philosophy supernatural nude

It occurs to me that there is a misunderstanding that I might have to clear up. A few people lately have been doing the ten-things-I-assume-you-know-about-me meme, which I have done in the past. But this is not ten things, this is one thing. I am a finalist. This means that in five weeks from now, I have Finals. When I use that word, it has a capital F. It is not like, as I have been explaining more than once recently, the American concept with the same name, which does not have a capital F.

The reason for the initial capital is this. A lot of Oxford degrees - certainly the "classic" arts degrees, English Literature, History, Greats, etc., and to my sorrow, PPE as well - operate off a truly spectacular system of assessment. At the end of my first year, I took my Prelims. They weren't particularly important. Three exams, which I had to pass, or else be chucked out everyone's favourite institution of higher learning. The pass mark was, um, 40%. Don't laugh, I nearly failed my Economics. I got two firsts and a third, which gave me a perfectly average 2:1, and everyone went home happy, including the department of economics on the grounds that they didn't have to teach me any more.

But it was Balliol who told me my marks for my Prelims; the University itself didn't actually record them. All it wanted to know was if I'd passed or not, and once it'd found out that I had, that was that. And that is the sum total of assessment that I have ever had while here. Since then, I have been reading for my degree for two years. I have - ostensibly - done eight papers, five philosophy and three politics, I have written many essays and gone to, oh, nearly fifty tutes, and the occasional class, and every so often I've even dragged myself out of bed for a lecture.

And now I have Finals. Eight three-hour exams in a seven-day period, and these by themselves will dictate my degree. They are now five weeks away. This, just so it's entirely clear, is why I am crazy. This is why a great deal of my friends are crazy. These are the things you do, when you're a finalist:

(Note: not all these are me. I'm not saying none of them are me...)

-Eat a lot of pick 'n' mix. Also ice-cream. And raspberries. And vanilla fudge. And Maryland cookies. And cheese. And drink a lot of tea. And peppermint tea. And coffee. And more peppermint tea.

-Swear, copiously, at anyone who gets between you and any of the above.

-Have conversations like this over breakfast:

"I had a dream last night."

"Yeah?"

"It had a monster with enormous pointy teeth."

"...yeah?"

"Um. I think it was the Second Public Examination monster. Um. Is that wrong?"

-In something of a dreamy-eyed daze, decide that you really do love your subject, but after days of very dry articles and frantic memorisation of propositions, you probably will lose sight of this fact; consequently, it seems a good idea to print off Plato, "philosophy begins with wonder" and stick it to your door.

-Paint your toenails. A lot. As in, a lot. As in more than you did when you were twelve.

-Get very drunk, and cheerful, and merry, and gain an irrational compulsion to phone one of your friends in particular at three in the morning and sing Happy Birthday to them, even though their birthday was four months ago, and having sung it once, launch into it again but break off halfway to say, "Oh, I found a blueberry!"

-Discover that said friend is reduced to choking, tearful, hysterical laughter at the words "happy birthday" or "blueberry" or indeed "a million a thousand three four". Take advantage of this almost-Pavlovian reaction wherever possible.

-On a quiet night of revision, go out to college to print something, leaving your best friend and your boyfriend peaceful with their books and papers, and at the threshold, say, almost absent-mindedly, "I'll be back in a bit, don't seduce or traumatise him whie I'm gone."

(Be unaware that you'd left a tube of lipgloss out - 17; cherry - below the mirror.)

And when you get back, half an hour later.... yeah.

-Say things like:

"There is a significant lack of pandas failing to copulate in the Middle East."

"Truly, America is a land of opportunity. You can get chocolate-chip pancake and sausage. On a stick."

"The first recorded example of sexual spanking in art! Oh, isn't that exciting!"

-Do odd things to your hair. Bonus points if you look like a) an Asiatic Pippi Longstocking or b) an escapee from a kibbutz. Double-plus bonus points for volunteering your curls to a sixties lesbian fancy-dress costume.

-On a quiet afternoon, go out to college to print something, leaving two finalists behind busy with their books and papers. Say, almost absent-mindedly on the threshold, "I'll be back in a bit, no trauma while I'm gone."

Get back half an hour later and take two bemused seconds to notice they've swapped clothes.

Notice with further interest that four hours pass before they swap back, and the wrong one still looks like he's escaped from a kibbutz.

-Discover, to your lasting horror, that there is no year zero; that you've been misusing "deontological" your whole life; that there is such a thing as a nonce word; that "nonce word" is a nonce word; that the British Museum station was haunted by the ghost of an Egyptian mummy; that you might be a geek; that you might also spend too much time on Wikipedia.

-Notice that, in possibly a similar frame of mind, your next-door neighbour has, in a dreamy-eyed daze, stuck a piece of paper that says "philosophy begins with wonder" to her door. Procure a piece of paper of your own and stick it to your own door with the words: "bacteriology begins with an unhealthy fascination with yoghurt."

-Sleeeeep.

Yes, sleep is good. I go and sleep now. Not crazy really.

-Queer women. I don't think I could have had my point proven more spectacularly: a community of queer women, and interesting, gender-thoughtful people generally, is a great and marvellous thing. Thank you, all of you; eighty-plus comments and I'm still responding to comments and reading and thinking. I am, for some obvious and some non-obvious reasons, reconceptualising the queer at the moment, and thank you for your experience.

(Relatedly, the nice folk over at lgbtfest were soliciting queer-aware fic recs in advance of the ficathon, and I found this little gem. Out of the Cupboard Under The Stairs, by magnetic_pole, HP, gen. A sweet little coming-out story, very nice.)

-That I do not live in Oklahoma. Notable links of the last couple of days: some lunatic Republican in the Oklahoma state legislature thinks gay people are worse than terrorists; the smartest thing anyone says in response to this is said by a seventeen-year-old boy; meanwhile, you can pass Earth Science exams in the state of Oklahoma by claiming the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the earth an hour ago. Ye gods.

-Randomly, Vienna Teng. speccygeekgrrl uploaded "Whatever You Want" and yes, there really isn't a song of hers I don't like. I uploaded these for jacinthsong, but for anyone who wants to grab: "Shasta" (this is awesome), "Drought", and Say Uncle".

-Oxford! I'm off out bright and early tomorrow morning, and by lunchtime should be back in the land of dreaming spires, and dear me, thank god for that. Apparently my lovely friends have been setting fire to things in my absence, which I thoroughly disapprove of (without me? forshame), and I really can't wait to be back even if it is just for a couple of days.

Which means I can't say, without seeming disingenous, that I'm taking part in the Friday LJ boycott, because I wouldn't be posting anyway - I won't get back until very late on Friday night - and besides, I'm not entirely sure I endorse the idea anyway. I'm not really in the mood to discuss LJ's latest fuckwittery, though, because I need it - LJ, not its fuckwittery - to help keep me sane for the moment. No more on that.

That's it. See lots of you soon.

Things on my mind, itemised for your reading pleasure:

1. All over the flist, I can see people shifting from holiday-headspace to term-time-headspace. I hate transitions - I'm going up to Oxford the day after tomorrow, and haven't even started thinking about piling up all my stuff together - but it always astonishes me how it happens time and time again. I have, apparently, already committed to going to Intrusion on Tuesday. At which junctture I feel the need to point out that I am quite incapable of getting dressed up, and if anyone would like to play Lifesize Goth Barbie with yours truly, then take me, I'm all yours.

In amongst all the mess of moving, I am uncomfortably aware that this is my second-to-last term at Oxford. I don't want this to be over; I don't see how it can be over. More angst on that will undoubtedly be forthcoming.

2. In brighter things, hathy_col and I searched for Spock today. We didn't find him, but it's the journey that matters. On the way we found a) Ducktor Who, light-up suitably scarved rubber ducky of joy and my new best friend, b) Eddie Rocket's Unhealthiest Breakfast Ever, Now With Garlic Mayo, and c) an artist dressed as a bear.

Said man dressed as bear was one of the shortlisted entries for the Turner Prize at the Tate. This is the first year that the exhibition has been at the Tate Liverpool - European Capital of Culture strikes back - and it seemed a good idea to go, seeing as we were there and it was free and the wind was particularly cold today. So we went, and we got lost in a maze, were baffled by snapshots of a sisal factory, momentarily revived by a gorgeous installation, the words "THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE" done in lightbulbs in letters a metre high, and then returned to bafflement by a length recording of a man, dressed as a bear, in a museum in Berlin.

Afterwards we wandered through the city towards Forbidden Planet, idly chattering about nothing in particular ("So, Dax has a snake in her - like, sort of a good Goa'uld with spots." / "A good Goa'uld? / "Tok'ra. Only with spots." / "Ah.") and in comfortable consensus that we had done our something intellectual for the day.

3. "The City on the Edge of Forever" is really, really good. It might be abundantly clear by now I'm going through a little bit of an original Star Trek phase. Well, I am, but also a traditional TV sci-fi in general sort of phase. The thing about TOS episodes is that they all seem really hackneyed and derivative - until you remember that they did this stuff first. So this episode, with its predestination paradox hijinks, actually hits a lot of things I love - changing the past, being responsible for the consequences, the weight of future knowledge, along with some mundanity (I love how one way of looking at its plot is just one very long, very bad day for Doctor McCoy) - and reminds me of a lot of other things I love. I mean, SG-1 does it with "1969", which is one of my favourite episodes of anything - hurrah for "Groovy!" - and Red Dwarf does it in "Stasis Leak", which I also love, and there are lots of examples of what's pretty much the same plot.

And it's a good one, that's the point. Which is not to say re-doing things is necessarily good. SG-1 doing and re-doing alternate universes stopped grabbing me after a while, but the first time they do it - which has distinct echoes of "Mirror, Mirror" and hurrah for evil-goatee!Spock, too - it's good. "There But For the Grace of God", along with 1969, is probably the episode of SG-1 I've seen the most times, and that's partly because I love the skeleton of the idea - alternate universes for the win, both in canon and fandom - but partly because of how it's executed. I love how Daniel's response is not at all like Captain Kirk's. It's, if I remember rightly, "This isn't happening, this is nuts, this isn't happening, this is nuts!" And I love how it hangs on to the light touch, and it's better for it, but in the end it's actually devastating. I mean, er, everyone dies. That's not cheerful. But it's a very good example of how you can do different things with an idea.

Funny, I think I'd forgotten how much I love speculative fiction. I love huge enormous ideas, I love how a lot of philosophical thought-experiments are functionally indistinguisabe from good science fiction - the "problem cases" of personal identity theories are all things like body-swaps (SG-1, "Holiday"), splitting of consciousness (Red Dwarf, "Confidence and Paranoia"), sentience and computers (every piece of SF ever, to be honest) and whether you're responsible for everything your mind is responsible for (DS9, "Dax"). I'm a little wary of "real" SF, though; I like television because it tends to have the lighter touch I like. I've been slogging through Consider Phlebas for the last couple of months to no avail, which is odd, because I've read and liked other Culture books. It's too... I don't know, serious? It's not that I don't want to read books with serious themes. It's just I get the feeling a lot of what's out there is significantly lacking in a sense of humour.

4. Er, I may be transcending an itemised list at this point. I'm going to be away for the next couple of days, I reckon. I'm busy all day tomorrow, and I need to re-register my laptop on the college network, so it might be a little while before I get back into the swing of things. I owe emails to about half a dozen people - they are coming, honestly. I'm just being very disorganised right now.

(5. Also. Emilie Autumn is great and you should all be listening to her. Rapunzel; Chambermaid.)

Reasons why I, and other people, but mostly me, are made of epic fail:

1. My laptop is suffering from, and I quote the computing services here, "spontaneous hardware failure". ("That sounds like spontaneous human combustion," Maria said, and I am forced to agree.) What does that mean, I wailed. "Sometimes," the man said, "sometimes, chips just die."

Great. "We'll take it apart for you no problem!" he said.

I find the thought of someone taking Loki apart very violating, for some reason. But at least they aren't saying it's irredemable, which is something.

Er, yes, this is me typing on Loki. It's best not to look to closely at this phenomenon in case it disappears. Like quantum.

2. I came back from the computing services and went back to bed. Slept fitfully for an hour or so, woke up feeling hungry, went into kitchen for late breakfast with assorted flatmates. When I went back to my room, my scout had locked it. With the key inside. I should point out that my attire was, well, not something I mind my flatmates seeing me in - my flatmates have seen me in worse states, it must be said - but, yeah. I went to Claire and demanded clothes, and went determinedly down to the lodge wearing one boot, one sandal, half-pyjamas and half-jeans.

Fail. Oh, so much fail. They did get me in again, and I thought the day had to start getting better, which brings us to point number three.

3. So, there's me having a shower and getting ready to face the hopefully now-improving day. I drop the soap. I reach down and pick it up, and note in bemusement that the whole floor is awash with red. It looked like some sort of cheesy B-movie, honestly. Blood everywhere. I eventually discovered, and dressed, a cut on my foot - no doubt acquired by the walk down to the lodge - but in the meantime, it looked like I was disposing of evidence, seriously. I'm just glad it happened before my scout came in, as she already thinks I am some sort of moral degenerate because I always go back to bed mid-morning. Sigh.

4. Some time actually passed. I ran around everywhere, I got out many, many books on Nietzsche, I handed in a dreadful essay on Cold War détente, I got stuff in order, and then I went to London in the afternoon to have dinner with Shubhra, American cousin what has abandoned the mother country, and my dad. We were all settled in a cheery restaurant somewhere off New Bond Street when Shubhra said, "I can smell something funny." And then, "Iona... you hair's on fire."

Yeah, I set my hair on fire. I win at life, I really do. I sat back down and tried not to notice the people moving to sit downwind of me. I can still smell it, sort of. Sigh. I managed to get home without further incident, but still.

Reasons why I, and other people, but mostly not me, are made of win:

1. chiasmata telling the nice people at the Queen's Lane coffee house that she'd like a cream tea, please, with no cream. This might go under the fail list, were it not for the fact that she is made of win anyway and cheered me right up after my morning of failure and Nietzsche and the bloody birth of tragedy. (Speaking of which, I really want to write fic where Darren and Geoffrey are Apollonian and Dionysiac and there are wacky pseudo-philosophical hijinks. There is something wrong with my brain other than the mantle of burning hair.)

2. Being in London with my dad and Shubhra. My mum sent me down some things - cake, and coffee, and proper spices: dhuniya and haldi and other things I cannot be bothered looking up the English for. And I have new boots. Boots are good.

3. ds_match is up and running! The first pair of stories went up yesterday, and there are more today. They are all made of win.

4. tau_sigma is also very much of great. I spent much of the journey back tipsily babbling to her about intelligent design and Egyptian food and natural sciences and indeed, burning hair.

5. Another thing that should probably go under the fail list, but. Shubhra today confessed a misconception that I thought was the best thing ever. The signs on the Underground, that say "Keep left" to stop people walking into other people going the other way? Yeah. She thought, she said, that they were political. That Transport for London were, in their small way, making the world a better place. Carry on, never surrender, bring on the revolution of the proletariat!

I feel bad for laughing as much as I did, but, you know. I still have a postcard on my door that says "You are now leaving the American sector." I couldn't help but laugh.

Right. Time for bed.