First Week

I apologize for not posting for an entire week. In my defense, I've been up to some very bad sleep habits (staying up until four in the morning on multiple occasions) and working extremely hard, especially this weekend. I'm going to try to sum up everything that's happened since my last blog post in a series of witty and less-witty statements, summaries, snapshots, and stories. Shall we begin?

I helped a friend out with a charity event in Romania for which he was making a video. The theme of the event was "international," and so together we rounded up Oxford's international (and faux-international) students, including an American guy (yours truly), a hispanic guy (yours truly wearing a hat and coat), a Lebanese guy pretending to be German, a German guy pretending to be French, and several more. I felt I had to be extra American to prove to the people of Romania my Americanness, so I used my Obama voice, said "God bless America," and slapped my knee while crying, "YEEEEE-HA!" I don't think they were convinced. Anyhow, it was a fun way to help out with the charity.

We haven't had much sunlight lately.

Apparently there's a lounge in the Computer Science building with free squash (it's a type of British fizzy drink) and semi-comfy couches! This is awesome!! I can't believe my friends never told me about this!

Me: "Is your hair different?"
Friend: "I washed it!"
Me: "...It looks the same as always!"

There were some points this week during which rain was just mae hi'n bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn (Welsh for "raining
old ladies and sticks"), estaba lloviendo hasta maridos (Spanish for "it was even raining husbands"), and boy howdy was it a toad strangler (Redneck for "it was raining hard").

The Oriel Chapel Choir finally had to go out this Thursday into the rain in our robes to enter in through the back of the chapel. It was only a matter of time. It was really cold!

Thursday night I decided to finally watch the first and third X-Men movies. The first one was fantastic! The third one was good. Very much looking forward to the summer release this year now that I know what an "X-Man" is.

This Friday, we had Dial-a-Donut at Oriel CU. For a few hours, we sat around a phone waiting for people to text their room number and a question about the Bible or Christianity in general. A couple of people deliver a donut to the room and answer the question. It's a great idea, since a huge problem nowadays is preconceived judgements. People believe the claims of certain scientists who claim that science somehow disproves God and accept that. We get the chance to tell people what the Bible actually says, what Christianity is actually about, and that's great. Apparently there's also a system called Text-a-Toastie, but donuts are by far more appropriate for Christian Union that toasties, in my opinion. Donuts are a very holey food.

There was some sun this week, for which I was very grateful.

Saturday afternoon I auditioned for an original play. I'm still waiting to hear back from people, but I think it went pretty well. If I don't get cast, that's ok, I'll have more time for work. If I do get cast, that's great, I'll have to work harder! It's about a messed-up future society and is written by a student at Oriel.

I've invented a great character somewhat based on the Crocodile Hunter, but it also draws upon my own perceptions of the Crocodile Hunter having never seen the Crocodile Hunter before. I've recorded myself doing a couple of short clips this week. It's very hard to described, but I haven't met anyone yet who hasn't been extremely entertained. I like doing it because it's easy and it's funny. I'll show a few more people, and maybe I'll do some more recordings. It's like 50% improvisation of what this strange character believes, 20% me darting my eyes all over the place, and 30% working up ways for me to work in the word "tiger" into what I'm talking about in the recording. I can do an Aussie accent well, but for the character, I use this weird amalgamation of Australian, East End, and Manu Bennett (the Kiwi guy from Arrow). This is all very hard to describe, but it's super easy to do and it's extremely entertaining for me.

Filming for "Endeavour" near the Radcliffe Camera forced me to go around the other way. Zoom into this photo and you can just see one of the characters from the show. He's wearing a black coat and hat and talking to a woman in period garb.

Did I mention it was rainy today?

I applauded at the end of a lecture and no one else joined in.
I felt really bad for that lecturer.

This evening, having finished all my work for the day, I decided to be super-English and I got some pie at the Pie Shop. I gotta say, the British have a different idea of what is "enough food." I was halfway through the starter soup when I started feeling a bit too full. By the time I was served the main meal, Toad in the Pie (which was just Toad in the Hole under a different name), I had no appetite.

And in fact, the first thought I had upon seeing this meal was wonder, "How does go about eating this? Is it like a salad? A burger? Cake? A salad-burger-cake hybrid?" It turns out it was more of a salad-cake hybrid in terms of how I ate it. I removed parts of it for eating separately, but I had some of the meat with the Yorkshire pudding bit.

After Computer Science lecture this morning, I went over to the Maths Department only to head right back over to the Computer Science Department immediately after. Ah, the life of the Maths and Computer Science student...

If there's anything left for me to talk about, I want to say that I went to University Park today at last. I say at last because while it's directly across the street from the Computer Science Department, we've never been. I went on a jog there today to switch up my Christ Church Meadow routine. I was blessed with a truly beautiful day (and then later on it started bucketing rain, which I find even more beautiful), and I really enjoyed it. Lovely place, even in the winter. I saw a woman lying down in a patch of flowers photographing her dog frolicking, and I thought of my aunt. 

As is custom whenever I visit a new park, here are the photos. 

Well, hello, swan! How's your day been?

Yup, it's winter.

This was a particularly difficult shot to take. I practically stood on the edge of the river to get it!

This is like the most picturesque fence ever. Seriously.

 

This photo is all kinds of symbolic.

On the way out of the park.

Wow, two hours to write a blog! I'd better not put off writing blog posts in the future!!

Have a great second week,

    John Khouri, Official Birdwatcher of Oxford (I'll explain later)

My Insane Weekend

I'll start this story from the top.

Last week, I'd been having insomnia from stressing out about the upcoming collections. Wednesday and Thursday nights combined, I got about five hours of sleep. A lot of lying in bed awake. Yikes.

Then I took my collections on Friday. First one went alright, second one could've gone better, but at least I was done. I got a chance to just goof off for the rest of the day.

Finally, at 4:00 in the morning, I went to bed.

I woke up at 8:00 on Saturday. My insomnia hadn't yet gone away, but at least I'd gotten a few more hours of sleep. What really struck me was how dark it was for 8:00 in the morning. I figured it must just be because it's England. I watched a Rhett and Link video, used Facebook, replied to a group chat talking about Saturday night dinner, found some of their comments slightly odd. I noticed that my alarm clock had been unplugged, but I didn't remember unplugging it. I noticed how oddly thirsty I was.

Finally, it hit me: it was 8:00 PM, not AM. I'd slept for 16 hours. I'd missed the entirety of Saturday.

From that point forward, in order to quickly reset my Circadian Rhythm in time for classes on Monday, my only option moving forward was to pull an all-nighter followed by an all-dayer. So that's what I did.

I played Brawl for awhile and visited the bop briefly. Then from midnight to six o'clock AM I think I watched Rhett and Link videos while playing Rayman Run. Then I went walking around town. Boy, I tell you, there is nothing like walking around Oxford at six in the morning. There is almost no one around.

So much for "High Street."

The normally-bustling Cornmarket Street. Cornmarket Street is exactly like Diagon Alley.

* Merry Christmas from Oxford! *

Then I took a walk through Christ Church meadow. I don't actually know if I was allowed to be there or not. The problem is that they say they close at 5:00 PM, but they don't say when they're open. It said 6:00 AM by means of a Google search, so I went.

Christ Church, from Christ Church Meadow

I sat by the river and prayed to God for about an hour. That's a really great spot to pray. I finally got some peace from all the work at which I've been hammering away for weeks upon weeks. I love Christ Church Meadow :)

Then I walked over and entered Sainsbury's exactly when it opened at 7:00. I've you've never been to a store exactly when it opens, let me tell you, it is SURREAL. The shelves were FULL! The shelves were full! Yowzer!

What is this madness?!

I then established while eating breakfast in my room that my hat makes me look like I'm about to rob a house or something.

Made it through the night!

Hat hair :D

At last, I made it through the day, and I made it back to a normal sleep schedule. This morning, I woke up, watched me some Rhett and Link, brushed my teeth, showered, gelled my hair, went to my favorite early-morning cafe, bought myself my first mozzarella, tomato, and basil panini since I got back, and went to my new set of lectures. Let the tough times roll (again)!

Always and forever,

    John Khouri, robber resembler

Oxford by Night

Tomorrow are the collections (for Americans, those are kind of like the final exams we take at the beginning of each term). I spent a decent amount of time studying, but then, late afternoon, I realized that I was sick of studying and I wasn't going to learn anything new that I haven't already learned studying the past few weeks. What was important was that I get to sleep on time.

So I went jogging in Christ Church Meadows. According to Google, the nearby meadows are open until 9:00 PM. So I went jogging through the meadow alone until I found a sign blocking my path warning flooding ahead, so I went back. The meadow is so lovely on dark days. Unfortunately, all of the photos I took look like blurry black rectangles.

See, now if this were Inspector Morse, there'd be a body somewhere around here.

After leaving the meadows, I was enjoying the fresh air so much that I thought I'd go for a walk around Oxford, see it at night. Oxford is perhaps even more beautiful on a rainy evening than it is during the day. I had particular fun taking photos with the lampposts shining light on the wet cobbled stones. Very Oxfordey.

If I have to do all the work that comes from going to Oxford, I at least get to occasionally be a tourist. And that's really quite lovely when I get to do that :)

This looks like the entrance to a giant crypt, but it's actually the entrance to a botanical garden.

Just 'cause :P

I'm going to get a good night sleep tonight. Setting all my alarms, taking a sleeping pill, getting a friend to check on me in the morning. I've done all I can do, now I'm giving it all to God.

Good night,

    John Khouri, green jogger

The Great Awake

It seems like every time I think up a new way to make sure I get up in the morning at a reasonable time, my brain eventually adapts itself to enable me to bypass the new system and continue on sleeping without ever become conscious enough to comprehend out that it's a bad idea. It's like the movie The Great Escape, except instead of a POW camp, I'm trying to escape from sleep, and instead of Nazis, I'm trying to outsmart myself.

I woke up at 2:30 today. I bought a new alarm clock yesterday, but as it transpires, I bought a wimpy alarm clock. It makes a little * beep beep beep beep * sound. I don't need a little * beep beep beep beep * sound. I need more of a * WAAAHohhhhWAAAHohhhhWAAAHohhhh!!! *  sound, at least until my Circadian Rhythm adjusts. And it won't adjust because my alarm clock isn't waking me up, and there's no sunlight. At least not when I'm awake. This is the most sunlight we got today:

My mom once told me that one's Circadian Rhythm has to do with sunlight, and that would explain why it hasn't been setting properly. It works when I fly to Peru or California, because there's plenty of sunlight there, but it doesn't work very well when I fly to London during the Winter.

So I've got a new system in place. I found an app for a louder iPhone alarm. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if it works. I still have hope!

...And just as I was writing this, it occurred to me to follow my parents' advice and check the extra pockets of my suitcase. Look what I found!

Looks like I'll be eating lunch tomorrow!

In any case, I'm definitely blessed to have returned to Oxford sooner rather than later. Had I returned on Thursday, I possibly would have missed collections!

Glory to God,

    John Khouri, expectant lunch-eater

Rhett and Link Crisis

Last night I found out that if I play Rayman Run (England's greatest game of all time, available on the iPhone app store) while watching Rhett and Link's Good Mythical Morning videos on a Youtube playlist, I will be entertained for hours on end. Last night, I think I did it for at least six hours straight. It was crazy. It's just so entertaining because they're such funny people and they discuss interesting topics on their show.

If you've never heard of Rhett and Link, this is what they do for a living:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tvy_Pbe5NA

I wasn't even remotely tired at 4:00, but I forced myself to lie in bed regardless. I just lay there, not at all tired, for awhile. Then I checked my watch and noticed it was 10:30. I somehow fell asleep and woke up without noticing. It was weird.

I found it difficult to get out of bed, shower, go to lunch, and get cracking on work instead of just watching Rhett and Link videos all day. I definitely could; they've made almost 360 12-minute videos in the past three years, and I was still totally jet-lagged. But finally, I was able to force myself out of bed, reminding myself of why I'm here and what I'm doing in life.

Speaking of knowing what I'm doing in life, I'm keeping the goatee, after overwhelming support from almost everyone.

On other news, I was finally able to give out the rest of my mom's delicious cookies and brownies she thoughtfully packed for me ("Thank you!!" - the entirety of Oriel College and your loving son), just before they went bad. After a fair amount of work today, I'm starting to get back into the swing of Oxford.

Thank you, guys, for your unflinching support.

From,

    John Khouri, former Rhink addict (that's a portmanteau of "Rhett" and "Link," not a drug!!)

Revenge of the Jetlag

This morning, I woke up at 4:00 in the afternoon. Ugh.

I forgot my alarm clock at home, you see, and apparently no matter I can sleep through as many alarms as I set on my iPhone at full volume, especially when fueled by jetlag no-pun-intended. Jeepers! Despite getting little sleep in the previous 24 hours, I couldn't fall asleep last night until about 4:30 in the morning (because of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey Circadian Rhythm, that's why), so I only ended up getting just over 11 hours of sleep for about two days or whatever it is (stop messing with my head, Transatlantic Travel!), but it still is extremely disheartening to wake up to find that the day is almost over.

And since Circadian Rhythm is greatly influenced by the presence of the sun, it doesn't help that the sky looked like this all day long:

Yes, it finally rained. As like I'm living in England or some place!

I decided that since I was still really tired, there was nothing I could do but take a day off from work. And I was honestly okay with that. I hope I do some work later this week, but honestly, adjusting for jetlag was what was important for today. And possibly tomorrow, we'll see. I bought an alarm clock.

Although I was too tired to do anything really productive today, I found the time to go to the barber's in the Covered Market to get my hair cut. It was very fast, but painful. I don't know if that's just how they give haircuts in England, but the barber was clearly aiming for speed instead of delicacy. Ouch. 

I'm not sure about whether the new haircut goes with my goatee or not yet, so I'll leave it up to you lot. Should I shave my goatee or keep it? Leave a comment below or tell me via Facebook.

Written in Britain by,

    John Khouri, sleepyhead (see how I tied those two disparate bits together there?)

 

An Exhausting Return

After five weeks of vacation, I have at last returned to my Oriel home. Everything's exactly as I left, it to my great dismay.

...It took me almost three hours to reclaim my keys, get my luggage upstairs, and then get every single possession of mine out of storage! Yikes!! Especially difficult since I haven't really slept for around 24 hours (Transatlantic Flights are never fun). Finally, though, I finished.

Home sweet college.

The worst thing about Transatlantic Flights for me is the food. I've never gotten the hang of the food. I try to overeat lunch so that I can skip dinner and eat breakfast on the plane, but then I get to the airport and I'm bored and I feel the urge to eat a proper dinner, and then by the time the airplane people offer me complementary dinner, I'm "hungry" again. And how could I refuse a croissant? *Sigh*

On better news, I got to watch the season finale of Sherlock in the JCR tonight. It was amazing. Someone on the floor above us was playing Gangnam Style loudly the entire time, which was annoying, but we got used to it. Fantastic to be able to watch TV live. I guess we have to wait another two years now.

Ever yours,

    John Khouri, returning student