As I really don't have anything else to do, I might as well give you all a brief update of my activities since I arrived back in the good ol' U.S.A. (In case you're wondering, yes, I'm doing this partially as penance for a month of neglect). I haven't been up to anything too terribly exciting, mostly reading and watching television. Really riveting stuff...
In terms of my reading choices, besides my mid-air reading of The Audacity of Hope and The Children of Hurin, I've also finished The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin (highly recommended) and Stephen Mansfield's The Faith of Barack Obama (not-so-highly recommended, but it's a fast read). I'm currently working on The New Imperial Presidency by Prof. Rudalevige, which, in addition to the obvious fascinating nature of the subject, is interesting because I can hear Rudy's distinctive voice (and sense of humor) at many points in the text. Case in point, from the introductory chapter:
The Senate spent most of mid-March debating the emotionally polarizing but substantively limited question of partial-birth abortion procedures. The House of Representatives had its official photograph taken, named a room after former majority leader Richard Armey, and expressed its unanimous sense that fires in nonresidential buildings and executions by stoning were bad things. (Rudalevige, The New Imperial Presidency, 1).
Hopefully, I'll be able to finish it before the end of next week. My goal for the break is to read 10-15 books, including old favorites like The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and Hamlet, before I once again turn my nose eastwards. I didn't read as much as I should have liked during the semester--I haven't ever, as far as I can recall--and if I want folks to take all my bluster about trying to become an intellectual with even an iota of seriousness, I realise that I need to put up or shut up.
In terms of that most insidious of human contrivances, the box, I have to confess that, thanks to my sister and her collection of the first three seasons on DVD, I am completely obsessed with the show House, M.D. Don't get me wrong. I was already aware of the basic premise of the series and most of the major characters, not the least because so many comparisons were drawn between the series and last year's Writing Center. (Apparently, I was Chase. The identities of the others I leave to your imaginations). But until this week, I hadn't sat down and watched an episode from start to finish. Well, I have--and the actions of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital's brilliant, acerbic, and non-conformist diagnotisician, and his hapless friends and minions, now consume my thoughts. If the show wasn't as cool as it is, it would be really sad. Anyway, I can see what show I'll be watching regularly on Surf the Channel once I get back to England.
Those few hours I have not spent watching House, M.D., have been consumed with watching episodes of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Babylon 5 on the Internet. I'm not even going to try to justify my fondness for these kinds of space operas. Let's just say that I'm a sucker for anything with really big space fighters that fire brightly colored lasers at bad guys, and leave it there. I can't help myself. I need help. Some time in the indeterminate near future, preferably.
I haven't much else to add, except that I hope everyone is doing well and that all of your holiday seasons were peaceful and happy ones, filled with memories of good times with family and friends.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Be It Ever So Crumbled
13 December 2008
I suppose that I should fill-in the blanks about what transpired after yesterday morning's brief update. Only a sensible thing to do, right? Well, after I finished my post, I packed up my computer and, collecting all my belongings, headed to the front desk where I turned in my key and paid for my room, Internet access, and dinner. The lady behind the counter was lovely, which filled my heart with hope that, notwithstanding the shrew I faced the night preceding, civility isn't altogether dead in England.
I had missed the shuttle to Heathrow's Terminal 5 by two minutes, so I decided to use a taxi service that the Holiday Inn offers to its guests. I reached the terminal perhaps in 5 minutes, and it cost me only 12 quid, which really wasn't too bad. I collected my boarding passes and walked through security. I had heard that security in Terminal 5, which was opened only nine months ago in March 2008, was quick, efficient, and not really too unpleasant--and I was happy to find that these reports were true. Between presenting my passport and boarding pass for inspection and slipping back into my shoes on the other side of the metal detector, it must have taken five minutes. I was delighted.
Settling near the board reporting the times and locations of all departing flights, I proceeded to finish Graham Swift's Waterland. Rudy had assigned it for class, and even though I only managed to get through a third of it before we discussed it, I was sufficiently interested that I decided to finish it. And I am happy that I did. Though I can't say that I am especially fond of Swift's writing style, I found that I was engrossed by the plot and vividly drawn characters like Tom Crick, his wife Mary, and dull brother Dick, and Swift does succeed in embuing the fens of East Anglia with a certain charisma that reminded me of Egdon Heath in Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native. I'd highly recommend it with one caveat: Swift wrote Waterland in the early 1980s during a period of high anxiety over the seemingly imminent threat of nuclear annihilation, so for those who've never lived in a world with "duck and cover" drills or headlines of Soviet tanks rolling into Afghanistan, it may be difficult whenever one of the characters, an overly earnest, pale-skinned student named Price, speaks of the end of the world as if it were happening tomorrow to really connect with what's going on.
While I was sitting and ploughing through the last fifty pages of Waterland, I was approached by a middle-aged woman with brown hair and a green-and-blue nametag from the BAA. "Excuse me," she interrupted politely. "Are you waiting for a plane?"
"Yes. Yes, I am."
"If you don't mind my asking, when is your flight scheduled for departure?" She asked, taking the seat immediately next to mine. When I informed her that my flight for Denver was scheduled for 12.35 PM, she asked if I would be willing "to help determine what airport services were being used." This wasn't the first time that I'd been approached about helping to determine what shops, restaurants, and other services in an airport are in use, so I assumed that she was going to ask me to fill out a survey. Not so. "You see, we'd attach a camera, an apparatus to your head, and have you walk around the airport and record what you do and where you go."
"Um, no," I said it as politely as I could.
"What if we paid you forty pounds to do it?"
I still refused, not because it would have been incredibly silly for me to walk around Terminal 5 with a video camera attached to my forehead, but because I was intent on sitting there, reading my book, and not using any of the services that Heathrow had to offer. They wouldn't have derived any kind of useful information from my participation in the little "survey." Besides, not twenty minutes later, they posted the gate for my flight to Denver, so I headed over to Concourse B using the underground train system they have there.
After I finished Waterland, I decided to take advantage of a "Buy One, Get the Second for Half-Price" deal at a W.H. Smith's bookstore to purchase The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama and The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkein (as edited by Christopher Tolkein). So, I guess considering my previous statements about not intending to use any of the services at Heathrow that I'm something of a hypocrite, but as I was facing a eight-hour plane ride, it was a price that I was prepared to pay.
In terms of my selections for the trip, President-Elect Obama's The Audacity of Hope, on the whole, impressed me the most. Reading through it, I appreciated seeing that our future chief of state doesn't owe the eloquence he's displayed behind the podium entirely to his speechwriting team (which, considering recent events, is probably for the best). The book was, for the most part, very clearly and thoughtfully written, and there were moments when I found myself enthralled. That's not to say that I agreed with everything he suggested or took everything he said entirely on its face; for instance, I found his discussion of the Senate and his desire to master its rules (see pp. 71-76 and 98-100) somewhat disingenuous since his presidential ambitions have been common knowledge since he first appeared on the national stage in 2004. However, I do think that he has something to say about what it means to be an American in the early twenty-first century, just as Lincoln had in the 1860s, FDR in the 1930s and 40s, and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s; and I am interested to see how far he'll be able to go in bringing his vision to pass.
I landed in Denver around three in the afternoon, Mountain Standard Time. Miracle of miracles, my flight touched down thirty minutes ahead of schedule. After clearing immigration and customs, I met up with my parents and sister, and we then began the long car drive west. It snowed. A lot. So, what ordinarily takes three-and-a-half to four hours to drive in the sunshine and with clear roads turned into a six-and-a-half hour trek in the snow, the sleet, and the cold. We stopped at Ruby Tuesday's for dinner where I got to sample ranch dressing for the first time in four months--be jealous, Shannyn!--and it was wonderful. Once home, I talked with my family for a while, and then proceeded to pass out in my own bed.
Anyway, I'll update periodically about what I'm up to in snowy, isolated Grand Junction as well as submit the odd "retrospective" about my adventures in Dublin, Cambridge, and elsewhere. Until then, let me wish everyone a very Happy Holidays!
I suppose that I should fill-in the blanks about what transpired after yesterday morning's brief update. Only a sensible thing to do, right? Well, after I finished my post, I packed up my computer and, collecting all my belongings, headed to the front desk where I turned in my key and paid for my room, Internet access, and dinner. The lady behind the counter was lovely, which filled my heart with hope that, notwithstanding the shrew I faced the night preceding, civility isn't altogether dead in England.
I had missed the shuttle to Heathrow's Terminal 5 by two minutes, so I decided to use a taxi service that the Holiday Inn offers to its guests. I reached the terminal perhaps in 5 minutes, and it cost me only 12 quid, which really wasn't too bad. I collected my boarding passes and walked through security. I had heard that security in Terminal 5, which was opened only nine months ago in March 2008, was quick, efficient, and not really too unpleasant--and I was happy to find that these reports were true. Between presenting my passport and boarding pass for inspection and slipping back into my shoes on the other side of the metal detector, it must have taken five minutes. I was delighted.
Settling near the board reporting the times and locations of all departing flights, I proceeded to finish Graham Swift's Waterland. Rudy had assigned it for class, and even though I only managed to get through a third of it before we discussed it, I was sufficiently interested that I decided to finish it. And I am happy that I did. Though I can't say that I am especially fond of Swift's writing style, I found that I was engrossed by the plot and vividly drawn characters like Tom Crick, his wife Mary, and dull brother Dick, and Swift does succeed in embuing the fens of East Anglia with a certain charisma that reminded me of Egdon Heath in Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native. I'd highly recommend it with one caveat: Swift wrote Waterland in the early 1980s during a period of high anxiety over the seemingly imminent threat of nuclear annihilation, so for those who've never lived in a world with "duck and cover" drills or headlines of Soviet tanks rolling into Afghanistan, it may be difficult whenever one of the characters, an overly earnest, pale-skinned student named Price, speaks of the end of the world as if it were happening tomorrow to really connect with what's going on.
While I was sitting and ploughing through the last fifty pages of Waterland, I was approached by a middle-aged woman with brown hair and a green-and-blue nametag from the BAA. "Excuse me," she interrupted politely. "Are you waiting for a plane?"
"Yes. Yes, I am."
"If you don't mind my asking, when is your flight scheduled for departure?" She asked, taking the seat immediately next to mine. When I informed her that my flight for Denver was scheduled for 12.35 PM, she asked if I would be willing "to help determine what airport services were being used." This wasn't the first time that I'd been approached about helping to determine what shops, restaurants, and other services in an airport are in use, so I assumed that she was going to ask me to fill out a survey. Not so. "You see, we'd attach a camera, an apparatus to your head, and have you walk around the airport and record what you do and where you go."
"Um, no," I said it as politely as I could.
"What if we paid you forty pounds to do it?"
I still refused, not because it would have been incredibly silly for me to walk around Terminal 5 with a video camera attached to my forehead, but because I was intent on sitting there, reading my book, and not using any of the services that Heathrow had to offer. They wouldn't have derived any kind of useful information from my participation in the little "survey." Besides, not twenty minutes later, they posted the gate for my flight to Denver, so I headed over to Concourse B using the underground train system they have there.
After I finished Waterland, I decided to take advantage of a "Buy One, Get the Second for Half-Price" deal at a W.H. Smith's bookstore to purchase The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama and The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkein (as edited by Christopher Tolkein). So, I guess considering my previous statements about not intending to use any of the services at Heathrow that I'm something of a hypocrite, but as I was facing a eight-hour plane ride, it was a price that I was prepared to pay.
In terms of my selections for the trip, President-Elect Obama's The Audacity of Hope, on the whole, impressed me the most. Reading through it, I appreciated seeing that our future chief of state doesn't owe the eloquence he's displayed behind the podium entirely to his speechwriting team (which, considering recent events, is probably for the best). The book was, for the most part, very clearly and thoughtfully written, and there were moments when I found myself enthralled. That's not to say that I agreed with everything he suggested or took everything he said entirely on its face; for instance, I found his discussion of the Senate and his desire to master its rules (see pp. 71-76 and 98-100) somewhat disingenuous since his presidential ambitions have been common knowledge since he first appeared on the national stage in 2004. However, I do think that he has something to say about what it means to be an American in the early twenty-first century, just as Lincoln had in the 1860s, FDR in the 1930s and 40s, and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s; and I am interested to see how far he'll be able to go in bringing his vision to pass.
I landed in Denver around three in the afternoon, Mountain Standard Time. Miracle of miracles, my flight touched down thirty minutes ahead of schedule. After clearing immigration and customs, I met up with my parents and sister, and we then began the long car drive west. It snowed. A lot. So, what ordinarily takes three-and-a-half to four hours to drive in the sunshine and with clear roads turned into a six-and-a-half hour trek in the snow, the sleet, and the cold. We stopped at Ruby Tuesday's for dinner where I got to sample ranch dressing for the first time in four months--be jealous, Shannyn!--and it was wonderful. Once home, I talked with my family for a while, and then proceeded to pass out in my own bed.
Anyway, I'll update periodically about what I'm up to in snowy, isolated Grand Junction as well as submit the odd "retrospective" about my adventures in Dublin, Cambridge, and elsewhere. Until then, let me wish everyone a very Happy Holidays!
Friday, December 12, 2008
I'm Paying Your Salary
12 December 2008
I'm writing from my hotel room at the Holiday Inn near Heathrow. My flight for Denver is scheduled depart at 12.35 PM, but I figured I'd drop a short entry since I really don't want to walk up to the front desk and formally check-out. Why? I think it's, first, because that really is when it'll start sinking in that this semester is over, that I only have one more in England, only three more till I enter the real world of tax returns, mortgages, utility bills, and all those delightful things that my parents have been too happy to handle for the initial twenty-one years of my existence.
Second, the hotel staff here is mean. Last night I had to go to the front desk to get a replacement key because, having forgot that my money-clip contains a magnet, I had placed the keycard to my room there, which of course de-magnetised it. And throughout the entire transaction, the lady behind the front desk just had this disgusted look on her face as if her life suddenly sucked because a traveling university student had accidentally de-magnetised his keycard. No "Thank you." No "That's all right." No smiling. Nothing. Having worked in Target over the summer, I'm not a fan of the kind of facile courtesy and manufactured friendliness that most establishments consider to be the soul of customer service, but come on! I'm paying your salary.
Anyway, I need to check-out, get to the airport, go through security, find my gate--all the activities I particularly enjoy. Throw in a meal and a couple of bowel movements, and you pretty much have a synopsis of my day. I hope everyone is doing well, and I'll talk to you later.
I'm writing from my hotel room at the Holiday Inn near Heathrow. My flight for Denver is scheduled depart at 12.35 PM, but I figured I'd drop a short entry since I really don't want to walk up to the front desk and formally check-out. Why? I think it's, first, because that really is when it'll start sinking in that this semester is over, that I only have one more in England, only three more till I enter the real world of tax returns, mortgages, utility bills, and all those delightful things that my parents have been too happy to handle for the initial twenty-one years of my existence.
Second, the hotel staff here is mean. Last night I had to go to the front desk to get a replacement key because, having forgot that my money-clip contains a magnet, I had placed the keycard to my room there, which of course de-magnetised it. And throughout the entire transaction, the lady behind the front desk just had this disgusted look on her face as if her life suddenly sucked because a traveling university student had accidentally de-magnetised his keycard. No "Thank you." No "That's all right." No smiling. Nothing. Having worked in Target over the summer, I'm not a fan of the kind of facile courtesy and manufactured friendliness that most establishments consider to be the soul of customer service, but come on! I'm paying your salary.
Anyway, I need to check-out, get to the airport, go through security, find my gate--all the activities I particularly enjoy. Throw in a meal and a couple of bowel movements, and you pretty much have a synopsis of my day. I hope everyone is doing well, and I'll talk to you later.
Monday, December 8, 2008
November Redux
Sorry for not having updated earlier, but unfortunately, as soon as I returned from Ireland, I had to start working on my last papers for "Modern Germany, 1866-1945," "Women & Gender in Early Modern Europe," and Humanities 310. After more late-nights than I've had in a while, I've finished with two out of the three, so I suppose I've earned the right to relax a while and let everyone know what's been happening since I last updated. (The fact that I awoke this morning to see Tom Morgan screaming "BOO, UPDATE!" across the oceans also helped as motivation. Thank you, Tom.) I'm afraid that since I have another paper to write, laundry to do, and Christmas presents to buy, this update won't be anything too elaborate. I promise, however, to post more accounts later once I get home to the ever-blessed U.S.A.
- Trip to Wicken Fen and Ely (November 2). On the 2nd of the month, Rudy had us all rise early in the morning for a private coach ride to one of the few remaining wetlands in East Anglia, Wicken Fen, and then the city of Ely. It's safe to say that I enjoyed the latter more than the former, which shouldn't come as any surprise because, despite my upbringing in the rough wilderness of shopping malls, used car dealerships, and restaurants that is Grand Junction, I'm not much of an outdoorsman. After a tour of the Ely Cathedral, which is easily one of the most impressive and beautiful structures I have seen in my life, a few of us, including Prof. Rudalevige, his daughter Liza, Zack, Emma, Shannyn, and I, attended the evensong surface. I don't know what it was, but as I watched the billows of incense rise and fill the place and heard the doleful sounds of a classical requiem, I really started to appreciate what motivated our forefathers to dedicate tremendous amounts of time, energy, and resources to the construction of these great edifices. The whole experience came together really to fill one with a sense of the numinous, as C.S. Lewis would say.
- Trip to Dublin (November 6-10). I spent the first full weekend of November with Zack, Lauren Deitz, and Meghan Blickman in Dublin. And it was incredible. To mention a mere handle of the sites, we visited the Guiness Storehouse, Dublin Writers Museum, Trinity College, and the Christ Church Cathedral. It had been so long since I'd been in a major city other than Norwich that I had nearly forgotten the wide variety of activities, museums, churches, and other attractions theey have to offer. We also joined one of our roommates at the hostel, a French Canadian named Simon, for a pub crawl that Friday night, which was also very good; if you ever have a chance to visit Dublin, look for "Chaplin's" or "The Long Stone." They're located across from each other on the south bank of the Liffey. Delightful establishments with decent beer, good atmosphere, and (in the case of "The Long Stone") an enormous wooden fireplace carved to resemble the head of Thor the Norse god of Thunder.
- William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (November 20). Having never read the Bard of Stratford's tribute to the self-destructive love of two young Italian nobles from competing families, I couldn't share in the anguish of Lauren, Shannyn, and others when Rudy announced that we'd be attending the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Romeo and Juliet at Norwich's Theatre Royal. Surprisingly, I didn't mind it too much, mostly because (a) I was in awe of the power, beauty, and elegance of Shakespeare's language and (b) they'd modeled the play's entire appearance around The Godfather, which fit the material fairly well in most instances. (My main objection on that score was the decision to have the actors wield switchblades as if they were rapiers.) Afterwards, I went to a pub with Dan, Duncan, and Leah for a couple of pints--if you have the opportunity, try Wetherspoon's Abbots Ale. It's got a really good, almost nutty flavor to it and, more importantly, its ABV is 5.0 percent.
- Thanksgiving on Unthank Road (November 27). The Rudaleviges hosted an enormous Thanksgiving dinner for everyone on the Humanities program, complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, sweetcorn, green beans, rolls, two varieties of cranberry sauce, and more pies than you can imagine. It was all wonderful. Unfortunately, I really didn't eat as much as I could have, but I've noticed that I seem to do that whenever I go over to someone's house (other than the Heflins' in Gettysburg). After dinner, most of us played Charades, which must be an invention of the Devil himself. I was dragooned into playing two rounds, and mercifully, someone was able to guess what I was doing without too much effort.
- Trip to Cambridge (December 5). To finish off the unofficial "month," we had to rise early for still another class trip, this time to Cambridge. Rudy had purchased everyone tickets for the 8.44 train to Cambridge, so we had to be at the Norwich Rail Station no later than 8.30. Most people on the program rose early and made the long (and apparently cold) bus ride to the Station. Fortunately, I was able to sleep a little later and share a cab with Dan and Duncan; most unfortunately, Leah and Lauren had to remain behind a while and wait for another taxi, because there was a small miscommunication about how many people were riding down to the Station in the first cab. Cambridge itself was amazing. We toured the beautiful campus of King's College including its massive chapel (which is nearly a cathedral in itself) and King's Hall, the College's cafeteria. Afterwards, we sat down with Professor Vaux, an old college buddy of Rudy's and a fellow at King's College, to discuss the eccentricities of British higher education. Well, everyone discussed those topics. I was struggling to remain awake, even as I was seated next to Rudy and in plain view of Prof. Vaux. Hurray Me! Afterwards, Shannyn and I wandered around Cambridge, shopping for Christmas presents and just acquianting ourselves with the town. No surprise--Shannyn had to visit Christ Church College, Milton's alma mater. We grabbed dinner at a Nicholson's pub on Magdalene Street before trudging back to the Cambridge Rail Station to catch the 19.25 back to the Norwich.
In addition to all of this, there was so much more that happened this month--the Dickinson-UEA 20th Anniversary Dinner on the 3rd, Election Day on the 4th, and a visit to a British primary school on December 1st. Altogether, November was a very hectic, but very enjoyable, month. I'm straining to finish the last of my papers, but soon, I'll be boarding a jet plane for a three weeks stateside. Hopefully, I'll be able post more extensive accounts of a few of my adventures while I'm home. But all I know is that I'm going to be so happy to be back on our side of the Atlantic where people don't talk with funny accents (except in the South and Wisconsin), can talk about issues other than the weather, and generally prefer to do things in the most sensible way that they can.
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