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Thursday, November 8th, 2007
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5:04p - We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience. - Martin Buber
More interesting things that happened over this past summer...
Linacre Ball: Oxford colleges have a tradition of throwing elaborate parties, with the most elaborate of these being their annual (biannual for the uber-rich colleges) College Balls. Our theme for the Linacre Ball this year was Pirates and Princesses, which I thought sounded quite goofy. It turned out to be rather goofy, but also a lot of fun.
( Linacre Ball continued... )
Photos from the ball: http://oxford.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2116728&l=125aa&id=405889
Cowley Road Carnival: Most of the time, Oxford seems like Tourist-‘O-Mania. Hordes of tourists, particularly school groups, crowd the city center, shooting photographs and just generally blocking up everything for the residents. But as much of Oxford’s economy runs off of tourism (and the rest off of undergrads – grad students don’t have any money!), I couldn’t complain too much about it. Especially because I was relatively privileged to live there at all.
But thankfully, there are sections of Oxford very different from the medieval downtown. Downtown is certainly beautiful, but occasionally just requires some escaping from. And one of those sections is Cowley Road. (The other is Jericho, which has become kind of gentrified.) Cowley Road is off-the-beaten-path tourist-wise, but is where much of the culture of actual Oxford residents resides.
( Cowley Road Carnival continued... )
The Shea family visiting: During the summer, a couple weeks after exams, the Sheas visited jolly olde England. There were some significant worries, as Papa Shea Did Not Want to come. Part of the reason was because terrorists had attacked the Glasgow Airport only a few days earlier. Thankfully, the terrorists were incredibly incompetent (“Let’s drive our car into an airport, and then pour gasoline on ourselves while we’re on fire! Great idea!”) and were quickly tackled by hardy Glaswegians. The other reason I think Papa Shea was uncomfortable had to do with cultural differences – the difference in driving and the general fish-out-of-water things that the Sheas sometimes struggle with. Papa Shea in particular is incredibly picky about food. (However, I thought Chris adjusted to England remarkably quickly, considering he had never visited. He picked up on slang and phrasing much faster than I did.)
( The Sheas visit England continued... )
current mood: reflective
current music: 6Music's Tom Robinson (comment on this)
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