Remember those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that Mrs. Mason used to read to us in elementary school, where you got part of a story and then could pick one of two endings? I never really saw the point because nobody ever read just one of the endings (you always go back and read the other one), but since there were so many possibilities for titling this post I decided to list out three options and let you, esteemed reader, pick the one you like best and then continue reading. So we have:
A Tale of Three Can Openers
It's Not a Party Until A. R. Rahman Gets Involved
"I Think Communism is Like Love - For It to Work, You Really Have to Feel It!"
The Perils of Self-Rising Flour
Now that you've selected your title, let's continue.
I'm finally getting more and more of my English weather; it's been quite rainy the past few days and of course I won't ever complain about that. It was on such a rainy day, quite a while back (as in a month and a half or so), that the can opener I bought when I first got here decided it wasn't going to work anymore. It appears to work just fine until you actually try to use it on a can - once you do that, the handle doesn't turn the gears, but it will do so as long as there's no can involved. Being too stubborn to buy a new one, I dealt with this problem for a while by using the sharp edge to just punch around the edges of cans and this actually worked pretty well. However, all good things must come to an end, and one day as I was attempting to open a can of pears I realized that the gears had now become so misaligned that they wouldn't even punch around the edges anymore. At that point I realized that I couldn't go any longer without buying a new one, so the next day I walked over to Asda thinking I would buy another one of the same variety (think the kind we have at home). As it happened, Asda was out of them that day, but they had another kind with just one handle. It was cheaper than the first one had been but I couldn't figure out how to use it just by looking at it. I played with it for a bit, and a guy in the same isle actually asked me if it was a can opener. I figured that since I really did need one (since about 98% of my food is in cans) I would take it back and ask one of my engineering-major flatmates how to do it, since they're smart about that stuff. When I got back I took this second can opener out for a test-drive, and as I predicted, I couldn't get it to work. As not predicted, nobody else could either. To this day, we still can't. This was, of course, highly frustrating, since not only did I spend good money to buy a can opener that didn't work, but I then had two useless ones sitting side by side in my drawer. Irene was kind enough to lend me hers for a bit but that couldn't remain the status quo, so a day or two later I headed back to Asda in search of yet a third can opener. This time they didn't have either of the first two kinds, but they did have one like Irene's, for 44 pence. So far, that one works beautifully, and disproves the paper in Dad's office espousing the philosophy of paying a little extra for a better product.
I saw something very interesting the other day out on Oxford Road - I was going outside to throw my garbage in the dumpster when I heard shouting and chanting coming from the street. I looked down the corridor between the buildings and saw the tail end of a large group of people moving slowly down the street. It was pouring rain and since I had only planned to take the garbage out quickly I wasn't dressed in a whole lot (not indecent or anything of course, but certainly not in anything approaching rainwear) but I was curious and walked out to the street to see if I could find out what was going on. When I got to the sidewalk I saw about 250 people doing a slow march down the street, carrying signs, posters, and huge banners, and surrounded by police. Since I was at the back I couldn't see what the signs were and I couldn't really understand the chants and shouts, so I decided that since it was such a beautiful day I would just take the long way back to the dorm and go around the nearby cluster of buildings, thus giving me an excuse to follow them down the block. There weren't many people out walking so I was somewhat conspicuous (wearing flip flops and a tank top may have added to that) but I caught up to them and could watch them go past as I stood on the corner. From there I could see the signs, many of which had a guy's picture on them, and some of them that also said things like, "Murderers! Murderers!" and one particularly memorable one that had a swastika and said "Islamic Hitler!" There was a banner in a foreign language and I still had no idea what was going on, but there was a guy on the corner who was affiliated with the protest handing out fliers explaining what they were doing. It seems they were a group of Kurds protesting the treatment of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, who was arrested in 1999 and has been beaten, tortured, and imprisoned at the hands of the Turkish government. They were attempting to bring his plight to our attention as well as advocate for a peaceful reconciliation between the Turks and the Kurds. As they crossed the main intersection of Oxford Road and Booth St., a guy got to the front and started shouting, "BBC, where are you? Shame on you!" repeatedly, and they continued down the street in that fashion. It was really something to see.
The other night, Avi knocked on my door and said we were all gathering in the kitchen to discuss a plan for a Valentine's Day celebration of our own making. As usual it turned into a long yet enjoyable round table and we decided on dinner for VDay night, with everybody making something to pass. Since I can't really cook anything, I decided on brownies, since that recipe is so good and they're so simple to make. I also decided to bake them on Sunday so that if anything went horribly wrong I would have time to try it again on Monday. I got my baking supplies at Asda and was glad that I already had a bag of flour from when I made the Thanksgiving pies. Since I don't have an electric mixer here, I got a rotary mixer from Asda as well, thinking it would make my life easier - it didn't. The gears froze as soon as it was called upon to mix anything other than air. I've decided to just never buy anything from Asda if it contains gears. Anyway, I made up a double batch but using butter instead of shortening (all Asda has are blocks of generic "Lard Product" and if it's not Crisco, I don't trust it), and as I was finishing that up Avi and Nithya came around to see what was up. We poured it into my flan dishes (it turns out you can make pretty much anything in a flan dish, perhaps even a flan) and put them in the oven. I made sure not to put them on the very bottom so they wouldn't burn. Since we still haven't quite figured out the oven we sort of guessed at a setting and temperature, and as I was washing my dishes and we were all chatting, we began to smell something that resembled charcoal. Avi very thoughtfully put a bowl over the smoke detector and we went to inspect the oven. In my zeal to not burn the bottom of the pan, I put one of them on the top rack, which was a little closer to the heating element than I thought. The top was quite burned but the rest of the batter was still liquid, so we took it out and kept the second one (on the middle rack) baking. Then we carefully removed the burned crust from the first dish and decided to put it in after the other one had finished. The burned top provided us with a convenient snack; I had no idea it would taste that good. We chatted for a while while they baked, and then Avi brought out a deck of cards and we played the Indian version of Bluff/B.S./Peanut Butter/whatever you call it. Suffice it to say that was never good at it and probably never will be, but it was a lot of fun. We also tried to figure out how to play poker; it came back to me a bit after reading over the rules but I'm still very rusty. I actually used to be pretty good at 5 Card Draw in highschool, so maybe I can get it back. The brownies did finish eventually, but when I took them out of the oven they looked mighty puffy. That recipe isn't really supposed to rise, and I was quite surprised to see that it had. Then I looked at the flour - I had inadvertently gotten self-rising flour instead of just normal flour (I'm assuming that King Arthur doesn't do a whole lot of self-rising). In effect, I had turned brownies into a cake. They didn't taste anything like they were supposed to, although I was the only one who knew any different. They were certainly edible, just not what they were supposed to be. So I sort of made two small cakes, but since they were edible I decided not to worry about it too much (especially given that I have no idea what temperature they were baked at; in fact, I think they were baked at a total of four separate temperatures). And thankfully, unlike the pies, they did not take five hours to bake up.
We had planned on eating at about 8 on Monday night, and I wandered into the kitchen at about 7:30 where just about everyone else was already hanging out. There had been posters up around the hall advertising a small VDay party for the dorm down in the common room, so we figured we'd head down there, have a drink, and then come up and eat. I was surprised at how crowded it was, but it was lively and festive. We hung out there for a bit and then returned to our domicile for our feast. We cranked up the Hindi/Tamil music ("Chaiyya Chaiyya" anyone? Nothing beats A. R. Rahman and some good Indian music when you really want to get things going - it's a ready-made party, and no, that's not sarcasm), did our final preparations and re-heating, and we were off and running. I must say, we do a heck of a pot-luck when we want to. Carlos made what I'm going to call Mexican tortilla paninis - they do have a proper Spanish name but I can't remember it. It sounded like salcinitas, but I'll have to check. Basically they're like a ham and cheese sandwich but with soft tortillas instead of bread, and then they're grilled. Avi made a Chinese noodle dish that included tiny pieces of chicken and possibly beef (I think I like chicken better when it comes in teeny tiny pieces) with assorted masala. Nithya made a rice dish that included spinach and egg. Ada did two things, but they went together - first, she boiled chicken in a Nigerian sauce, and then she did up a plantain paste. It came in a powder sort of like Irene's nut sauce, but this was more like a very stiff mashed potato. To do it properly you would use the sauce on the plantain paste, but most of us ended up trying it on multiple things. Fauzen didn't have a whole lot of time to really cook anything up since he had a huge presentation that day that he's been preparing for, but the day before he had made up a chicken dish and he reheated the leftovers. That actually reminded me very strongly of Hiro's curry, although spicier - the consistency was almost the same though, and the taste itself was very similar, just strong. Everything was really good, although I'd have to say that Avi's Chinese dish won a special place in my heart - there are so many recipes from everybody that I'm gonna have to get before we all part ways at the end of August. We should make a cookbook . . . but it was really a great dinner, with lots of good conversation ranging from weird classmates to political systems to how the Chinese could take over the world (there were some very interesting theories put forth about that in particular). We had a pretty in-depth conversation about Communism, its tenents, how we've seen it in the past, and why it won't ever truly work in real life. Avi gave what I think is one of the truest statements about Communism that I've ever heard - "I think Communism is like love - for it to work, you really have to feel it!" Very wise, and also very much in the VDay spirit. Mixing economic theory and romance? Absolutely - what do you do at your parties?
Now, we're much too awesome to just eat dinner and then call it quits, and we had decided to play Monopoly afterward. Earlier in the week there had been a game with Carlos, Ada, Avi, Nithya, and Avi and Nithya's friend playing; I stumbled in about an hour after they started and in the spirit of procrastination I stayed on as banker. It was quite a game - hugely competative and highly suspenseful, with Avi, Nithya, and their friend merging into one corporation and Ada and Carlos merging to form another. It was like the Cold War for a while, but it was so much fun that we decided to do it again after VDay dinner. When you have six people playing it becomes a much more interesting game that we generally get at home with just two or three, and this time Ada, Nithya, and I ended up merging pretty early. Carlos and Avi eventually merged, and since Fauzan decided to represent the Chinese empire for the evening, our mutual strategy was to take him down (all in good fun, of course). He held out on his own for a surprisingly long time - shocking, actually, but eventually we did it, and the Avi/Carlos corporation ended up coming out on top. However, he went down with dignity and a great time was had by all; we didn't finish until past one in the morning. I can state with certainty that this was the most enjoyable Valentine's Day I've ever had, and by far the most action-packed. The only unfortunate thing was that Irene wasn't able to be there; she had a meeting with a presentation group and couldn't make it back.
About once a week a stack of newspapers gets delivered to the hall lobby that are free for the taking, and usually one of them ends up in our kitchen. I tend to leaf through them, and recently found two very interesting things. The first comes out of what was actually a rather horrific front page article about a 92 year old woman who was beaten and mugged on her own front steps by some a**hole who wanted to steal her purse containing a total of 28 pounds. As awful as that is, what really caught my attention was the description of the guy who did it - in a US newspaper, I'm pretty sure he would have been referred to as the alleged perpetrator, the would-be mugger, or something like that. However, he was referred to in this paper as the "callous thug." That just struck me so hard that I almost laughed (but felt terrible about it afterward). I can't even imagine that sort of wording being used in a paper back home. After that he was referred to as a "yob" which I think is like another word for hoodlum. But the callous thug description just really got to me. The second one I found yesterday - it was actually from half a piece that was ripped out of the paper and it only caught my eye because it was about the Tea Party (yes, our fabulous US political group). It was talking about the relationship between the Tea Party and the media, and this little tidbit appeared about halfway down the first column - "Although fueled by dislike for taxes, hatred of the 'liberal media' - including virtually all channels (barring Fox News) and most print publications - is a central tenet of the Tea Party's world view." That really made me laugh; three guesses as to what that paper thinks of the Tea Partiers.
Stay tuned for more adventures, and perhaps more delightful Communism-related quotes, brought to you by your favorite George Kenyon residents.
Tuesday 15 February 2011
Thursday 3 February 2011
Happy Chinese New Year!
I've decided that handing in papers feels just as good on this side of the Atlantic as it did on the other side . . . everything was completed early and when I handed in my papers for Methods I was told that I was actually the first one to do so - go me! Actually that just made me feel like a huge nerd, but I always like to have everything handed in a couple days early just in case technology suddenly decides to become my mortal enemy and won't let me print or something. At least in that case I'd have time to fix it, but everything went without a hitch and now it's just waiting on the results. I'm very grateful that I didn't have hardcore exams like the rest of my flatmates who seem to have spent all of vacation stressing and studying. Ada and Lavinya spent several evenings studying and working in the kitchen; Ada had some of the questions up on her laptop screen and I was really impressed by what they were studying - I know it was a math thing but it looked like a whole other language, like Klingon or something else I had no clue how to read. Needless to say, I was hugely impressed that they not only could make sense of that stuff but actually understand it. But exams are now completed and everybody's happy that the nightmare is over, although we're in two camps as to whether we actually want our grades or not.
As a nice sort of celebration of everybody finishing up, after Ada and Lavinya's last exam, they, Carlos, and I went to lunch at a Chinese place called Red Chili, which is just down the road from the dorm. I've passed it multiple times going to the post office but hadn't ever been inside; it has these bizarre red statues just inside the door that are really creepy. But Carlos said it was good, and they had a lunch special that they were advertising, so we figured we'd give it a shot. It looked really fancy on the inside but isn't really as upscale as you might thing (not to say that in a bad way; it just looks very classy without being expensive). We got several different entrees and did a little bit of trying everyone else's stuff and it was pretty good. I got shrimp fried rice (original, I know) but it wasn't really fried rice - I think it was boiled, but the added peas and pieces of egg to it. It was pretty good. Ada and Lavinya had chicken with different sauces, and Carlos got a different kind of chicken with some pork ribs and corn soup. All in all, it was a good meal for the price, and there was plenty of food. We chatted and stuff over lunch and got to talking about museums and stuff and Ada suggested we go over to the Manchester Museum that's right across from the dorm. I pass it every day and always tell myself that I'm gonna go in one day but never seem to get around it; I haven't been in there since the first day when I begged them to let me use their phone to call Ian to rescue me. So after we finished we wandered over. To my surprise, they actually have an awful lot of really cool stuff in there. They have an Egyptian exhibit, one on weaponry, multiple displays of African carvings, some Native American pieces, some live reptiles in little habitats, insects and birds, geology and minerals, and a fossil/dinosaur area at the very bottom. There's also a third floor that we didn't get to; we were kicked out at five because they were going to close. I had no idea they had so many exhibits though; it was a really nice way to spend an afternoon.
You know those people who paint/dress themselves up to look like statues and then stand perfectly still for a long time and then suddenly move a little and scare the people walking nearby? Usually I stay away from them because I think they're a little bit creepy and unnerving, but the other day when I was running errands near City Center I saw the most impressive one I've ever seen. He was painted goldish with some black, and his tie was stiffined at an upward angle. His pose was of a guy slipping and falling backwards, and I have to say, I didn't think it was humanly possible to hold the position he was in. He was positioned so far back that I honestly don't know how he managed to do it without some other kind of support, but it was just him. He must have calves of steel or something. I was really impressed; I don't normally find those people very intriguing, but he really was excellent.
As you may or may not know, it was Chinese New Year this past week, and the George Kenyon RAs held a CNY party for the hall residents to celebrate the occasion. Carlos, Ada, Avi, and I planned to go and meet up in the kitchen to go down together, and when I got there Ada had some friends over. She knew them from church - Maria from Germany (but with Polish parents) and Asia (pronounced "Ah-shah") from Poland. They turned out to be the sweetest girls - Ada meets the nicest people in church. We talked for quite a while because I'm a huge fan of both countries, and they were kind of surprised to find out how much I liked Poland. Asia put it, "Well I love it, and it's a beautiful place, but it's kind of rare to get someone who isn't Polish saying it too." They decided to come down to the party with us where, after waiting for a while, we got to sample some Chinese food prepared by the students. It was running out by the time we got to it but it was quite good - they had some chicken, a vegetable soup, rice tortillas (in all fairness, I won't be hunting those down anytime soon), and duck. This was much better duck than they had on the Alaska cruise, and I'm really glad I was willing to try it again. We were sort of herded into into the common room to eat and congregate, and we found Valerie there was well which was nice. After a while of munching and chatting they had some games set up, so we figured we'd stick around for that. They had a quiz about Chinese culture and the Chinese New Year in general but they split up our awesome team because we didn't have enough native Chinese on it. Half the quiz was geared toward the Chinese students and half toward us non-Chinese people, and we didn't do too fabulously on either one, but at least I remembered enough from high school to know that traditionally China is known as the Middle Kingdom. Ada's team came in second, actually - they did quite well. We didn't even win when we cheated, haha. We played pictionary next and tied for a win which was neat. Once we finished that we went outside to set off lanterns to fully ring in the New Year - they're large square-ish tissue paper constructions with a metal cross on the bottom that you light on fire and the heat lifts them like hot air balloons. We set off about six or eight of them, but the next morning found out that the Manchester police and airport officials did not really appreciate that, as apparently they can interfere with airplanes. Personally I was just glad we didn't set anything on fire and cause a major conflagration. It was a good time though, and afterwards when we went back to the flat we spent several more hours hanging out with Maria and Asia. Maria was on a one-term stay so she was leaving the next week, and she said that when she was studying in England the first time, a couple years ago, she lived in a hall and had a really bad experience with it, as did a lot of other people she knew; consequently she opted not to live in one this time, but said she wished she could have lived in one like ours. She was amazed that we actually do hang out and do stuff together, and that we all like each other. Apparently we really do seem to be the exception instead of the rule; I feel like I got incredibly lucky to have landed where I did. I think we really do enjoy each others' company. The girls left at about midnight or so but Maria came back again the next day so she and Ada could cook; Carlos and I joined them at one point and we had some lovely conversation about a multitude of subjects ranging from Valentine's Day and laws against naming your kids stupid things to sustainability and whether we will ever run out of fresh water (there were strong opinions expressed on both sides). It really was a nice time, and it's a shame Maria had to return to Germany, but hopefully we will be seeing more of Asia sometime.
In an effort to do something a little more social outside of classes, I decided to join the dorm book club; I'm glad I read fast, as I only decided this on Monday and the first meeting was yesterday. The book for this month was "Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin, apparently a well-known Irish author. The club was started by a girl named Claire who is doing her PhD (I think) in Creative Writing. It ended up being just the two of us and one other guy (who was American) but it was a pretty neat discussion and it was cool to do something a little different. It will certainly be nice to read something that doesn't pertain to my classes, assuming I have time this term to do anything other than read and breathe. I got the syllabus for The Holocaust in Cultural Discourse today, and all I could say was "Ye gods in Heaven; my professor is trying to kill me." As it stands now, I have approximately 1,400 pages of reading due for next Thursday (yes, I added them up) and one of the books is in French. I sent an email asking just how much of those books we were supposed to be reading and whether the French book was truly a requirement. If it is, I'll be spending an awful lot of time with Google Translate this weekend. This is the first week of the second semester, and I don't think I'm as excited about it as I was about the first one. I've always been more interested in the historical aspect of the Holocaust rather than the cultural facets, and a lot of this is going to be theory based, especially Cultural Memory and the Holocaust. I think it will still be interesting, but my one professor in particular seems kind of standoffish. We were waiting for Craig (the part-time Holocaust student who I include as the .5 in the number of students in the program being 1.5) to arrive and it seemed like she was having a very difficult time engaging in any sort of conversation; she just sort of sat there for quite a while before I could elicit much of anything out of her (by the way, it turns out that she did her graduate work at Cornell and knows exactly where Elmira is - thank God she didn't mention Mark Twain; if she had, I probably would have turned around and left) . . . she seems to be under the impression that most of upstate NY is run by people resembling the members of the Westboro Baptist Church. At the end of the session she was so dismissive - she literally just stopped talking, set her stuff down, and just sat there staring at us; that was our cue to leave. Because of the way the course is structured I only have three sessions with her, but I get the feeling they could be really painful. We'll see how it goes I guess . . . I'm missing Dr. Dreyfus already; I feel like he's the Manchester version of Dr. Imai.
Ada came to my door earlier this evening and asked if I wanted to go with her to the Burlington Society - it's sort of like a postgraduate and mature student lounge that's just for us (with a membership) but tonight they were having a free function for all postgrads so I said sure (might as well do one last fun thing before I start trying desperately to read French). We walked over together and just outside the building we met one of her classmates, Ebuka from Nigeria. He went in with us and we got tickets for free drinks. There was another classmate of theirs there too - to my untrained ear his name sounded like Ephraim but it's not that; it starts and ends with "i" but I have to ask Ada to spell it again. Anyway, he's from Nigeria too, and when Ada introduced me to him he said, "Oh, are you the one with the blog?" Apparently Ada has been good with PR, haha. She didn't even remember telling him that. Eventually we moved upstairs where they had set out food. We're all used to "food" meaning little sausages and celery sticks, but this was a good spread - they had bread and cheese, and various chicken and pork dishes and even some vegetarian salad/pasta options. For a British buffet thing, it was excellent. We ate and chatted; it was hugely crowded and Ada and I ended up in a different corner than Ephraim and when we tried to get back over to him I got separated and blocked out by the crowd, but ended up having a very nice discussion with Ebuka. He was asking all sorts of questions about American politics and Bush and Obama, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, etc. and seemed very interested in it. He was a really nice guy and we had a lovely chat. Eventually I did make it back over to Ada and Ephraim where they had been joined by two people Ada knows from church - Bernice from Spain and Roberto from Italy. We all hung out and talked for a while until the crowd started to thin out and we decided to take our leave around 10. It was a really nice evening though and I'm glad I went down.
I have to say that I really am starting to miss snow, although I do love this rain. There is green grass outside my window right this minute, while NY is apparently digging out from under yet another snowstorm. I don't need constant snowstorms, but I walk outside and can hardly believe that it's February. It doesn't seem possible. We really only had that one bit of snow in December, and that's been it; I feel pretty stupid for buying those snowboots now; I honestly doubt whether I'm ever going to need them for the rest of my stay here.
Stay tuned for more fascinating updates soon to come . . .
As a nice sort of celebration of everybody finishing up, after Ada and Lavinya's last exam, they, Carlos, and I went to lunch at a Chinese place called Red Chili, which is just down the road from the dorm. I've passed it multiple times going to the post office but hadn't ever been inside; it has these bizarre red statues just inside the door that are really creepy. But Carlos said it was good, and they had a lunch special that they were advertising, so we figured we'd give it a shot. It looked really fancy on the inside but isn't really as upscale as you might thing (not to say that in a bad way; it just looks very classy without being expensive). We got several different entrees and did a little bit of trying everyone else's stuff and it was pretty good. I got shrimp fried rice (original, I know) but it wasn't really fried rice - I think it was boiled, but the added peas and pieces of egg to it. It was pretty good. Ada and Lavinya had chicken with different sauces, and Carlos got a different kind of chicken with some pork ribs and corn soup. All in all, it was a good meal for the price, and there was plenty of food. We chatted and stuff over lunch and got to talking about museums and stuff and Ada suggested we go over to the Manchester Museum that's right across from the dorm. I pass it every day and always tell myself that I'm gonna go in one day but never seem to get around it; I haven't been in there since the first day when I begged them to let me use their phone to call Ian to rescue me. So after we finished we wandered over. To my surprise, they actually have an awful lot of really cool stuff in there. They have an Egyptian exhibit, one on weaponry, multiple displays of African carvings, some Native American pieces, some live reptiles in little habitats, insects and birds, geology and minerals, and a fossil/dinosaur area at the very bottom. There's also a third floor that we didn't get to; we were kicked out at five because they were going to close. I had no idea they had so many exhibits though; it was a really nice way to spend an afternoon.
You know those people who paint/dress themselves up to look like statues and then stand perfectly still for a long time and then suddenly move a little and scare the people walking nearby? Usually I stay away from them because I think they're a little bit creepy and unnerving, but the other day when I was running errands near City Center I saw the most impressive one I've ever seen. He was painted goldish with some black, and his tie was stiffined at an upward angle. His pose was of a guy slipping and falling backwards, and I have to say, I didn't think it was humanly possible to hold the position he was in. He was positioned so far back that I honestly don't know how he managed to do it without some other kind of support, but it was just him. He must have calves of steel or something. I was really impressed; I don't normally find those people very intriguing, but he really was excellent.
As you may or may not know, it was Chinese New Year this past week, and the George Kenyon RAs held a CNY party for the hall residents to celebrate the occasion. Carlos, Ada, Avi, and I planned to go and meet up in the kitchen to go down together, and when I got there Ada had some friends over. She knew them from church - Maria from Germany (but with Polish parents) and Asia (pronounced "Ah-shah") from Poland. They turned out to be the sweetest girls - Ada meets the nicest people in church. We talked for quite a while because I'm a huge fan of both countries, and they were kind of surprised to find out how much I liked Poland. Asia put it, "Well I love it, and it's a beautiful place, but it's kind of rare to get someone who isn't Polish saying it too." They decided to come down to the party with us where, after waiting for a while, we got to sample some Chinese food prepared by the students. It was running out by the time we got to it but it was quite good - they had some chicken, a vegetable soup, rice tortillas (in all fairness, I won't be hunting those down anytime soon), and duck. This was much better duck than they had on the Alaska cruise, and I'm really glad I was willing to try it again. We were sort of herded into into the common room to eat and congregate, and we found Valerie there was well which was nice. After a while of munching and chatting they had some games set up, so we figured we'd stick around for that. They had a quiz about Chinese culture and the Chinese New Year in general but they split up our awesome team because we didn't have enough native Chinese on it. Half the quiz was geared toward the Chinese students and half toward us non-Chinese people, and we didn't do too fabulously on either one, but at least I remembered enough from high school to know that traditionally China is known as the Middle Kingdom. Ada's team came in second, actually - they did quite well. We didn't even win when we cheated, haha. We played pictionary next and tied for a win which was neat. Once we finished that we went outside to set off lanterns to fully ring in the New Year - they're large square-ish tissue paper constructions with a metal cross on the bottom that you light on fire and the heat lifts them like hot air balloons. We set off about six or eight of them, but the next morning found out that the Manchester police and airport officials did not really appreciate that, as apparently they can interfere with airplanes. Personally I was just glad we didn't set anything on fire and cause a major conflagration. It was a good time though, and afterwards when we went back to the flat we spent several more hours hanging out with Maria and Asia. Maria was on a one-term stay so she was leaving the next week, and she said that when she was studying in England the first time, a couple years ago, she lived in a hall and had a really bad experience with it, as did a lot of other people she knew; consequently she opted not to live in one this time, but said she wished she could have lived in one like ours. She was amazed that we actually do hang out and do stuff together, and that we all like each other. Apparently we really do seem to be the exception instead of the rule; I feel like I got incredibly lucky to have landed where I did. I think we really do enjoy each others' company. The girls left at about midnight or so but Maria came back again the next day so she and Ada could cook; Carlos and I joined them at one point and we had some lovely conversation about a multitude of subjects ranging from Valentine's Day and laws against naming your kids stupid things to sustainability and whether we will ever run out of fresh water (there were strong opinions expressed on both sides). It really was a nice time, and it's a shame Maria had to return to Germany, but hopefully we will be seeing more of Asia sometime.
In an effort to do something a little more social outside of classes, I decided to join the dorm book club; I'm glad I read fast, as I only decided this on Monday and the first meeting was yesterday. The book for this month was "Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin, apparently a well-known Irish author. The club was started by a girl named Claire who is doing her PhD (I think) in Creative Writing. It ended up being just the two of us and one other guy (who was American) but it was a pretty neat discussion and it was cool to do something a little different. It will certainly be nice to read something that doesn't pertain to my classes, assuming I have time this term to do anything other than read and breathe. I got the syllabus for The Holocaust in Cultural Discourse today, and all I could say was "Ye gods in Heaven; my professor is trying to kill me." As it stands now, I have approximately 1,400 pages of reading due for next Thursday (yes, I added them up) and one of the books is in French. I sent an email asking just how much of those books we were supposed to be reading and whether the French book was truly a requirement. If it is, I'll be spending an awful lot of time with Google Translate this weekend. This is the first week of the second semester, and I don't think I'm as excited about it as I was about the first one. I've always been more interested in the historical aspect of the Holocaust rather than the cultural facets, and a lot of this is going to be theory based, especially Cultural Memory and the Holocaust. I think it will still be interesting, but my one professor in particular seems kind of standoffish. We were waiting for Craig (the part-time Holocaust student who I include as the .5 in the number of students in the program being 1.5) to arrive and it seemed like she was having a very difficult time engaging in any sort of conversation; she just sort of sat there for quite a while before I could elicit much of anything out of her (by the way, it turns out that she did her graduate work at Cornell and knows exactly where Elmira is - thank God she didn't mention Mark Twain; if she had, I probably would have turned around and left) . . . she seems to be under the impression that most of upstate NY is run by people resembling the members of the Westboro Baptist Church. At the end of the session she was so dismissive - she literally just stopped talking, set her stuff down, and just sat there staring at us; that was our cue to leave. Because of the way the course is structured I only have three sessions with her, but I get the feeling they could be really painful. We'll see how it goes I guess . . . I'm missing Dr. Dreyfus already; I feel like he's the Manchester version of Dr. Imai.
Ada came to my door earlier this evening and asked if I wanted to go with her to the Burlington Society - it's sort of like a postgraduate and mature student lounge that's just for us (with a membership) but tonight they were having a free function for all postgrads so I said sure (might as well do one last fun thing before I start trying desperately to read French). We walked over together and just outside the building we met one of her classmates, Ebuka from Nigeria. He went in with us and we got tickets for free drinks. There was another classmate of theirs there too - to my untrained ear his name sounded like Ephraim but it's not that; it starts and ends with "i" but I have to ask Ada to spell it again. Anyway, he's from Nigeria too, and when Ada introduced me to him he said, "Oh, are you the one with the blog?" Apparently Ada has been good with PR, haha. She didn't even remember telling him that. Eventually we moved upstairs where they had set out food. We're all used to "food" meaning little sausages and celery sticks, but this was a good spread - they had bread and cheese, and various chicken and pork dishes and even some vegetarian salad/pasta options. For a British buffet thing, it was excellent. We ate and chatted; it was hugely crowded and Ada and I ended up in a different corner than Ephraim and when we tried to get back over to him I got separated and blocked out by the crowd, but ended up having a very nice discussion with Ebuka. He was asking all sorts of questions about American politics and Bush and Obama, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, etc. and seemed very interested in it. He was a really nice guy and we had a lovely chat. Eventually I did make it back over to Ada and Ephraim where they had been joined by two people Ada knows from church - Bernice from Spain and Roberto from Italy. We all hung out and talked for a while until the crowd started to thin out and we decided to take our leave around 10. It was a really nice evening though and I'm glad I went down.
I have to say that I really am starting to miss snow, although I do love this rain. There is green grass outside my window right this minute, while NY is apparently digging out from under yet another snowstorm. I don't need constant snowstorms, but I walk outside and can hardly believe that it's February. It doesn't seem possible. We really only had that one bit of snow in December, and that's been it; I feel pretty stupid for buying those snowboots now; I honestly doubt whether I'm ever going to need them for the rest of my stay here.
Stay tuned for more fascinating updates soon to come . . .
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