Reading Party

Hooray! The term is finally over for us here. Actually the school terms here in Oxford are eight weeks, whereas the terms at my home university last sixteen weeks. Nonetheless, it feels like it's been a long term.

Our reward: 5 days and 4 nights in the quiet English countryside. Through the study abroad program I'm participating in, we get to take this little retreat as a nice end-of-term break. About a half dozen students and some of the friars from Blackfriars get to stay at this beautiful abbey right outside of Bath. We get to spend a few days taking nice long walks in the countryside and reading all the fun books we didn't have time to pick up during the school term. I love to read and it'll be great picking up a book that's not an assignment.

I have a few ideas of which books I'd like to bring, but I'm only going to take one or two. 

• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen- This seems to be the perfect book to bring on this trip. I haven't read it yet, but it's about a girl who stays in an abbey near Bath. What could be more fitting?
• The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler- This is one of the books I have to read for next term. It might be good to get a head start.
• The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje- My mom read it and saw the movie a few years ago, when I was younger. She wouldn't let me watch it, but I snuck into the living room and saw about ten minutes of it. It looked really really good and I vowed that I would read it one day when I was older. I bought it at the flea market a few days ago and I just started it last night. I can tell it's going to be good already.
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini- Every time I see it at the bookstore, I'm tempted to buy it. It's on table display at every book store for a reason, right?
  
• Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding- What can I say? I've seen the movies so many times and I couldn't help but buy the book when I saw it in the bargain bin. I'm about a quarter of the way through and I can't believe how funny it is. As much as I love the movies, it's really cool getting to hear more of Bridget's voice in the book. I don't know if I should bring it to the reading party though... Would it be too embarassing? Maybe I'll just read it under the covers at night with my flashlight.
  

Hm. Well, those are the ones I was thinking of so far. Any suggestions? I'm desperate for a good read!

It's Like Riding a Bike...

So it's actually true what they say: It's like riding a bike...once you learn, you'll never forget.

I rode a bicycle today for the first time in about 10 years. The last bike I ever owned was given to me by my parents for my 11th birthday. It was a red Mongoose boys bike. I hadn't ridden one since because my high school was too far from my house for me to ride to school. When I went to college in the city, I didn't need a bike because everything was walking distance or accessible through public transportation.

Here at Oxford, it's a different story. I no longer have my free San Francisco bus pass and I don't have a car. It's pretty much a bike town here. Everywhere you go, you can see cyclists zipping in and out of alleyways. Next to the bigger colleges, you can see racks full of bikes hastily chained to fences.

I was a bit reluctant to get a bike when I got here because I was too intimidated by the little one-way streets and the whole driving-on-the-opposite-side-of-the-road thing. I just walked everywhere instead. But lately, I've been looking for a bike to cut down on my walking time.

I answered a few ads and found a bike this morning for only 25 pounds! It's a decent city bike with a wicker basket included. I was skeptical at first because most of the other used bikes were about 60 pounds and new city bikes are well over 150 pounds. It turns out the guy selling it was selling it for his mom who no longer needs it because she moved to London. So I think he was just trying to get rid of it.

I'm pretty happy with it so far. I was a bit nervous riding it at first. I kept expecting to fall over or get hit by something, but I think my guardian angel was looking out for me because I made it home in one piece. I rode my bike for by the river for a couple of hours and took it to the other side of town to the library. It felt pretty good at the time, but I'll admit that I'm feeling quite sore now! I guess my body's just in shock that I actually got a bit of exercise today.

Back from Scotland

Hello, all. Sorry for my blogging silence these past few days. I haven't been ignoring your lovely blogs. I have just arrived back from my weekend trip to Scotland.

My friends Christian, Andrew, Mary, and I rented a car and left Friday morning for Fort William in Scotland. The drive took about 11 hours because we got lost a few times! We spent about an hour driving around Glasgow, trying to figure out where we were on the map after our GPS died. It was all fun though!  It was about 11pm when we arrived at Fort William. Fort William is a small village at the foot of the tallest mountain in Britain, Ben Nevis. The surrounding area includes rolling green valleys and sprawling lakes. It's really quite beautiful.
 
On Saturday morning, the boys got up at 7am to climb the mountain. There was heavy snow on top and it was raining all day. They managed to climb it anyway. Mary and I were a bit more sensible. We slept in, took a bus to the village center and just walked around the whole day. We walked by the lake, browsed through the little shops, peeked inside their stone churches, and had lunch at a cute little pub.

When the guys were done climbing the mountain, we all drove for the next 6 hours to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Unlike Fort William which was a rural country village, Edinburgh is a busy city. We arrived at around 9pm at our Martin's Guest House, our bed and breakfast. It was a beautiful little house that was gorgeously decorated. The ceilings had fantastic crown moldings and the walls were painted in beautiful hues. We were too tired to get dinner, so we just ordered some hot Chinese food to be delivered. It was delicious! We had curry chicken, sweet and sour chicken, spare ribs, chicken corn soup, egg rolls, and fried rice.

The next morning (Sunday), we were provided with an included Continental breakfast. We had toast, cereal, tea, orange juice, bananas, warm croissants, and a yogurt cup with cranberries in it. It was delicious! And breakfast was served in their charming dining room that was painted a sunny butter yellow.

We then drove to the city center of Edinburgh and took a free tour! I have three friends who have visited Edinburgh in the past and they all recommended the free tour. It is run by this company and they train people to give tours for free, working only on tips. The tour meets every day at 11am and 1pm in front of the Royal Mile Starbucks. If any of you ever get a chance to visit Edinburgh, I definitely recommend taking this free Edinburgh tour! It was a lot of fun and we learned a lot. The tour lasts 3 hours, but my friends and I decided to wander off on our own after an hour and a half. If I ever get a chance to come back and spend more time there, I would finish the tour. We saw Edinburgh Castle, St. Giles Cathedral, the Royal Mile, and so much more. Luckily, Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, the only one of our trip.

My friends ended the night by grabbing cheap burgers and fries and eating them on the steps of the National Bank of Scotland. It was great!

We then woke up at around 8 this morning and left Edinburgh at 10. We arrived back in Oxford at around 5. Verdict: Best Weekend Ever!

My upcoming Austen weekend

I've been taking this awesome 18th and 19th century English novel tutorial and I've been reading (and writing an essay on) a different novel each week. So far I've read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Richardson's Pamela, Fielding's Joseph Andrews, and Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest.

Those were all pretty good and I would recommend them to anyone with some time to spare. They make very good rainy day reading, especially The Romance of the Forest. It's a great suspense/thriller!

As much as I liked those previous novels, we've finally arrived at the one I have been looking forward to the most: Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility! I have been in love with Austen's work since high school. I read Pride and Prejudice a few times (and the ending alone, a few dozen times)! I also read Persuasion, which is a fairly different love story from Pride and Prejudice. It's a love that, in many ways, I think is much more complex and certainly filled with more longing. Good stuff.

Now I'm really excited to read Sense and Sensibility for the first time. I've wanted to read it since I saw the Ang Lee film version with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, and Hugh Grant.

 

It's also the perfect kind of reading weather here in Oxford. It's chilly, cloudy, and rainy-- just the right condition to make you want to snuggle up under the covers with a good book!

Chiquita Banana

My friend found this video and posted it on his Facebook. I don't know why, but this is just really hilarious to me.

Happy Halloween!

It's Halloween night here in England. Apparently, Halloween's not very big here. Most of the people I've met here have never trick-or-treated as children! As an American, I've grown up loving Halloween. It's that time of year when children and adults alike dress up and have a lot of fun.

In elementary school, we dressed up and had costume contests. Parents would bring cupcakes and cookies with frosting spiders on them. As soon as the sun set, my parents would take my sister and I for a walk around the neighborhood with our pillow cases to go trick-or-treating.

In honor of Halloween in England, here's a little comedy sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Enjoy!

Dear Kind Stranger...

I had a terrible day a couple of days ago. I lost my keys! That may not seem like a big deal to you, but it certainly was to me. On my key chain I had my house key, my room key, and a little electronic beeper thing that functions as a key to our dining hall. I think I lost it in the middle of the commercial district as I was walking down to the river. I guess I don't have to tell you how stinkingly awful that experience was. In order to replace all three keys, I would have to pay a whopping £75 (about $122). Being a broke college student, that's quite a bit of money to me.

I did everything I could think of to find them. I retraced my steps, searched all my pockets, went back to the dining hall. I even phoned the police station's lost and found. They said no one had turned any keys in that day. Actually, I doubted anyone would go out of their way to turn in a set of lost keys. I had just about given up all hope of finding them when I just said a little prayer to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost articles. If, by the way, any of you lose something, I would highly recommend a little prayer to St. Anthony. He's so good at pointing you in the right direction. I've been asking for his guidance for many many years now and I usually find what I'm looking for. Here's a link to a short prayer, but I often just say a little prayer of my own. Usually it goes a little something like this: "Hi, St. Anthony. It's me again. Sorry, but I seem to have misplaced my _____________. Could you please say a little prayer for me and help me find it? I promise to be more careful with it next time. Thanks! Amen."

Anyway, I was downtown today and I figured it wouldn't hurt to check the lost and found again. Instead of phoning in, I went to the police station in person. The front desk officer gave me a drawer full of tagged lost keys. I really didn't want to get my hopes up, but I just wanted to check it anyway in a last ditch effort.

My heart stopped. In the sea of keys, I spot the familiar glint of my keyring. Could it be? Yes. I found them! Or rather, someone else found them (according to the tag, they were picked up in the market) and was nice enough to walk down to the police station to turn them in.

Anyone who has ever lost anything valuable and recovered it later on, will know my feeling. I was on top of the world! You don't know how valuable keys are until you've lost them. You can't get in your house, or your room, or anything.

I have no idea who turned in my keys and I probably never will. But I still want to say thank you. So here is a little note to the kind soul who found my keys and to all the good samaritans out there who have helped someone find what they've lost.


Dear Kind Stranger,
You have no idea how happy you've made me feel. You have raised me up from the depths of my gloom to the height of joy. Not only have you returned my keys to me, but you have restored my faith in mankind. I know that may seem like an exaggeration (or a drowsy side-effect of this blissful high I'm feeling right now), but I assure you that it is not. I feel a bit ashamed now at doubting that anyone would have the kindness to go out of their way in order to help out a complete stranger. And you are not the only one. When I peered into that huge drawer brimming with all those lost keys, I realized how many honest and considerate people there are in the world. Every set of keys in that drawer represents an act of kindness. Moreover, it is a selfless act of kindness. No one will get a reward, or a handshake, or even a nod of gratitude. Those people, like you, have done a kindness that could never be repaid. In other words, thank you.

Sincerely,

A Grateful Stranger

Yes, I look like an idiot. But I'm happy one.

An autumn day in Oxford

It's a beautiful autumn day in Oxford. The green and golden brown leaves look amazing against the pale blue sky and there's no better place to appreciate it all than from banks of the Thames.

Toughen up, kids

Ok. I'm taking a quick break from reading the 924 pages of Pamela I need to finish (and write 2000-3000 word essay on) before Thursday. After writing that sentence, I'm beginning to think that this little diversion is a bad idea. Oh, well. I've committed myself.

What prompted this post is an article I've come across through Yahoo news, entitled "Kids films deemed too scary for kids." It talks about the new film Where the Wild Things Are and how some parents think the themes are too dark for their young children. It's based off of the classic 1963 children's novel of the same title, by Maurice Sendak. It's the story of a little boy who goes off into an imaginary world of monsters and other creatures. Watch the trailer here.

The article also mentions the Pixar movie Up as similarly controversial. In Up, a lonely old man and a hyper little boy scout stowaway ride off in his balloon-lifted house towards South America. The opening scenes of the film show center around the poignant story of the old man's life with his wife. I'm not going to say any more in case you haven't seen it yet, but I do suggest bringing a box of tissues.

The article goes on to discuss how parents are often overprotective with what their children watch, and that children are capable of processing themes better than their parents believe they can. I completely agree. I think it's important to expose children to some of the unpleasant things in life. This is not to say that we should completely bash their innocence and show them all the horrors of life. I simply mean that there are certain ways of gently preparing them for life's situations.

Besides, it's not like children's movies in the past were all sunshine and flowers. Here are a few that I loved, yet (slightly) traumatized me.

-The Lion King (1994) Great movie, but I still can't watch the Mufasa scene.

- The Fox and the Hound (1981) Any time you have a gunshot in the opening sequence: yikes. Also, just because you and your friend are different, you can't be friends anymore?

-Old Yeller (1957) The ultimate boy-and-his-dog film.

-Pinocchio (1940) Drinking, smoking, vandalism, and getting swallowed by a whale...but also learning a valuable lesson.

Paris: River Seine Cruise and the Mona Lisa

Ah. I'm embarassed. It's been two weeks since my day trip to Paris and I've only just uploaded my videos. The first one is of our cruise on the the Seine. We got to see the Louvre, the Ile de la Cité, some murals, Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower.

And the second video is of my trip to the Louvre and my mission to find the Mona Lisa. It was my first time there and I had no idea how HUGE the Louvre is. There are signs everywhere directing you to the Mona Lisa, but what they don't tell you is how far it is! We walked through gallery after gallery and up staircase after staircase before we found it. I was expecting a bigger-than-life painting with a spotlight and guards on either side. Maybe they would also pipe in Nat King Cole's velvety melody for her. What I found was a rather small painting behind a glass frame hanging on a plain wall in a room full of other paintings. There was a massive crowd pushing up against the velvet ropes and cameras clicking everywhere. There it was, unarguably the most famous painting in the world. It was impressive and awe-inspiring for that fact alone. And yes, her smile is as beautiful and mysterious as the songs say it is.