Stockholm Syndrome

[raven]

I have done no work, and yet I am updating LJ. I am a bad person. But I want to update, dammit. So much happens all the time here that I can't help it.

Anyway! I have met wadiekin. She didn't look like I thought she would (I don't know what I thought she'd look like) but she's really sweet and funny and I'm afraid I ended up dragging her round Oxford. When I was going down to meet her, Jane appeared - she's back up visiting her boyfriend - and came with me. Jane actually came up to visit me mere minutes after I'd moved in, which was rather comforting, and a week later she's back. So we all went for coffee on Cornmarket and giggled a lot. Ronan (Jane's boyfriend; computer scientist; very good cook) is at St Catz, and he fed us all stir-fry chicken. It's the only actually home-cooked meal I've had since I got here, and very nice. wadiekin is at Hertford, and I am on my honour to deliver Good Omens to her pigeonhole sometime this week. (I tried to send it through the inter-collegiate parcel-post, but they wanted it an envelope and in the time it'll take me to go out and buy a big envelope I may as well hand-deliver it.)

And having met Katie, I ambled back into college and ate more of Claire's chocolate fingers before eventually taking myself off to bed, because yesterday was day one of first week, and that meant lectures. All my lectures are in Exam Schools on the High Street, so it does mean I have to roll out of bed at a reasonable time for a ten o'clock lecture. Yesterday's were UK Politics (interesting, but no-one else thinks so!), Microeconomics (potentially very useful, but the mic was booming and no-one heard a word) and Mill. I nearly didn't go to Mill - I was falling asleep - but it turned out to be very interesting. That's the bit of my subject I love. After a while PPE is like Stockholm syndrome.

Moving on. Post lectures, I had an afternoon to laze but ended up just doing Microeconomics. Not fun. Having delivered it to Nuffield, I went to Logic. It's a class, not tutorial; thirty people sat at tables with Bob yelling at us. It's just like school. I actually like it, and have earmarked tomorrow for the Fantasy Logic League, which is compulsory at Balliol. Groan. The classes are fun, though. He started off with a take-off of A Study In Scarlet - when he found out I'd read it he told me I wasn't allowed to talk for the next half-hour - and focused on lexical ambiguities all the way through. For the sentence "Everyone in Balliol is dreaming about someone in Wadham", there are two structural ambiguities. This provided hours of fun. My favourite, though, is the sentence "Zebedee only reads books in libraries" - there are, I think, more than six possible interpretations of the sentence.

I do like this bit. When we get into actual formal notation, I'm sure my brain will start to hurt.

Afterwards I went to Queer Drinks. It was at Corpus, but they have gone teetotal, and so it's moved to Oriel and there were signs pointing you in the right direction all the way down the road. I had pre-Drinks-drinks first, but went to Drinks proper and didn't actually drink. I guess I was supposed to mingle, but I spent all my time chatting to jacinthsong and being intimidated by all the other girls. There were so many people they were spilling out on the quad, and I was sort of kind of scared. DocSoc next week, and then I'll try it again. We shall see.

And again, work! More lectures today - more Micro, which was doable, and a really interesting politics lecture by one of the Balliol tutors. I was sitting next to him at the formal dinner the other day, and he was very nice to talk to. He got to talking about various Bushisms that night, and he used them in today's lecture. I was amused.

This afternoon, I went to my first tutorial. Economics, yay, in college, and it wasn't nearly as horrible as I was expecting. My tutor's name is Nathaniel and he didn't expect all the reading to be done in one go. I've still got loads of work, but it's not quite so unrealistic now. I should work now. Yes. I'm going out later. Claire wants me to try some berry vodka concoction and all the drinks are 75p...

Work, yes.

Comments

[that_mireille]

Hee! Lexical ambiguities are one of my pet topics. (Actually, the removal of same in context-free grammars is one of my pet topics, but still!) *happily plays with finding the ambiguities*

*sighs* I'm a formal grammar/logic girl at heart, but they won't give me any money for that....

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*g* They are very much of the cool. I'm enjoying this section. When it gets formal, I shall come crying to you. :)

[that_mireille]

We'll see. I looked at the web page for your class, and I'm not at the philosophical end of things--I'm a mathematician at heart, no matter what my diploma says.

[apestaartje.livejournal.com]

Oh, I had Logic once. I don't remember much of it but I do remember that it wasn't logical. It had stuff like "All dogs have four legs. All cats have four legs. All dogs are cats". The formal notation is urgh. I have banned that from my brain. So how many classes do you have? I can count 4 here. You should post your schedule because that's the cool thing to do. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I think I'll be doing the same in banning it. Urgh!

I would post it, only it changes just about every day. Damn this lack of structured learning. :)

[eternalwings.livejournal.com]

Well whilst you're having fun up there it's our last week of school for a while.
We had sex ed yesterday, I found out something which I really didn't want to know..........
Okay better tell ya, remember how that girl once walked past myself, you and Miranda and said, "Those three there, they're lesbians?"
Apperantly there was a rumour and the entire school thinks we were in some sort of kinky lesbian threesome and my god the scary thing is I'M NOT JOKING!
How I found this out.....
Sex ed: Question: Do you think any of the sixth form are gay/bi?
My class: Ooh there must be there were those two last year and that firl who were having that lyke, threesome relationship.
Another girl: Wasn't she in our yea-........*all look at me*
Me: *sitting there doodling guys smooching on her rough book* Huh?
Class: *shuts up*
I spoke to a friend of mine and she confirmed it, I'm impressed my class think I'm so kinky I feel I should start pinning pictures of Angelina Jolie to my locker so they have an embolism...
Damn I keep doing his HERE instead of on my lj GRAHHHHHHHHHH

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, my. How... horrifying. Pin up the pictures! :)

(Still missing you all! I'll visit you as soon as I can.)

[eternalwings.livejournal.com]

I know, I've got Shirley Manson pictures to cover the current picture of Taz *not me*

[(Anonymous)]

hey iona - this is smita - i am coming down to oxford on the 28th - 29th october - will u be in so i can drop in and say hello ? - i am going to at the diwali ball - and meeting lucinda - u know the older sixth formers from merchants - r u free ?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Certainly do drop in. I'll give you my number closer to the time. How come you're here? :)

[(Anonymous)]

this is smita again - i have friends at oxford and i havent seen them in ages - so i am visiting - plus the guy who is organising the diwali ball - is one on my friends so its a must i go - do u know anything about it ?

[kuteki.livejournal.com]

I saw you at this morning's lectures and waved and you ignored me! :(

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry! I didn't see! *waves enthusiastically*

[kuteki.livejournal.com]

Heh, it's all right, it's just that I came like in front of you and you looked at me and then away and your friend looked at me weirdly and then I ran away...:D

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I did? How shockingly rude of me, and my friend. Feel free to thwap me round the head and shout "I'm Katia!" next time.

[robette-wild.livejournal.com]

lol I keep checking my pigeon hole for post but nobody loves me. I'm seriously considering getting all my friends to post me random stuff so it looks like I get loads of post. It's all spam at the moment! Thank you in advance for the book :D

And I'm curious: what did you think I'd look like? I can't imagine me being, well, anything other than me, really, so it's interesting to know what people think I look like based on what they've read. Oh, God, now I'm going to be double checking everything I say to you for lexical ambiguities, but my brain isn't working right now. I had a consitutional law class this morning and my head still hurts.

Work? What is this work of which you speak?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It would help if I could find the porters' lodge! *is stupid person*

Really, I suck at lexical ambiguities. In fact, they are contributing to the general suckiness of my day today. I daresay they are not as sucky as constitutional law, but maybe almost.

I thought you'd be taller. *blush*

[robette-wild.livejournal.com]

Hah no, constitutional law is a big pile of suck, but I can't get my head round lexical ambiguities so I think we're even. I'm quite enjoying criminal, but constitutional theory makes me want to get in the foetal position and cry. A lot.

The porters' lodge is on the left inside the main gate, which is the High Street side of the bridge, next door to All Souls.

Or you could just give it to me in person, whichever would be easier. :)

I thought you'd be taller. That made my day! Somebody thinks I'm tall! Impliedly taller ... but still! XD

(Go on, how many lexical ambiguities were there in that?)