So . . . um

This week has been semi-uneventful.

Lots of baby ducks and geese, which would be cute if I actually saw them alive once in a while, but all I get to see is a cat running with a dead baby duck in it's mouth and later a dead duck on an unrelated sidewalk. Gotta love spring.

We've submitted our photos for the Wolfson photo contest. Winners get their photo on a postcard. Of course, it's only for members of the college so we're pretending that Ben took the photos. He actually did take one, but I'm pretty confident we'll sweep this thing and all our frickin' photos will be chosen.

Ha, ha, ha.

I REALLY want that Teaching Assistant job. Positive vibes being sent into the universe . . . now!

Yesterday was the Phil and Jim Arts Night. Moira did the Jabberwocky with two other friends. Eva recited it and Moira and Tanglewest acted it out behind her. Then Moira was a tour guide for the public for another half hour, so we had to keep ourselves busy. We checked out all the art displayed throughout the building, found the girls' stuff, and then tried not to hyperventilate because of the narrow hallways and masses of people. One interesting thing about this night--Wine! They served wine to the adults. Can you imagine this happening in the States? Especially at a religious school? Shocking. I just couldn't partake. It felt so dirty.

Then today was the spring dancing at the school. Lots of English country and Maypole dancing. I'll look through the pictures and see if anything is worth putting up. Moira lost her shoe during one of the dances (due to a boy stepping on her heel), but other than that the kids performed admirably. But the BEST thing about this day was that Frances (Connie's mom) invited me to come back with her and have some coffee while we waited for the dances to start. (They began at 10, which was hardly enough time for me to walk home and then turn around and walk back again.) Yay! Friends! I hung out with her and Chris (nice guy who recommended the T.A. job) and Frances' friend who was visiting from Brussels. One great thing about the day was seeing that Frances' house was just as trashed as mine. Sweet.

Um . . . I think I had other things to say . . . guess not.

Oh, yeah, I volunteered in Evie's class again today. I almost got a blister from sharpening pencils when the kids went outside to play, but the reading part was fun.

Sometimes

the view from our bedroom window can be nice.


But usually it looks like Russian tenement housing.

Lauren,

I haven't forgotten your Star Trek question. I am still pondering. It's such an important issue--I don't want to steer you wrong.



And that really didn't deserve to be a whole post.

Because I'm missing Fringe

and to complete the YouTube overkill--


NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Part II

Heh, heh, heh

Well, it was Ben's birthday yesterday and nothing really special was on the horizon UNTIL I was walking down the sidewalk and found a twenty pound note. BOOYA!

Apologies to Sam, but as I am unemployed and Ben wasn't going to get any presents, I decided to jip the Found Fund and and shower Ben with all the vodka tonics 20 pounds could buy.

Oh, how the day picked up after that.

Baby, you deserved it.

Sometimes late at night

when I can't sleep, I turn to French and Saunders. This is always a dumb move since laughing out loud rarely proves to be soporific.

My favorites this week (both under a minute for you people who think you don't have time for such silliness)--

Kids and ice cream

I like how Jennifer Saunders is fighting so hard not to laugh at the end.

and

What postmodernism has done to art

Too many swear words to fit into this title

ARGH!!!!!!!!

Today a paper was sent home to notify parents that they'll be viewing a few of those Hey, Puberty, Here We Come videos in Moira's class. We had the same thing in my 5th grade class, and I've already covered those bases with Moira, so I was cool with that. UNTIL I kept reading and saw that there would be an additional video entitled 'Sex and You' or something horrid like that. Nooooooooo! I thought I could put off THAT talk just a little bit longer. I've had a lovely respite since Phil and Jim seems to be light years behind American schools with the whole boy-girl relationship thing. Coming here, we were transported back into a world where boys and girls both think of each other as totally icky (or at least keep their juvenile affections completely under wraps). Now it's going to be--Mom and Dad do WHAT?!?!?

The horror.

I feel an obligation to have this talk prior to the video. I remember my parents shoving a book in my direction--'Go, child, and learn on your own from this highly educational James Dobson book.' That always felt like a cop-out to me.

@!#*%$@!!!!!!!

(Obviously, I don't speak comic swear.)

I love market days

I love how frickin' cheap and fresh everything is. And I love the way those fruit and veg guys can add up infinite sums in their heads while simultaneously calling out what they're selling--"Juicy, juicy pineapple!" "Ripe banaaaaanas." And, of course, there's the way they call every customer 'mate' or 'honey' or 'love' or 'darling'.

But carrying all that back every week is a bitch. I'll let you know if it builds any character.

Officially desensitized

I was just watching Fringe and all these big assed larvae burst open a mangled corpse's chest, and I just kept on eating my cheese and pseudo chicken snack. I'm sure there's some sort of Boy Scout badge for this sort of thing, and I want it.

Bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh

Sick.

Yesterday I totally crashed with this cold. I'm terrified of passing this nasty on to the kids or Ben right now--they all have so much to do. Both of the girls have SATs testing all week and can't afford to get sick, and Ben is hoping to have the rough draft of his thesis done by this Friday. Meanwhile, this thing is kicking my butt and I'm trying to wash my hands and not touch surfaces and change pillow cases I've sneezed on. Do they sell Lysol in this country?

This is not good.

Man, oh, man

Never watch old episodes of Medium right before bed.

I just woke up from a seriously trippy bad dream. But that's okay because I had stuff I needed to do. So it's 2 am and I'm finishing up my job application and doing laundry. Blah, blah, blah.

I have a bad sore throat and I'm sure it's because I picked up tissues when I helped clean up Miss Hodgson's room on Friday. I forgot to wash my hands before heading out and I know I was rubbing my eyes outside at the Trap Grounds. Damn. Germy little kids.

I'm stalling.

Star Trek: Random insights (no real spoilers--not that you care)

Watched the movie today from an excellent Russian cam version online. Very nice. I don't know how to read Cyrillic but I'm pretty sure I didn't miss much.

Leonard Nimoy is looking more and more like a chimpanzee every day.
I had some serious, serious issues with a certain stupidly concocted romantic relationship. STUPID!

And (nerd admission) I was annoyed by the the Federation knowing all about Romulans even though, according to the series, no one had even seen a Romulan until much later . . . and in the series the first Romulan they saw happened to be Spock's dad who died and then later showed up again as a Vulcan ambassador. . . or maybe that was just an actor . . . sadly, too many years of watching Star Trek has blurred the line between fact and fiction. This was the nail in my mental coffin.

Why does Spock's dad suddenly have a fluctuating English accent?

Once again Star Trek is messing with time. But that's a pretty brilliant move if you want to continue making these movies--ditch most of the mythology so you can continue with whatever you want.

Nurse Chapel was only a voice in the background. That was cruel.

Did I mention a really, really horrible romantic relationship?

Expect too much Vulcan mushiness.

McCoy was especially well done, Chekov was very funny, Scotty got the most campy lines, and Sulu got to be kick-ass.

But overall--a very fun, sci-fi action movie with just the right amount of camp. For the non-nerds out there, definitely the most accessible Trek movie so far--no background knowledge needed. The special effects were very well done . . . but I saw the cam version so that could just be in my head.

So there. All you never wanted to know.

Volunteering is fun!

I just sat and listened to kids read and completely lost track of time. I was accidentally there for 2 hrs. instead of just half an hour. Euan's mom, Lynette, comes every Friday to help in the afternoon, so our time ended up overlapping. It was nice to work and chat with someone. You really feel close to a person after you've sharpened 100 pencils together.

After school I was hijacked by Moira who said we absolutely HAD to go to the Trap Grounds for the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new willow sculptures. The kids at Phil and Jim had worked with a local artist to create them. I really need to get a picture of the unicorn and the most impressive dragonfly that Moira worked on.

On the short walk from the school to the Trap Grounds I read on the school newsletter that there would be biscuits and squash for refreshments, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me why squash went with cookies. Um, it doesn't. This is squash. That stuff was pretty zingy--I think the kids didn't put fizzy water in it like they were supposed to. I'm sure we were being mocked from afar.

But the Trap Grounds are really quite pretty and we went for a walk along some of the trails after the ceremony. Oh, and the Lord Mayor of Oxford was there with her seriously heavy looking ornamentation. (no robe, just the bling)I looked her up on the Council website and this is what followed her picture--

"Currently the Right Worshipful the Lord Mayor of Oxford is Councillor Susanna Pressel."

Man, don't let that title go to your head.

Oh, did I mention I finally got around to watching Stigmata?

Yeah, well, I just did.

Thanks, Lauren. Boy, was that a lot of fun. All I wanted to do was sit down and relax and watch Patricia Arquette (and her teeth) get possessed, but I stupidly chose to do so with Ben.

"That's not Aramaic script. That's ancient Hebrew from the 9th century BC before the adoption of the Aramaic script."

"That's from the Gospel of Thomas."

"The Gospel of Thomas was written in Coptic not Aramaic."

"If anybody making this movie had read the Gospel of Thomas they wouldn't be saying that, because the Gospel of Thomas is some weeeeeeird stuff."

"The Gospel of Thomas was probably a Syriac church text."

Yeah.

I just wanted to watch her teeth.

I have no idea what bizarre movie this is from, but ha, ha, ha.

Ass clock!

I was minding my own business reading about the HMS Illustrious moored on the Thames (God knows why) when my eyes were assaulted by the most horrific yet hilarious widget EVER.

I REALLY wanted to put it on my blog, but I couldn't find the code for it anywhere. Alas. But here's a link to a page that shows it. Enjoy.

The interview that wasn't really but sort of was

Went well . . . I think.

The most interesting part was that Ms. Conway was in a meeting that ran late, so instead of talking to her I spoke with (crap, I can't remember her name) um, somebody, but it turns out that she was American, specifically from Dublin, Ohio. What are the chances, man? She's been here for 13 years after coming with her husband and two kids for an initial 3 years so her husband could attend Oxford. Uh, oh. If the similarities continue, we're never coming back. It was amazingly not weird to sit there and talk about things like Tuttle Mall and (after I mentioned I'd lived in Grandview) Staufs. Okay, I have to be honest here. It didn't even occur to me that she was speaking in an American accent until I told her where I was from and she said 'me too.' Seriously. I'm going to blame this on nerves, but really I think it's just my space cadet mode is becoming more and more frequent. Scary. Another fun moment was when she was so glad to hear the words 'bulletin board' as I talked about various responsibilities I'd had at the preschool. I guess they call it 'display board'--which sounds a lot more glamorous.

Anyway, we chatted about various relevent work/volunteer experience I've had, and she mentioned bits about the job and asked about what I'd be most comfortable doing. So I have an application to fill out and we'll see what happens. She conspiratorily told me to fill out the relevent experience section in length--apparently Ms. Conway has tossed applications because the experience section wasn't sufficiently detailed and she felt like that showed a lack of real interest in the job. And after our talk, during which she even wrote down that I supervised lunch activities, I can see that every detail counts. Believe me, I'm gonna go nitty gritty.

It's a little daunting because this is the first real job I've gone for--no slackers need apply. But I know if given the chance, I can do this. So I'm hopeful, but I realize that I'm not the absolutely best qualified person for this sort of thing. I fall more into the kinda sorta qualified category.

In other Big Brave Me news, I'm volunteering in Evie's class tomorrow. This is my first chance to be all maternal and involved. I think I'm just going to be listening to kids read. Asking Evie's teacher about volunteering was a little awkward--I think I was supposed to know all about it or something, which I didn't. I expect more awkwardness tomorrow. Fun, fun, fun.

Interesting news on the childrens' front--Evie is now in a school choir group called The Pink PJs. (It's only for year 2--the color for year 2 is pink, hence the pink theme.) And Moira skinned herself up pretty badly during her after school fitness club--the one that involves all sorts of wheelie things, skateboards, roller blades, etc. Moira wasn't on anything with wheels when she fell, she was running next to her friend (who was on a skateboard) and just tripped. Ironically, Moira had just handed over her elbow pads to her friend so she'd be safe on the skateboard. Coordination is not one of her gifts. And regarding her procrastination earlier this week, she was quite eager to get her work done early this time. Fear not, Anne. It's another Design a Brochure about blah, blah, blah assignment. Unfortunately, I think she's going to be hard pressed to get this done before bed time. To her credit, she almost always finishes her homework early and rarely needs any reminding. It's just these brochures that seem to take much longer than she plans. Whatever.

It's 11 o'clock

and my eldest daughter has just plowed through her first true homework procrastination session.

I'm so proud.

Possibly the saddest thing I've ever seen adults do

My favorite printed thing this week

Stephen Fry's letter to his 16 year old self.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!

THAT @#%&*!!!!!!! PIANO!!!!!!

A long, long time ago--I think it was in March . . .

This is a brief account of Jessica's visit to Oxford during her 16 hour layover in the UK. (Well, brief on words, long on pictures.) A truly inspiring account of endurance, good humor and grace under pressure.

Jessica arrived around 6:30ish (I wasn't there for that part). Ben went to Heathrow to pick her up and they were denied passage on the first bus to Oxford by a very rude driver who didn't feel the need to explain himself. They eventually arrived at Wolfson College where Jessica was treated to a truly English experience--clotted cream. I didn't know how to explain it, so I just told her it was fat. This, I'm afraid, is a fairly accurate description.

After a little visiting time at home (during which she gave us our most excellent housewarming gift), we headed down to the city centre where we tortured Jessica with not one tower climb but two. First was Carfax.



Some of the views were good (others were not--see below) but overall this was not what I was expecting. That's when I realized that I'd wanted to go up the tower in St. Mary's, not Carfax. Ben had misunderstood and I'd COMPLETELY zoned out and followed along. I like how I can walk to a place, stand there while we buy tickets, climb a tower and only at the top realize I'm not where I thought I was.

Don't puke.

Jessica and Evie reading graffiti.
We did not pay for the viewer.

After seeing this picture I realized just how much I needed to trim my kids' bangs.

Now I'm getting a little hazy on the details. I'm not sure, but I think after this we may have gone to lunch. We chose to take Jessica to The Turf because it's so tucked away that it gives the impression that we know this city inside and out (mind you, that's only an impression), and because it's just cool to go to a pub that's older than your own country. I don't know about Jessica's beer, but ours was not good. The first bad beer we've had in England. Shame on you, Turf. But we did have some interesting vegetarian food that included Yorkshire Pudding and very salty gravy.


I think at this point we just walked around for a little bit.



I'm glad I have this on record, and I hope they're both very, very ashamed.





Those pictures were in no particular order AT ALL.

For some reason the terror of confined spaces that I experienced in Carfax Tower just wasn't enough, and I decided we simply had to climb St. Mary's too. I have no idea why Jessica went along with this, but I'm sure it had to do with the jetlag.


These you'll remember from an earlier Found Fund post.




THAT'S the view I was looking for.

I frickin' LOVE this shot. (*sound of hand patting self on back*)


I'm not sure what these guys have to do with anything, but they were playing on Cornmarket Street and they were just soooooo small.

While we were downtown, we stopped in at Blackwell's to look for a journal that Jessica didn't really want to buy . . . and so she didn't. Then we hopped in a cab and went to look at the girls' school. I should really take some pictures sometime because I realize that's a place that I haven't sufficiently documented. Oh well. So we walked by the school and then walked to Port Meadow behind it.




Ben looks like he's up to something, but I think it was just the sun in his eyes . . . and maybe the fact that this was like the third take on this particular picture added to a bit of annoyance on his part.

At this point we headed back and went to the park just up the street from Phil and Jim. No kidding--Jessica was still on her feet. But finally, finally she yielded to exhaustion and we took her back home so she could shower and nap.

And then she was gone. *sniff* A taxi took her and Ben off to the bus station where he saw her off. I was seriously a little teary eyed as the girls and I waved goodbye to the taxi.

So there you go--the post you've all been waiting for. Wow! Blew your mind didn't it.

The strange conclusion

I finally got a response from Rani to my e-mail (well-crafted by Sam).

Dear Rani,

I’m not convinced I’ve heard the whole story as to why I was fired. For my own peace of mind, and because I value your friendship, could you please tell me what really happened? I’m very sorry if I did something wrong. I would really appreciate it if we could clear the air.

All the best for the future,

Jaime

Dear Jaimie,

I'm sorry for the late reply - Jay has been unwell and the house has been painted. I'm sorry you feel this way but we would be happy to give a phone reference.

Best wishes,

Rani


So no answers, but at least I can feel a little less nervous about having them on my resume . . . maybe. I guess I'll just put down the answer they gave me for letting me go, and hope for the best.

I still don't know how to act around them. Unfortunately, the only way to get to the girls' school (without going stupidly out of our way) is right down their street. And two of Rani's properties are right on the corner next to the school. So we've passed each other two awkward times. They've been in the car both times so we didn't have to talk, but it was still weird. Ugh. Before I just kind of stared past them, but after this e-mail does it mean I have to wave or something lame to keep up the illusion?

Another reason to love England

There were so many great lines in this article but the best bit was--"The Japanese tourists were comparing their videos."

In other news, I have an appointment to speak with Ms. Conway about the Teaching Assistant position. I think every other Teaching Assistant is actually someone who's currently studying to become a teacher, so we'll see if I even come close to qualifying. But it's worth a shot.

Ben didn't want to wake up with me at 5 am to go see all the May Day festivities, and I figured it was probably irresponsible to do that to the girls on a school day, so we all missed out on that particular tradition. We still got to see and hear a lot of accordion playing on the way to school today. And there was a house boat on the canal all decked out with a flower arch and a bunch of flags. And there was an old guy with a big leafy branch stuck in his hat. Maybe that was intentional or maybe he just failed to duck coming down the sidewalk. We'll never know. And you may or may not be happy to hear that 4 students were stupid enough to jump off of Magdalen Bridge despite the results that sort of behavior has had in previous years. I guess the kind of intelligence that gets you into Oxford is all sort of relative.