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 . . .
Friday, 7 January 2011
Comings, Goings, and Happy Holidays
Where to start, where to start . . . it's been a hectic month and I'll try to go in something of a chronological order to keep track of things. Given that, I should start with the Shabbat dinner at Ian and Joyce's place to which I was invited on Dec. 10th. I can't believe that after all my years in Hillel (as treasurer and secretary nonetheless) I had never actually been to a Shabbat dinner. But Ian and Joyce offered to rectify that, and we were also joined by their son Andrew and his wife Martine. The experience was marvelous and the whole family is perfectly lovely. Ian did the blessing over the bread and the "blessing of the children," and then we sat down for the actual dinner itself. Joyce prepared a very traditional meal, with the first course consisting of egg salad, liver, pickles and some other veggies, and the previously blessed challah. Apparently that's Andrew's favorite course. Next came matzo ball/chicken soup which was very nice, and then the main course was chicken with roasted potatoes. The potatoes were absolutely amazing, definitely some of the best I've ever had. They were cut into large wedges, crispy and brown on the outside and very soft and mellow on the inside. Simply delicious. It was a very nice dinner with lots of lively accompanying conversation, and it was nice to be in a "home" atmosphere again for a while. Granted, the flat is starting to kind of feel like home, but it's not quite the same thing. But it was a really great experience and I'm very grateful that I was invited to take part.
Every year during December, Manchester hosts several Christmas Markets, where vendors from different countries in Europe set up for about three weeks or so and sell their wares and things to the Mancunians. The closest one to us was under the Town Hall, in Albert Square, and I set off to go take a look at it a couple days after the dinner at Ian and Joyce's. It really was very nice, and in some ways reminded me of the county fair but with a lack of livestock (although there was a large reindeer head singing German Christmas songs perched on top of the Bierhaus). Most of the vendors were from Germany and the Netherlands, and they were selling things like traditional food and handicrafts, as well as a lot of beer and mulled wine. I'd never had hot mulled wine before and elected to try it - it was one of the best hot drinks I've ever had. It was really sweet and had been cut with orange juice with spices added, and was really hot. I don't think anyone would really drink it to get drunk; it was far too hot to do anything but sip. There were so many vendors selling different variations of it, and the whole place smelled great with sausage and bratwurst and strudel. I spent a good deal of time just walking around and looking at the different stalls and such, and did a fair bit of Christmas shopping there. They had Christmas music playing, a giant lighted Santa . . . it was all very festive and quite nice. I visited a few of the other markets as well but the Albert Square one was by far the best and I think it was the main one.
One afternoon after a trip to the markets I decided to finally take a walk along the canal that runs underneath and perpendicular to Oxford Road. I've looked at it a number of times and always meant to take a look down that way but somehow never did, so that afternoon I decided that I was going to. It turns out that you can walk down it quite a long way in both directions; I ended up in Castlefield without fully realizing it. It's really nice down by the canal though, and surprisingly quiet - it's almost like you're not in the city at all. There are some areas that you can't see any other people, really, and you can't even hear cars. It was a refreshing break from the bustle of the city at large and quite picturesque. It also helped me see a little bit more how the roadways all connect and gave me a better idea of what's where. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the navigation thing around here. I also was able to find the Manchester Cathedral all by myself after driving past it with Ian when he took me home from the Shabbat dinner. It's really beautiful but I couldn't see past the entrance very well because there was a giant Christmas tree blocking the way. Now that the Christmas season has passed I'll try going back to take a look hopefully unobstructed by large flora.
I'm also happy to report that the dreaded Hebrew exam is over and done with. I actually think it went pretty well, although probably I shouldn't say that until I get the results. I seemed to feel better about it than most of my classmates, although that might just be because I had built it up in my mind to be this horrible behemoth and when it wasn't that bad I was pleasantly surprised, while my others hadn't built it up that much and thus were taken aback. I do wish we had a little more time though - even with the extra time that the professor gave us I just barely finished it and I wasn't dawdling by any means. I have to wait another few weeks for the results but I feel pretty good about it.
Carlos and I went to go and get lunch one afternoon and he took me to this Middle Eastern place he had found called Sadaf. He said that they had amazing chicken and rice, and he wasn't lying - it was really good. But it was so much food - it was like the never-ending rice bowl. No matter how much I ate, there was just more and more rice. It was good long grained brown rice, but I could only eat so much of it. It was a really good deal for the price though - 4.90 and you could easily get two meals out of it, if not three. He, Ada, and I also went out for a late-night snack one evening soon thereafter and they started exchanging horror stories of being mugged and held at gunpoint . . . all I could say was "Ye Gods." It was incredible. I've never met a civilian who was held at gunpoint even once, and then they're tossing off multiple stories of these crazy incidents that just left me with my jaw hanging. It was incredible. Through the course of this discussion, however, I learned that you apparently can't ever really trust the Mexican police to do anything if you're mugged because the muggers probably paid them off. After our discussions of worldwide criminality, we talked extensively about the British Culture of Obstruction and vented our increasing frustration with the "customer service" industry. We agreed that probably the most commonly heard phrase (as well as the most annoying one) during our stay besides "Y'all right love?" is "I'm sorry . . ." in response to asking someone a question or if they can do something for you that, by all rights, they certainly should be able to do. It's funny, 'cause we were talking about this at Ian's and he said, "There was this show, and in it there was a guy who ran a hotel, and every time a guest asked for something simple he'd fly off the handle and yell at them and just go crazy - he and everyone else running the place were completely incompetent. It's kind of like the country at large." He was, of course, referring to Basil Fawlty of "Fawlty Towers" who I know very well and love very much, and although Basil is an exaggeration, he's not as far off as you'd think. It's a scary thought. Honestly though (and I don't mean this as a blanket statement against the British, because the people have all been very friendly; it's just the service people and customer representatives and bureaucrats and people trying to "help" you get anything done that frustrate us), it's like people go out of their way to make life more difficult. Something that would take them 30 seconds to do that would make your life immensely easier always seems to be completely out of the question - "I'm sorry . . ." Starting from the first day with Scary Lady at our reception (for the two days it was actually open), this has been a consistent trend. You should hear the trouble Ada went through to get her laptop - it was a nightmare and there was absolutely no reason for it to be (she's now on a crusade to get our postcode legitimized because apparently the town council hasn't ratified it or something and that's why it comes up in automated systems as not applicable and why I couldn't get the phone plan I wanted). It's just one thing after another. Before I got here, I had flirted with the idea of perhaps staying on and living here after I finished the course, but I've definitely decided that I'm not staying here once I'm done because I couldn't take the bureaucracy and this seemingly complete inability or unwillingness to offer basic assistance to people.
And on to happier things . . . we had decided to do a flat Christmas celebration and decided that we were going to do it on Christmas Eve. After much deliberation we decided that we wanted to do a Secret Santa gift exchange and then a dinner with movies afterward. We met a week before to draw names and Carlos, as our fearless leader, made the excellent suggestion that we should each write down three gift options along with our name (that were 10 pounds or less) so that people would have something to go on. We had a heck of a time trying to decide what to do about dinner, since we kind of wanted to go out somewhere but didn't want to spend too much money. We looked at several places but when we tried to make reservations they were all booked, so finally Carlos had another brilliant idea - Sadaf, Land of the Never Ending Rice Bowl! He called up and found out that they were open until 4 am Christmas Eve (although at that point it would have been Christmas morning) so we decided that we'd just get take out from there and eat at the flat. It ended up working out really well - we got about 8 orders of the really good chicken and rice and the boys carted it back and we had a lovely dinner with Christmas music in the background, courtesy of Kenny G (which Fauzan, much to my surprise, immediately recognized; apparently he doesn't have much of an Indonesian following but Fauzan is a fan). After dinner we drew up the couches and decided to watch "The Bucket List" which was surprisingly good. We then watched "The Hangover" and then "Madagascar 2." Good times, good times. It really was nice, and in the end it didn't matter where we were or what we did as long as we were hanging out together in our little flat family. I'd even though of writing a poem to the meter of "The Night Before Christmas/A Visit From St. Nicholas" about us, but I didn't get very far:
"'Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the flat
Not a creature was stirring,
Not even the rat."
That's all I had; maybe one of these days I'll think about trying to expand on it. But it was a very nice evening, and I was very glad we did it. And in case anybody was curious, Nithya ended up being my Secret Santa, and got me a copy of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" :D
Ada, Carlos, and I had another very interesting experience a few nights before Christmas. There was a knock on the flat door and, thinking that Avi had forgotten his keys and locked himself out again, I went and opened it. Two students, a girl and a boy, were standing there and they introduced themselves as theology students and said they wanted to ask me a couple questions for a class. I figured that they had to do a survey or something and said sure, 'cause at Elmira kids were always doing that kind of thing to get the samples they needed, and it was pretty common to get a knock on your door like that. So the girl asked me, "Do you have any religion?" I replied that I didn't really, although non-practicing Christian might do for the purposes of the conversation. She spoke very, very quickly - in fact, I've never heard English being spoken faster than she managed to speak it, and she had a very strong Chinese accent. Then she asked me if I knew anything about Passover. I told her I did and then she asked if I knew about not the Jewish Passover, but a different Passover in the New Testament. I told her I didn't, and then at that point Ada came out of the kitchen and walked down the hall toward us. Later she told me that at first, she thought the girl was speaking Chinese because she was talking so fast and when she saw me listening and nodding she thought, "Wow, I didn't know Kate understands Chinese! I gotta check this out." So Ada joined us, and then this girl asked if we'd be interested in listening to a presentation about this Passover. I still thought it was for a class, so I said okay and we led them down to the kitchen. Carlos was in there doing dishes and we sat them down and they whipped out a tiny DVD player and started up this disc. Apparently there's some passage in the New Testament that says that we need to practice some kind of Passover to avoid death when the world ends. The girl talked on and on about the number of ways the world could end at any second and enumerated the natural and man-made disasters that had been befalling us lately, and the DVD showed accompanying images of the world exploding, people dying fiery deaths, etc. I was sort of hoping for some of that atomic test stock footage used in the '50s monster movies all the time, but no such luck. Anyway, the girl kept talking and talking (very, very quickly) about the need for this Passover and that we would all die horrible deaths if we didn't start practicing it, and it became apparently that they were not there for a class, but to convert us somehow into Passover-practitioners. The girl never stopped talking and the guy never spoke at all - he just stared at us with a very solemn look on his face, nodding slowly as if to emphasize the fact that yes, we would all die probably tomorrow if we didn't take advantage of this. Finally this presentation came to its end and the girl asked us if we'd be interested in learning more about and participating in the Passover right then. Trying to be diplomatic, I said that although it sounded very interesting I wasn't interested right at the moment but would get back to them if I changed my mind. The other two echoed my sentiments and we graciously showed them the door. Apparently they'd already converted 150 people and do this for an hour every day. They left with the sort of sanctimonious looks that said, "Well, when the building collapses tomorrow and you're all squished by falling 2x4s, don't say with didn't warn you." As soon as they left, there was a good bit of laughter. But the craziest thing is that Ada told me they came back a couple days later just to double check and make sure we hadn't changed our minds. Very persistent. Ada asked at one point if they were Jehovah's Witnesses; I'm beginning to wonder if she wasn't as far off the mark as I first thought.
Despite all of these fun happenings, the best of all was the trip home that commenced on the 26th and that everybody managed to keep secret from my parents until I was back in the US. They definitely were taken by surprise and I'm shocked that everyone managed to keep their silence what with all the people who ended up knowing by the time I actually got there. The whole trip took place mostly without incidence, except I don't think the taxi I booked ever actually showed up; I ended up taking another one that happened to be passing by and he said that the one I reserved probably had forgotten and sure enough, they never called or anything. But I did make it to the airport, and I didn't encounter any trouble until I actually got to New York at JFK. Apparently it's very suspicious if you go on an international flight and don't take a check through bag; I just had my carry-on since I was going home only for a week and we do have a washing machine. Once we landed we were funneled through Customs and then out to Baggage Claim where the exit also was. When I tried to leave the guy said that the flight's bags hadn't come through yet and I said that I didn't have any. He got this suspicious look on his face and said, "Lemme see your paperwork." So I handed it over and told him that I was a student just going home for a week, and then he wrote something on a sheet of paper, handed it to me, and told me to go see a guy on the other side of the room. So over I went, and I gave him all my stuff and said I'd been sent over by the guy guarding the exit. This guy looked at my papers and said, "So, you're on an international flight and you only have this bag?" "Yes sir. I'm only going home for a week and we have washing facilities." I mean, it's not like a just had a little purse thing; that carry-on fits a decent amount of stuff. It's practically a suitcase all in itself. But the guy looked at me, looked at my papers, and said, "Well we're just gonna have to take a look in here." Fine, go ahead and do what you want. After a few minutes of pawing through my stuff and flinging my underwear on the search table he told me I was free to leave. I was met outside by my ever-so-marvelous boyfriend Sam, who managed to switch around his vacation time to spend the week with me, and we headed up to Poughkeepsie. The original plan was that we'd go to Poughkeepsie and Tess would pick us up and drive us home, but the weather prevented her from doing so and we ended up having to stay the night in Poughkeepsie. We actually got incredibly lucky weather-wise: NY was having quite a snowstorm and the 9 am and 11 am flights from Manchester to JKF were canceled. Mine was at 10 am and was the only one to get through. I think we were also the last Metro-North train to get through before the shut it down due to snow accumulation. We caught the news the next morning to see all the NY and NJ area airports and train lines completely shut down due to snowfall. Tess wasn't comfortable driving in the snow (which I certainly couldn't blame her for) so I ended up calling Mom and asking her to pick us up. She was quite surprised to hear that I was not in England as she had thought, but 2 hours south. But from that point on, everything went without a hitch and it was great to get home in front of a fire and spend a week with the family and some friends. I got to see Em, Jesse, and Aunt Debbie, so I was definitely happy about that, and we did a miniature Thanksgiving dinner which Aunt Ann and Uncle Ed were able to come up for so I got to see them too, and Gram of course. Dan and Molly also stopped by for an afternoon which was a lot of fun. It went far too quickly and it's gonna be a long nine months, but I feel like it'll go faster than I think. Coming back here was also hassle-free flight-wise although when I entered England I didn't have to go through Immigration or Customs or anything; this might be because I had already passed through EU Immigration when I landed in Dublin but I was still a foreign national entering a different sovereign country . . . but what do I know? I went to a desk and asked about it and was just told that if I hadn't been directed there, then they didn't need to see me. So, as per instruction, I left, but I have a weird suspicion that there's no record of me re-entering England. I guess we'll see what that means later on.
Now that I'm back, I shall turn my focus to finishing up my papers and then perhaps doing some pleasure reading in the free week we have between due dates and the start of classes, or maybe taking a day trip somewhere fun. We're still trying to organize a flat trip to Scotland, and although I'm not sure when that's happening it's something to look forward to at some point. Stay tuned . . .
Every year during December, Manchester hosts several Christmas Markets, where vendors from different countries in Europe set up for about three weeks or so and sell their wares and things to the Mancunians. The closest one to us was under the Town Hall, in Albert Square, and I set off to go take a look at it a couple days after the dinner at Ian and Joyce's. It really was very nice, and in some ways reminded me of the county fair but with a lack of livestock (although there was a large reindeer head singing German Christmas songs perched on top of the Bierhaus). Most of the vendors were from Germany and the Netherlands, and they were selling things like traditional food and handicrafts, as well as a lot of beer and mulled wine. I'd never had hot mulled wine before and elected to try it - it was one of the best hot drinks I've ever had. It was really sweet and had been cut with orange juice with spices added, and was really hot. I don't think anyone would really drink it to get drunk; it was far too hot to do anything but sip. There were so many vendors selling different variations of it, and the whole place smelled great with sausage and bratwurst and strudel. I spent a good deal of time just walking around and looking at the different stalls and such, and did a fair bit of Christmas shopping there. They had Christmas music playing, a giant lighted Santa . . . it was all very festive and quite nice. I visited a few of the other markets as well but the Albert Square one was by far the best and I think it was the main one.
One afternoon after a trip to the markets I decided to finally take a walk along the canal that runs underneath and perpendicular to Oxford Road. I've looked at it a number of times and always meant to take a look down that way but somehow never did, so that afternoon I decided that I was going to. It turns out that you can walk down it quite a long way in both directions; I ended up in Castlefield without fully realizing it. It's really nice down by the canal though, and surprisingly quiet - it's almost like you're not in the city at all. There are some areas that you can't see any other people, really, and you can't even hear cars. It was a refreshing break from the bustle of the city at large and quite picturesque. It also helped me see a little bit more how the roadways all connect and gave me a better idea of what's where. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the navigation thing around here. I also was able to find the Manchester Cathedral all by myself after driving past it with Ian when he took me home from the Shabbat dinner. It's really beautiful but I couldn't see past the entrance very well because there was a giant Christmas tree blocking the way. Now that the Christmas season has passed I'll try going back to take a look hopefully unobstructed by large flora.
I'm also happy to report that the dreaded Hebrew exam is over and done with. I actually think it went pretty well, although probably I shouldn't say that until I get the results. I seemed to feel better about it than most of my classmates, although that might just be because I had built it up in my mind to be this horrible behemoth and when it wasn't that bad I was pleasantly surprised, while my others hadn't built it up that much and thus were taken aback. I do wish we had a little more time though - even with the extra time that the professor gave us I just barely finished it and I wasn't dawdling by any means. I have to wait another few weeks for the results but I feel pretty good about it.
Carlos and I went to go and get lunch one afternoon and he took me to this Middle Eastern place he had found called Sadaf. He said that they had amazing chicken and rice, and he wasn't lying - it was really good. But it was so much food - it was like the never-ending rice bowl. No matter how much I ate, there was just more and more rice. It was good long grained brown rice, but I could only eat so much of it. It was a really good deal for the price though - 4.90 and you could easily get two meals out of it, if not three. He, Ada, and I also went out for a late-night snack one evening soon thereafter and they started exchanging horror stories of being mugged and held at gunpoint . . . all I could say was "Ye Gods." It was incredible. I've never met a civilian who was held at gunpoint even once, and then they're tossing off multiple stories of these crazy incidents that just left me with my jaw hanging. It was incredible. Through the course of this discussion, however, I learned that you apparently can't ever really trust the Mexican police to do anything if you're mugged because the muggers probably paid them off. After our discussions of worldwide criminality, we talked extensively about the British Culture of Obstruction and vented our increasing frustration with the "customer service" industry. We agreed that probably the most commonly heard phrase (as well as the most annoying one) during our stay besides "Y'all right love?" is "I'm sorry . . ." in response to asking someone a question or if they can do something for you that, by all rights, they certainly should be able to do. It's funny, 'cause we were talking about this at Ian's and he said, "There was this show, and in it there was a guy who ran a hotel, and every time a guest asked for something simple he'd fly off the handle and yell at them and just go crazy - he and everyone else running the place were completely incompetent. It's kind of like the country at large." He was, of course, referring to Basil Fawlty of "Fawlty Towers" who I know very well and love very much, and although Basil is an exaggeration, he's not as far off as you'd think. It's a scary thought. Honestly though (and I don't mean this as a blanket statement against the British, because the people have all been very friendly; it's just the service people and customer representatives and bureaucrats and people trying to "help" you get anything done that frustrate us), it's like people go out of their way to make life more difficult. Something that would take them 30 seconds to do that would make your life immensely easier always seems to be completely out of the question - "I'm sorry . . ." Starting from the first day with Scary Lady at our reception (for the two days it was actually open), this has been a consistent trend. You should hear the trouble Ada went through to get her laptop - it was a nightmare and there was absolutely no reason for it to be (she's now on a crusade to get our postcode legitimized because apparently the town council hasn't ratified it or something and that's why it comes up in automated systems as not applicable and why I couldn't get the phone plan I wanted). It's just one thing after another. Before I got here, I had flirted with the idea of perhaps staying on and living here after I finished the course, but I've definitely decided that I'm not staying here once I'm done because I couldn't take the bureaucracy and this seemingly complete inability or unwillingness to offer basic assistance to people.
And on to happier things . . . we had decided to do a flat Christmas celebration and decided that we were going to do it on Christmas Eve. After much deliberation we decided that we wanted to do a Secret Santa gift exchange and then a dinner with movies afterward. We met a week before to draw names and Carlos, as our fearless leader, made the excellent suggestion that we should each write down three gift options along with our name (that were 10 pounds or less) so that people would have something to go on. We had a heck of a time trying to decide what to do about dinner, since we kind of wanted to go out somewhere but didn't want to spend too much money. We looked at several places but when we tried to make reservations they were all booked, so finally Carlos had another brilliant idea - Sadaf, Land of the Never Ending Rice Bowl! He called up and found out that they were open until 4 am Christmas Eve (although at that point it would have been Christmas morning) so we decided that we'd just get take out from there and eat at the flat. It ended up working out really well - we got about 8 orders of the really good chicken and rice and the boys carted it back and we had a lovely dinner with Christmas music in the background, courtesy of Kenny G (which Fauzan, much to my surprise, immediately recognized; apparently he doesn't have much of an Indonesian following but Fauzan is a fan). After dinner we drew up the couches and decided to watch "The Bucket List" which was surprisingly good. We then watched "The Hangover" and then "Madagascar 2." Good times, good times. It really was nice, and in the end it didn't matter where we were or what we did as long as we were hanging out together in our little flat family. I'd even though of writing a poem to the meter of "The Night Before Christmas/A Visit From St. Nicholas" about us, but I didn't get very far:
"'Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the flat
Not a creature was stirring,
Not even the rat."
That's all I had; maybe one of these days I'll think about trying to expand on it. But it was a very nice evening, and I was very glad we did it. And in case anybody was curious, Nithya ended up being my Secret Santa, and got me a copy of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" :D
Ada, Carlos, and I had another very interesting experience a few nights before Christmas. There was a knock on the flat door and, thinking that Avi had forgotten his keys and locked himself out again, I went and opened it. Two students, a girl and a boy, were standing there and they introduced themselves as theology students and said they wanted to ask me a couple questions for a class. I figured that they had to do a survey or something and said sure, 'cause at Elmira kids were always doing that kind of thing to get the samples they needed, and it was pretty common to get a knock on your door like that. So the girl asked me, "Do you have any religion?" I replied that I didn't really, although non-practicing Christian might do for the purposes of the conversation. She spoke very, very quickly - in fact, I've never heard English being spoken faster than she managed to speak it, and she had a very strong Chinese accent. Then she asked me if I knew anything about Passover. I told her I did and then she asked if I knew about not the Jewish Passover, but a different Passover in the New Testament. I told her I didn't, and then at that point Ada came out of the kitchen and walked down the hall toward us. Later she told me that at first, she thought the girl was speaking Chinese because she was talking so fast and when she saw me listening and nodding she thought, "Wow, I didn't know Kate understands Chinese! I gotta check this out." So Ada joined us, and then this girl asked if we'd be interested in listening to a presentation about this Passover. I still thought it was for a class, so I said okay and we led them down to the kitchen. Carlos was in there doing dishes and we sat them down and they whipped out a tiny DVD player and started up this disc. Apparently there's some passage in the New Testament that says that we need to practice some kind of Passover to avoid death when the world ends. The girl talked on and on about the number of ways the world could end at any second and enumerated the natural and man-made disasters that had been befalling us lately, and the DVD showed accompanying images of the world exploding, people dying fiery deaths, etc. I was sort of hoping for some of that atomic test stock footage used in the '50s monster movies all the time, but no such luck. Anyway, the girl kept talking and talking (very, very quickly) about the need for this Passover and that we would all die horrible deaths if we didn't start practicing it, and it became apparently that they were not there for a class, but to convert us somehow into Passover-practitioners. The girl never stopped talking and the guy never spoke at all - he just stared at us with a very solemn look on his face, nodding slowly as if to emphasize the fact that yes, we would all die probably tomorrow if we didn't take advantage of this. Finally this presentation came to its end and the girl asked us if we'd be interested in learning more about and participating in the Passover right then. Trying to be diplomatic, I said that although it sounded very interesting I wasn't interested right at the moment but would get back to them if I changed my mind. The other two echoed my sentiments and we graciously showed them the door. Apparently they'd already converted 150 people and do this for an hour every day. They left with the sort of sanctimonious looks that said, "Well, when the building collapses tomorrow and you're all squished by falling 2x4s, don't say with didn't warn you." As soon as they left, there was a good bit of laughter. But the craziest thing is that Ada told me they came back a couple days later just to double check and make sure we hadn't changed our minds. Very persistent. Ada asked at one point if they were Jehovah's Witnesses; I'm beginning to wonder if she wasn't as far off the mark as I first thought.
Despite all of these fun happenings, the best of all was the trip home that commenced on the 26th and that everybody managed to keep secret from my parents until I was back in the US. They definitely were taken by surprise and I'm shocked that everyone managed to keep their silence what with all the people who ended up knowing by the time I actually got there. The whole trip took place mostly without incidence, except I don't think the taxi I booked ever actually showed up; I ended up taking another one that happened to be passing by and he said that the one I reserved probably had forgotten and sure enough, they never called or anything. But I did make it to the airport, and I didn't encounter any trouble until I actually got to New York at JFK. Apparently it's very suspicious if you go on an international flight and don't take a check through bag; I just had my carry-on since I was going home only for a week and we do have a washing machine. Once we landed we were funneled through Customs and then out to Baggage Claim where the exit also was. When I tried to leave the guy said that the flight's bags hadn't come through yet and I said that I didn't have any. He got this suspicious look on his face and said, "Lemme see your paperwork." So I handed it over and told him that I was a student just going home for a week, and then he wrote something on a sheet of paper, handed it to me, and told me to go see a guy on the other side of the room. So over I went, and I gave him all my stuff and said I'd been sent over by the guy guarding the exit. This guy looked at my papers and said, "So, you're on an international flight and you only have this bag?" "Yes sir. I'm only going home for a week and we have washing facilities." I mean, it's not like a just had a little purse thing; that carry-on fits a decent amount of stuff. It's practically a suitcase all in itself. But the guy looked at me, looked at my papers, and said, "Well we're just gonna have to take a look in here." Fine, go ahead and do what you want. After a few minutes of pawing through my stuff and flinging my underwear on the search table he told me I was free to leave. I was met outside by my ever-so-marvelous boyfriend Sam, who managed to switch around his vacation time to spend the week with me, and we headed up to Poughkeepsie. The original plan was that we'd go to Poughkeepsie and Tess would pick us up and drive us home, but the weather prevented her from doing so and we ended up having to stay the night in Poughkeepsie. We actually got incredibly lucky weather-wise: NY was having quite a snowstorm and the 9 am and 11 am flights from Manchester to JKF were canceled. Mine was at 10 am and was the only one to get through. I think we were also the last Metro-North train to get through before the shut it down due to snow accumulation. We caught the news the next morning to see all the NY and NJ area airports and train lines completely shut down due to snowfall. Tess wasn't comfortable driving in the snow (which I certainly couldn't blame her for) so I ended up calling Mom and asking her to pick us up. She was quite surprised to hear that I was not in England as she had thought, but 2 hours south. But from that point on, everything went without a hitch and it was great to get home in front of a fire and spend a week with the family and some friends. I got to see Em, Jesse, and Aunt Debbie, so I was definitely happy about that, and we did a miniature Thanksgiving dinner which Aunt Ann and Uncle Ed were able to come up for so I got to see them too, and Gram of course. Dan and Molly also stopped by for an afternoon which was a lot of fun. It went far too quickly and it's gonna be a long nine months, but I feel like it'll go faster than I think. Coming back here was also hassle-free flight-wise although when I entered England I didn't have to go through Immigration or Customs or anything; this might be because I had already passed through EU Immigration when I landed in Dublin but I was still a foreign national entering a different sovereign country . . . but what do I know? I went to a desk and asked about it and was just told that if I hadn't been directed there, then they didn't need to see me. So, as per instruction, I left, but I have a weird suspicion that there's no record of me re-entering England. I guess we'll see what that means later on.
Now that I'm back, I shall turn my focus to finishing up my papers and then perhaps doing some pleasure reading in the free week we have between due dates and the start of classes, or maybe taking a day trip somewhere fun. We're still trying to organize a flat trip to Scotland, and although I'm not sure when that's happening it's something to look forward to at some point. Stay tuned . . .
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Over the River and Through the Woods . . .
Well we didn't have a river or woods to traverse, but we held our own little Thanksgiving on Saturday. It was probably one of the most multinational Thanksgivings in the history of the holiday with proud representatives of Nigeria, Uganda, Mexico, Norway, India, Iran, and the US present. It turned out really well and we had a ton of food. The night before I made pumpkin, apple, and cherry pie, but as it was our first time using the oven we had some issues with it and the pumpkin was in there for almost 4 hours and even by that point had just barely set. At least I had nice company for the experience - Ada had invited a friend from church over to hang out for a bit (Claire, an actual Brit!) and she was just a total sweetheart. She'd invited her up also because Claire has traveled to Uganda and since Irene is Ugandan she said she'd like to meet her. When Irene came back she cooked the four of us a very traditional Ugandan meal while we waited for the stupid pie to bake - she made matoke, which is really green plantains sliced and boiled, then mashed into a rough paste. It reminded me of a light yellow potato, slightly sweet, but much starchier than a potato. Apparently it's one of the biggest staple foods. It was quite pleasant. She also made this sauce out of ground nuts. When you add water and some other things and boil it, it becomes like a sauce/paste and you eat it with the matoke (or other things). That was surprisingly good, especially as normally I won't touch a nut with a ten-foot pole. My palate has really expanded since I arrived here. Ada had made some Nigerian hot sauce earlier so we tried a little bit of that with the matoke. My oh my - it was the kind of stuff that'll clear your nasal passages right out. Definitely an interesting experience though, and now I can say that I've eaten a traditional Ugandan meal made by a native Ugandan - very cool. Many thanks Irene :D
After Claire left, Irene, Ada, and I stayed and chatted while the pies continued to very, very slowly bake. Eventually Irene went to bed and Ada (who decided to stay through the whole ordeal and provide some company) and I got work and studied for another 2 hours until they finished. Longest baking experience I've ever had . . . I'm not sure what was going on, since we had the temperature up as high as it would go (I originally paid attention to the recommended temperatures - indeed, I took some laughter 'cause I brought my calculator out to convert from C to F) but they finished eventually.
I think Avi and Nithya started chopping things up at around 2 pm Saturday even though dinner wasn't supposed to start until 8 . . . I started doing stuffing at about 4ish, and then Avi started making Indian chicken. I'm not sure what all he put in it, but I can say this much - I have never seen so much garlic in one place at one time in my entire life. There was, no joke, practically a bowl's worth in that frying pan. He cut the chicken into little chunks, microwaved it to get it cooked a little, and then threw it in the pan with a ton of masala and stuff. We taste-tested along the way and it was really, really good - spicy but not quite so spicy that I couldn't handle it (my threshold of spicy has been completely redefined in the past three months). Nithya had made some mushrooms in a sauce that we also tried with that flat semi-fried bread stuff that was so good, and the mushrooms were in a very nice sauce making the whole thing really good (yes, I voluntarily ate not one but two mushrooms - crazy!). Avi also made these miniature omlettes with some masala and little hot pepper slices in them, and those were really good too (they served as our snack while we were cooking). Ada came and she made rice with vegetables, and she also decided to make a dish she learned from a Chinese friend of hers. She sliced potatoes into tiny thin little sticks (almost like a Julienne cut) and did the same with peppers, and then she put them in a frying pan with some seasoning. She used some of the Bell's Poultry Seasoning to add some more flavor and it was a very nice touch - our American masala goes well with Chinese food it seems. We also made mashed potatoes, although I ended up cutting up many more than we needed - by the time we got to making them we only had small pots left, so they took forever to cook. Eventually we just said enough is enough and went with what we had ready at that point, figuring that if there was a desperate cry for more we could always just cook more up. Carlos was good enough to donate manual labor to the cause and mash them up by hand, since we don't have a mixture.
Everything turned out great, and Ada's guest (Lavinya, from India) also brought along a curry that she'd made so we had that as well. Nithya and Avi's friends Arun and Dikshitha (from India) and Nahal (from Iran) came, and Irene brought a Nigerian friend of hers from class, Mercy. I invited Kola and Carlos had asked Ronny (from Norway). We ended up with quite a gathering, although it was unfortunate that Fauzan couldn't be there, as he had to visit cousins in London that day. Apart from that it was a great time though - there was plenty of food and it was all great, and we discovered that the Nigerian hot sauce Ada made goes really well with stuffing - who knew? Perhaps something to keep in mind for future Thanksgivings. Anyway, after we were all stuffed we ended up dancing - it turns out that Dikshitha is actually a professional dancer and she treated us to an exhibition - she's really something. Nahal did one as well, and she was great too. After that we played around with it some, and Avi brought his laptop so we actually had something to listen to. But we were there for a good long time before it started to break up, and after it did even cleanup was fun, since we still had the music. Once all the dishes were washed and everything was sparkly clean again, Carlos, Ada, Irene, and I sat around and just chatted for probably an hour or better . . . Avi, Nithya, and their friends left but came back after a bit, and so we hung out with them, and then they left again to call it a night . . . Irene turned in, and Carlos and Ada and I eventually called it quits around 3am or so . . . it was definitely a good Thanksgiving though, albeit a little nontraditional. But excellent all the same.
It seems hard to believe that it's almost been three months since I arrived here, and that next week is the last week of the term. Methods class is already finished, and Holocaust next week is just a wrap up. In Hebrew we have the exam, and the professor did not make any friends in class this evening - she assigned us a whole new unit of verbs to learn, with all their infinitive patterns and rules of usage, before the test and since we only have class once a week we don't have an opportunity to go over our work with her before then to see if we've got it down. I guess we'll just have to do a little praying or something. Overall the class ended up not being so bad . . . once the reading clicked it really helped. Still, I'll take the Cyrillic alphabet over this any day; the vowels are still so tricky. But it's much better than it started out being.
There have been more protests and demonstrations about the education cuts. In the first one I wrote about, 17 people ended up being arrested, and the blockage on Oxford Road was indeed caused by the masses of protesters marching down the middle of the street. About a week ago in London there were huge demonstrations too, and today another smaller one; I heard shouting outside my window and when I looked out there were about 100 students running down below, chanting slogans and waving anti-legislation banners. It's all very interesting, and I've definitely seen an increase in police presence lately; I ran into several mounted officers coming down Oxford Road the other day. I don't know that the protests are going to do much, but it's really something to see.
I've realized that when I leave next year, I won't be able to take my cactus garden with me, and that's kind of a sad feeling . . . I've grown quite attached to those three little guys. They brighten the place up just enough and give a touch of green that so far I've been unable to kill. I wish I had some red fabric so I could make some little tree skirts for them, in the spirit of the holiday season. They do cheer things up though.
Some pictures of Thanksgiving are in the Manchester 2010/2011 album on Facebook, at this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038978&id=71701775&l=415aa6fc5d
After Claire left, Irene, Ada, and I stayed and chatted while the pies continued to very, very slowly bake. Eventually Irene went to bed and Ada (who decided to stay through the whole ordeal and provide some company) and I got work and studied for another 2 hours until they finished. Longest baking experience I've ever had . . . I'm not sure what was going on, since we had the temperature up as high as it would go (I originally paid attention to the recommended temperatures - indeed, I took some laughter 'cause I brought my calculator out to convert from C to F) but they finished eventually.
I think Avi and Nithya started chopping things up at around 2 pm Saturday even though dinner wasn't supposed to start until 8 . . . I started doing stuffing at about 4ish, and then Avi started making Indian chicken. I'm not sure what all he put in it, but I can say this much - I have never seen so much garlic in one place at one time in my entire life. There was, no joke, practically a bowl's worth in that frying pan. He cut the chicken into little chunks, microwaved it to get it cooked a little, and then threw it in the pan with a ton of masala and stuff. We taste-tested along the way and it was really, really good - spicy but not quite so spicy that I couldn't handle it (my threshold of spicy has been completely redefined in the past three months). Nithya had made some mushrooms in a sauce that we also tried with that flat semi-fried bread stuff that was so good, and the mushrooms were in a very nice sauce making the whole thing really good (yes, I voluntarily ate not one but two mushrooms - crazy!). Avi also made these miniature omlettes with some masala and little hot pepper slices in them, and those were really good too (they served as our snack while we were cooking). Ada came and she made rice with vegetables, and she also decided to make a dish she learned from a Chinese friend of hers. She sliced potatoes into tiny thin little sticks (almost like a Julienne cut) and did the same with peppers, and then she put them in a frying pan with some seasoning. She used some of the Bell's Poultry Seasoning to add some more flavor and it was a very nice touch - our American masala goes well with Chinese food it seems. We also made mashed potatoes, although I ended up cutting up many more than we needed - by the time we got to making them we only had small pots left, so they took forever to cook. Eventually we just said enough is enough and went with what we had ready at that point, figuring that if there was a desperate cry for more we could always just cook more up. Carlos was good enough to donate manual labor to the cause and mash them up by hand, since we don't have a mixture.
Everything turned out great, and Ada's guest (Lavinya, from India) also brought along a curry that she'd made so we had that as well. Nithya and Avi's friends Arun and Dikshitha (from India) and Nahal (from Iran) came, and Irene brought a Nigerian friend of hers from class, Mercy. I invited Kola and Carlos had asked Ronny (from Norway). We ended up with quite a gathering, although it was unfortunate that Fauzan couldn't be there, as he had to visit cousins in London that day. Apart from that it was a great time though - there was plenty of food and it was all great, and we discovered that the Nigerian hot sauce Ada made goes really well with stuffing - who knew? Perhaps something to keep in mind for future Thanksgivings. Anyway, after we were all stuffed we ended up dancing - it turns out that Dikshitha is actually a professional dancer and she treated us to an exhibition - she's really something. Nahal did one as well, and she was great too. After that we played around with it some, and Avi brought his laptop so we actually had something to listen to. But we were there for a good long time before it started to break up, and after it did even cleanup was fun, since we still had the music. Once all the dishes were washed and everything was sparkly clean again, Carlos, Ada, Irene, and I sat around and just chatted for probably an hour or better . . . Avi, Nithya, and their friends left but came back after a bit, and so we hung out with them, and then they left again to call it a night . . . Irene turned in, and Carlos and Ada and I eventually called it quits around 3am or so . . . it was definitely a good Thanksgiving though, albeit a little nontraditional. But excellent all the same.
It seems hard to believe that it's almost been three months since I arrived here, and that next week is the last week of the term. Methods class is already finished, and Holocaust next week is just a wrap up. In Hebrew we have the exam, and the professor did not make any friends in class this evening - she assigned us a whole new unit of verbs to learn, with all their infinitive patterns and rules of usage, before the test and since we only have class once a week we don't have an opportunity to go over our work with her before then to see if we've got it down. I guess we'll just have to do a little praying or something. Overall the class ended up not being so bad . . . once the reading clicked it really helped. Still, I'll take the Cyrillic alphabet over this any day; the vowels are still so tricky. But it's much better than it started out being.
There have been more protests and demonstrations about the education cuts. In the first one I wrote about, 17 people ended up being arrested, and the blockage on Oxford Road was indeed caused by the masses of protesters marching down the middle of the street. About a week ago in London there were huge demonstrations too, and today another smaller one; I heard shouting outside my window and when I looked out there were about 100 students running down below, chanting slogans and waving anti-legislation banners. It's all very interesting, and I've definitely seen an increase in police presence lately; I ran into several mounted officers coming down Oxford Road the other day. I don't know that the protests are going to do much, but it's really something to see.
I've realized that when I leave next year, I won't be able to take my cactus garden with me, and that's kind of a sad feeling . . . I've grown quite attached to those three little guys. They brighten the place up just enough and give a touch of green that so far I've been unable to kill. I wish I had some red fabric so I could make some little tree skirts for them, in the spirit of the holiday season. They do cheer things up though.
Some pictures of Thanksgiving are in the Manchester 2010/2011 album on Facebook, at this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038978&id=71701775&l=415aa6fc5d
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Thoreau Would Be So Proud
As November rolls to a close, I'm happy to report that we denizens of 04 03 are still alive and well. The past few weeks have been moderately low-key, although some events of note have occurred. I didn't realize that the British tradition of Bonfire Night (as mentioned in the first Harry Potter book) was quite so important - once it got dark that evening I heard a ton of explosions outside. I figured that either someone was setting off a ton of fireworks or we were being invaded; I was hoping for the former and sure enough, no invasion. So that was fun . . . I still hear sounds like that from time to time, although I haven't seen fireworks. I'm just sticking to my "not an invasion" theory for the time being.
Ada, Carlos, and I partook on a fun adventure about two weeks ago; he heard of a Man/Woman Auction taking place at the Baa Bar in Fallowfield (farther down Curry Mile) and we decided to go check it out (it was uni-sponsored, not just a random auctioning off of people). The three of us went along with Ronny and some of Carlos's classmates. This marks the second Baa Bar that the three of us have visited since we got here, and we might make it a personal goal to visit all the Baa Bars within Manchester within the year. It's always good to have something to aspire to. Anyway, it was loud and raucous but fun, and it reminded me of of the Model UN Man Auctions we used to do back at Elmira - Prostitution for World Peace. However, we were never allowed to auction off girls because it looked too much like real prostitution; apparently there were no such worries here. At least it was for a good cause - the money raised from people sales and entry tickets went to help build wells in Tanzania. Once the main event was over, Carlos, Ronny, Ada, Carlos's friend Jose, and I went to a karaoke bar to hang out for a little while longer (nothing quite like spending some quality time in a bar on a Tuesday night), and we were privileged to hear Ada and Ronny do their rendition of "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi. I've decided that the songs I'd do karaoke for in public are pretty much limited to "American Pie" and . . . . actually, that might be it. Shortly thereafter we took the bus back to campus, and Ada and I did (or tried to do) a Baywatch run back to the dorm; she didn't understand what it was and I sure as heck wasn't going to demonstrate while we were in a populated area, but walking back it was pretty much just the four of us so we had some fun with it.
We're also excitedly planning our own personal Thanksgiving, and decided to make it a little more of a party and each invite one guest (girls are supposed to bring girls and guys, guys), so we'll end up cooking for 14. We're gonna have to decide how exactly this is gonna work, because the biggest chickens we can find will only feed 4 to 6, and as I was informed by one of our male residents last night that he polished off one of those chickens by himself, we might need to do some adjusting. An Indian flavor might not go awry . . . we shall see. So far the menu includes chicken in some fashion, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, hopefully some rolls, and maybe carrots, 'cause that menu looks a little sparse. And dessert, of course, will be made up of pies. We had a flat event to come up with this and talk about some other issues which, of course, was a great and hilarious time. We also had a neat cultural experience last week when Avi's dad sent him a box of traditional Indian candies/sweets for Diwali, one of their really big festivals. He said that usually his mom would hand-make a lot of this stuff, but since he wasn't at home they just bought it. It was the sweetest food I've ever, EVER eaten. I know people say that Americans eat sweet candy, but believe me - you have no tasted sweet until you've had this. It was borderline intolerable from that aspect, but it was neat to experience that aspect of a different culture. Nithya said that India has a really big problem with diabetes, and I completely see why. But at least I'll be able to repay them in kind when Christmas cookies get here; it might be nice to have them with some hot chocolate one evening, next to a picture of a fireplace.
I don't know whether you've heard about it or not, but recently huge cuts in higher education funding have been announced over here, and the student body is furious. There was a small protest march a few weeks ago, but today there was a much larger one. As I was walking out to meet Ian and Joyce for lunch today there was a huge crowd outside the University Place building, at least a couple hundred students with signs, etc., the whole works. I'd never seen a student protest before; it was rather exciting. The closest we ever got to that at EC was signing a petition and flooding Senate with people opposing the purple graduation gowns (and we all know how well that turned out *cue Barney's theme song*). Then this evening, at about 4:15/4:30 pm, I heard shouting outside and when I looked out the window I saw several people running and yelling around the back of the building. When I left for class half an hour later, the traffic along Oxford Road was backed up to Heaven knows where and was literally at a standstill in both directions. I couldn't walk far enough to see what was causing it, but there were multiple police and ambulance vehicles in the vicinity and when I walked a bit farther I saw a group of policemen guarding a group of about 10 students who were handcuffed and pinned to the wall. The whole place was crawling with cops, and mounted police had been there at some point (trust me, I can recognize horse dung when I see it, and I'm pretty sure there were no wild horses running around Greater Manchester today). When I got to class, the professor showed up about 10 minutes later and said that because of the protests they'd shut down the building access via the automatic doors and they'd posted a door guard to let the night class students in, but after that nobody else was getting inside. I find it hard to believe that these protesters would be interested in spending a whole lot of time in the Samuel Alexander building, but whatever. Apparently these cuts may as much as double the cost of a university education which, for a British national, stands currently at 3000 pounds for an arts-based program (at Manchester; I don't know about other universities). That's for a year, too. It still amazes me that everyone's up in arms over this when we pay so much back home and hardly bat an eye . . . of course I'm sure if the situations were reversed we'd be doing the same, and nobody wants to take on more debt than they have to, but it's just such a totally different mindset.
Lunch with Ian and Joyce was marvelous; we went to a Pizza Express where they make you a little pizza right there and you can select exactly what you want on it - my kind of place as you can guarantee a sauceless experience. They also invited me to a Shabbat dinner on the 10th, which will be awesome; for all my Hillel activities I've never actually been to a traditional Shabbat dinner. I'll get to meet Andrew and Martine as well, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Hebrew is going much better; the reading is definitely getting easier. However, they don't use semicolons, and this bothers me probably much more than I should. I see comma splices everywhere but apparently it's just how you do it in Hebrew. That's almost taken more getting used to than anything else (man, sometimes I really remind myself of Frasier and Niles Crane . . . I'm not sure I should be too proud of that). One of my classmates, Rachel, is actually in the US as we speak - she went to visit her boyfriend for Thanksgiving, and I am slightly jealous, haha. I kind of wish that we learned more practical Hebrew though - it seems so tailored to university students. I can ask someone about where he or she studies and what he or she studies, or I can ask about room availability in a dorm, but have we learned how to ask where the bathroom is? No, and I think that might be a little more helpful in real-world situations. But at least I'm managing to struggle through it, however impractical I might think it is. Holocaust class is going well also; two weeks ago one of Dr. Dreyfus's PhD students came in to talk about his Holocaust research and it was really interesting - he's looking at the institution of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Britain and the controversies surrounding it. Dr. Dreyfus is marvelous, but his strong French accent just reminds me so forcefully of Inspector Clouseau sometimes. He's so sweet though, and he's offered to be my mentor for my dissertation so I might take him up on that, although I don't have to decide until March.
I'm sure I will shortly be regaling my captive audience with tales of the fabulous success of our Thanksgiving party, and hopefully some tales of snow as well - rumor has it we may get some tonight but I don't know. We did have frost this morning and it made me very happy . . . I also think I was the only person in all of Greater Manchester who went outside today wearing just a sweatshirt.
Ada, Carlos, and I partook on a fun adventure about two weeks ago; he heard of a Man/Woman Auction taking place at the Baa Bar in Fallowfield (farther down Curry Mile) and we decided to go check it out (it was uni-sponsored, not just a random auctioning off of people). The three of us went along with Ronny and some of Carlos's classmates. This marks the second Baa Bar that the three of us have visited since we got here, and we might make it a personal goal to visit all the Baa Bars within Manchester within the year. It's always good to have something to aspire to. Anyway, it was loud and raucous but fun, and it reminded me of of the Model UN Man Auctions we used to do back at Elmira - Prostitution for World Peace. However, we were never allowed to auction off girls because it looked too much like real prostitution; apparently there were no such worries here. At least it was for a good cause - the money raised from people sales and entry tickets went to help build wells in Tanzania. Once the main event was over, Carlos, Ronny, Ada, Carlos's friend Jose, and I went to a karaoke bar to hang out for a little while longer (nothing quite like spending some quality time in a bar on a Tuesday night), and we were privileged to hear Ada and Ronny do their rendition of "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi. I've decided that the songs I'd do karaoke for in public are pretty much limited to "American Pie" and . . . . actually, that might be it. Shortly thereafter we took the bus back to campus, and Ada and I did (or tried to do) a Baywatch run back to the dorm; she didn't understand what it was and I sure as heck wasn't going to demonstrate while we were in a populated area, but walking back it was pretty much just the four of us so we had some fun with it.
We're also excitedly planning our own personal Thanksgiving, and decided to make it a little more of a party and each invite one guest (girls are supposed to bring girls and guys, guys), so we'll end up cooking for 14. We're gonna have to decide how exactly this is gonna work, because the biggest chickens we can find will only feed 4 to 6, and as I was informed by one of our male residents last night that he polished off one of those chickens by himself, we might need to do some adjusting. An Indian flavor might not go awry . . . we shall see. So far the menu includes chicken in some fashion, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, hopefully some rolls, and maybe carrots, 'cause that menu looks a little sparse. And dessert, of course, will be made up of pies. We had a flat event to come up with this and talk about some other issues which, of course, was a great and hilarious time. We also had a neat cultural experience last week when Avi's dad sent him a box of traditional Indian candies/sweets for Diwali, one of their really big festivals. He said that usually his mom would hand-make a lot of this stuff, but since he wasn't at home they just bought it. It was the sweetest food I've ever, EVER eaten. I know people say that Americans eat sweet candy, but believe me - you have no tasted sweet until you've had this. It was borderline intolerable from that aspect, but it was neat to experience that aspect of a different culture. Nithya said that India has a really big problem with diabetes, and I completely see why. But at least I'll be able to repay them in kind when Christmas cookies get here; it might be nice to have them with some hot chocolate one evening, next to a picture of a fireplace.
I don't know whether you've heard about it or not, but recently huge cuts in higher education funding have been announced over here, and the student body is furious. There was a small protest march a few weeks ago, but today there was a much larger one. As I was walking out to meet Ian and Joyce for lunch today there was a huge crowd outside the University Place building, at least a couple hundred students with signs, etc., the whole works. I'd never seen a student protest before; it was rather exciting. The closest we ever got to that at EC was signing a petition and flooding Senate with people opposing the purple graduation gowns (and we all know how well that turned out *cue Barney's theme song*). Then this evening, at about 4:15/4:30 pm, I heard shouting outside and when I looked out the window I saw several people running and yelling around the back of the building. When I left for class half an hour later, the traffic along Oxford Road was backed up to Heaven knows where and was literally at a standstill in both directions. I couldn't walk far enough to see what was causing it, but there were multiple police and ambulance vehicles in the vicinity and when I walked a bit farther I saw a group of policemen guarding a group of about 10 students who were handcuffed and pinned to the wall. The whole place was crawling with cops, and mounted police had been there at some point (trust me, I can recognize horse dung when I see it, and I'm pretty sure there were no wild horses running around Greater Manchester today). When I got to class, the professor showed up about 10 minutes later and said that because of the protests they'd shut down the building access via the automatic doors and they'd posted a door guard to let the night class students in, but after that nobody else was getting inside. I find it hard to believe that these protesters would be interested in spending a whole lot of time in the Samuel Alexander building, but whatever. Apparently these cuts may as much as double the cost of a university education which, for a British national, stands currently at 3000 pounds for an arts-based program (at Manchester; I don't know about other universities). That's for a year, too. It still amazes me that everyone's up in arms over this when we pay so much back home and hardly bat an eye . . . of course I'm sure if the situations were reversed we'd be doing the same, and nobody wants to take on more debt than they have to, but it's just such a totally different mindset.
Lunch with Ian and Joyce was marvelous; we went to a Pizza Express where they make you a little pizza right there and you can select exactly what you want on it - my kind of place as you can guarantee a sauceless experience. They also invited me to a Shabbat dinner on the 10th, which will be awesome; for all my Hillel activities I've never actually been to a traditional Shabbat dinner. I'll get to meet Andrew and Martine as well, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Hebrew is going much better; the reading is definitely getting easier. However, they don't use semicolons, and this bothers me probably much more than I should. I see comma splices everywhere but apparently it's just how you do it in Hebrew. That's almost taken more getting used to than anything else (man, sometimes I really remind myself of Frasier and Niles Crane . . . I'm not sure I should be too proud of that). One of my classmates, Rachel, is actually in the US as we speak - she went to visit her boyfriend for Thanksgiving, and I am slightly jealous, haha. I kind of wish that we learned more practical Hebrew though - it seems so tailored to university students. I can ask someone about where he or she studies and what he or she studies, or I can ask about room availability in a dorm, but have we learned how to ask where the bathroom is? No, and I think that might be a little more helpful in real-world situations. But at least I'm managing to struggle through it, however impractical I might think it is. Holocaust class is going well also; two weeks ago one of Dr. Dreyfus's PhD students came in to talk about his Holocaust research and it was really interesting - he's looking at the institution of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Britain and the controversies surrounding it. Dr. Dreyfus is marvelous, but his strong French accent just reminds me so forcefully of Inspector Clouseau sometimes. He's so sweet though, and he's offered to be my mentor for my dissertation so I might take him up on that, although I don't have to decide until March.
I'm sure I will shortly be regaling my captive audience with tales of the fabulous success of our Thanksgiving party, and hopefully some tales of snow as well - rumor has it we may get some tonight but I don't know. We did have frost this morning and it made me very happy . . . I also think I was the only person in all of Greater Manchester who went outside today wearing just a sweatshirt.
Thursday, 4 November 2010
The Making of a Pilgrimage, or "Perfect Day"
Today was the day - I journeyed to Ulverston to see Stan Laurel's birthplace, and I must say, it was a glorious trip. I left from Manchester Piccadilly although in hindsight, and for next time, I can probably go places from the Oxford Road station which is a good deal closer to campus. But at any rate, the ride up was gorgeous. We were going north, into the Lake District, and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. I think I might have seen a very small moor, and I know that I saw the coastline. We passed over a lot of water and past multiple floodplains; the whole area actually reminds me of a delta. If I remember what Mr. Banker taught us, I think it has all the markings of a glacial valley with oxbow lakes and stuff. Whatever the case may be, it was an amazing ride - I kept shuttling back and forth from one side of the car to the other to take pictures out of the windows (I was the only one at that point, so it was fine). It was very foggy and drizzly weather, which isn't great for picture taking but actually I think it made everything look that much more rugged and lovely.
It took about an hour and a half/two hours to get to Ulverston, and even if Stan wasn't born there it would have been worth it. It's an ancient town and so many of the buildings, even regular houses, are made of age-old stone and have been standing for what seems like forever. I think, however, it's not quite the "bustling market town" it once was, as it seems rather un-bustling these days. But it's in a great location, and on a nearby hill (I say "nearby" and "hill" when what I really mean is a small mountain about 10 miles up the road) is a large obelisk that overlooks the town. When I first saw pictures of that on Wikipedia I thought maybe I could climb it after I was done at the museum, but when I saw it in person I realized that was completely unfeasible for the afternoon. Perhaps next time.
The museum itself couldn't have been easier to get to, but about a block up from it is the statue of Laurel and Hardy that was recently built to commemorate their achievements. I, of course, took pictures of it; it's quite a nice statue, very characteristic of them, and it's ringed with the titles of some of their most famous pieces ("Sons of the Desert" naturally being one). I then proceeded down the road to the museum, which changed locations within the past six months and is now located in the basement of an art deco theater called The Roxy. I'd say that the museum itself is about the size of our den, maybe a little bigger, but it was incredibly cool. They had so much stuff there - memorabilia, artifacts, pictures, letters, informational slides, posters, furniture, just about everything. They had info boards on some of their most famous movies and shorts, as well as info on some of the other characters that frequently appeared on screen with them (ie Mae Busch and James Finlayson), and they had some life-sized statues too. They also had a mini movie theater set up in the corner, complete with genuine movie theater seats from that era, maybe 15 of them. They show films and shorts all day long and you can sit and watch as many as you want. I managed to spend a good three hours in there, watched several shorts, and essentially had a grand old time. It was so great to watch the films with other people and hearing them laugh as hard as you do. One elderly lady left halfway through one short saying, "If I stay any longer, I'll wet me pants!" I was surprised at how many people were there - probably a good 14-18 passed through while I was there or were there when I started. I was the only person under the age of about 50, not that that was hugely surprising, but I'm willing to bet that despite my age, I was probably the only one who could sing the Sons of the Desert Anthem by heart and has "Honolulu Baby" on my iTunes.
After I had exhausted all the museum had to offer and had gone over everything, I poked around the gift shop and asked the guy on duty if the house Stan was born in was still around. He told me that, in fact, it was, and he also directed me to the Stan Laurel Inn, which is like a bed and breakfast with some more memorabilia and pictures. I set off into the pouring rain - yes, it poured the whole time, from the moment I stepped off the train until the moment I stepped back on - and reached the Inn about three minutes later. It was a cute little place with some neat pictures hanging on the walls. From there, Stan's house was fewer than five minutes up the road - 3 Argyle St. It's been modernized since 1890, but it has an officiated plaque saying that Stan was indeed born in that house. It was a great moment . . . from that door issued such genius. Amazing. Watching those shorts today really made me appreciate how difficult it is to pull off that kind of comedy. From any other duo it would just come off looking incredibly stupid. The way they just stand there when they know exactly what's gonna happen - I mean, like anyone would just stand there as you paint his face with molasses and then dump a load of feathers on him. But the mannerisms and expressions to go along with acts like that pull together and make it work perfectly. You don't notice all that stuff as a kid, but the older you get the more you appreciate what an art form it really is. You really have to have something special in order to be able to pull that kind of thing off.
After I'd seen all the Laurel and Hardy related sites the town had to offer, I had some hours to kill, so I walked around town (yes, in the pouring rain still, because pouring rain never stops me, as you well ought to know by now), explored some churches, and walked the high street - narrow, cobblestoned, quaint, elegant . . . in short, everything an old British town should be. After some explorations, I stopped into a tea shop and got some hot chocolate and crumpets - real English crumpets, not the ones they have in Asda that you pop in the toaster. Apparently you butter them and then serve them with melted soft cheese (Lancashire cheese, in this case). They reminded me of biscuits (American biscuits, not British ones) a little bit, but lighter and not nearly as dense. They were delicious, as was the hot chocolate which was made from scratch, not Swiss Miss. It was an absolutely perfect setting - cozy, quaint little teahouse, the kind of place Karen or Mrs. Miller would love, hot chocolate, crumpets, lovely Irish music in the background, rain pounding the cobblestones . . . it was just perfect. I lingered there for a while while I read a paper for Holocaust (I knew I should have brought Jane Eyre instead), and then eventually started meandering my way back to the station, taking several detours along the way to take a look up cool streets or take pictures of an awesome church. The gate was open, but I'm not sure if we were supposed to go onto the grounds or not . . . oh well.
I'd have to say that this was one of the best days I've had since getting here - not only did I get to see a historic landmark and pay homage to a comedic god, but I also got to poke around a true old English town and get a lovely picture of what the Lake District is like . . . and was it ever lovely. It's a bit difficult to take digital pictures from the windows of a moving train, especially when the train is being rained on, but I think I got some good ones. I'll post them soon and then add in the link so you can check them out.
EDIT: I now have pictures of this fabulous journey posted on Facebook. You can access them with this link; just copy and past it:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039793&id=71701775&l=989d31bc86
It took about an hour and a half/two hours to get to Ulverston, and even if Stan wasn't born there it would have been worth it. It's an ancient town and so many of the buildings, even regular houses, are made of age-old stone and have been standing for what seems like forever. I think, however, it's not quite the "bustling market town" it once was, as it seems rather un-bustling these days. But it's in a great location, and on a nearby hill (I say "nearby" and "hill" when what I really mean is a small mountain about 10 miles up the road) is a large obelisk that overlooks the town. When I first saw pictures of that on Wikipedia I thought maybe I could climb it after I was done at the museum, but when I saw it in person I realized that was completely unfeasible for the afternoon. Perhaps next time.
The museum itself couldn't have been easier to get to, but about a block up from it is the statue of Laurel and Hardy that was recently built to commemorate their achievements. I, of course, took pictures of it; it's quite a nice statue, very characteristic of them, and it's ringed with the titles of some of their most famous pieces ("Sons of the Desert" naturally being one). I then proceeded down the road to the museum, which changed locations within the past six months and is now located in the basement of an art deco theater called The Roxy. I'd say that the museum itself is about the size of our den, maybe a little bigger, but it was incredibly cool. They had so much stuff there - memorabilia, artifacts, pictures, letters, informational slides, posters, furniture, just about everything. They had info boards on some of their most famous movies and shorts, as well as info on some of the other characters that frequently appeared on screen with them (ie Mae Busch and James Finlayson), and they had some life-sized statues too. They also had a mini movie theater set up in the corner, complete with genuine movie theater seats from that era, maybe 15 of them. They show films and shorts all day long and you can sit and watch as many as you want. I managed to spend a good three hours in there, watched several shorts, and essentially had a grand old time. It was so great to watch the films with other people and hearing them laugh as hard as you do. One elderly lady left halfway through one short saying, "If I stay any longer, I'll wet me pants!" I was surprised at how many people were there - probably a good 14-18 passed through while I was there or were there when I started. I was the only person under the age of about 50, not that that was hugely surprising, but I'm willing to bet that despite my age, I was probably the only one who could sing the Sons of the Desert Anthem by heart and has "Honolulu Baby" on my iTunes.
After I had exhausted all the museum had to offer and had gone over everything, I poked around the gift shop and asked the guy on duty if the house Stan was born in was still around. He told me that, in fact, it was, and he also directed me to the Stan Laurel Inn, which is like a bed and breakfast with some more memorabilia and pictures. I set off into the pouring rain - yes, it poured the whole time, from the moment I stepped off the train until the moment I stepped back on - and reached the Inn about three minutes later. It was a cute little place with some neat pictures hanging on the walls. From there, Stan's house was fewer than five minutes up the road - 3 Argyle St. It's been modernized since 1890, but it has an officiated plaque saying that Stan was indeed born in that house. It was a great moment . . . from that door issued such genius. Amazing. Watching those shorts today really made me appreciate how difficult it is to pull off that kind of comedy. From any other duo it would just come off looking incredibly stupid. The way they just stand there when they know exactly what's gonna happen - I mean, like anyone would just stand there as you paint his face with molasses and then dump a load of feathers on him. But the mannerisms and expressions to go along with acts like that pull together and make it work perfectly. You don't notice all that stuff as a kid, but the older you get the more you appreciate what an art form it really is. You really have to have something special in order to be able to pull that kind of thing off.
After I'd seen all the Laurel and Hardy related sites the town had to offer, I had some hours to kill, so I walked around town (yes, in the pouring rain still, because pouring rain never stops me, as you well ought to know by now), explored some churches, and walked the high street - narrow, cobblestoned, quaint, elegant . . . in short, everything an old British town should be. After some explorations, I stopped into a tea shop and got some hot chocolate and crumpets - real English crumpets, not the ones they have in Asda that you pop in the toaster. Apparently you butter them and then serve them with melted soft cheese (Lancashire cheese, in this case). They reminded me of biscuits (American biscuits, not British ones) a little bit, but lighter and not nearly as dense. They were delicious, as was the hot chocolate which was made from scratch, not Swiss Miss. It was an absolutely perfect setting - cozy, quaint little teahouse, the kind of place Karen or Mrs. Miller would love, hot chocolate, crumpets, lovely Irish music in the background, rain pounding the cobblestones . . . it was just perfect. I lingered there for a while while I read a paper for Holocaust (I knew I should have brought Jane Eyre instead), and then eventually started meandering my way back to the station, taking several detours along the way to take a look up cool streets or take pictures of an awesome church. The gate was open, but I'm not sure if we were supposed to go onto the grounds or not . . . oh well.
I'd have to say that this was one of the best days I've had since getting here - not only did I get to see a historic landmark and pay homage to a comedic god, but I also got to poke around a true old English town and get a lovely picture of what the Lake District is like . . . and was it ever lovely. It's a bit difficult to take digital pictures from the windows of a moving train, especially when the train is being rained on, but I think I got some good ones. I'll post them soon and then add in the link so you can check them out.
EDIT: I now have pictures of this fabulous journey posted on Facebook. You can access them with this link; just copy and past it:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039793&id=71701775&l=989d31bc86
Sunday, 31 October 2010
04 03 - It's Where You Wanna Be
I cooked something! Okay, mostly I just stirred it, but I'm gonna count it anyway. A few nights ago Avi knocked on my door to say that he and Nithya were cooking chicken and that he would teach me how to make the amazing chicken that he made last month. This was, of course, a very exciting prospect and I immediately took him up on the offer. Over the next half hour or so I was guided through the process - when I got there the chicken was already coated in tumeric powder and was being microwaved to cut down on cooking time, and after that we put it in a pan containing vegetable oil (quick observation - the British don't say "vegetables;" the word is just "veg" and appears as such on all signs and ads, as in "Eat five servings of fruit and veg each day!") to fry it a little and finish the cooking. Multiple spices were added, few of which I can now remember (I can get them from Avi and write them down at some point), but I know cloves, cumin, that really strong powder I smelled in the hallway, and possibly caroway seeds were added. I think some tomatoes might have been put in as well. As I said, I was heavily guided through the process while Avi and Nithya made another batch of chicken in a different kind of sauce. During the process, we tried to put something in the microwave and ended up burning it terribly; it's a miracle we didn't set the alarm off. I actually have a lot less faith in that alarm after that incident. Carlos and I ended up with our heads hanging out the kitchen windows for a good ten minutes before we could breathe properly again. I think, however, that my favorite quote from the evening came when Avi instructed me to stir and poke at my chicken but noting the bubbling oil said, "Make sure you do it carefully;" after watching me tentatively poke at it with the very very tip of the spatula he clarified, "Okay, not that carefully."
At any rate, the cooking of both sets of chickens progressed at a fabulous pace and actually we were soon joined by the rest of the flat including Nithya's friend Nahal from Iran, who is also in the law program. She seems a very sweet girl. We had another kitchen bonding experience before our homemade dinner, and Nithya and Avi semi-fried these fluffy flat round bread things that are apparently another traditional food. I say "semi-fried" because it was akin to how I'd use olive oil to grease a brownie pan - just use one drop and spread it around so there's really no excess. Then they pressed them into the frying pan to brown them just a little. They were actually really delicious - kind of sweet and mellow, not exactly breadlike, almost more like a very thin doughnut, though not as sweet. But at any rate, once those were done we dug in, and both chickens turned out really well. Mine tasted different from when Avi did it, but apparently that's to be expected. From what I've come to understand, Indian cooking is kind of like how I go about making chocolate chip cookies these days - just put things in until it looks right. Consequently it tastes a little different every time, but it adds to the adventure. It made for an excellent flat dinner though, and there was, as usual, stimulating conversation of all types, although this time it seemed to center largely around jokes regarding Fauzan's homework project diagram of a fictitious oil well called Taminga, which which he's been spending an inordinate amount of time. I daresay imagination will be sufficient to imagine the nature of these jokes, which have not ceased all week. As we had the whole flat there, Ada suggested that we go out for a meal together at some point, and we had decided on doing dinner on Saturday night but eventually that had to be changed to Sunday lunch because Fauzan needed to do some work on Taminga (demanding little thing she is), and that adventure took place today, which I'll detail later in the interest of trying to remain semi-chronological.
Methods class on Monday was actually interesting, as we talked about formulating research questions. I've already had some experience with that (shout out to Dr. Imai once again), but the guy really took us through the finer points and had us come up with some in class. This class session has an assignment attached to it, which is basically just making up research questions on a random topic, but we have to prove they're valid and extrapolate them as generally as we can, because the more people your research interests and is relevant to, the more important it is. I'm going to do mine on Nazi anti-Jewish laws in Germany from 1933-9 because that can be extrapolated out in the general sense to ponder the mechanics of how any and all governments can take steps to isolate minorities within their borders. Thrillingly exciting, I know. It should be fun to write though.
Hebrew was also better this week; we got some in class time to practice reading with a partner (I was with Ellie and it ended up being hilarious . . . can you say "Train wreck"?) but I wasn't called over individually to have a talk with her about my progress so that was a good thing. It's starting to click but it's still very much a walk through molasses (which, I'm telling you, I wouldn't do if I were you - that was for you, Father dear).
At some point this week, Carlos had gotten word from Kola that there was a Halloween party over at Grosvenor Hall to which, as George Kenyon residents, we had access, so he, Ada, and I set out for that on Friday night. We got as far as our lobby before running into people - apparently it was our very own lobby party. It was quite a gig, lemme tell ya. It consisted of a pumpkin and individual bags of chips, and that was pretty much it. But at least it was convenient - you could check your mail and do your laundry between the songs being played on someone's laptop. Ada found a friend of hers, Mellie (also from Nigeria but did her undergrad in Boston), down there and the four of us went to Grosvenor together. Over there, it wasn't much better, although there was louder music. The main attraction was free pizza and beer pong, and we seemed to have limited interest in both, especially once the pizza ran out (despite my expanding palate, I still will not eat normal pizza). The four of us stayed for about half an hour and decided to go look for a party that Ada had heard about over at the Student Union. We made our way over there, but apparently the party had disappeared. We literally searched the entire building and it wasn't there. We asked at reception twice and the woman there hadn't heard about it (although we decided a search was necessary in spite of that, because we've learned not to trust receptions), so eventually we gave up and decided to try finding the club that the party was apparently supposed to move to later. Carlos thought he knew where it was so we walked toward City Center but it turned out he didn't know exactly where he was headed. We ended up hanging out outside the Deaf Institute Music Hall (am I the only one sensing a slight irony in that?) while he called someone to get better directions, but in the end Mellie wound up going back to the dorm so it was just the three of us. It was a nice walk down there, past the place where the Erasmus party was held last month. The club, Revolutions, was located along the canal with a series of bars and clubs, but since it didn't open until 11pm we decided to hang out in one of the bars next door for a while. We ended up just staying there and dancing the night away, and boy oh boy did we meet some interesting people in there. Our count for the evening was as follows:
1. One guy hooking his arm around Carlos's neck in a bromance hug and turning him around to show off to his friends
2. One drunk girl coming up to me and giving me a hug while informing me that she was jealous of me
3. One very corpulent 40 year old woman barreling into Ada while on her way to the door
4. One drunk girl attempting some interesting dance moves on Carlos which, shockingly, he didn't notice (but Ada and I sure did and were very entertained)
5. One creepy guy attempting to pick me up with an entirely too "hands-on" approach and whispering in my ear, "Do you fancy me?" However, because it was so loud in there, what I heard was, "Do you like fencing?" and consequently my answer was a little more affirmative than I intended until I asked him to repeat the question (yes, I know - the idea that some guy in a bar would be asking me if I like fencing is a tad ludicrous and probably I should have thought it through and realized it didn't make much sense)
6. One guy moving his way into our dancing triangle, shaking Carlos's hand, and then leaving
7. One guy coming up to me and holding up his hand for a high five and then leaving after receiving it
8. A multitude of people dressed (or undressed, as it were) in the Halloween spirit; we think the Avatar couple got the most points
So it was quite the evening, but it was a lot of fun. Three and a half/four hours is a long time to dance though, and by the time we left at a bit after two we were pretty darn tired, and hungry. Lucky for us, the Babylon 100% Halal Cafe is open at 2:15 am, so we got snacks of chicken to tide us over, and by the time we got back to the dorm it was about 3 am. I didn't see Carlos the next morning but when I finally wandered into the kitchen (still proudly pajamaed; I'm definitely past the stage of needing to look formal and presentable around these guys) Avi, Nithya, and Ada were in there munching on breakfast. Nithya had to leave after a bit but Avi, Ada (also still proudly pajamaed I believe; at least I wasn't alone), and I ended up staying in there and chatting for over two hours, once again touching on multiple subjects and battling with the world's problems. Ada was also able to enlighten us about her hair - she has it in dozens of little tiny twisty braidy things and I had assumed that it was her real hair, somehow braided and twisted so that it would magically stay like that, 'cause I know mine would last about three seconds if I tried it. Avi took it a step further and thought she did that every single morning. She thought that was hysterical and explained that it's actually synthetic hair that gets twisted in with her hair - what we see is half her hair, and half synthetic. It was really intriguing, and once she had us feel it we could see that it definitely didn't feel like real hair. She was contemplating taking them out so she started while we were sitting there so we could see how it worked. Apparently it's really common practice for her back home, but it's never (or rarely) only real hair - to give it more length and make it stay like that, you braid/twist in the synthetic stuff and and then set it with really hot water so it keeps the shape. Very interesting. That got us talking about hair and eyes and stuff, and Avi mentioned that I'm the first blue-eyed person he's ever seen. Then he said, "But sometimes I think your eyes aren't really blue - they're transparent!" I brought out the pictures I have in my wallet of Tess, Russ, and me so that he and Ada could see how our eyes are the same (or at least they were when we were little) and he was fascinated with Tess's red hair. I have her senior picture as well as one that was taken of the two of us when she was about nine months old so they could see that she really does have true, natural red hair. All in all, it was a marvelous few hours of relaxing conversation, and Ada and I discovered that we both like reading and have similar literary tastes, as well as loving bookstores. She read everything she could get her hands on when she was little, and is currently always looking for books to recommend to her 13 year old sister - Mother, Aunt Debbie, any suggestions you can offer?
That evening Kola Facebooked me and asked if I wanted to go Asda with him, so I said sure. It was a relatively uneventful trip, although probably not one I'd be willing to make alone in the dark. During the day it's fine, but at night it's a little sketchier. I didn't really have much to get but I spent a lot of time examining British products of various sorts, including bath products. I shall now reveal the winner for Most Interesting Bath Scent . . . Chocolate Waffle. Yes, that is a bath scent. Yes, I smelled it. Yes, it smells like something chocolate-ish, but I detected no hint of waffles. I don't think I'd really want to be washing myself in anything waffle-scented anyway. I also spent some time looking at British baby food - it's very impressive. I can see Frasier and Niles Crane feeding their children these baby meals - lamb dinner, mango rice pudding, salmon risotto.
I had a rather interesting experience this morning when I went out for some soap, which I'd forgotten last night. In fact, I almost titled this post "How I May Have Helped Contribute to Britain's Drug Problem" but thought that might be a bit extreme. Anyway, the story goes that I was walking along Oxford Road just past University Place and a guy, maybe 20 years old, came jogging up to me and asked if I had any spare change for the bus, 'cause he didn't have enough to get home. He looked reasonably distressed and there have been enough times where I or friends of mine have been assisted by random strangers in times of need that I was willing to donate the loose change in my pockets to his cause. As I did so, a woman came out of the store screaming that he was a heroin addict and that he was just looking for money to score smack. He shouted her down trying to deny it and she retorted that he's up and down this stretch all the time with sob stories "preying on helpless young loves like her," etc., etc. I figured it might be prudent to relocate and she started walking with me, with the guy asking me to just wait there with him for a few minutes until she left, but I told him I was heading in the opposite direction and changed course, leaving him there. Obviously I'd prefer that he wasn't a heroin addict, but even if he was I'd rather be taken in for a pound or two by some putz than refuse someone who actually needed assistance - as I said, I've been in that situation myself before and would feel really awful if I passed someone over when they actually did need some help. I'd rather be a slight bleeding heart than a bitter old cat lady. After hearing this story Carlos remarked, "You really are a magnet for these weirdos; how do you manage it?" Seems like it just runs in the family.
As I mentioned earlier, today was our prearranged flat lunch, and we decided, after much deliberation, to go to a Chinese buffet on the way to City Center - 60 dishes and a 10% discount for students. On the way we passed a streetside bookseller with a ton of old books and Ada and I remarked that if he was still there by the time we returned we'd definitely be taking a look. The restaurant was about 10 minutes away and ended up being pretty good - also probably the most authentic Chinese food I've ever had, a bit more sophisticated than the Ming Moon, and not too heavy either. I tried a sweet potato cakelike pastry, chicken in some kind of sauce, garlic shrimp, fish, and others. All of it was really good, especially the fish - it was somehow kind of sweet, and very good. The shrimp were also delicious, and you know what a shrimp connoisseur I am. They were quite good, although the garlic and butter sauce made them a bit difficult to shell. It was a really good time, and a good deal for the price (it was an all-you-can-eat and it worked out to about 6.5 pounds a person; it's cheaper on weekdays). I'd go back sometime. Regardless of the food, though, it was nice to just sit back, relax, and hang out a bit; I think we're a fun crowd :) We're thinking about going to the movies next weekend, or doing our own movie night in the kitchen.
On our way back, the book seller was indeed still there, and Ada and I examined just about every volume he had (eventually the others left and headed back without us because we were so engrossed). There were some interesting things there and I ended up getting three books (because that's exactly what I need, right? More books . . .) - one on a particular theory about the rise of Nazism, one written during the war about whether Germany will be able to withstand the fight against the USSR, and The Mayor of Castorbridge, which I haven't read but Gram has always said she liked; Ada picked up a novel by Iris Murdoch. She and I had a nice discussion about books on our walk back - they love Jane Austen even in Nigeria, and at the moment she's trying to find Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead, which we talked about a lot in Social Theory last year (shout out to Dr. O'Brien). When we got back to the flat, everyone was still in the hallway, talking, and that didn't end for probably another hour or so. Stay tuned for more fabulous tales of the exploits of the residents of 04 03 . . .
At any rate, the cooking of both sets of chickens progressed at a fabulous pace and actually we were soon joined by the rest of the flat including Nithya's friend Nahal from Iran, who is also in the law program. She seems a very sweet girl. We had another kitchen bonding experience before our homemade dinner, and Nithya and Avi semi-fried these fluffy flat round bread things that are apparently another traditional food. I say "semi-fried" because it was akin to how I'd use olive oil to grease a brownie pan - just use one drop and spread it around so there's really no excess. Then they pressed them into the frying pan to brown them just a little. They were actually really delicious - kind of sweet and mellow, not exactly breadlike, almost more like a very thin doughnut, though not as sweet. But at any rate, once those were done we dug in, and both chickens turned out really well. Mine tasted different from when Avi did it, but apparently that's to be expected. From what I've come to understand, Indian cooking is kind of like how I go about making chocolate chip cookies these days - just put things in until it looks right. Consequently it tastes a little different every time, but it adds to the adventure. It made for an excellent flat dinner though, and there was, as usual, stimulating conversation of all types, although this time it seemed to center largely around jokes regarding Fauzan's homework project diagram of a fictitious oil well called Taminga, which which he's been spending an inordinate amount of time. I daresay imagination will be sufficient to imagine the nature of these jokes, which have not ceased all week. As we had the whole flat there, Ada suggested that we go out for a meal together at some point, and we had decided on doing dinner on Saturday night but eventually that had to be changed to Sunday lunch because Fauzan needed to do some work on Taminga (demanding little thing she is), and that adventure took place today, which I'll detail later in the interest of trying to remain semi-chronological.
Methods class on Monday was actually interesting, as we talked about formulating research questions. I've already had some experience with that (shout out to Dr. Imai once again), but the guy really took us through the finer points and had us come up with some in class. This class session has an assignment attached to it, which is basically just making up research questions on a random topic, but we have to prove they're valid and extrapolate them as generally as we can, because the more people your research interests and is relevant to, the more important it is. I'm going to do mine on Nazi anti-Jewish laws in Germany from 1933-9 because that can be extrapolated out in the general sense to ponder the mechanics of how any and all governments can take steps to isolate minorities within their borders. Thrillingly exciting, I know. It should be fun to write though.
Hebrew was also better this week; we got some in class time to practice reading with a partner (I was with Ellie and it ended up being hilarious . . . can you say "Train wreck"?) but I wasn't called over individually to have a talk with her about my progress so that was a good thing. It's starting to click but it's still very much a walk through molasses (which, I'm telling you, I wouldn't do if I were you - that was for you, Father dear).
At some point this week, Carlos had gotten word from Kola that there was a Halloween party over at Grosvenor Hall to which, as George Kenyon residents, we had access, so he, Ada, and I set out for that on Friday night. We got as far as our lobby before running into people - apparently it was our very own lobby party. It was quite a gig, lemme tell ya. It consisted of a pumpkin and individual bags of chips, and that was pretty much it. But at least it was convenient - you could check your mail and do your laundry between the songs being played on someone's laptop. Ada found a friend of hers, Mellie (also from Nigeria but did her undergrad in Boston), down there and the four of us went to Grosvenor together. Over there, it wasn't much better, although there was louder music. The main attraction was free pizza and beer pong, and we seemed to have limited interest in both, especially once the pizza ran out (despite my expanding palate, I still will not eat normal pizza). The four of us stayed for about half an hour and decided to go look for a party that Ada had heard about over at the Student Union. We made our way over there, but apparently the party had disappeared. We literally searched the entire building and it wasn't there. We asked at reception twice and the woman there hadn't heard about it (although we decided a search was necessary in spite of that, because we've learned not to trust receptions), so eventually we gave up and decided to try finding the club that the party was apparently supposed to move to later. Carlos thought he knew where it was so we walked toward City Center but it turned out he didn't know exactly where he was headed. We ended up hanging out outside the Deaf Institute Music Hall (am I the only one sensing a slight irony in that?) while he called someone to get better directions, but in the end Mellie wound up going back to the dorm so it was just the three of us. It was a nice walk down there, past the place where the Erasmus party was held last month. The club, Revolutions, was located along the canal with a series of bars and clubs, but since it didn't open until 11pm we decided to hang out in one of the bars next door for a while. We ended up just staying there and dancing the night away, and boy oh boy did we meet some interesting people in there. Our count for the evening was as follows:
1. One guy hooking his arm around Carlos's neck in a bromance hug and turning him around to show off to his friends
2. One drunk girl coming up to me and giving me a hug while informing me that she was jealous of me
3. One very corpulent 40 year old woman barreling into Ada while on her way to the door
4. One drunk girl attempting some interesting dance moves on Carlos which, shockingly, he didn't notice (but Ada and I sure did and were very entertained)
5. One creepy guy attempting to pick me up with an entirely too "hands-on" approach and whispering in my ear, "Do you fancy me?" However, because it was so loud in there, what I heard was, "Do you like fencing?" and consequently my answer was a little more affirmative than I intended until I asked him to repeat the question (yes, I know - the idea that some guy in a bar would be asking me if I like fencing is a tad ludicrous and probably I should have thought it through and realized it didn't make much sense)
6. One guy moving his way into our dancing triangle, shaking Carlos's hand, and then leaving
7. One guy coming up to me and holding up his hand for a high five and then leaving after receiving it
8. A multitude of people dressed (or undressed, as it were) in the Halloween spirit; we think the Avatar couple got the most points
So it was quite the evening, but it was a lot of fun. Three and a half/four hours is a long time to dance though, and by the time we left at a bit after two we were pretty darn tired, and hungry. Lucky for us, the Babylon 100% Halal Cafe is open at 2:15 am, so we got snacks of chicken to tide us over, and by the time we got back to the dorm it was about 3 am. I didn't see Carlos the next morning but when I finally wandered into the kitchen (still proudly pajamaed; I'm definitely past the stage of needing to look formal and presentable around these guys) Avi, Nithya, and Ada were in there munching on breakfast. Nithya had to leave after a bit but Avi, Ada (also still proudly pajamaed I believe; at least I wasn't alone), and I ended up staying in there and chatting for over two hours, once again touching on multiple subjects and battling with the world's problems. Ada was also able to enlighten us about her hair - she has it in dozens of little tiny twisty braidy things and I had assumed that it was her real hair, somehow braided and twisted so that it would magically stay like that, 'cause I know mine would last about three seconds if I tried it. Avi took it a step further and thought she did that every single morning. She thought that was hysterical and explained that it's actually synthetic hair that gets twisted in with her hair - what we see is half her hair, and half synthetic. It was really intriguing, and once she had us feel it we could see that it definitely didn't feel like real hair. She was contemplating taking them out so she started while we were sitting there so we could see how it worked. Apparently it's really common practice for her back home, but it's never (or rarely) only real hair - to give it more length and make it stay like that, you braid/twist in the synthetic stuff and and then set it with really hot water so it keeps the shape. Very interesting. That got us talking about hair and eyes and stuff, and Avi mentioned that I'm the first blue-eyed person he's ever seen. Then he said, "But sometimes I think your eyes aren't really blue - they're transparent!" I brought out the pictures I have in my wallet of Tess, Russ, and me so that he and Ada could see how our eyes are the same (or at least they were when we were little) and he was fascinated with Tess's red hair. I have her senior picture as well as one that was taken of the two of us when she was about nine months old so they could see that she really does have true, natural red hair. All in all, it was a marvelous few hours of relaxing conversation, and Ada and I discovered that we both like reading and have similar literary tastes, as well as loving bookstores. She read everything she could get her hands on when she was little, and is currently always looking for books to recommend to her 13 year old sister - Mother, Aunt Debbie, any suggestions you can offer?
That evening Kola Facebooked me and asked if I wanted to go Asda with him, so I said sure. It was a relatively uneventful trip, although probably not one I'd be willing to make alone in the dark. During the day it's fine, but at night it's a little sketchier. I didn't really have much to get but I spent a lot of time examining British products of various sorts, including bath products. I shall now reveal the winner for Most Interesting Bath Scent . . . Chocolate Waffle. Yes, that is a bath scent. Yes, I smelled it. Yes, it smells like something chocolate-ish, but I detected no hint of waffles. I don't think I'd really want to be washing myself in anything waffle-scented anyway. I also spent some time looking at British baby food - it's very impressive. I can see Frasier and Niles Crane feeding their children these baby meals - lamb dinner, mango rice pudding, salmon risotto.
I had a rather interesting experience this morning when I went out for some soap, which I'd forgotten last night. In fact, I almost titled this post "How I May Have Helped Contribute to Britain's Drug Problem" but thought that might be a bit extreme. Anyway, the story goes that I was walking along Oxford Road just past University Place and a guy, maybe 20 years old, came jogging up to me and asked if I had any spare change for the bus, 'cause he didn't have enough to get home. He looked reasonably distressed and there have been enough times where I or friends of mine have been assisted by random strangers in times of need that I was willing to donate the loose change in my pockets to his cause. As I did so, a woman came out of the store screaming that he was a heroin addict and that he was just looking for money to score smack. He shouted her down trying to deny it and she retorted that he's up and down this stretch all the time with sob stories "preying on helpless young loves like her," etc., etc. I figured it might be prudent to relocate and she started walking with me, with the guy asking me to just wait there with him for a few minutes until she left, but I told him I was heading in the opposite direction and changed course, leaving him there. Obviously I'd prefer that he wasn't a heroin addict, but even if he was I'd rather be taken in for a pound or two by some putz than refuse someone who actually needed assistance - as I said, I've been in that situation myself before and would feel really awful if I passed someone over when they actually did need some help. I'd rather be a slight bleeding heart than a bitter old cat lady. After hearing this story Carlos remarked, "You really are a magnet for these weirdos; how do you manage it?" Seems like it just runs in the family.
As I mentioned earlier, today was our prearranged flat lunch, and we decided, after much deliberation, to go to a Chinese buffet on the way to City Center - 60 dishes and a 10% discount for students. On the way we passed a streetside bookseller with a ton of old books and Ada and I remarked that if he was still there by the time we returned we'd definitely be taking a look. The restaurant was about 10 minutes away and ended up being pretty good - also probably the most authentic Chinese food I've ever had, a bit more sophisticated than the Ming Moon, and not too heavy either. I tried a sweet potato cakelike pastry, chicken in some kind of sauce, garlic shrimp, fish, and others. All of it was really good, especially the fish - it was somehow kind of sweet, and very good. The shrimp were also delicious, and you know what a shrimp connoisseur I am. They were quite good, although the garlic and butter sauce made them a bit difficult to shell. It was a really good time, and a good deal for the price (it was an all-you-can-eat and it worked out to about 6.5 pounds a person; it's cheaper on weekdays). I'd go back sometime. Regardless of the food, though, it was nice to just sit back, relax, and hang out a bit; I think we're a fun crowd :) We're thinking about going to the movies next weekend, or doing our own movie night in the kitchen.
On our way back, the book seller was indeed still there, and Ada and I examined just about every volume he had (eventually the others left and headed back without us because we were so engrossed). There were some interesting things there and I ended up getting three books (because that's exactly what I need, right? More books . . .) - one on a particular theory about the rise of Nazism, one written during the war about whether Germany will be able to withstand the fight against the USSR, and The Mayor of Castorbridge, which I haven't read but Gram has always said she liked; Ada picked up a novel by Iris Murdoch. She and I had a nice discussion about books on our walk back - they love Jane Austen even in Nigeria, and at the moment she's trying to find Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead, which we talked about a lot in Social Theory last year (shout out to Dr. O'Brien). When we got back to the flat, everyone was still in the hallway, talking, and that didn't end for probably another hour or so. Stay tuned for more fabulous tales of the exploits of the residents of 04 03 . . .
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