Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

After a week here, I think I’m finally connected to the internet for good. Interestingly enough, I was able to just plug my computer in and connect to my email server. I’m not entirely sure how that works, but I guess the system must somehow distinguish pop from http servers and for some reason allow the former even without properly logging on. Anyway, I won’t go into all the details about how I finally manage to get connected, but just think about what it might be like if a millennium of tradition in a very large, very decentralized, very arcane place meets 21st century computing. For example, the several dozen IT centres on campus, all with their own little fiefdoms …

So perhaps I will occasionally post things now that I can. At the moment, though, I need to go back to translating Suarez. But here’s a picture of me in my room that Erin appears to have somehow smuggled onto the camera. I suppose it’s a good thing that she took a picture of the room while she was here, since the place is, shall we say, a bit less photogenic by now.

How I remember the New York Times doesn’t have me in mind:

“You had a lot of people who graduated to a level of consumption they could not really afford,” said Adrianne Shapira, a retail analyst at Goldman Sachs. “Two-hundred-dollar pairs of denim were plausible when home values soared, but now $100 jeans are looking more reasonable.”

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And on paying kids for good grades, from an MSN article:

“Plenty of parents do give money in exchange for A’s and B’s — often $5 to $20 for top marks or $100 for a straight-A report card.”

When one expert expressed a concern that doing so would prevent kids from developing a good work ethic,  “she got plenty of flak from parents who pay for grades. Many made the argument that going to school is a child’s job, making it appropriate to link pay with performance.”  The expert responds that “going to school is the child’s role in the family, just as her role as a mother is to plan meals for her kids.  ‘It’s not something I expect to get paid for . . . It’s what I do as part of the family.”

You know, it seems a bit cruel to encourage parents to pay for their kids to perform in school . . . and then put pressure on parents to pay for the college that the child gets into as a result of those well-paid grades.  Just a thought.  Besides, my brother could earn As in school while half asleep, while others might work their tails off for a B.  Are we rewarding effort or marks, here?  And then the child might get wise and start taking easy classes–three hours of P.E., anyone?

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In other news, today is the first day of Cornell’s spring semester.  To attend class, students must be registered.  To be registered, the student cannot have an outstanding balance on his bursar account from last semester.  Oh yes, and today is also a bank holiday.  Think about all of the fun that comes from such a confluence.

Erin

While I was in England, the temperature stayed in the low forties most of the time, meaning that I, who had packed light sweaters and a heavy overcoat, spent most of my time walking briskly and being overheated.  I was not happy about that.  No need to tell me that I could walk more slowly–Sydney already made such a futile endeavor.  So I’m glad to be back in the land of real cold.  Thus, the ode to the scarf:

It was five degrees when I walked across campus this morning, so the scarf was around my hair and over my ears, keeping me from frostbite and making me feel like a movie star attempting disguise (which is quite funny, given that I live in “rural” Ithaca).  Later this morning the scarf will be wrapped around my person, making up for the slight damp and draft of my office.  And even later this morning the scarf will be draped around my shoulders, lending pretty gold and cobalt to my otherwise black-and-gray attire and cluing my students in to the fact that I’m the lady with the syllabi and the grades.  Yes, I really do rely on a scarf to separate “teacher” from “students,” but as it seems to work, I won’t complain!

Erin

Our housemate’s mom called me this afternoon (she lives across town) to make sure I made it in safely, and to see how my cat responded to having someone home again.  And when I was in the grocery store, I ran into a friend from church (Joanna) who said she’d have to have me over for dinner and offer some company.  Everyone I know has been really sweet about trying to make sure I’m not lonely while Sydney’s gone.  This also, somehow, seems to involve food, as if I left behind my cook in England, as well as my husband (yes, yes, I know, they’re just acknowledging that it’s less fun to cook for one, but the association is still funny to me).  Apparently Sydney got similar concerns about feeding himself when I was gone in June 🙂

There is something a bit eerie about the whole thing, though, as if, instead of being deprived of Sydney’s company for two months, the bereavement is a permanent one.  The same words get used in both cases.  On  the other hand, yesterday I just caught myself before I said, “Yeah, I just left my husband in England.”  That’s a very different thing!

Erin

I slept well, but was still up by 8:00am (after going to bed at 2:00), and by noon I’d taken care of the mail, vacuumed the house, gone to the post office, and had left for the grocery store.  I think I’m going to have a hard time with this shopping-for-one thing.  Sydney and I already grocery-shop like we’re a house of four, so there’s no way I can get it down to what I need for just me.  Hmm.  Oh well, I’ll make sure to make food for all of my school lunches, and then it might be okay.

I can’t really say I’m an inspired cook.  If left to my own devices, I simply wander into the kitchen hungry, have no idea what to cook, and then eat whatever’s lying around (which, if Nelson is here, means a lemon meringue pie).  But when Sydney brings home 50 pounds of tomatoes at a time, I have a very good idea of what needs to be used, and then get all sorts of ideas for using tomatoes.  Even now, in the middle of winter, I know we have lots of sweet potatoes that need to be eaten, so I’m digging up all sorts of things to make with them.

Something similar happens even with small things: when Nelson left we had a lemon and lime leftover from his cooking, so today I picked up an avocado at the store and made some guacamole.  Yum.  Of course, I still made three times as much as I wanted to eat . . .

Erin

I’m home again, safe and sound.  Although my travel day was long (made longer by the additional five hours I picked up on my flight back), all went really, really well.  From 7am (London time) when I woke up to 2am the next morning (Ithaca time) when I went to bed, I was a happy camper.  Sydney and I walked to the bus, which took me to London, where I got a really nice final look at Kensington Gardens (I really like it there).  I was dropped off just a few blocks from the hotel where Sydney and I had stayed, so I made my way to the train station with confidence!  Short train ride to the airport, where I just wandered around until I had collected my ticket, dropped off my bag, and gone through security.  I realized that flying is only really stressful if you feel pushed for time, which I did not.

The first thing I saw when I walked through security was a cute Harrods shop . . . so I walked in and bought some more tea.  I felt very satisfied with myself about that 🙂  Apparently everything in England is on sale in January, so I managed not to bankrupt us with my tea-buying.  Yes!  And by now I’ve collected numerous little tea tins, which come in quite handy around the kitchen.

My first flight was on a gigantic new airplane with all of the amenities–and it was only about 1/3 full!  The flight attendants were as surprised as the rest of us, but then quickly encouraged us to enjoy the room!  So for my nine-hour flight I had two seats to myself and only a couple of other people nearby.  That was nice.  I read a book for a long time (it’s a reaaaaaally long Victorian novel, so I barely made a dent), and wrote Sydney a letter.

On my second flight, I had a bit of anxiety because the attendant at the gate made repeated announcements about the flight being “weight critical,” and thus calling for volunteers to take a voucher and a later flight.  Since my flight went to Ithaca, there were no later flights (it was going on 9pm), and I was really worried about being bumped after my 20-hour travel day, but I did eventually manage to get on the plane.

Many things made my day really good.  Sydney gave me a big hug before I left, and on every single part of my journey I saw someone I knew: another English grad student on the flight from London, one of Sydney’s fellow philosophy students (Stephen), on the flight to Ithaca, and then my friend Laura picked me up at the airport when I finally got home around 11:30 (thank you, Laura!!!).  I also sat across from a very friendly and very talkative Cornell sophomore on the short flight home, and he kept me awake and energized with our conversation.  Oh yes, and I drank bottle after bottle of water and juice throughout the day 🙂  I’m really glad they allow water bottles into the airport, as long as they’re empty when they go through security–otherwise I’d have downed about $30 worth of bottled water!

Erin

Sydney didn’t feel great today, so he spent the entire day in his room. I, not knowing what was going on and reluctant to leave him on our last day together, also spent the day in his room. But by around 4:00 things began looking up, and I suggested a walk. On my last day here, I wanted fun food, and the oranges, granola, baked beans, and milk of Sydney’s pantry weren’t going to cut it. We walked north, away from Oxford, for a little while, marveling at the traffic attempting to get out of town. After walking much farther than we needed to and stopping to ask for directions, we found a Marks & Spencer about a 12-minute walk from Sydney’s place. He’s been pretty disgusted with the produce we’ve seen in England so far, but I think he’s much more satisfied (if not fully so) by what could be had at M&S. We not only brought home things like hummus, kiwi, melon, juice, and soup, but Sydney also got a rich strawberries-and-cream ice cream (made with clotted cream and other such things) and fruit compote. We have just finished off an entire honeydew, as well as the ice cream and compote, and Sydney is keeping me at arm’s length, afraid I’ll try to hug him and thereby put undue pressure on his full stomach. Since we haven’t been seduced by Guinness or found ourselves being loaded with clotted cream (we’ve stuck with groceries, rather than pub food), we figured this was our way of experiencing real English diet–heavy on the cream.

Always with an eye to food, here are some strange things we’ve noticed about the grocery and other things in England, and then I’ll sign off to spend my evening hugging him before I leave in the morning:

THINGS THE BRITS DO WELL

– Yogurt, milk, cheese, cream, ice cream, butter: I’ve had some of the best yogurt of my life here. Sydney is settling in for two months of milk-product heaven.

– Tea, of course. One nice thing is that you can find it anywhere, and it’s served in your hotel and restaurant without having to ask for it.

– Leeks, parsnips, radishes, beets. The cool, wet climate is great for these veggies.

– Baked beans for breakfast. This is a particular favorite of Sydney’s, since “continental breakfast” just makes him roll his eyes.

– Things from elsewhere. This includes French imports like patisseries and most baked goods, as well as Belgian chocolates (yum!). We’ve also heard that the Indian food is great (I wish I had gotten around to trying it while I was here, but I’ll send Sydney to confirm).

– Gardens. Even in winter most houses have evidence of green stuff all around, from hedges to careful beds. Since even places that don’t have permanent residents (like Sydney’s) have gardens, we’re not totally sure who does the work to produce such things, but it’s nice to be in a green place. We also read in the paper the other day that most towns will have garden allotments for their residents–and these plots are as large as all of Sydney’s in Ithaca combined!

THINGS OF WHICH WE DO NOT HEARTILY APPROVE

– The smoking here is outrageous. Much worse than in the States.

– All supermarkets we’ve seen (granted, only half a dozen or so, and most in city areas) are dominated by two things: liquor and prepared food. In Oxford, the Sainsbury grocery has numerous aisles of pre-packaged containers of potato salad, frozen dinners, and sandwiches to go. And these things are cleared out of the store by 4:30 in the afternoon! Coming off 2 1/2 years of home cooking, we were pretty disappointed by the lack of raw ingredients. Since Sydney may be doing lots of simple meals during his two months here, it may not be so bad for him to have some quick-and-easy options, but we didn’t want to think about how we’d feel if we ate that all the time, much less how our finances would stand it.

– Also somewhat eerie for me was that nobody in London seemed to smile. I mean nobody. It was the most somber-faced crowd I’d ever seen. Thankfully, people in Oxford seem to smile more.

There, now you know our we’ve-been-here-two-seconds impressions.

The second “gorge” in the title of this post, by the way, refers to Ithaca’s gorges, to which I’ll be returning tomorrow. Although I’m loathe to leave Sydney and this new place I haven’t explored to my satisfaction, I will be very glad to stop living out of a suitcase, pet my cat, and get back to the work rhythm that generally makes me happy and satisfied. Sydney’s current situation is a bit sparse, but I think he’ll be just fine. Hey, he’s got a hot pot and loads of tea–he’s all set!

Erin

By this point, I thought I had academic institutions figured out.  Much of the fun of arriving at a new university was that of finding hidey-holes in which to read, walks to take, and places to find food or treats.  Somehow, Oxford and I didn’t fall into that routine.  For one thing, I can’t even get into the library, much less find a good seat to call my own.  My shyness about taking tours has meant that I didn’t get to see all of what even random tourists get to see of Oxford.  Instead, I’ve spent my days wandering the streets, which have their own pleasures (finding new markets, enjoying a taste of English weather, etc.), but which don’t really feel homey and which wear me down, emotionally and physically.  I’m a bit tired of being asked for money by homeless guys and being surrounded by people who like shopping a great deal more than I do.  To put it frankly, I’m not used to being locked out of a university, and I can’t say I appreciate being on the outside.  My department building at Cornell is open to the public, and even Yale’s main library has reading rooms that anyone can visit.

I think the strangeness of my recent days also made me a bit more vulnerable to feeling like Sydney’s tag-along, and you can guess how much I like being baggage!  I’m sure once I’m home again, living my purposeful life, I’ll think more fondly of things than I am right now, when I’m confused and aimless in my activities.

That is not to say there aren’t good things: I love having tea with Sydney, enjoying one of the beverages the English do well, and I love (yes, really) the way the pale yellow stone of the colleges warms in afternoon light to a rich buttery color.  That fascinates me.

Erin

My ugliest ID photo by far to date was the one on my Department of Homeland Security card—I sent in a nice enough photo with my application but somehow it was transformed so as to make me look like a bloodthirsty monster who might indeed want to blow up things. Anyway, I now have a new contender: my Bodleian reader’s card. There are many problems. First, something like an inch of rain fell on me on my walk there. Looking like a drowned rat perhaps wasn’t the most auspicious start. Second, there was a huge window to my side that created a great deal of glare all over my wet face. Third, the camera was positioned somewhere below my chin looking up. Fourth, in order to be able to take a picture from that vantage point, it had to have a rather wide-angle lens. The overall effect is quite unusual. It’s a good thing I don’t much care about how I look on my pieces of identification.

Sydney

Yesterday was a bit confusing, with all of the rushing around, a bit of losing my way, and some very sore footpads.  But this morning Sydney and I both went off to class at 10:00, he to a lecture on Ockham, and me to a lecture on Modernism.  I assumed that if I sat in the back of a large class no one would notice.  I was right about not noticing, but I was not right about the class.  Apparently “lecture room 2” and “lecture theatre 2” are not the same thing–oops!  So I listened to a 50-minute lecture on Shakespeare’s Othello.  It was really good!  The professor had his material well in hand and made some really fascinating connections among the different elements of his argument.  For the first five minutes I felt flustered and sopping wet (it was raining hard outside, and I hadn’t yet found an umbrella), but then after that five minutes, I realized that I was likely the only other person in the room who knew the material well (the rest of the crowd looked to be bewildered freshmen), and I had a good handle on everything he said while being pleasantly surprised by the turns in the lecture.  I love being back in a classroom!  It really cheered me up (I’ve felt a bit frazzled in the last day or so) and reminded me that home can be found everywhere, as long as you know what “home” really is.

Part of my frazzle in the last day has something to do with Oxford lacking the kind of easy access to reading rooms and other college nooks and crannies that I’ve come to expect whenever visiting a new university.  I mean, this is the one place I’ve been where you can’t simply stroll into the library and plop down with a book when you need time to recuperate.  But that morning lecture really set me at ease and helped me to enjoy all of the things I saw later in the day.  Okay, okay, so my later enjoyment may also have been aided by my purchase of some great cheese, lovely scarves (Heidi, I found the shop in the Covered Market!), and two beautiful teacups!

Erin