Veronica Mars and Pumpkins

I feel like I've been really terrible about updating this, and then honestly when I do update, it's usually rather hurried and thoroughly uneloquent. I update on facebook quite a bit, so that's got to be worth something, right? And anyway, even when I'm in the process of writing a post, I get distracted by the dumbest things. Or even not-dumb things, but things that could wait. Let's be honest, though, I don't know why I bother. It's something of an outlet, I suppose (read: procrastination tool), and the peeps back home can read it if they're bored. In other news, the subtitle of this post is "Why do I blog?" And the titular question goes unanswered, I spoil it for you. Sometimes I feel like I'm something of the blogging version of that person who talks just to hear their own voice...but then I remember there are people out there who say really dumb things, which is so much worse than rambling.

Lately:
Tutorials have started! Tomorrow marks the beginning of the third week of term, which is affectionately known here in Oxford as "Third Week" (yup). So far this semester, I've written 6 2,000(ish)-word essays, attended a few lectures of varying intellectual levels and topics, met with my primary tutor 2 official times and my secondary tutor once. This is not me ranking them as individuals: the tutorial I attend 8 times (once a week) and write a weekly essay for is called "primary" and the tutorial I attend 4 times (every other even week) and write a bi-weekly essay for is called "secondary", I think mostly because it just happens less, not because it's less important. Also, I get 6 transfer credits for my primary, and only 3 for my secondary.

Also during term-time (so not that first month, which wasn't official Oxford term) we're to be working on our "long essay" (which is exactly what it sounds like. 4,000+ words on the topic of our choice). My topic is super exciting (for a cinematically-inclined history nerd, that is): Soviet film propaganda. We're supposed to turn something in on Monday narrowing that down a bit, so it will undergo a little editorial work this weekend. But I'm glad I'll at least be working on something fun that I chose all semester--rather unusual, that. ;)

In other news, I've officially become nocturnal. The past week, I've typically not gone to bed before 4am, half the time because I was frantically researching or writing essays, and the other half because Ginger and I (and others) have stayed up making pumpkin/chocolate chip/almond muffins and watching Veronica Mars, among other activities like keeping up with the Cards game, chatting with Karson, and drinking wayyyy too much tea (as if that's possible here). I've discovered the wonders of British grocery store bakery bread for 50p (that's less than a dollar!), which is incredibly fresh and delicious and lasts for a little less than a week. Also, clotted cream (which sounds gross, I know) goes with strawberry jam on scones. It just does. Oaties: "biscuits" made of oats, sometimes packaged with half of them as chocolate, but putting Nutella on the plain ones is even better. All of these things go. with. tea. So does any form of cake. Or cookie. Or muffin. (Those pumpkin muffins were--still are--delish. We ate them while drinking tea and watching Australia.)

So basically, all is well. I'm more homesick than usual, but I guess maybe that's to be expected, seeing as it's just a little past halfway in my time here. I considered posting a facebook status of everyone I missed, but that seemed counterproductive. I'd be better off listing what I don't miss. ha. But I've been really missing my boyfriend (as to be expected, but it's still hard), my dog (I always miss him when I'm at school, but I didn't even get to see him over break :/), my family (even though I've been away at school, England is a lot further away, and I can kind of feel it), my JBU friends (so so much), all my other friends (even though I wouldn't see them as much anyway, it's kind of like with my family, and I just feel so far away from everyone back home), and I miss the USA, especially Arkansas (read: Chick-fil-a), and very especially Siloam Springs & JBU (read: Pour Jons). Luckily, I have some wonderful friends here in Oxford. <3 -Hayley

Failing to Succeed

Contrary to the philosophical title here, what I mean is that I fail miserably at updating a blog, but only because I've been rather busy not failing in my studies, travels, and friendships--theoretically. My deep and justifiable desire to take a break from reading up on nineteenth-century Europe is the root of this first-in-a-week blog post. Also, the fact that stuff actually has happened since I last wrote!

Ginger, Sarah, and I, along with our new friends Hannah and Tala (the latter is one of my roommates) headed off to Paris last weekend for our unique (and five-day!) mid-term break. Wednesday night, we had two 2,000-word essays to be turned in, so none of us had slept in nearly a week (felt like months). We got up Thursday morning and walked to the bus stop, along with the rest of SCIO, to board a coach to London for our field trip to the Imperial War Museum. Many of the students (ourselves included) brought along their holiday luggage (vacations are called holidays here in merry ole England, btdubs), as we were leaving (mostly by bus or coach*) from London after field trip officially ended at 3pm.

Our coach didn't leave until 10:30 that night, however, so Sarah, Ginger, and I had time to tour the BBC and meet up with the other girls at Pret a Manger before reporting (with some difficulty) to the coach station at 9:30. Armed with an assortment of bacon crisps, earbuds, hoodies, and water bottles, we managed to get seats all together. However, as there were five of us, and only two to a seat....Ginger had to sit next to a (very nice female) stranger. No one slept particularly well on that 8-hour coach trip, but we made it to Paris without incident and wandered a bit in the wee hours of the hazy Parisian morning (it was about 6:30am when we arrived) locating an ATM and our hostel. All was then well, so we did what any sane person would do their first day in Paris. We napped. (Soon followed by showers and a picnic in the park under the Eiffel Tower, naturally.)

Picnics, I would say, encapsulate our trip pretty well. We had lunch/dinner/snacks at all the major sites in Paris: Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, outside a random bank across the street from a classy crepe window down the street from Luxembourg Gardens (because they had closed 15 minutes before we arrived :( ), I could go on. So we did indeed see the Louvre (photos on facebook, of everything really), and did some shopping on Champs Elysees. "White Night" was our second night there, and while I'm not totally sure what it is, for us it involved shoving our way through huge crowds around Sacre Coeur and through Montmartre at 11pm, searching random artsy-tourist windows for Coca-Cola that cost less than 4 euros (harder than it sounds). Great view from the top, though. :)

Last day was Monday, so we had to check out of the hostel by noon and wander (again) until boarding the coach back at 11pm. Fortunately, this was before we had made it out to Champs Elysees, so we were able to hit the shopping and the Arc de Triomphe, which involved quite a bit of sitting. This was also the night we obtained our last Parisian crepes (because that obviously had to be our last meal), and the metro trip back was incredibly long, especially considering Paris is very compact. But we made it to the coach, onto the coach, across the Channel (ugh), back into London, onto the Oxford coach, and home to the Vines with very little incident. It was actually a much better coach trip: we go the seats up front, and Tala got two seats to herself (even though a childish 60-something lady was glaring at us from two seats back, since apparently she thought she deserved to sit there more than we did :P).

Favorite things about Paris (in no particular order):

• The Eiffel Tower. Don't care if it's cliche and touristy, that is one beautiful piece of architecture.
• The Nike of Samothrace (Winged Victory) in the Louvre. Not only is the sculpture beautiful, but those Parisians really know how to display art.
• The plaza outside Notre Dame. There were really, really random street performers, and it was really fun and exotic.
• The Latin Quarter. Thought it might be sorta sketch, but it's this tiny little network of alleys across the river from Notre Dame, behind Saint-Germain and Saint-Michel, with tons of creperies, cafes, and shops. Really fun and non-sketch at night, so that's always a plus :)
• Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore. The famous English bookstore directly across the river from Notre Dame. The first floor is pretty standard (though very crowded with books--think Dickson Street Book Shoppe), but the second floor is home to old, first edition type books (and the young adult section, for some reason), as well as a reading room (where they were holding a writers group at the time we visited), a nook equipped with a typewriter, a keyboard, and windowseats. I didn't buy anything, but I could hang out there for hours.
• Anywhere that's not Gallieni station. We nicknamed that place the world's toilet. Just don't go. :P

*It was only this Thursday that we learned the difference between a bus and a coach, actually. A bus travels within a city, and a coach travels between cities. So....not that big of a deal, really. They're shaped the same, and equally uncomfortable to sleep on.