Today Hilary invited some of her British buddies from Uni to enjoy the company of flatmates and some home cooked American barbecue. I'll admit that my sauce was a little soupy, but the chicken might have been the most delicious moist chicken that I've ever made.
Bragging aside, it was a cool chance to hear the accent up close and personal again, hear some real live students talk about their home lives and prejudices (....I can never understand that damned Liverpool accent....) and about their satisfaction with Nottingham as a school.
Carol opened up the dinner with a 'meditation', as is the case during most meals, and despite her concluding the poem with "I think it's a gorgeous poem, but I really have no idea what it means...." It really struck a nerve with me, and apparently Mary, who has also posted it on her blog....
Here goes, with the 'confusing parts' omitted:
-Places We Love-
Places we love exist only through us, Space destroyed is only illusion in the constancy of time, Places we love we can never leave, Places we love together, together, together,
And is this room really a room, or an embrace, And what is beneath the window: a street or years? And the window is only the imprint left by The first rain we understood, returning endlessly…
And this door leads into any afternoon Which outlives it, forever peopled With your casual movements, as you stepped, Like fire into copper, into my only memory;
When you go, space closes over like water behind you, Do not look back: there is nothing outside you, Space is only time visible in a different way, Places we love we can never leave.
As far as useless shit goes, this might take the cake (that is, of course, ignoring cutesy kleenex box covers and most American Doll collections). That doesn't, however, prevent me from wanting these talking stuffed dolls from Little Britain. As much as I've watched the show in the last few months, I still hurt myself laughing. It's a love hate relationship- I love it, my homework hates me.
This find reminds me of two facts: 1, my birthday is in 5 days, and 2, I must really not want to do this essay for Mark and Carol. One journal to go, a newspaper response to revise, and a 2500 word essay I have yet to start.
In other British cultural news (that is, to say, TV), I've recently discovered the trashy addictive qualities of Skins, an OC-wannabe show on E4 that takes the basic premise of The OC (skanky high schoolers in a rich setting) and makes up for a lack of Californian scenery with drugs and partial nudity. Basically, it's the sugary, drug induced crap of legend. Critics call it painfully unrealistic, while it is immensely popular among teens here for its almost dreamlike quality (Why Can't My Life Be Like This?)....
Looking for an absolute bullshit introduction into the Essence of England? Look no further than the RoughGuide books or website, which offer this 'gem':
Like an ageing cabaret star shuffling onto the stage, England really needs no introduction. When even the world’s most remote communities are on first-name terms with its footballers, princes and prime ministers, it’s clear that everyone knows something about this crowded nation, perched on Europe’s western fringe. As a visitor, you can pick your favourite slice of “Englishness” and indulge yourself in a country with a notorious taste for nostalgia. The tales of King Arthur; the works of Shakespeare; the exploits of Drake; the intellect of Johnson; the invention of Brunel; the leadership of Churchill; the cult of Diana – all are endlessly recycled in England, providing a cultural backdrop to an unparalleled range of historic buildings, monuments and landscapes.
You've got to be kidding me. Cabaret star? Who writes this stuff? I read this aloud to Mark yesterday, to which he responded with (something to the effects of) "Who the hell wrote that?! Are you serious?!?" .... this coming from a sensitive, elfin-like literary scholar from America's heartland...
Today I was leafing through a British Phrase Book that I received as a gift, and it made me laugh. I found myself laughing, mumbling to myself and coming to the realization that damn, I've been here for an awfully long time, and damn, I'm going to miss this quirky-ass nation.
Place pronunciations, slang terms, ironic stories of history, the roots of phrases.... it's become a part of who I am over the past year, and I can't quite remember myself without it.
In true RoughGuides fashion, I also glanced at their Top Things To Do in the UK... here's a little checklist that apparently I've not been so successful at completing...
1 Soaking up the Edinburgh Festival. 2 Go West - walking the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. 3 Punting on the Cam. 4 Supping Guinness in Dublin. 5 Wandering Borrowdale in the Lake District. 6 Be humbled by Durham Cathedral. 7 Cycling in the New Forest. 8 See the Belfast Murals. 9 Surfing in Newquay. 10 Breathing in the sea air in Tobermory. 11 Hiking in Snowdonia. 12 Hunting ghosts in York. 13 Hitting the streets for Notting Hill Carnival. 14 Getting away from it all on Skellig Michael. 15 Get lost in the Balti Triangle. 16 Clubbing in London. 17 Walking on Dartmoor. 18 Trundling along the West Highlands Railway. 19 Winning the prehistoric lottery (Newgrange Lottery, Co Meath). 20 Watching a football match at Old Trafford. (i'll pretend that City Grounds counts) 21 Losing yourself in Connemara. 22 Take a stroll from St Paul's to Tate Modern. 23Holkham magic: visiting the best beach in Britain. 24 Walking the walls of Conwy Castle. 25 Experience Glastonbury.
I took some creative liberties, mainly 'clubbing', 'Old Trafford', guesses as to where exactly Dartmoor was, and pretending that the antique market in Notting Hill is just as good as the Carnival...
With just one month remaining, and a few thousand words to type, the giant metaphoric clock is ticking... Tomorrow Kate and Emily leave for Norway for some last-minute travel, and it looks like a trend of flat-notsomuch-togetherness might follow suit. Mary hits the road with a few visitors later, while Hilary and Ryan are planning a much needed trip to Scotland before the year is out... Aside from our finals with Mark and Carol and a few choice birthdays, our time as a unit is dwindling...
As much as I feel the pull home, I know that two weeks in, I'll be itching for my Nottingham friends and the feeling of the flat... you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.... you can quote me on that.
So, sitting in class today, I became very aware of a universal truth. Not many people can say that, so I'll preface it by saying that no, it's not as profound as it sounds, and yes, the second I thought of it, I imagined how I could possibly blog about it.
I digress.
So there we were- me, floundering in a sea of British students, discussing the merits of 24, LOST, Televisual style- you know, typical TV Cultures BS, when our prof did the unthinkable.... he asked a question. For a highschooler, this is old hat- teachers are supposed to do that. Hell, even at Luther a prof would be considered an ass if he didn't fraternize with the students at some point. But here? This is the big time. This is 30,000 students on campus. This is another country.
And then the world shrank. It was like I was back home, in 10th grade, sitting in Mrs T's AP European History class and she had just asked about the economic implications of the 100 years war (which, to be fair was not 100 years long, and we were too engrossed with the makings of a Swedish Cocktail). A hush fell over the room. You know the hush. Anyone who has ever taken a class anywhere knows 'the hush'. This wasn't 'pins drop' quiet, this was the quiet that is so quiet your ears hurt, start to ring with the guilt that For Gods Sakes Someone Say Anything. The kind of quiet where you forget the question, and for some reason wonder if you can speak at all. It was almost beautiful. No matter where you study in the world, students will still pull the 'if you don't make eye contact, you're invisible' routine. In some ways, it makes me love education- the art of being a student. Almost 16 years of education, and you start to hone these skills. How to avoid answering questions, how to - on the day of review- ask about the length of the test and whether it's multiple choice or not rather than asking about the actual information on the test. It's priceless.
But, deep inside, I fear the silence. I know that one day, one day soon, I'll be up in front of my high schoolers and the silence will hit. Eyes dart around the room, avoiding my knowing glare. But I've been there. I lived there. Shit, I can claim citizenship in the land of avoiding eye contact and playing the 'I won't talk until you talk' game. Thus sets up the greatest standoff in the history of education.
Rather than work on an two essays, an upcoming British Novel final, readings in all classes, journal entries, chronologies, or other random happenings, I've surrendered myself to the beast that is reminiscing. Aka, I've become an iMovie machine.
No song to short, no picture to hazy... you want to try and set 3500 pictures to your favorite 68 songs, no problem. avi files? I eat avi files for breakfast... right before the fruit'n'fibre and after the yoghurt. (both of those spellings awkwardly correct) Mary and I have been working (ok, I've been hogging) on a final retelling of the year, in video form. Al Gore eat your heart out. No powerpoints involved, but come March, clear your schedules and rent a tux. This shit is going global. I almost visited Cannes this break, and now- judging by the 20 minutes of the video done so far-- we might be on our way back very soon.
This week of limbo is painful. Not close enough to the fire to feel the burn, but close enough to hear the screams echoing through 7 days of padding. I'm delaying the inevitable... in a way, this finals season is like a metaphor for us leaving in general. I know it's coming, I can feel it- in many ways I regret it's very arrival, but at the same time I'm looking for that quick bandaid-fast rip- get it all over with.
So in the meantime, flat mates run about eager to get a head start on papers or studying for other classes, while i lounge around and wait for a cloud of pain to drench me. See, all this extra time and I can be dramatic like that. It's amazing what you'll do to avoid simple things like papers about newspaper articles or reading books that reek to high heaven like Brick Lane. Wikipedia it if you want... it's so painful, I'm not even going to waste the effort to link it myself.... This being the most productive thing I've done all day (save for the 6hrs spent making "I Don't Feel Like Dancin' " match up to our pictures from Orientation...), it's probably best that I sign off and do something useful with my life. Like clean the bathroom. Or do some pushups.
This is what HAPPENED when 9 students from the middle of nowhere WERE picked to live in a flat in the middle of Nottingham, England.
This is what HAPPENED when people stopped being polite, and start being REAL.
This WAS Luther- Nottingham Campus, 2006-2007
...And now I'm back.
