The weather in the kaleidoscopic Mediterranean

It's bitterly cold in Oxford. I still feel a need to distinguish "Oxford" from home, especially as I spend exactly half of the year in each place. But yes, it is cold here, and about eight degrees colder than it is at home. Last night I felt moved to actually look up the figures. It's four degrees below zero, and I appreciate there are people who live in much colder weather than this, but I feel the need to emphasise it. It's been perfectly clear for days, with perfect rosy sunsets at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the big college doors are ominously closing earlier every day. On Saturday morning, I did something stupid - namely, booking laundry times for eight in the morning instead of ten - and at that time, the garden quad is covered in thick frost. Together with the thick, swirling fog, it was entirely beautiful and worth getting up so ridiculously early. I suppose the good thing is we got the laundry done; I went back to bed afterwards and slept until lunchtime, which seemed sensible as I don't seem to get to bed until three these days. Anyway, at lunchtime I went out to meet chemgeeks. Emma had come up from Bristol, and Becky O from London, and we went for lunch together and caught up. Becky is appanrently living it up with a vengeance - I've no idea how she does any work - and Emma's having fun at Bristol. I was very interested, of course - Medicine at Bristol was my second choice, and I so easily could have been there with her. She thinks that her life probably wouldn't be for me. I guess she's right. It was very, very nice to see them both. I miss my old life, in odd moments; it does seem a different life seen from this perspective of endless tutorials and gothic architecture.

I'm tired. This is seventh week now, just about, and it's beginning to show. I'm still on three tutorials a week, which is very far from being fun, and have taken to sleeping through all the lectures I do have so I can get the rest of my work done. Claire and I are staying up late and rewatching all my Firefly episodes - we finished off Serenity last night - and not much sleep is being had. I need to keep going for another two weeks - that basically means four more essays and two more problem sheets - before I can relax, and you can tell that much of the college is thinking the same thing. For example, no arts students are going to lectures at all. I'm trying, but it's not working. Still. I have lots of other things to keep me occupied, notably the excessive amounts of utilitarian philosophy I have to read before tomorrow. Sigh.

The only other thing of note is the onset of Christmas. I went to Westgate to buy wine for poker this week and there are lots of fairy lights and abundant decorations all over the place, and much to the amusement of all, a twelve-foot Christmas tree has been erected in front of the college. I was walking back from the Social Sciences Library today and had to go past a significant police presence. I asked around, and found out, of all things, that Prince Charles is visiting Trinity today. Claire, Excitable James and I did try to sneak in, but got summarily thrown out by thr Trinity porters. Still, as Claire said when we came back in, that killed a few minutes. Having three days for an essay and no work ethic is getting to be a problem. We've reached that phase where we can all write each other's essays - I'm sure I never knew so much about modern marketing strategy or the representation of women in Herodotus before - and I'm reliably informed that if I pontificate about utilitarianism in public again I shall be shortly without kneecaps. That said, Claire and I are compiling a list of good sentences from undergraduate textbooks. So far, we've got these:

"...enmeshing the commodies of dietary foodstuffs in the kaleidoscopic Mediterranean..." - from a classical archaeology book called The Corrupting Sea, included because it's almost poetry.

"...the issues of parliamentary reform and modernisation are particularly sexy...." - really. I boggled.

"...resulting in the loss of all consumption from Firm A, at which point Firm A is screwed." - Microeconomics textbooks the E&M people are currently sweating over.

And, the current favourite, from one of my devolution articles: "England is not a consciously enacted political institution. England is a state of mind."

Tomorrow, I have my Master's Handshaking for the term. Claire had hers today, and was disappointed that there is no actual handshaking involved. I'm the slightest bit nervous over it, as while I have worked this term, I don't think I've produced anything of what you might call lasting brilliance. The Master is a very nice man, but it's still going to be a formal encounter.

And now - utilitarianism! And the importance of devolution in Northern Ireland. And I'm hoping to make it to the DocSoc, who are watching The Parting of the Ways with commentary tonight.

Life beyond PPE

Claire had her Handshaking today, and she told me one of the questions the Master asked her was this: "And what do you do when you're not doing Classical Archaeology and Ancient History?"

"More Classical Archaeology and Ancient History," she told him. Apparently, she told me afterwards, he wanted to hear about the societies she'd joined and stuff like that.

Okay, I thought. I can do that. My life is not only PPE. I joined societies at the Freshers' Fair. I really did and everything. The only thing is, there is only one of the societies whose meetings I attend with any regularity.

"And so," I said to narahttbbs at the DocSoc tonight, "he's going to ask me what I do when I'm not doing PPE! And I'm going to say, 'I watch Doctor Who!'"

She was very reassuring. "Tell him you write short stories," she said. "Just don't give the details. Don't, for example, tell him you write R-rated lesbian porn."

I nodded, solemnly. And then David Tennant came on the screen and the fangirl couch exploded with squee.

Backtracking a bit, I wasn't planning to go out tonight - and I'm going to have to stay up late now - but parrot_knight taped Children In Need, and he got the TARDIS boxset in the post today, so the society as a whole were benefitting. I came in just in time to see Parting of the Ways with commentary, and as I hadn't seen it since it originally aired, it was a nice forty-five minutes of relaxation. And then ( Doctor Who on Children In Need! )

There were three of us fangirls squished onto the couch together, while the male members of the society looked on and looked manly. I had such a good time; I haven't felt so thoroughly fannish in absolute ages. And next week, Laserquest! While I've done it before, never with friends, and I'm looking forward to it in a stupid sort of way.

Talking of which, there's a lot of things to look forward to in eighth week, including the Balliol Christmas dinner, which I signed up for this evening. I've just got to survive this week, and then it will be December, and Oxford in eighth week, and then home, and The Christmas Invasion and all manner of nice things.