Weather

[raven]

Wow. I swear I didn't realise how long it had been since I'd updated. I'm still here and reading, I'm just... busy. Very, very, busy. As busy as you'd expect for first week of Michaelmas, I guess. Speaking of which, I do love the feel of this place in Michaelmas. Everything, and everyone is new - either actually new or made anew over the long vac - and it feels different and wonderful and worth getting out of bed for. Of course, this is only Thursday of first week and I'm pretty sure I may well have revised my opinion of Michaelmas, Oxford, and life in general by about fifth week, but right now I'm feeling good about life.

Part of this, in fact, may be the simple point that I am not doing economics any more. It is amazing how much effect this has on my mental equilibrium, but there you go; I'm currently of the opinion that this is what I signed up for, this is why I applied for PPE in the first place. I'm doing Ethics and Political Theory as my papers for this term, and I'm enjoying them. I've managed two essays and one tute - the second is at ten thirty tomorrow morning, yay - and that tute was really rather good. My theory tutor, Chris - of the pink tie and shouting at the shipping forecast, that Chris - is the best type of eccentric don, which is to say, he can actually teach. And he's very nice to boot. He has acquired a coffee machine and insists on trying it out on all his undergraduates, so I perched in an armchair sipping very good coffee whilst he peered down his nose at me and asked my opinion on Rawlsian justice. (This, incidentally, is one of the reasons why I love this place so much; nowhere else is anyone actually interested in my opinion on Rawlsian justice.) This innocuous starting-point expanded into a two-hour discussion on the original position and the difference principle, the conflict of values between liberty and justice, the importance of not putting a motorway through St Aldate's, homeless people getting picked up by medical snatch squads so their organs could be "reassigned" and the ethics thereof, and why everyone has value as a person, even members of Christ Church. While I was sitting there listening to him talking about his personal liberty as a human being not to buy Belgian oranges - he does have a tendency to ramble - I noticed that he has a moose's head on the back of his door. It is not a real moose. I know this because it has a red nose and buttons for eyes and large fluffy antlers. Yeah, I like this guy.

Clearly I have not spent my entire week in absentia babbling about Rawlsian justice, but I can't at this moment think of anything else I have done with it. There has been cooking, more of it - the infamous parsley-and-stock-cube chicken recipe has been immortalised on the wall as "Chicken á la Pat and Iona", along with "Claire's heat-resistant pasta" and my chilli chicken (which doesn't need my name on it, because all of my recipes - pasta, rice, chicken, everything - are prefixed by "chilli" whether or not they have chilli in). In the meantime, Maria has started putting avocado into everything, and I've decided that the chilli cinnamon rock cakes would have been better if they hadn't been the diameter of a pancake with approximately the same thickness. They tasted marvellous, I feel compelled to add. Maybe next time I'll actually think to use sodium bicarbonate.

Okay, now I'm making it sound like my life revolves around work and cooking. Which is quite sad and not at all true. Er, on Monday I went to Queerglish! That was exciting, because it was probably the best-attended one ever - the whole gang were there, just about, and there were new people, and I can't actually remember anything that happened - no, wait, yes I can, I think foulds was talking about the trade economy of the Star Wars universe again, and chains_of_irony was drawing comparisons between Theta Sigma, Koschei and the Marauders - and it was all very nice. As was Queer Drinks; I wasn't planning to go, but I sort of went anyway and got very lost on the way to Oriel despite jacinthsong giving me idiot-proof directions, to the point where I was starting to suspect Oriel of some sort of twisted, let's-get-them-all-lost institutionalised homophobia. But once I'd found it, hidden away in a very hot and crowded room, it was a lot of fun.

I mean, first of all, everyone I have ever met ever was there. Lots of ou3fs, including two newbies who have LJs which I can't quite remember at this moment because I am rubbish, and then someone quite new, a girl called Laura from Hong Kong, who was very nice and fun to chat to. Only, after a while, the conversation sort of drifted, and once she'd confessed to being thrown off the university network for downloading Studio 60, I began to realise to where it was drifting. It eventually turned out my new chance fresher acquaintance from, er, the other side of the world, was a big fan of hp_girlslash. And also knew me_ves_y_sufres, bizarrely.

And as if I hadn't had enough coincidences for the night, while I was talking to foreverdirt - who appeared and resolved to stay an hour despite the stifling heat - someone else appeared and informed me that she thought she knew me, was I a Balliol PPEist, and er, was I loneraven?

(Someone, a while back, called me the Kevin Bacon of LJ. I have a feeling this may be true.)

I, as you do, burst into laughter and set to gathering the relevant information. This, it turned out, was chiasmata, a new addition to the fannish cabal in Oxford, and we ended up giggling the entire night about coincidences and fandom and, after a certain point, umbrellas. And it was a whole lot of fun, and even though I wasn't quite feeling up to Po Na Na's gay night - although I might possibly in the future; it seems to be every second Monday, which makes it always fall the same week as Narcissists, and I'd go if I could get anyone to go with me for moral support - I wound up in slasheuse's very pretty room drinking red wine.

You see? More to it than work and cooking, yes!

Wednesday was the day Claire called "the day of the comedy rain." It really was. I was woken by thunder, and opened my eyes to see my room washed through with dull grey light; I assumed it must be four or five in the morning and then discovered it was actually half nine. I rolled over and went back to sleep regardless. When I finally went out later, I stepped straight into four inches of water that soaked through my boots, and then got drenched under literal sheets of rain, that went on and on and on and when I got to the market at Gloucester Green, I had water working its way into my ears. Thing is, I've lived in the tropics. I've seen monsoon rains. They have the advantage that they blow themselves out. This didn't. It kept right on sheeting. Standing with a towel in the kitchen, Claire was moved to observe that this was exactly the sort of rain you would get in bad romantic comedies. It had that kind of sympathetic fallacy about it.

In conclusion, the weather is ridiculous. It refuses to get properly cold, only hints at it, and I'm sick of it. Very ready for it be winter now, please. I was in London tonight, where it was even warmer, and thus even more mystifying. I was down there with Pedar, who has joined the club of his colleagues who sneak out of important college meetings to feed their starving undergraduate children. I'm not starving exactly, but he fed me regardless, and it was very nice, but depressing when I arrived back in Oxford to an empty flat - everyone is either out or asleep.

Actually, I should be asleep, too. I have a tute in eight hours, for which I have written a very, very bad essay about Hume's view of the will. I do apologise for inflicting this post - weather! cooking! comedy mooses! - on you all, you haven't done anything to deserve it. Hope everyone is having a nice Friday the thirteenth.

(Also, one more thing: I'm now sixteen episodes into Supernatural, and it's so good. Why must it be good? Why must I want to write fic for it? This is WRONG, I tell you, I don't have time to be of the fic-writing. I saw the DVDs in a shop on Cormarket today and actually lingered quite a long while before Claire dragged me away to indulge her latest obession (Al Pacino movies). Sigh.)

(edited to add: And, apparently, I have been pronouncing "Winchester" wrong for a while.)

Comments

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

Okay, I need to know. How do you mispronounce "Winchester"?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I can't do it phonetically very well, but like the town of Winchester in England? (Oh, for a voice post!)

[elyim.livejournal.com]

So if it's not pronounced like Winchester, Wiltshire, how is it pronounced? (I've never seen Supernatural.)

[that_mireille]

*jumps in* I have no idea how Winchester, Wiltshire is pronounced (I could venture a guess, based on other place names I've heard pronounced, but it'd be a guess) but "Winchester" as in "Sam and Dean" is pronounced "win-CHEST-er," (like the separate words "win" and "chest," with an "er" tacked on the end).

...If that made sense.

[elyim.livejournal.com]

Ok, now I'm confused because that is the same as how you (or at least I!) say the town. Win-chest-er. Or Win-chust-er, I suppose, if you say it fast.

(And buh my brain is obviously not working at 3.30am as Winchester is in Hampshire, not Wiltshire, wtf am I on about.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

The town is pronounced like "Colchester", isn't it? With the last two syllables all squished up, "Winchuster", and you don't say the final R.

[likethesun2.livejournal.com]

Actually I'd say the accent is more on the first syllable--which might the cause of the confusion, because I was assuming that the British pronunciation would lay the stress on the second syllable.

[that_mireille]

You're absolutely right. (In fact. I knew that, and yet, managed to say the exact opposite of what I meant. *headdesk* I should sleep one of these months.)

[likethesun2.livejournal.com]

*might be the cause of the confusion, that is

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That's it, I think. With a schwa instead of an E, and no final R.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Wait - what's the other Winchester we're comparing to? And which one was Raven pronouncing wrong?

SO CONFUSED.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I'm watching a lot of Supernatural lately. The two characters are brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester (that's them in the icon), and being American, they pronounce their name the American way... and I don't.

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

....free coffee? And a Chris? And Oxford? And all things good and interesting?

*dies*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*frantically revives* How did I kill you this time?!

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

Jealousy!

[likethesun2.livejournal.com]

How is your life so interesting? How do you run into all the fannish people without even looking? It's not fair at all!

Er, but all selfishness aside, no, I'm so glad things are going well for you. And the cooking! Lord, you guys are leagues beyond me. I've been living off my last successful recipe for literally days (Spanish rice) because I was so thrilled to have actually, y'know, made a successful recipe.

Write it write it write it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Ahaha, you have a Firefly-referencing SPN icon! That is love! And yes, my life is just having an outbreak of interesting, that's all! It is fun while it lasts, though.

The cooking is still throwing ingredients at the pan; all these recipes are evolved rather than actually constructed. I guess we're lucky everyhing has been edible. (I'm showing my ignorance here - what makes the rice Spanish?)

I wrote 700 more words OMG.

[likethesun2.livejournal.com]

I do! cunien made it, and it is indeed much love.

I am far, far too timid to throw ingredients together without a recipe, is the thing. I'm sure I will kill myself somehow. (Spanish rice is... well, you sauté it first. And there's tomato and onion and often other vegetables. It's got a lot of flavor--I pour in a ton of tabasco, hot oil, etc--which is why I like it.)

Ahahahaha we have you now.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I still want your Chris (and his room), even though I've got plenty enough fictional eccentric dons. And I was in Wednesday's coedy rain -- driving from Northampton to Towcester wasn't fun.

I envy you the new term feling as well. Going back to work after a week off is the complete opposite at the moment.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Chris is actually too weird to be fictional. He has to be true.

Urgh, going back to work! I feel you. *tea and sympathy*

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I want Chris to be fictional. James would think he was great, and Richard would get terribly frustrated at never getting a straight answer about how James' work is going. And he could be charming to Imogen at parties and dinners, and have a completely pointless feud with Charles about something one of them allegedly said fifteen years ago.

Obviously I don't have enough fictional dons after all.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Iona. Dearest. I really should not have to remind you that the plural is 'meese'. ;)

(omg, you too are in the land of the 9am tute? Us and steerpikelet should form a breakaway faction.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected. Meece and mongooses, yes.

(Argh PAIN. Admittedly ten am isn't that bad, but still PAIN.)

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Speaking of which, I do love the feel of this place in Michaelmas. Everything, and everyone is new - either actually new or made anew over the long vac - and it feels different and wonderful and worth getting out of bed for.

It doesn't wear off with overexposure, I can affirm...

Of course, this is only Thursday of first week and I'm pretty sure I may well have revised my opinion of Michaelmas, Oxford, and life in general by about fifth week,

...nor, however, does that possibility.

As for coffee machines, your report on Chris's confirms my suspicion that they are spreading insidiously throughout Oxford. One turned up in the History Faculty common room at the end of last term, bearing a sign that it was there on a temporary basis and would disappear at the end of two weeks if not enough people liked it. The Faculty took it to its collective heart (or the machine has sinisterly possessed the same) and it is still there. It's similar to a design I encountered at a conference in London about twelve years ago - proof that parts of Oxford are finally entering the 1990s? Almost here, chaps...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*giggling* Oh, dear. I'm glad that the dons are cottoning onto the new technology at least. Everyone is much more caffienated.

While I have your captive attention, so to speak, I don't suppose you'd know when the inter-soc quiz is this term? I may, possibly, be doing a piece on it for Cherwell...

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

The InterSoc quiz is scheduled for Tuesday of 5th week, but the venue is to be arranged.

Coverage for Cherwell? This overlap of what seem to be both trendy itinerant hangouts for the university's youth and learned fannish circles at the same time, Queerglish and ou3fs, combined with the prospect of a write-up of the quiz by someone who is an insider... a long way from a write-up of an OULES rehearsal back in Isis in the early 1990s, when the reporter couldn't get their heads round the idea that Oxford students might put on plays and sketches just for fun without a career strategy behind it. Look up the article (Hilary 1992 I think) if they still have the bound copies in the Union library.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

You're right, it's certainly an interesting development. I, at least, don't need an education in the vernacular, although it's probably best that I don't actually compete.

That said, I don't know if it will actually happen yet, but I'm hoping so. Watch this space. *g*

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Can I have the recipe for Chicken a la Pat and Iona? Because dude I need some more exciting recipes in my life that do not begin with a pepper and end with adding cheese on top of the pasta.

Your post was very good. Comedy meese are much better than Comedy Pole Dancing.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, dear! (And, er, I want more details on the pole dancing. *g*)

And, here:

Chicken á la Pat and Iona

To feed five, you need:

boneless, skinless chicken, cubed
sunflower oil
two onions, sliced
two peppers, sliced
chicken stock
parsley, chopped
chilli sauce
creamed tomatoes (or tinned chopped ones will do)
soy sauce
salt
(and optionally, a pinch from Iona's Spice Jar, which contains turmeric, chilli powder, powdered coriander, garam masala and more salt)


Put some oil in a wok, toss in some cumin and wait until they start popping. Then add the - sliced - onions and stir-fry until translucent, then add the peppers. When they're done, get them out the pan and put them to one side.

Put a little more oil in the pan, add the chicken and half the stock cube and fry until the pink colour disappears. Then add the other half of the stock cube, crumbled, add the tomatoes, the pinch from the spice jar, the chopped parsley, a bit ofsalt, a good shake of chilli sauce and soy sauce, both to taste, and stir well.

Lower the heat, cover and simmer for ten minutes. Check the chicken's cooked, and if it is, you're done. Easy-peasy.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

That recipe is now on the list for next week's food, so you know. :-)

There are very few details I can actually give about the pole dancing. Erm, basically, RockSoc every so often sets up a pole, and ebcause I was merrily downing 10 shots at this point and had my eye on another double, it seemed like a good idea to do it, and I'd quietly watched the other people having a whack at it. (Including, incidentally, one professional pole dancer who works in Dundee to support St Andrews living.) The problem is, I have dancing experience, so I can actually, you know, do things like support myself using my legs to spin myself around and I'm also pretty flexible and I can shimmy and oh fuck why was that a good idea AT ALL? *dies*

Crap. I remember dancing around the pole with one girl dressed in chain mail and one bloke who looked like Adam Ant. Weird, weird night.

[robette-wild.livejournal.com]

Hurray for no more economics! And meeseses (fairly certain there's a spelling mistake in there somewhere)! And things with chilli in them! And other stuff!

Also, you are a very lucky person. That comedy rain on Wednesday morning? Some of us were not in bed. Some of us were schlepping across Christ Church meadow on the way to a lecture. Some of us have pants that are STILL WET.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh no. You poor person. Your poor pants. *mourns for your pants*

How are you, my dear? I haven't seen you in aaaaaaages!

[thecapitalc.livejournal.com]

'And as if I hadn't had enough coincidences for the night, while I was talking to [info]foreverdirt - who appeared and resolved to stay an hour despite the stifling heat - someone else appeared and informed me that she thought she knew me, was I a Balliol PPEist, and er, was I [info]loneraven?'

That's exactly how I met you :P

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heee! This is true! Guess I really am Kevin Bacon. *g*

[tau_sigma]

I have very little of interest to say except that you should obviously not apologise for this post in any way whatsoever, because who on Earth has better things to do than hear about your beautiful thunderstorms and comedy meese and such wonderful things? Honestly, it is a nice part of the day.

Also, how can you mispronounce Winchester? Suddenly I'm struck by fear that I pronounce it wrong too...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*smiles* Thank you, sweetie, so glad you liked it. Er... Sam and Dean Winchester pronounce their name exactly as spelled, whereas us Brits - me included, apparently - squish the last two syllables, pronounce them both with a schwa and then drop the final R.

(Also, while I'm here: I've been reading your entries as usual, but I haven't been able to substantively comment. Just wanted you to know I am reading, and thinking of you. Do ring me any time if you like, I'm always here. *loves*)

[tau_sigma]

*thinks* Oh. Um. I would have said I pronounce it as spelled. But I'm fairly sure I pronounce it the same as any other Brit, so maybe I'm so stuck on that being How It Is Pronounced that I just can't see pronouncing it another way. Hmm.

(Thank you. *loves* I'm doing ok at the moment, I think, but it's so lovely to know you're all here.)

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Winchester, Hampshire so am intrigued as to how you're pronouncing it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I imagine I'm pronouncing it just like everyone here pronounces it. It's the Americans who have it wrong! *g*

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

*nods* Actually, some Wintonians (no lie, it stems from Wintoniensis) pronounce it winch'ster, with the final vowel as a schwa. This is possibly quite lazy.