Mass Exodus
With the sand in the hourglass slowly trickling away, the flat is empty this week. A sort of last-ditch effort to make the most of English Experiences has attracted Kate, Aaron and Emily to London, and Ryan to Ireland to celebrate his 21st in style.
It's still hard to grasp leaving this place, which at some point (and I'm really doing some soul searching to remember when the date was) became our home- a place we missed when we left, and looked forward to returning to. I remember Anna crying as she got off the bus into city centre after Spring Holiday- probably the most outward sign of connection- but admitting to myself that I may never return to this place is crushing. Luckily I have a few more days to work out these feelings.
The lonely members of the 9 that remain will most likely lounge about tonight- Anna and Kaitlin (Luther friend on her way home from the Malta program) are going out, while I've made tentative plans to watch the sun rise at around 3:30 tomorrow morning.... (again, the amount of daylight here is unbelievable... from 4am until 9pm...)
The week so far has flown, but that seems to be a trend. Wednesday saw our International Studies test, which I'm happy to say again turned out for best, and also a trip to nearby Wollaton Park.
I had run in the park before, and its position in the city (just north of Uni, but situated among the neighborhoods) isolates it just enough to avoid too much traffic. The park itself is huge. A golf course, feral deer, a wealthy estate containing large stuffed animals (as in, taxidermy), and a manmade lake.... it's huge. I had never realized that Wollaton Hall was so easily accessible, so Hil, Aaron, Emily and I walked down to the park to explore. To be fair, these pictures are all Hil's...
Deer. plural
Wollaton Hall. apparently
visible to everyone except me, who- even after running by it in a very early practice in cross, failed to realize that
Wollaton Park and
Wollaton Hall were in any way related....
Moose. singular.
A Very Brady picture that failed, because Emily couldn't stand on the right step...
Very typical of us. disorganized, distracted, obnoxious.
So i swore to god this fish was dead, just to piss Hilary off, who swore it was alive.... but after throwing rocks at it, it became less clear who was right.. Some moron even came over with a camera phone to take a picture.
It became clear, when
Hil tried to poke it (poke back? hide poke?) that it was real.
I went
MacGuyver on my sandal, which broke in true Old Navy fashion. F that. Long walk back.
Hilary's tree. there are enough in the park that claiming some in our names would leave a few left over for the English.
UEFA Cup fever swept Britain on Wednesday, as Liverpool took on AC Milan for the cup. I sadly cheered for Liverpool, to show some solidarity on behalf of my English
brethren, but cheering against the team that beat Chelsea is just bad karma. AC Milan came through with some lucky lucky goals, and as Sunny from Boozers predicted during a halftime
SuperLager run, Liverpool was all out of gas in the second, and couldn't put the pieces together.
Kaka looked good, while Peter Crouch looked as
gangly and helpless as ever. So football goes.
The end of football season, our return home... the end of LOST (damn!)... it's all very symbolic. I only wish more of the flat had seen the season finale. I've got some intense new historicist
criticism I'd like to pull out on this whole Jack/Kate LA thing... plus the whole Charlie fiasco... the parallels are endless. More on that later.
In the meantime, I'm going to keep plugging away at this final video, grow a beard (
ala Jack) in preparation for my trip home, and start my customary Jewish period of 10 days of mourning. Shiva means no showers, no shaving, and whatever else Sandra Oh taught me about it when Denny died. Who said
tv wasn't educational.
Markstrodamus
After Monday's belated (8pm) dinner, which included before-meal drinks to offset our empty stomachs and s'mores English style (digestive biscuits and Cadbury Chocolate), Ryan took one of his celebratory roof-walks, in plain sight of Mark and Carol.
Two days later, our inboxes were graced with an email from Markstrodamus, prophet and professor- a deadly combination: (the picture following his words was not included....)
I had a dream last night. I was standing in front of a beautiful church. And lo, on the roof appeared an angel, arms raised to heavenstreams of golden light flashing in every direction.
And then I saw a wine glass in the angel's right hand. And realized that it was one of you, on top of the flat Flat roof.
It is because the Flat roof is flat that it is particularly vulnerable to cracks and tears in the tar surface. The rocks, which allow for occasional access and reduce the heat (and thus protect the tar), also make the roof more vulnerable when it is walked on.
We don't know what all the pleasures of being on the roof might be, but those are some of the pleasures that we would like you to give up. For your sake, for our sake, for the sake of the German-speaking immigrants who hold interminable song-fests on Wednesday afternoons, for the great good and honor and safety of all angels everywhere.
I'm sure my email will appreciate a slower, relaxed summer without Mark's quips. Although the Duck email might go down in history.
Less than a Fortnight
I'm an English major. I have a right to use the word 'fortnight' in at least one out of 190 posts.
So here we stand, two weeks to go (damn these countdowns... my body clock is too in tune with the moon or something), and having just completed the last of Luther finals (International Studies 135, a year-long course rooted in British history and travel), It's getting tough.
Time is interesting. Broad statement, yes, but true. I can remember dreading Nottingham- lying in the basement at home, wondering if I'd made the biggest mistake of my life- thinking, Well damnit, there's no turning back.... one year of your life at Luther, in the US, one year gone.... I counted down, knowing that 'in one month, I'll be in another country' or 'shit, 12 hours from now, I'll be on a bus to O'Hare, headed to a plane, headed to England'. It's wild how the mind works, how time flies, and how it can work against you. The same way I feared the finality and inevitability of Nottingham 9 months ago, I now fear re-entry.
While usually I question the use of loaded words or overdramatic phrasing, i think Fear fits. Fear that I will have changed too much. Fear that I'll want things to have remained static, and they will have changed as well. Fear that I will only now realize how much I've missed, or, by the same token regret how much I didn't take advantage of. Again, overdramatic is the name of the game, but with two weeks to study for one test and write one massive paper, my mind has time to wander. And wander it has.
Last night, in studying our old itineraries from travel, the gang reminisced and talked over each other in ways that I never could have imagined 9 months ago. It's cheesy, it's cutesy, but for 9 people (who for all intensive purposes) would have never come in contact at Luther, we've become tight. No time in my life have I ever been this exposed, this cramped, this positively clostrophobically jammed, with 8 other people.
Even at home, with family, there's school to offer refuge, weekends out with friends- here, we are the school, we are the friends. I mean this with no disrespect, no negativity. The same way mothers experience a kind of postpartum depression at the end of 9 months, I can't imagine waking up and not seeing these guys, going longer than 4 days without some kind of Notter contact. Mark and Carol are our surrogate parents, and we're all dysfunctional siblings.
Time to cut the cord. Give it a week or two.
Season Finale, Lazy Sundays
The Exam: TV Cultures, a sort of Season Finale for this crazy class, which- as all classes taken in jest or entertainment or taken for fun- are always way more difficult or depth than ever expected. I'm not sure what I expected when I took the class. It's become a sort of joke in the flat- "Well, got a big presentation tomorrow...... In TV CULTURES!" (flatmates laugh)... but seriously, this is way more intense than i ever would have anticipated. Audience theory, the history of the BBC, the future of multi platforming and remediation, the introduction of the 'flow to file' model in entertainment. Not to mention the cultural impacts that tv has, the production methods, the sociological and psychological implications....... i digress.
So it was more involved than I thought.
The final was pretty straightforward, but almost disappointing in how un-BS'ed it could be. The questions were so painfully specific that - if you hadn't done the reading or gone to lecture- Screwed wouldn't begin to describe... "Explain the four components of televisual style- use two examples from the lecture and two from the viewing session" or " give the textbook definition for multi-accentuality. use two examples from the case studies in chapter 11" Are you serious? 20 1-paragraph answers, 2 hours time. Seems like cake, until you realise that not knowing 4 answers automatically puts you in a very scary place.
I did ok- and to celebrate, did nothing yesterday or today of any merit whatsoever. Watched some Shawshank Redemption, got hooked on the Showtime show DEXTER, caught up on some Clones High (another amazing 'cancelled in its prime' show from my generation), and got my lazy on.
The FA Cup took place yesterday, conveniently located in the same timeslot as my final. Started as I walked to campus to study for a bit, and lasted right until I got back at 7. (keep in mind, this is all on a Saturday, WTF). Chelsea put it to ManU (put it to might be putting it a bit strong), but managed to prevent the New York Yankees of football from winning both the league and the FA Cup. Liverpool and AC Milan face off for the UEFA cup on the 23rd... should be a good show- as much as I dislike Crouch and Liverpool, I'll give them a vote over an Italian side any day.
Today, instead of working on a paper due tomorrow at 6 (don't worry, Mom and Dad, it's written- just needs some work), No one save for Brandon woke up before 1pm. It was embarrassing. By the time I checked email, stalked facebook, and ate breakfast, it was 2:00pm. The girls watched Anne of Green Gables (come to think of it, they're just now finishing it....), and I napped. Life can be stressful.
Brandon had a concert for the scholars in his church choir (one of the best choirs in the Midlands, hands down), and we met up with Mark and Carol to watch. It was great, he sang amazingly, and Luther College got some glowing reviews from the musical director in the middle of a push for donations to keep the scholar program going strong. It made me miss singing. With Rhetoric meeting the same time as choir next year, it might be a while before I get my sang on again. The Shower is my cathedral, the creepily painted figures on our basement bathroom's walls my audience. Encore.
Tomorrow: buckle down (how many times must I say this?), write the damned paper, and start studying for International Studies final. Tougher than you'd ever imagine. I'm feeling like I know Mark and Carol's every move after an extremely solid British Novel final, but you can never be too cautious. The emails and descriptions of the test alone are longer than any essay I'd ever want to write before this year is up. Two finals, one giant paper remain. Two Weeks? Damnit stop counting.
Wollaton Hall. apparently visible to everyone except me, who- even after running by it in a very early practice in cross, failed to realize that Wollaton Park and Wollaton Hall were in any way related....
Moose. singular.
A Very Brady picture that failed, because Emily couldn't stand on the right step...
Very typical of us. disorganized, distracted, obnoxious.
It became clear, when Hil tried to poke it (poke back? hide poke?) that it was real.
I went MacGuyver on my sandal, which broke in true Old Navy fashion. F that. Long walk back.
Hilary's tree. there are enough in the park that claiming some in our names would leave a few left over for the English.
UEFA Cup fever swept Britain on Wednesday, as Liverpool took on AC Milan for the cup. I sadly cheered for Liverpool, to show some solidarity on behalf of my English brethren, but cheering against the team that beat Chelsea is just bad karma. AC Milan came through with some lucky lucky goals, and as Sunny from Boozers predicted during a halftime SuperLager run, Liverpool was all out of gas in the second, and couldn't put the pieces together. Kaka looked good, while Peter Crouch looked as gangly and helpless as ever. So football goes.
