A Mad Tea-Party

The New Way

2007-08-29T13:14:00.000Z

And this one goes to England through a Plog (a so-called "map-log"). Please notice that this is an experiment: no guarantuees whatsoever, be they of content or of continuity, can be given at this stage.

Aim is to honour the post-modern principle of the rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari 1987).

Aim is also to investigate geographical experience (approaching even closer what I am about to study the next few years).

Therefore, please be invited to have as many looks around The Garden of Live Flowers as you wish: I will keep adding locations, texts, pictures, and more (if everything runs according to plan). Zoom in and zoom out, figure out distances, and make use of the panorama's (or real estate search, for that matter) added by others (they can be found under "featured content").

Have a plog of your own, and...

do not move in straight lines!

Graduation Part II

2006-06-27T11:03:00.000Z

"Let us have a look, then."

What d'you mean, "petticoats unpractical"?

Networking (or "Find Lieke")

Photographuation

2006-06-21T14:31:00.000Z

The ceremony...

...wasn't always equally interesting...

...uhm, yes, the black-dotted vehicle is me

(more pics will follow)

... of art

2006-06-13T12:10:00.000Z

Another one of those sporadic up-dates (and approaching the finale...)

Quite some time ago, J. and I visited Artis (yahoo!).

And whe took pictures.
(A note: I publish these photographs fully unauthorised: the necessary processes of selection and editing by the maker have not been completed, due to chronic issues, so although the credit is J.'s, the reponsibility is mine.)

We spent most time with the vultures.

Aren't they...

... cute?

Wow man!

And some more life forms...

Sjoeba

2006-03-28T14:31:00.000Z

"Sjoebaaaa-sjoebadabadoe-sjoebidoebidoebidoebadoe-"etc.:

I am currently following a course on Russification, kindly offered by University College's russophone community.

First lesson: how to look like echt Russisch meisje. Cum laude.

Lesson two: dinner.

Working on the language now...

Utrecht, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

2006-03-04T19:30:00.000Z

Utrecht, a weekday winter morning on my way from Lombok to Rijnsweerd:

A bum is seated on a bench on Neude. Snow covers the square, is piled up high around him on the bench and partly covers his own person. Except for the layers of snow he is clothed poorly, but he does not seem to mind the cold and with a leisurely smile watches the people hurry by.
Close to his side a large red bag: "Ik ben toch niet gek".

Amsterdam, Saturday afternoon, another freezing day. The Amsterdam underground/ Gemeentelijk Vervoersbedrijf is not being very cooperative and its passengers are confused about their departure, destination and general direction. As always, this creates a rare but cherished sense of community among the Amsterdammers. Enter bum #2, shabbier than the first one, but with a touch of intellectuality: "Duifedrecht! Hij goat noar Duifedrecht, dat saai ik toch! Se souden de befolleking moeten inlichten!"
Later, at Duivendrecht station (he was right, of course) I finally managed to have a closer look at the title of the book he was carrying.
"Carrière Jaarboek".

I still miss my time in Exeter, but not every day anymore. It is beginning to become a memory, a past, a holiday(?).

Last Sunday I made my decisive act of reintegration (I passed the Infiltratiecursus): back in the Stad Amsterdam. I celebrated a wonderful birthday/hello to me/goodbye to the girl who is now in Ghana-party, all over town.

After that, and for the first time in three years of UCU even I would say, cycling through a wonderland Wilhelminapark where a cold and stiff Wilhelmina had pulled up her collar even higher than usual, Utrecht really felt like home. Isn't it curious? Maybe I'll stay here for another year.

...

Anyone still reading this by the way?

...

As if I care....

(well, I do appreciate you, reader; and you too, second reader; and maybe even third: don't be mistaken about that ;-)

P.S. The photos have been printed!

P.S. (see below)

2006-02-09T15:48:00.000Z

Oh, and A.: what you were saying is no bakerpraat at all, hoor!

The juice-thing was mentioned by several other people, too, and the other thing advised by the apothecary herself. So I'll certainly make use of the 'strategy'.

You're absoblood'lutely right:

2006-02-09T14:43:00.000Z

You deserve an update.

However, anything I would have written down in this space during the past week would have been miserable in both senses of the word.

Therefore (and because very soon writhing invariably took over from writing - but that pun has been made infinitely more funny in Chapter IX) it is only today that I record some developments.

To begin with, the past couple of (8) days were Rather Rotten.

I fell ill; did not know what was wrong; my gp hypothesised inflammation of the bladder, had me buy a box full of shiny pills the colours of a white-and-yellow beach-chair, which did not help AT ALL, after which in fact the pains got worse and I could not sleep and went mad etc. etc.

After a lot of running to and fro (gp, apothecary, AMC; of course the running should not be taken literally) the tentative conclusion remains 'complex inflammation of the urinary tract' or something (yes, I know I'm wrong about medical terms, so correct me if you like), an alternative course of antibiotics has been prescribed, I have learnt the joy of painkillers (which, in reasonably quantities, never seemed to work when I was (very) ill about six years ago, but now they did! (talking about the same painkiller and the same level of pain)).

And although my gp remains uncertain as this diagnosis does not completely fit her observations, I am convalescent since yesterday (if only to enable me to use the word 'convalescence').

She doesn't want me to work or travel (on my own that means, as I take it) until next week, when I have to see her again for a last check. Also, I still get the results from one test on Friday, which will hopefully simply confirm the doctor's conjectures and not point to further complications or turn down new roads. However, after next Monday I can start making up for my absense in class, studyroom, social gatherings*, and this hebdomadal.

For the time being I thank you all for your concerns and care and worried e-mail letters and phone calls and visits and Big Red Bus-lendings and Cranberry Juice and good advise (btw: Medical Woman, you were right: she did hit my sides next day. Nothing really.)

Leermoment:

1) sjiek sijn ishe niet leuk

2) I believe I am slowly appeasing my present presence in the Netherlands. My sick-bed looks out over my parents' garden, where golden light strokes the red buds of a February-bare cherry tree, sweeped by the fresh West wind, et cetera et cetera.

See you hopefully soon.
Maybe on a birthday party. (I'll send you a little (?) list!)

*although on this point I will take it easy for another while

Van de regen in de drup

2006-02-03T17:13:00.000Z

In the course of the week, my mental instability has been slowly transforming into a physical one.
Excellent.

After a cornucopia of pains, fevers and irritations had reached a nice clear climax on Thursday and Friday (today), I decided for the third time in my life that I might go and see my gp (i.e. huisarts).

After a couple of nice people having been 'taking care' of me, I finally reached the doctor, whom I still have in Amsterdam...

"Dat klinkt als een geweldige blaasontsteking," she concluded, which was very nice, because now I know what I have and what should probably help. Pills.
Less nice was the fact that she suspects some complications. But we will find out about that in due time.

Meanwhile, I'll swallow my pills, suffer on the sofa and throw up (says the bijsluiter) and try not to loose my wit(s), which, as you can see and have experienced, is easier in writing than in speaking, as I can stop mid-sentence whenever I feel like it and moan for a bit.

I'll miss all the nice stuff planned for this weekend (friends, family) and I already missed the nice classes planned for today.
Let's hope I'll be back in Utrecht on Monday or Tuesday...

Love,
Anna

P.S. thank you, K. I'm very happy to have you at UC. And now we can say that at least part of the post-exchange depressiveness was due to physical discomfort and nothing to duo with UC ;-)

Post-exchange depresssion?

2006-02-01T13:59:00.000Z

I have no idea whether anyone still reads this.

And if you don't you have some good reasons:
1) Anna is not in Wonderland anymore. No one to miss (for you). Nothing to write about (for me). Or so it would seem.
2) Anna hasn't written on this spot since more than a week.

The two have everything to do with each other. Let's say there is a causal relation between 1 and 2. Let's say conflicting thoughts have been deranging my mind and paralysing my fingers. Lack of time is no excuse this time (and it never really really is). But I have been doing my very best not to think of England (for reasons of self-protection), and not to think about being in Utrecht (ditto; even worse), and together that means I could not get myself to writing anything about the two (and their connection).

That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking of Exeter. Quite the opposite. I haven't been able to help missing Exeter all the time.

In other words: being back on me has the effect of being rather depressing (in both senses of the expression: being back has been depressing for me; and I, being back, have probably been depressing others, too). (That slight fever might have been adding to this feeling, or being added to by this feeling, or probably it's mutual, etc. etc.)

However. But. On the other hand.

I must not forget.

It has been so good to see you - you, that is some of you, because others will be reading this from England, or Germany, or God knows where, and for them everything is upside down, mirrored, looking-glass... - I was saying: it has been so good to see all that I had been away from again. And you have been so good to me. And if I were a sensible person I would only be happy now.

But I'm not - not a sensible person, I mean. (Because I don't wanna say I'm totally unhappy. Far from that. I've already had some extremely happy days here. But at the moment UC is sickening. And I don't know why. Maybe things will get better tonight, when pancakes will be baked...)

This is not the end (1).
I still have some evaluative posts to post. Whether anyone will read them or not (and I suspect one or two persons actually will), I need to write them down, if only for my own peace.
I'm sorry I didn't write this and the rest of them earlier. I have to be quick now, before all is gone.

This is not the end (2).
No. It is a beginning.
(It is a cliche.
It is true.)

I was saying: I'm not. Not a sensible person.
No, I'm an incurable romantic; looking into rabbit holes, through tiny doors and through looking-glasses.

"but I'm not the only one" (let's rip Lennon from his context):

Op aarde niet en niet op zee

Disbeleaving

2006-01-22T16:37:00.000Z

I cannot believe that I am actually leaving.

After sadness, the phase of disbelief has begun.

Everything here is so terribly normal. Even though I can remember the moment I arrived like it was yesterday, one semester has still turned out to be a long period. And I can hardly imagine living elsewhere anymore (at least, that's the feeling I have right now).

-

I cannot believe that I am actually going.

I cannot imagine living in Utrecht. In the Netherlands.

Will I be able to adapt, to behave like I should in the Netherlands? Well of course I'll manage - I'll shift quickly enough I'm sure, but it's just that I realise how many little things I've started to do differently. I remember wondering about a lot of things - small everyday things - when I came here, and often finding them strange, or silly: the 'queue here' signs, the pedestrian crossings with their light bulb lanters, the way lectures are conducted, the way the university is managed, the way no 'grown up' ever gets even slightly personal during work/teaching (except for my very American teacher).

But now I cannot imagine these things to be otherwise. And you're right that as soon as I'm back, I'll shift again, and four months were not so long after all.

But not today. Today, I feel very much away.

after goodbyes - before packing

2006-01-22T09:34:00.000Z

I look around me & curse m'self: that all these things will stay with me longer than these people, which I love so much more, will.

...

2006-01-20T18:37:00.000Z

Okay, I'm actually really sad now. I might even cry tonight.

We just had the final drink of the final conference of my final course, and the final goodbye to many people. And more sad things coming up tonight, when I'll have some more goodbye parties.

Eet smakelijk

A...a

2006-01-19T17:56:00.000Z

As you all no doubt know, in about four weeks the 111th anniversary of the premiere of The Importance of Being Ernest will take place. On the same day, Anna will have her 21th birthday.

I have a lot of wishes for that day, demanding as I am, but this is a special one:

I simply need to be taken by my co-Amstelodamophiles on a re-initiation walk to the most wonderful, memorable, personal-history-linked spots of the city, followed or preceded by breakfast, lunch or dinner in one of our beloved établissements, possibly De Prins, but surprises are always welcome!

And for now, let’s throw in another text that has accompanied me during the long (but always too short) hours of essay-writing.

1964. It was not only the year of the Beatles. It was also the year of…

“Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui chantent
Les rêves qui les hantent
Au large d'Amsterdam

Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui dorment
Comme des oriflammes
Le long des berges mornes

Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui meurent
Pleins de bière et de drames
Aux premières lueurs

Mais dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui naissent
Dans la chaleur épaisse
Des langueurs oceans

Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui mangent
Sur des nappes trop blanches
Des poissons ruisselants

Ils vous montrent des dents
A croquer la fortune
A décroisser la lune
A bouffer des haubans

Et ça sent la morue
Jusque dans le cœur des frites
Que leurs grosses mains invitent
A revenir en plus

Puis se lèvent en riant
Dans un bruit de tempête
Referment leur braguette
Et sortent en rotant

Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui dansent
En se frottant la panse
Sur la panse des femmes

Et ils tournent et ils dansent
Comme des soleils crachés
Dans le son déchiré
D'un accordéon rance

Ils se tordent le cou
Pour mieux s'entendre rire
Jusqu'à ce que tout à coup
L'accordéon expire

Alors le geste grave
Alors le regard fier
Ils ramènent leur batave
Jusqu'en pleine lumière

Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui boivent
Et qui boivent et reboivent
Et qui reboivent encore

Ils boivent à la santé
Des putains d'Amsterdam
De Hambourg ou d'ailleurs
Enfin ils boivent aux dames

Qui leur donnent leur joli corps
Qui leur donnent leur vertu
Pour une pièce en or
Et quand ils ont bien bu

Se plantent le nez au ciel
Se mouchent dans les étoiles
Et ils pissent comme je pleure
Sur les femmes infidels

Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Dans le port d'Amsterdam”

Race

2006-01-18T22:55:00.000Z

It was just a few days ago that I first realised, something horrible has happened to the cheerful Amsterdam girl. She hasn't ridden her bicyclette since September 200and5! And now she is very embarrassed to acknowledge that apparently all that time she didn't really care... But now that she has, she misses her bike - her own precious metallic blue RIH with the Brooks saddle and the Bijlmer sticker [note the undeliberate allit.] - very much. She is looking forward to the (probably slightly uncomfortable) first ride to the supermarket or the train station next week. And this is what she would like to say:

"Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

You say black I say white
You say bark I say bite
You say shark I say hey man
Jaws was never my scene
And I don't like Star Wars

You say Rolls I say Royce
You say God give me a choice
You say Lord I say Christ
I don't believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman
All I wanna do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my
Bicycle races are coming your way
So forget all your duties oh yeah!
Fat bottomed girls they'll be riding today
So look out for those beauties oh yeah
On your marks - get set - go!
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race
Bicycle bicycle bicyI want to ride my bicycle
Bicycle bicycle bicycle
Bicycle race

You say coke I say caine
You say John I say Wayne
Hot dog I say cool it man
I don't wanna be the President of America

You say smile I say cheese
Cartier I say please
Income tax I say Jesus
I don't wanna be a candidate
For Vietnam or Watergate
Cos all I want to do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like"

Continued Observation

2006-01-17T15:30:00.000Z

Maybe M.M.M. is right, and I should add a third category to my classification of study-abroaders, to fit him and possibly also to fit myself (see yesterday's post). This is what he proposes:

"Thoroughly enjoys being abroad, but also doesn't really mind being back in the native country again [of course this still remains to be seen when it concerns myself, i.e. Anna ;-]. International commuting starts to feel similar to commuting Utrecht-Leiden/Amsterdam/Where-ever. Anxiet[ies] about Futures and Loves remain anyway. Remembers some Seneca about where-ever you go you always carry yourself along [see also post of October 3d]."

Hear, hear!

Observation

2006-01-16T17:21:00.000Z

I've just made an observation about people who go abroad for their studies for a limited period of time (apart from the fact that almost without exception they are cool ;-)

They seem to fall in either of two very clear and distinct categories:

has never been so happy; does not want to leave; experiences a miserable time when they visit home in between (e.g. for Christmas), and again when they have to go back permanently; usually involves finding the love of their life in the foreign country in question
the entire period abroad is marked by a deep sense of melancholy; returning abroad after a few weeks of Christmas holiday or so is even harder than was moving away the first time (in September); the country in question is nice but will never be identified with as thoroughly as the country of origin

As said, I've observed these categories around me. Question remains: what group do I fall in? Really: I wouldn't know. (Because, in spite of exclamation in previous post, I understand second group very well, too)

NNOOOOO!!!!

2006-01-16T16:28:00.000Z

Don't take me away from this place! Let me stay just for another while! Please?

Yesterday

2006-01-15T14:46:00.000Z

Made a delicious walk from Shipham to Cheddar (in the neighbourhood of Bath-Bristol) with the OODS and Anne (who finally became member as well). Impressive Cheddar Gorge, surrealistic artificial lake in the shape of a perfect circle, due to its former function as a quarry. Brilliant sun. Photos taken. Steep climbs and very very muddy (feet disappearing into sucking puddles) and thorny bushes to make our way through. Stunning views. Photos taken (again). Lovely village of Cheddar, including adorable trad. sweet factory and shop (the Cheddar Sweet Kitchen) were we bought funny English sweets (rock, fudge, humbug, sherbert, jelly beans, bull's eyes, etc, in tastes like clove, pineapple, coconut, anise, cinnamon, herbs... Afterwards dinner in the RAMbar on campus with Anne and Silvia. Etc. Etc. : a wonderful day.

Now, if you don' t mind, I'll hurry back to my room to have lunch and continue my essay...

Bye bye!

The days

2006-01-12T16:56:00.000Z

- they are flying by now, faster and faster. I have been looking forward to seeing people and places again when I go back, but now... time is just going too quick.

At the same time there is a growing fear about whether things in the Netherlands will still be as splendid as I left them...

Meanwhile in Exeter, it is the Time (there you have her again) of Last Times: last walks, last seminars, last essays, last goodbyes, last dinners, last working-days... On my last (?) visit to Waterstone's, Patria was already creeping up around me: Rituals by Nooteboom, Mulisch's The Assault and Inevitable by our beloved Couperus ("nou waar zou dat nou een vertaling van zijn, kinders? Nee, dat moet men toch maar heel gewoon in het Netherlands blijven lezen!").

Also yesterday, my very-much-alive Klokhuis-instincts were treated on a visit to Exeter's Materials Recycling Facility: you know: where they collect our rubbish. Fascinating. Even though they separate a lot we don't in the Nl, they're still at 20%, while 'we' seem to be at 70%... A lot of the work was done by hand. Many Central and Eastern Europeans. Hard labour, low wages (which our chauvinist supervisor did not understand: if they would have wanted something more rewarding, he found, they should have made the effort to go to university, like he did).

One last thing: at the Blackwell Rare books, they sell not only a ChHarlotte Bronte first edition for £3,000; they sell two orginal prints of self portraits (photographs) by Lewis Carroll from 1875! (nou vooruit: nog een extra "!")

Who could lend me £12,00.00?

Well, hurrah!

2006-01-11T11:00:00.000Z

They're back again. The flat is full.

Back to filthy sinks and dish-littered work tops. Back to writing your name on milk bottles. Back to - oi, where's that box of chocolates gone?

And we have someone who thinks she's still fifteen and living with her parents and therefore must secretly (secretly my ...) smoke her joints in our toilet thank you very much. Still, it does relieve some of the heimweh to the Nieuwmarkt underground station entrance I guess.

However: I can smell spring heading our way this morning. I like post-Christmas winter (and not only because my birthday is in it).

What else has been happening the past few days?

I have finished essay #5, unfortunately rushing a bit towards te end. And got very mad at the school admin. office, but never mind about that.

I also finished Teheran, een zwanenzang by F. Springer. Thank you A/M.: it took me a while to like the characters (not that that's necessary always, but in this case it was), but it certainly was worth it.

Also, the real Swiss Cheesefondue on monday was great, and so was the real Swedish "Bloss". And so was the real Italian Kiss. And there's another Swiss dinner coming up this monday.

But first, I'm off to a lecture about "Dissent and persecution", and to my sixth essay.

About...

2006-01-08T16:13:00.000Z

Dear people,

Please don't let the length of below post put you off. I don't expect to write much the coming week, so you can take your time.

By the way: it's probably taken me longer to write it than it will ever take you to read it ;-(

Eat me

2006-01-08T16:04:00.000Z

Well. The fifth essay (on the novel Tipping the velvet) is on it’s way to be finished and I thought I should allow myself a break. By writing some more.

Yesterday, in a very hot kitchen and with a very red face, I baked Dutch pancakes for a full house (not my own flatmates though, but mostly visitors; J., who had been home to Switzerland (i.e. I’m not talking about the Swedish J.) had brought me a fresh Limited Edition Toblerone, and R., Swiss as well, a fresh Swiss Stollzie (don’t know how to spell it). And for tomorrow, I have an counter-invitation for a Swiss cheese fondue next door!

However, I am not here to tell you about the Netherlands, or Switzerland, so here we go:

English Food is Pretty Good!

Whatever some people may say or think (;-) George Orwell is right in his “In Defence of English Cooking” (published first in the Evening Standard on December 15, 1945); so right that I will quote the beginning of the essay here:

“We have heard a good deal of talk in recent years about the desirability of attracting foreign tourists to this country. It is well known that England’s two worst faults, from a foreign visitor’s point of view, are the gloom of our Sundays and the difficulty of buying a drink.

Both of these are due of fanatical minorities who will need a lot of quelling, including extensive legislation. But there is one point on which public opinion could bring about a rapid change for the better: I mean cooking.

It is commonly said, even by the English themselves, that English cooking is the worst in the world. It is supposed to be not merely incompetent, but also imitative, and I even read quite recently, in a book by a French writer, the remark: ‘The best English cooking is, of course, simply French cooking.’

Now that is simply not true, as anyone who has lived long abroad will know, there is a whole host of delicacies which it is quite impossible to obtain outside the English-speaking countries. No doubt the list could be added to, but here are some of the things that I myself have sought for in foreign countries and failed to find.”

I will proceed as Orwell did and tell you of some of the “delicacies” (and of course the ‘not so delicacies’)I found here.

There’s indeed a lot here you can’t get in the Netherlands or elsewhere. And there’s a lot not here which I have been looking for because I miss it. Of course, England still being a somewhat European country, the largest parts of the Dutch and English food worlds overlap, but even when items appear in both worlds (yoghurt-yogurt, melk-milk, brood-bread, sojasaus-soy sauce), you will invariably find they have acquired a different quality here; call it Englishness. But of course this is only relative, for food in the Netherlands has, I guess, a Dutchness, as I will undoubtedly notice once I get back in a few weeks…

Some things which I found strange when I arrived here in September last year, I still find strange. Or a shame. Some things I have come to enjoy with time. Some things I’ve simply got used to (such as the (in my eyes somewhat uneconomic) shape of the plastic milk bottles). But most things have been wonderful from the start.

As you know, I’m a softy for desserts. And somehow, English desserts seem to be made for winter. I wouldn’t eat treacle sponge, chocolate pudding, custard and spotted dick all year round. I think I would prefer light French desserts – tarte au citron, îles flottantes, crème brûlée, tarte tatin… - on a déjeuner sûr l’herbe. But on a rainy afternoon*, tucked away in the corner of a warm, damp, smoky public house, next to a blazing fire…

*English dinners are served in the late afternoon, because otherwise there will be no time left to get drunk before 10pm. According to the same logic, lunches are taken between 12 and 2, not later. This silliness has often annoyed me, on moments that I (we) were looking for a place to eat, or, on one occasion, when M. and I were told we could not have dessert after our dinner anymore, as the cook had gone home (as if they needed a cook to heat the dessert)… at eight! That’s when in proper countries they are still very busy with their siesta! (Don’t mean that seriously of course. England is not an improper country. But let’s call it… funny in some respects.) For the rest, my/our pub meals (i.e. main courses) have been excellent without exception. I think I would call steak and ale pie my favourite at the moment.

Then there’s the astonishing collection of baking products they have in the average supermarket. Colorants, essences, loafs of marzipan, thirty types of flour and forty types of sugar, baking powders, cake decoration thingies, mincemeat, all the nuts and dried fruits of the world (well, okay, not all, but the choice is larger here) and more. And then there’s treacle:

“‘Once upon a time there were three little sisters,’ the Dormouse began in a great hurry; ‘and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well -’
‘What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
‘They lived on treacle,’ said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
‘They couldn't have done that, you know,’ Alice gently remarked; ‘they'd have been ill.'’
‘So they were,’ said the Dormouse; ‘VERY ill.’”

But I have been modest with the treacle, and there’s still a good deal left of Lyle's Golden Syrup in its elegant gold and green tin ("out of the strong came forth sweetness" it says) to take back with me.

Let’s move on to more serious business. Knives.
I had brought my precious IKEA Swedish Chef knife, of the size to cut (chocolate) moose with, to Exeter. (I say precious, because it is a souvenir from the time I was cutting tuna at the IKEA restaurant.) On my first visit to an English supermarket I intended to buy a nice cheap little aardappelmesje. Not a chance. On my second visit to town I went to a different supermarket. Nope. On my third, I looked for a HEMA (one thing I have dearly missed). In the meantime I had to make do with the Swedish butcher’s knife. Cutting raw meat was fine. Cutting huge white cabbages: okay. Cutting bread: mwah… Cutting an onion: surprisingly smooth. Cutting raw flesh: surprisingly smooth. Cutting garlic with four fingers: mm. After paring an apple with three fingers I gave up. There must be a solution. So I spent an entire day in town asking around for a place to buy a decent all-round fruit/vegetable knife. It was about the sixth shop were I finally had success (not exaggerating now). Thank you Woolworths.

Some tips for expats:
Miss vanillevla? I mean, real vanillevla? Cook custard and mix with English yogurt (not French, not German, not Dutch, but English – or you will get vanilleyoghurt). Niet van echt te onderscheiden.
Run out of pepper for on your sandwich? First cut some cabbage, and then use the same knife to cut the bread. (Mm, why was I doing that?)
Want to taste something truly disgusting? Try to cook rice pudding with coconut milk instead of cow milk. Life must be hard for vegans…

Cheese:
Cheddar (or “Cheddich” as it is sometimes called. By L.) must be even more boring than Goudse jong belegen. Why is England not famous for its glorious Cheshire (cats), its Red Leicester or its Wensleydale’s, with or without cranberries?

Bread in England is rather a disaster. Ordinary bread that is. I’m sure there must be some small independent macrobiotic bakery in London; but cheap and simple supermarket bread here is so much worse than in the Netherlands. That’s at least one thing I have learned from my stay: I now know why the English do not eat boterhammen: they eat “toast”. Groot gelijk.

And then there’s thirty types of marmalade to make up for it. Some may remember that I dislike (read: am disgusted by) jams and the like. In France this already proved something of a problem, so I have loosened my principles. And I think, by now, I am even kind of liking things like marmalade and blackcurrant jam. (O, did I tell you they have something very nice here? It’s called gooseberry fruit fool. It is gooseberry (kruisbes; my favourite vla (L)) plus yogurt plus lots of cream. Sounds nice, ay, dad?

A long time ago, I heard someone say they missed bladerdeeg in the English supermarkets, so they couldn’t make all their splendid bladerdeegcreaties anymore. To them I would say: don’t look in the freezer; look in the fridge. Works for Sainsbury’s at least. And bladerdeeg (puff pastry) is not the only thing they have!

What they also have, as M. remarked some months ago, is Dutch fruit and ginger loafs, ready imported.

What they don’t have, and another thing I miss dearly, is Ketjap. Have had to be satisfied with Chinese soy sauce for the time being.

It is widely known (especially in Dining Hall) that the Netherlands are something special when it comes to the things we put on our boterhammen (untranslatable, or it would have to be ‘single sandwiches’). Of course no hagelslag or muisjes on the shelves here (wel in mijn eigen voorraadkast natuurlijk). There is peanut butter, and very nice peanut butter for that matter (although the jar looks like it contains mustard, which has been a problem when they were still next to each other in my cupboard). But it contains sugar! So, in the end, I prefer Calvé. Wie is er niet groot mee geworden?

What else have I put on my bread? “Shippam’s beef spread; Chichester, England estd 1750. Improved recipe”. I was seduced by the mentioning of ginger in the list of ingredients. It’s not quite pâté, but it’s okay. Still, I wonder whether I was really meant to put it on my bread, as the jar was so unbelievably tiny. However, what else would you “spread beef” on?

Moving on to dinner/supper/high tea/food at 6pm.
I’ve cooked a lot (much more than my British flatmates, who were usually satisfied with baked beans on toast three times a day). And I’ve aten sooo much better than in Dining Hall: will be hard to get back.
To my regret I’ve mainly been cooking from Dutch/French recipes, but I’ve done some English/Indian stuff, too.
Sausages (or “saulsahges” as they are sometimes called. By d.) for example, though I’ve only had them once or twice, are very good here. However, as all food you buy here, their packaging can be quite funny: “Tesco finest. 6 pork and sweet chilli sausages. Suitable for home freezing [no: really?!]. Remove all packaging before cooking [Oh?]. Adjust times according to your particular oven; all appliances vary, these are guidelines only. Freezing guidelines: freeze on day of purchase. This product may contain traces of sesame seeds and nuts, as it has been made in a factory that uses sesame seed and nut ingredients”. Aha.

Local food: as it’s rather expensive most of the time, I haven’t had much. Some cheese, scones (Devonshire cream tea!), cakes maybe. And Cornish pasty, the practical miners’ lunch from Cornwall (potato, swede, meat, packed into solid dough) that turned into a tourist attraction. I’ve given it two goes, but decided that it’s not for me.

The Traditional Sunday Roast to me first sounded as a nostalgic memory from the days of the separation of public and domestic spheres, in other words, the housewife era. It turns out to be very much alive: my flatmates told me their mothers really get up early on Sunday morning to drudge in the kitchen until at 12 noon they can present the perfect roast joint and potatoes (and turnips of course).
However, the solution is nigh (and no, it does not involve giving up the Sunday roast; quite the contrary): not only will the roast cost no trouble at all anymore, but it’s even become so easy that we would like to eat the same, not every week, but every day!!:
”Ready roast: don’t save it for Sundays! […] Preparation and mess-free […] There’s nothing quite like a Sunday roast to tantalise your taste buds… the aroma, the sizzle, the meat that melts in your mouth. But why wait for the weekend when it makes the perfect midweek meal? The launch of Global Cuisine Ready Roast, a revolutionary new range of joints, brings you the modern way to enjoy the great family tradition. This award-winning innovation brings you the quality of a home-cooked roast, microwaved in just 7 minutes. Grab one from Somerfield’s shelves now.”
Hail to modernisation and emancipation! Or hail to tradition and Englishness?

A note on supermarket magazines: here, you have to pay for them everywhere, except in Somerfield, but that one has very few recipes. Dus dat moet ik Albert Heijn (and its copy-cats) nageven: de Allerhande is vurkeluk veurtréffeluk (and for free)!

- We are finally approaching the end of this entry -

In December 1945, war rationing still in place, Orwell said that “It is not a law of nature that every restaurant [or supermarket] in England should be either foreign or bad”. And I am happy to be able to say that now, sixty years later, Orwell’s wishes have come true.

-

A last something: yesterday’s All Stars; what they look like?

Two mugs of hot chocolate with pink marshmallows in it!

Why not take advantage of the fact that I'm in the UK now and ...

2006-01-07T22:45:00.000Z

get me a new pair of All Stars?!

Just to let you know

2006-01-06T22:10:00.000Z

I'm sure no one was planning to write me any (real, tangible, ordinary, handwritten) letters anymore now, but just in case:

I wouldn't.

You see: they managed to take more than two weeks shipping O.'s letter all the way from Utrecht to the far South-West of England, so from now on it would be most sensible to just start writing letters and postcards (and birthday cards!) to my old University College P.O.box again.

However: I thank you for delighting me with all your mail to Exeter (whether it reached me or not)!

Well, and this is The Sea

2006-01-06T16:10:00.000Z

(Blogger didn't feel like uploading all pictures in one go.)

Between Seaton and Beer

Beer

Between Seaton and Lyme Regis

"Cliff Castle" (if I remember correctly) in Seaton

Retrospective

2006-01-06T15:15:00.000Z

My parents sent me some photographs we took during our week together, mostly from the sea (the Channel, t.b.p. Lyme Bay). However, this is a selection of a selection.

Boxing Day lunch in pub Barrel o'Beer in...
the charming fishing-village of Beer

A very professional picture taken by my father, of the interior of Exeter Cathedral (for Y.)

Christmas Dinner Preparations (or "Discovering Tetley's")

A brisk walk...

over the freezing Moor

(for O.)

And, finally, castle Drogo at dusk (for J.)

Retreat

2006-01-03T14:51:00.000Z

Another visitor on her way back home.

Two weeks left to write two essays, a conference paper and journal and a presentation, read heaps and heaps of books I still had to read before I leave (mostly because they are from Exeter library) and do all the left-over things I wanted to do in Exeter/England. And to say goodbye of places and people.

But first, I have locked myself in my room, armed with some 'new' music (a.o. Blur's Leisure and The Very Best of Culture Club & Boy George (that one's for my music sociology essay. And because it's fun), and I won't come out until I've started and finished the history of sexuality essay.

See you again next week?

Or maybe before. I might get bored with sexuality for a moment.

Triumph! (to be exclamated in Mozart-fashion)

2006-01-01T19:27:00.000Z

I've handed in my thesis proposal! Due the 21th of December 2005!

Yin en Anna fry oily balls (their own way)

2006-01-01T17:14:00.000Z

Y. arrived safely in Exeter, bringing wonderful stuffs like Dutch brown bread and my favourite Indonesian bika ambon (mm!).

And oily ball mix.

After collecting (and cleaning) some assorted crockery from flat C2, finding 500 ml of warm water and stirring in the mixture, A. concludes that making oily balls is easy.

The batter is put aside to raise - and forgotten all about. For Y. had brought A. a surprise: six floury girls at a Christmas dinner in Rotterdam, talking (chocolate) moose and Gwyneth Paltrow, all nicely video-recorded for A.'s enjoyment.
I do miss the gang.

Meanwhile, the batter had been slumbering warm and snug near the heating in A.'s bedroom (which didn't explode on being turned on for the very first time).

Later: Y. storms into the kitchen and utters the epochal words: "Het rijst de pan uit!"

And indeed: the batter had been raising and raising, lifting the lid of the pan, creeping over its edge, crawling over A.'s desk, over the edge, falling, falling, down, down, missing a pair of stockings by an inch... splash! Onto the nice blue Lafrowda-standard carpet.

Making oily balls is easy.

The cleaning and washing up part wasn't ideal. But the frying was big fun. (Making oily ducks is easy, too.) The result was a collection of approximately 24 (acc. to Koopmans instructions) minus six (acc. to Y&A cooking procedures) oily balls, ready to be taken to a German-English-Swedish New Year's Eve party on Pinhoe Road (where we witnessed a Zucker-Hut slowly (s)melt into a bowl of orange-sliced glühwein under the influence of red- and blue-flaming rum!).

which brings us...

... via one second of nothin'ness...

... and sparklers, and Morning Glory....

... and 'champagne'...

... to 2006,

or,

I wish you, dear reader, a year of beauty and kindness, and more flowery things with pink fairies and blonde cherubic music...

- or wait, I know something better:

I wish you a Room with a View.

P.S.
Y. has a special message for S., M. (have you managed the Nutcracker performance?), A. (incl. J.), F. (in LA!!) and Tante Miep: happy new year!

Announcement

2005-12-31T13:30:00.000Z

I can now with almost complete certainty say when I will set foot in France: this will happen in the evening of January 23th, a Monday, after which I will enter the Netherlands by way of Belgium (what better way could I wish?).

One week later, on the 30th, UC classes will start.

This means I will move from Amsterdam to Utrecht sometime in between: when exactly depends entirely on how quickly I can mount the energy to unpack, tell stories and play games with The Parents&the Little Big Brother, pack again and make for the feestgedruis that are UC and more dispersed friends. Add to this that I might want to see J. in private first, and...

we zien wel hoe het loopt!

Did I mention...

2005-12-31T10:52:00.000Z

Did I already mention that here in Exeter the sun is shining with all its might? No snow, no hail, no cold?

Did I already mention that I just learned a new word for hail, being 'sleet'?

Did I already mention that our cottage in Seaton this week was simply perfect? Both the living-room and our bedroom looked out over sea. The living-room was furnished with soft carpet, very suitable to sit on and unpack kerstpaketten and spaceous enough not to have to clean up the mess you made in doing so, either because your parents tell you to or because you keep tripping over them. And finally - let's call it the klap op de vuurpijl for the occasion - the cottage had mengkranen (mixer taps)! It must have been more than three months since I saw a real mengkraan! How I love them! You can do things under them! Like washing your hands, doing the dishes, and probably much more which I forgot during three very cold and very hot months of deprivation.

(I must admit that one advantage of having two separate taps is that you don't have to wait for the water to run cold when making a glass of lemonade...)

Back in Exeter again

2005-12-30T17:17:00.000Z

Land van de snelweg,
land van de sloot;
denkend aan Holland
verveel ik me dood

These were my thoughts looking out of a train window between Exeter and London, and it is what I thought this week, driving through the English countryside and strolling over the cobble beach of the Jurassic Coast.
With my apologies to Versluis and Marsman. But isn't any sincere parody in fact also a homage to the original?

I had a lovely week. As predicted, we talked, played games (my brother had brought the card game of Catan including two new extension sets!), watched movies (a.o. the Bommel-adaptation of Zwelgje and of course the delicious Singin' in the Rain), walked some bits of the South West Coast Path, had delicious dinners and lunches in various pubs and saw a bit of England. For one thing, we visited Castle Drogo (!). Last week I explained that when O. and I wanted to visit it, is turned out to be closed down for the winter. And that buses don't often go there. This is true, but with a car and after ignoring some red signboards on fences, my parents and brother and I had the privilege to see a marvelously intact and marvelously fascist building. It was freezing cold. The sun was setting (consequently some picture were taken, as usual). A marvelous tree stood next to it. A marvelous cat walked past (black - or am I making that up now?). It had a marvelous hedge labyrinth, two tearooms, a chapel, moat, portcullis (?) and exciting precipite. In short: I wouldn't mind living there.

But that's impossible, because I'm already going to live in Beer, the most picturesque seaside village of the United Kingdom. Well, all right, of Devon (because we wouldn't want to be forgetting about Cornwall, Wales and Kent, would we? Not to mention Whitby and Schotland).

But I think that is enough confusing words about my future.
We did lots of other things which I would tell about you if time was neverending and my memory not a sieve.

Back home in Exeter: the usual post-holiday hangover:
Heapes of mail to process. Posters fallen off the walls (no sophisticated wall solutions for me: just good old white tack). Unpacking. Piles of study books to read...

But my klavertje vier survived! This sure is the most loyal indoor plant I've ever had!
Also, I was vergast to some very welcome Christmas wishes - thank you.
And as O. brought two new cd's last week, I also have something to listen to. Plus the Jacques Brel and Drs. P my parents are lending me.
Not to forget the contents of my Kerstpakket, kindly picked up from the Thuiszorg headquarters by d. Including an excellent agenda I have absolutely no use for, considering the criminally expensive agenda I had already bought here in Exeter some time ago. So: anyone for an excellent agenda? And I found out I have missed a Christmas drink in the Tropenmuseum, which actually sounded quite nice. But oh, well: the other helpenden A never got a drink in the Royal Albert Memorial, so... (which museum, btw, my parents and brother did not get to see as I took them there when it was closed down...)

Which reminds me: I haven't apologised yet for my unannounced absence the past week. (Though I guess you're not desperate to spend your holidays reading Anna-ramblings anyway.) However, I'll do bettter this time, for if all goes well (bad Dutch roads tonight...) Y. will arrive tomorrow afternoon. This means: probably very few entries until January 3d.

Latest news from 'Hospitality' Services, displayed on every Lafrowda notice board some weeks ago (okay, so it's not really latest news, but haven't been around much lately and HServices are closed now, so nothing happening there at the moment):
"Water testing will take place on Wednesday 14th/Thursday 15th of December. THERE WILL BE NO DISRUPTION TO YOUR WATER SUPPLY".

It's getting time to round off. After I had written down the poemy thingy above, I felt the need to reread the original. And as it struck me once again, I would like to cite it in full here.

Denkend aan Holland
zie ik brede rivieren
traag door oneindig
laagland gaan,
rijen ondenkbaar
ijle populieren
als hoge pluimen
aan de einder staan;
en in de geweldige
ruimte verzonken
de boerderijen
verspreid door het land,
boomgroepen, dorpen,
geknotte torens,
kerken en olmen
in een groots verband.
De lucht hangt er laag
en de zon wordt er langzaam
in grijze veelkleurige
dampen gesmoord,
en in alle gewesten
wordt de stem van het water
met zijn eeuwige rampen
gevreesd en gehoord.

Dots

2005-12-23T14:25:00.000Z

Some more brownish-red dots have been added on the map to the left, indicating more of London (last week) and more of Dartmoor (Okehampton - this week, and Belstone - an OODS-walk some weeks ago). There's an anticipating dot in Seaton, on the coast east to Exeter.

Christmas Special

2005-12-23T13:19:00.000Z

Christmas is something different each year. I guess for me this year it is three things.

As every year, this ad started popping up on the tv in November:

"There are some things money can't buy... For everything you need for Christmas: Mastercard"

I'm afraid not. Which brings us to the first aspect of Christmas 2005, of which I'm kindly remembered by Dana through the loudspeakers: "It's gonna be a cold, cold Christmas without you/Dreaming of those warm, warm lazy summer days/It's gonna be a long and lonely Christmas without you/Missing you my darling in oh so many ways" et cetera (Greenaway and Stephens 1975).

Then there's regular Christmas melancholy, caused by the friction between the annual reiteration of the same Christmas rituals, and the change of our lives over time. Last year, Carroll's opening poem to Through the looking-glass voiced the feeling. This year, I found it in Mr Pickwick's Christmas by Charles Dickens (1836; chapter 28):

Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then [i.e. in the Christmas gatherings of
our earlier years], have ceased to beat; ... the hands we grasped, have grown
cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old
house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the
most minute and trivial circumstance connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had
been but yesterday. Happy, happy Christmas that can win us back to the delusions
of our childish days ...

As Michael Slater explains, painful memories are "actually integral to the joys of Christmas".

But before you think my Christmas is 'all sorrow' ;-) the third aspect of my Christmas very simply and very merrily is family (and that is something special after three months), lights, warmth, music, food, games... And stories! So don't forget to listen to the remaining Penguin podcasts of A Christmas Carol.

I wish the whole world a merry Christmas (being in a generous mood...), but you in particular:

"May your days be merry and bright
and may all your Christmases ..."

Mynd you: golf balls Kan be pretty nasti...

2005-12-22T00:11:00.000Z

As I am pretti exhausted, just some comments on what I have been up to these past few days.

Monday, O. and I walked London from Gray Inn Road to Chelsea Bridge. After bidding M., to whom we are very grateful for showing us some more of London and offering us shelter for two nights, farewell, we entered a mysteriously lit, damp London on its way to work. One of the sites we encountered (and I took photos of) was the Hogwarts-like area of Lincoln's Inn, which is not a hotel but one of England's four barrister's clubs. Also, we did not reach the shop we were looking for; we did find the Tate Britain museum where I gained some inspiration for my sixth Exeter essay on the London world of the fin-de-siècle music-hall and learned more about our beloved refreshment l'Absinthe (of which painting I bought a poster for my future UCU-dwelling); and did find Megabus amazingly easily, at the very spot where we did not find it when heading for Oxford...

(Vegetarian) O. and I next ate an excellent fish'n'chips at "The Batter Place" (a pun that, I realise now that I write it down, is only short of being spelled "The Batter Plaice"- but we had cod).

Yesterday, O. turned 20 and we explored Exeter, among other things guided by a red-coat ghost tour which we survived surprisingly well (said the guide).

Today, as early twentieth-century romantic fantasy castle Drogo turned out to be closed for the public during the winter, we took the bus to Okehampton. As a substitute we visited Okehampton castle, which might have been even better as it is a 'real' castle, Norman and all. This was actually closed to the public, too, but because medieval ruins tend to have lost doors and windows (and guards), this was not much of a problem.

Afterwards, we got to speak to some locals, members of the Okehampton Golf Club, warning us for flying golf balls and English humour. Having escaped, we rested our weary legs and filled our empty stomachs with blackcurrant cheesecake and sweet chili soup at the White Hart Inn. O.'s cheesecake was actually a next-best, as they did not have treacle sponge. So I'll try to make sure he gets to taste one of those tomorrow, on his last day in Devon. Then, we will visit the cathedral and the museum and some other bits of town. Also, I will finally hand in my fourth essay and my thesis proposal...

This night we had dinner at J.'s place: he lives in an enhanced flat, which I must say is quite a change from Lafrowda Standard.

On friday morning, O. will catch an early Megabus to London and on to Amsterdam and Groenekan.

Oh, one more thing: at M.'s place we watched an excellent film, Bagdad Cafe, with music and a title song that impressed me quite a lot. Have to look it up & maybe buy it...

In London once again

2005-12-18T22:04:00.000Z

I have five seconds to write this - when the boys are back from powdering their noses we'll finish the movie Bagdad Cafe.

So, we are in London for two days. We have visited the British Museum for the first time in our lives (O. and I). Not seen the famous must-sees. Did see the splendid prehistorical European and medieval collections (including Sutton Hoo).

Tomorrow will hopefully see an exhibition of Paris post-impressionists in Tate Britain. And this afternoon had my first Real Ale: Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Bitter in pub The Rising Sun - after visiting one of England's most magical churches I have seen until now: Saint Bartholomew the Great, the oldest parish church in London (twelfth century), where we heard the church choir rehearse for a Christmas evensong, in an atmosphere suffused with Christmas tree and incense.

Much impressed by church, museum (with its new Great Court) and ale, which may have pushed Guinness from the first place with its fresh lemony taste (and it was NOT lauw). Looking forward to tomorrow and the days after when I'll show O. around in Exeter. Finding it strange to speak so much Dutch again. Being happy with the much needed distraction and fun offered by the hospitable presence of M., and O. Have to go now. Sorry for bad English/language in general.

Cheerio...

Anna

Help save lives

2005-12-17T00:01:00.000Z

"The fire alarm system is fitted to help save your life."

How can I help to save my life? Actions fall within one of three categories:

1. "well, dûh"
-"always shower with the DOOR SHUT to keep steam in"

2. the impractible
-"always shower with the extractor fan on (we don't have one: it's called Lafrowda Standard)"
-"never leave cooking unattended (Oh, like that time I was making a beef stew?)"
-"always use aerosol sprays such as deodorants and hair sprays away from smoke detectors" (you mean like the one on the ceiling in front of my tap and mirror?)

3. the ridiculous
-"never use candles" (no Christmas for me this year...)
-"never cook by using deep fat frying" (ditto for New Year's Eve)
-"never using equipment that is designed to produce heat in your study bedroom" (what? you mean like the central heating? you must be joking!)
-"always report faults in doors [...] to the hall manager immediately" (like they're gonna do anything about it)

So far for the contents of the leaflet that was left in my room by the cleaner. Last week. Mm, would they be worrying about our safety? Another sign we're approaching the end of the semester. Time to pay the accommodation fee...

"Helping make Devon safe"

Drink me

2005-12-16T18:27:00.000Z

There you have it: I'm through. There's no Dutch food left in this house*.

They say that you are what you eat, and until now I've always been able to sustain myself at least partly on Dutch food... But!:

Bread and bananas have disappeared in the first few days. Followed by the smeerkaas, apples, peperkoek (and yes, everyone in Exeter now knows peperkoek: they wouldn't understand if you would start about "ontbijtkoek"), roggebrood, stroop, stroopwafels; the salami has been used in meatballs, the garlic put in every dish so far, the Swedish toast used in many cases of ermergency, the German kneidl were delicious in a Chinese lemonsauce together with cabbage and now even the drop is almost completely gone ... it's time to shift to an all-British diet.

Here I present some of my discoveries in the English foodscape.

Let us start with drinks.

They have an enormous variety in limonadesiropen which go under a number of names. You have fruit drinks (dilution: a must), barley waters, fruit and barley, squash, cordial... don't ask me to explain the differences (except that barley water contains barley). They come in all colours and tastes (not necessarily related). Some are nothing special (coming down to simple grenadine), some are new to me (pink grapefruit and barley for one), and some are blissfully reminding of camping in France... Only in France they don't come in concentrated form, which makes England the sympathetic one in this matter.

Last week was also the first time I had a cranberrry and raspberry juice drink. I'm sure they have that in the Netherlands too, in some uppish supermarket chain which won't be named here, but I'm sure juices like these are much cheaper in Britain - and otherwise I'll just cherish the illusion. (It's always a disappointment if you find out that that special holiday-time discovery can be obtained in your home country jut as easily...) It tastes good!

But then there is British alcohol legislation... I won't give a dissertation on age restrictions and pub opening hours in this place - except that I'll just say that, though I favour the new (later) closing times, I don't think they will solve any problems until Britain has gained a new, continental, drinking culture. This would include drinking more wine, drinking for taste and not effect, and drinking outdoors, where the (stimulating?) noise is less and problematic cases can cool off. In other words: problems won't be solved until the British climate, British temperatures will have changed. But we're well on our way.

My own experiences with legislation: over the bread in Sainsbury's hangs a notification that if I look under 21, I might have to produce my ID for this purchase. Fortunately this has never happened, as I don't carry my passport with me. In the meantime I did succeed in buying several alcohol-containing beverages. In Tesco however, where I bought one innocent bottle of wine, together with A., who is even older than I am, we were asked the brilliant question: "Which of you is buying this item?" But weren't we clever? We said: "we're buying it together!" Ahum...

So let's follow my own advice and talk about taste. Much to my embarassment I did not drink a real ale yet. Maybe tomorrow. I did drink a lot of Guinness as you know, so there's one culinary discovery. Also, I learnt about pear cider and that it only comes in bottles of 50 cl. Delicious. Fortified wine: nice too. Only slightly, ehm, fortified. But you won't notice anymore once you had a glass. (Other people will, though.)

All in all, I didn't drink much alcohol in the UK as yet. Much too expensive.

Oh, but I do like that when you go to a semi-formal occasion with a group of people from work or university, and you get drinks and fingerfood: they do not call it a "borrel", they call it a drink. Bless them.

So far for this incoherent post. Food is next.

P.S. Why have I not quoted anything Alice in this post (apart from the title)? (Un)fortunately, there's no chapter in the book that's not about English food and drinks...

*for the sake of effect not counting some minor storages of chocolate letter

De laatste der Mohicanen

2005-12-16T11:27:00.000Z

The kitchen has never been so clear and clean (most of the credit going to R.). I have cleared out the fridge... God knows what magic R. conducted for the dirty dishes... I can finally see the bottom of my hob again (conclusion: custard is still my major culinary weakness) after applying a knife and some force for an extended period of time. The laundry is on its way. We are packing. (At UC we would at this moment see two rooms with two open doors and two stereos playing loud clean- and pack-music. Unfortunately this wonderful semi-annual communal experience is unknown at Lafrowda, as our rooms are separated by a narrow curved corridor including firedoors.) In other words: flat 2c is nearly ready for Christmas!

Also, my fourth essay has been finished completely yesterday afternoon. Two more to go: starting today. (This is the Exeter exchange student system: you don't have to do the exams in June, but instead you write a double amount of essays, i.e. two papers for each course.) And I am getting the hang of it: it seems that every next essay takes me one day less. At the moment I am at a quotum of a thousand words a day (that is: revised and 'scientifically sound'). Which means... that my last UC-essay will actually yield me an extra day! According to wonderland logic that is: see the Gryphon's explanation on why lessons are called "lessons": "because they lessen from day to day" i.e. they take an hour less every day.

Carol

2005-12-16T00:01:00.000Z

We have just finished a foreigners-that-have-stayed-behind dinner in our flat. Two Swiss, one Swede (a Swedish person I mean, not a turnip; the first sense of the word my dictionary explains as "obsolete Dutch". And I have found more Dutch words sneaking into our language lately) and me. Got two more people addicted to pepernoten - and no, they're still not gone! And had a marvellous dessert of oranges and figs, prepared by R.

I stumbled upon a rather questionable warning for the movie Narnia (see last week): "Parental Guidance: contains mild threat, battle and fantasy violence". Anyone explain to me how fantasy violence is any more harmless than 'real violence' or indeed whether such a difference exists in film? The murdering in the movie (of a series of ugly black creatures who undoubtly deserved to die because... why?) was depicted pretty vividly.

Also, I would like to say: ResNet is stom. The provider of my inter/networkconnection does not know semesters (of which there are two, I had to explain them): their brain only operates in terms (of which there are three). That means that if I would like to stay connected until the end of my stay here, I would have to pay for the next term as well, of which I will only actually use my connection for two out of nine weeks. The next person in my room might use it for free. But I have been informed that providing any service to one semester-exchange students, or even dividing 2 by 9 and multiplying it by the weekly (= hebdomadal) connection fee would be such an overburdening of their (brain)capacity that they would have to charge me the other 7/9 for it.

I.e.: no connection from the ninth of January onwards...

One of Britain's (generally) low quality television stations has been conducting an experiment over the past few weeks which I've been following with great interest: they have managed to convince a group of young people they will go on a space holiday. They have been telling them stories about how they wil be trained in a Russian space institute, how they invented a machine that can create a field of gravity within a satelite and more such nonsense. And for four weeks now they have been taking the stuff! At the moment they think they are orbiting the earth. Actually, they are in a similator in Suffolk. Tomorrow the truth will be revealed... Breathtaking & hilarious!

To conclude with something cheerful and christmassy: M. has been so kind as to send me a Christmas Carol link: Penguin reading Dickens' ghost story to all you lazy/busy asses without the time to read it yourself. Load down and enjoy.

Before I forget: happy birthday m.!! It's just turned the 16th!

And here are some pics from our Christmas dinner

2005-12-14T22:46:00.000Z

(see post of monday 6th)

In the middle of the preparations...

And here you can see how our kitchen does have the faculty of looking slightly more cheerful when for the first time in history it is filled with all twelve its occupants at the same time (not fitting onto one picture of course):

There's no use giving you a list of names, but the one taking the photo is R.; the elbow on the left is my loud-mouthed Spanish neighbour (who is actually living two doors away, but forementioned mouth has no problem creating the illusion); the red-striped arm belongs to the person that is from a place I actually know (Cardiff); the girl at the far end is very proud to be from Yorkshire; next to her is my neighbour B. (the one that went to Twelfth Night (like me!), the one that lived in France (like me!) and the one with the fine taste in music and movies (...). On my left is the sword-swallower (see 6 December).

Today, first some unrelated topics

2005-12-14T20:49:00.000Z

Thank you people for the Christmas cards and e-messages you already sent. 'K krijg er zin in! And I apologise 'thoroughly' for not sending any cards myself this year...

Rebecca and I said goodbye to our last flatmate this morning, who was catching a plane from Bristol to Germany... tomorrow. That is, tonight, Rebecca saw our Lafrowda-ghost, who turned out to be Marianne, who turned out to have misread the date on her ticket. She looked terribly disappointed about not being in Germany by now...

Still, I myself feel pretty okay around here.

I very nearly finished my essay, still doubting on whether I should bring in Turner on liminality, OR decide not to exceed the word limit by more than 10% this time and just leave it at the adjective "liminal"...

In between, Rebecca and I visited the Royal Albert Memorial Museum volunteers' Christmas drink and lecture, on which we saw more mince pies, but also Swiss rolls (which, I learnt, are not Swiss at all), delicious Spanish orange juice reminding one of Italy (and Spain) and beautiful images and stories by our ethnography curator about the Maya! (Do I see a big smile behind an Apple?)

Also, I put some leftovers together for dinner which I think are actually worth remembering as a combination:
butter, spring onions, pear, unbeaten eggs, single cream, mozzarella, and thyme (fry in that order and scramble and serve with bread or whatever starch source. Nice mixture of sweet, sour and savoury).

A few days ago (must have been either Friday or Saturday) I posted some not altogether positive comments on the movie Narnia. A., my Exeter 'cinema buddy', sent me a Guardian article that I found well-researched, well-written, and well-thought, so I recommend it to those thinking about reading the books or seeing the movie (or maybe better read the article afterwards). Also nice for Tolkien fans ;-)

A 100 posts in 11 months?

2005-12-13T10:41:00.000Z

Bet I can easily beat that? In fact I've just done so: this is the 101st post within 3 months... (Nee, gezond is anders)

But then again I might be considered slightly less considerate on the part of my readers.

Visit Wonderland

2005-12-13T10:03:00.000Z

Autumn term is over, most people have gone 'home', and campus has become a quiet place. At the moment, I thoroughly enjoy it, but I can imagine that in time, peaceful wintry silence turns into desolate loneliness.

And that is why I am so glad that visitor-season is nigh! This is what I wrote some time ago:

"I die to show you this place!
Which is a good sign, I think. It means not only that I positively evaluate my new milieu (because, as you are my friends, I would not like to show you any nasty places of course), but it also means that, maybe, I have started to identify with the place just an inkywinky bit, and might even be moderately proud of it?"

Now before you go lugging heavy bags of Netherstuff to Neverland, and especially before you consider taking NetherChristmasfood to Christmasheaven , let me just say this:

Drop, chocola, stroop, ranja and hagelslag are here all right; what's more: you wouldn't want to miss out on your opportunity to English Christmas food. However, there are a few things that are missed over here:

(any individual visitor undoubtly knows what applies to them (actually, most applies to Seaton) - heavy fluids of course to be carried by those in possession of a car :-)

Dutch brown bread
a glass of clear Amsterdamsch Leidinghwater, straight from the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen
for Christmas: muisjes!
a Suske & Wiske
cheerful Baroque string musick, German and Czech Christmas choirs, and also Ennio Morricone and Wim Sonneveld
The Blackadder!
Bert & Ernie
oliebollenmix + Dutch headgear including stalen haarnetje (not indispensible though, because I'm sure we'll find some suitable braadpan and "foamoar" here)
yoki
Catan + uitbreidingsset!
stroopwafels! (ja, toch maar wel: felt a sudden craving)

There's a nice job for you, b.L.!

Acoustics

2005-12-12T12:26:00.000Z

I've just delved into the history of acoustic science and technology. Main findings until now:

The first one to systematically and quantitatively investigate acoustics was Wallace Sabine, a late nineteenth century assistant professor of physics at Harvard. He was commissioned to improve the sound of the Sanders lecture theatre, and after three years of fruitless measurements with a 512 Hz organ pipe and of moving cushions around over campus, he finally found the following relation between sound reverberation time t ("echo"), volume of the room or concert hall V, absorption coefficient of the different materials present (including audience and musicians) a(n), and of course their surface s(n):

t=o.164V/Sum(a(n)*s(n))

Sabine first measured the total absorbing power of a room Sum(a(n)*s(n)) in "Sanders Theatre seat cushions". However, later on he decided to change this into the rather more universal unit of "open windows":-)

Hoe het ook zij, it's great that in this essay I can combine physics, history, anthropology, sociology and music.

Chapter VIII

2005-12-12T00:01:00.000Z

"'You are sad,' the Knight said in an anxious tone: 'let me sing you a song to comfort you.'
'Is it very long?' Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
'It's long,' said the Knight, 'but it's very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it - either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else -'"

But there is no else this time.

Tonight, at 21:04 General Tea Time, the White Knight came and brought me a serenade.

I am afraid I have lost the ability to distinguish tears of sorrow from tears of joy.

But this is my answer:

Wherever you go my love follows you
Wherever I remain my desire embraces you

Saint Anselm of Canterbury

Only four chapters to go...

Essay writing

2005-12-11T18:12:00.000Z

Tomorrow I will be completely well again I think. I feel much better already.

Just carried off twelve kilos of paper from the library, one of which made up a second-hand collection of primary sources from Britain's Victorian years (second half nineteenth century) for which I paid next to nothing; and another kilo featuring a quite handsome and pretty dragking (that one's for my essay on Tipping the Velvet which I will be writing in a week or two).

But now I will concentrate first on an anthropological investigation into how the architecture of the concert-hall stimulates a certain mode of listening/transforms Visitors into Listeners and how, historically, it has been instrumental in constructing a romantic notion of music as the ultimate automomous, sacred art (which it hadn't been before!). My case? The Concertgebouw! (Well, yes, I do start to miss my Stad. Which explains below ode.)

Meanwhile, in everyday Exeter life it has been hard to concentrate on work or sleep the past few days/weeks. Above me live a boy that must surely eat a lot of raw eggs, and a girl with a great sense for the theatrical. I am really very happy for them... but I'm still grateful for Flogging Molly at top volume (and for L., E. and M.).

2005-12-11T16:36:00.000Z

This morning BBC radio played the tune of an old, old Hilversum 4 program. Yup: memories...

Also, I finished The importance of being Earnest. Yep: "And how are we this morning? Miss Prism, you are, I trust, well?" and "I spoke metaphorically - my metaphor was drawn from bees" finally receive their well-deserved context. And an admirable one it is, too.

"Dr. Fisher" (but the name "Kate" fits her better) returned my sex education essay (I think I told you a bit about my public library visits and the strange things they advise us to (not) do? That's the essay I'm talking about), which assessment rather put me at ease about the academic outcome of this trip to Wonderland. (About the rest I never had any doubts. Complete and blissful mental aberration).

Which reminds me that I had promised myself to give you some conclusions of my latest medieval research ;-). I'll make it a blockquote so it's easy to skip. But basically, the essay is my attempt to get some grip on the essentialism- versus cultural constructionism-debate that has been upsetting gender and sexuality studies for some thirty years now. When it concerns the topic of homosexuality, the two extreme views are that
1. essentialists: some people are simply born to be homosexuals, no one can do anything about it, in any time and culture the proportion of homosexuals (and heterosexuals)* is the same as this division is a given feature of the human species (a genetical variation of the standard heterosexuality, which, some even argue, can be explained by evolution-theory as the non-procreative** homosexuals are to take care of the (children of) heterosexuals, thus making the species as a whole more fit);
2. constructionists: sexual categories are culturally determined, not biologically, the homosexual being a modern Western concept, while other times and cultures have (or don't have) their own sex-gender classifications of individuals.

Of course it gets more interesting as soon as you discern the many positions in between these extremes... So what I tried to find out is whether people of the High Middle Ages (AD 1000-1200) had a similar concept of "homosexuals" as we have (in this case I investigated only men, as medieval sources remain conspicuously silent about women >:-$ ). This is part of the (rather preliminary) answer I give:

In the course of this small research I ran into many problems. Definitions have been shifting back and forth which eventually made them include a range of possible meanings. Now I hope to be able to assess which parts of them might map onto medieval conceptions.It has become clear that no equivalent to the current (male) “homosexual” existed - which itself has an incomprehensibly diverse
content. For one reason, sodomita is too strongly connected to the penetrator in penal-anal intercourse. There is a wide spectrum even within (types of) sources from the conception of sodomitae as the wilful committers of a crime or sin who have alternatives to their disposal, via its conception as an addictive habit, to sodomia as an acquired or even inherited, incurable disease. It is only sometimes that we find sodomites assuming the morphology of women, while we also encounter effeminate men without any sign of homosexual behaviour. Earlier in our period the main point of distinction seemed to be the manner in which one had intercourse, later on it was the gender of the person(s) one had intercourse with. Still, apart from many accusations, historical cases of individuals with a clear, conscious predilection for persons of their own gender, in other words, with a homosexual constitution, are rare. Rather, people seemed to direct their romantic and sexual attention to those they happened to live in close contact with, which in (nearly) all-male communities would naturally result in emotional and physical affection between men, sometimes even evolving into solid,
marriage-like relationships. Even though these communities, and the networks between them, gave rise to distinctive cultural elements such as a set of homophilic literary topoi and a distinct language, I would see these as the features of an elite class of highly educated men living largely separated from women, rather than as signs of a homosexual subculture, although the fact that this culture lived with only part of the clergy, while an other part defended nicolaitism, does indeed point in the direction of a subculture.

A last random point: at Exeter's Picturehouse the children's animation classic The Snowman will be playing. Yup: waar blijft de tijd? (Explanation: M. and P. and some more people, an complete symphony orchestra to be precise, performed this piece in the Spinoza Lyceum, about ten years ago now...)

*Here we encounter the first flaw in the (extreme) essentialist position, for where are the other freaks?
** but perhaps "recreative"?

Sentimental Lady

2005-12-11T09:00:00.000Z

Aan de Amsterdamse grachten
Heb ik heel mijn hart voor altijd verpand
Amsterdam vult mijn gedachten
Als de mooiste stad in ons land

Al die Amsterdamse mensen
Al die lichtjes 's avonds laat op het plein
Niemand kan zich beter wensen
Dan een Amsterdammer te zijn

Er staat een huis aan de gracht in oud Amsterdam
Waar ik als jochie van acht bij grootmoeder kwam
Nu zit een vreemde meneer in 't kamertje voor
En ook die heerlijke zolder werd tot kantoor
Alleen de bomen, de bomen, hoog boven het verkeer
En over het water gaat er een bootje net als weleer
Aan de Amsterdamse grachten
Heb ik heel mijn hart voor altijd verpand
Amsterdam vult mijn gedachten
Als de mooiste stad in ons land
Al die Amsterdamse mensen
Al die lichtjes 's avonds laat op het plein
Niemand kan zich beter wensen
Dan een Amsterdammer te zijn

Al die Amsterdamse mensen
Al die lichtjes 's avonds laat op het plein
Niemand kan zich beter wensen
Dan een Amsterdammer te zijn

Pieter Goermans

Wilde

2005-12-10T13:54:00.000Z

Among my hebdomadal drafts I just found one which was actually supposed to get published last monday. But here it is:

Our little sexuality work group will organise friday's seminar, and again my research has acquainted me with some interesting - or rather funny this time - bits of history.

Oscar Wilde's trial transcripts generally are a delight to read. But they are rather lengthy, so I'll give you a fragment.

Wilde gets cross-examined on an attempt at blackmail:

"Wilde: I felt that this was the man who wanted money from me. I said, "I suppose you have come about my beautiful letter to Lord Alfred Douglas. If you had not been so foolish as to send a copy of it to Mr. Beerbohm Tree, I would gladly have paid you a very large sum of money for the letter, as I consider it to be a work of art." He said, "A very curious construction can be put on that letter." I said in reply, "Art is rarely intelligible to the criminal classes." He said, "A man offered me £6o for it." I said to him, "If you take my advice you will go to that man and sell my letter to him for £6o. I myself have never received so large a sum for any prose work of that length; but I am glad to find that there is some one in England who considers a letter of mine worth £6o."' He was somewhat taken aback by my manner, perhaps, and said, "The man is out of town." I replied, "He is sure to come back," and I advised him to get the £6o."

Later on in one of the trials:

"Edward Carson [Lord Queensberry's attorney]: You stated that your age was thirty-nine. I think you are over forty. You were born on 16th October, 1854?
Oscar Wilde: I have no wish to pose as being young. I am thirty-nine or forty. You have my certificate and that settles the matter.
C: But being born in 1854 makes you more than forty?
W: Ah! Very well"

"Ow..."

2005-12-10T11:46:00.000Z

Here I am, a little curled-up sparrow with tea and clementines; I woke up wih a fever, an aching throat and a head like a pounding bowling ball which only wish when I stand up is to give in to gravity.

I had a hell of a week, in all the positive senses of the expression, and this is the well-deserved outcome. I am afraid I won't be worth much today as a library-visiting, essay-writing person. Maybe I better assume the role of a bed-lying, snivelling, moaning person. However, that would never do, because I am already bored by the thought: in spite of a deranged body, my spirits are excellent.

Yesterday was the last day of school. The last seminar. The last presentation. And the last day on campus for moist of the students here. This meant:

I got up and finished the preperations for the seminar about the 1895 Oscar Wilde trials which our sexuality study group was leading. On the way I found a hilarious account of a fashionable fin-de-siècle gathering by the Pythons (it might help to know that prince Albert Victor of Wales was engaged in a huge male brother scandal; Shaw and Wilde, the playwrights, had their own sexual idiosyncracies; about painter Whistler I just read that he "was one of those artists whose legend as wit, dandy, and esthetic kamikaze - for what was his libel suit against John Ruskin but a suicide mission, compelled by his own pose of 'Southern honor'? - continued after his death and became a barrier to proper appraisal of his work"). I suppose two years of UCU-drilling is bearing fruit, as I was the only one who wasn't nervous to lead the seminar and, again, the only one who didn't read from notes and, again, the only one standing up. It all went relatively smoothly and our audience, in as far as present on this last day, responded, so we were satisfied.

Afterwards I ran to Prince of Wales Road corner to meet A. who had invited me to go and watch Factotum, the new Bukowski adaptation. We had a very nice Subway sandwich in the pitch dark of Bartholomew cemetery and when it turned out the Picturehouse had stopped playing Factotum thursday already, we decided to have a go for Narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. Jaja. There was quite a lot to criticise about the movie, but we still enjoyed it. However, brainless enjoyment of Disney movies isn't in it anymore for us literature students: binary oppositions, cultural hegemony and stereotypical representation where-ever we turn... On the positive side: it makes the most boring books and films interesting. But to reassure you: Narnia wasn't boring at all. Still, we agreed that it's slightly dated: features that may have been acceptable in the forties would, we felt, have to be adapted in a new film such as this is.

I got back my sleeping-bag which A. had used on a trip to London for a Franz Ferdinand concert, and which I am gonna need next week on another trip to the capital (Ha!) :-)

Our last stop was Mowbray Avenue, where at number 15 we found a lovely metropolitan birthday- and goodbye-party of a bunch of English Germanophiles, German Hispanicophiles and generally Franco- and Vindobona-philes (that last one's Vienna. I was happy to find a place to look up such things). And they had lebkuchen! Oho, the joy!

After coming home this morning (and still not being able to sleep because of my kind wall-bashing flatmates); after reading and writing my head/ass off for a week; after an alternation of too much food and wine with days of buttered toast and tea; after a week of six hours of rest a day: you might agree that my body deserves to be ill now.

But don't worry: I will be up and running again by the time you need me to!

In the meantime, bbc radio treats us to a review of a 1944 A Christmas Carol radio play. Isn't it a marvellous country?

Also, I have completed Christmas decoration in my room on wednesday: I 'found' some evergreen branches along the campus borders, and together with my ruby balls (see entry last week) and a Christmas cd (Oh dear, I hear you saying: but really, Aretha Franklin and Cyndi Lauper don't do a bad job) it makes a lovely sight and smell and sound. By the way, the leaves are finally falling from the trees in serious numbers.

All in all, one might even get a holiday-kind-of-feeling.

Early?

2005-12-08T09:55:00.000Z

Each wednesday morning the Lafrowda fire alarm is tested.

This morning was wednesday morning. Or was it? The alarm sounded for 3, 4, 5 seconds... 8... 15... it didn't stop!

(You know what thought is like early in the morning, after having written an hebdomadal post only six hours before. Slow:)

"So then it isn't wednesday after all. It must be thursday.
...
There's a fire alarm ringing.
...
Maybe it's a drill.
...
O maybe there's a fire.
...
Right.
...
Let's get into some shoes.
Er...
Close the window.
Er...
Switch off the light again.
Er...
Get my coat and keys.
Er...
Leave my room. Close the door. No, lock it. 'Oh, hey: up already, too?' 'Good morning!' 'Right.'

I was happy to find that our room numbers were ticked off at the exit. Well done 'Hospitality' Services!

Oh and yes: it was just a drill after all.

And lecture turned out to be cancelled.

But hey: that gives me some time to tell you how I have gotten up very early this morning in order to do nothing (i.e. telling you how I have gotten up ... etc.).

(Still wednesday evening for me)

2005-12-08T01:40:00.000Z

I am sitting in my room, sucking one of those barber pole peppermint candy sticks. It's very quiet here, because I've just come from an a-ma-zing party.

It was the Erasmus Society Christmas Dinner and Ball.

I don't have a formal dress or suit with me here, but I bought a cute waistcoat and a white shirt (the one for the concert) and it turned out okay. (I saw at least five other people, I mean women, with pants tonight.)

Erasmus parties are very different from English (mostly first year's) student parties (again, watch L'Auberge Espagnole)*. Not only do you hear many languages (btw, a substantial part of the society is British) and European music, but we got all the people from the introduction week together again for the first time tonight, which made it feel like the end of an era. And it is, at least for me and the others who are leaving to their 'home' countries in January. Already. Of course we will have three more weeks of classes and exams, but now choir has had it concert, OODS its final walk, Erasmus its Christmas and New Year ball, everyone is leaving on Saturday, et cetera, to me it feels like my time in England is over. This added a melancholy component to the party, but those parties, when you feel how "all things must pass"**, may be the best because they are the only ones during which you realise how lucky you are with what you have.

However, next to this short moment of reflection (and the other common one: why-oh-way is so-and-so not here tonight), I and I think most of us, had a very happy time.

To some people I got to speak maybe for the last time. With to or three others on the other hand I made new appointments for next week (next week was going to be the ascetic and solitudinal study week: not anymore). I even got to know some new people. And a new brand of English lager. And I ate turkey with cranberry sauce. We laughed a lot. We danced to occasionally rather good music (during which I lost most of my hairpins). And in the end we had the collective circular cancan-thing to "Last Christmas" (a rather depressing song, but the presence of these people helped) which works only if everyone is cheerful and feels part of the community - which was the case.

But. Tomorrow (I mean today) is another busy day, with a lecture at 9, a tutorial, groceries, and starting on my next essay.

Which means I will now bid you goodnight:
goodnight.

*Comparable to the difference between UC- versus you average Dutch studentenvereniging-party perhaps.
**IM George

Sorry: what I also got for you:

2005-12-07T01:24:00.000Z

A fragment from the ca. twelfth-century collection of poetry nowadays called the Carmina Burana:

Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis,
et consilium meum est cum bibulis,
et in secta Decii voluntas mea est
et qui mane me quesierit in taberna,
post vesperam nudus egredietur,
et sic denudatus veste clamabit:
Wafna! Wafna!
Quid fecisti sors turpissima?
Nostre vite gaudia abstulisti omnia!
Ha! Ha!
~

Ik ben de abt van 't koekoeksklooster
en mijn vergadering is met de drinkers,
en mijn roeping is gelegen in de orde van de dobbelsteen,
en wie mij 's ochtends in de kroeg op zal zoeken
zal tegen de avond naakt naar buiten gaan
en zo beroofd van zijn kleding zal hij schreeuwen:
Och hemel, och hemel!
Wat heb je gedaan, zeer schandelijk lot?
Je hebt alle vreugde van mijn leven ontnomen!
Ha!Ha!

It's still tuesday evening...

2005-12-07T01:20:00.000Z

... and I am done with my third essay.

Add this to a delicious meal and a half-pint of straffe cider

and I can say I'm pretty happy.

I'm not even very tired - I have decided to shift my day-night rhythm a few hours this week because of Christmas celebrations. Which means I will still be able to indulge in some Jippus et Jannica or Importance of Being Earnest or Peake's Alice after writing this!

I'll give you my essay conclusions later (it is mightily exciting, but of course you might not be interested at all, in which case you can enjoy the privilege of the reader and skip it! Jullie even blij dat ik niet meer mondeling met jullie communiceer ;-)

What I'll give you now: tonight's recipe. NOT suitable fo vegetarians, but QUITE suitable for single households with the need to eat simple&cheap&deliciously (I'm thinking in particular of M. and M. now) and for families with the need to satisfy a picky son (who gets less picky by the day I know)&still eat deliciously.

serves 4
15 min. work
35 min. stirring and waiting

1kg of any (pieces of a) chicken with bone
1 onion (at the least)
1 clove garlic (idem dito)
2 leeks (das prei)
1 apple (at the least)
1 chicken stock cube
400ml cider (or more, but nice to drink as well!)
1 tablespoon of flour

Fry chicken in pan (with some butter, I would say), remove and put aside. Chop onion and garlic and fry. Stir in flour (cook for 1 min.) and stock cube and cider and 200ml water. Add chicken. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 min. Chop apple and slice leeks and add. Cook 15 min. Done!

Loeb Postscriptum & Cream Tea

2005-12-06T18:11:00.000Z

M. just informed me that the Loeb-series of classical translations is not as overwhelmingly authoritative as I thought: about certain authors, classicists are rather reserved.

That said, the statement about homosexuality can be extended: the editors of the older editions were having moral difficulty with any passage on (physical) love.

Today is essay-finishing day (as was Sunday, and yesterday... maar vandaag gaat het echt echt lukken!). Interluded by Christmas dinner leftovers and a Devon Cream Tea behind St. Stephen's with T., the Pennsylvanian girl I met last week during our OODS-walk. Novelties: strong tea with milk (turns out I like it. After fifteen years thinking I'd hate it) and tea cake (kind of krentenbol, but cut open and toasted - naturally - and accompanied by butter and blackcurrant and strawberry jam. And again: Christmas muzak and ouwe besjes surrounding us. Very nice.

We talked some more, bought milk and bread at Sains and said goodbye at the Clocktower. Strange experience: we've seen each other only twice, had rather personal conversations, and in three days she's off to America, for good. I've got her address and can come round when I go to the States, but actually the States were one of the few places in the world I didn't have direct plans to go to, so... guess that was it.

About tonight

2005-12-06T01:54:00.000Z

We just had a wonderful Sinterklaas/Christmas dinner: everyone loved the pepernoten, Rebecca baked loads of intricate Swiss Christmas cookies, the English girls had prepared a roast (chicken and stuffing and potatoes and more), we had Christmas crackers with corny puns and hats and all, and candles of course en presents (I got the award of the most random gift (a "beancutter"; but I also gave the poor boy a winebottle opener)), and Spanish sausages and baguette (not the real stuff of course but still pretty okay) and toast and pâté and shrimps and more sausages (of course) and brussels sprouts (of course) and my first Yorkshire pudding! And then we had mince pies and chocolate cake and Christmas pudding (which turned out as a mixture of gin and carbon after a too enthusiastic set-on-fire) and we laughed a lot (and drank wine and cheap English beer from a can and gin with some tropical fruitjuice) and Greg did his sword eating trick (the real stuff: down at least five decimeters) which was very impressive but also pretty disgusting so soon after such a copious dinner; he looked a bit pale afterwards as well; etc. etc.

AND: I got my SIXTH chocolate letter (move abroad: you won't ever get to eat so much Dutch food) and, most importantly: more schuimpjes (because the last ones were gone much too soon)! And, of course, thank you Sinterklaas for the poem: together with the rest of the night and Shakespeare last weekend it has brought my level of laughter to decent heights again.

Hope you had a lovely Saint Nicholas Night, too,

Anna

The Lafrowda Experience & Sinterklaas

2005-12-05T12:18:00.000Z

Living in Lafrowda becomes a more fascinating experience each day.

I'm not sure how much you already know, from me or from other people or places (however, I can tell you that http://www.exeter.ac.uk/accommodation.shtml does not give an accurate picture, several reasons for which will be given below).

I think I told you about narrow hallways and single showers for twelve people and cleaners that go on holidays without notice or substitutes. For your delight, I've also just taken an (analogue) picture of what our kitchen floor looks like five minutes after the cleaner has left. I leave it to your imagination what it looks like three weeks after she's left.

Sometimes our cleaner does show up, but does not clean. That's mostly when it rains. Then we just find the kitchen filled with cigarette smoke, five minutes after she's left.
I am very sorry I haven't caught her in the act yet.

When you have a look at the Lawfrowda pictures on the university's official website, you see a gezellige bedroom hung with posters. My own room looks about the same. However, this is not what it's meant to look like, for behold what I found on my doorstep this morning (note that we don't have wooden poster strips on the walls like at UCU):

25 November [?!] 2005

Dear resident.

It has recently come to our attention [excuse me? since when are landlords this naive?] that many residents in Lafrowda are covering the brick walls with posters
[...].

The Self-Catering Handbook which was given to you as part of your contract
documentation explains on page 15 that you should not do this. The main [?!]
reason for this is that damage [?] is caused to the walls and blue-tac marks
cannot easily be removed by cleaning [wasn't that what blue tac was invented
for?].

However, due to the fact that Lafrowda is an old building [you can say
that again], the standards rooms are due for refurbishment [bless the Lord] in the
future [mm, do we here find een addertje onder het gras*?] and there are
already many marks on the brick walls made by previous occupants [which you did
not even try to clean, so what are we talking about?], we have decided to make an exception. For this year, you will be allowed to display posters (not wallpaper) on the
walls (but not on any painted or wood surfaces) along with the noticeboards. It would be appreciated that when fixing these, you use substances which do not leave any further marks [?! so apparently we do not have a problem inthe first place?]. Masking tape would be ideal.

Well, I guess we should now all march to Cornwall House to thank 'Hospitality' Services ("Investor in people") on our knees and kiss their feet.

Still, this morning had another interesting experience in store for me:
Ever danced under a stroboscope lamp? Ever showered under one?
It sounds rather innocent&funny, but after a while it drove my eyes and brain so crazy I took the rest of the shower with my eyes shut.
And normally you would just replace the bulb or leave the door wide open, but neither is really an option here with a lamp firmly entrenched in the celing and the 'entrance hall' and glass front door looking out directly into the shower.
Anyway, hebben we dat ook eens meegemaakt.

On the positive side:
1) My doorlock got fixed, which means that I can leave and sleep comfortably now, without fear for burglars or drunk maniacs, and also - halleluia - that my insurance has a point again (again: picture available on return).

2) In spite of my "Secret Santa"(sorry for this ridiculous vernaggeling of Sinterklaas) preparations I was not really aware of the fact that it is actually the fifth of December, right now. Until one of our lovely porters produced not only a letter, but a parcel! And it is not just any parcel, but a parcel from Sinterklaas! Including zak and poem and all! Now you know me, Sinterklaas(en): I won't open it until tonight... (Vol verwachting klopt ons hart) But I thank you now!

And I wish you all a wonderful evening.

*I was sorry to find in my 1990 Wolters Nederlands-Engels the translation "There is a nigger in the woodpile"...

A post anyway

2005-12-04T21:27:00.000Z

This morning I ran outside to enjoy the bright sun.

Our campus is cleaved right up to its centre (somewhat like an apple-pie from which Anna has snatched away a piece) by a little stream called the Hoopern. This river is flanked by two grass- and tree-covered hillsides, which steeply rise up to the main campus roads that run along the valley's edges. The point now is, that no one ever crosses these roads to enter the small sheltered world which lies beneath.

Thus, ever since I arrived here I have wanted to walk the Hoopern valley. Today I did.

The low winter sun was shining straight from the entrance of the valley, which is on the Exe riverside, where the Hoopern ends) into my eyes. The damp wooden fences were steaming as if treated by the Lord of the Rings scene decorators. At some places the grass was soaked, at some places still covered with frost. Little ice-cold streams trickled between the grass polls. Some trees where bare, but many still golden yellow.

With wet feet and a groaning stomach I returned home.

I made some progress on my paper.

One of the beautiful things I got to read was the defence by Saint Aelred of Rievaulx of the love among monks or nuns. (But of course this does not mean this poetry does not bear on all love):

"It is in fact a great consolation in this life to have someone to whom you can
be united in the intimate embrace of the most sacred love; in whom your spirit
can rest [...]; with whom you can rest, just the two of you, in the sleep of
peace away from the noise of the world, in the embrace of love, in the kiss of
unity, with the sweetness of the Holy Spirit flowing over you; to whom you so
join and unite yourself that you mix soul with soul, and two become one."

After reading this, I got some bad news which almost put me off from writing a cheerful post. But after the news was moderated and I got myself back together again, I decided to tell you how wonderful Devon is, anyway.

How to be deleted from history...

2005-12-03T21:20:00.000Z

I would like to treat you to a hilarious fact about Loeb Classics, the authoritative bilingual series of classical Greek and Latin texts standardly used by students and scholars, which I discovered in my essay readings:

Until recently, passages in the Greek texts dealing with homosexuality, whether positively or negatively, were translated not into English but into Latin. Similarly, problematic Roman passages were translated into Italian!

This is revealing not only about Loeb's attitude to homosexuality, but also about the esteem they had for their readers. And for Italians...

N.B. In the new translations Loeb has mended it ways, restoring passages that "might give offense". (For another laugh look at their own explanation and illustration.)
Still, it will take a long time before the old editions will have disappeared from book collections and libraries.

Foucault on Sexualities

2005-12-03T13:20:00.000Z

as explained by David M. Halperin (2002):

“Sex takes on new social and individual functions, and it assumes a new
importance in defining and normalising the modern self. The conception of the
sexual instinct as an autonomous human function without an organ appears for the
first time in the nineteenth century, and without it our heavily psychologised
model of sexual subjectivity […] is inconceivable. Sexuality is indeed, as
Foucault claimed, a distinctively modern production."

“The nineteenth-century disciplining of the subject, though it purported to aim
at the eradication of ‘peripheral sexualities,’ paradoxically required their
consolidation and ‘implantation’ or ‘incorporation’ in individuals, for only by
that means could the subject’s body itself become so deeply, so minutely invaded
and colonised by the agencies of normalisation."

> 19th century laws against and medical marginalisation of 'homosexuals' actually played an important role in creating a homosexual self-conception ("a homosexual subjectivity" as it is called).

“It is only lately, Foucault emphasises […] that it has become almost impossible
simply to pursue the pleasures of homosexual contact ‘just so, when you felt
like it, every once in a while, or in phases’ […], without being forced to
deduce from one’s own behaviour that one is homosexual, without being
interpellated by the culpabilising category of ‘the homosexual’.”

What Foucault does/invites us (historians) to do

“is a question of systematically defining different historical forms of sexual
experience – different ways of being, different sets of relations to others and
to oneself, different articulations of pleasure and meaning, different forms of
consciousness.”

> each historical period and place has it own forms of sexuality, its own sexual idenitities.

These thoughts mainly belong to the later Foucault, i.e. after the publication in 1976 of the first volume of his History of sexuality (La volonté de savoir).

I suggest that any of these statements on homosexuality apply equally well to heterosexuality, as the latter is just as much a cultural construction as the former (although not marginalised).

For clarifications you can have a look at a glossary of Foucauldian terms and ideas, or you can read a very short summary of some of his ideas bearing on sexuality, identity, and power-knowledge (which also features a nice tour through "Foucault's Paris"!).

And even these postmodern, academic discussions, Lewis Carroll has eerily foreseen:

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.”
“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!”
“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.”
“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar.
“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied, very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself, to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”
“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar.
“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?”

Dixit

2005-12-03T00:39:00.000Z

Dominus. Dixit Dominus. Dixit Dominus. A-men. A-men. A-a-a-a-a-a-a-men. Amen. A-a-a-men. Amen. Amen.

Thus, Mozart can fill 56 pages of score. So can Vivaldi.

It was a wonderful experience. Acoustics were great. Music was beautiful. We sang pretty okay I think (although at one moment I noticed I was exactly one beat ahead of the other sixty singers). Conductor charming&funny as usual. The white shirt I bought in a moment of despair, at some awful shop where they didn't even have changing rooms, actually turned out better on me than on the "clotheshorse" (is that an ordinary word to use?) - which is a rare phenomenon. From an unfashionable flowery middle/old-aged woman shirt it has canged into a handsome, silk, kinda' Latin shirt...

After this purchase I found I had done enough concessions to gender-affirmative choir-prescriptions and decided to leave the "long black skirt" for the long-black-skirt-minded. And wel heb je ooit if I wasn't the only woman in trousers, with the exception of one female tenor who had to wear a suit to mask her gender...

Anyway: back to the wonderful experience: the church we sang in, Saint Michael and all Angels, was an impressive (neo)gothic space, with immense dark ceilings and, indeed, sculpted angels everywhere. Apart from us, we got to listen to the University Orchestra playing Corelli's Christmas concert! (Well, hurrah, doesn't that sound familiar to some of us? Oh, where are the days that we gathered in an Amsterdam South church to experience the joy of making music on strings and performing such Great Art before a willing audience etc. etc.?). It was magnificent.

In the queue for the toilet I had the dubious privilege of meeting the president of ChapSoc. He told me he was, but I could have known, for 1) he wears whiskers; 2) his opening sentence was "Wouldn't mind a bit less rain" (it had been raining); 3) he was in the same formal costume as the orchestra-members, but on the question what instrument he plays, he answered: "Not any, but I'm a Chap and today is Dress-up Friday. For those fortunate souls who haven't figured out yet what ChapSoc(iety) is (I guess that would make all of you): it's the club of students who purport to promote the return of politeness into British society - but I suspect the crux of the matter is that they are Dickens-nostalgians deploring the fall of the Empire.

And, last but not least: I met a new group of friends which provided me with yet another Christmas party invitation!

Three other random Things of Today:
1) We got reservations for the Twelfth Night matinee tomorrow!
2) Misoandry today in History of Sexuality got really embarrassing: fifteen girls whining about patriarchal discourse (how "men" would expect them to serve, care, live for them and are only concerned of their own positive self-conception (i.e. the anxiety for their 'masculinity', whatever that means nowadays)) in the magazines and books they buy and read and write (men generally find them either uninteresting or questionable). The one (!) boy in class didn't dare to open his mouth for the rest of the seminar. Maybe I should write a thesis about how in the modern western world patriarchy (which, I agree, still exists) is maintained primarily by (a specific group of) women, not men.
3) Got as many as two true Proust-experiences: the foyer of our Great Hall smelled exactly like my pre-previous grandmother's house, while the porch of the church smelled like her cellar. Unfortunately I didn't have the same time to my disposal as had Proust, to dwell on the associated memories. Still, it reminds me to tell you this: after you've read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, read À la recherche du temps perdu (translations allowed ;-)!

At work

2005-12-01T22:52:00.000Z

Work today was very, well, uhm... cool? (although a colleague preferred to call it "Well have you ever!")

My supervisor more or less gave me a box of fossiles (nautili, ammonites, some ichthyosaur vertebrae, and the like), a table, lamps and an awesome camera on (idem) tripod* and simply told me to provide records for the archive.

You can imagine the fun I had messing around with focus, distance, composition and, especially, light (because I don't normally get this kind of "studio"-setting when I take pictures). If you follow the ichthyosaur-link above you also get a nice idea what the photos I took look like.

There are also some more observations about the English I would like to share with you:

Strangely, there seem to be two very distinct groups of civil servants, shop assistants, merchants, bureaucrats and other people that sit/stand behind tills and are there to help you. The first few I met were incredibly rude, didn't even smile or say hello/hia and were not being very helpful. Examples: National Rail, National Express, University IT Reception. But then I encountered more and more of the second kind, which soon outnumbered the first: they are extremely kind, helpful, concerned, etc., much more than would be considered necesary in the Netherlands (and maybe by some even a bit out of proportion), but I like it. These are to be found at Sainsbury's, the University Payment Office, the University Guild Shop, and many other shops. Sitting on the fence are Tesco and Woolworths: I guess these just don't have a very consistent staff management. Now a question arises on this division: how come? I thought of three possible answers: 1) the English are just a very nice people; 2) only people who are nice get a job in England; 3) other people get a job, too, but are drilled to smile and say "hia" and wrap your groceries for you. Option 3 might work. Option 2 is out of the question, as the people without a job are very nice here as well (as everywhere b.t.w., but there are people that didn't know this). However, I choose to believe option 1.
I remember noticing something negative as well, but it forgot what it was. We'll save that for later. Or I'll just forget about it completely, which would be no bad sign either.
Something that's without doubt splendidly organised here are the public toilets. They are 1) present (in the Netherlands they are a rare phenomenon, or they take the shape of phone boots); 2) genuinely public, which means that for the better part of the week they are indeed accessible and not locked or something (except on thursdays in Exmouth); 3) free (impossible in the Netherlands, or France, or Belgium. An important exception here must be made for Germany); 4) clean. Which together leads to the impossibility coming true of trying to visit a public toilet on a SUNDAY AFTERNOON and finding your way blocked BY SOMEONE CLEANING IT, apologising and hastily making room for you to enter. You won't find that in Amsterdam Experience: no, sir!

*for the other freaks among you: sorry, forgot the type/number, but basically a digital slr, fitting on a microscope, with some extra lenses that are nice to have for a museum - once again this shows how little I know about technology; however, once I just get to handle the thing it works out fine.

I love today's weather!

2005-12-01T10:27:00.000Z

It's storming like mad & the wings/tails of my coat take me all over the place.

There's not a single red ribbon to be spotted on campus - not even in the history of sexuality lecture; in a minute we'll see what it's like in town.

Saturday my neighbour, B. (like that's informative...), and I will see Twelfth Night (Jippie! My first real Shakespeare performance in England).

Busy day today: lecture - museum - dinner - choir final rehearsal for tomorrow's concert in some church in town I've never been to before. So I better be off!

And a real entry, too

2005-11-30T18:01:00.000Z

She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have suddenly wrapped herself up in wool. Alice rubbed her eyes, and looked again. She couldn't make out what had happened at all. Was she in a shop? And was that really - was it really a sheep that was sitting on the other side of the counter? Rub as she would, she could make nothing more of it: she was in a little dark shop, leaning with her elbows on the counter, and opposite to her was an old Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair knitting, and every now and then leaving off to look at her through a great pair of spectacles.

I am happy to hear that more and more people have been paying visits to Wonderland* lately, whether in English or Swedish or any other language.

I forgot to reply to O.'s remark that En Tokig Tebjudning (which translates for example as Een getikte Theevisite sounds rather like an "onomatopaea" (spelled onomatopoeia in British, and, I think, can also be found as onomatopeia, onomatopea and onomatopee in Dutch): do you mean the sounds the Mad Hatter and the March Hare make would sound rather like this title?

I myself, together with a couple of friends that 'happened to be' 'in this same here country', have been to Wonderland, two weeks ago now. It took us some more trouble than falling through a rabbit-hole (rather, you could compare it with the effort it takes to enter "the loviest garden you ever saw"). But we made it. To Oxford I mean (hèhè: can't that girl just be clear for one sec?). And one place the two gentlemen were so kind as to unleash me in (and I must say, I controlled myself pretty well), was the shop. The Shop. THE mythical shop that turns into a little boat on a river (the Thames) and back into a shop in Looking-glass chapter V: "Wool and Water". THE famous shop were Alice Liddell would go in mid-nineteenth-century Oxford to buy her comfits (see chapter III of the first part). The Shop you can see in Tenniel's illustrations, though in mirror-image. The Shop in the building that's a half-millennium old now. The Shop opposite Christ Church, the College where Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (or Lewis Carroll, as you might know him) spent his life.

Yes: you can say I was rather glad to finally be there.

Nowadays it's an Aliciana-shop, where the Queen/Sheep has been replaced by a not very British (because Asian) Oxford-student, and where of course they sell the necessary amount of kitsch, but where they have some good Stuf as well.

So, I made a mental (in both senses of the word) list of all the china teapots and First Editions and Tenniel prints I'm gonna stuff my house with once I found the accessory lenient millionaire, and I bought a set of fabulous double-sidedly printed bookmarks with Carroll's own Adventures Underground-drawings. And I fi-nal-ly acquired one of Alice's best illustrators: Mervyn Peake.

That made my day a success (though had it not been for this, all the other wonderful things would have sufficed), and after this satisfaction of my most important Oxfordian desire, I was quite willing to be dragged to certain Tolkien-related venues, among which Two Trees. They were two very mysterious trees indeed, for that very night, they had either suddenly chosen to steal one Potter's Invisibility Garment, or, and this is what I personally suspect, they had mingled with a host of other Trees, so as to form, as it were, a Forest. Anyhow, we could not find them, but that kon de pret niet drukken. Quite the contrary. (Although I sincerely hope De heer M. will one day be able to locate them.)

I hope more about Oxonia later.

This is something I found in one of the articles I have been reading for my current essay: a reference to "A. Van Goudoever. 1731. Traiecti ad Rhenum. De nefanda libidine". (To inform the people to whom this doesn't ring a bell: Ab van Goudoever has just retired from teaching & professoring at University College Utrecht). It appears that our own Albert was er al vroeg bij! The article turns out not to be about the history of the human rights debate though, but about masturbating nuns (No kidding. 1731!). Mm...

Also, did you know the origins of the Blackadder font? The one used in the tv-series? The one you can actually buy here? They actually used the signature Guy Fawkes (the guy from the celebrations on November 5th) had to write down after his royal torture! Which they say explains the "sinister tremble" you can observe if you watch closely. (You can compare his signature before his (alleged) torture in the Tower of London, with the ones in between and afterwards.)

That was it for today.

Tomorrow is December 1.

*This is no metaphor for England: here I do really mean Alice's/Carroll's Wonderland.

TEST

2005-11-30T13:04:00.000Z

paragraph

quote

more paragraph, supposed to appear on fontsize=100%

parapgraph

quote

what happens now?

paragraph

quote

and now?

the last one was perfect

but I don't understand

why the fontsize problems after blockquotes have suddenly dispppeared

does it have any effect when I try to decrease the font-size of the normal paragraph-text to the blockquote size? and back again?

and into a new paragraph?

Indeed it does! So we won't use the span-tag in the future, as its need seems to be totally unpredictable... (what is wrong with my machine, or with this program, or with my settings?!)

But it's still nice to be able to work with it, so thank you O.!

There are moments...

2005-11-29T15:34:00.000Z

... that I dearly miss you. There are some moments on which, more specifically, I could use some Netherlanders around here. And on some occasions, I just go

"Poehé..."

and all these people look at me like I've said something really weird and I get no response and it feels very unsatisfactory and I really really badly need some one of you to be there and just say the word for me... "IENIEMIENIE!"

"Realistically detailed"

2005-11-28T15:44:00.000Z

I couldn't keep this from you:

On my search for a translation of Thomas Aquinas' Summa, I found something quite different. Appart from being different, it is also a) horrible and b) very interesting.

Here we see two traditions (on the one hand the tradition of the nativity scene underneath the Christmas tree, which has developed from nativity plays in late medieval churches created to involve the ordinary laity in the experience of religion; and on the other hand the tradition of a Santa Claus bringing gifts from the North Pole, which developed from a Dutch/German tradition evolving around a locally (Amsterdam!) and regionally (oceanic trade!) important saint, who in the Middle Ages would have provided a connection to Chirst and an advocate to St.Peter/God (to obtain a seat in heaven)); we see these two traditions, that share their earliest origin (Christianity), and that have subsequently been separated for twenty centuries, REUNITE, in this magnificent/horrendous celebration of bad taste.

And then I dropped a soaked teabag...

2005-11-28T14:00:00.000Z

... into a left-hand shoe. More in general, bodily coordination over the last few days has not been om over naar huis te schrijven (dus bij deze). I keep dropping keys and hitting doorposts, and during my presentation this morning I had forgotten how to speak English. So I'll just keep inside with my mouth shut for the rest of the day and write a bit in essays and hebdomadals. No parties for me today - and I'm happy I don't have to cook, as I already tried that yesterday (most of the time I cook double portions, as I'm sure most of you single-living students without dining hall do).

And now if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know -
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo -
That summer evening long ago
A-sitting on a gate.

Friday I did go to a very nice party of a German friend, where we drank German punch (with yogurt and cream - or is that global? I in any case hadn't tasted it before. But it was certainly not bad.) and ate German Christmas cake.

Yesterday, very busily engaged in circumvening essay writing, I found some nice stuff on Aphex Twin's music made visual (through spectograms - diagrams plotting sound frequency against time, with colours representing the volume of the different frequencies): http://www.bastwood.com/aphex.php. Of course, hiding messages in sound or music isn't a new idea (as always, in pop music The Beatles were (one of the?) first to experiment with it. But the phenomenon is much older), but these are some nice 1999 examples, which inspire you to go off and look for more hidden messages.

What else is there? I have been reading in Jippus et Jannica. I didn't bring a dictionary (and didn't feel like like starting my computer), but I get the gist of the stories, and even most of the fun. I must admit I never (or hardly ever) read them as a child, so this is a good way to make up. And to try to keep my Latin from further "Decline and Fall".

Also, I have gotten me some Christmas decoration. I didn't like Christmas spirit to pass my home completely this year. On the other hand, I didn't like the kitsch that you find all over (more affordable) Exeter, but in the end I found two small red fake pearl and ruby balls in an irresistible bric-à-brac shop in Okehampton (where I simply died to instantaneously start collecting my trousseau (plates, mirrors, bedside tables, linencupboards, ivory handled knife sets, sugar and salt and flour pots, and so on), were it not the case that 1) I couldn't possibly carry it to Exeter; 2) not for all the world could I move it to the Netherlands; 3) I have no home in the Netherlands to store it; 4) I have no idea whether or when in my life there comes a moment that I settle down steadily enough as to be able to use all this stuff). Anyway: these glimmery ruby balls sound horrible, I know, but they actually look rather nice, sobered up by some big green branches.

I didn't tell you about my rudimentary Sinterklaas celebration, did I? Well, next week, on the fifth of December, our flat organises a Christmas dinner. I took a big bag of pepernoten with me in September (yep, they were being sold already back then), which gives me a nice opportunity to share with the others our noble tradition of eating yourself sick on flour and sugar on the night before some Catholic saint died (I don't mean that: in truth, I am a sincere fan of Sint Nicolaas). But that's not all: it turns out that they have a tradition here (imported, of course), involving some mysterious "secret Santa" and presents and, jaja, the drawing of lots! (Maybe this is something you've all long known. I have always been a Santa Claus nitwit.) So that's how I will spend my "Glorious Little Evening". Please tell me about yours...

Dart&Moor

2005-11-26T23:38:00.000Z

(So much for corny puns)

That was a pretty tough climb. Deep, steep and slippery. And very hot'n'sweaty on the way up, but terribly cold on the windy top where we had our lunch. In other words: one perfect day.

In the end (after much rescheduling: see previous entries) we bussed to Okehampton, and made a circular walk through the fields and over the moor, and finally climbing the two tors that were our goal for the day (tors are huge granite rocks from which you have the best view over the Moor. Actually, the entire region called Dartmoor is one big "piece" of granite that has come to the surface; and so are other places in the South-West like Bodmin Moor and St Austell. For a very clear and nicely illustrated explanation of this and more, visit this place, and look under Factsheets & leaflets - Educational factsheets - Geology & landforms.).

Views were - well, what can I say - stunning. While stumbling over the quirky rocks covered with heather and blueberries and about five inches of snow (strong ankles and knees required), I realised it must have been some fifteen years ago since I have spent a winter in the mountains.That made this experience even more special to me. The weather was the very opposite from what everyone had expected: no blizzards, no snow-falling, no rain. Just a perfectly clear sky to take 25 amazing pictures (I hope). You'll see them all in a month or three. But the image(s) given on M.'s field-diary give a reasonable idea of what we were in, although our walk was much more spectacular of course. But we did see sheep, and we did see ponies, houses, stiles, "ijle luchten", white fields separated by black hedgerows making England remind me very much of Brueghel in the snow.

I think I also made a new good friend today. She is from Pennsylvania (the S of A: not the English village between Bristol and Bath), she immediately liked Stophoest and her (great)grandparents are from all over the place (as isn't unusual for Americans of course): Ireland, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Russia, Scotland... Back in Okehampton, a sweet, very Dartmoorish town nevertheless looking slightly Swiss today, we had a tea (&chocolate) with Sponge Biscuit and Fruitcake in the, also very very sweet/neat/comfy/cosy/warm (misschien een beetje "te") "Victorian Tea Pantry" (with portraits of Queen Vic on the wall, and real-life little chatty old English ladies around us), next to the local Museum of Dartmoor Life and the tourist information centre.

Back home I found that Somerfield (one of the large supermarket branches) isn't so extravagantly expensive as was my first impression some months ago, and instead of preparing the projected mediterranean pasta and tuna dish, I decided a steak pie with carrot and swede would suit the day much better. (Okay, I did add rice, coriandre and chili and soy sauces. But still.) In the kitchen it was all very gezellig (no irony intended), slating the British version of the tv show Idols (here called "X-factor". Like that helps) and talking about the ongoing tradition of Sunday roasts.

Now this walking, which I do about once every two weeks, often happens in the context of one of the university student societies I subscribe to. We call ourselves OODS (our full name doesn't express our nature half as well: it's the Out Of Doors Society. It's true of course that we go Out of doors, but the abbreviation is much more informative of Our Kind. As is usually the case. Just to give you an example: Exeter Uni also knows a CockSoc. They are supposed to mix cocktails). Anyway: so I am one OOD, we do walks every Saturday, which take us all over the South-West, and I am going to take at least M. with us when he comes; I am very sorry O. isn't here on a Saturday, because he would love it as well. But we'll just arrange our own hike.

I won't go into the other walks I made with OODS in-depth (which is a good thing for you and for me, considering our most interesting and busy Lives), but possibly the stories will come back 'home', with the pictures.
One of these was a coastal: a walk along the Cornish coast from Boscastle to Tintagel. Be-au-ti-ful. Well, you know I love the sea. And it reminded me of both Wales and Bretagne, two more places I love. Which means I wouldn't mind loving Cornwall.
Houses in Cornwall are very distinct: they are built from (mostly bare) slate (leistenen) flagstones, both the walls and the roofs; whereas here in Devon houses are often plastered a greyish colour (although you have some Elsacian pinks and greens, too).

I think I shouldn't bother you much longer with long descriptions of landscapes: I'm sure you woul have no problem turning to Victorian novels for that. I would like to give you one more direction though: some of the walks I took (both with OODS and without) I did with Rebecca, one of my flatmates. She does have a digital camera, and a fotoblog, which means... tataa! For clarifying pics of places we both have been to (although not always together or even at the same moment): see her entries on October 9 (where you can see a real Tor), 24 and 25; and November 6 and 8. (By the way: I went to Ottery St Mary, but didn't have to sign one of those waiver forms (one of which you can see on the first photograph) as we went in a very own-risk car: see my 7/11 post.) But the rest of her photos also gives a nice image of what es gibt to see here, and what I (and you too) still might visit in the future. I might still go to Bath for example.

...

Saving dark chocolate for last, I concluded the day with some delicious bites of a hazelnut letter N.

And now, after a brisk and crisp walk, a very hot shower, a wholesome English meal and the recording of it all here (now there's a Never-Ending Story for you), I'm sure I will sleep tight tonight!

Weather news update

2005-11-25T19:16:00.000Z

Due to heavy snowfalling the public coach that was going to take us into the heart of Dartmoor tomorrow has been cancelled. We'll be taking another bus instead (one which remains on the A-road. Hope they can handle it).
Long live British public (etc.)

Aahh!

2005-11-25T17:02:00.000Z

I am going nuts! There is one absolutely indispensible book I need for my next essay, and guess what's the only place in the world where it can be found?

Right, in the library of Utrecht University: it's a 1977 dissertation by a Dutcher.

So now I seriously wonder why I have moved all the way tot Exeter to study the history of sexuality, while all my specialists are really in Utrecht.

Yep: lesson understood...

Latest News

2005-11-25T13:04:00.000Z

240 schools in Wales have been closed due to snow. We "are being warned to expect further disruption" (channel 4 news).

Wodan must be playing games with us

2005-11-25T10:22:00.000Z

I move to the subtropical part of the United Kingdom, the only place where palmtrees grow, the where temperatures rarely drop beneath zero... and instantaneously the coldest winter of the decade is heralded, and we wake up in the middle of a land covered in white: the fields, the trees, the roofs...
And tomorrow I've signed up for a long ramble through Dartmoor!

...Half an hour later...

This is an excerpt from the message I just received from the 'wandelclub':

"Dear OODS members
Owing to bad weather (including heavy snow) having been forcast, we may be making some alterations to Saturday's walk. There is a possibility that blizzards will occur on Dartmoor this weekend"...

Still more about today... and a tip

2005-11-24T22:37:00.000Z

Today in the museum, I decided to try to do my work wearing gloves. (Thought it might create a feeling of connectedness, maar dat terzijde.) With Titan 9'' Nitrile Non-latex Powder free Exam gloves by CLP Tools for Molecular Biology (Medium), to be precise. I gave up after an hour.

And now for something completely different: I received some signals that the title of yesterday's post does not become entirely clear. Maybe I should have said that it takes more than a dictionary to solve... you might need some wit, or linguistic intuition, or creativity. Or perhaps it helps if I write it this way: "En Tokig Te-Bjudning"?

And here is something I found in the Middle Ages: twelfth-century treatises appear to have ideas about what is proper in love that are rather similar to ours nowadays. These are the “stationes amandi”, the stages of loving, any affair ideally goes through, according to a large number of clerics(!):

1. Visus

2. Alloquium

3. Tactus

4. Oscula

5. Factum

White

2005-11-24T21:52:00.000Z

Observation this morning: fresh white roses along the way to school.

The eight o'clock news: UK gas supplies and storage capacity are low; prices are rising.

Observation right now: fresh, white, quality snow flakes falling from the black sky, covering the earth, even surviving in my hair and on my coat until inside my room.

Connect the dots.

Knit me a scarf. Send me candles. Or brandy.

Send a helicopter to pick me up.

But don't go to Exeter, because it's c-c-c-cold

Exeter glitters. But what about Anna?

2005-11-24T19:25:00.000Z

Still my moods take me up and down at the speed of a rollercoaster.

This afternoon, exuberantly eating my first flapjack* in my museum's café that can compete with the TheaterInstituutCafé or even the Theater De Krakeling bar (I'll show you. Later)...

On my way home from the supermarket through a dark, wet, and freezing cold Exeter, filled with happy people shopping for Christmas, about to return to their cozy, warm, decorated homes where they'll find their loved ones waiting at the fireplace with hot tea and mince pies... man, I felt miserable.

And now, now I'm all right again.
People in the (clean) kitchen, delicious fresh basil on top of my chickpea spinach tomato cumin dish and the Simpsons on the telly. And choir in a minute.

Today I have finalised my course choice for my very very last semester at UCU. I wish I had done ASIC plus eight courses and still got the right to do an extra semester and do another four courses... Choosing was exceedingly difficult, and leaving UC is gonna be even more difficult...

Anyway: in the end I decided to go for geography (last chance to do something crazy), love&friendship in Antiquity (which also covers part of the modern period, funny enough), if possible another creative writing course (still trying to arrange something), postmodern literature, and the thesis of course (although doubts about it are starting to kreep into my brain like worms in a pink Floyd film). If you are used to count in the same fashion as I do that makes five courses, but one of them will be cancelled (don't know yet which): I wanna try to keep some spare time this semester.

As you might have noticed, this means I won't do the UCU dance course, about which I feel very guilty (as I was one of the people supporting the creation of this course last year). But it clashes with the postmodernism timeslot, which is sort of essential for the completion of a solid basis in the study of literature. So I'll just dance on thursday nights again (I mean at Parnassoos. I might dance at parties, too, but I have the feeling that that won't happen every week. In general, I 'fear' that I won't be going out as much in Utrecht as I do here. But certainly not because Exeter's night life has so much more to offer). You might also have noticed that I won't be doing biology, as was sort of planned - I'll just read some introductory books during the vacation (like I have one). Also, the multimedia-idea had to be abandoned as it won't be on offer next semester. (I don't say this to cause heart attacks with my readers - it would rather diminish my audience, wouldn't it? No: it's genuine information. Want to know what's happened to me? I just liked working on this site so much, that I thought I might take it a bit further and get a proper foundation instead of messing aorund like I've done until now. But, as said, it won't happen. At least not at UC.)

*Flapjack: oat flakes and butter and sugar from the oven (or a combination of havermoutkoek and boterkoek)

En Tokig Tebjudning

2005-11-23T23:28:00.000Z

Tuesday

I am currently in the process of preparing tomorrow's music sociology seminar. Without bragging (but that would be impossible, because C.L. hasn't been my teacher anyway), it is still very nice to encounter familiar names "all over the world" (read: imn England) in books, journals and in the classroom: like being referred to Christel Lutz in a chapter on the social psychology of emotion experienced during music listening.

Also, while reading for this seminar, I came across some nice (ahum) euphemisms: any ideas what is meant by "temporal trajectories", involving "corporeal grammars", or, in other words "particular intimate action forms"?* Sociology can be very cute, but I wish they would transform the discourse informing this academic paradigm into one constituting less opaque embodiments of mundane actions and feelings...
(i.e. cut the crap)

On this place I intended to write an extended piece on Oxford. But both today and yesterday turned out much more busy than expected, so you "houden dat tegoed". What you do get already today: a beautiful entry-title. It's Swedish, brought to you by O. (see below) and means...

Oh, by the way, would I be excused if I gave away a dead secret? It might mean O.&co. will never be able find a decent job because they can't use their letter of recommendation anymore, but I am positive the fit of laughter they have given me is worth it. They have participated in an international programming contest in Stockholm as (one of the) the UUtrecht team(s) under the truly patriotic name "Koeienmelk'. "'s Lands Beste", zullen we maar zeggen.

Still on yesterday, which was then still today, or tuesday, I wrote:
To conclude: I have broken into my vast collection of peppernuts (not counting the chocolate-glacéd ones we had last week).
God, they are delicious.
This year might not pass as Sinterklaas-less as I had expected, but I will tell you about that only after some special arrangements have been confirmed!

Today, or wednesday,
the day I would definitively write about Oxford, using yesterday's post as a basis. (now I decided to just post it anyway, just for you to have something to read; but this is really just some babbling around what should have been the central topic...):

At the moment I am listening to BBC radio3, the classical channel. Could anyone please tell me who Shopper is, or Deebiusee? Or Revvel?

More about music: we have been reading some "fascinating stuff"(isn't that the expression every teacher uses? But it's certainly true in this case.) about music teaching (a.o. the notion of "talent") > this will fascinate d. in particular; and about music therapy (a.o. how shocking circumstances for neonates are, living in the middle of a true cacophony in their glass cages, and how this is not very conducive to born-too-early-babies achieving homoeostasis (I suppose Y. at least knows what I am talking about, but probably many more), and how music can help neonates in obtaining more stable, more regular patterns of breathing, movement, sleep, oxygen level, et cetera > I think this will interest m.! I will tell you all about it during Christmas.

Oh, I am afraid I will do some boasting this time. So now is the moment to plug your ears. It's just that I haven't been able to tell this to anyone yet:

Jippieieie! I got my first grade, and it's an 80%, which means first class, which means an A at UCU! (On their Erasmus grade-conversion site they even say that it means a 9 or a 10 in the normal Dutch system, but that I don't believe). I quote from my teacher's guidelines:

"First Class: 70-100% A first class mark is awarded for a piece of work which has been researched in depth, showing a broad and deep knowledge of the topic and an awareness of current research; is clearly structured and well argued, providing clear references to the research material; is located within the existing literature; is perceptive, showing independence of thought and originality; and which is well written and well presented.
78-84% Displays striking insight, sophistication, originality and analytical skills; the quality of the work overall far outweighs any shortcomings or possibility of improvement. Clear command of the materials used." Aha.

Our seminar today went well, too. That is, making a good presentation in this (sociology of music) class is rather easy (as I kind of told before): just the fact of me standing up while presenting, not using notes (or even reading aloud, as the others do), looking at my audience (instead of the floor/my notes) and asking them some questions, and using powerpoint (which they don't use, apparently) with a green background ("wow: that makes it so memorisable!" - Sure, when you have never seen powerpoint...) was already enough to win compliments. And to distract attention from the rather meagre contents, apparently.

You can open your ears/eyes again now!

For we have arrived at the end of this post.
I will leave you with this thought:

Conclusion of the (wednes)day (although you might already have learnt this elsewhere): boiling water can be hot. Don't throw it in your face. Also not in anyone else's face (if you like them).

Bye bye!

*That's right: we have X-rated stuff here.

Today

2005-11-22T00:03:00.000Z

Just discovered that last week had the favourable side-effect of curing my right hand from a developing RSI. Or, in other words: time to get back to work...

Today I had a meeting to prepare another medieval presentation. The poor girl "had not found the time to read the article", which, she had the nerves to add, was just as well, for she had loaned the wrong book anyway. But I completely understand: consulting your course manual is a tough business indeed. Eventually, our meeting was spent by telling me about another first year student who had quit university because of a work overload. For C.'s s.: we (first year students) only have to read one article every fortnight! But you know what the most wonderful part was? I did not give a s.! It did nor irritate me, or frustrate me, or anything. Guess I'm in a good mood today. Or maybe I have been sufficiently reminded again of the more important things in life.

In the meantime you have been sending me loads of letters, both manuscribed and electronic: thank you so much! It does provide some kind of crash barrier for my feelings of well-/ill-being now the "mysterious guest", as K. called him, or "someone special" as someone else said (gosh, this person must be quite something!) has gone.

In one of these letters, M. shares with us this fragment of Gerrit Kouwenaar, which might not be altogether comforting, as she already pointed out, but still is Great Poetry:

en men herhaalt zijn dag
en men herhaalt zijn nacht
en men herhaalt
zijn herhaling
en men gaat mank
en men weet het
en men is een
mens

I also thank you for keeping me up-to-date on Dutch news. (I heard they are thinking about changing Dutch orthography again. S.: your trip to Germany sounds absolutely fabulous! Thanks for Dribble&Pluck's hugs; I'm glad you're doing maths again; and there's always the alternative to flying called Eurolines.) That's indeed something that wil er nog weleens bij inschieten. By the way, about Argentinian news: I paid a visit to M.M. brother's blog, and I might add that, unfortunately, the Buenos Aires Gay Pride did turn nasty...

...

It's late in the evening now. Some events of tonight made my thoughts go back to the Netherlands. I got a phone-call and some lovely e-mails. Furthermore, I went to a drink, organised by a society for international students, where I met a boy who

turned out to be Dutch (might be the first Dutch non-UCU student I actually meet up here)
turned out to study in Utrecht
turned out to be doing his master's...
comprising one nine month and one six month research...
...in biology.

Well, heb je ooit. Okay, I have to admit, he is one year ahead (still sort of in the old program).

It was a nice, calm evening out. Not too late. Not too smoky. Not too drunk (the other visitors, I mean. I am never drunk). And didn't I tell someone I was yearning for a decent tea towel? I won one! They had prepared a cute game for which you had to find out what function a series of traditional Indian household items had (it was an India-themed party), and as apparently another girl and I had the most fruitful imagination (or spent most hours in the onvolprezen Tropenmuseum... > go to Amsterdam and visit it! That is, if you are not from the tropics yourself), we both won a towel featuring a map of India, two cows, one farmer and the words "Greetings from India"! Imagine the bliss. Or wait, no, better not try. Your brain might explode.

Anyway, Joséphine and I got a lift back through the "Cold, Cold Night", and now it's time for me to finish the spine-shivering story of Luella Miller. By the way: once again we are "pressed with our noses upon the facts" (or something): Bram Stoker really is the most competent vampire storyteller.

I kiss you good night.

Tsja.

2005-11-20T23:42:00.000Z

Daar zit je dan. Heel allenig in je kamertje en na een week niet langer dan de tijd van een douche (well, okay, I did attend some seminars, too) van een homoglot gescheiden te zijn geweest, niet langer in staat een decentelijk Engelse tekst te schrijven...

However, we'll try. For the non-Dutchers: the gist of the lines above is: the first few hours without J. are pretty crappy. But we'll survive. By returning to the habits of spending two-third of the day with the amount of activities sufficient for two entire days. By filling the remainder with writing to and for and with you. And by very efficiently making use of the zero hours in bed. In short: it is the well-known strategy of distraction, employed until, hopefully, distraction has become so overwhelming that it is not recognised as distraction anymore and itself becomes known by the name of "life".

First solitary activity of the day: buying yoghurt and milk (ration is back from 4 to 2 pints per shopping session; shopping sessions are back from once a day to twice a week...) and one ciabatta to complete a delicious dinner compiled of left-overs from eight days care by the most wonderful houseman I ever met (someone inform us about the linguistic connection to "husband"?). But tomorrow I shall eat meat! (Not implying that that is something to look forward to... But still. I don't know. Afwisseling van spijs etcetera?). Anyway. Supermarket cashiers in England are already much kinder than those in the Netherlands (apart from some very notable exceptions of course, c.q. F.&co.), but the girl helping me this afternoon gave such lovely smiles and remarks that I'm sure I must have looked not too happy. Still: nice fellow choir members and flatmates make up for a lot.

This entry was mainly meant as a first sign of life after nine days of silence, to gradually habituate the both of us (that's you and me - back together again!) to this place again, and maybe (but I don't know whether that was necessary) to reassure some of you (primarily m. and d.? For we haven't been in contact for some weeks now) that I indeed survive up to and including this moment. Next time I will tell a bit about a very limited selection of this week's events. But now it's time for bed.

Goedenacht. Enjoy your extra hour of sleep.

Anna

Vol verwachting klopt ons hart

2005-11-11T12:51:00.000Z

Okay, today this bloody essay has to be finished, and it's gonna be a crap essay (how in the world am I going to squeeze the analysis of eight highly interesting books into 2500 words?!) because I haven't slept tonight due to a party of noisy Spanjolen next door (> Angry Anna, but hey: the sun is shining! and Brian May plays the guitar!, so. Dus.). But maybe my lack of sleep has to do with the following as well...

While the Good Holy Man is on his way to a warm welcome by you and throngs of other children, whose little faces glow in expectation, standing on a windy Sneker quay on a cold November day, like it has been for as long as we can remember, and will be for many years to come (Saecula saeculorum Amen) ...

...here in Exeter another guest is expected.

Because this guest will want a great deal of attention (or he's gonna get it anyway), I'm afraid that means bad news for you, "trouwe lezertjes thuis". So you do not need to worry if you won't hear from me the coming week. What's more, it will be a relief to finally have some time left to live your own lives! (Come to think of it, your newly acquired freedom might very well cost me my audience...). You're going cold turkey for a week: hold on!

But me too: I miss you already...

Yours,

Anna

Not very important

2005-11-10T19:09:00.000Z

Nican-Nicuica has just pushed blogger (where I come from most of the time) from the first place of the referrer-ranking (i.e. most people like you who come here indirectly, do so via M's diary, and probably M himself comes here all the time, or - what it looks like - at least thrice a day ;-). Third is Fatale Fem, fourth Ninebysix.

Most of you live in the Nl. Or Germany. Or Summertime. Or America, or maybe Canada?

Congratulations.

Or something.

Oh, and we haven't reached the thousand visitors-barrier yet (not counting reloads of course, because then we would be well over it), but with some effort from your side (I won't cheat) we'll make it!

Forgot something

2005-11-10T16:48:00.000Z

This was posted on the wall of the School of history office:

"just think
right now you could be on an Erasmus study period in Europe...
exploring a different culture
experiencing a whole new lifestyle
partying with new friends
enriching your degree
and improving your employment prospects

but you're not are you
you're just standing here reading this.

EXPERIENCE ERASMUS"

And these were my thoughts:

"HA!"

(not to you of course, but to the anglocentric posters of this notice)

Another shorty

2005-11-10T16:42:00.000Z

There's a row here about the university having invested (massively) in the weapon industry. But we're in good company: Trinity in Cambridge, St. John's in Oxford and King's in London appear to have been doing the same. Anything similar happening at UCL or UCU or possibly Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam, Groningen, Maastricht, Enschede or wherever?

A note on my work for the museum (today was spent labelling and cataloguing the bones) Maybe rhinos and elephants in Devon make perfect sense to you. Maybe they don't. So, here's some (tiny bit of) more information: the bones were found underneath a new motorway bypass (the A30) near Honiton, a town east of Exeter, in 1968. They date from the pleistocene (ca. 30,000 yrs. ago/BC/doesn't matter), when now and then (during the interglacials) the North-West of Europe had a warmer climate and Britain was not cut off from the continent. And then you get the "Ze lopen gewoon met me mee"/"The boy who was followed home"-effect...

Darn tests... (but they're on request!)

2005-11-10T10:19:00.000Z

I might have been too quick with Priscilla, because I got a request for a more basic test first*. If you don't like the results, you can always try again here.

If now you are utterly confused, than this is probably the message: don't take your identity too seriously. Although that's easier said than done, because that's how western society is constructed at the moment...

That doesn't mean though that gay identity shouldn't be taken seriously (although of course it's just great fun at the same time), for as bell hooks (no capitals) has argued with respect to black identity: identity is a stage in a process of emancipation, wherein one constructs radical [gay/black] subjectivity, thus generating other options besides assimilation, imitation or rebellion: it is no fixed property, but a practical and historical (which means that it changes over time) tool in a political struggle. Identity-Politics...

Oh, and K.: if you're worried: have a look here. I'm sure it will reassure you! (I hope, but if not: I still love you!)

*Excusez-moi for the ads that make the unfounded assumption that the visitor (that's you) is a lesbian (oh, or a male heterophile of course).

My Week

2005-11-09T17:43:00.000Z

My clothes seem to be slowly falling into shreds. I've been busy sewing four time now already, and my "Séjour en France" travel kit won't be able to provide me with blacks and yellows much longer. On the positive side: these small activities necessary in life make a great sceape for essay-writing (as do hebdomadals and other diaries).

I think I've finally got the hang of the cleaning system here: everyone pays for it, but only the ones complaining get it (your room and kitchen cleaned, I mean). I've made four official complaints now, and today for the first time a man turned up and cleaned my room - just mine. The others hadn't complained enough. But he advised them to do so, and then on friday he would be able to attend on them as well.

Routine is great. You need it in order to break it. So, this is the little routine I made for myself:(although I don't stick to it. At least not usually):

(An explanatory note: seminars are like classes at UC, or werkgroepen; lectures don't exist at UC: it's sitting down and shutting up and not asking any questions; also called hoorcolleges. Nice on a lazy thursday morning, but otherwise undesirable.)

Monday: do all my Middle Ages homework = read articles and prepare summary and questions for "digital learning environment" and presentation/discussion in seminar. Attend seminar.
Tuesday: do all homework for History of Sexuality = idem and discuss in our own three-person study group to be able to present our views together. No classes.
Wednesday: do all homework for Music Sociology = reading long and difficult but sometimes extremely interesting articles. No need to write anything down. Attend Middle Ages lecture and Music Sociology combined lecture/seminar. Practice singing (only necessary once a week, for it's only ten percent of the choir doing this anyway).
Thursday: get up really early for a History of Sexuality lecture. Work in the museum. Choir rehearsal.
Friday-Sunday: read two study books (for each course we got a lengthy booklist, each comprising approximately one hundred books. We can pick the ones we like, as long as together they prepare us for the exams...).

About three times a week: buy food!
About three times a week: go out!
Once a week (most of the time on saturdays): make some excursion, for we didn't come all the way here for nothing, did we? For example with OODS (the Out Of Doors Society, of which I am A Member - we'll talk about that later), visiting M in london, seeing burning barrels in Ottery, walking to Exmouth, eating treacle pudding in some remote pub, etc.
And of course there's cooking, dishes, laundry, cleaning, sewing... oh, and sleeping?
Every 1,5 week: write one essay. This is really where the trouble starts. As you can see, my week is full doing the usual stuff already, so I may get a bit stressed once in a while. Like today.

Which means: cheerio, I'm back to my Commonsense about sex!

Directions

2005-11-08T22:39:00.000Z

As you can see, more dots are steadily appearing on the map to the left. One of these places will only be visited next week, though. It is ....

And, you can now (or in a few moments) link to MMM's field diary for an analysis of the celebration of Guy Fawkes!
Thanks! And enjoy that "ginger fruit cake"(as it's called in my local Sainsbury's).

Queerer and queerer!

2005-11-08T22:29:00.000Z

Today at last provides another opportunity to offer you some more Carroll-quotes (and to allude to F.'s "weblogje"):

"'Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much surprised that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). 'Now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet!' (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). 'Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure I sha'n't be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can - but I must be kind to them,' thought Alice, 'or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see, I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.'
And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. 'They must go by the carrier,' she thought; 'and how funny it'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And how odd the directions will look!

Alice's Right Foot, Esq.
Hearthrug,
near the Fender,
(with Alice's love).
Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!'

Days are becoming dark, cold and damp. M.P. knows what this means: time to go out with my new Bremer-hat! But Oh dear, my head must have been shrinking, or else the hat has grown, for while it was just on the large side when we bought it, it now covers my head until over my nose... Crossing the road has become an even more dangerous businesss than it already was, being me, but it does do the trick: my head stays warm, and a (British? German?) touch of excentricity has been added to my appearance. And, it made me win a compliment (the librarian spoke the following memorable words: "Nice hat").

To make an obvious and rather shaky narrative bridge:

Speaking of appearance:

I haven't told you yet about my first real night out in town, which must have been about a month ago by now. Exeter then seemed a desolate place to go out - luckily that image/reality has changed.

I had collected A. from her new apartment in the city (that is off-campus! And it's wonderful!) and we met more exiled students, from France, Austria and Germany, and one Englishman (J., from the Guy Fawkes-adventures). We were looking for a decent place, not too loud&smoky&dancy, where we could (small) talk. We made our way through the flocks of bawdy and ill-clad kids that seem to be Exeter's only inhabitants after the clock has struck six, dinner is over, and respectable people go to bed.

We had to walk a long way before we arrived at the first venue that seemed suitable for our purposes. It looked kind (the bouncers&bartenders) and slightly glamorous (the fittings) and even gimmicky (part of the upper floor is transparent, which provides nice views. For the ones downstairs).

Now I must go back a bit to explain. To me Exeter seemed one of the most heterosexual places I'd ever been - especially when you consider it's a students' city. No (obvious) couples walking hand in hand, no gay rights society (while they have interest groups for any other disease, from folk-dancing to econometrism, from Muslemness to chocolate addiction, from political conservatism to chappism, from RPGaming to vegetarianism; and Amnesty of course) (later I found out there is one, but from their lack of pr it was clear they were not looking for members). Of course most LBGT's don't feel any need to be obvious - and rightly so - but the size of the tip of the iceberg definitely says something about its total weight. So I had been wondering: where do they hide?

Well, lo and behold (sorry, M.M.M.: no plagiarism intended):
As soon as we entered, the ga(y)dar went "eeweeweew!" (or something similar). There were more people present, but who probably did it was the huuuge (considering body size and length of eyelashes and height of wig and colour of dress: seen Priscilla? That's the direction you should look.) queen sitting at the bar.

I jested to the others that we had managed to find Exeter's only gay bar - and we weren't even looking for it - but they remained skeptical. Until we had gone upstairs and ordered a drink. But by then it was too late! (malicious grin on my face) Fortunately, everyone was fine with it. Except for one girl. She assured us she wasn't a homophobe, but still felt uncomfortable. She didn't want to say why. Which in turn made the rest of us feel uncomfortable (as I heard later). (By the way: READ THE BIBLE!)

Oddly, this same girl, with whom I wasn't especially befriended nor in whom I had shown a special interest, kept inviting me for outings and sitting next to me and looking me into the eyes for almost uncomfortable periods of time. Maybe her discomfort had a completely opposite reason from what we had imagined? (Anyway: don't worry, I'm absolutely not interested in her.)

But the Velvet Lounge is an amazing place where I will definitely return when I have more time: they don't have traditional British closing times! (We went to some other places afterwards, but they are less interesting to tell about.)

Next subject:

Today I have been learning more remarkable 'facts' of life in the library and at home. It is of course common knowledge that every day girls, but especially boys, die from masturbation, but did you know that lesbians aren't interested in sex after all?

I should now return to the mundane activity of essay-writing.
Spelling checkers can be such a pain: what to do with a silly word-processor that doesn't know ordinary words like effeminisation, homosocial, androcentrism, contrafactum, metanarrative or even, it turns out, interpunction? That's right: teach it!

One more note, as you may (or may not) have been wondering about my plans for a second (paid) job (translating uni-stuff from and into Dutch and from French and German): it doesn't really seem to come "van de grond" (and again, we see evidence for the theory that sentences are constructed lineary instead of hierarchically, making even merges between such languages as English and Dutch possible). But to be honest, I don't really mind. I am busy enough already!

Summary:
Emotions of the day: some frustration at the beginning, when the university library didn't have the books I had reserved, and when "hospitality" services had again broken their agreements on cleaning, but for the largest part of the day: feelings of happiness, content, anticipation and Nina Simone.

2005-11-07T12:58:00.000Z

I am sorry: M's field diary turns out not to contain the anthropological analysis on Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night I had hoped for. Maybe it will in the future - who knows, maybe after some encouraging fanmail, but in the meantime you will get a nice idea on http://www.bonefire.org/guy/index.php. What this site does not mention, I think, is how popular the celebration was in the nineteenth century, when it was in the first place an expression of anti-Catholic sentiments. Here in Exeter the event seems to have been especially grand (don't ask me why...), and I read stories about bonfires on the Cathedral Close (a large area surrounding the cathedral, and officially owned by it: within its walls you cannot drink alcohol for example), stories in which the fire got so out of hand that the cathedral itself got too hot to touch, and in the morning they had to collect the pieces that had burst off.

Two more notes:

Thinking back about what I wrote yesterday evening, it might give you the impression we had a horrible night. But surprisingly, although about everything went wrong, this is untrue. So there is no irony whatsoever in calling it "a most wonderful day"!

Finally, after some very long weeks, hospitality services is fulfilling its contractual duties again and has come to clean our kitchen and bathroom.

Had I already told you this? You probably know English-speaking Dutchers often use the expression "Go your gang", which is meant to be a joking synthesis of Dutch semantics, syntax and vocabulary, and English phonology and vocabulary. However, apparently this is a grammatical expression in English as well, with the minor change of the word "gang" into "gait", thus becoming "Go your gait". And it means the same!

Now I think about it I realise many of you must know this already, having seen or even played in King Lear, or maybe having read poetry by Dorothy Parker (in a not so complimental poem on "Men", see http://floozy.com/allison/rilke/dp.index.html, which, I think, applies to women just as well).

2005-11-07T01:19:00.000Z

I had the most wonderful day yesterday!

It all started with a good night's rest and a healthy breakfast. At twelve I arrived in the public library of Exeter to embark on my new research project. I needed to go here instead of the university library because I want to find out some things about what "the general public" reads. A very specific set of popular books form my primary source.

The rest of the afternoon I could be found in the children's section, a pile of sex education books on my left, and a crowd of curious people on my right.

Well no, but I did get some strange looks from people dying to know why a twenty year-old would like to know Everything about periods or Where babies come from.

The answer is the following: by studying these books you get to know an awful lot about the conceptions and ideas of an authoritive and probably representative group in present-day British society about gender, sexuality, what is normal, what children should know and how they should behave. And of course the most exciting thing is that I will compare these with some similar books from the 1910's, twenties and thirties.

The hegemonic narrative in Western Europe at this moment seems to be that in the course of the twentieth century, attitudes toward sex, and particularly sex education, have become opener, freeer, closer to "the truth", more informative, more explicit, more attentive to the joys of love and sex (especially for women...) and less to morality and duty, and, lastly, have become more neutral to all kinds of deviant behaviour, the most obvious being homosexuality. The aim of my research is to find out whether this narrative is supported by sources, of whether it's more likely to be a story to pat ourselves on the shoulder and not have a critical look at what's in these books, what's in sex education lessons at schools, and what we tell "our children" (that's right, all you future parents: you watch it!).

I'm just in the first stage of the research, but this is one thing I noticed:
Current sex ed. books go to great lengths to reassure their readers they are normal, and that there's nothing scary about their changing bodies (which of course is not true). Girls are reassured that periods may only hurt a little, boys that girls really don't care that much about looks, etc. You could argue that it is in the advantage of ten year-olds not to be worried about these things (although you might just as well argue that it's more cruel to have them find out later). It becomes more deplarable when people (girls in this case) are frightened with humbug about how dangerous it is for readers to shave their bikini line and how they should NOT use tampons before they have had any sex, and even then only during the day. Or when boys are told that "a girl's vagina is almost numb" (this is an actual quote) (I have never heard any real woman say this) - in order to save them the trouble.

But more than with possible inaccuracies, I am concerned with questions of normalcy. Because, in spite if reiterated statements that everybody is different and readers should not worry if they "develop differently from your friends", gender roles and a very particular morality (or ideology) of sexuality are casually introduced, and repeated so often, that if children would have to do with these books and would get no further (real life) information, they would very likely be worried if they would depart from this model. Three aspects of this model that I have noticed so far (although it differs from one book to another of course, and fortunately!):

1) About gender roles: "Romance is important for girls." Actually, they like a pat on the cheek much better than sex. (Remember, this book is "approved of by the Family Planning Association", a powerful institute in the UK that tries to fulfil a role like the NVSH (the Dutch Association for Sexual Reform http://www.nvsh.nl/index.htm) in the Netherlands, but of course in the end is about abstinence/contraception more than about sexual freedom. In general, in my Sexuality in Britain-course my former conviction that Dutch Sexual Freedom is a Dutch nationalist myth and the rest of Europe is not that different (anymore), died, and made place for the thought that maybe the Netherlands isn't such a bad place to live after all... By now I've often been shocked and surprised by ideas and problems that exist here.)
Girls are told that all boys have a hard time talking about their feelings; boys that the best way to understand the female mind to read a couple of girls' teenage magazines. Etcetera. And, very sadly, the authors of many of these books still deem it necessary to inform boys of the fact that girls are not that fond of rape.
As you can see, although some aspects of these books are rather funny, they can make me angry and sad as well.

2) About sexual preference: although one book mentions that it might be possible that the reader turns out to be homo- or bisexual, all other books and the largest part of this one book assume that a relationship always takes place between one (1) girl and one (1) boy. Stories are always of the type "when people make love, the woman does this, and the man does that". Nothing about other possible situations for love and/or sex. (Images for example do also never show persons of different "races" together, or of a different age.) Isn't it depressing that a host of readers are not addressed, are simply left out here? If a reader does not recognise their own desires in these stories (and does not hear any different stories), they could feel abnormal, not take these books serious anymore, miss out on some possible rolemodels, or come to view this entire sex thing as something that apparently has nothing to do with their own lives.

3) The books' morality: a) all these funny organs and mechanisms are there to be reproductive. Pleasure is never mentioned in three of the four (present-day) books I studied up till now, and only marginally in the fourth. b) sex is dangerous. Don't try it at home. c) If you want sex, first think about how bad you're gonna feel afterwards. Friendship is The Thing: restrict yourself to this. One night stands are BAD. "If you are attracted to someone, keep your relationship at the level of friendship for as long as you can." Sex becomes a lamentable inevitability. Of course we have to see all these worries in the light of the ridiculous level of teenage pregnancies in the UK...
Now I wonder what the pre-war books will have to tell their "lezertjes thuis". We'll see...

I still left the library in a state of relative joy, for it was the night of Guy Fawkes. For an explanation of this tradition I direct you once again to our anthropologist-in-residence on http://nican-nicuica.blogspot.com/. All I will say is this: it involves lots of fire (as you will see) and has the kind of questionable origins (I mean dominance and repression and all that) that it shares with Sinterklaas - which does by no means discredit the current celebrations in my opinion, because Meaning Is Constantly Being Negotiated or something along those lines. (Which in this case means that, if our reasons to do something and the meaning we attach to it, change, its legitimacy may change as well.)

In between I prepared some concoction that would surely have won the new Oliver Twist-movie a design Oscar if only had they asked me to be their prop mistress. (Though it turned out to be quite edible, but I'm sure that's what they have actors for?)

And on I hurried (late as always, but so were they) to the library parking lot. I was so lucky as to be adopted by a group of postgraduates, for mind you: postgrads not only are extremely nice and sensible people, they also own clean kitchens and even cars! Or actually, postgrads from London called J. own cars. And are as wonderful as to have us poor foreigners have a go (in the passenger's seat, I mean.) On top of that, these were not just Postgraduates, but they were Friends of mine (or are becoming so more every day, because of course I've only known them for a month or so).

We were gonna do two things: first drive to Exmouth, the seaside town where we had walked some weeks earlier (remember?), to see their fireworks, fluorescent sticks and sterretjes (I know they're called sparklers, but I like the Dutch better). I hadn't expected this, but it was pretty amazing. I think that if I were eight again, I would have enjoyed it as much as I always did our annual Quatorze Juillet in some remote French village in the Provence. Our sense of infantility (in the positive sense of the word, if there is any) was only enhanced by the presence of a beach filled with flat pebbles and a calm sea to skim (keil) them. And the possibility of eating barbapapas/candy floss/suikerspinnen (I still have to take O. somewhere...) made S. jump up and down as if she were a little girl again! You get the idea: we had big fun. During the fireworks I noticed some sexologist's professional deformity: the rockets' sparkles swam up to the sky as if we were watching a gigantic sex education film featuring spermatozoa swimming up into the Big Unknown. (Remember WoodyAllen?) However, fortunately our postgrad driver J. made the same interpretation and we "all had a good laugh".

It was a crazy night. This is what happened: We were late for our next goal, the village of Ottery St Mary. Here they celebrate Guy Fawkes in their own peculiar way, by having big men&women hoisting 30 kilo barrels filled with burning tar through a cheering crowd all night. To the front of one of the houses on the central square a notice was attached: YOU ARE HERE AT YOUR OWN RISK. We had to give way to three ambulances. J. said this was probably the only place in the UK where health&safety don't rule. Yet. It was crazy: it was like the Vondelpark on Koninginnedag. Fire everywhere. Many drunks as well, unfortunately, but I'm getting used to those now, here. And half of the international community of Exeter University, eager to see the native ritual.

However, on our way to Ottery and back to Exeter, we 1) had a flat tyre, 2) had to get petrol 3) had to get cash, 4) had some difficulty finding our way over the kind of sinuous, unlit and undirected, one-car-wide roads British takes pride in (as do France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, or by nader inzien any country except the Netherlands except Limburg) - until they entrusted the task of navigation to me; and, really, this for a change is one thing I can do properly, don't you agree? ;-) 5) drove into a broken traffic sign which scattered our backseat window 6) lost me in the Ottery crowds 7) lost J. in the Ottery crowds 8) had to queue for one cheesey chips for half an hour, when the electricity failed and we had to wait another half-hour 9) had our feet soaked and frozen by a combination of rain and the first November cold 10) almost hit some drunk pedestrians that were trying to get home via these same narrow unlit roads, by walking on the left side of the road!

But all was done in good spirits, and in the end we arrived in their marvellous postgrad house where we had a cup of peppermint infusion, some slices of Swiss chocolate roll and conversations about Ella Fitzgerald and love.

At three I started my way back up the Hill Where I Live, and at four I could finally sink into a deep and content sleep.

Black TeaV

2005-11-04T18:16:00.000Z

I entered the kitchen. I lit the oven and entered my tart (in the pie-meaning of the word). I sat down and had a chat with one of my floormates about Guy Fawkes. And slowly, very slowly, it dawned on me that something was wrong: the tv was switched off!

This glorious state lasted for five minutes. Then a second floormate found the loose plug and put it back in.

However, with ten British students living here, I might use this strategy another eight times!

Two further notes on the previous entry

2005-11-04T12:52:00.000Z

(I hope you read them in chronological order? Well, I do believe most of you are so systematic as to do that naturally; otherwise: I would recommend to read the previous entry first, or this one might prove unintelligible)

1) There are many faculties/departments/disciplines from which to perform cultural studies. If you consider cultursal studies to be a goal and an attitude, you could perceive of the different disciplines (archaeology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc. ) as providing different methods. As you had already understood from my love of books and texts & certain periods in the past, I prefer the methods and insights of history. But that's a matter of taste.

2) In spite of my curiosity and, let's say, intellectual/critical interest (anyone know a better term? I'm sure it exists), my earliest and strongest dreams have never been to become a scientist. Until recently I was determined I would never write a PhD dissertation. Although Academia is an inspiring world, it can feel uncomfortable and small. I have always wanted (but again, this is all much too ambitious) to create something. Now my hopes are set on cultural studies as a beginning in the reconciliation of these things...

What I study...

2005-11-04T12:38:00.000Z

When someone would ask me what I study, and I would be in a lazy mood, I would say "history", or "literature", or "music" or something silimar. Sometimes I would take more trouble to try to explain that my studies are a mixture of cultural history, anthropology, literary theory, gender studies, art sociology and some other stuff.

What I actually do is a slow process of discovery for myself as well. Now and then I read a book than causes a minor breakthrough in my understanding of how everything I study is connected. Literary theory: a very short introduction by Jonathan Culler was such a book. The book I'm currently reading is another one: Introducing cultural studies by Sardar and Van Loon.

Let us from now on say that I do Cultural Studies.

What is cultural studies? Difficult question...

About the topics under investigation by people doing cultural studies I can be short: it's everything. Or actually a little bit less: it's everything humans do and have done and will do. Culture. So it doesn't study the earth as it would be without humans, or galaxies as they are without humans, or genetics as they would be without humans. But it does study how humans study the earth as it would be without humans, etcetera. It does study science, art, everyday life, politics, sports. ettiquette, morals, media, mental conceptions, social stratification, the socio-economic history of cottage cheese farms (inspiration next to me on the table).... and that's just the beginnnig of a decimals-of-pi-kind-of-list.

Cultural studies may become a bit clearer to you when we consider the perspectives from which it studies culture. A long list (again) of theories is available to the analyst of culture: materialist theory, feminist theory, post-colonial theory, queer theory, functionalism, structuralism, ideaism, relativism, culturalism, paradigm theory, reflectionism, post-modern philosophy, speech act theory, reception theory, deconstructionalism, et cetera. This al sounds very frightening (and it is...it is hard to find your way through all this...), but fortunately many of these theories turn out to have major overlaps in practice.

Often, these theories are interpreted as ideologies - in other words: often they are ideologies. You might call yourself a feminist and be convicted (and in your academic work try to convince others) that throughout history, the status of women has always been inferior to that of men, that men have been busy consolidating their power, and that women should challenge it because they are entitled to the same status, power, etc, as men. Or you might call yourself a post-feminist (as I happen to do) and argue that although this might be true to a certain extent, it is impossible to conceive of men and women as monolithic and diametrically opposed groups. For example, differences in power between women are probably larger than differences of power between women on the one and men on the other hand. Many men have been/are dominated; many women have (had) power over men, or over other women. "Global sisterhood" or common interest is a fraud. Men have never unifiedly tried to control women. Historical figures, both men and women, have always been much more pragmatic. Second wave feminists have overestimated the consciousness and purposefulness of acts of domination. Powerrelations can be explained much more fruitfully if other factors, like class, sexuality and "race" are taken into account. In fact, here post-feminism, post-colonialism, modern marxism an some more theories/ideologies merge and become one.

However, all this was about these perspectives as ideologies. But you don't need to be a marxist to use marxist theories to analyse phenomena. Often it is interesting just to look what happens if you try to, for example, interpret a poem psychoanalytically. (Personally psychoanalytic ideology disgusts me, but it still offers valuable insights that can be used elsewhere).

But what makes people want to collect all those theories under a single name, cultural theory? Partly, it has to do with history, with the reserachers and the universities and the journals where all these ideas came together and influenced each other. However - and now I return to my book - there is one important aspect of cultural theory I haven't mentioned so far. That is, that it wants to be engaged. It is not just an academic exercise, because what would be its purpose? Other disciplines that are equally distant from and unintelligible for the general public (I guess all academic disciplines...) each have a relation to wider society in their own way: psychology might influence treatment, educationl studies might change educational strategies, medicine influences health, drama studies - performances, archaeology - museums, economics - financial policy, etc. I have given rather arbritrary and simplistic examples here, but you get the idea. So what does cultural studies want to do? I quote my book:

"Its constant goal is to expose power relationships and examine how these relationships influence and shape cultural practices. [...] Its objective is to understand culture in all its complex forms and to analyse the social and political context within which it manifests itself. [...] it is both the object of study and the location of political criticism and action. [in other worsd: its articles and books want to influence society] It aims to be both an intellectual and a pragmatic enterprise. Cultural studies attempts to expose and reconcile the division of knowledge [...] It assumes a common idenity and a common interest between the knower and the known. [in other words: it is not about other people, observing them like you would observe bacteria; but is to people: the reader, the researcher and the object of study become one!] Cultural studies is committed to a moral evaluation and to a radical line of political action". [it does not believe that science can be objective or value-free.]

This is very ambitious. And I don't excpect to be able to live up to it. But I do believe it is a good ideal to reach out to. To extend the medicine-simile: (most) doctors don't expect to eradicate death or disease, but they do continue to try and cure people.

That was it for the moment: time to perform some cultural study!

2005-11-04T00:39:00.000Z

Most of today was spent in the museum and their annex at the riverside (of the river Exe), carrying bones and skulls and teeth of ...
elephants and hippopotamuses, from...
Somerset!

Some twenty years ago they were constructing a new highway bypass somewhere in Somerset (I forgot the name of the place, sorry), and hit upon a mass of bones. Paleontologists got four days to dig up the lot: there was no time to document the configuration the bones where found in, or to store them away properly... so now they have to do all that, and we had to pick up some of these bones from a horribly ill-conserving depot (inadequate package, labels, atmosphere, etc.) and drove them up to the museum, carrying them through the backyard, over dodgy fire escape stairs (very romantic, but unsuitable for our job... elephant jaws can be quite heavy you know), through the museum, to the 'secret cellar' where we work (which of course isn't secret at all, but is hidden away so well that I was completely surprised on the first working-day to suddenly find myself in a huge basement, which had been unvisible from the outside. I'm afraid this sounds rather vague; maybe this makes it more clear: in the middle of one of the galleries four pieces of plywood form a tiny room. However, behind its door are deep winding stairs, leading to this, well, sort of secret, cellar. I love it!).

By the way: I found a decent pop/rock/country/whatever music radio station: BBC radio 2.

About racing horses (see http://nican-nicuica.blogspot.com/): it appears that not only was the horse well-loved, named Best Mate, and did he suffer from a fatal heart-attack at Exeter racecourse, but his owner expressed the wish to bury him in this same race ground. However, gov leg sadly demands him to be cremated... Want more? Have a look at the fascinating site of horseandhound.co.uk: Home of Equestrianism! (I guess it's similar to the Dutch magazine arts&auto.)

In the meantime, November storms have broken here. I heard similar mentions about London, but how are things in La Patrie? (Speaking about which: another evidence that expats are 'roomser than the pope', in other words more nationalistic than 'pats': http://www.patrie.net/. Which might be a bad sign for me own future...

After a full year of voluntary abstinence I have returned to vampirism. Or at least: I have started reading (the rest is private) in my Penguin book of vampire stories, received from Sinterklaas almost a year ago now. I will report to you:

Lord Byron (the famous one) wrote one of the first vampirs stories in the English language (of course the German romantics were way ahead of him). Don't read it. (Except if you have a scientific interest in the image forming of the modern literary vampire, as I happen to have.) Dr. Polidori did a better job, probably parodying Lord Byron himself in the figure of his vampire Lord Ruthven. Then we have Varney the Vampire, a hugely popular "penny dreadful" that appeared in weekly portions for over two years (!). No need to say the author, or at least the publisher, made big money. And that's exactly what it is: an easy way to make money. It's vulgar, sometimes even ridiculous. and of no literary interest whatsoever; exploiting the sexual anxieties of its audience (in this case: fear of rape) for cheap effect. (You see: I'm practicing for my future as a cultural entrepeneur). But again, interesting for cultural historians.

But now for the good part: I found one sentence in Varney I would like to share with you: "The dread trumpet of eternity could not more effectually have awakened any one". Think Apocalypse. Think Book of Revelation. See http://members.aol.com/Wisdomway/revelations2.htm#anchor2702820 under The Seven Trumpets for an explanationon and http://bible.cc/revelation/1-1.htm for full-text and commentaries.

Good part Part II: Good Lady Ducayne is an okay story about the companion-girl of a vampire lady, but you should certainly read Carmilla. It's short and conveniently published on www.gutenberg.org/etext/10007 . It is from 1872, but, like the other ones, pretty explicit sexually. What's more, it's explicit homosexually. Who would have thought to find the following?

“I took her hand as I spoke. I was a little shy, as lonely people are, but the situation made me eloquent, and even bold. She pressed my hand, she laid hers upon it, and her eyes glowed, as, looking hastily into mine, she smiled again, and blushed” (10). Somewhat later Carmilla (the vampire) asserts that Laura needs not be afraid of death: “‘But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together. Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes’” (16).
and "she would press me more closely in her tembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek". Etcetera.

(Actually, I found all this a year ago, working on a long paper, and that's why I had to take some time off from vampires.)

That's how fare I have come. Next in the Penguin Book is "The mysterious stranger (1860) Anonymous". Sounds good.

I was planning to write about "what I study" as well today , but I'm sure you've had enough by now, so I bid you goodnight.

SSC, BART and more stories from the Middle Ages

2005-11-02T23:59:00.000Z

Mm, sometimes I can get very disappointed in my fellow students here.
In some cases it is like I'm back at school. Students, hollow-eyedly and rattle-brainedly staring in front of them/at the teacher's shoes (which just happens to be the same direction) as if they've ended up at university by accident instad of an eager mind and hard work (or whatever) ... while we have the privilege of being lectured/seminared to by an enthusiastic expert, flown over al the way from Canada, telling a fascinating and intelligent story about the interpretation of musical performance ... no one seeming to understand the issues that she raises, no one interested in the exciting debates surrounding the topic, no one attentive (in both senses of the word) enough to ask a question ... and if they do say anything, it is utterly unrelated to the discussion we (or rather the teacher) are having, but rather of a relevance and a level of "I think gigs are great." (class wakes up:) "Yeah, you really feel this atmosphere of... I don't know, like..." (gives up) (Please: why don't you try to think a bit first and formulate your thought before you open your mouth?) ... or, even worse, they have made no effort to understand an article, but rather skimmed it for words that might impress the teacher: "Well, when you go to a concert, you know, I've always thought it's all, like, a social construction permeated by cultural boundaries to negotiate the effects of the functional space for the reception of ..." (or any random jumble of those words that give my field of studies a bad name). Sod off. (sorry to use an expression of such questionable origins) In short, it was all rather embarrassing.

(If, by the way, you wonder what, then, my field of studies are: I will tell you next time, for you see: I'm only just finding out myself. But I think I'm on track.)

Maybe I'm being elitist, but is it wrong to be an intellectual elitist at university? Would anyone think it wrong to be a musical elitist at a conservatory? Or to belong to the sportive elite to be sent to the Olympics (to use a metaphor we have been analysing with regard to musical excellence today)? Am I the only one in that entire class to be surprised that no one present (with the exception of one boy - from France - who is afraid to ask questions because he thinks his English isn't good enough, which is a shame, for his academic English is a thousand times better than that of the others in class), no one seems to have the slightest interest for the fulltime occupation they have chosen, voluntarily (and they even pay for)?!

Fortunately it's just in this class that it's that bad.
Now I know that I'm much happier about the attitude of students at UC, so my first reaction was to attribute the difference to the special position of UC. But that would be unfair, and untrue. I'm afraid there's another distinction here that might account for it. My observations until now:
-in my history classes here in Exeter I do encounter interested students;
-id. for my music classes at the department of music at the University of Utrecht;
-id. for my experiences with you guys that study literature, linguistics, history, physics, mathematics, and even biology-related stuff ;-) at other places than UC;
-however, I had similarly disappointing experiences with UC-people in classes from a certain department that is not to be named here, because it's Social Sciences. Sociology, to be more precise (anthropology is an altogether different issue, because in fact it's HUM; in psychology and law I have no valid experience, but politics are part of the problem as well). And this is not because I was trained from the first day I entered UC that as a humanities person I should hate SSC. Far from that. I love the subject matter, I like many theories, I love the teachers. Actually, my thesis will fall under the SSC department.

But the students...

I have to note here that of course all these are generalisations and personal experiences. Not only are they not representative, but I also know they're not representative. This means that a) you of course are an exception and b) I'm still open to SSC persons I do not yet know, and will not judge them on the ground that they study sociology alone. So this was just to get rid of my feelings of frustration about my class today, and because I do genuinely believe that, statistically, sociology students are less motivated, since its big boom about twenty years ago. It's a general phenomenon that the largest and most well-known faculties attract the largest number of students that are just uninterested (and uninteresting) in general. I'm sure the fourteenth century school of theology in Paris was filled not with religious freaks (and when I call someone a freak, it's a compliment), but with adolescent good-for-nothings, sent away by their parents to go and bother other people...

Are you studying at UC? Then you must have noticed the anually returning event of ASIC scolding at SSC-students. For the other readers: every semester the heads of department offer their students the opportunity to discuss their education and suggest improvements. Imagine that at this UC, you have more than three hundred social science students, and about sixty in the humanities department, and this is what happens:

"On Wednesday, we held such a session for the social science department. We promoted this session through our website, the UCSA daily update and in flyers in Dining Hall, and yet nobody showed up for this session. This was a very embarrassing situation, not only for us, but also for you. If students show so little initiative, then how can a Head of Department, who came especially from Amsterdam for this session, take the students seriously?

Luckily, the Humanities Feedback Session was a success. Students and the Head, Orlanda Lie, agree upon that. She explained developments in the departments, the students came up with very valid suggestions and those are taken seriously. Therefore, we know that it makes sense to keep making the effort to organise such sessions"

Anyway: enough criticism for one day (or two).

Today I had to print my first essay, and... my first BART coversheet! A BART coversheet is a piece of paper, featuring my encoded identity (didn't know I have my own barcode) and the identity of the course and the essay (id.). Furthermore, it leaves space for the supervisor's grade, the second examinator's grade, and (surprise sursprise!), a negotiated grade (the mean, I assume). "This sheet is designed in order to provide an occupation and income for dropped out students of sociology. Moreover, it makes the submission of assessed work easier (?), faster (?) and more fun. Procedures are as follows: print one copy of your work, attach to a BART coversheet (always make sure the cover sheet is visible in front of your work, not behind it), staple, print out a second copy of your work, and and attach to the former USING A PAPER-CLIP. Stapled second copies will not be accepted. Submit this pile of bureaucratic shedder-food to the Office of the School of History (Amory 220; we will not be disturbed during lunch, between 12 and 2pm, and, oh, we only accept coursework on tuesdays and thursdays. We don't have a clue why either, because the other three days of the week always seem strangely empty....). Submissions without the appropriate BART coversheet will not be accepted. Nor will work handed in too late, too early, or written in Georgia 12pt, with endnotes instead of footnotes, using the wrong system of referencing (which varies from one subsubdiscipline to the other). You can print your work in any of the three hundred printing stations present on campus. You can give the print command from your home computer, if connected to the residential network. But we won't tell you how this works, so in the end you'll have to climb up to the fifth floor of the Laver Building, on top of the hill, to print your work. Where you will have to go anyway, because you need to top up your account (only we call it "increasing your purse" to confuse you French twits). You can do this by cash, cheque, or any debit card or credit card imaginable, only don't expect the receptionists to be intelligent. (Oh, and except for Dutch debit cards. But you'll have to find that out yourself.) One final word: when you finally manage to submit your work, we advise you to ask for a receipt.

By the way: there's something funny about the floor plan of Laver Building. Notice board on the ground floor says:

level 8: classrooms
level 5: IT reception
levels 4 and 6: toilets

Mm, wonder what those IT students do all day...

Another small thingy about the Middle Ages: you might have heard about the issue of the dichotomy of the public and the private. It's a big thing in anthropology, gender studies, etc. In any case, I can say now that in medieval village life, this separation of the private and the public realm did not exist. Everyone knew everything about everyone. Villagers were encouraged by their parish priest to eavesdrop on fellow villagers. Confession was a public event (quite different from present-day Catholic confession). Village life must have been rather oppressing, if only for this reason. No wonder people went on pilgrimages and crusades! No kidding: the author I read yesterday seriously mentioned this as one of the reasons for people leaving on a pilgrimage. On the other hand, medieval villages lacked something that nowadays is widely disapproved of when it concerns the Victorian Age: they did not have double standards. They were no sexual hypocrites. Now I hate hypocricy, but I do cherish my secret life much too much than to share it with the other villagers... Don't you agree that the most exciting things are those that are hidden? (And I have a Victorian text here that eloquently says just that, but it's too late to copy another lengthy quote. Maybe later.)

Oh, wait, I have another medieval story. Life was not just more local than it is now. Their lack of infrastructure is astonishing. In the eleventh century lived a king (I believe), named Henry (aren't they all?). Henry was very ill. Henry was gonna die. He thought. But God decided otherwise. Henry got a visit from an apparition, that spoke: "go to the tomb of Maximinus (relics were kinda' hot in the time) and you will be cured". Henry woke up and thought: now that's all very nice, but where is that tomb? He had never heard of it, nor anyone at his court, nor was it to be found on any map (not even Google Earth). To make a long story short: he travels around, finds a dead Maximinus in Trier, prays for three nights: nothing happens. He is advised to try in Chinon, some town all the way up in France, which, of course, was no kattepis in those days. Finally he arrives there, but it turns out that the local Saint was actually called Maximus, instead of Maximinus. He tries anyway, prays for three days, but then an angry angel appear, saying: "You fool! Do you really think God goes through all this trouble (right...) to help you, just for you to mock him by going to Maximus, while He had been very clear on the name being Maximinus! Now you shove off to Orléans, where, if you had any sense, you would have gone to in the first place!" Poor ill Henry returns to Orleans (which he had already passed on the way to Chinon), sees the Sinterklaas-like ghost of St. Maximinus, and lives happily ever after. The original rebuke (very comical) by the angel can be found on http://urban.hunter.cuny.edu/~thead/henry.htm.

Third thingy: I'm discovering a lot here, in books in England, about... France. And even about places where I've been. Unfortunately, when I still came there, in the South of France (on family holidays, between my fourth and sixteenth or so), I was hardly aware of all the wonderful things that can be seen. Ffor example (en jij bent hier vast al stiekem geweest, pa): http://www.conques.com/index1.htm#SOMMAIRE.

Oh, dear, there's something else: in some other book I came accross the journey-metaphor again. A biographer makes this beautiful exposition:
"Abbot Mayeul knew that life itself was but a pilgrimage and that man lived as a fleeting guest upon the earth. He would often undertake the hardships of a pilgrim's life, expending all his bodily strength [...] on travelling across the Alps to Rome. [...] tears would come to his eyes as he approached the city for he knew that he would shortly behold the glorious apostles as if he were standing face to face with them". Isn't that moving?

Here we see something that we stereotypically - and justifiedly - regard as typical for the Middle Ages: religious sensitivity. However, we see also something which we ourselves are so used to that it might surprise us that it was new at the time: that "life itself is but a pilgrimage". And, thirdly, we encounter something that instead clashes with a stereotype we have, since the Renaissance and even more strongly since Burckhardt's nineteenth century book about the Renaissance: the fact that apparently the medievals had enough sense of Individuality to write biographies. Actually, they wrote a hell of a lot of them!

I also encountered a nice bit of communism in a book (already quite old in the eleventh century I believe, but I can look that up if you like) about how to be a good pilgrim, following the example of Saint James: the Liber Sancti Jacobi: "In times past the faithful had but one heart and one soul, and they held all property in common, owning nothing of their own".

To come back to M's question about the radio: I have been listening to BBC radio more often lately. I haven't tuned into any interesting pop-music kind of channel (still have to look for it), but ("classical"/"world"/jazz/misc.) BBC radio 4 already offers a lot: yesterday they had a brillant Irish folk band on. Unfortunately I have no idea who they are, and their play list is rather obscure to me (I mean, I can't make out which would have been the band I heard, except that it was clearly not McCartney):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/latejunction/pip/00jy7/

By the way: the BBC have a Shakespeare month (or so). November 8th for example, BBC4 are playing an "authentic" (but that's a dangerous word: let's call it a reconstructed) Richard II, filmed in the original (reconstructed) Globe Theatre!

To conclude, here are some pictures taken on a November day one entire year ago (oh dear, how time flies) in the surroundings of Smilde, a rather straight village near Assen (Drente/the Netherlands). Thanks to M who sent me the photos, and also features in some of them. The other models are (f.l.t.r.) Y, S and A (for bookings contact Oh La La Agency).

And: smile!

Attention drops... (nr. 1:"Sorry, have to take this one"; nr. 4:"Look guys, if you close your right eye and firmly clench your teeth, your left eye still gets blinded by the light!"; nr. 2: Hey people! Could we please keep it focused? We're in a session here!"; nr. 3: "Now you mention it, d'you know if they pay us for this one?"

(Well, actually, this picture was taken before the other one.)

Er... Right.

Want a reason?

Testing the cohesion of snow as a function of geographical latitude and sanity of experimentor?

Rehearsing for my Siberian exile?

Desparate reaction to cameraperson's cue "do something interesting"?

But I can assure you England has made me a different person...

Want to know what it tastes like?

Try for yourself!

Morning!

2005-11-01T10:29:00.000Z

Today, my room has that delicious atmosphere of a winter morning (although it's fading quickly, because the sun is entering my window). I believe they call it crisp, but I'm afraid that word has been worn out.

Yesterday in the library, I ran into (I was actually running) the person probably most close to me here in Exeter. She's called A., like so many of us. I hadn't seen her for a week, because, as said, this campus is not like UC's campus, and besides, she lives in town. I had assumes she hadn't replied to our e-mails and joined our outings because she had been too busy with her (boy)friend who was coming over from Germany this weekend. Instead, I had before me a rather downhearted A. who was beginning to get seriously homesick. Her friend had had an accident (though not too grave) and had not been able to come. Poor girl... But there's nothing we can do but hope he will be better in a few weeks, and try to engage her more in life in England...

Now I have to run again - to my sexuality study group (just talking).

Medieval ghosts

2005-11-01T00:00:00.000Z

Mm, supermarkets are a different experience when visited in a state of slight tipsiness - but it wasn't my fault: in English pubs "bitter lemon" is evidently translated into "lemon bitter".

Before our drink in "The Old Firehouse", we had already heard some good stories about "England's most haunted city" (which status it oddly shares with Chester and York), and visited some of those most haunted places. So I'm sure I will sleep excellent tonight.

I got some good news today: UC administration has just come to the conclusion that it is quite OK for me to stay in Exeter, doing the courses I do. Hey, did they just beat the UvA in organisational distinction? That just leaves me wondering what would have happened if things weren't okay...

My four-leaved clover has by now reached a stage of undecimity (elevenfoldedness)!

Meanwhile, I have finished my first essay. Five to go. Fortunately, essays are a bit shorter up here than at UC.

I've done two nice discoveries: first, there is some great, diverse and rather human (as opposed to schematic) literature to be found in the works of Marie de France. Most importantly today: one of her "lais" (a poetic genre) is about a real-life werewolf! In twelfth-century Bretagne! She describes how the werewolf's wife deals with the knowledge of her husband's condition... http://web.english.ufl.edu/exemplaria/marie/bisclavret.pdf

A second interesting discovery was that the journey-metaphor so common today to describe the course of human life, began to be used in the eleventh and twelfth centuries only. In other words: it was only then that life came to be experienced as a quest for some personal goal or happiness - before, life was just something to be endured (of course I'm only speaking about medieval Europe here).

But for the rest: why study the Middle Ages?

A nice feature it shares with for example Antiquity is the number and nature of sources that are left. And in the end it is these sourcs you are dealing with. Their number is not such as to simply drown in, but also not so small/material that you would get into serious trouble when you try to imagine what is was like to be a Neanderthaler. So archaeology and material culture and so is all very nice and important, but please give me some texts to go with it!

A continuous challenge when you deal with this period is that, even now, it is still somehow associated with backwardness. Even I (who feels greater sympathy for the period than many other people) can still be shocked by how little understanding medieval scholars had of, let's say, simple Pythagorean issues. But then again, it's our difficult task to try to understand how this can happen in a society where at least the level of biological intelligence could not have been lower than in our own society... And indeed, these people had very diferent resources and, partly as a result, very different concerns (which in turn provided for different resources).

On the other hand, my still existing prejudices make it possible to be surprised. The pervasive misogyny of the Middle Ages for example is legendary, not least because of the works of otherwise very intelligent people like Georges Duby, while on closer scrutiny matters were not that gloomy.

Of course all these explanations for the appeal of medieval studies are made with hindsight: it all starts with a romantic fondness of a period that is so diferent from our own, but in which yet so many of our modern institutions (universities!) and conceptions (love as a precondition for marriage!) come into being. Only, you have to be prepared to find a world much more complex and much more real than your average modern (or prerafaelite) medieval fantasy...

Tot slot: you never guess what's playing in my room right now. It's Ademnood. My excuse: waiting for Lemon Tree. It's a 1995 greatest hits cassette, so you have put up with La Macarena and Paul de Leeuw and quite some more stuff before you finally reach Fool's Garden... But I'm still embarrassed.

It's midnight: happy birthday!

& goodnight.

Enjoy your Halloween/Allerzielen!

2005-10-31T13:08:00.000Z

May all repressed return...

Tonight, I will discover Exeter's ghosts.

Oh, before I forget:
lunch: dry toast & water ;-)

Bard

2005-10-30T20:13:00.000Z

After some (truly) random fooling around with my Magnetic Shakespeare Kit I could record the following eruptions of poetry:

Alas my discontent therefore must be like yonder.

... thee or measure.

Here is no merry bosom.

Slander were soon out.

Why sanctify my saucy vehemence?

Of course grammar is an altogether different matter: this is poetry!

Thanks, and, what's more, dedicated to my brother.