Zombieland

Ah, the beauty of Oxford.

Last night I had the most horrific nightmare I can remember. It was a bloody, shocking dream that involved all of Oxford being invaded by zombies. Horrible. I find that the worst dreams are always the ones that involve friends dying.

It wasn't like I watched something scary before bed. I think what might have happened was that my phone alarm went off maybe an hour before my heavy-duty alarm clock went off. For those of you who still don't know, this is my phone alarm:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyinuvmTboc

I've been using it as extra incentive for me getting up after the first alarm. My Plan B.

My shower and toilet have been making noises all throughout the day. Rule #3: beware of bathrooms. (you get 50 John Points [JP] if you get the reference)

The past few days have kind of felt like being the living dead. I've had so much homework this weekend that Saturday I spent the entire day in my room, and Sunday I spent most of the day in a religious building, church in the morning then chapel choir from four to eight (zombies have +1 invulnerability against chapel buildings, that's why). To add to the zombie feel, I've finally come down with the dreaded Freshers' Flu. For those of ye unaware, it's just like Freshers' Fair, but a lot less fair and almost as bad. So now I'm tired too often and thirsty too often and able to sing not enough. Gah!

At least tonight I FINALLY finished my weekend's homework. Even though technically it's not still the weekend. GAH! Still, at least I'm entirely on track again (for now; we'll see).

By the way, there's a Hallowe'en party this Thursday. I've been planning my costume for about a week now. I'm somewhat proud of it. It's not quite ready yet, though, so here's a sneak peek:

And no, I'm not going as a scale. No matter how wickedly ironic that would be.

I'm not working too hard on it, instead spreading the work out a bit each day. But if there's one thing I've learned from Oxford, it's rule #32: enjoy the little things.

Sickeningly,

    John Khouri, Zombie Apocalypse Survivor

P.S. If you figure out my costume, message me for an extra 100 JP! :)

Honesty

I know; it's late. I will go to sleep right after this, but there's an important message I really need to share first. Abandon hope all ye who came for a joke. Try back tomorrow. Tonight I'm putting straight-forwardness first.

I just wanted to say that honesty is one of the most important steps in the world. We try to hide who we are, we drink alcohol to try to get rid of the pain (even though it never, ever heals our pain in the long run), we bend to the norms of society to fit in, we wear gaudy outfits and hide behind a mask of lies to disguise ourselves to others, but, most tragically, to ourselves. The trouble isn't just that we hide from others, it's that we're always hiding from ourselves.

We can't do that. And when I say we can't, what I mean to say is we can, of course we can, we do it all the time, but if we want real healing, if we want to change our ways, if we want to know who we are and what we want to do with our lives, we have to strip away the outer layer of disgusting stuff (and no, I'm not referring to your clothes, and if you thought I was, then you might want to consider doing laundry soon).

Some of us aren't very intelligent. Some of us have alcohol problems. Some of us have eating disorders, chocolate disorders, rapping diss orders, whatever. We all feel alone and trapped and afraid, not just once, but many times throughout our lives. None of us are perfect. But that's what matters: none of us are perfect. We all have pain, stress, anxiety. Some of us have more than others, none of us have any truly reliable method of comparing.

What we need to do is be honest with each other.

We try and hide who we are, to others and to ourselves. But that traps us. If we run and hide from our fears, fearing shame, it doesn't heal us; we just burn up inside, alone in the darkness. We have to stop running away from the path; we need to start looking for it again. We need to have the courage to tell people what we really think. We need to have the courage to look in the mirror and look past the jewelry and clothes and appearances and see who we are.

And then we have to tell people about it.

We have to admit to others who we are, even though it's hard, even though it's painful, even though it feels like your world will end if anyone were to find out the part of you that you've been trying to hide. And people will judge you for it. They might hate you for it. But by saying that, you set yourself free. In honesty is freedom. And if we be honest with each other, we can turn to others for support, and bond with each other, even in situations that don't involve Super Smash Brothers (even though that's pretty fantastic, too). And we can look at the mirror with acceptance, having accepted ourselves. We have to admit who we are, despite the pressure not to do so, and accept that as part of who we are, forever, even though it's not what we want, even though it's not what we would like, because it's us, and if we can't accept ourselves, we'll never find any form of contentment.

They say that admitting you have a problem is the first step to breaking an addiction. There's also a verse in the Bible, "[t]herefore confess to your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed" -James 5:16. Finally, I'd like to quote the powerful movie The Incredibles, "[y]ou always say to be true to yourself [...]."

If anyone wants to talk about anything at all, message me, or ask if I can talk to you, or contact me in any way. I'll listen to anything you have to say (unless it's an analysis of Twilight).

Sincerely Sincerely,

    John Khouri

Personal Anecdotes and a Message of Responsibility

Tonight has been a very eventful night.

The first occurrence was when I lost my key. I don't know how I could have lost it, since I was only in my room for three minutes, and then spent the next forty minutes scouring my room. I'm pretty sure a friend of mine took it by accident, but for my luck, tonight's the night everyone's gone out clubbing at a club called Parksend. That just sounds depressing, am I right? "The end of parks." Poor children. No more parks...anyhow, it looks like I'm locked out until he gets back.

I walked into the JCR, expecting to find it empty, but instead I found three of my friends. It wasn't easy to find them, though, as they were buried under a mountain of paper. The three girls are going to be up until five in the morning to finish their essays. They'd only just started. They were better off than another friend of mine, though, in biochemistry, who has been working on one assignment for fourteen hours, whom I met during his brief dinner break, during which he informed me that he was going to be working for another nine hours. Yikes. That's almost twice the amount of work Maths and CompSci have had this week.

Anyhow, I wanted to find a way to help the girls, so I asked them if I could go out to Tesco's and buy them some food. They literally killed me. Like, literally, dudez. So I went down to Tesco's.

I've had two very interesting Tesco's experiences today. I went down a few hours earlier with some buddies and I got some rations. For those of you outside the UK, in Britain, they've got automatic service machines at supermarkets. Now that's cool. Next step to the Terminator movies live. It charged me twenty-eight pounds and I left with my friends. Then I stopped midstep when I asked myself the question, "Why did some muffins, some cereal, a small loaf of bread, and a pudding cup cost twenty-eight pounds?"

I had to wait for half an hour while they figured out exactly why they charged me twenty eight pounds for "Men's Knitwear" instead of fifty pence for a desert cup. Especially since Tesco's doesn't even sell "men's knitwear." Eventually they reimbursed me with a Tesco's gift card.

The second, and quite hilarious, experience was when I went to fetch food for the poor girls. I was looking for one of their requests, a chilled coffee, and I didn't know where it was. I saw a guy in a bright red three-piece suit and guessed he probably just sang in choir. He didn't look like he was drunk, though, so I said to him, "Hey, I know you don't actually work here, but would you happen to know where the chilled coffees are?"

He found that comment so amusing. "Work at Tesco's? Me?! Ha ha!" And then he adopted such an elegant, flamboyant persona, it was incredible. "Yes! Ha ha! I'm James Tesco! Welcome to my store! Let me show you around!" "Walk with me," he said suddenly, putting an arm around my shoulder and walking me through the aisles. "Let's go for a stroll. Ah! We've got pumpkins! Yes we do! Pumpkins that fit in your hand! Ha ha!" He was so amazingly in character that I just went with it.

A store worker walked by. "Excuse me, sir! Where is the coffee?" asked Mr. Tesco. "Downstairs." "Downstairs! I knew that, of course. He works for me. I was testing him. Right, down the stairs, to the right, and there's your coffee!" He left me nearly crying with laughter. He was such a funny guy, and the situation was so much like being Nick in The Great Gatsby when Gatsby takes him out in his shiny car into town that it was just perfect. I brought the provisions back to the girls and they were so grateful.

On the way to Tesco's, I found a student doing the drunk walk, so I helped him to bed before continuing on my courier quest. Good thing God put me there, because this guy could barely walk, and he kept babbling on about how he was going to get his mates and go out to Parksend. If you've ever tried to reason with a drunk person, you'll know that you can't. You just have to be firm but courteous, so they accept your help and don't get angry.

People have asked me why I don't drink. I've told them that I don't want to lose control, especially not at Oxford, and end up missing a lecture or hung over the next morning or something. And that's definitely part of it. But the fact is, I can't drink. I owe it to the friend I lost. I don't blame myself, I know that it would've happened no matter what I did, but I despite all my efforts, I wasn't able to help. Not enough. So now I owe it to him, whenever I see someone in need, someone who needs help, to help that person. Because if you don't help, then maybe no one will. To even drink one glass of beer, to make myself less than capable of helping others, would be an insult to his memory.

So I'd like to challenge anyone who's reading this blog. The next time you see someone in need, ask them if you can help them. The next time you see a stranger crying, sit with them and lay a hand on them. The next time you see someone having a bad day, do something to cheer them up. The next time you meet someone you care about, give them a hug. The next time you see someone hurting, ask them if you can pray for them. Because someone has to.

Stay safe,

   John Khouri, Courteous Court Courier

American Identity

I had stuff today. But not much. Went to a few lectures. Did homework. A lot of homework.

I did have an interesting time with my tutorial. Last week, one of my tutors told me that the only time we could meet was at 12:00 on Tuesday, today. I told him I had an hour-long lecture at the Computer Science building, which is a twenty-minute walk from Oriel. He told me to run. So I did. I sprinted almost as quickly as I did when I was late for matriculation. I made in five minutes to his office, gasping and panting. After the lecture, he told me we'd do it the same time every week. So I guess Tuesday is "Sprint Day" for me.

Went to FISH (Fun, Interesting Scripture Hour) today. It was both fun and interesting! And one of the members made everyone gluten-free cakes! I know some of us were excited!

I enjoyed the FISH group today, but I noticed immediately that there was something off about it. I made a joke or two that might've garnered a larger laugh in America, and one of the categories in this fun word game we did afterwards was American states, and the others envied my American knowledge. It's made me really question my cultural identity. Back when I was in America, everyone thought I was Hungarian for some reason. Not really, of course. That wouldn't even begin to makes sense. No, back in America, I sort of felt a bit of affinity towards the English, since my grandparents were English and I watched a lot of British telly (that's "tv" for you Rednecks back home). But now I'm in England, I kind of feel a bit out of place wherever I go. It reminded me a bit of the problem that some Chicanos have in California, where they don't feel entirely at home in California because they're viewed as outsiders, but in Mexico, they're also viewed as outsiders. But only a bit.

(And yes, that is my first mug. Thanks for asking!)

Because there's more to being American than eating steak for breakfast every day, chopping down trees, chucking tea into harbors for no reason, being rude, being loud, having funny accents, building nuclear weapons, owning ten firearms each, riding horses, not using the language properly, and always wearing cowboy hats (not that we necessarily do any of these things, but that's what the British think we do). I've composed a list of what being American means.


The American Mandate

1. Being American is apple pie. End of discussion.

2. Being American is watching Family Feud because there's nothing else good on and because Steve Harvey is Steve Harvey.

3. Being American is wearing a cowboy hat non-ironically at some time in your life and enjoying yourself.

4. Being American is hating Mondays and looking forward to the weekend until someone notices it's the last day of the work week and starts singing the chorus of Rebecca Black's "Friday."

5. Being American is finding all forms of humor funny, but much less so that which is at the expense of others.

6. Being American is being part of a fresh, diverse, gigantic stew that's been boiling away for only three hundred years.

7. Being American is watching any movie with Johnny Depp in it, because his very presence in any movie increases its overall grade by five percent.


8. Being American is watching It's a Wonderful Life.

9. Being American is telling people you're Polish, or English, or German, or Vietnamese even though what you actually are is American.

10. Being American is being quite a jolly can of beans.

11. Because a jolly can of beans is a merry can.



I feel so much more secure in my identity. I know exactly who I am now.

With much happiness,

    John Khouri, Antartican-Canadian

Foreign Culture and Other Tall Tales

Today, I slammed through an inordinate amount of homework. I'm nearly done with everything! Just in time to start the cycle over again, this time on perm press (a little laundry joke there for all you launderers). I've finished all of Probability and turned it into the correct tutor (probably), I've checked out my Haskell code textbook from the library finally and used it to complete the Functional Programming homework (hey, at least it works), I finished all but three problems on the extremely-long Introduction to University Mathematics problem sheet (I'm glad I got to know it better), and I will have to start Complex Numbers before Wednesday (I've heard it's not too complicated).

Tonight I went with a friend of mine and learned the Salsa (specifically the on-the-line style, as opposed to the Cuban or Puerto Rican variety)! High school buddies, next time I see you, we will be doing the Salsa! And we will celebrate with salsa. And nachos. Mmmmm.

I told a girl from Spain my vaquero joke. :P

For dinner, I ate some tacos at the local Mission Burrito to set the mood for the evening. Learning the Salsa, I had few problems with the dancing itself, having done much harder choreography in Knightshine, but the instructor gave the weirdest names to each of the moves that I could never remember, so when he called out for us to do the "camelon" or the "meeugenfloogen" I had no idea what to do. It was very, very fun, but I realized that it was also the first time I've actually done something exercisey since I've come to England (unless you count a panicked fifteen-minute sprint around Oxford on the day of matriculation exercise).

I've been eating so much food ever since I got to England, and I've assumed for awhile that I've picked up a ton of weight, but I finally got a scale and weighed myself, and to my astonishment, I've lost three pounds! For those of you who use the metric system, that's like 87 kilos!!

I performed my now-regular evening ritual of playing a round of Brawl before bed to ease the pain of my sore brain. I was halfway to beating the meta out of Metaknight with large, spotted, green-and-white eggs when a huge crowd of people came into the JCR and hijacked the TV to watch the new episode of a British TV program called "Made in Chelsea." I had nothing else I could do that night (my brain was fried by then), so I watched along.

It seemed just like a bad soap opera. A large ensemble of girls with dyed hair and men with what I refer to as "Angel hair." You know the style:

Every single guy on that show had this exact hairstyle, I swear. All the English students there took it so seriously, though. As I watched the show, a handful of odd things stood out to me in particular. For one, the hair. For two, the actors seemed to be extremely in character (not that any of the characters were very likable or original) and so I assumed they must be either top-notch actors or just have static characters that they've gotten really used to playing. I decided it couldn't be the first one, because while each of them gave some excellent realism to their roles, giving an actual sense of realism to the show, their delivery of many lines were extremely awkward.

Another thing was that the characters were all pretty much the same character. It seemed that everyone on the show had slept with everyone else multiple times. With such a large ensemble, I think the characters should really be more diverse personality-wise, but the writers seemed to really pull it off and make each character seem kind of distinct. Huh.

Speaking of which, the writers were phenomenal. I mean, I'm excellent at writing comedy, but writing serious stuff for me is really difficult. I've tried before, and to give a sense of realism to a piece with any characters, you have to ask a million questions before you even begin. Who is each character? How does he/she relate to every single other person in the room? What's their job? What are they doing recently? What's their personality like? How did it get to that way? What was their childhood/young adulthood like? Where's their personality going to go? How will it get there? Does that really make sense? And if you want to make them take a different path organically, you have to reanswer a lot of those questions in your head to make them say exactly the right thing organically. And yet here was a group of writers who apparently do this regularly and seemed to answer these questions bang on the money! I was kind of impressed. To do that requires an understanding of people I haven't seen since Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, or F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I was also very impressed with the incredibly philosophical/characterizing/allegorical power of this one scene, which reminded me a lot of a scene from The Great Gatsby. Although in another scene, there was an extremely awkward moment where the man and woman just "gaze into each others' eyes" for like fifteen uncomfortable seconds. It was the weirdest-looking thing ever, but apparently the director kept it in and told the techies, "Add some super-romantic music into the background so the audience knows it's real love this week."

Anyhow.

By the way, you know basically everything I just said, about the writing, the amazing characterization, and masterful ensemble? Forget that. It turns out that it's a structured reality TV series. No wonder they were so in character.

Those wacky Brits.

Sleepily,

    John Khouri, Confused American

Different Man

Today, I had the very great pleasure of hanging with one of the coolest men of our time! I'm not allowed to say his name because of my own rule about saying others' names on my blog, but I can tell you that his name rhymes with "awesome belch." Mr. Belch and I went to high school together, and did several drama productions concurrently. He goes to a uni in California, but he's currently doing a semester abroad at the University of Edinburgh. He and some friends came down to London, and he decided to visit me in jolly old Oxford!

...Awesome and I got a bit wet...

I gave him a tour of Oriel College, I showed him the covered market and some pretty amazing carved-wood puzzles, and we searched for secret tunnels in the Radcliffe Camera (there were no secret tunnels that we could find, but that's just because they're so secret).

We talked about life. About Walker. It was the first time I was able to talk face-to-face with a friend who knew him about him, and I think it was really good for both of us. Finally, at the end of the day, Austin (I mean, Awesome) even came to see me in the Oriel Chapel Choir at Evensong! I saw him leaving ten minutes in. He told me later via FB that he had to catch a bus. It looked like he was trying to sneak away, having expected more engaging, upbeat songs!! :P

Speaking of chapel, while the songs we sing are beautiful and extremely well-sung, I don't like them at all for worship, because when you sing them, you spend so much time worrying about technique, and notes, and words rather than what you're singing actually signifies or implies. Also, they make me drowsy.

I spent a fair amount of time on work today, a few hours. What with church, then lunch, then entertaining Awesome Welsh, then Evensong, then dinner, there wasn't much time left for work. I checked with other people in Maths and in CompSci at the end of the day, and we all seem to have around the same amount of work completed. Tomorrow is when we'll finish it before we get assigned new homework, like the end of the fiscal year. I'll be a different man by then.

...I don't actually know how I'll be different, or why, but I'm pretty sure I will be a different man, because I titled this blog "Different Man," and I wanted to show a parallel between myself and Awesome and have a double meaning of the title, as always, but thinking on it, I probably should think about my title before I create it.

Maybe that's how I'll be different.

...

...Or maybe not. :D

Anyhow, I like to have at least two pictures in each post, so here's a picture of a cat being adorable.

Blessings,

    John Khouri, Amateur Oxford Secret-Passageway Spelunker

The Scariest Moment of My Entire Life

(so far)

At Oxford, we take the matriculation ceremony SERIOUSLY. I mean, you can skip the 300-person lectures, and no one will notice. Students are almost encouraged to miss a tutorial once or twice a year. But there's one thing you don't miss, and that's the Latin-imbued ceremony that allows you to be an official member of the University of Oxford, followed by the infamous class photo (featured prominently in the recent awesome movie The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo Decapitated). You just don't.

Before I left King's, I played a featured role in the school musical "Where's Charley?" about some slacker Oxford lads and their weird relatives. There's an almost-famous scene at the beginning of Act 2 when everyone's singing, wondering where Charley is, because they're about to take the class photo. Charley comes running in at the end of the number, breaking the fourth wall, and just makes it into the photo. But, in the same way as with the pronunciation of "Ashmolean" and "conservatory," that musical showed its ignorance of Oxford in its treatment of this ancient(ish) tradition. If everything else is taken for granted, the matriculation ceremony and photo are the two things that cannot be taken for granted.

So imagine how I felt when my alarm didn't go off this morning, and I woke up at 11:17, with the matriculation ceremony to start at 11:30.

As swiftly as I could, I changed into subfusc, and went charging out into the streets. I asked the first person I saw where matriculation was, and he said the examination schools, and so I sprinted there as fast as I could. No one was there.

I instantly demanded from the closest person where it was, and they told me they thought it would be at my own college. I sprinted back to Oriel as fast as I could, my shiny shoes getting completely messed up. No one was theeeeeere.

I asked the porter, where is it?! Where is the matriculation ceremony?!! He told me Radcliffe Camera. I sprinted across the road (although I did check both ways first), and made it just in time to the Sheldonian Theatre (which is near the Radcliffe).

I got there just in time to see the last few people from Oriel entering the theatre. I asked the man, and he let me in. I saw all but the first minute of the ceremony (probably just something boring and Latin).

But wait! I wasn't registered! I was supposed to register before we all went over! The kind woman who did the registering added my name to the list when I explained. But wait!! I wasn't in subfusc! I was wearing my Oriel tie instead of my white bow tie!! I had just enough time between the ceremony and the picture to sprint back over and up to my room to fetch the bow tie and sprint back just before the picture.

Phew. Complete and utter disaster narrowly averted.

B tee dubs (btw), here's a picture taken with my "college sister" (who, like everyone else in my blog, while remain nameless, but not necessarily faceless). This is our awkward fake-family Christmas card photo.

I didn't get much work done today, but that's because this week has been a seriously stressful week. I've had to do a ton of walking, since I currently have lectures in two faraway buildings in the morning and in the afternoon, meaning I can't work on homework at either times of the day (though that will change later this week, thankfully).

Also, on the day I was going to sleep in and recover some sleep, we had the fire alarm go off at 7:00. It was a fire drill. Apparently it's mandated by law in England for all unis (universities) to do them at random times like that and get as close as possible to an ideal three-minute evacuation. Apparently our seven-minute evacuation didn't make the cut, because half an hour after I'd returned to my room and gone back to bed after standing out in the cold half-awake wearing shorts for fifteen minutes, the fire alarm went off again. This time it was a false alarm, but my first thought as I heard that insanely loud alarm go off was, "They really do hate us!"

Adding to things, I've missed three lectures this week; one because they got the Maths and CompSci lecture list timetable wrong with a small yet significant typo, one because it conflicted with a tutorial, and one because I forgot to write it down in my planner (my new best friend; call him Steve, the Man with a Plan). And an ill-timed lecture made it so that I missed half of a rehearsal for choir, meaning that that night I performed without having learned half the music.

And then, as some of you know, something dreadful happened on Monday.

The point is, I've been going out of my mind this week, so it was very important that I take an afternoon and not spend it entirely on work. Now I've got that out of the way, I can finish those three problem sheets tomorrow with a bit of elbow grease and spit and polish and whatever other disgusting-sounding thing I need that implies hard work.

I'm sorry I haven't been updating the blog recently, but now you know why.

Tardily,

    John Khouri, an Oxford Man