The mince pies will see us through.

Well, I survived my first round of deadlines, and after a couple of naps and a couple of good long runs, I'm feeling refreshed and ready to get into the Christmas spirit! Not that we've been lacking in Christmas cheer around the chaplaincy lately: we've already had two Christmas dinners here, one for CASSOC Sunday night and one for the house on Monday.


Emily, Laura and I at Severn Shed

The Sunday night festivities were actualy quite swanky. Everyone got all dressed up (I wore my lethal heels again, although I still have a gory puncture mark on my foot from stepping on myself on St. Andrews Night!), and we started the evening with Christmas carols in the chapel before Mass. After Mass, we had a mulled wine reception down in our bar, and then taxis came and took us all down the Severn Shed, a very nice restaurant on the waterfront. We had a full three-course meal complete with Christmas crackers and then came back to continue the party at the chaplaincy.

On Monday, Laura and I bravely undertook Operation Turkey Roast for the house meal. We certainly did our research beforehand: each of us consulted with our grandmothers, and with emphatic advice from several other parties added in, we had quite a large body of not entirely consistent turkey tips. We dove in with full confidence, however (animals can sense fear, you know), handling the two large carcasses like we'd been doing it all our lives. We put an apple inside the back end of each for added moisture (both grandmothers agreed about this) and stuffing in the front, then basted the whole thing and covered the top with streaky bacon to keep it from getting too crispy. Just under four hours later, we presented a very moist, flavorful result. Thanks to all parties who contributed advice!


Turkey masters.

The rest of the meal consisted of a melon starter, about a thousand kinds of vegetables (strange English custom -- Americans know that holidays are all about eating junk food), bread sauce for the meat (mashed up bread and milk stuck in a blender -- who knew?), and cranberry sauce. For dessert, we had Christmas pudding with brandy poured over top and lit. And, because aside from the pyrotechnics, Christmas pudding isn't too impressive, a nice chocolate log. We finished up with house pictures and Secret Santa presents (I got two nice bags of coffee to feed my habit -- thanks, Steve!) and, to put the perfect ending to a perfect night, a lovely girlie viewing of Bridget Jones with the requisite amount of cuddling and squealing at the cute Colin Firth moments. Ahhhh -- the Christmas season is off to a good start.


Housies!

And now -- only three days 'til I come home!! I can't believe it. It seems like I just left and that I've been here forever, both at the same time. FYI -- I'm going to be home the 18th through the 29th, so if you're going to be around Lawrence, let me know! I can't wait to catch up with everyone.

The Bristol Christmas festivities are well-documented on my photo site, so have a look here. Happy holidays, and I hope to see lots of you soon!

I hope heaven looks a lot like Scotland.

Lindsey's off to France and I'm back in Bristol this evening after a dreamy Scottish weekend. I was quite excited to ditch work for a couple days and get back to my favorite place in the world! We took the train up on Friday after Greek, and we made it to Edinburgh in time for dinner. Coming up onto the Waverley Bridge was magical as usual, this time with the castle, the ferris wheel and the German Christmas markets all lit up in the dark. We headed straight to the Doric Tavern across the way to start the weekend off right with some haggis and a pint and a reunion with Lauren, Sarah and Al.

Lindsey and I jammed Saturday full with all of the usual Edinburgh highlights. First, we took advantage of a rare clear, sunny morning to climb Arthur's Seat. It was unbelievably beautiful, and so windy we almost got blown off the top! We saw the castle and the palace and had some time for shopping on Princes Street before heading back to Lauren's to get pretty for the St. Andrew's Night party at the chaplaincy. They really outdid themselves this year! We heard a bagpiper in the distance about a quarter mile from the uni, and it turned out he was playing on the chaplaincy steps to welcome everyone in. We had a killer three-course meal with haggis, neeps and tatties (two nights in a row! hard to beat), and Farlane recited the Ode to the Haggis and performed the ritual haggis-stabbing with appropriate gusto. After dinner we had mulled wine and a full-on ceilidh, during which I managed to puncture my own foot with my high heel (but luckily leave everyone else unscathed). It was great to see many of my old (and some new, from September) chaplaincy buddies, and of course, it's always a pleasure to spend time with a roomful of men in kilts!

Sunday, predictably, got off to a bit of a slow start, but after a traditional greasy Scottish breakfast at a diner on Newington Road we were feeling fine. We had a pretty low-key day and went to Mass in the evening (which was, pleasantly, packed to overflowing) at the chaplaincy. Fittingly, we ended the weekend at the Southsider, which under Lauren's regime has become the official pub of the Catholic Students Society -- what an admirable legacy!

I'm feeling a little loopy after getting up at 4:30 this morning and half-running, half-walking to the Waverley only to find my train cancelled and getting rerouted, finally arriving home in Bristol 5 minutes before I had to leave for Latin! Panic is beginning to set in as I realize that yes, today is Dec. 3 and I have 10 days to finish all my applications and work for the term, but I'm sure it will all come together. I'm sure breathing that fine Scottish air all weekend will get me off to a good start.

I took tons of fun pics this weekend -- have a look here.

We were so thankful, we gorged ourselves twice.

Lindsey arrived on Tuesday, just in time for Thanksgiving! She came bearing supplies for our full-on American-style feast -- canned pumpkin and white marshmallows, neither of which we can get here. Did a massive grocery shop at the big Sainsbury's on Wednesday afternoon, then got an early start on Thursday morning making the pumpkin pies and chopping potatoes. Lindsey took over as Thanksgiving chef extaordinaire when I had to go to class from 4 to 6, and when I came back the feast was almost complete. We had chicken (the only inauthentic part -- just didn't feel like dealing with the whole turkey thing), mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, rolls and pie with "aerosol cream" (sketchy-looking but still delicious Reddi-Whip). We had to explain the whole Thanskgiving phenomenon to my housemates (and reassure them that it really is OK to put cranberry sauce on the rest of your food, if you like), but they caught on quick -- who could argue with a day dedicated to stuffing yourself? Before dessert, we had a wine toast and all went around and said what we were thankful for, which turned out to be a really nice touch. People were a little skeptical about the pumpkin pie thing, but it was a big hit.



And then, we did it all over again last night! Matt's friend Courtney, an American girl from Missouri, coordinated another big Thanksgiving dinner for 15 or so people and assigned everyone a dish to bring. Not all of the Brits knew what exactly what to make of their assignments -- it's been a while since I've seen something as funny as two English guys trying to make cornbread, of which neither of them had ever heard -- but everything came out amazingly well! We had real turkey, and Courtney made an amazing pecan, fig and rum pie. Lindsey and I made delicious candied sweet potatoes, complete with marshmallow topping.

Lindsey has been doing some sightseeing on her own this week as I buckle down and try to get things under control before we take off for Scotland on Friday. She's made it to Bath, is in Cardiff now, and will hit London tomorrow and Monday. So, meanwhile, I'd better get crackin'. But first, here are some pics of Thanskgiving(s) in Bristol!

Sign me up.

It's been a long weekend of work here, but it's felt good to get back into essay-writing mode again. Sometimes I forget that this is the fun stuff: when the tens of books and hundreds of pages of notes littering my room come together to make something coherent, and all the passive absorption of facts, arguments and narratives gives way to active synthesis and creative presentation. Yeah, this grad school thing is a pretty good deal.



This afternoon, Matt and I took a little break to have a proper English high tea. We had the obligatory sultana scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, as well as cucumber finger sandwiches with the rind cut off the cucumber and the crusts removed from the bread, and cut into dainty little triangles. I almost gave poor Matt a heart attack by getting ready to put mayo on the sandwiches. I should have known by now -- the all-purpose British condiment is butter. At least here in the house, they slather it on absolutely everything. I wonder if the queen eats butter-and-cucumber sandwiches? Very posh, I'm sure.

Tonight I took my first step towards starting a pro-life society here, something I've been slowly working towards since I got here. We had a great talk after Mass this evening by a woman who's the head of public health in Southwest England, talking about a lot of important issues including the shockingly high abortion rate (200,000 per year -- and the NHS pays for 90% of them!), and Fr. Robert let me stand up after to recruit students to start doing something to change things, or at least get people to start thinking about the issue. It is truly amazing how little abortion is actually on the political or moral radar screen in this country. You just never hear anything about it. Out of 30+ people who attended the talk, I had only three interested people sign up. And all three guys -- no women! There's a lot of work to done here, especially with changes to the Abortion Act being debated right now. But starting small is better than doing nothing at all. Thumbs up for life!

Reading, schmeading.

Thank goodness for reading week. "Reading Week" has actually been a bit of a misnomer for what I've actually been up to for the past seven days -- "Obsessing over Personal Statements Week" would be much more appropriate -- but I have managed to make some headway on coursework, and to make a quick trip to York on Wednesday!

It was going to be a whirlwind trip to begin with, but it ended up even more so because my train up got cancelled. Grrr. I got on one an hour later, which got me there at 1:45, so I had six hours to explore the city before heading back. York is very, very charming, with the medieval buildings and pretty Yorkshire countryside combining to give it a real fairy-tale feel. The city centre is very compact and a quick walk from the train station, so I had no trouble finding the Minster, which is just as amazing as everyone says. Daylight was burning, so after a preliminary gape I wandered out to the city walls (which stand on the old Roman ones), which you can walk along the top of for a great view of the Minster through the back gardens surrounding it. Next I found the Yorkshire Museum, in the middle of some really charming gardens by the river, because my guidebook said it had some impressive Roman goodies...eh, not so much. There was, though, a pretty gratifyingly grisly head of still-styled 4th-century woman's hair on display, which justified the price of admission. I headed back east and South afterwards to see Clifford's Tower, what remains of York Castle, and an old, narrow street called The Shambles which used to be packed with merchants and flowing with filth but is now lined with chocolate and tea shops. Speaking of which, possibly the highlight of my day was having proper afternoon Yorkshire cream tea in a little tea room just off the Shambles. Two thumbs up for scones with clotted cream and jam! Just after dark, I went back to the Minster for evensong. The inside really is spectacular, although in the dark I couldn't really get a good look at the stained glass windows, which are made of the biggest pieces of Medieval glass in Europe. It was a treat to see the girls' choir singing with the men's choir -- some of these little girls must have been 6 or 7 years old, but the sound was amazing! After evensong, I had a quick chips & cheese dinner at supposedly the oldest pub in York, then scurried off to the train station to come home. Not a bad tour for six hours, eh? See York for yourself here -- I took lots of pics.

Other than York, it's mostly been work this week, with breaks for a few fun things like going ice skating with some of my coursemates and, of course, forcing some of my housemates to watch the X-Factor last night. Now, I'm counting down to Lindsey's arrival on Tuesday -- two weeks of fun coming up, along with a proper American Thanksgiving and a trip to Edinburgh for St. Andrews Night!

Bring it on.

Today begins my reading week, one of the great features of the classics & ancient history academic calendar. That's right -- even though we've only had five weeks of class, they figure our brains msut be completely shattered by now, so they're giving us a week off to recoup. Which means a whole blessed week of time to work on grad school applications and begin work on essays that are due in the next month. And, because seriously, you have to goof off just a little in a free week, I'm going to York on Wednesday for the day to see York Minster and all sorts of Roman goodies. I'll have almost four hours to read on the train each way, so it's actually quite the responsible thing to do.

This week has had its ups and downs, one of the more crushing downs being the sudden, inexplicable death of my 6-month old iPod yesterday. This leaves me, the bereaved iTunes junkie, with only the Arctic Monkeys' latest album, Trisha Yearwood's Everybody Knows, and "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran accessible in my library, because my music files didn't transfer properly to my new computer before I left. Don't get me wrong, that's all solid stuff, but it's not much variety to last me till Christmas when I can restock at home. Aargh.

There's nothing like a good chaplaincy pub trip to make things better, though, and we had a couple of good ones this week. We had some delicious Banana Bread Beer ("I'll take another for breakfast!") at Wetherspoon's on Monday night, and last night we went to the famous Cori (Coronation) Tap in Clifton Village to try some of their famous strong cider. The bouncers who checked our IDs at the door were appalled by the lack of Englishness in our group, and I got called a "flatlander." I was vindicated by the second bouncer, though, who looked at Steve's ID and groaned, "Illinois? That's even worse!" Darned right!

Today is Remembrance Sunday, which has been anticipated for a couple of weeks by lots of people (and all the TV presenters) wearing red lapel-poppies to support veterans. The big memorial service at the Cenotaph in London will be later this morning, so maybe I'll go watch some of that.

Matt and I got roped into cooking dinner for CASSOC tonight, and we decided to make jacket (=baked) potatoes. What does one put in a jacket potato, you might ask? Baked beans, tuna fish and/or cheese, apparently -- not sour cream or cottage cheese or any of the normal stuff!

Well, in the spirit of reading week, I'm going to get back to Prudentius' Peristephanon, a collection of horrifically gory poems describing the deaths of early fourth-century martyrs, including one in which St. Cassian's students rip him apart with their styluses. Ugh. On a more pleasant note, here are a whole bunch of random pub pictures for your entertainment.

Pyromania.

Halloween here isn't exactly the sugar-crazed affair that it is at home (definitely more about booze than candy), but we managed to have a pretty good celebration on Wednesday. Daniela carved a couple of pumpkins that we lit up during dinner (and, when the lids began to burn from the inside, we lit the stems for good measure and made weird pumpkin torches). None of us had costumes, but we spent a good half hour hanging out in front of the union watching students in fancy dress come by and get scared out of their wits by a friend of Matt's brother, who was dressed up as a pile of trash bags sitting along the street and would jump out at groups passing by.

I had two presentations this week, one on reception studies for the MA Theories and Approaches class and on reception of the Aristophanes myth in Plato's Symposium. They both went fine, although due to lack of material for the latter, I eventually resorted to using Mariah Carey and Jewel Lyrics for filler. They were actually strangely appropriate -- it's a very pop-music notion that each of us has an "other half" out there that we're just waiting to find. Pssshhh.

Another fun language thing started up this week: a spoken Latin group on Friday afternoons! My Greek prof is leading it, and quite a few of us turned up for the first session, which mostly consisted of him talking at us in Latin and us asking each other how-do-you-do and what's-your-name questions (Quid agis? Quid est nomen tibi?). Surprisingly, it wasn't very difficult to get used to being jabbered at in pretty simple Latin. Hopefully we'll be able to have more sophisticated conversations soon.

The PhD application process is now officially underway. Writing personal statements, as usual, has been accompanied by feelings of worthlessness, existential angst and insanity, along with urges to jump out the window and/or chuck school altogether and join the circus. The strange part is that I find all this almost comforting: it's so familiar from last year that getting back into the mindset has been like getting reacquainted with an old friend. How sick.

Luckily, there have been some fun things going on to get me away from the computer, including the Bonfire Night fireworks last night on the Downs. (Guy Fawkes isn't till tomorrow -- remember, remember, the fifth of November -- but Bristol celebrated on Saturday night.) The fireworks got off to a good start at about 7:30, but they stopped abruptly after a few minutes after a shell went haywire and exploded into the crowd in front of us! A couple ambulances came screaming in, but nobody seemed to be seriously hurt, and they started the fireworks up again after half an hour or so.



The great fall weather here continues to hold out, and I've had some of the most beautiful runs and walks ever in the past couple of weeks. Check out pics of Halloween, pretty fall leaves, and the Bonfire Night festivities here!

London

I was in London this weekend, doing a lot of reading, writing, and thinking. And wandering -- lots of wandering. London is probably my favorite place to wander in the whole world, and it's at its best in the fall. I got in at about lunchtime on Saturday afternoon and dumped my stuff at the hostel where I've stayed quite a few times now and set out exploring with a few books and a notebook in my bag. Here I'm going to make a horrifying, shameful admission, so all you high-culture lovers out there, avert your eyes now: I stopped into the British Museum to use the bathroom, and then left. (OK, I had a quick peek at the Rosetta Stone to assuage my conscience. And I went back to see the Elgin Marbles yesterday, so don't write me off yet.) The thing is, I came to see London in October 2007, not Egypt several millennia ago. I came to feel what makes London in the fall different from London at any other time of year; to sense my place in this city, this country, and the world; and to figure out what was going in my head by taking my thoughts for a long, leisurely stroll. My aims may not have been sophisticated, but I'm feeling a lot more peaceful this Monday morning for having accomplished them.

The dots that connected my wanderings were some of my favorite places to visit. On Saturday, I hit the Bertie and Jeeves-reminiscent bits of Piccadilly (including Fortnum & Mason), Green Park, Knightsbridge (I looked around the Harrods food halls and went to the Saturday vigil Mass at the Brompton Oratory), Piccadilly Circus at night, Chinatown (I had some yummmy fried noodles with prawns and got some crazy looks for reading Plato at dinner). Sunday was alternately drizzly and rainy and a little less pleasant, but I still saw quite a bit, including the Tudor section of the National Portrait Gallery, the 19th century section in the National Gallery, Covent Garden, and South of the Thames near the Eye and Parliament. I spent a while reading in the library of the British Museum (it had to get done sometime), and planned to look around some but only got to the Parthenon gallery before I realized it was time to get a train home.

I got back in time for the CASSOC dinner last night, and it's back to business this morning. I hope I haven't given you all coronaries with my almost total disregard for cultural artifacts this weekend. If you'd like to take a look at what I did see, check out my pictures from London here.

Spiritual evenings and crazy nights.

One thing I can say about our calendar of events here at the chaplaincy: it's extremely well-balanced. We have Mass here every Tuesday evening at 7:30, and we alternate between holding an event of either a more spiritual or social nature afterwards. Last week we had adoration and night prayer; this week we had a massive CASSOC pub crawl. Alphabet fancy-dress parties and pub crawls seem to be a big thing here: often people will come up with a costume corresponding to a certain letter of the alphabet for a night out, or as in this case, we planned our route to spell out CASSOC. I wanted to get some work done, so I caught up later and only spelled SSOC (lame, I know). We cheated a bit, actually, to cut down on the number of location changes, and combined the S's and the O-C. We went to a quite swanky bar called the Severn Shed on the waterfront and then proceeded to a huge, multi-level dance club called Oceana. It had several elaborate themed rooms, including a hunting lodge complete with roaring fire and antlers and a dimly lit, velvet-covered French boudoir. Bristolians are serious about their clubbing, it seems.

I don't have class 'til German tonight, so I'm going to try to get a bunch of reading done before the next CASSOC event, our fortnightly pub lunch this afternoon. I've been reading lots and lots on Augustine this week, still hoping that if I keep this up, a blinding beam of light will break through the library ceiling above my carrel and flood my head with the inspiration and clarity I need to get through the next couple months of writing and thinking. Seems reasonable, right?

Thermae et rugbius.

We're in the middle of a "fine" spell here, so yesterday Matt and I decided to take advantage of the perfect weather and make a day trip to Bath. It was pretty darned exciting to see the steaming green waters of the Roman baths after years of seeing them in textbooks! You can go right down to the side of them, walk on the original (70 A.D.) floors, and touch the water. We also saw lots of altars dedicated to Sulis Minerva and folded up curses asking for retribution upon cloak-snatchers and other scoundrels that were found in the baths. The price of admission also includes a glass of warm water from the spring, which you collect in the Pump Room (Jane Austen enthusiasts, get excited!). The stuff is NASTY -- pretty much like drinking molten metal -- but I'm happy to have had my health fortified!



Aside from the baths, the rest of the town is completely charming: the well-kept Georgian buildings that make up the center make it look uniformly stately, and you can picture the carriages that would have held Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth driving up and down the streets. We got Cornish pasties again for lunch and ate in a really gorgeous park down by the river Avon, watching pigeons peck around our feet and the boats on the water. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, up to the Fashion Museum, out to the Georgian crescent, through some more parks, and back to the center. With the great weather, the turning leaves, and all the town out enjoying themselves, it was a perfect day. It will be easy to go back, too -- it only takes 15 minutes on the train to get to Bath from Bristol! Look at my pics from Bath here.

When we got back, rugby fever had overtaken Bristol, as the World Cup Final between England and South Africa was set for 8:00. We went down to a pub near here to watch the game (mostly the fans, really), and to cheer on South Africa -- as Matt is loyal to Wales and I to Scotland, we are both honor bound never to root for England against anyone. South African stomped them, so we went home happy.

It's down to business the rest of the weekend, and this week. I'm trying to stave off panic as the next round of grad school applications and a new batch of essay deadlines approaches --help! But I'm sure it will all get done somehow, and I'm glad to have made time for a little play this weekend.

Forget work. Let's eat cake.

After the first week of (a few of my) classes, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to do with myself here. The resources are here to learn a lot and do really good work, but I find it a little strange that, for example, no one cares whether I know or learn any Latin or Greek. Postgrad courses in ancient languages aren't even offered, and you can get away with working in translation in all the MA seminars. So, it's up to those of us who do think it's important to read things in the original to place ourselves in whatever undergrad courses are best suited to our needs. It's a bit of a shot in the dark coming from the American system, and this week I think I missed, at least with Greek: we only read about 15 lines in a 2-hour seminar, most of the problem being that the undergrads don't know or care to look up any Greek words. So, now I'm looking at jumping into a different course a week late and having a go at something else. It seems odd to have to fight so hard to learn anything.

That all sounds pretty negative, but all in all, there's still no doubt in my mind that I'm in the right place. Our MA seminars should all be quite good, if a little ancient language-less, and there are a ton of brilliant people here to help me do whatever it is I want to do. Once I figure out my essay and dissertation topics, things should really pick up.

The pleasant surprise of the week was German on Wednesday night. The teacher didn't speak a word of English until the last ten minutes of class! It was a little shocking at first, but we all caught on quickly, and she had us introducing ourselves, saying where we were from, and talking about the genders and professions of Claudia Schiffer, Karl Marx, and other notable Germans by the end of class. James from the house is in my class, and he already seems to know quite a bit, so I'll have someone to practice with at home.

We just finished our first week of the cooking rota at home, and I'm pleased to report that it's going to be a year of good eatin'. I'd better keep up the running, though -- I've had cake for dessert every night this week! Other than eating, we've all been doing a good bit of just vegging out together watching trashy TV and movies. It's not all EWTN in the chaplaincy, don't you worry.

Vive la rugby.

This weekend I got swept up in rugby fever. My friend Matt (from the house) and I made a day trip to Cardiff on Saturday just for fun. Matt's Welsh, so he was a great tour guide. We knew when we set out that the World Cup of Rugby quarterfinal between France and New Zealand would be going on that evening and that things were going to get a little crazy in town, but I wasn't expecting the place to be mobbed before noon by thousands of rabid fans in crazy outfits! There were French and New Zealanders all decked out in team apparel when we went to Cardiff Castle first thing, and by the time we came out total madness had descended upon the city. We were surrounded by French fans wearing berets and chicken heads (very confusing at first -- our French housemate later explained that the cockrel is the official symbol of France) and wielding baguettes, and Kiwis with black-and-white painted faces and wigs and wearing an alarming amount of spandex. After stopping to have a Cornish pasty on the street and watch everyone, we wandered down to Cardiff Bay and saw the new opera house and assembly building. All really pretty and impressive. By the time we got back to the city center, the fans had overtaken all the main streets that had been full of traffic earlier. The pubs had long ago overflown, and huge crowds were drinking and yelling and singing in the streets. We got some fish and chips and stood by and watched it all, then headed back to Bristol just before game time. Such a fun day.



The term has now officially started! We had our first Mass at the chaplaincy on Sunday night, followed by a buffet and drinks downstairs in our bar, and I had my first Latin class yesterday. I am quite pumped to get to read some of the Confessions and the City of God under the direction of a really accomplished Augustinian scholar. Greek starts today -- cross your fingers that I remember any.

In other news -- I made the BBC! Check out this link to an article on BBC Bristol featuring a picture of some of us handing out tea and cakes during Freshers' Week.

Also, new pictures are up! Click here for shots of Freshers' Week and Cardiff.

That's all for today! Happy week!

Catholics have the best free food.

To follow up on my last post: yesterday I did indeed meet lots and lots of classicists at last! I got my course schedule sorted out in the morning -- complete with meeting dates and times for everything -- and in the afternoon met all of my coursemates. We had a library tour (first they won't let me in, now they want to show me how to take advantage of all its resources -- will these people make up their minds?), then a meeting with our personal tutor for the MA, then an all-school party. There are about 15 of us doing the MA, and it's a pretty chick-heavy group -- only 4 guys! Quite a few of them did undergrads at Bristol (I guess it's a good sign that they liked it enough to stick around), and the rest are British except for me and a girl from Omaha, of all places. Everyone got on really well, so it should be a fun group to hang out with. Unfortunately, it will be a while before I see them again, because other than our theories and approaches seminar, postgrad classes don't even start until the week after next! It will be almost Christmas before we get around to doing anything. But I do have Greek, Latin and German next week, so I'll definitely be able to keep myself busy.

For the past two afternoons, I've been helping to represent CASSOC (the Catholic students' society) at the freshers' fair. We've been handing out free tea and cakes outside the chaplaincy and signing people up at a table in the union, enticing them with the offer of a free buffet after Mass on Sunday night. I walked around in all the mayhem today and, along with a zillion fliers that are now in the recycle bin, picked up a few useful things such as a flashlight-cum-rape whistle and a spatula.

In other exciting news: I am now in possession of both a Young Person's Rail Card and tickets to Edinburgh for St. Andrew's Day weekend! The big swanky party and ceilidh at the chaplaincy there are not to be missed. Plus, the German Christmas markets and the ferris wheel will be up on Princes Street and the Christmas lights will be strung up all over town, so everything will be extra magical. Oh boy.

I am a mouse, and education is my cheese.

Today, after two weeks here, I met a real, live classicist! Since Monday when I registered and began to try to figure out what courses are being offered, when they are supposedly to be held, and whether the professors assigned to teach them actually exist outside of cyberspace, it has seemed increasingly unlikely that such an event would actually take place. As much as it pains me to say so, and as little as I ever expected to have to make this admission, here it is: KU's bureaucracy is a paragon of efficiency and transparency when compared to the British university system.

At KU, although it may take you twenty visits to various offices all over campus and cost you hundreds of dollars to change your schedule after you have enrolled, at least you know what classes are being offered and when and where they will meet several months before the new semester begins. And as unpleasant as it is to spend one's time in, say, Wescoe Hall, no one has ever physically been prevented from exiting the building if it is his or her will to do so.

Things work a little differently here.

I received an email over the weekend, just above one week before the start of classes, informing me of what classes are on offer. The accompanying instructions seemed simple enough: go to the classics building on Monday afternoon at an appointed time and put your name down a sign-up sheet outside the doors of the professors whose classes you are interested in taking. Sounds doable. When I showed up at 11 Woodland Road after lunch on Monday, though, I found that the door was locked and that I couldn't get in without entering the proper security code, which of course nobody gives you, on the adjacent keypad. Luckily, a student in the know came along and let me in behind him, and was even kind enough to tell me the code. Getting in, however, did me little good: none of the professors whose classes I wanted to take had posted sign-up sheets, and there was not a human being in sight. OK, I figure, I'll go home and email them. So I head for the door. I push. I pull. I twist the lock. I even grunt a little. Nothing happens. Somebody comes up behind me. I get embarassed and head back down the hallway. I don't want anyone to know that I can't open a door! I turn a corner soon enough and find another door. I push. I pull. Someone else is coming. I flee. I realize with horror that the entire row of buildings on Woodland Row is connected in the back by a massive glass maze, and I am trapped. All around me, people are walking up and down hallways covered in unopenable doors, and nobody else seems to be trying to escape. Whenever I find myself alone for a moment, I frantically push and pull on the nearest door, until I realize this is going nowhere and find myself standing staring abjectly out at the wide world beyond -- so close, yet so far! Suddenly, the fighting spirit revives. I will not be defeated by the Arts Faculty Building before I even enroll. I find one last door, and it has a keypad beside it. Holding my breath, I punch in the code the student gave me. The door clicks open! I am suddenly standing in the rain in a carpark I have never seen. But it doesn't matter. I am free.

Since my escape from the hamster playland of hell that is Woodland Road, I have made contact with several professors and begun to get things sorted out. I have appointments with several of them tomorrow to enroll in classes that have not been assigned meeting dates, times, or places -- but if this doesn't concern them, maybe it shouldn't concern me. The classicist I met today was more precisely my Greek tutor, who is also American and equally mystified by the workings of the university. I look foward to meeting the British segment of the faculty tomorrow, and maybe finally getting some answers. That is, if these people actually exist.

Getting started

Hello from Bristol! I am all settled here and finally internet-connected. (Warning: this could get long -- if you want to cut straight to the pics, click here.) My first ten days here couldn't have been better. Bristol has been a really natural fit, and I love the city and especially my new home and housemates. Getting here and finding the Catholic chaplaincy (where I live) went amazingly smoothly. The chaplaincy, which will be home to eleven of us students by the end of the week, is a really lovely old house with a very cozy living room, a dining room big enough to seat all of us, two libraries stocked with everything from the catechism to Harry Potter, and a bar in the basement (our main selling point!). My room is probably the size of our old room for four in the schol hall, and with four walls, a door and even a sink all to myself, the place feels like a penthouse. Thanks to Fr. Robert, who very kindly drove me to IKEA right after I got in, I was able to get it fixed up in cheap student style in no time.

My housemates are, quite simply, the nicest people in the entire world. We're a pretty international bunch, with Romania, Poland, the U.S., England, Wales and France represented so far. It's been a ton of fun getting to know everybody throughout the week and especially after Mass on Sunday night, which is our big social time. Last night I got home from Scotland at about 9, and everyone had a birthday cake and a little present waiting for me, not even knowing when I'd be back. How did I get so lucky? 'Blessed' is really the right word, of course, and I'm amazed every day at how good God has been to me here.

The big excitement last week was my trip to Edinburgh for a big four-day reunion with friends and birthday celebration. It was great to be back and see all my favorite people and places again. I got in late Wednesday afternoon, and it was a huge thrill to emerge from the train station onto the Waverley Bridge and get my first view of the city in a year and a half. Edinburgh is magical in a way the memory can't fully capture. I got to crash with Lauren and Catherine in their new flat, spend some great quality time with Sarah and Al, go dancing with Claire, and catch up with the whole chaplaincy gang and John at the convent. I had a full-blown birthday party at the Southsider (where else?) on Friday night, complete with sunflowers and party hats (yay Lauren!) and lots of good friends.

Well, enough yappin'! Time for some pictures. I've finally put together a Picasa site where I'll post web albums of my photos all year. Click here for pics of Bristol and Scotland. There are also some highlights from the summer up for those who are interested. You might find yourself in there. For my main photo site, click here.

I plan to post as often as possible, so check back for new developments! I'll have to fill you all in on some interesting stories from the past week or so, including how I got banned from the library for trying to read things and how I got trapped like a hamster inside the Arts Faculty on registration day. Believe it or not, some things about this place actually make KU look efficient by comparison.

OK, enough for now. I hope you are all well, and please keep in touch, whether through email, snail mail, comments on the blog, or phone calls!

Cheers,

Annie