42 titles to read before you're 21 :)

List 1: ...that I like and recommend for everyone (alphabetical by title)

Airman, Eoin Colfer

“A monkey glances up and sees a banana, and that’s as far as he looks. A visionary looks up and sees the moon.”

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll

“‘The time has come’, the Walrus said,/ ‘To talk of many things:/ Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax--/ Of cabbages--and Kings--/ And why the Sea is boiling hot--/ And whether pigs have wings.’” (TtLG)

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

“‘These’, he said gravely, ‘are unpleasant facts; I know it. But then most historical facts are unpleasant.’”

The Chosen, Chaim Potok

“You can listen to silence, Reuven. I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it.”

The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis (esp. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; Prince Caspian; The Last Battle)

“Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” (LWW)

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“[I]f he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!”

Dune, Frank Herbert

“Mood? What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises--no matter the mood! Mood’s a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It’s not for fighting.”

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card

“From now on the enemy is more clever than you. From now on the enemy is stronger than you. From now on you are always about to lose.”

The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that 

self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”

The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

The Harry Potter series, JK Rowling (esp. The Sorcerer’s Stone (1), The Order of the Phoenix (5), The Half-Blood Prince (6), The Deathly Hallows (7))

“Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.” (CoS)

The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

“What have I got in my pocket?”

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”

Looking for Alaska, John Green

“That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly, and I will forget, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and everyone but herself and her mom...I know now that she forgives me for being dumb and scared and doing the dumb and scared thing. I know she forgives me, just as her mother forgives her.”

The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, T.S Eliot

“And would it have been worth it, after all,/ Would it have been worth while,/ After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,/ After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--/ And this, and so much more?--”

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

The Princess Bride, William Goldman

“I’ve been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn’t listen. Every time you said ‘Farm Boy do this’ you thought I was answering ‘As you wish’, but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard.”

Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnette

“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”

A Separate Peace, John Knowles

“What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.”

The Sherlock Holmes stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (esp. A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Sign of Four, ‘The Final Problem’)

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” (The Sign of Four)

The works of William Shakespeare (esp. Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, King Lear, 

Henry IV Part 1, A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

“In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.” (Much Ado About Nothing)

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

“He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next.”

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

“A proud heart can survive general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.”

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

“Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.”

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions...but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot

“After the torchlight red on sweaty faces/ After the frosty silence in the gardens/ After the agony in stony places/ The shouting and the crying/ Prison and palace and reverberation/ Of thunder of spring over distant mountains/ He who was living is now dead/ We who were living are now dying/ With a 
little patience”

List 2: ...that I like (and recommend for certain people/with reservations)

For more mature readers:

The Dark Tower series, Stephen King

A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin

For kids/young adults:

Airborn (et al), Kenneth Oppel *sci-fi/alternate history

Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer *fantasy

The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins *distopian/fantasy

The Infernal Devices series, Cassandra Clare *fantasy

Inkheart (et al),  *fantasy

A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnette *appeals more to girls

The Mysterious Benedict Society *younger audiences

Percy Jackson series (et al), Rick Riordan *fantasy

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky *contains mature themes

Redwall series, Brian Jacques *fantasy

Special interest:

The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova *vampire lore, history

Hood (et al), Stephen R. Lawhead *history, Robin Hood mythology

I can't wait to...

...take a hot shower WHENEVER I WANT.
...plug in my laptop without an adaptor.
...have all of my shoes.
...drive my car to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night for juice or bacon or ice cream.
...make my purchasing decisions based on quality and money, not weight.
...say "pants" without fear.
...find my one winter hat!!
...feel 100% awesome about using American punctuation and spelling.
...listen to Arcade Fire on Spotify.
...text again!
...have a real mocha.
...always have the dishes I need.
...have my own pillow.
...wear ALL the scarves.
...regain access to Hulu & Netflix (and no longer resort to...other methods of watching American TV).
...follow recipes exactly rather than figuring out how to convert butter from grams to sticks.



(a brief listing of the smaller luxuries awaiting me at home :) )

(not that I won't miss Oxford and England and my lovely SCIO friends so so much!)

[RadCam Update]

Time: 6:12pm. Location: Radcliffe Camera. Should be: taking notes on Eisenstein's use of history out of a really helpful book. Up since: 9:30am. Have slept: 4(ish) hours. Yay!

This is me procrastinating, but ALSO we went to the Kilns today, which is where CS Lewis lived for 30 years! Jonathan Kirkpatrick, who's involved in SCIO, is the Scholar in Residence there (yeah, he lives there!), and he gave a group of us and free, fun, and educational tour, complete with tea and cakes afterward in "Jack"'s common room (sitting room). We biked out, about 20-30 minutes away, spent about 3 hours touring the house, walking through the woods out to Holy Trinity Church and back, and then stuck around for tea and story time. :) Sarah and I then biked home, had a quick (3pm) lunch, and hopped on the bus to get into town and spend a few hours at the library before it closes at 7. So that's what we're up to now, and there's so many other SCIO people here, frantically trying to finish researching for their long essays! Mine is going pretty well, actually, but I can't shake the feeling that I'll nearly run out of time, especially since I'm still very much in the note-taking stage. Goal is to finish enough reading/researching/noting tonight that I can construct at least a basic outline, so I'm not totally starting from scratch when I start writing this darn thing! (It's due on Thursday at noon, by the way. So 36 hours from now. Yikes! I'd better get back to work!) ~It is now 6:17pm, and I'm going to post this and get to it. Much love!

Before the Final Battle...

the wonderful marvellous lovely talented genius Sarah M ("Sarahgorn") posted this gem at 5am Monday night/Tuesday morning:

"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of SCIO students fails, when we forsake our essays and break all bonds of academia, but it is not this day. An hour of failing grades and disapproving looks from Dr Baigent, when the Age of Oxford comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we write!! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Students of the Vines and North Wing!!!!!!!"


I'm going to miss her quite a bit, but darn! that's good motivation for writing this long essay! =)

In anticipation of everything other than essays:

Still procrastinating--this time in the cafe. Think I'll try to make up for my utter lack of October posts, maybe?

Current verdict (so hardly final): still sick of German nationalism, but I'm beginning to feel like I rather understanding, so it's boring in a different way, now. More of an "old hat," sort of "this-is-the-same-thing-I-wrote-last-week" thing. So I'm going to assume that's a step in the right direction (because I'm currently in a good mood and would rather not ruin it). Minus library (so far--but I really should go before SkolVo), I'm right on schedule for my Wednesday in town...but I'm thinking I'll just try to find another book (maybe two) at the library, hit the lecture, and call it a day (town-wise). I just really hate being in town allll day and having to bike back in what feels like the dead of night (even if it's barely 7). That being said then, I had my last secondary tutorial this morning, and it feels really good to be done (not because I despised it, but just because it's now one less thing to worry about!). I had a sandwich with my mocha here at Caffe Nero, but I'm hungry again already (after less than an hour), and so I may grab a snack before I run to the library and then lecture.

I find myself looking desperately forward to little things: especially Friday, now. Christmas shopping in Oxford sounds absolutely divine after the weeks I've had, and anticipating the next week of frantic essay-ing. (Not essay-writing, which I know you're thinking, but rather the entire process--mental and tangible--of putting together a 4,000+ word essay, and its ensuing insanity.)

On a more amusing note, I'm sitting in the cozy alcove bit of the cafe, and since I've been here since noon, and it's in a centrally-located bookshop, and it serves legitimate food in addition to tasty steaming beverages, it's been quite the busy place. Here's the funny: people keep coming in and awkwardly looking around for somewhere to sit. It's definitely a more traditional cozy-coffee alcove--clusters of leather chairs around tiny round tables, and one couch surrounded by the same. When I walked in, I'm afraid I did that same awkward bit, except I made it rather less awkward by just walking over to an apparently empty chair and asking the fellow sitting across if it was taken. He said no, so I took a seat and awkwardly balanced my coffee in my lap, shrugged off my coat, and got reading. I might have been slightly less uncomfortable if I'd chosen the seating cluster opposite this particular guy, except for the incredibly awkward hand-holding not coffee-drinking couple cuddling on the couch. There was a table and two empty chairs across from them...but be honest, who the heck would want to sit there?? I'd rather stand. I understand the awkward couple dynamic, I really do. But at the busiest time of day in a cafe when you haven't even got drinks? Taking up not only a couch and table, but an entire seating area because everyone else in the entire world is uncomfortably and immensely put off by your unbelievable  aura of awkwardness? I eventually managed to claim my own chair in the corner next to a table when the couple that had been there for the last 10 minutes vacated, and a few people have come and gone. The vibe is currently much less awkward (except people still peer in periodically): there's two guys on a couch (okay, could be awkward for them?), two girls sitting catty-corned to a table in one corner, an older gentleman reading the newspaper opposite the table from me, but not awkwardly at all, since I'm no longer using the table and my headphones are in (amazing the problems that solves!), and one other fellow across the room, all alone in a cluster of three chairs, also reading the paper. I've really become a much more avid people-watcher since being in Oxford, and I'm afraid it may have wreaked havoc on my productivity (which used to be top-notch and unfazeable, of course).

Next up: my desire to have the ability to channel my spotty written humour into Cracked-style articles, or even blog posts. I have good moments, certainly, and a casual style that lends itself to humourous writing, but so far I've been rather unable to come up with anything that is on par with what I wish it was. The closest I think I've come recently was my facetious note-taking in our lecture a week or two ago, in which I paid as little attention as possible, but still typed notes just in case someone noticed I was just scrolling through the Cracked archive instead of typing notes on my laptop like I should've been. This resulted in random sentences that basically consisted of what I thought I'd heard the lecturer say. I hadn't intended to write anything of value, but it ended up being rather amusing, so I sent it to Ginger and she insisted that I share it on facebook. It wasn't just the biggest hit ever, but considering I wasn't really trying for humour of wide appeal, I'm rather proud of it.
Snippets:
fake notes are pointless but they're a fair sight more interesting than, um, preserving grass in English towns? or cows or whatever.


something about white men with beards and "effing" forest (???)


land is being stolen by........probably not Robin Hood. or Christian communists, although the latter is certainly possible.


there was a crisis, but we're not sure why a park in the middle of an English town is quite so crisis-inducing. you can still call it Effing Forest, people!


nature may have won in court on a technicality, or just taken over the towns. it's unclear.


The Beatles are definitely here. Or playing through my computer. Also unclear and rather unlikely.


[In question time, I learn that poor people are involved.]

Okay, so that was that. Ginger found it hilarious (or so she said), and I'm honestly not sure if it's funnier if you were at the lecture or if you're just reading what I got out of the lecture. My mother should know that the lecture was not relevant to anything ever, except possibly research methods for writing on English societies like 100 years ago without the use of secondary sources if you're forming a thesis or something, and geography. (If that sentence made no sense, you get where I'm going with this.) I think I'll make more of an effort in the future...the idea of writing funny things kind of appeals to me. Topic suggestions welcome, I suppose, since that's usually my toughest time. :)

Much love to all, and I'm not the least bit offended if you didn't actually read all the way through this one. ~Hayley

I'd rather be reading Cracked.

It took me a long time to find the "create new post" button. How long have I been using this site? (Long enough that I must be drunk or sleep-deprived, I can tell you that much.*) My last update was hardly an update at all, but it did coincide nicely with Thanksgiving (which made me miss my family, but was a blast here in Oxford, as well--I made a pumpkin pie with Hannah!) and so I'm counting it. It's Tuesday night now (technically Wednesday morning, although barely), and I'm hanging out with Ginger, Sarah, and a sleeping Victoria in their room, hard at, ahem, work. I've decided I can give myself a *tiny* little break, since I wore myself out today sleeping until 2, writing an entire essay, and skyping Karson. ;) But seriously, I just felt the need to write something I might ever actually like to share with another person, or possibly even go back and reread myself somewhere down the road. That's not to say this is any kind of work of genius, because it's clearly not, but at least it doesn't feel like a chore. :)

That said, I have my last secondary tutorial in the morning (the real morning), for which I submitted my last essay a few hours ago (hopefully before my tutor went to bed...). I have my second-to-last primary essay/tutorial at the end of this week, my very last primary essay and tutorial Monday of next week (thank goodness; it was going to also be this week!), and then only the dreaded "long essay" before I can officially turn up my nose at school work until January! (The "long essay" is really just the length of two regular essays, and maybe not so bad as all that since I got to choose the topic and I've been "working" on it all term.)

On my plate for this week (I'll pretend like it's Sunday night and give the whole week's activities, because it's rather more exciting that way):
Monday: get to the Taylorian (library) at 9am with Tara, Ashley, and Jonathan and claim the best study desks. Meet Ginger for lunch at The Eagle and Child (pub) down the street at 2pm. Go back to the library with Tara and Ashley to work until 6pm (and actually accomplish rather a lot!). Meet Ginger and Sarah M at Pret (cafe) for a quick snack and hot chocolate before heading to the Sheldonian (theatre) for a Christmas carol service at 7pm. Bike home in the light rain at 8pm. Procrastinate/work until 2am.
Tuesday: sleep until 2, write secondary essay, order kebabs with Ginger and Jonathan, eat said kebabs while watching Community, finish essay at barely 10, skype Karson until a little after midnight, meet up with Ginger and Sarah to work in their room until ???
Wednesday: 10:30 tutorial, followed immediately by coffee. Followed less immediately by a trip to the library to get books/do work until "SkolVo" (mandatory SCIO lecture) at 2:30, which is followed by a full British afternoon tea. Probably go back to the library, or possibly home, depending on the weather.
Thursday: I dunno. Possibly a tutorial. Possibly a visit to Richard Dawkins's house. (No, I'm not joking.)
Friday: Maybe a tutorial. But definitely Christmas shopping (slash souvenir shopping, since they're mostly the same thing this year :P). Followed by the Oxford Christmas Light Night (light turning-on and parade and what not) from 5 to 10! There will be NO schoolwork! :)
I need to stop, I'm gonna go crazy just thinking about everything that needs to happen/get done in the next less-than-two weeks!!

On that note, I'll include a brief bit on how weird it is that I only have 12 days left in Oxford. (Spoiler alert: it's very weird.) I'm obviously very sad to be leaving this wonderful place and these lovely people (I almost typed "living" instead of "leaving", if that tells you anything), but at the same time I'm almost inordinately excited to be getting home and seeing my family and friends and, of course, boyfriend. :) The semester's gone by pretty fast, but it is definitely feeling long as we near the end, although simultaneously I haven't nearly enough time to do everything I want to in Oxford before my short time here is up!


That said, I just looked up Chicago weather on weather.com, and they still don't have anything even remotely definitive for after Dec 8, but I'll be checking back in a few days to make sure there's no chance of our flights getting delayed, because I would be immensely unhappy (this is me being a realist, not a pessimist. Really). But anyway, I'll miss Oxford more than I can even say (although Ginger rather can, read her post here: purveyorofdreams.blogspot.com), but I'm very ready to be not only back in the United States/Arkansas, but to see everyone I haven't seen in over three months! (Especially--well, you know who you are. ;))

P.S.- I've basically been alternating between Christmas music and Cage the Elephant. That's the sort of weird mood I'm in. :D



*No, Mum, I'm not durnk. Prosime/

the Taylor Institution Library (Taylorian)

The Thanksgiving Post :)

My friend Hannah's facebook status tonight absolutely made my day:


Tell Sarah she can keep writing my paper while I'm gone. Come back to this - night completely made. 
"Next I will talk about the “carpe diem,” which, although similar to “sense-datum,” is much more quotable. For instance, you can change it to say carpe cakem: seize the cake, carpe teaum: “seize the tea,” etc. Although this may not seem directly connected to philosophy but rather connected to dinner, this is simply not the case. Cake and tea are exceedingly important when considering philosophy in general because without these things, we would just be sad, angry little people with no joy. Cake and tea point us to the ultimate truths of God in their deliciousness and simple beauty and as such may be considered the crux of all good philosophy. They allow for the viewpoint of the philosopher to be balanced and healthy, if a little tubby. But a bit of extra tub around the middle never hurt anyone.
Another good tid-bit of philosophy: never count your chickens before they hatch, because one may actually be a chicken."
:)


I love all my friends here at the Vines, and while I can't wait to be home, I will miss them all so very very much!! <3