Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

I have spent a long couple of days preparing a teaching application, and I just finished.  Who knew you needed something like 5000 words and almost a hundred pages of attached syllabi, student evaluations, and the like to fill out a simple application?  And of course, I’m doing it all on Sydney’s computer while we get used to switching over, so there was occasional muttering from me as some formatting thing went haywire and I longed for what I was used to.  Not to mention the fact that I have gotten used to changing seats with my laptop whenever my back got tired–no longer!  But I’m hoping Sydney will find my little laptop useful in England.  And here’s hoping he doesn’t kill it off by downloading huge pdfs of old books he’s scanned!

Meanwhile, Sydney has gotten in the paper-moving mode.  Because he’ll be gone for quite some time, because I’ll be on his side of the desk and complaining bitterly about having no place to work amongst his files, and because the whole house is in an uproar anyway with our travel plans underway, Sydney’s filing away his papers.  One of the stacks is up to my knee, if that’s any indication of what we’re looking at here.  And that’s with me surreptitiously  putting away blank index cards and other ordinary paraphernalia on the desk every chance I get.  But I can see a bit of desk on his side of things again, and that makes me deliriously happy.  Hey, I never said we were normal, but I thought the different ways in which we were not normal would entertain you.
Erin

Today Sydney and I took a look at digital cameras.  He needs something with which to take photos of the rare books at Oxford and I, ahem, am having trouble finding places that sell APS film for my camera.  Something told me that shopping for cameras with a former photographer would mean we wouldn’t end up with a simple point-and-shoot, but I didn’t fully expect something as nice as we got.  Thanks to a few more dollars in shipping, it will be here in a day or two and give us a bit of time to figure out how it works before we leave.  Christmas comes a week later in our house, I guess!

Erin

Today Sydney and I spent quite a lot of time switching computers.  Sydney’s taking my laptop to England, so I am getting a crash course in Linux on his desktop in the few days before he leaves.  But it’s not the Linux stuff, per se, that’s bothering me so far.  I’m sure somewhere down the line I’ll be annoyed that the entire system is designed to be as unlike Windows as possible, but right now I’m simply weirded out by fonts.  I didn’t think I had much personal investment in computers, having worked in several offices where I bounced from computer to computer, but by now I’ve got a rather personalized computer and I am loathe to leave it.  Oh yeah, and I’ve gotten rather attached to Stickies; they, with my planner, help me to organize my life.

Since I will no longer be carting my laptop to school (where I don’t have ready access to another computer) and Sydney should well be preoccupied by something other than a computer in Oxford, we’ll see how our blogging fares.  If you’re ‘lucky,’ I’ll be so bored and Sydney-sick that I write frequently, and he’ll be so excited by his new experiences that he’ll want to share with you all.  Then again, have you frequently seen Sydney excited?

Erin

If you think you’re reasonably smart, here’s a simple, little test for you: http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/logic_task.htm. If you feel stupid after taking it, perhaps you can find some comfort in knowing that even logicians do badly at it.

Sydney

Several of you have visited or spent time in London and Oxford.  Anything we can’t miss?

Erin

Despite the fact that I have a fellowship application due this week, despite the fact that I have reading to do, and despite the fact that we’re having Sydney’s professors over for dinner tomorrow night, my thoughts are in London.  Sydney and I spent nearly all of yesterday hunting down a hotel in London for the first leg of our trip.  Although all of the sites online said it was full, I called the best-rated inexpensive hotel (yes, without really remembering the five-hour time difference) and managed to get their last room.  I have an idea they’ve dealt with American customers before, as the gentleman on the other end of the line asked me repeatedly if I wanted the room, since it’s on the fourth floor (fifth floor, once you include the ground floor) and the hotel doesn’t have a lift.  Sydney and I had a good laugh over that one, remembering our treks up the stairs to our respective dorm rooms in college (my last year I lived on the eighth floor).  Ack, we have a home, and I can even map it on Google!  Three days and night in London–woohoo!

We were also feeling a bit adrift in our travel plans until Sydney had the bright idea of hitting up Barnes & Noble for a map of London.  Now we’re armed with a large foldout map and a small guide-with-map that I have already littered with sticky tags for places we want to see.  My list may be a bit strange, as high on it is walking by Virginia Woolf’s old house (or two; we’ll see how much patience Sydney has for my strange interests).  Also prominent is a growing list of used bookstores to hit!  I’m finally getting excited about this whole shebang, now that I’ve turned some attention to it.  I do, however, have some qualms about touristing myself, qualms that likely stem from my recent reading of all of E. M. Forster’s novels, in which he likes to poke fun at the bumbling tourist armed with guidebook and ignorance.  So, in an attempt at prudence, I have covered over my guidebook’s garish covers with black paper 🙂  A small gesture, I know, but it’s better than nothing.

Erin

Despite it being almost noon, I am the only one awake in our house.  Nelson’s plane left at 7 this morning from Syracuse (an hour’s drive from here), so the boys got up at 4 to get on the road.  I hugged him goodbye last night, packed them some food, and then slept through the entire early-morning adventure.

His last couple of days with us were full.  On Christmas day we did some cooking and then had Christmas dinner with Christi and her parents in the afternoon.  It was wonderful to have “company” for dinner, and it felt much more like a family dinner than if it had just been the three of us.  Plus the added benefit of getting to be silly and sleepy after the meal and then just stumble back to our side of the house after dinner.  We somehow got hooked by the old 1945-ish Sherlock Holmes movies, so we rented six of them and worked our way through them throughout the week.

Last night we had some good friends over for dinner, and Nelson put on quite the cooking display.  I was dismayed that he couldn’t tell me exactly what he’d done to make the butternut-squash soup so delicious, but maybe after numerous attempts I’ll be able to figure out something that comes close.  That’s the trouble with someone who doesn’t need recipes to make great food!

Now our house feels extremely quiet, with just the cat, the sleeping Sydney, and me.  I really liked having Nelson with us: he made Sydney laugh, he kept us from considering Christmas a work holiday, and he’s great to talk to.  Oh yes, and Arwyn certainly enjoyed the extra attention!  Now that I’m looking up from visitors and holiday festivities, I realize Sydney and I will be leaving the country in about a week-and-a-half.  I won’t list all of the things that need to happen before then.  I will simply bask in the pleasure of somehow, amazingly, not stressing about it.  Thank you, holiday quiet time!

Erin

I helped Christi decorate Christmas cookies this morning, called my family, wrapped presents (a lot of fun when you have a good workspace, ready access to materials, no nosy people in the house, and not many presents to wrap!), listened to Handel’s Messiah, and ate both cookies and clementines.  It’s a good start to a festive spirit.

Erin

I am motivated to:

1) Eat.

2) Cook.

3) Read fun books.

4) Play music constantly throughout the house.

I am not motivated to:

1) Work on a fellowship application.

2)  Run errands.

3) Get up early to go for a walk or to the gym.

4) Get up early, period.

Erin

After a few days characterized by some intensive reading and life-organizing, Sydney and I are getting ready to lighten up a bit: Nelson flies into Syracuse this evening.  Our cat will be quite happy for the extra petting, and our housemate is happy at the thought of having more company at the Christmas dinner table.  Now, I just have to figure out whether Nelson is into holidays (I’ve given up on Sydney, who is not) and see if he’s into Christmas baking that I could help with.  Any chance?  I’m not totally desperate, though; Christi (our housemate) said she would let me help frost her secret-family-recipe sugar cookies later this week.  Yess!!

Erin