The Across-the-Pond Life: 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.