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Cold, War, Kids and Cold War Kids

COLD - 

It's been cold this week.  Not as cold as last week but still cold.  Compounded by the fact that I've felt terrible most of the week.  I woke up Thursday night more than a few times, burning up and unable to sleep.  I finally opened the window (probably not the best idea with the cold/dampness) and finally fell asleep only to awaken unable to swallow.  I wish I could take a picture of my throat, but it would be really, really gross.  White patches, pus, etc.  In other words, strep.  Greeeaaat.  Went to my GP* and she actually concurred that I might need an antibiotic to prevent, I don't know, scarlet fever and my throat rotting out.  Anyway, as I type this, I'm currently running a temperature of 39.5 Celsius.  I'm starting to get a hang of the Celsius.  My GP actually told me it's easier to remember fever levels in metric: 37 is normal, 38 is low grade, 39 is mid grade fever, and 40 is high fever.  Easy enough, right? 

Also, someone told me a brilliant rhyme to figure out the freaking weather report:

0 is freezing, 

10 is not, 

20 is pleasing, 

30 is HOT.  

100 is boiling

for tea in a pot.

WAR - 

I've got a paper due Monday that's a document analysis of a letter by Oliver Cromwell written during the 1st English Civil War in 1644.  I'm trying to finish it, but this fever/sickness is not helping very much.  It really is interesting, but I won't go into detail since the rest of the world seems to glaze over and nod a lot when I start talking about this kind of stuff.

KIDS - 

Here are pictures of Robert and Priscilla at Halloween.  I miss them sooooo much.  Robert was an authentic punk rocker (note the hella cute Jack White shirt, leather jacket and baby Vans with skulls and Cristina carrying a miniature electric guitar).  P was so cute as Winnie the Pooh.  I could just eat her up!  Apparently, this year, there was no hiding the candy from her, as evidenced by the blue mouth.   (These photos are in html, so you'll have to click on them to see the whole thing, which is well worth it.)

COLD WAR KIDS - 

Despite feeling like Death warmed over, I went to see CWK at the Ritz with Dorian (my Miami ami) on Thursday night.  They played songs from their new album, Loyalty to Loyalty, which I recommend.  It's got the same story-ballad lyrics as Robbers and Cowards, but the music's more experimental (and not in the air quotes way that sometimes connotes).  It was recorded live for Channel Bee Television, so maybe you can watch, although I'm not sure whether it'll work in the US.  Here are some pictures I took:

This week.

I sent in my absentee ballot weeks ago, and since the polls didn't close till 2 am here, I couldn't really see staying up when I could pretty much bet on what was going to happen.  So, I woke up to Quaker Oats, a cup of tea, and change.  

Congratulations, President-Elect Obama and family.  I hope I'm not the only one who's more than a little excited that there will be children in the White House.  In exchange for their hard work and sacrifice (and their dad's win), Sasha and Melia are getting a puppy, a fact which I love.   I am, however, going to miss the Barney Cam Christmas videos.  Sorry for going off on a tangent, but I wanted to be able to share my favorite thing about the Bush White House (it includes Karl Rove being pelted by Christmas ornaments): Where in the White House is Miss Beazley?

It's reading week here in Manchester (for most people).  Freshers don't have to read as much, but I have a gobbet (document analysis) due on Monday, so I'll be pretty busy.  I did get to go to Deansgate, our fabulous, world-renowned archive.  It's very inspiring to study in.  

 

I would willingly indenture myself in order to live/study/read there forever.

Last night we had our first practice for Christmas choir, an event which made me more choked up than pretty much anything so far (mainly because our Christmas choir at Christchurch is so good, and I love it).  It'll be fun, and I get to roll my r's while singing.  It's so British, pretentious and awesome!

BY THE WAY, I couldn't resist this, since I'm in the UK:

Remember, remember the 5th of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot!

I know of no reason, why the gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot!

Today is Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes, the 403rd anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot by Guy Fawkes et al. to blow up Parliament and the royal family.  Tonight there will be fireworks and people will burn effigies of Guy Fawkes.  Actually, they'll probably burn effigies of W., Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, so I'm told.  I can't wait!

On Grans, Fancy Dress and Chivalry

Shake is the 50's version of Revolver (60's club night) where my friend Martin (aka Coops) is a DJ.  Since I was going to a fancy dress party*, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and dress up.  I bought the dress at a back street shop, and I hafta say, I love it.  My Granny is totally right: wearing red makes you feel better.

Doesn't Alex look just like Seth Cohen from the OC?  I wish you could see the rest of his outfit and how he dances.  It's really uncanny.

On a side note, you know what else makes you feel better?  Peanut brittle.  My Granny sent me two tins of it, and although I shared with loads of people, I'm still eating through it this morning.  Usually, on Christmas day, everyone else is eating one of the delicious cakes that someone or Granny bakes, but I always just sit with a tin of peanut brittle in front of me.  The warden on my hall, Scottish Reg (who sounds like Sean Connery), left a note in my mailbox because I gave him some of the brittle.  The note read:

"Hi Wendy    I am now your grans favourite number 1 fan.  Peanut brittle was best I have ever tasted.  I went to heaven for about 10 minutes when I ate it.  You have a special gran.  Thank you so much, RegX"

I agree wholeheartedly.  My "gran" is legendary.

Back to my original story, I went to shake and twisted the night away, literally.  I left at 2 when it was over after 3 hours of dancing.  It was fur-eezing.  Since all the bars were closing, the bus was packed with students dressed in all manner of inappropriate fancy dress.  The Dark Knight seems to be popular, as well as the devil (for girls).  Anyhow, there was an older woman across the aisle from me who had obviously just gotten off work, and she looked very tired.  The bus got so full that it wasn't possible to get off without quite literally pushing your way through a crowd of obnoxious, drunk freshers*.  

The woman managed to get up and started to push her way through (we were luckily at the very front of the bus).  There were a bunch of boys dressed as zombies or something stupid, and they were smashed.  The bus started to move again, and she said, "Wait, I need to get off."  One of the boys says, "I'll bet you do, but I'm not going to help you."  I flagged the bus driver to get him to stop, and the bus jolted everyone forward.  Same idiot boy says, "Get off me you dried up c---!"  I'll let you fill in the blank there because I don't repeat language like that.  

Anyway, maybe that's a term of endearment in England, but I don't care.  You do NOT talk to somebody that way, especially when you are an inebriated teenager talking to a lady whose been working all night.  I waited for someone to say something, but all of his friends just laughed.  Once the doors opened, a couple of his friends had to get off the bus for the woman to get off, and I turned him around and clocked him, right in the nose (with the same finger that wears my mom's ring, strangely, my left hand - I'm right handed).  Unfortunately, I ko'd him, probably more due to his drunkenness than my pugilism.  Also unfortunate, the place where we stopped had a cop on the street, and the bus driver (who hadn't seen the previous incident, only the kid) motions to the cop, who makes me and the now half-conscious teenager and a couple of his friends get off.  Here's our little exchange:

Cop:   What happened?  Who hit him?

Me: I did.

Cop: You?*  Why?

Me: [in my most convincing Southern drawl]  He called this poor woman words that should not be repeated in polite conversation, and his friends were not going to do anything about it, so I did.  I can't stand for that.

Cop: You punched him because he was yelling at her?

Me: No, I clocked him because not only was he disrespectful, he called her [I whisper in his ear what the boy said].  I don't know exactly what the translation of that is in England, but in Atlanta, that is about the ugliest you could say to a lady.

Cop: Well, it means the same thing here.  [to the idiots, as a group, who collectively are about 10% sober]  Did he say that?

Boys: Hm-arudm. He, not, maybe crowded, drunk. Mm-hum-harumph (something akin to how Parliament sounds to me).

Cop: [to idiots] I'm having you arrested for being a nuisance.  [to me]  Here's the next bus, love,  have you got a fare?

Boys: What?  He's the one that was abused!  Why does she get to go?

Cop: Because you're acting like a load of bloody knobs, and she hasn't done any more damage than the booze he's been drinking.

And Scene.  Picture of my slightly bruised hand.

*fancy dress - not, as it turns out, formal attire, it's costume or dress-up

*freshers - the majority of the population it seems like.  Uni students in their first year or all years who are too busy drinking and looking like trollops to have any sense at all.

*I had on, over my cute hair and saddle shoes, a red coat with flowers on the front, and I'm pretty sure the police officer thought I was twelve.  

For ME?

I met a very clever DJ at the club the other night (see Mom, you can use an arts degree!) who has a postgraduate degree in literature.  We were discussing meeting for  coffee via email, and I joked that he should respond via sonnet or haiku.  This is said response:

The weekend bulges with unfinished work,

And the nightclub is only a distant

Memory. But the scholar cannot shirk

The nagging questions, ever persistent.

Who, what, where, when, above all asking why?

The path along which knowledge is gathered

Requires a disciplined and steady eye;

You'll - whooops - stumble if you're getting blathered.

Even coffee, enlightenment's choice drug,

Should be drunk, like a long-distance runner,

With the mind on the move - not in a snug

Drawn out fashion, tho' that might be funner.

Social moments make a nice distraction

But shouldn't cause knowledge's contraction.

------------- x -----------------

Words pass over coffee steam

Busy feet pass by -

Flowers bloomed, bees travel.

Water falls down lonely cliffs

Gathers in pools - 

Monday's fine - two-ish?

Various and Sundry News Items

Just so you actually have an update before I dash off to the library, here's what's been going on.

1) It's a little late to be writing this, but I am finally getting better.  I've had a sinus infection/cold for nearly two weeks, and it finally seems to be going away.  My nose still gets runny every time I'm in the wind for any amount of time, but that's to be expected in this locale.

2) I'm getting in gear with my classes and reading (probably over-reading to tell the truth) in the library all the time it seems like.  I can't really read in my room b/c the computer/Facebook/blogs are too tempting.  I need to sit in an educational setting.  Plus, there's noises but it's not loud/musical.  I need background noise to study, but it can't be music (outside of Beethoven's 7th which used to be my study record of choice - thank you Shorter College).  I don't want to overdo it, but mum's advice was this:  "I never thought to myself, 'Hm, I wish I had read less.  I always could have read more, but no one says they ever should have read less.'"  Ah, the wisdom of my sage mater familias.

3) I got selected for the International 16 with the International Society.  It's 16 students from all over the world, and we'll get together and represent our countries in discussions each week as well as doing workshops and going on trips together.  It culminates in the spring with a trip to an acting camp where we'll write a music/theatre show for children about different countries and having an international point of view.  Then, we'll go to schools in the Northwest and put the show on there.  If you know me, it's really right up my alley, and honestly, I'm really honored that they would pick me.  I'm pretty well traveled, but I know that my point of view, per se, is very narrow.  I'd like to be part of the group so that I can break down some stereotypes about Americans.  I think most people hear "conservative, Southern, Christian" and they expect some kind of wacko fundamentalist like oh I don't know, my dad.  :)

4) I went to a club last night (The Roadhouse), and Monday nights they do this 60's club night, Revolver.  They play all vinyl (which I appreciate), and (as Chad and I deduced) almost all of it is from the 1960's.  Regardless, it was fantastic, and I danced till my Dr. Scholl's insoles even hurt.  It was a lot like Lenny's, and I wished I had my hula hoop.  A selection of artists played:  The Coasters, Chuck Berry, The Shirelles, Diana and the Supremes, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, The Beatles (more than once, but what do you expect?), The Troggs, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Dave Clark Five, The Zombies, The Rolling Stones, etc. etc. etc.  So basically, it was awesome.

5) I did a "self-tour" of Manchester and took pictures of a few places of note.  Here they are:

One of the canals, next to the Hacienda (which has a history-watch 24 Hour Party People).  Now it's actually just a bunch of apartments.  There are more canals in Manchester than there are in Venice, fact.  Another fact, the Oxford/Wilmslow bus line that runs in front of the Uni and my dorm is the busiest bus route in the entire world.  Something like 250 per hour.

The public library, which is a zillion times better than any private library I've ever been to.

The people of Britain think they are eating real, hot now, delicious Krispy Kremes, but they have been lied to.  They don't taste right b/c the UK has laws against I don't know trans-fats or something.

The Bridgewater Hall.  If you've ever listened to NPR, you know what this is.

The Manchester Town Hall.  Nice.  Designed by the same architect who designed the University of Manchester.  It's actually hugely tall and has a big clocktower, but my $30 camera  couldn't get all of the picture in.

Lake District, finally.

Okay, so I finally got the pictures from the trip to the Lake District, some courtesy of Troy, after my camera's batteries died.  For the background, I went with the International Society to the Lake District, which is about an hour and a half north of Manchester.  I didn't really know anyone on the bus, but I met two guys from M/cr Metropolitan University (MMU), and they were nice, so we hung out during the day.  Troy Rainbow (yes, that's totally his last name!) is from Australia and Gert-Jan is from Amsterdam.  We had a great time, and the weather was beautiful, if a bit chilly while we were on the water.  

There were sheep, and I got my picture made with them because well, they are so cute.  At some point, while I am here, my goal is to squeeze a sheep.  They just look so...fluffy.  

Anyway, I could describe the scenery for you, or I could just post the pictures.  Everything you look at looks like a postcard or one of those Kodak 1000 piece picture puzzles.  This has to be where they take all those.  It is unspeakably beautiful.  These pictures are definitely worth a thousand words, if not more.