I haven't written anything in the past month because Katherine moved in about a month ago. Having a lot going on means that there is a lot to write about, but it also means that there is little time (or perhaps motivation) to write. Katherine and I have been getting along fabulously. Since her arrival we've settled in, traveled to Barcelona, went to the Royal Opera, and my best friend (her brother) John and another close friend Tony have come for a three-week visit (they're still here). We've all traveled to London, Portsmouth, Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Avebury-henge, and Bath. (We saw all the henges on the same day. Woodhenge is fantastic--The sign says that there once was a wooden henge there, about 4000 years ago, now there's an empty field with markers showing where the posts may have been.) We're also planning a road trip up to Scotland very soon. I'm posting pictures on flickr, though I haven't got to the pictures including Tony and John yet, just the ones of me and Kat in Barcelona and London. I've been neglecting my thesis research a bit, on the assumption that you don't get to travel England with such close friends often in your life, but I'm here in London alone and about 45 minutes early for a meeting, so I'm killing a bit of time drinking coffee and typing on wifi.

I went to the local equivalent of the DMV yesterday to get the paperwork for a British license plate for my motorcycle. It was the picture of low-level bureaucratic hell. A cramped waiting room was populated with the most repellent characters one could hope to dredge up from the county. These were caricatures of Britishness. There was the pasty white wanna-be gangster, the decaying ancient lady with the clown-like pancaking layer of makeup smearing on her clothes, the overweight and not-too-bright couple, the hulking lady who kept her husband in line, and everyone was pudgy around the edges and vaguely unhealthy smelling. Lest anyone accuse me of profiling, I call the one fellow not-too-bright because he managed to stand perfectly still in the motion-sensing sliding door long enough for it to startle him by closing...twice. The sign by that door cheerfully said that, if they weren't busy, they would try to get to you within 35 minutes of your arrival. Another handwritten sign explained that they might not be able to handle some applications due to problems with the computer system. This was not helpful as one had to wait in the queue in order to find out which applications those might be. While waiting, there was a television playing public service announcements relating to the goings on in the department. One hyperbolic ad asked if you had paid your automobile tax while a tax sticker floated along the wildlife and greenery along a motorway. Eventually this tax sticker fluttered past a gap in the guardrail and over the wreckage of a Volkswagen while the ad solemnly suggested that the consequences of not paying your tax might include an untimely death! The tenuous connection here was that in order to get your tax sticker your car had to pass an inspection, and that if your car had not been inspected then it might not meet safety standards. Such a link does not justify the ad. I made it out alive and with all of the paperwork. I'll be getting a yellow license plate in the mail shortly. Or maybe eventually. Whatever.

We had a dance party. Zak conceived it, Genevieve and Dave organized it, and I hosted it. And people danced! Some people also drank. One person sprained her ankle (not dancing, cartwheeling). And then after breakfast Sunday afternoon, I felt like I had to get out of the house. I grabbed my camera on the way out of the door, I had a book to study in my bag, and no destination in mind.



I noticed an interesting garden fence on my street and snapped a photo of it. Then I continued on my merry way towards town. And then I noticed a gate that opened onto a tiny plot of overgrown land. No one had stepped through this gate in ages. So, I took a photo of that as well, and a theme was born. I was now seeing fences everywhere. Some more interesting than others, certainly, but I had a project for the afternoon.



Having a theme like this, I noticed a lot of things I would have otherwise walked right past. Details in ironwork. Chipping paint. A pacifier hanging by a graveyard. A strip of cloth tangled in barbed wire. Snails. A piece of string. Little, but interesting things.



I took another walk today; it was by far the warmest its been here yet. Today was also a bank holiday. All of the local parents were out with their children and the kids were playing soccer in the fields and etc. I walked in the opposite direction this time, and found more interesting fences. The four photos I've posted here are some of my favorites. The entire set of 51 photos is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/timfs4/sets/72157604881211818/

Yesterday I was sitting, watching Freaks & Geeks and eating some cucumbers, tomatoes and Hummus (also spelled hamos, houmous, hommos, hommus, hummos, hummous or humus - ref. wikipedia) when the phone rang. It was a friend of mine telling me that he had an extra ticket to The Sleeping Beauty, starting in four hours. So, naturally, I put on a shirt and a tie and a coat and slick shoes and headed out. As I approached the bus stop, I saw in the distance the characteristic double-decker shape of the Oxford to London bus. I thought I might just make it, as there were still five minutes until 4:30, when the bus lurched into traffic and pulled away, leaving me to contemplate my fate. I bought a packet of peanut m&ms and a bottle of water for the journey, expecting another bus to arrive within the promised fifteen minutes. There was, however, an unfortunate delay. When the bus lumbered into view thirty minutes later, I no longer expected to arrive in time for the first act. This was somewhat disconcertng as I expected only one intermission. Fortunately, Tchaikovsky knew what he was doing and had the first break occur after the prologue, only twenty minutes after the curtain rose. Apparently, people were prone to be late in Imperial Russia as well.

The ballet itself I enjoyed, having never seen one before. I found it very nearly gymnastic in the required athleticism. There are some incredible sequences in The Sleeping Beauty that the understudy who took the lead role last night seemed to have some difficulty pulling off, though she did manage to. I was surprised by the brevity of the sleeping/ prince awakening the princess part of the story in comparison to the lavish and lengthy wedding party. I suppose, however, that if the lead character is supposed to be sleeping, she cannot be dancing. The performance was at the Royal Opera House, a lavish and multi-tiered theater in the heart of London. It's the sort of building that Katherine appreciates very much (if our Paris trip is any guide), and I'm very excited to take her to see Ariadne auf Naxos, a German opera by Richard Strauss.

There is a disconcerting sign on the road between Oxford and Aylesbury. It reads, "Drive Carefully: 146 casualties on this road in 3 years." I mulled this over briefly in my head immediately after reading it, wondering just how this could be. I couldn't think about it too much at the time, I was apparently on a very dangerous road, on a motorcycle, in the rain.

It turns out that there are some fairly blind corners and poorly placed intersections. Because it's a country road, it's tempting to get going too quickly for these conditions. I suspect, though, that the main source of these accidents are the tractors constantly blocking up traffic. There were three just when I traversed the road (both ways) yesterday. With a top speed of 15 mph, travellers may come careening around the aforementioned corners only to smash into a seemingly stationary tractor. Alternatively, head-on collisions may be caused by frustrated drivers passing on the right (remember, the English drive on the left) at inopportune moments.

I double-checked on my way home from the inspection (which my motorcycle failed for want of a light with which to illuminate the "number plate"). It was, indeed 146, not just 46 as I thought it might have been. That's about one "casualty" per week. I followed up on my suspicions after arriving at home, and indeed, casualty does not mean fatality to the British road ministry. It means, instead, any reported or recorded injuries. So this road, despite its danger, may not be the most dangerous road in the Western world after all.

This morning my alarm shocked me out of a wonderful dream at seven instead of the noon to which I have recently become accustomed. I ruefully spit into the sink, blew my nose, and took a quick, hot shower. After frying up a bacon, egg, jalapeno jack and tabasco sandwich (brain food), I tucked in my shirt tails, straightened my white bow-tie and unlocked my bicycle. Appropriately, it rained on me as I approached the examination school. After arriving, I pulled my cap and gown and from my bag, and transferred everything else except for two pens and my university ID card into it. The Invigilators (Although it sounds like a group of villainous, soul-sucking, children's book characters, these are mostly just what professors are called when they oversee exams--I don't think they have evil powers, exactly) won't let you sit the exam if you are not wearing proper sub-fusc (and no, I have no idea where this term comes from), or if you bring anything into the room aside from what I just described. The rest of my classmates arrived in the marble-floored, chandelier-hung, presumably-ancient foyer as I pulled on the remarkably unwrinkled gown. A group of British undergraduates had arrived shortly beforehand as well, all of them wearing white carnations in their buttonholes. A few of my international classmates had them as well, and explained that it's traditional to wear such a thing for your first exam at Oxford. Every exam thereafter is a pink carnation until the last, when a celebratory red carnation is appropriate. (And I suppose I have to take back what I said about the items allowed into the exam room.) We were led as a group into a room in the back, little desks in little rows, half the room facing the other. I noticed that the undergraduates were primarily female, thinking this odd until I realized that my own class was even more heavily female. I have no idea how representative this is of British higher education, or international postgraduate education, though I have heard that girls are out-enrolling boys in college in the United States now. After two hours of writing, I stepped out to use the restroom. I stopped by a welcome water cooler en route. Perhaps because of this detour, as I was zipping up my trousers an attentive Invigilator knocked on the door to the stall stuttering something about time being up. Another hour later, all materials were collected, including outlines and draftwork, expected to be clearly marked as such and lined through neatly. I'd feel like I accomplished something, only my best friend was running the Boston Marathon this morning.

So it's been a month and a half since I've tried to write anything in here. Not coincidentally, there is a month and a half between terms at Oxford. I've been travelling like mad, and though I could have made short updates, I never got around to it. Although anyone who's actually bothering to read this probably already knows, here's a quick recap:
Katherine spent her spring break with me, and I took her to Paris for her birthday. She went back to the states. I went to Athens with my friend Parvinder. From Athens I flew to Casablanca and met up with another friend, Joe. We drove to Marrakech for a day as well. Then I flew to Boston to spend a few days with Katherine en route to Austin. I spent some time at home, hanging out with my parents, brother, sister, aunt, family friends, etc.. I managed to hang out with some old high school friends--Kim, Tony, Jill, and Kaitlyn (who turned 22)--while in Austin. I also got a haircut, then drove up to Fort Hood to see Adam, and we celebrated Founder's Day. Then I continued up to Dallas to see Matt. He showed me his collection and we had dinner at the restaurant of Casey Thompson--one of the runners-up from Top Chef Season 3. Then I flew back to Boston to spend a few more days with Katherine en route to England. After dropping off my stuff and sleeping for a day, I went down to London for tea with Prince Andrew and most of the West Point grads in the UK at Buckingham Palace. All told, it's been basically the best month(ish) ever, but it's all been a bit hectic.

Now that that's out of the way, I can get back to writing about nothing at a semi-regular pace. I've got a history exam on Monday, and an Anthropology exam on Wednesday. These are three hours and three essays each, and they are actually the only graded events for these two courses, so I sort of really have to pass. In light of that, I'm maybe stressing a bit more than I really have to. I also took an APFT today (I still got it), so I'm really feeling like I'm still a cadet. Except...I'm planning on grilling up some bratwurst and having a drink while I stay up past taps and watch Fargo tonight (John just watched it, and I borrowed it from Matt, so I'm like obligated to see this ASAP).

Ok back to studying.