What happened?

Today I am so sad.

Right now, in Oxford...

The Measures by which We Judge Success

When I was little I wanted to be an artist. For a while my dad spoke of giving neighbourhood art classes and advertising for kids to attend. His first two pupils were my brother and I. I think we only had about 2 classes (both still-life). Back then there was never a 'purpose' to making anything. I drew lots, and came up with other ways to make stuff (often beginning on a project without knowing what it was going to become).

Later I decided that artists don't make any money and probably have to live horribly financially constrained lives. I decided to be a writer (insert belly laugh here). I liked reading, and the idea of wagging a pen for money seemed too good to be true. I never felt compelled to write fiction - I made this decision when I was old enough to know that there were such things as non-fiction. I never read any of it but I was aware of its existence. I think this is more or less what I decided to do with myself when I eventually had to seek gainful employment.

I went to school and did pretty well. I excelled in maths and sciences, especially stats, calculus, and chemistry. I loved chemistry, and stats too (insert sounds of retching and moans here). Some people assume (judging by the questions they ask me), that I decided to forgo sciences for humanities because I wanted to be a writer. I think it's an easy misconception to have about English literature students - you study literature, so you want to make some, right? Why study coaches if you're not going to be a coach-maker?

In high school I was faced with deciding what to do in university, which at the time felt like choosing the shape of the rest of my life. I remember sitting in the school corridor with my closest friend at the time, discussing our future options. Her father was a dentist, and she has always wanted to be one. Perhaps in part because she admired her father - but if so she never cited it as an explicit reason. She was a very practical girl, and mostly (from what I recall) explained her desire to become a dentist as a logical means of attaining the lifestyle she wanted. I remember her telling me that I could do well in computer engineering (my chemistry teacher recommended me to do engineering of any sort). This was the 90s, the net's boom time - among us starry eyed youngsters few options seemed more appealing than computer engineering (followed by, I assume, founding a successful company, selling it after a few years, and retiring a multi-billionaire by 30 - wild parties on yachts and the uniform adoration of friends and family).

Obviously I didn't choose that route. I can't very adequately explain why I chose English. Somewhere I recall thinking that science meant subjects with correct answers. If the answer to a question is 4 and you get 5, you're fucked. No two beans about it. English, on the other hand, can be argued. I come from a family of pathological arguers. I like arguing. But one thing that bothered me is the fact that in Canadian universities English is reminiscent of the joke about art school: 'How did you even get into art school?' - 'Same as anybody else. Failed my exams and applied' (if you recognize this joke from Red Dwarf, I salute you, fellow geek). Back then the entry requirement for English at some of the top Canadian universities (Toronto and Queens ranked high on my list) seemed retardedly low. The only prerequisite was English at an OAC level (Ontario Academic Credit, that standard which expired the same year I graduated, amidst panic of a 'double cohort' and the lack of room in Canadian universities as two years graduated at once), and an average of 70. Not to flaunt my adolescent intellect or anything, but I could get a 70 by pissing on my books all year. Amongst my Chinese friends, we joked that an 80 was a 'Chinese fail'. It was fashionable to tease each other about getting an 80. If we had gotten 70 we'd probably have crumbled and died. Or simply ceased to exist, because it would have been a universal impossibility.

I considered the prospect of entering my university level studies with dimwits who only managed a 70 to be bleak indeed. I attended a 'International University Fair' where most of the exhibitors were from the US (several from the Continent but as I am only proficient in English I discounted them). I have not very flattering opinions about life in the US - I've had them a long time. I found the only 2 exhibitors from English speaking countries outside of North America: the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Stirling. I've never heard of Stirling. I took a brochure for Edinburgh.

I also applied to Oxford that the interviewed was a bit of a debacle. At least to my mind it was. I think the missed the point altogether and was only mildly confused at why the woman across the table was being rude and pointlessly argumentative. I refrained, partly out of confusion and partly out of politeness, from telling her that I think she's being a bitch and an idiot to boot. I still have my doubts about the interview system.

In Edinburgh I had time to do well at school and also branch out a little. I learned to swing dance, juggle, appreciate a fine pub, and eat lots of meaty pies. I also got really into medieval Scottish literature, and enjoyed being the odd one out in terms of my academic interest. The idea that had formed sometime in high school - that since I was good at studying, I should just carry on and make a career of it - took root around this time. I met people who seemed to be living happily in the academic environment. I considered myself to have the potential to become one of them. I felt obliged to realize my potential.

Which brings me here: propped up in bed in Oxford, in my room.

As much as I am inclined to believe that it doesn't matter what other people think, the opinion of others still affect me - especially when they are uber-intelligent human beings. In Oxford I see smart people day in and day out. A good portion of them have chosen the Oxford life of an academic and it seems to suit them well. I am awed and fascinated by some, and I respect them and the work they do (if I didn't respect them I wouldn't mention it on my blog anyway). The whole environment seems to beckon like an alluring partner who is intelligent, stimulating, beautiful, and fascinating - he/she wants a long-term relationship, a commitment of time and energy, and I think, the best of much of what I have to offer. (I don't know if there are academics at Oxford who's heart is only half in what they do and use the job only as a matter of convenience out of appreciation for the lifestyle. If so I am heartily impressed that they manage to give anything but their damnest to their work.) I had lunch in the Senior Common Room today. The food was excellent. The table cloths were thick white damask. The butlers came and brushed crumbs off the table with a little brush. The toilets had fluffy white face-towel sized hand-towels. The conversation was fun and the company exciting (ok, exciting in its way). Did I mention the food?

Surely every student who passes through this place hears themselves think 'This could be mine.' Many of them probably strive to make it so. While food in hall is generally what I would call appalling, the two times I have been invited to partake in SCR fodder (lunch today and high table dinner during the scholars' dinner), I have been impressed by its opulence. ('But us poor academics! we live an ascetic life and know not the pleasures of the world! why not look at multi-billionaires with golden yachts and point your fingers at their lifestyles?' Shut up. It's opulence, and that's the long and short of it. There's people in Zimbabwe right now dying slowly and painfully of cholera due to the lack of public sanitation. You want to consider the multi-billionaires? why not put the rest of the world into the equation.? Anyone who has flushing toilets is living in opulence in my books. Shame if they don't realize it).

So do I hear myself think that? Funnily enough when I think of Keble College I see myself in one precise spot in my mind's eye: walking past the dinning room of the SCR, about to turn the corner and head into the main quad (you know, where there's an extremely thorny bush growing at the corner of the building. I have taken to considering that bush my friend. Don't ask me why). It's the place where I have often looked up and seen SCR members dinning by candle light. So of course I have thought 'Hmm. Not bad.'

But that is not all.

I think of myself as a go-getter and if I want something I'd just throw myself whole heartedly into obtaining it. I usually know pretty well what I want so when my friends tell me of their variously dithering situations ('not sure if I like this girl, she's a bit quiet and hasn't really opened up to me - I'm not sure how to interpret that. God knows I've tried to make a connection but...' Well for goodness sake, either you are burning with passion for her or it's just a casual fling not worth agonising about. If it's the former, go and accost her, woo her, assail her. If it's the latter then get drunk together, fall in each others' pants and be done with it already), I'm generally puzzled. I have now found (kind of) myself (a little) dithering about my life/career options.

The main thing though, is that I like to try new things. Have you ever watched this youtube video of Miss Pole-dance Australia? When I see that video I wish it could be me (don't give me the fun and fitness bullshit, ladies - this is about SEXY. If I do that, I don't want no giggling friends shouting 'You go, girl!' I want oggling men creaming their pants. Yes, you heard me. I'm not afraid of being the object of male (or lesbian) sexual desire. I don't think it's degrading. I think it's fan-fucking-tastic.) - and I don't want to stop at wishing.

When I was younger I used to listen to The Who and wish I could be a rock star. Now I listen to music and wish I were a pole dancer. I've had 2 lessons and I can honestly tell you that it was one of the most awesome things I've ever done. Excuse me for using the word 'awesome', which contradicts my pretentious robot (with a rude mouth) persona - it's the only word that I can think of. From what I recall it's just that: awesome.

Other than that I look into my future and see a studio - with a book press, lots of sharp instruments, dress forms, and textiles. I see a shop selling everything to quell your consumerist desires all made from environmentally friendly or recycled materials. I see a soup kitchen where I can feed people who need feeding, everyday. I see a charity where I can make sure poor girls are nicely dressed for their proms, and people who are starting their first job since they stopped doing heroine can come to me and get some decent looking work clothes.

I see myself getting blisteringly drunk and having a really, really good time.

Sometimes I see the SCR - but less so.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I need to remind myself of how I judge success - because that's what I would like to be: successful. I think I will have succeeded if I manage to do even just one or two of things in my dream-vision (and do it/them well). In comparison, whether I ever get a PhD or fulfil my academic potential seems less important, but it's hard to let that go when I have felt that it was the thing for me for such a long time.

Actually, to be honest with you, when I was in high school I used to say I'm only good at two things, one of them I wouldn't chose to make a living out of, and the other one is studying - so I'd better become an academic. People would ask me what the other thing was, and I'd tell them 'giving head.' I could explain to you why I was that way but it'd take too long and is outwith the scope of this rather long blog post. What I want to tell you is that in my heart of hearts I knew that academia is the safe choice for me, the wide path. Of course I was unaware, and remain less than fully knowledgeable, of its difficulties and perils - but you can't tell me that giving head for a living would have been easier, mmm? But I digress.

This kind of leads me back to the beginning again, to artists. I have noticed that I like to be able to go back the beginning at the end. When I was little I was pretty fearless (mainly out of sheer ignorance), and striking out into the world as an artist didn't scare me a bit. Well, even though I would no longer like to be an artist (unless you call any of my dream-vision professions being an artist), I think I'll need some of that fearlessness. Hopefully when the time comes I'll just know what to do to make myself the person I would like to be and live my dream-vision life.

Of course I might end up realizing (somewhere half way up a pole with bruises on the back of my knees from training, sweating buckets, getting naked, writhing to the bass line of some song, with an audience of men and lesbians drowning in a pool of their own drool) that medieval Scottish literature is where my talents truly lie. But Oxford's not going anywhere.

P.S. Hi Toph! Of course you are in my dream-vision too, all of it.
P.S.S. the photo of the studio is from The Design Sponge, and the inspirational quote at the beginning is from Creature Comforts.

Academic Ambitions

Would like to perform a pole dance routine wearing nothing but my scholar's gown - to an audience of academics.

Charitable Donation of the Month

This month's charitable ten quid went to Oxfam UK' Zimbabwe cholera crisis appeal.

I didn't make the donation on line but in person at the Oxfam bookshop on Turl street, where I stopped in to buy my mother a birthday card (and was tempted by a book about the history of the Orient Express).

What's cholera? It's a bacteria which spreads through contaminated water supply, and gives you severe diarrhea. It starts out watery brown and goes to just being a pale fluid - until you're drained dry. Death can occur from 12 to 18 hours afterwards, but can also persist for days. The principal treatment is oral rehydration therapy, and maybe a bit of antibiotics to shorten the course of the illness. Topher would like to add that it is essentially a disease associated with government breakdown, refugee camps etc. - where there is no public sanitation, and raw untreated sewage is allowed to run into the water supply (usually the river). It's completely avoidable given adequate investment in basic sanitation.

To me cholera is almost too horrible to contemplate in detail (a normal stomach upset is bad enough). I live in Britain, where there is almost nil chance of catching cholera, and oral rehydration sachets (blackcurrant flavoured) are available at every chemist's. In Zimbawe there are people who have no access to clean water, no public sewage works, and no healthcare.

According to the Oxfam website this is how they are responding to the humanitarian crisis:

Oxfam has launched an appeal to provide support to 1 million people in Zimbabwe. We have been responding to the growing crisis since October by rehabilitating water sources, carrying out hygiene promotion and providing soap, disinfectant and clean water.

So far our response has been focusing on three worst hit areas: Beitbridge on the South African border; Budiriro, a suburb of Harare; and Mudzi, an area bordering Mozambique. We also plan to start moving into areas where cholera has not hit, to proactively prevent the spread of the disease.

The thought of clean water sounds pretty good to me. So, if you wish to make a donation towards this appeal, visit the Oxfam website, or pop into one of their shops.

Imagining things in the library...

The Keble library can be a bit eerily quiet during the holidays. Open twenty-four hours and awful quiet once the students take off, it has large cubicles in old wood, lots of books, dim lighting, and a certain creakiness (as well as vaulted ceilings and red brickwork). Recently I saw a trailer for The Strangers, and can't stop my overly active imagination from firing away while I am suppose to be reading Chaucer in the library.

I sit right by the main entrance, and can hear the door slamming shut as people come in. There is only one entrance to the library (i.e. one exit). What if I were to see the masked man walk intently in, holding onto a cleaver?

Luckily so far all that I have seen are other harrased looking students.

Resolutions

1. Live a more regimented lifestyle which will hopefully be more productive.
2. Make more effort to be environmentally friendly.
3. Blog at least once a week.
4. Not loose my temper.
5. Not sound like a pretentious robot.
6. Give 10 pds a month to charity.

Pre-Christmas at the Covered Market

Bird Rider Pendant

I bought this beautiful pendant from Sarah Ogren on Etsy. It arrived in the post the other day and I put it on a bit of ribbon. I've been wearing it ever since. It makes me happy.

I wish I could ride a bird side saddle, like this rabbit.

Wise words on Oxbridge

"lots of things that should die out in the rest of the world carry on at oxbridge colleges"
-Ricky Gervais

Marginalia

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have manage to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

- Billy Collins

Customer Loyalty

Do brothels issue customer loyalty cards? What would they look like?

yo ho ho, a pirate's life for me

Several times I've been asked what I intend to do when this degree is finished. Usually folks here are kinda surprised to hear that I am doing an MA but not a DPhil. I want to ask them if they've never heard of the pleasure of learning, and doing something for the hell of it. Alright, that's not fair. If you didn't take pleasure in learning, you wouldn't be here - because there's a HELL of a lot of that going on.

Other times they ask me what I intend to do, if not a DPhil. The other day I met someone, and told this person that I intend to do something fashion related. Learn to make some clothes - because I've wanted to do that for a long time. This person then asked me where I intend to do that. I said Toronto, because I miss home. Then this person asked why Toronto? Isn't there only about, like, three places in the world to study fashion?

I didn't really know what he meant. But I took it to mean that if you want to study fashion, then it's New York, Paris or Milan. I could laugh my ass off at that. Again, I reiterate: I'm not sure if this is what he meant. But in my mind it seems that he is just so used to be the best at everything that he can't imagine doing something somewhere that isn't the best place for it.

This, ladies and gentleman, is not what I have in mind.

Stupidly competitive as I am with myself and others in my head I don't think that being the best at something matters a whole lot to me anymore. I still have the tendency to compare myself to others - but coming to Oxford has made me realize that being the best simply isn't worth it, in my opinion. At least not for someone like me. There's alot of clever people out there in the world - and you'll have to get up pretty early every day (proverbially) to keep up with them. I think the strain of that would do me in. I hope those people who are the best at things find their lives not too stressful, and quite satisfying.

For me, I just don't think that the satisfaction and the reward would be recompense enough for the hard work, that is all. I ask again - where was Do-nothing in Piers Plowman? What's with all this striving business? I think I can get on and make a pretty satisfying life for myself without being under the strain of having to do Do-well, Do-better, or Do-best.

Instead, I'll do whatever the hell I feel like. At least some of the time. Without worrying about if I've 'achieved my full potential' or some such crap. I say, old friend, what really matters is that I am happy.

So if you are reading this, don't bother asking me what I'll do after I graduate. You know my reply: Yo ho ho, a pirate's life for me.

Laughter is the best medicine

Lots of people around these parts are dropping like flies. Flu, mumps, you name it. They say laughter's the best medicine, so here's some preventative (hopefully) meds for everyone.

"How the First Helandman of God was Maid of ane Hors Turd in Argyle"

God and Sanct Peter was gangand be the way
Heiche up in Argyle quhair thair gait lay
Sanct Peter said to God in a sport word
Can ye no mak a helandman of this hors turd
God turnd owre the hors turd wi his pykit staff
An up start the helandman as black as ony draff
Qwod God to the helandman quhair wilt thow now
I will doun to the lawland lord and thair steal a kow
And thou steal a kow carle thair thay will hang the
Quattrick lord of that for anis mon I die
God than he lewch and owre the dyke lap
And owt of his scheith his gowly owtgatt
Sanct Peter socht this gowly fast up an doun
Yit could not find it in all the braid rown
Now qwod God heir a marvell how can this be
That I suld want my gowly an we heir but thre
Humff qwod the helandman an turnd him abowt
An at his plaid neuk the gowly fell owt
Fy qwod Sanct Peter thow will nevir do weill
And thow but new maid sa sone gais to steill
Umff qwod the helandman an swere be yon kirk
Sa lang as I may geir gett to steill will I nevir wirk

- Anon., from the Bannatyne MS (c. 1568)

Lauch Whan Ye Can

"Lauch when ye can"
Said the puddock to the taed:
"For the fairest days are flichty
And we're a lang time daed."

"Hey" sech'd the taed,
Wi a wiggle o his pow:
"I've juist buried my guid-brither
And I'm gey wae the now."

"Come awa man,
Fash nae mair for what has been:
Let's mak merry wi the livin
Sae lang's our luck is in."

Juist as he spak
He was trod on by a coo.
"May the Lord forgie me, puddock,
I'm lauchin herty noo."

- William Soutar

I'm actually working on the first poem as part of my C essay. So if anyone's got any insights, do share!

People & Planet

My friend Louise works for a charitable organization called People & Planet, a student action group on world poverty, human rights, and the environment. She recently sent out an email publicizing some ways we can help P&P by doing not very much at all - so take note, everyone!

Louise says:

People & Planet have a deal with Amazon wherby if you shop through our link we get 5% of what you spend. Free money...happy days! So if you're buying any Christmas pressies off Amazon this year please do so via:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/b?ie=UTF8&node=266239

You could save this link in your bookmarks. Remember: if you want to open new Amazon windows as you search, do it via this link in order for us to get the cash.

Also, from 1 December any donations made to P&P will be matched by the Reed Foundation. So if you've ever vaguely wondered about giving a fiver to People & Planet then do it this way and we'll get a tenner (plus gift aid)! More free money! Donations need to come via:
http://www.thebiggive.org.uk/charity.php?charity_id=4557