy being Mike's buddy. If he didn't make a move on me at any point in the last twenty-four hours, is he really ever going to? Seems unlikely. He had ample opportunity.

So I take the words of the girls around me and the relayed conversations at face value. He likes me and that's enough for me to know right now. He likes me and he thinks I'm really smart, which makes me feel great. I've always had this side of me that fears people thinking I'm a complete ditz and I'm kind of simultaneously realizing how great it is to be a "smart girl." I shouldn't have to fear showing my intelligence so I just speak up and share whatever tidbit I've got. At this point, I've decided I'm not changing in an attempt to lure males. This is me, I don't want to have to act around you. Either you like me as me or you don't. Thank you, Smith.

Love love love,

Corey

Paris: Part Five which is part one of the Louvre (confused yet?)

2006-07-18T13:08:00.000-04:00

Yuan set his alarm to go off at six so he could shower. Mike set his alarm to go off at seven so he could wake up Courtney and get ready. The plan was that I would get up after Yuan’s shower and shower myself before Mike or Courtney were up and needed the shower. Now, the thing about Paris that is strange is that its time is an hour different from the time in England. You would think they’d be in the same time zone, but then, nope. Yuan, while aware of this time switch, had forgotten to change his clock alarm to accommodate the new hour. As such, I was awoken on Saturday morning by the cacophony of both Yuan and Mike’s alarms going off simultaneously at the French 7am.

I immediately jetted into the shower to get ready since we had now lost an hour (but, happily, gained an hour’s sleep and giving us a grand total of four). By 8:30 we were all out of bed, relatively cognizant of our surroundings and eating a quiet breakfast in the hotel’s dining room. It was a classic French breakfast of baguettes, croissants, jam, butter, orange juice and hot chocolate (or café, as Mike and Courtney had). It wasn’t very invigorating but it tasted good. Still rather sleepy, we set off for the Metro to get to the Louvre. After completely giving up on the whole thing the day before, Mike had decided perhaps it was just best to go and wait in line and buy the tickets at the Louvre when we wanted to go. I agreed simply because going through the pyramid is something not to be missed, especially for Courtney’s first time.

We arrived outside the Louvre by a little after nine and headed through the courtyards towards the pyramid. It was still a bit chilly from the night before but the sun was already up and the Louvre would have to try really hard to look bad. We got into the relatively short security line and snapped some shots of us with the pyramid or with the fountains. The lines moved very quickly and it was only about fifteen minutes later that we found ourselves proud possessors of four maps and four reasonably priced Louvre tickets.

The Mike/Courtney/Yuan theory of Louvre-seeing is quite different from my theory of Louvre-seeing. The Mike/Courtney/Yuan Theory (hereafter the MCY Theory) involves doing that which tourists do and seeing all the things the Louvre map tells you that you absolutely must see. Highlights of the MCY Theory include the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Since I had already had the happy experience of doing the Louvre in the style to which I am accustomed and had already started to relish in just being a tourist, I agreeably went along with the MCY Theory and we started off to find the Mona Lisa.

We passed by the Winged Victory of Samothrace on our way to the room where the Mona Lisa is now housed. I personally adore the Winged Victory. I don’t really understand who chooses that the “really good art” is the Winged Victory, Venus and the Mona Lisa, but they certainly knew what they were talking about when it comes to the Winged Victory. The carving is amazing and her position looks exhilarating. You can almost feel the rush of the wind pushing her tunic close to her skin. I love it.

We then entered the Italian paintings hall. We were almost to the Mona Lisa room (yes, she now has her own room) when I turned to look at a painting on my left. Mike, Courtney and Yuan were right next to me. When I turned back to find them and enter the Mona Lisa room, I was alone. Crowds ebbed around me, but no face was familiar. I couldn’t believe it. We hadn’t been in the Louvre half an hour and I had already been lost. I was lost in the Louvre. It was not a good feeling. The Louvre is enormous, they would never find me again. We would never meet up again for the whole day, I would have to go back to the hotel and just wait at some point. I acutely felt the downside of not having a cell phone for probably the first time since arriving in Europe. We had absolutely no way of contacting each other or finding each other once detached.

Feeling rather unloved, I wandered around trying to think where they could have gone. I was in the Mona Lisa room for about ten minutes, assuming they had come in and had to be around somewhere. I stayed in the vicinity of the place where I had last seen them and hoped they would come back since it was also presumably the last place they had seen me. After a bit, I just gave up and sat myself down on a round plush sofa to wait for them. I flipped idly through my map, thinking about the places I’d like to see. The Mona Lisa was exactly the way I’d pictured her. Most people say she’s a disappointment and that they expected her to be bigger or somehow more impressive, but not me. She was exactly the size I was expecting. It’s a fine painting, it wasn’t outstanding to me. Perhaps it was because my expectations were so mediocre that I wasn’t let-down. The way her eyes follow you, however, was quite the accomplishment in terms of Da Vinci’s painting ability. One wonders if he meant to do that or it just sort of happened. It probably just sort of happened; the man was a genius.

Thinking these thoughts and looking at my map, I kept looking up and around. It must have been very obvious to anyone watching that I was waiting for someone. After a bit, I looked up randomly and there they were! All three of them! Giddy and mildly annoyed at my abandonment, I rushed over to them. I was greeted with distinct unconcern for my well-being. They figured I would be around here somewhere so hadn’t been too worried. I rolled my eyes and rejoined the group, just happy to be with them again. As it turned out, they hadn’t seen the Mona Lisa yet at all (so much for my waiting in there for ten minutes) so we went in again.

After the Mona Lisa, we wandered into the Large-Format French Paintings hall. Courtney and I plunked down on another bench for a seat and Mike and Yuan headed off to find a bathroom. After a bit, Mike returned. “Where’s Yuan?” he immediately asked us. Puzzled, we replied that we thought he was with Mike himself. Come to find out that Mike had waited by the bathrooms for ten minutes but there was no sign of Yuan so he had come back to us since he assumed Yuan had returned. No such luck. So we had lost Yuan. This was to happen many times, so many times that we joked around that we need some kind of “Oh no we lost Yuan” hand gesture to use in quiet places or across rooms.

Mike informed us that there was a good sketches exhibit near the bathroom and said he would wait in the French paintings room for Yuan if we wanted to go check it out. We did and set off. The sketches were completely wonderful and by far my favorite part of the whole Louvre experience. It was a special exhibit in a temporary hall, so it was doubly special. It was sketches made by a man named Hubert Robert primarily of landscapes but with little bits of people in them. They had wonderful movement and personality and we all loved them. As Courtney and I wandered among the sketches, Yuan suddenly appeared. “Yuan?!” you might well be asking. Yes, indeed. We still to this day have no idea where he went or how he ended up in the Hubert Robert exhibit, but there he was. We immediately sent him back to the French painting hall to fetch Mike and told him to come directly back with Mike and not to lose himself or Mike along the way.

They both successfully reappeared a few minutes later and we all finished up looking at the exhibit. At this point things get blurry in my mind. At some point we went back to finish looking at the French paintings hall, lost Yuan again and then ended up seeing the Venus de Milo, Greek statues and then meeting up with Yuan again at noon at the Winged Victory of Samothrace. I think it was after that that we decided lunch was in order since breakfast had been so unfulfilling. So we decided to check out the Café Mollien located at the opposite end of the French paintings hall since it was probably cheaper than the museum restaurant. We once again traversed the French paintings hall (one painting of Napoleon haunted me particularly) and got in line at the Café Mollien. As we moved up in the line, we suddenly realized that the line stretched out onto the outdoor balcony. We were going to be eating on the balcony of the Louvre, overlooking the pyramid and the Tuileries. Understandable giddiness ensued. It was like some supreme power felt genuinely bad about everything going wrong the day before and was hell-bent on making it up to us.

Lunch was quite good. We all had chicken salad sandwiches on baguettes and I got to order for everyone. Throughout ordering and conversing with the waiter in French, Mike was looking at me a little strangely, sort of bemusedly. When the waiter finally left, he grinned and said, “It’s really very cute when you do that, when you speak in French. You have a cute accent.” I nearly swooned on the spot but managed to just thank him and turn a little red. I internally vowed to speak more French when at all possible.

Monday (more Paris to come later)

2006-07-18T10:49:00.000-04:00

Monday morning found me dead asleep snoring in my bed. The alarm went off for a full half an hour before i even heard it and then I still slept fifteen minutes more without it going off. Finally, I dragged myself from bed and went about feeling more alive. I called Courtney since I'm her alarm clock and then sat down to get some work done. I had read everything that was required for Speck's class last week but I still didn't have the "suggested" reading done. The "suggested" reading is really more mandatory than anything else since he expects it to be read and asks questions about it. So I skimmed the two articles, trying to understand as much as possible before heading off to class. It was once more sweltering in Oxford and I was once more happy (hello, I was in Paris hours previously) so I put on my nicest shirt and went out.

As the day progressed, I found my giddiness slowly ebbing away. By four, I hadn't seen anyone but Lauren and my classmates all day and was actually, physically missing Mike and Courtney. As if the UMass Summer Seminar was out to thwart me in my desire to see my friends, I was assigned the balcony dinner Monday night and dinner at the high table Tuesday night. I was not looking forward to either event.

Upon returning from Paris, Lauren had beneficently bequeathed two items of food to one. One, a roll of chocolate biscuits she didn't particularly like and, two, a quart of apple juice that she found too sweet. Since we had had a running Eddie Izzard joke about chocolate biscuits the whole trip, I armed myself with them (quite tasty, in my opinion) and headed up to Mike's room to see how his paper was coming and offer sustenance. Unfortunately, Mike wasn't there. A confused Sam (his roommate) was, but no Mike. Feeling mildly crushed, but not overly horrible yet, I went back to my room.

I called Courtney before heading over to join the balcony dinner people for drinks in the beer cellar and found that Mike was in her room. Before I could even tell her why I was calling, she informed me that she had reading to do that night and therefore couldn't do anything. I wasn't calling about that. I was just calling to say that I wouldn't be at dinner in case anyone was looking for me. I got the feeling they wouldn't have been. After such an unsatisfying and a little worrying phone call, I made myself go to the beer cellar.

The balcony dinner is a dinner provided by the program with your tutor and classmates. You get two (one for each class) and you get to sit in the balcony. At least traditionally you do. They have, since naming the dinner, moved it to a room behind the main hall that is the oldest room at Trinity, predating even the college itself. It's quite ritzy, surprisingly since it was used by monks before the college took it over. But we all filed in and I found myself at the end of the table, across from Yuan. The table was pretty large so it was almost impossible to talk to Yuan on the other end of the table. The tutors were seated in the middle, so all conversation spun around their words. I was isolated and unable to contribute. It was a very lonely dinner, emphasized by my continuing lack of Mike and Courtney and the knowledge that they were probably having a grand old time at dinner a mere room away.

Finally we were released from dinner and, after chatting briefly with another classmate (Jessy), I went back to my room. I spent the rest of the evening attempting to get my law readings done for the next day but really just wallowing in loneliness. Lauren and I actually bonded a little and had a good, procrastinating conversation before I just gave up on seeing Mike or Courtney that day and went to bed at eleven. By the time I hit the sack, my stomach had worked itself into a state of supreme agitation and was telling me I was really too stressed out. I was really pretty annoyed with myself for getting so worked up and letting my glee slip away. Stupid boys.

I fell asleep immediately and woke up ten hours later and took a shower. I had a great presentation in Law on Monday. I think I got "full ticks" as Jillaine says. It was good. I have another one today, but not a formal one. I think it'll be fine even though I haven't finished all the reading yet since I'm not in my happy place. I really needed the weekend, I guess, and now it's been eaten up by Paris. Seriously, there are so worse things that could have eaten it up! Now Paris is kind of bittersweet in my mind. I think of it constantly and it makes me smile a little sadly. Where are my friends? I honestly don't know how I'm going to function once back in the US; I won't see these people very often at all and I'm very close to liking them better than my remnant Smith friends.

So, some doldrums, but nothing too depressing. At least my relationship with Lauren is now prospering. I think she might have actually heard something I said last night. Maybe she's grasping the "listening is fun" concept.

More to say, as always, but I have law reading to do, as always. Love you both,

Corey

Paris: Part Four, Bastille Night

2006-07-17T17:47:00.000-04:00

We found Courtney recumbent on the grass watching the Eiffel Tower’s lights dance. Yuan was seated a little bit away from her, anxiously awaiting our return. When we did return, he dashed off in search of a bathroom. I let myself fall onto the grass next to Courtney and used my bag as a pillow. My pony-tail was crushed under my head and I could just feel my hair becoming a mess but I didn’t care. The night was too beautiful to really care about anything. Mike lied next to me, very close and comforting. We just lied there watching the Eiffel Tower and thinking about everything that had happened.

Finally, Courtney reminded us of our provisions and we three started to unpack. We had gotten a cork screw from the concierge at the Hotel Tamaris but it was not easy to work. We passed it between the three of us until both Courtney and I had given up and Mike had made it his night’s goal to open the bottle of wine. As Yuan reappeared a little ways away, Mike finally prevailed at the cork sprung out of the bottle. He poured us each a cup and Yuan sat down across from me, taking his plastic cup full of red wine. Once everyone had a cup, we looked at each other expectantly. A toast was definitely in order.

“To the 6 train.” “To the woman who spoke English…but didn’t know the word ‘straight.’” “To the magical bus.” “To the random ferry ride.” “To Corey’s brilliant idea of coming here in the first place.” “To us.” “To Bastille Day.” “To the friendly couple at Marco Polo’s.” Things just poured out of us, equal parts silly and meaningful. We toasted a hundred things and then finally drank. We dove into the brie and crackers and gorged ourselves on grapes to remain hydrated. After we finished the wine and the cheese and had eaten all the chocolate we could bear, we all fell back into the grass and once again indulged in staring up at the Eiffel Tower. We were all slightly drunk, both from the wine and the exhilaration of simply being in Paris. We laughed and sang and joked about everything under the sun.

Yuan was the first to get antsy. I think the rest of us could have just lied there all night. I know we discussed it. I was the first to get marginally practical and Mike was the first to act on this practicality. It occurred to me that perhaps the Metro stopped running at some point. It was almost one in the morning now and we had no idea if and when the Metro stopped running. Grudgingly, we got all got up and packed our things up. Mike got the empty wine bottle, I bequeathed the wooden brie box to Courtney and we all reluctantly left the Eiffel Tower.

Judging from the events of the day and our general poor luck, it wasn’t really that surprising to arrive at the Metro stop to see the gates chained shut. The police were there, letting people get out but not get in. Turns out the Metro in Paris does shut down at night. In fact, it shuts down in between midnight and 12:30. Good to know.

So we wandered over to the street and attempted to hail a cab. There were no cabs. The only cabs there were already had people in them. Smug people who had somehow managed to attract a cab. Yuan once again stopped someone off the street who informed him that there was a taxi waiting point up the road back at the Eiffel Tower. We walked back the way we had come and waited at the taxi waiting point for a while. While Yuan remained confident that a taxi would come, Mike and I grew increasingly doubtful of the whole situation. There was a long line of people who needed a cab and no one ever asks to be dropped off at a taxi waiting point. Cabs weren’t coming here. Finally, we decided that it might be best to just start walking in the general direction of our hotel and keep a sharp eye out for a cab. We walked back into the Eiffel Tower and the park surrounding it. We came to another street and found ourselves at another taxi waiting point. Rather tired and hopeful that a cab would come (there were fewer people at this point), we got in line.

Courtney and Yuan crossed the street to see if the Russian café would let them use the bathroom and I wandered over to where Mike had sat down on the curb. The rest of the line had wandered off in an attempt to better their chances to find a cab so it was just us and the night. We sat quietly, talking occasionally, both exhausted. Courtney and Yuan came back eventually, both quite pleased with the friendly Russians and their amazingly cleanly toilet. Yuan had calculated that it would take us “only” two hours to walk back to the hotel from where we were. Not exactly reassuring. Mike and I stood up and then, miraculously, we spotted a cab. It was coming down the street from the opposite direction and a group of people who had previously been in our line where already rushing towards it shouting, “Cab! Cab!”

Undeterred, Courtney and I raised our hands in the air and waved them around spastically, hoping the cab driver would honor the fact that we were at the taxi waiting point. He stopped at the light at the far end of the intersection. We dashed across the street and continued waving our arms desperately. The group had mobbed the cab now and were engaged in conversation with the cabbie. We kept waving our arms in hopes of attracting his attention. Mike and Yuan looked on, obviously not believing the cab driver would put off so many pleas for a ride.

The light turned green. The cab didn’t move. He was still talking to the group. We didn’t stop waving our arms. Then, incredibly, he slowly pulled away, being careful not to hit anyone in the group and drove towards us. We screamed in joy and wildly gestured for Yuan and Mike to join us on the other side of the street. “Place de la Nation?!” I asked him happily. He nodded his assent. Another screech of joy and we all piled in. I was scrunched in the middle between Mike and Courtney. It was unbelievably relieving to be in the cab. It was warm and safe and we were racing along directly along the Seine towards the Hotel Tamaris.

My eyelids kept dropping and I resisted the urge to let my head fall onto Mike’s shoulder and just doze. We sped along and shortly we were at the Place de la Nation. We all tumbled out of the cab, thanked the cab driver profusely (he got at least twenty “merci beaucoups” from us) and started to walk back towards our hotel. We got there, trudged to our room and collapsed onto the beds. Courtney and Yuan were asleep in minutes without changing their clothes and just barely getting their shoes off before succumbing to sleep. Mike decided to shower and I changed into my pajamas before getting into bed and trying to sleep. Both Yuan and Courtney were snoring but I was too tired to let it keep me up. I heard the shower go on and then off before I drifted off. Mike told me the next morning that when he came out of the bathroom we were all snoring in unison and that he could have conducted us if he liked. The image of Mike standing at the foot of the bed conducting our sleeping noises amused me.

It was about three in the morning and we were finally all safe and sound in our beds. I slept the deep, dreamless sleep of pure exhaustion with the knowledge that I would have to get up early the next morning to shower before heading out to the Louvre. But, of course, that plan didn’t exactly work out perfectly, either.

Paris: Part Three in which our Bastille Day plans crumble

2006-07-17T14:56:00.000-04:00

After a battle with two irritable waiters at Marco Polo’s, we left and hastened to the Metro. Because of said irritable waiters, we were running late. We dashed down into the Place de le Nation Metro stop and quickly scanned the Metro map. I quickly suggested we take our normal train (the 1) and transfer over at some point to the six. Mike and Courtney agreed with this assessment and we three started off. We were three steps before Yuan suggested that we instead simply take the six straight from Nation to the Eiffel Tower. This sounded logical enough and by this point we all knew better than to argue with Yuan when he had an idea stuck in his head. So we did a 360 and headed off to the six. What we did not know was that the six had three closed stops and that Parisian metro trains do not whiz you through the closed stops, they deposit you before the closed stops and leave you stranded in a place called Bercy.

The only train available for transfer at Bercy at the 14. This left us with very little choice than to get on the 14 and do what we could with it. After consulting yet another map and time dwindling, we thought it was a good idea to take the 14 one stop to the C train, which looked very much like it looked around conveniently dropping us at the Eiffel Tower. We successfully made it to the connection stop but soon found ourselves hopelessly lost and quite possibly on our way to Versailles. Feeling increasingly frustrated and now stuck at a stop where there were no other connections, we leaped over the ticket turnstiles and ran for the surface (Yuan protesting the whole way). It was 10:20.

We got up into the open air again and suddenly everything seemed desperate. We sprinted for a while until we were all too winded to continue. We were lost somewhere in the 13^th Arrondissement, on the complete opposite side of Paris from the Eiffel Tower. At this moment of supreme frustration, Yuan accosted yet another Parisian. Finally, Yuan found someone useful. The law of large numbers tells us it had to happen sometime. Anyway, this woman spoke fluent English (with the exception of the word “straight” which she didn’t know) and helpfully pointed us the way of the Place d’Italie, which had numerous trains we could take or any number of taxis we could pick up. We thanked her profusely and power-walked on.

It was finally getting dark in Paris and the patriotic people of France were taking to the streets. As we hurried along nearly deserted side-streets, we would come across little bands of Parisians with personal firecrackers and bottle rockets. They had wands that spurted little bursts of colored flame and they laughed as they aimed them at hapless pedestrians. It was eerie as we tried to avoid these clusters and hurry towards the Place d’Italie. The streets would be occasionally lit by bright colors of brief fireworks and sporadically there were loud bangs of a nearby explosion. We hurried on.

As we just kept walking and it just kept getting later, Courtney took up as her mission the task of finding and hailing a cab. This irritated Yuan who was of the mind that if we were still going to the Eiffel Tower, we should take the metro and, secondarily, it was rather pointless to go to the Eiffel Tower since we had definitely missed the fireworks. Mike alone kept a cool head; I was almost on the verge of killing Yuan with my bare hands. Courtney manically searched for a cab, I quietly stewed and Yuan loudly stewed. Mike, I can only assume, was thinking up a rational solution to the problem at hand.

We finally all had it out after a mean cab driver refused to take us to the Eiffel Tower twice. We really had no idea where we were or how far we still had to go. We’d been walking for half an hour and we were still stuck in the 13^th Arrondissement. Yuan and I were the most spirited participants in the decision-making with Courtney taking my side and Mike trying to pacify us three. I argued that we might as well keep walking and save ourselves the metro passes. We were going to miss the fireworks, that much was certain. If we were going to be late, we might as well save ourselves some metro passes. Yuan insisted we get on the metro if we were still hell-bent on getting to the Eiffel Tower but perhaps we should just give up and do something else. Courtney, agreeing with me, said we were more likely to actually see some fireworks aboveground than going down into the Metro.

Still extraordinarily angry with Yuan, I set out walking with the rest in tow. I didn’t even get half a block before Mike stopped us all and pointed out that if we took the Metro right then, we would get there faster and possibly catch the end of the fireworks. It just all came down to if we cared that we missed the fireworks at the end of the train ride. To me, it didn’t at that point. I took a deep breath and told myself I was angry over nothing. Yuan was insufferable, but we were in Paris, France and there was no reason for me to fly off the handle. Thus immediately appeased, I agreed with Mike (a visibly surprised Mike) and we all hastened into the Metro at the Place d’Italie.

On the train we downed the gigantic bottle of water we had bought earlier. I’ve never been so thirsty as I was in Paris. There was just never enough water. We just kept drinking it. We finished this huge bottle of water in probably two minutes. It was lukewarm and delicious. About halfway to the Eiffel Tower, we realized the fireworks were over. The Metro was crowding with people and everyone was heading away from the direction we were going. We shrugged; there was nothing else to do at that point.

We emerged from the Metro basically at the Eiffel Tower and were immediately in a gigantic throng of people, all hastening in the opposite direction. The area around the Eiffel Tower was a like a mix between a war zone and the beginning of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. There were people running everywhere and explosions coming intermittently from all sides. People would just light a firecracker and drop it in the street where, if you were lucky, you caught sight of it and fled before it exploded around your feet. Sirens blared all around as ambulances and fire brigades tried to get through the crowd-clogged streets. It was complete chaos. We fought our way through the crowds and soon the Eiffel Tower was in view. Suddenly none of it mattered. It didn’t matter that at any moment we could be taken out by a ten-year-old with a bottle rocket or that we were a mere ten minutes too late or that we had spent most of the evening at odds and running. We were there, finally, and even without fireworks the Eiffel Tower was a sight to behold at night.

We waded through the chaos and finally found ourselves in a park-like area at the base of the Eiffel Tower. We were all thirsty for more water again and didn’t want to start in on the wine without hydrating first. Mike dispatched Courtney and Yuan to find a place for us to sit and said that he and I would go find water. We wandered towards the base of the Eiffel Tower. Chaos was all around us but I was serene. It was beautiful, breathtakingly so, and the flavor of the culture swirling around us was heady.

Mike and I wandered to and fro trying to find a place that was open and sold water. All the vendors directly under the Eiffel Tower had packed up and closed already. We came out from under the Eiffel Tower and headed towards the Seine. There, strangely, was a small carnival comprised of a concessions stand and a twinkling carousal. The concessions stand was cleaning up since it was the only thing open for blocks and blocks. We stood in line for a while, deliberating the necessity of water at 2.50EU. We were really that desperately thirsty?

Turns out, we weren’t. So Mike and I left the throng gathered at the carnival and started back to where we left Courtney and Yuan. We walked not in any particular hurry, just reveling in the moment and the company. It was completely lovely. We dashed away from yet another prepubescent with a small explosive and went along the little pond next the Eiffel Tower. As we walked, the Tower suddenly lit up and dazzled with thousands of randomly placed white, blinking lights. It was completely magical and unexpected. We awed at it and took pictures and then ogled it some more. Finally, we turned back to the lawn and wandered in search of Courtney and Yuan.

Paris: Part Two (from Marco Polo's and back again)

2006-07-17T13:06:00.000-04:00

We left the Hotel Tamaris and our bags and went in search of food. It was closer to nine by this point and we weren't exactly sated by some candy bars and the copious amounts of water consumed on the bus ride over from London. We wandered along the Cours de Vincennes for a bit, stopping to look at menus every so often until we came to an acceptable and primarily deserted café called Marco Polo's. We took a table and, as came to be quite normal, the majority of us all had the same thing, in this case a "Petit Dejeuner Anglaise," or an English breakfast. It seemed silly to travel all the way from Oxford to have an English breakfast in Paris, but it was delicious. A croissant, a buttered baguette, two eggs, a piece of ham, orange juice, hot chocolate and some tomatoes later, we left Marco Polo's completely satisfied. In true Parisian fashion, this meal simply left a feeling of complete, perfect fullness and satisfaction, rather than the traditional American style of leaving a place so full you can't walk straight and feeling mildly ill.

Thus satisfied, we hopped on the Metro and headed for the Champs Elysees for the Bastille Day parade. We came out and followed the massive amounts of people since we didn't really know where we were going. We somehow ended up at Le Madeleine and set up camp next to it with relatively few crowds. We had hardly stopped walking when a huge rushing noise was heard and six fighter planes soared by overhead with red, white and blue colored exhaust making a French flag. It was amazing and the planes were followed by other configurations. Soon after the air force was done showing off, the parade arrived at Le Madeleine. It was a military parade. Prior to this, I'd never been to a military parade and didn't really grasp the differences between a military parade and a normal, American parade. I was expecting marching bands, bagpipes, perhaps some floats and people waving cheerily from cars. Military parades do not have any of this, except the army marching band. As we stood there, completely awed, unit after unit marched by in complete unison, some singing, others parading silently by. After the units came the military vehicles, each larger than the one before it. Even as we marveled at a passing tank and exclaimed how no other tank could possibly be bigger than that one, the next tank would come and sure enough be bigger. It was awesome in the most traditional sense of the word. I can't imagine what an American military parade would be like, this French one was quite intimidating and fearsome.

Eventually the parade of deadly weapons ceased and, after sticking around for a bit, we decided to head to the Tuileries for lunch. We went to the Champs Elysees and went through the tail-end of the Tuileries. We were really more thirsty than anything so we got some water and kept walking. We weren't really going anywhere in particular, we had the eventual goal of getting the Hotel des Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb since both are free on Bastille Day, but we were just heading in that general direction. It was at this moment of hydration that we saw the Arc de Triomphe. There it was at the end of the Champs Elysees looking just close enough that it would be sheer folly to go have a look. Courtney, miraculously, had never heard of it which allowed me to launch into a brief lecture about it. (It's the largest triumphal arch in the world.It was built by Napoleon.that sort of thing.)

It was much farther than we had thought but it was worth going. We didn't take our lives into our hands and try to cross to see under it, but we took lots of pictures from across the street. After seeing the largest triumphal arch in the world, we headed more purposefully towards the Hotel des Invalides. We came upon the Seine near the Pont de L'Alma and went up to the edge of the wall to look at the river. We got more than we bargained for there. I don't know how a 320-meter-high monument can sneak up on you so easily, but the Eiffel Tower does it. You'll just be wandering around, reveling in the fact that you're in Paris and then there it is, peeking out from behind a building or something. I have an increasing fondness for the Eiffel Tower. It's hard not to be awed by it and it's just so quintessentially Parisian that it brings a smile to the face whenever it sneaks up on you. It intrinsically reminds you that you are in Paris and how incredible is that?

Needless to say, we took lots of pictures before going across the Pont de L'Alma. We walked along towards the Hotel des Invalides and finally came across it. Unsurprisingly, there was some kind of military event on the lawn in front and there were people parachuting down with French flag parachutes. We went into the Hotel des Invalides and had some lunch in the cafeteria. This was my first experience with a French hot dog. I'll admit I was a bit leery of them, since they are (unlike in the US) doused in cheese, but I was willing to try. Delicious! Very satisfying even though lunch was sort of awkwardly quiet since we were all fading fast. Courtney would every so often ask a question which I would answer and then we would fall back into quiet. We'd basically been going since Thursday afternoon with very little sleep and it was catching up to us. So we decided to check out the armor in the Hotel des Invalides, see Napoleon's Tomb and then "see how we felt." This was Mike's code for "go back to the hotel."

Yuan was indefatigable, however, and didn't understand why we weren't taking more time to have a leisurely look at all the armor. Courtney and I collapsed onto a bench-like piece of marble and waited for the boys to finish looking around. Mike eventually appeared and plunked down next to me, equally beat and Yuan came up last. We left the armor and dutifully walked over to Napoleon's Tomb. Even since I found out that Napoleon was taller than me, I've been a bitter better regarding the little man but his tomb was quite swanky. We vacillated between thinking how cool it would be to be buried in such a place and just thinking it ridiculous to be buried in such opulence. They had his coat and hat and Mike realized he is the same height as Napoleon. So we were both a little bitter about the whole thing. Not that this stopped us from taking loads of pictures again. Once you accept your role as tourist and revel in it, things get a lot more fun. Don't try to blend in, just be a tourist and love it, that's all I can recommend.

After a quick stop at the gift shop (have I ever been able to resist a good gift shop?), we all agreed it was time to actually check in at the Hotel Tamaris and get our room. It hadn't been ready at eight in the morning so we thought it was best if we checked in then rather than at midnight after the Bastille Day fireworks. So back onto the Metro and back to the Hotel. We were given room seven on the ground level. We all stumbled in with our various bags. "Where are the other two beds?" Yuan immediately asked, completely baffled. It took him about five minutes to get that a quad means four people can fit and that he would be sharing a bed with Mike.

Courtney immediately flopped onto our bed and informed me that she was a loud snorer and that she tends to flail and thrash in her sleep. Upon telling me this, she rolled over and was, in fact, snoring loudly quite shortly. Since she had basically flopped in the middle of the bed, this left me with very little space to flop myself. So I helped Mike try and buy tickets to the Louvre, first on the internet and then on the phone, both to the point of complete frustration. Finally Mike handed the phone over to Yuan to let him get annoyed with it and went over to their bed. I perched on the end and flipped through the guidebook while Yuan tried to get an outside line. Finally, completely unperturbed, Yuan gave up and I started clearing a space on the bed. "You want to flop?" Mike asked with his face half in the pillow. "Oh yes," I replied, basically walking around half-asleep at this point. He helped clear stuff away and I fell down next to him. Yuan kept talking but I was already in that hazy place somewhere in between consciousness and dead sleep. Mike inquired if I normally slept with my glasses on and that was basically the last thing I remember. I slipped my glasses off, put them on the nightstand and then sleep just engulfed me. Mike rolled over at some point which woke me up a little but he just whispered "Sorry" and we both fell back asleep.

When I actually woke up, it was almost eight. I was wonderfully groggy and happy as I was nudged awake and up out of bed. On the way from the Metro to our Hotel, we had stopped at a grocery store for provisions for the night's fireworks display. Grocery stores, I've found, all smell exactly the same. It doesn't matter where you are, there is this pervasive smell that is just the same in every grocery store. We walked in and it immediately hit us; it was very reassuring. We bought brie, crackers, wine, grapes, water, chocolate and some biscuits to eat during the fireworks. With these provisions safely tucked into Yuan's backpack, we set out for our actual dinner prior to going to the Eiffel Tower to see the fireworks.

We ended up back at Marco Polo's at what we quickly termed "our" table (same one from that morning). Seated next to us was a wonderfully amiable, elderly French couple. Inevitably, Yuan struck up a conversation with them despite his poor French and their nonexistent English. Yuan just has a way of talking to people that was in evidence throughout the trip. He would stop people and ask for directions when we knew where we were going or if we just waffling about something, he was stop and ask a Parisian. So it was not at all surprising that he should start talking to these people. Happily, they turned out to be the most wonderful people. Yuan brokenly explained to them that he speaks poor French and said that I speak better French than his but that I'm nervous. The old man turned to me with a mischievous grin. "Direz 'Bonjour,'" he ordered me. "Bonjour!" I returned with a smile. They both laughed and he told me it sounded perfect and I shouldn't be afraid to try. He just gave me the gift of confidence so simply and it felt great. From there on out, I was the one speaking French for the group and translating anything for them. I loved every moment.

Paris: Part One, from Oxford to the Hotel Tamaris

2006-07-17T10:34:00.000-04:00

When last we left our heroine, she was preparing to depart for Paris, via London and a magical bus. I hardly know where to begin with such a superlatively fantastic saga. I suppose I should start where I left off: Thursday morning.

As it happened, Lauren was perfectly capable of fetching her own mother from the bus station. They nearly passed me on the street without noticing (which would have meant I would have been left sitting at the train station for hours wondering where either of them were) but I spotted them (with my glasses off no less) and we all went back to Trinity. I bopped around the room for a bit and then went over to Courtney's room just to escape what basically amounted to two Laurens in my room. I helped her pack, fixed her iPod mini and learned all sorts of things I absolutely never wanted to know about the common fly. It's horrifying and I won't repeat a word of it so don't ask.

Finally, it was about three and I knew Mike would be out of class shortly so I went back to my room to wait for him. We had all sort of decided to use my room as the meeting point so I was excited that I would be off to Pairs within the hour. I blared my peppy 80s music and did some more quality bopping around. Slowly, everyone started to appear and I just got more and more euphoric. Lauren's obnoxious request that we leave and meet up somewhere else because she wanted to take a nap couldn't even quash my mood. I was pumped and we were going to Paris. Paris, France. It was too good to be believed.

We took a double-decker bus from Oxford to London and positioned ourselves at the very front of the upper level. It was like a ride in Disneyland sitting up there, watching as the bus darted in and out of traffic always nearly hitting some hapless bicker or pedestrian. It trucked along through the English countryside, resplendent in the sunshine and abounding with numerous cows and sheep. Courtney busied herself with her camera and we all merrily joked around the whole way to London. We finally pulled into the city proper after driving about half and hour through London's very own Suburbia and it was a thrill unto itself. One of the best experiences of traveling is the abrupt feeling you occasionally get when you just suddenly know where you are. This happened to me quite a few times over the course of the trip and it's a wonderful feeling of familiarity and competence. The bus was weaving through rotaries like there was no tomorrow and sped past Notting Hill Gate and then, all of a sudden, we were at Hyde Park in Knightsbridge and I just knew where I was. It was like a mini-homecoming.

We all hopped off the bus and found ourselves near Victoria Cross Bus Terminal, where we had to pick up our bus to Paris in nearly four hours. We were pretty ravenous by this point (Oxford provides no lunch for us poor students) so we headed into a nearby mall and finally decided on a place called Molly O'Grady's, an Irish pub. Mike and I split a pint and we all had excellent hamburgers. More hilarity with Courtney's lack of photographic ability ensued and then we wandered around for a bit (and did an impromptu performance of "The Jet Song" from West Side Story) until it was time to return to Victoria Cross. There we checked in, stocked up on provisions (lots of water and candy bars) and waited for the bus.

It wasn't a long wait and soon we all piled into this new bus. It was only one storey but we still got the front seats. Apparently no one wants them because there is no leg room (as I would come to realize over the course of the ride). But it was a fantastic way to ride. Everything opened up before us on the road and we had a great view of just about everything. The bus driver was a small Italian man who spoke no French and no English and had a penchant for European techno music. The entire way out of London we listened to the Euro-beats and Courtney and I danced in our seats. It was our own little rave. We passed over the Thames and saw the London Eye and MI-5 headquarters. It was extremely exciting.

After leaving London, things slowed down and the sun finally set. It stays light forever in Europe, starting at about four in the morning and going strong until at least ten at night. It throws the body off a little bit since you think it's about five judging by the light and come to find out it's 10pm. It's probably why it's so easy to stay up late here. Courtney and I talked while the boys listened to Eddie Izzard off of Mike's iPod. The moon was gigantic and orange as we drove towards it and we amused ourselves by trying to photograph it. It was impossible but we walked away with many artsy-night-highway shots. Finally we drifted off to sleep a bit.

The bus driver, as I said, spoke no English and no French. His only company was his little GPS machine which periodically barked things at him in Italian. He was very calm about the whole thing but having a machine shout incomprehensible directions every so often cut down on my ability to sleep very well. Courtney was out cold when the machine shouted something and jolted me awake. Blearily, I looked around. We came around a corner and were at some kind of well-light terminal yard below us. As I continued to look around, I finally noticed the gigantic cliff face behind us. More interestingly and most importantly, the cliff was white. I immediately shook Courtney and she groggily came about. "The White Cliffs of Dover!" I was whispered excitedly. "I thought you might want to see them." She was appropriately excited and whipped out her camera.

All four of us were now awake a bit confused. We had phoned the bus company and had been informed that Euroline buses took the Eurotunnel from London to Paris. But we were at Dover and this seemed to suggest a boat to Calais was in our future. This excited me to no end since I've always had a strange fascination with Calais since reading The Three Musketeers. I think it would be the epitome of romantic adventure to shout back to someone as you're being dragged off in another direction, "Meet me in Calais!" I'm also a fan of ferries so I was quite excited about the increasingly real possibility that we would be on a boat that night.

However, logistically, it didn't make sense that this gigantic tour bus could be on a boat. The word "ferry" conjures up images of a little man in a rowboat happily rowing people across the channel while whistling or telling old yarns. Additionally, Courtney has horrible motion sickness and was petrified of having to take the ferry. I was torn between the thrill that I might be in Calais and concern that Courtney might throw up on me before that happened. Soon, however, it became quite clear that there was absolutely no Eurotunnel in this part of Dover and that we were shortly going to be somehow ferried across the English Channel. We were crossing the English Channel from Dover to Calais in the middle of the night under the cloak of darkness and the gigantic orange moon. I couldn't have been more ensorcelled with the whole situation even if Alexandre Dumas himself stepped out and led me up the gangplank.

The bus pulled into the gargantuan ferry boat behind a bus full of a marching band and we were all gestured at by the bus driver to get off. We were led into a stairwell and went up two flights before the whole thing opened up into a cruise ship. "It's like they felt like rewarding us for our business and were like 'Here's a cruise!'" Mike commented about the whole thing later. We were giddy and punchy from lack of sleep and crowed at our good fortune. Mike threw an arm around me and we all just laughed at the sudden turn for the more luxurious our trip at taken. There was a casino and a bar and a place to buy food and, best of all, the stormy desk with it's perpetual torrent of sea spray and wind that quite literally knocked my hat off. It was exhilarating to climb up to the highest deck and trust my body into the wind as I clung to the railing. The wind tore through my hair and the spray drenched my face but I didn't care. It was wonderful all the same.

After a bit, Courtney and I returned below where we had left Mike and Yuan with our bags. Mike happily leaped up to go look at the deck since apparently Yuan had broken out a deck of cards and was subjecting him to a math game. So they both went off onto the deck and I attempted to distract Courtney from the rising bile with small talk and a thrilling game of solitaire. Mike and Yuan eventually returned, the former with a bottle of gin and the latter with a bottle of rum, both from the on-board duty-free shop. Courtney was completely focused on staring out the window and not being sick by this point so we left her be. Mike and I started to get some concrete plans in order for the next few days (in Paris!). The whole ferry ride was surprisingly short and, before we knew it or could really process that we were on a boat, it was time to go back down to the bus.

We drove out of Calais and into the French countryside. It was completely black on all sides so we couldn't admire it as we had the English. So we all settled down and tried to get some sleep since, by this point, it was somewhere around two or three in the morning. This was our hotel for the night and we had to make the best of it. I had great trouble sleeping and wished fervently for a neck pillow but didn't have anything. I fidgeted around, catching little seven-minute stretches of sleep before being uncomfortably jarred awake by something or other. I kept giving up and my neck just got more and more sore as the sun started to rise. The countryside was monotonous as it came into view and I wanted to sleep more than anything.

I dozed until Paris. Our 7am entrance into Paris was anticlimactic at best since the bus depot was located in the 20^th Arrondissement, which is almost outside the city proper. But we were there, in Paris and that gave me a little adrenalin to run on. We got ourselves onto the proper Metro and I almost dozed off on the ride over to the Hotel Tamaris. We got out and found ourselves on the Avenue de Dr. Arnold Netter. Our Hotel was no where in sight. As it happened, had we merely crossed the boulevard before us and walked about five feet, we would have seen both the correct road and the sign for the Hotel Tamaris, but, instead, we wandered off, sporadically asking random people for directions. Yuan abruptly knew bits of French and we would accost people off the street but then not understand what they were saying back. I was extremely shy and nervous about using my French so we didn't really get anywhere. Worse still, no one seemed to have heard of either the street or the hotel. When I tried to speak French, they didn't understand what I was saying. It was quite demoralizing. Finally, a group of Middle Eastern bakers directed us to a Chinese magazine shop that they thought would help. I went up to grandfatherly proprietor of the place and asked once more where the hotel was. He had no idea but drew us a map that would get us to the street the hotel was supposed to be on. I talked to him in extremely broken French and he just nodded and finally handed me the map. There was a little "x" in the lower left-hand corner with the label, "You're here." He knew English.

Feeling more than a little foolish, we left the shop and took the roundabout way to the street which eventually led us to about 100 feet from Dr. Arnold Netter's street. There was the Hotel Tamaris and we all trudged in, hoping things we would easier now that we had at least found the hotel.

Wednesday, July 12th

2006-07-13T06:13:00.000-04:00

I spent the afternoon sequestered in the Trinity College Library. The library has a sort of comforting mustiness and echo of time about it. The ceilings are remarkably high with plaster decorations on them. At some point in the college's history, a second level of books was added for all the books pertaining to divinity so that they might be closer to the heavens. A winding wooden staircase leads up to the second level. Since I had no need for a divinity book, I had no need to go up there but if I ever felt like playing the tourist I would venture up. Every time I turned the page the sound of the paper would echo into the basically deserted space.

I thought it would be stifling in there, both temperature-wise and atmosphere-wise, but it was quite relaxing. Whoever designed that library knew what they were doing. It has this wonderful feeling of just libraryness that is indefinable. A few times it occurred to me how much more technologically advanced Smith's library is but that really was nothing in comparison with the feeling that emanates from Trinity College Library. It was a completely calming experience to sit in the leather chairs, read what former students had scribbled on the long, semi-divided table in their moments of academic distress (often written in other languages, including Latin) and pour over a ponderous volume of Edmund Burke.

We got to dinner late (Courtney was doing laundry) so there were only some sad remnants of the food that once was. I had some kind of vegetable patty with "extra tomato sauce" (this was an optional thing and one to which I perkily replied, "Yes please!" and was later mocked), snow peas (the perpetual side-dish) and some potatoes. Not quite meal of the year, but quite good nevertheless. After dinner I once more retired to the library to finish up some Sam Johnson reading. I was looking forward to this reading since Mr. Samuel Johnson is the author of the first dictionary in the modern sense of the word "dictionary." I wondered what he was like as a person and what his political affiliations were. Since I was reading a piece called "Taxation No Tyranny," I was pretty sure I'd get a good dose of Mr. Johnson's thoughts. Tragically, Johnson proved quite the disappointment. I have no problem with an Englishman of the 18^thcentury taking the side of king and country as long as he articulates his points and actually argues against the prevailing arguments of those who were pro-American. Johnson chose instead of doing a point-counterpoint to ridicule the arguments of the pro-Americans and deride them at every turn. It was quite disappointing to turn up for some real debate only to get mockery and a distinct sense of the ridiculous from Mr. Johnson. That's not an argument, that's evading the question with smoke and mirrors. It didn't reflect well on the King's cause for me.

Upon finishing up Johnson, I headed back to my room only to find Lauren blaring the Doors as loud as she could. Within seconds she had whisked away on some errand, leaving me, the room and the Doors screeching out a heinous version of Van Morrison's "Gloria." I had no idea where she'd gotten off to, switched the music to the Doobie Brothers (alphabetically near the Doors) and headed off for Courtney's room. There I did some law readings (all regarding international law on the national stage and, conversely, national law on the international stage. Suffice to say, the relationship between treaties and municipal US law is extraordinarily convoluted.) and wrote up my presentation. Courtney had another film viewing (yet another version of Macbeth) at 10pm so I left her then and went back to my room. This was all but immediately intolerable. Happily, Mike came back from his film screening a little after ten and said I could come up to his room if I liked (and "bring your laptop, law library, whatever"). I lasted all of five minutes remaining in my room and high-tailed it up there piled down with books and my laptop. I ended up staying there until 3:37am. One of the many problems with not having a watch and Mike not having a clock.

Courtney and Yuan had agreed to meet up with us in Mike's room at midnight to figure out who owed what and to whom in terms of Paris. I finished up my presentation long before I thought I would so I got to spend some time just talking to Mike one-on-one. This wasn't as awkward as I had imagined (you are well aware of my lack of conversational skills and Mike professes to have an equal level of skill). Actually, it turned out to be quite nice and talked for a while about various things. Meanwhile, Courtney is chronically late and Yuan is chronically early so the latter turned up at 11:30 and the former at 12:30. At 12:30, we all headed out to the kebab van for some food to keep us awake a little while longer. We then figured everything out and Courtney basically ended up in debtor's prison since she didn't have money with her to pay either Yuan or myself. Us other three basically squared up with each other, though, so that was a relief to get out of the way. Both Yuan and Mike owe me an additional three pounds, but they can just buy me food at some point and I'll be happy.

I have no idea how I ended up in Mike's room until 3:37am. I thought it was possibly 2:30 when I left, I don't know where that hour went. But I was perfectly awake and I had to tell myself it was probably best if I went to sleep rather than do more law readings. The last two hours or so, Mike and I were basically half-asleep on the couch while Courtney futzed with Mike's computer, IM-ing people and playing with his iTunes account. Riveting good times as you can imagine. My attentions were primarily focused on a rather large moth that had somehow managed to get into the room despite two closed windows. Riveting.

So I'm going to Paris today! I am leaving today, Thursday, July 13, 2006! I can't believe it's already here. First, though, I have to go get Lauren's mom from the bus station (I know, I can't believe I'm doing this either) and then I can toss some stuff in my backpack and go! I'm elated! It's been a kind of see-us-through thing the past few days. Whenever something's going wrong, one of us four (usually Mike) will bring up that we're going to Paris and whatever the problem is will be a whole Channel away. Paris!

The only downside I can think of it the fact that I won't be able to write like this in Paris. I was pondering taking my laptop but it seems more trouble than its really worth. We don't know how safe the Hotel Tamaris is and I don't really want to have to worry about my laptop sitting in the room all day. I think Mike might be bringing his anyway and its lighter so I'll let him deal with it. If you have any thoughts on the subject, I'd be happy to hear them. If not, I'll have to write a hideously long entry on Monday or Sunday night. Goody, right?

Love,

Corey

Lauren the Infuriating and the events of Tuesday and Wednesday

2006-07-12T10:23:00.000-04:00

I cut out some irrelevant paragraphs about studying and Marisa here. All you really need to know from thses paragraphs is that I was confused as to whether Marisa's name was, in fact, Marisa or Melissa since the rosters had it both ways and she never introduced herself to me. - Corey of December 4, 2006

...In other news, I continue to be disappointed by the other members of the program. You might recall Courtney and I having our first "real" conversation about what a let-down the other students are. This disappointment has spread to Mike as well and the four of us (Mike, Yuan, Courtney and myself) commiserated over it last night. Yuan is very much blithely unaware of any social structure or cliques in the program since, as Courtney put it, he operates along a similar level as Mr. Magoo. He kind of reminds me of Grandpa. He's an extremely affable guy with the best intentions at heart and the determination to do whatever he puts his mind to. Where Mike, Courtney and I would stand around waffling about something, Yuan would grab the nearest passerby and ask their opinion on the matter. He's good to have around since he counterbalances the prevailing shyness of us other three.

But to continue with my most recent disappointment: In class today, we were looking at and discussing political prints from the 1770s and 1780s. Marisa/Melissa had bravely taken up the torch and was waxing on about which characteristics were portrayed as females and which were males. (Example being that all delicate features such as peace and composure are female whereas warlike things are inevitably male.) To me, this was both a perfectly valid point and one raised quite often at Smith, unsurprisingly. Emad, a student from UVA but on our program, turned to the girl next to me and inquired in a loud undertone, "Does she go to Smith?" The girl next to me hissed back, "What?" "Does she go to Smith?" Emad repeated, this time gesticulating more forcefully towards Marisa/Melissa. "What? No...She goes to UMass," replied the girl next to me. Emad nodded to himself and returned to staring blankly at the print under discussion.

How infuriating! Simply because she brings up an issue involving women, he automatically assumes she goes to Smith and is unnecessarily militaristic regarding women's rights. She was speaking in a historical context and, even if she wasn't, it's a perfectly valid point since these sort of archetypes are still used today and it still doesn't make any sense. I was quite offended by Emad's assumption. I can see where he would get it from, but that doesn't make it any better. The whole program's like that. Judging based on snippets or appearance.

But back to Tuesday. After our law tutorial, Christina, Marisa/Melissa and I stole a croquet set and set about trying to figure out how to play. Both Marisa/Melissa and myself had played a little when we were younger but couldn't remember the point for the life of us. We just ended up making a completely bizarre course with very little point other than getting the ball through the randomly placed hoops. It was pretty hysterical since a bunch of tourists stopped and video-taped our game because they thought we were good, clean-cut British students out playing a relaxing game of afternoon croquet. Christina and I waved our Queen's waves as Marisa/Melissa sniggered in the background.

After croquet (or, since we had basically invented a new came, we called it American Crocket), I retired back to my room and more law readings. Since we're going to Paris this weekend, I find myself hip-deep in work for next week. Both Mike and I have agreed that we probably should have taken a look at our syllabi before launching off to Paris. He and Courtney have some papers due early next week and I have my most important law presentation. Paris had better be amazing to make up for all this academic hassle it's causing us!

We had our first colloquium lecture-thing last night which I attended. It was quite good, actually. The lecturer was named Christopher Ricks and seemed to be the world's greatest living expert on Thomas Hardy as a poet and, rather funnily, Bob Dylan as a poet. He made deciphering poetry seem like the simplest thing in the world and he had such a pleasing accent it was lovely to hear him recite Hardy's poems. So that was enjoyable and then we all walked back to the main hall for our late, formal dinner. I was seated across from Quinn who is a certified insane person. She proceeded to shout her life story at the two girls next to her for the entire meal which made it impossible for me hear anything anyone else said with the exception of Courtney who was seated directly beside me. Occasionally, I could hear Mike and, even more rarely, Amy but mostly I sat and drank a lot of water.

We all went back to our rooms after dinner since everyone was anxious to divest themselves of their formal attire. (Mike seems to have a particular dislike of his tie and jacket. I inquired if ties were really that uncomfortable, since I've never worn one, but he said they weren't so bad, which leaves the question of why he's so peeved with them open to debate.) Anyway, I got back to my room and Lauren was blissfully absent. Annoyance with her is spreading through the program by way of the people in all her classes. I met a woman named Anna from her architecture class who is on the verge of murdering Lauren. She just talks incessantly and repetitively about herself and it can be pretty annoying. So Lauren wasn't in the room which made me quite happy and I was able to read an article on King George III from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in relative peace.

When Lauren did return to the room, she had lost her voice. This, of course, did not stop her from talking. "It's so weird," she rasped. "Because it's not like I was doing a lot of talking or anything." Right. Not at all. Since she refused to give her voice a rest, I was subjected to a sick and whispering Lauren which is even more annoying than just your basic Lauren. I don't know why, but the fact that she continued to whisper was supremely irritating. After rambling about how she was feeling at the moment, she abruptly switched tacks and proceeded to give me this ultimatum about having people over. She doesn't like it when people come over to the room and hang out and talk to me after she's gone into her room and shut the door. It just keeps her awake knowing that someone might come to talk to me so, even if they don't, she can't sleep. And if they do come, our voices keep her awake. And if they do come and then leave without saying a word, the opening and closing of the door keeps her awake. Just the possibility that the door might open and close keeps her awake. So could I please just stay in the room or hang out somewhere else?

I don't know if I've ever been so angered by anything she's ever said to me. It is completely Laura all over again! I don't know who I've offended and what greater power I've angered, but I'm really, truly sorry. Henceforth, I would really appreciate good roommates.

At any rate, at this point, I had already invited Courtney over to read in my room since Simone (Courtney's roommate) was already completely drunk and the two of them have a secret hatred of each other anyway. I asked Lauren as calmly as I could if it was all right for Courtney to come into our room and sit quietly and not talk. Yeah, that was fine, but there was just something about Courtney's voice that keeps Lauren up. By this point I was completely turned off to Lauren and focused with an intensity that only comes to me in moments of severe irritation on my George III article (still not finished). Lauren kept yammering on in her annoying whispering rasp and I continued to pointedly ignore her and read my article. Eventually, Courtney showed up and Lauren repeated choice bits of the ultimatum to Courtney. Courtney proceeded to pretend to be asleep so Lauren would stop talking to her but that, of course, didn't work. Nothing like not having a voice and people falling asleep around her would stop Lauren.

At this moment of extreme frustration (Courtney had had a pretty bad night as well), Mike finally came through on his promise to stop by my room "later." We both almost leaped up and hugged him. Since we were both pretty punchy by that point, Courtney and I kept making veiled allusions to our horrible nights since leaving dinner and Mike was lost within five minutes. Then there was another knock on the door. It was one of the horribly humorous moments. The night Lauren chooses to tell me not to have people over, everyone comes over. The door opened and in stepped Yuan. It was a perfect combination of wretchedness and hilarity. Courtney and I couldn't stop laughing really and we all decided to go up to Mike's room where we could talk in a way that wasn't all code so Lauren wouldn't catch on.

So we went up and I stayed in Mike's room until 12:35, all of us talking and griping and telling of our nights. We all (except Yuan) shared our similar frustrations with the social aspects of the program and then Mike showed us some goofy SNL clips to cheer us up. Both the nights of Courtney and myself were funny in their retelling, but it didn't stop my stomach from telling me it was all getting to be too much. The combination of Bill Speck's echoing disappointment and the increasing difficulty of living with Lauren had provoked by body into its most stressful state and produced a horrible feeling of sickness in my stomach. It all happened very fast but, by 12:35, I felt like I would faint if I didn't lie down. I made quick and awkward goodbyes to everyone in Mike's room and fled back downstairs where I sickly collapsed onto my bed. I haven't felt that rotten since, oh, the last time I had a roommate, back in the spring of 2005. I felt quite thoroughly ill but knew I couldn't do anything about it other than distract my mind from the problems before it. So I set about forcing my mind to other topics and purposefully not thinking about my stomach or any of my problems. It isn't easy to think that hard while trying to fall asleep, but eventually I convinced my stomach I was as carefree as a Doris Day movie and was able to fall asleep.

This morning I was stoic and unresponsive to anything Lauren said which actually worked in shutting her up. There are only two things I really need from her. 1. I need her to never go into my room with my express permission and 2. I need here to not talk to me if I'm obviously working on something. That's all I need. If she infringes either of these two things again, I'm going to speak to her about it. It's hardball time. If she can do it, I can bring it, too.

Class this morning with Bill Speck was better. As it turns out, he did have other things on his mind when he reprimanded us on Monday. He was being observed by someone who was deciding whether or not to renew the class for next year's program and we made the class look bad, apparently. As he told me in our private meeting later (after I expressed disappointment that I had botched my presentation), "I realized you weren't all born knowing what I wanted." I'm glad he got that. He was extremely specific in what he wanted from us on Monday which, while I personally have nothing due Monday, it was nice to know for future reference. He knows he has to be specific with us now. He also rather cryptically told me in regards to my performance on Monday, "You win some, you lose some." Does that mean he did take credit for me? He boggles me but no longer angers me.

I'll wrap up now even though there's always more to say. Unbelievably, these e-mails are condensed! Anyway, I got your wonderful package today and was so giddy with everything you sent. The entire Week in Review section looks wonderful and it was sweet of you to send a key-chain along. I am still using the paperclip, so good call on that one! The cookies have been enjoyed by myself, Simone and Courtney as of now and I have already decided Lauren is not getting any. Call it petty, if you like, but I'm feeling rather petty towards her at the moment.

I love you both and hope all is well!

-Corey

Tuesday morning strangeness

2006-07-11T08:02:00.000-04:00

When I emerged from my room at about 10:15 this morning, I was confronted with Lauren rather sullenly sitting on our chaise staring at an empty tea cup and an empty plate. I said good morning and inquired about her health. This inevitably launched her into a forty-five minute account of her night last night. One of the first revelations about what happened last night to come forward was that she came into my room last night and watched me sleep. Let me repeat that for those of you not fully grasping the bizarre twist my life has just taken: She came into my room last night around 1:30 and sat on my floor for half an hour watching me sleep. Came. Into my room. Watched me sleep. Just take a minute to ponder that.

In a completely non-infuriating way, Lauren is the most self-centered person I've ever met. The only thing she ever talks about is herself, how she's feeling, what she's thinking, who she cares about and she acts accordingly. She is 100% motivated by what will make her feel better in that moment. And at 1:30 last night, she needed to see another person alive, well and sleeping soundly. She said she was delirious for an hour last night but not when she came into my room. She said she pondered waking me up because she needed someone to cuddle her or, at the very least, give her a hug. She said she leaned on my bed and talked to me in her head so she wouldn't wake me up. She said she felt much better.

I don't know where I am left in all this mess. I'm a little confused since I thought that when we each retired into our own rooms and closed the doors, that was a signal that we were each done for the day and there was an invisible "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging on the door. I'm a little creeped out since she came and watched me sleep for an extended period of time. But I'm not angry. For some reason, the sheer oddness of the whole situation hasn't angered me. I'm not mad she came into my room uninvited and watched me sleep. I think I probably should be and have the right to be, but I'm just not. It just fits in with the Lauren-continuity that's been created here over the past week. It fits with her that this is something she would do and that makes it somehow all right.

The thing that does bother me is what a big production she's making about this little cold. The exact same cold that I had not two days ago and didn't make any fuss about. She gave me this dramatic re-enactment of her night this morning as I numbly ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She was delirious and feverish and thrashing about in bed and she had to clear the energy over her bed and walk around and call random people and give her love away to her father or whoever was around and then drugged with aspirin and then, blissfully, asleep. She was almost late to class because she "had to tell me her story." Her story. Her epic. I have to shake my head at the ridiculousness of it all.

I just had to tell you of the latest strange chapter in my acquaintance with Lauren. Now I should probably get back to the grindstone and reading about the General Assembly of the UN. I don't remember if I gushed about the UN Charter to you guys, but it's really wonderful. It makes you love the world that people sat down and had these wonderful thoughts and actually did something about them. The only tragedy is how it didn't play out like they thought it would. I wish the UN could be the organization its founders dreamed it would be.

Love,

Corey

Oh Monday morning you gave me no warning of what was to be!

2006-07-10T18:42:00.000-04:00

I've kept my editing to a minimum, just fixing errors of spelling or word-choice, but throughout here please note the notes from the Corey of November 8, 2006 in Italics.

After a thoroughly depressing morning, I splurged on an "American inspired" sandwich from Sainsbury's. I know I'm supposed to be discovering exciting British culture, but I needed some comfort food. I snarfed it down and inhaled my bottle of Evian. I was still extremely peeved with the events of the morning so I wasted the intervening hour and a half on my computer before sturdily perking myself up and heading off to law.

One thing that I have discovered and that continues to bother me is that tutors don't like it if you're early. I am habitually early to classes. I try to stop myself from being more than ten minutes early, but I just like to get there and not worry about getting there. When you show up early, tutors just get confused and, after ascertaining that there isn't anything you particularly needed, turn you out. They actually ask you to leave. It boggles my mind. You have to leave for ten minutes, wander about and come back. I don't see what's so bloody difficult about letting me sit in the classroom in perfectly respectful silence from ten minutes. They're just confused and then annoyed. Why are they there early if we can't be?

Anyway, after waiting the ten minutes, Jillaine let us in and class commenced. The class meeting isn't as thrilling a mental exercise as the discussion group, but it cheered me up considerably. I love, adore and am madly infatuated with my law class. Isn't it funny how things turn out? I wanted to drop it before I even took it and stick with my history class and it turns out I love it and want to drop the history class. At least I'm not completely unhappy in both my classes. That would have been truly dreadful.

Anyway, Jillaine let us out an hour earlier than I thought she would which was a pleasant surprise so I went into town and took care of some things. Lauren, meanwhile, is still sick and basically haunting the room. I know I shouldn't complain since I spend most of my time there as well. Lauren sick is like Lauren magnified by 100 since I'm the only one she really sees at all. She waits for me to come back and then talks my ear off before I flee. The funniest moment of Lauren monologue came today when I got back from the room and she started talking to me through the door of her bedroom. I didn't say anything and she finally ended her monologue with, "Yeah, you're right. You're definitely right."

At dinner I got to gripe about my morning class to Courtney and Quinn and they were very sympathetic. Dinner was actually quite lovely food-wise (see below) but equally lovely in terms of conversation. Courtney and I had the first "real" conversation of our friendship. It was nice. For all my mocking of deep conversations, I do like to have them when I can contribute something meaningful. I'm getting much better at that sort of thing. Yes, I have thoughts and now I'm able to articulate them to others. Courtney and I discussed the program and what we think of the other people in it. Not in a gossipy, bad way, but how we feel and are treated by others. She is feeling the same amount of discontent at the sectarian nature of the program. It's like on the third day of the program everyone had already made up their minds as to who are their friends and who aren't and now it's set in stone. It's so weird because there are so few of us and we can't even be sure who it is okay to nod "hello" to on the street. At Smith there would be no question. We all nod "hello" to even slight acquaintances.

We both expressed a sort of general annoyance at the program, socially and academically. We had numerous and varied complaints and it felt so good to just get it all out there and have someone reciprocate. We carried the conversation over and back to my room for a bit before Courtney had to go out to a film screening for a class. Her tutor is intent upon forcing the class to watch Shakespearean film adaptations she herself considers bad or, worse still, hasn't even seen. Courtney is more than a little fed up with the class. No one seems particularly pleased with their minor courses, which is a definite shame. We've come so far to take these classes, they should be blow-your-socks-off amazing. It makes me sad that some aren't.

After dinner I called Dad and he was extremely nice to me as I once more railed against my history class. Everyone I've told about the situation has been very nice and sympathetic and almost everyone had some kind of helpful suggestion as to what to do. It's really sweet since (with the obvious exception of Dad) I've only known these people for a week and they already assumed that I knew what I was doing and it's the tutor's problem. I remember worrying about going to college and having to reestablish what considered "me." The "me" that I'd worked so hard to cultivate through middle and into high school. That girl who you don't ask to give the answers to something and don't ask to do drugs and all the goodie two shoes stuff. Turns out I needn't have worried. I am just me and I project that and people get it. I'm not a goodie two shoes and people get that, too. It was a funny thing to worry about. As superficial as it sounds, I really like that people get me and genuinely like me. I don't think they're pretending. I like being liked. It's a good feeling.

Note to Mike of Nov. 2006: Please don't take the following paragraph the wrong way and please do bear in mind that this was the second week of the program.

So I hunkered down for the night with more law readings. Mike stopped by for some bus-thing but then stayed, lurking by the door for a while and we got to joke around a little bit. Lauren came out of her room for a bit and, since she thinks Mike and I should "hook up" (seriously, she spends an inordinate amount of time pondering who is going to get with who), decided to be my wingman without prompting. It's a little annoying since this is basically what happens with every single guy I've ever been friends with. I become friends with him, then everyone around me decides we have crushes on each other, so I develop a crush and then that inevitably ruins the whole relationship. I think I'm just desperate for a boyfriend because I am really not that attracted romantically to Mike. I really like him and he's a great guy, but I'm teetering on that horrible verge between being happy as friends and developing the peer-induced crush.I guess it's a fun stage but I'm just really aware of everything. And refer back to me liking being liked.

So Lauren (and Courtney, I'm pretty sure) has decided she's my wingman which would be quite helpful if I wanted to go out with Mike. Lauren was quite pleased with herself (and came back out to point it out to me after Mike left) since she said, "I love Corey!" after I was exclaiming over my adoration of the UN Charter (and wishing the UN could just work like it says in the Charter) and Mike replied, "Me, too." Quite the victory for Lauren.

Anyway, Mike left, Lauren retired to bed and I went back to my law books. Christina and I agreed to meet tomorrow to discuss the roles of the Security Council and the General Assembly before presenting at 3pm. She's still stressed out about the whole thing so I think talking about it will help.

A little before ten, Courtney reappeared (with Quinn in tow) and inquired if I would like to go out to the kabob truck. This is on the list of "must-dos" in Oxford so I figured now was as good a time as any. I wasn't particularly hungry but I agreed anyway. Courtney wondered if Mike would care to join us and I told her he was upstairs doing something. So Courtney called and Mike said he wasn't interested. This caused me to roll my eyes at him over the phone, which Courtney conveyed, and he said he'd be right down. (Had Lauren been there, she would have had another victory.) I, meanwhile, was quite impressed with my eye-rolling/pouting prowess if he didn't even have to see it for it to work. :)

Note to Mike of November again: The above and the Lauren "I love you" thing were when I seriously started to think you might be interested. This, of course, only propelled me into the state of basically perpetual confusion that I would dwell in until July 29th.

So we all went out to the kebab van and I got some chips that were then dowsed in some watery ketchup that I am willing to bet was not Heintz's. But the chips were good and Mike and Courtney had something called a donor wrap (which reminded me rather unpleasantly of the Donner Party, but it turns out it was just lamb and not actually human meat so it was okay). Back in the Garden Quandrangle, Courtney and Quinn went off to discuss Beat poets and Mike ran back to his room since he foolishly ordered hot sauce and then needed something to dowse the unpleasant side effects of said sauce. So here I am back in my room writing to you as Lauren occasionally mumbles something from in her room. And this has ended up way longer than intended but since you've both been so encouraging regarding my writing I hope you'll pardon me.

I think I'll go call you (just because I wuff you sooooo much) and hopefully you enjoy this email tomorrow.

Love lots and lots,

Corey

Tonight's Dinner:

Chicken stuffed with some kind of herb/cheese thing

Curly fries

Peas and corn

Chocolate Cake

Lots and lots of water

Monday morning

2006-07-10T09:09:00.000-04:00

As if to contrast last week, this week started out with one of the worst academic experiences I've ever had. This and Greek are duking it out for the top spot at the moment. I just got out of my British Perspectives class and it was basically hell in stairwell 10. I'm so demoralized I can't even muster enough enthusiasm to be proud that I just kept attempting to participate despite absolutely no encouragement from Bill Speck. Nothing I said pleased him, not even little snippets tutors and professors sometimes pull out to make the student feel his/her contribution hasn't been a complete waste. I was a complete waste.

It angers me a little since I so enjoyed both the assigned readings only to come to class and find such misery. None of us had any idea what he wanted (which, apparently, was a lot more background delving than anyone had thought to do) and only Sam seemed to be in Bill Speck's good graces. Sam, who miraculously knows all background information about everything and anything. The class as a whole did so poorly that Bil Speck actually told us at the end of class that he had taken points away from certain unnamed people for such poor preparation and participation. I have never heard of such a thing in my life. Taking points away for talking in class? It hardly encourages class participation.

I'm just so miserable with this class at the moment. I tried so hard but nothing I said led anywhere. I took notes, I typed up my thoughts this morning and I even came up with discussion questions if need be. I did everything I would do for a Gilsdorf history class at Smith but to no avail. Nothing I said was remotely interesting or went in the direction Bill Speck wanted. I feel completely ill prepared and I'm on the verge of just not caring. I'll do the work. Hell, I'll do all the insane, unspecified background work but I don't care any more. I have no desire to succeed in the class. I have no fondness for Bill Speck or even the subject matter.

I can't think of anything to make me feel better about the whole debacle. I'm not sad about it, I'm in a state of steely anger at Bill Speck and of unhappiness over my lack of success. I tried so hard! We all did. But to no avail at all. Nothing mattered. I don't know what he wants and I don't really care either. I don't know what made me keep piping up. I don't know if my continual attempts earned me negative points or just allowed me to break even. I don't dare to hope I got points for such a hideous class session.

Just miserable. I can't think straight it was such a horrible experience. Hateful tutor!

Still steaming quietly,
Corey

Sunday (possibly day seven)

2006-07-09T16:19:00.000-04:00

Today was an extraordinarily relaxing day. I spent the bulk of it hiding out in Mike's room doing my law readings. It's extremely slow going with the readings but it was so much calmer up in Mike's room. Just being up one floor let a lot more air into the room and both his windows open so that was a plus. Add to that the lack of Lauren, occasional Shakespeare discussion and the sporadic hilarity of law textbooks (the sheer volume of red tape at the UN slays me), and it was an excellent afternoon.

Dinner was a barbeque, but an indoor one which everyone found rather strange. We had paper plates, plastic silverware and plastic cups but it was all indoors. The only thing we could come up with that it was a tad bit chilly out so the cooks didn't want to go outside and grill the stuff properly. We all had hoodies on since we had to wait outside for the food anyway so outdoor eating wouldn't really have been a problem. But it was delicious and they had ice cream Mars bars which are completely wonderful (I highly recommend tracking them down) so it wasn't a true waste.

After dinner we (Yuan, Mike, Courtney and myself) went back to my room to make a firmer plan about what to do in Paris. Lauren, ever-lurking, found this adorable. So far we've got the Louvre, Montmartre, Napoleon's Tomb/the Military Mueum (free on Bastille Day!), a boat ride down the Seine and various Bastille Day activities. It should be really packed but good fun. I'm a little zonked right now so I'll just email tomorrow.

Love,
Corey

Day Seven?

2006-07-09T08:54:00.000-04:00

Okay, I think today (Sunday) is day seven but I could easily have lost track. This email is really about the weekend as a whole, even though it's not over yet and day seven (if that's today) hasn't really begun yet. All that said, read on!

Friday was lovely since I was sick and therefore got to spend the day alone on campus alternately reading and sleeping. I felt pretty rotten but the sleeping helped immensely. Everyone got back around four and was very nice about my sickness. I gathered up some energy and a bunch of us headed out to the Turf Tavern for dinner. There I had some overpriced four-cheese pasta and a glass of water. Courtney had the most vile beer imaginable (we all tried it and all agreed about its wretchedness) and everyone else seemed relatively pleased with their orders. The best thing about the Turf Tavern was the atmosphere. The food was mediocre and overpriced, but the atmosphere was great. Getting there is like walking into a Harry Potter book. You turn down a side street and then down a little alley you wouldn't even see if you weren't looking for it. Down this alley is a little hotel and, next to the large sign for the hotel, is a tiny blue and gold sign that reads "Turf Tavern" and has a little arrow pointing to the left. Only once you get up close to the sign do you see that there's a little passageway leading off to the Turf. You go through it (cobblestone, of course) and then it opens up and you're out in the open air and surrounded by friendly signs and people everywhere. In the middle of all this outdoor jocularity, there's a little sort of ramshackle building that is the actual tavern. It has the expected low ceilings and a feeling of extreme rush about it. We had to wander around for quite a bit before finding a table that seated all of us (and I was still sort of perched on the end of a bench) and then we ordered at the bar. It was mass chaos, but fun.

Then, after dinner, Mike, Yuan and Amy decided to go to this ridiculously expensive concert tenor concert. Courtney and I decided it was too rich for our tastes and headed off to grab some ice cream. It was delicious but then we were completely stuffed and stumbled in a rather slovenly fashion back to Trinity. We were completely full and just collapsed into my room where Amanda and Lauren were already talking. Since we were too full to move at all, we ended up getting an approximately two-hour lecture from Lauren about eating problems in American society. Courtney has compared her to the show part of dinner and a show or a wind-up toy, both of which I would agree with. Amanda, Courtney and I occasionally added things to her lecture and that was enough to keep her going.

Suffice to say, we were pretty gleeful when Mike and Yuan returned from the concert and Amanda and Lauren left. I went to change out of my dinner dress and, when I came back out, there were these two other girls there! One was in my Doug Patey class so that was cool but I don't know the other one. Anyway, we watched this goofy late-1990s teen/Shakespeare movie I'd never seen before (it was a take on "Midsummer") and that was fun. Then Felicia and the other girl left and the remaining four of us decided (really the three of them decided and I can't say no to West Wing) to play the West Wing Drinking Game! I'd never actually played it, but the rules always looked fantastic. So we broke out the OJ and the vodka and watched "Take This Sabbath Day." (It's the one where Josh gets drunk and turns up hung over in the office to meet with Joey so we thought it was appropriate.) With rules like "Take a drink whenever there's a blue folder. Two drinks if Josh has it rolled up." and "Take a drink whenever someone speaks Latin," there was much jocularity to be had. It's a thinking man's game, though, since many of the things you couldn't possibly do if were drunk. Like "Take a drink if someone quotes the Constitution." You have to be pretty sober to recognize a passage from the Constitution.

Everyone finally took off after "Take This Sabbath Day" and I went off to sleep. Saturday was spent in the room reading various things. Lauren was lying in wait when I woke up since, as she said, she just couldn't wait to talk to me. It's like Laura redux. I'm just so darn fabulous a roommate! Anyway, she basically didn't stop talking all day which made processing my law readings a bit difficult. She went out a few times since she was "antsy" but came back quickly from most errands. Abruptly, in the middle of both of us reading for class, she piped up with, "I'm so glad you're my roommate!" It's nice that she likes me so much and she really doesn't annoy me as much as Laura did, so that's good.

I was pretty giddy when Mike came to get me for dinner. Lauren was on the phone with someone (her mom?) and I had retired to my room in an attempt to read about Thomas Hardy. Mike and I collected Courtney and found Yuan and we all headed off. Unfortunately, none of us knew where we were heading to so we had to stop after only a few paces to figure that one out. We ended up at a pub called the Eagle and Child which was where J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis hung out in their Oxford days. It was quite nice, much calmer (and less expensive) than the Turf Tavern and easier to find. Legend has it that the Prancing Pony in Tolkien's books was really just a fictionalized version of the Eagle and Child, which made it pretty cool. Another moment of walking into a fantasy book.

We spent hours there talking, going around the table getting to know each other. We'd start with some kind of base question and each of us would have to answer it. It was interesting to purposefully sit down and get to know someone like that. One of the things was "what do you want to do with your life?" kind of thing and everyone was so supportive of everyone else. It was great. It's nice to just be able to talk with these people. And they don't really know anything about me so it's all new and they're all equally interesting to me. I like this period in knowing people where all your own stories are new again and you're just sharing everything you've got. It's fantastic.

After dinner we all went for ice cream and then wandered around trying to find this independent film theater Courtney had spotted during Friday's hike. Finally we found it and Yuan misunderstood Courtney's interest and went straight up and bought our tickets. So we ended up seeing The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which is a film about the beginnings of the IRA in 1920s Ireland. It was brutally violent and from the beginning you knew there wasn't going to be any kind of uplifting or happy ending because they IRA is still around. It was sympathetic towards the IRA (at least the IRA of the 1920s) but it didn't endear them to me at all. If anything, it made me dislike them even more. There were good people just trying for peace and then there were these hoodlums running around in the mountains shooting battalions of Englishmen to send a message back to a Parliament that couldn't have cared less about Ireland, a tiny smudge in a gigantic empire. It just made me lose faith in Ireland. I don't understand how anyone can make themselves be that brutal for their country. It was horrible.

So, all thoroughly dejected, we headed back to Trinity. Mike, Yuan and Courtney decided to go play cards but I was pretty beat so I went back to my room and called you guys. Lauren had left a note that she was asleep so I quietly padded around. Once in the bathroom and in the middle of doing my business, Lauren calls out from her room sounding pretty wasted. (But then she always sounds kind of wasted and that's just Lauren.) Turns out she was feeling unwell. This didn't stop her from engaging me in conversation through the bathroom door for another half hour.

Anyway, I got up this morning, showered and, when I came out of my room, Lauren immediately emerged from hers and informed me, on the verge of tears, that she was feeling horrible. Her throat hurt and she ate too much earlier and it didn't feel right but she couldn't stop because her throat hurt so much...Well, gee Lauren, sounds a lot like what I had and didn't gripe about. So she's in misery and feeling rotten and occasionally groaning. I told her to drink up on the orange juice even though it doesn't feel very good going down and sleep a lot. She doesn't really listen to anything I say, so she's up and drinking water. But she did thank me for being her surrogate mommy and helping her with it. So apparently she noticed that I gave her advice but chose to disregard it.

So that's Sunday so far. I'm sitting here, emailing you and listening to a capella music. I've been here a week now. Weird, isn't it? I can't believe it's only been a week. It feels like I've been here forever. I think that's how it almost always goes, though. You plop me down somewhere and within a few days it's like I've always been there. I have pretty horrible grasp of time, anyway, just ask Katie, but it just feels surreal. The two things I've noticed that are radically different from America are: 1) everything closes up shop at 5pm. If you're lucky, 6pm. Nothing is open later than 11pm. 2) everything costs at least two times what you think it should. Open-air theater costs ?16. Shakespeare should be free, people! So, despite those two annoyances, things are good here. I think you'll like wandering around Oxford, everything is beautiful.

Thank you so much for giving me this experience and being wonderful people (just in general). I love you both and hope to talk to you soon.

Love,

Corey

Day Five (coming to you from Day Six!)

2006-07-07T07:56:00.000-04:00

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

Day Four (belatedly and with my apologies) and Day Five (the beginning, anyway)

2006-07-06T07:31:00.000-04:00

Day Four:

I woke up to the lovely sounds of someone throwing what sounded like a bag of glass around in the alleyway next to my window. After staying up wandering around Oxford, watching West Wing and talking to you guys, I really wanted to sleep in but it wasn't in the cards. My bad room karma got me again! After being woken up, I got up, lolly-gagged around for a bit and then went off to class. I've started not going to breakfast since it's only open from the ungodly hour of 7:30 to the not-late-enough hour of 9:00. I don't want to wake up at 8:30 just to get breakfast and then be exhausted the rest of the day. Additionally, I'm never hungry then so I only get a little down before feeling completely stuffed (and then starved later in the day). I might as well get some rest and get the starved feeling anyway. Fortunately, I have my stores of food (now a whole thing of grapes and a gigantic bottle of water added) to see me through!

Anyway, I had class yesterday morning (Brit. Perspectives on the Am. Rev.). It was a strange, winding lecture that Bill Speck just sort of launched into. He didn't have any notes or anything so it was hard to tell where he was coming from or going to. He weaved in and out of subjects, all seeming tangents, but sort of stayed on one, main track about the PMs of Britain from about 1760-1773. It was a weird class. The lecture was okay but I didn't have anything to add. Occasionally, he would ask questions. Sometimes they would just be a rhetorial device and he would answer them but others he wanted us to jump in. (As he so helpfully reminded us, 20% of our grade is discussion! 20%!) At one point he was pondering the wording in the Declaration of Independence and abruptly asked us why we though the Founding Fathers took such a severe tack with the language. Why mention the king's "tyranny" when he wasn't a tyrant? Why mention "slavery" when they were not slaves? And why even bring up slavery if they weren't going to address the actual enslavement of Africans right under their noses? A few people proposed some things of varying cynicism but, while Bill Speck was good to point out all the good bits of each suggestion, he was looking for something else. At about this point, I had thought of something to say and my heart started pounding. I started to put my hand up but the guy behind me was faster (and probably more desirious of his 20%). He sort of said what I was going to say and, as Bill Speck, elaborated on the point, I found him saying almost exactly what I had been thinking. Yes, indeed, I have had those horrible "Drat I knew the answer and should have spoken up" moments at Oxford now. They're really quite wretched and I know I should just speak up but I'm too slow, I guess.

So after a highly unsatisfying class, I wandered over to Blackwell's (the local bookstore) to pick up a copy of Paine's Common Sense as instructed by Bill Speck. It took me forever wandering up and down that shop to find it, but eventually I came to a little corner marked "North American History" and found it at the bottom. It's a lovely copy, probably not worth the ?4.99 I had to spend on it, but quite pretty nevertheless.

It's finally started raining here in Oxford. As promised by Jiliane (my law tutor), the heat did not last. Now the weather seems content with remaining rather muggy and raining sporadically. There was a terrific downpour during class yesterday and I had to hightail it back to my room since I rather foolishly wore a white shirt. So this is a typical British summer, I hear, and it's not bad. You have to either perpetually carry an umbrella or just sort of shuffle-dash from place to place. I find that whenever I don't bring my umbrella, it rains but, if I do, it just stays sort of cloudy. I guess I have bad umbrella karma, too. :)

Anyway, Mike came to get me for tea and after sitting with some girls who were not very inclined towards conversation (two from my law class), I left. After some further confusion (including a phone call to the perpetually befuddled Courtney and another visit from Mike who was confused as to why I left without him), we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon until dinner in Courtney's room trying to figure out how to get to Paris. It's a nightmare! I thought people did this sort of thing all the time. London to Paris sounds pretty normal to me but it was just impossible. We tried everything until I finally came up with a magical bus that takes us straight from London to Paris overnight with no stops. That way we don't have to worry about a place to stay Thursday night and we get into Paris bright and early on Bastille Day. In time for the parade even! Thinking we had everything figured out and that we just had to find Yuan, who had somehow wandered off into town in search of a pool sometime after 1:30 and hadn't been seen since, confirm everything with him and book our plans.

This didn't go as planned (shock!). By 9:30 we were all back in Courtney's room, much to the chagrin of her roommate (self-proclaimed "incredibly judgemental"). So we packed up shop and went to my room where Lauren had disappeared off with her buddy and perpetual companion, Amanda. Things just kept going wrong and we relocated to the computer lab at about midnight. We were able to book our magical bus, but then the hostel we had found told us that they were full since this afternoon! This sent us on a wild attempt to find a hotel/hostel that still had room for the next week. Yuan found one but then lost it and I found one but then forgot as Yuan tried to rediscover his. Finally, at 1:45, we just booked the one I had found (The Hotel Tamaris) since, at that point, we were in no mood to price shop or finagle. We got a quad for two nights that's located quite near a metro stop that takes you directly into the center of Paris. So we're going to Paris. None of us could muster anything more than the quietest of enthusiasm at that late hour so we all trudged off to our rooms (Courtney and Mike to homework, Yuan and myself to bed) and decided to figure out our transportation from Oxford to London in the morning.

Day Five:

Today began with annoyance regarding Lauren. After kicking the four of us out last night since she said Courtney's low giggles were keeping her awake and then staying awake herself until about two, she had, at some point, tossed her alarm clock out into the common room since, like Courtney's laughter, the ticking was bothering her. In true Lauren fashion, she hadn't bothered to turn the alarm function off. At 10am, the stupid thing starts beeping and, since it's in the common room, I can hear it loud and clear. After quite some time, it finally stopped beeping. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't and finally just got up and went out into the common room.

Come to find Lauren, chomping away on her French bread, topping it off with my jam and my cheese and speading it all on the bread with my knife. My lovely little knife that I was so happy to buy only one of. And my wonderful cheese that's so delicious. I was silently infuriated. She might have bought the bread and beneficently informed me that I could feel free to have some, but I made no such offers when I brought my food stuffs into the room. Nor did she inquire if it was all right for her to have them or use my things to eat them with. I was fuming. Add to that a sore throat, my period and mild cramps, and I was not a happy camper. Rather grumpily, I informed her that I was going back to bed. She was still talking when I closed my bedroom door and fell back into bed rather glumly.

Just as I was able to distract my mind from the stolen silverware and food, I was jerked awake by what sounded like a vacuum cleaner. It was literally one of those jerk awake moments just like in the movies. I physically jerked and almost fell head-first off the bed. I shook my head and tried to figure out what it could possibly be. It took me a moment but then I realized it was Lauren in the bathroom taking a shower. When she came out and I came out of my room again, she started to apologize and then, giggling, said, "God! We're always apologizing to each other!" as if it were the funniest thing in the world. In my head I replied, "Well, just goes to show how well matched we are, roomie o' mine!"

So she sprinted off to class, late as usual, and I haven't had the heart to inspect my knife yet to see if she actually cleaned it or just dumped it back on my plate. My days never begin well. I almost always wake up feeling mildly depressed with the state of things but, happily, something always happens in the course of the day to lift my spirits. So I sit here in my room debating going into town versus showering (which to do first?) and writing to you. I'm going to do work today, I've decided. I have oodles of reading to do and got nothing (other than Paris) accomplished yesterday. So I'll hit the books but that will come after town and after my shower.

I love you both ever-so-much and I hope you're each enjoying life in your little corners of the world.

Love,

Corey

Day Three (in which things are hard but, in the end, wonderful)

2006-07-04T13:47:00.000-04:00

Today started out with a tour of the very small, very stuffy, very warm and very architecturally wonderful Trinity Library. The librarian vascilates between sternness and a sort of "I'm your buddy" attitude that's a bit conflicting. I think she just wants to help (and not get coffee spilled on the books) but her demeanor wasn't exactly welcoming. Get this: her explanation of the computerized card catalog confused even me. I'm not sure how the others in the tour faired, but it doesn't bode well! Fortunately, I don't have to use the library much unless I want a place to escape from my room to.

Happily, as Lauren grows increasing annoying, she finds her own people to hang out with. She's found some people to go do things with so I've only seen her for about ten minutes total today. I think this is probably the way roommates are supposed to work. You live together, you get along all right but you don't spend every waking moment together. We can talk about our days when we do see each other, even though she doesn't listen to me at all. That's one of the things I find most infuriating: she simply does not listen or process anything you say to her. She's too busy talking herself or thinking about something she wants to do. Additionally, she chomps. Considering my poor room/roommate karma, you will hardly find this surprising.

Anyway, I went into town again today to try and finish up the endless list of shopping that crops up. I am still in need of a three-to-two adapter so if you could pick one (or two) of those up for me at Radio Shack or something, I'd be giddy. They don't have them here since the place is full of British people who need adapters, not Americans who need adapters. I've looked in just about every shop that could possibly sell them including a sporting goods store. Anyway, I went to Boswell's today (an old department store that has all kinds of things) and picked up a spoon, a knife, a plate, a cup and some washcloths. It felt rather nice to just buy one of everything since normally I get at least two to accomodate someone else. It was quite pleasant just getting one of each item. I also splurged and bought myself a little, goofy Oxford shot glass! I haven't bought anything that wasn't a necessity yet so I thought I'd indulge myself. I'll keep pence in it or something. It wasn't very expensive, anyway

Short of the library tour and the excursion to Boswell's, I spent my entire day reading my law books. I don't think I've every worked this hard for anything. I read and read and read. I had to reread paragraphs because my mind would just wander off while my eyes continued reading. I took notes, I repeated passages I didn't quite understand until I did and I went to other textbooks if I really didn't grasp something. It was unbelievably difficult and I was feeling rather dull by 3 when I had a meeting with Jessie, my law study-buddy. But starting at three and going through until the end of our tutorial session, I was flying high. It might well have been the hardest I've ever worked, but it's probably also the most wonderful and competent I've ever felt. I read it all and I knew it all and it was a fantastic feeling to apply it in discussion with my tutor who (obviously) knows so much more about it than we do. The director of our program was telling us how he's gotten emails from students who have started in the five colleges and gone on to attend places like Harvard telling him that here at Oxford was their best academic experience of all time. It seemed plausible but more like a sort of advertising plug than anything but now I really understand it and it's 100% true. It's just such an amazing feeling to just know something so well after only 24 hours and be able to talk about it intelligently. And my tutor is wonderful! She wants your brain to work for it but she's equally happy to explain a complicated concept if we were all really confused. We went fifteen minutes over our allotted hour and I could have gone for another hour still. It was amazing. So wonderful, worth everything.

Tonight there are drinks in the garden at 7:15 (everyone is much excited by the concept of being legal a year early simply by crossing an ocean) and then formal dinner at 8pm. Last night some other program was all dolled up in the garden quad and drinking champagne with orange juice so I think their formal dinner was last night. I don't think my dresses will really fit in (if that's what our program people will dress like), but I'm basically okay with it. I'll wear my long grey dress and feel pretty, if out of place. Courtney forgot (aka: didn't know we had these dinners) to pack something nice to wear so at least I'll look nice comparatively.

I'm very much off the hook after my 24 hours of intensive law readings. I don't have anything to read for class tomorrow and nothing due after that until Monday. Lauren and her friend Amanda want to go into London this weekend and invited me along. I might just travel in and out with them and go off on my own otherwise. I want to go to some museums and get some of that fabulous cheese from Harrod's! (Speaking of which, I went grocery shopping last night and picked up some "Mild British Cheddar", milk, Ritz crackers, sliced ham, jam and nutella. Now you see the necessity of having the knife, plate and cup. The spoon is for yogurt smuggled out of the dining hall. According to Lauren and Amanda, they frown upon that sort of thing although no one's tried to stop me yet.) Anyway, I want to go to Paris for July 14th but I think it might be too expensive and too difficult to get back after the fireworks at 10:30pm. It falls, rather conveniently, on a Friday this year. This Friday, though, I'm going with the program for a hike outside of Oxford. Hopefully the nice (sweltering) weather holds and it won't rain on our hike!

(You should know that I stopped here for about 15 minutes to plan going to Paris with Courtney, Yuan and Mike. The plan is not yet complete nor do Mike or Yuan know about it yet, but Courtney and I are very optimistic. *grin*)

Anyway, I'm off back to town to try and scrouge up some bottled water to put in the fridge since I'm constantly thirsty here. I'm also in need of a keychain since my keys look pretty sad. I attached a paper clip to them to distinguish them, but that just perpuates the kind of hang-dog look of them. Anyway, to town again! You'll love it when you come (which, by the way, I can't wait for!). We might not be the prettiest campus of all the colleges, but we get to share Oxford with all the rest so that's all right.

Love you both so much and I look forward to speaking with you tonight!

Hearts all over the place,

Corey

Day Two before it's fully over

2006-07-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning to the dulcet tones of Lauren. Somehow, upon arriving back at the room last night post-pub-going, she had managed to lock us both out of our bathroom. This, I believe, should serve to illustrate Lauren's way of life. Somehow she dug up our Scout (aka: our maid) who, in turn, managed to dig up our resident handyman who pressed a magic button located above our door and the bathroom fixed itself. Lauren remains clueless as to how the whole thing occured and not very apologetic.

I also awoke this morning in a renewed sense of gloom. Lauren's perpetual talking ceasing to comfort in addition to the bathroom incident, my lack of enthusiasm about my law class and Lauren's lack of knowledge about iTunes/computers in general made for a dreary morning. Breakfast (with Lauren) did not lighten my spirits. I felt like no one had anything to say to me and I didn't have anything to say to them. Even the unstoppable Lauren seemed to have run out of things to say to me and awkward silence prevailed through most of breakfast. Predictably, when she went to go refill her tea cup, she went over and said "hi" to other people. She wasn't gone long but I still felt pretty crummy.

She went out to go shopping this morning and I was about to give over to sobbing (not a bright way to spend my mornings) when Lauren abruptly returned (only three tears shed), saying she forgot something. As she stood in the doorway preparing to depart again, a girl appeared and asked if she could use our fridge since her's smelled strange and she had milk to store. Lauren knew her apparently but ducked out since she was in a rush to get into town. The girl proceeded to introduce herself (Anna) and store her milk. Then she stayed and talked to me. It was very pleasant and made me feel a lot better. Her roommate (Jessica) then showed up since their Scout had come into the room and made her feel awkward. Jessica looked at me like I was some kind of bug which did not endear her to me, but Anna was quite nice and, while I probably didn't make a long-term friend, the whole thing made me feel better and I still have her hostage milk to fall back on if I get really desperate for a social experience.

Thus brightened, I headed out to class which was a delight. I had British Perspectives on the American Revolution this morning and a girl from my Doug Patey class was in it! We both got the questions about Samuel Johnson dead-on. There were us two Smithies, a boy from UVA and three UMass boys who remained unsurprisingly silent as Felicia, myself and UVA-boy dominated. The professor was adorable, from Leeds and knew Howard Nenner! I've got the first introductory presentation thing to do on Monday and he was quite happy to help and clarify the assignment to me.

This whole experience served to remind me how much I love learning and taking classes of any kind. As I sat in class, happily listening to him exclaim over his favorite bits of the Declaration of Independence, I realized I could probably be perfectly happy in this program with absolutely no friends as long as I had a life full of school-work. I love class. I hope it doesn't get too crazy. There's only one paper and he's already given us the assignment so I can work on it whenever. All three questions (pick one) are about interpreting certain phrases in the Declaration so that's fun.

After class there was an informational meeting which was fine. I sat with Felicia and had awkward, Smithie conversation with her. It was kind of funny, all us Smithies just ended up sitting together. Not at all by design and not all talking to each other, but there was this little cluster of us which was very familiar and comforting. Post-meeting I decided to head into down, grab a sandwich and then finish up my law readings. (I collapsed last night before being able to finish.) Courtney hurried off to class so she couldn't go with me and I turned around to find Mike in conversation with a Mt. Holyoke Ada-type woman walking towards town. I joined them and, to my surprise, the Mt. Holyoke woman left us for class at the gate and Mike and I went into town by ourselves.

At this point in the day, I was reminded of the old "Girls don't go to Smith because they hate boys, they go to Smith because they hate girls" adage that's oft-repeated around Smith. It's so true. Of all the people I've met here (or knew from before), I like Mike the best by far. The thing I really miss out on by going to Smith is having boys as friends. I always like them best, anyway. They're generally funny and laid-back and easy to talk to. Mike definately is and has the additional commendation of having been in Oxford since Friday so he knows where everything is already. He showed me this gorgeous park outside of Christ's Church and we had a little picnic there before we both hunkered down and did some reading. He had some Shakespeare to finish up and I have the never-ending trail of law readings.

So today picked up a lot. So much! I have another class to go to know but I didn't know if I'd have time to email later (what with the stupid law readings and two presentations tomorrow) so I thought I would now. And I'm in a happy state of mental health so I thought you'd like one of those to see your investment hasn't been a complete wash (so far). Hopefully I'll stay happy like this and be able to stay upbeat using some combination of loads of homework and little, friendly exchanges.

Love you and miss you so much,

Corey

Day One (and a half)

2006-07-02T16:09:00.000-04:00

I hardly know where to begin. I've picked myself up from the depths of depression and mental anguish once more by sheer force of will and repetition of helpful phrases such as "I will not cry, I'm fine, I will not cry..." It's all in the details, I've decided. So many times in the past twenty-four hours I've been on the complete verge of unspooling only to be dealt a small piece of kindness or inspiration that has allowed my continuing relative mental health. Surrounded by chaos in my tiny hole of a room, clothes everywhere, pads flying, dust in the drawers and no vaccuum, I simply took a breath and went to buy a newspaper to line the drawers. Then I could proceed with my tidying and tucking things away. Completely without furniture in my little room, I emptied my duffle of all its inyards, propped it up against the wall and made it my bedside table. Now my clock and box of tissues (two essentials purchase today) sit on it and my trash can is beside it. It's been moments like these that have gotten me through so far.

For the dinner barbeque, I turned on my happy face, put on a clean shirt and was quite sociable. Not as social as Lauren, of course, but more on her to come. Lauren talks incessantly. She is one of those people who just continually lets out a long spurt of words that only require an occasional "Yeah," "Hmm" or "I see" from her hapless listener. Contrary to how she sounds, it isn't very unpleasant or annoying. I'm sure if I were in a better state myself, I would quickly grow peeved about it but I rather like knowing there's someone else in the suite. She slept the entire afternoon and I was left to my own devices. This ended in a tearful phone call back across the pond and I truly wished I were back home. I still miss you both like the dickens and would love to be by the pool with you, but I'm not. I'm sucking it up and dealing with the horrible truth that I am in Oxford, England. There are many worse places I could be.

But back to Lauren. She doesn't stop talking, not in the bathroom, not in her room, not when I'm in the bathroom, never. Then only time she seemed to control herself was when I was reading my law books. She rather astutely noticed I was doing homework and busied herself unpacking and talking to herself. I went to the bathroom earlier and I heard her moaning in her room. Come to find she was making Chewbacca noises to amuse herself upon waking up from a long nap. She's once of those people who can go up to anyone and say, "What's your name?" get it and then hold out a hand with the self-assured words, "I'm Lauren." I'm sure she met almost all our program and half of the people from Georgetown and Georgia at the barbeque tonight. She dressed up in this slinky burgandy dress that made just about everyone else look under-dressed. She said she did it for as a personal boost for herself. She said she likes to dress up and look cute when she's feeling low, it makes her feel better.

To make myself feel better, I spent the afternoon listening to classical music on my new, shiny clock radio while unpacking various things and tidying my room to my satisfaction. As I said, there's no furniture aside from the bed itself and a large box-like closet in one corner so there isn't really anywhere to put my luggage. So the duffle became my bedside table and my other bags lounge discontentedly around the room. I'll try and find a place for them. We have some almost medieval pieces of furniture in the main room, I'm sure I could put things in them. We have those two hulking pieces and then a desk each, a fireplace, a fainting couch (red and very stiff), a chair (also red and also stiff), a large wooden coffee table and the fridge. It's a very nice fridge, about the size of mine but newer and much nicer. I'm currently making ice since no one else in this country seems to know how.

I still have reading to do for tomorrow. According to the Assistant Director of the program, both the classes I've chosen are heavy on the work. Just my luck. I am increasingly unenthused about the law class but I can't drop it. I spoke to a girl from Georgetown this morning named Diana who says you can drop anything except your major class which I think is perfectly rotten. She's in the law class, too, and agreed completely. I might have to ditch the seminar to keep up with the other two. Who knows how it'll all play out and how much my brain will fry.

Oxford is beautiful and as old as the hills. Trinity is like walking into Hampton Court, especially early in the morning when no one else is about. It's like it's just you and the ghosts of the Tudor court. There is a mammoth garden with mostly grass but some lovely flowers and a gravel walk through it directly across from our stairwell. It stretches on forever until a black, enormous iron gate rises up in between the stone walls and blocks us Trinity students out from another college. The Georgetown and Georgian people are staying over there. They all came in a long processional across the gardens for the barbeque tonight. Our windows are perfectly situated to see across the garden and anything going on in the Garden Quadrangle. It makes for good people watching although, being on the first floor, the person you're watching is equally likely to catch sight of you through the glass panes. This happened this morning when Courtney, Lauren and I were oggling a boy in a red shirt reading in the Garden Quad. He looked up, saw us, got the most puzzled look on his face and then went away. It left us in our usual girlish, Smithie giggles.

I have many worries about being here, as well you know, but my growing fear is for my social life. Everyone here seems hell-bent on going out and getting horrificially smashed every night. I have absolutely no interest in going out and getting even a little bit smashed but this seems to be the main social agenda provided. One of the Assistant Directors was arranging for everyone to go down to this "horrible dive" for cheap drinks tonight. Everyone seemed quite pleased at the prospect of being stared at by creepy old men who somehow managed to sneak their way into a students-only bar. I'm Bookish Tippy and, while I'm getting mildly sick of always being the bookish one, there isn't anything else to do. Additionally, I don't know these people. If I were going to go out and get drunk, I would do it with Katie or Emily. Of course, neither is here but things would probably be better if they were.

Lauren, upon waking this afternoon, magically fixed my laptop woes by proclaiming that my very own laptop has a power converter built right in for just this sort of situation. So I find myself the only girl in the whole program still on campus with my beloved little laptop tying away to you. I miss you both and I can't wait to see you in six weeks! I have both my classes tomorrow, just so I can ease in (not). I am most sincerely hoping that the jet lag doesn't hit me full throttle tomorrow. Not that I suppose it would matter, I'm getting really good at the happy face thing. I'm even charming at moments. (Not that anyone other than Michael noticed.)

So I should probably go off and finish the readings so I can go to bed. The sooner the better. My eyes swim as I try to read the dryest international law textbooks in all the land. As I said, not very enthused. I should have taken something easy like the architecture one. Too late now, I suppose. So I'm off to read. There's so much more I could tell you but I don't have the time really. All these memories I want to get down so I don't forget. I missed my chance at writing down first impressions but now I'm feeling fairly stable and I hopefully won't have to cry for an hour everyday to feel this way. I wish I had had room for Tramp and that I hadn't forgotten so many things, but that's life, I guess.

To the books!

-Corey