Welcome Back, Fool.

This is the first all-nighter I'm pulling of what is hopefully my last year of my PhD. I've been spending the past week getting all of my stuff finished up, and tomorrow is the day that I'm planning to start working intensively on the dissertation to the exclusion of all of my other random projects. I'm religious about arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines, so I'm pulling an all-nighter to clear my plate before dawn.

I think I've said this before, but all-nighters are not as fun without genetically modified apples from 7-11, stale bagels, and a sunny yellow dining hall to work in. I keep getting up to get lukewarm coffee and then realize I have to make it myself and then sigh and sit back down.

These are the Smartest People in the World

Yesterday, on the way back from Kate Nash, I saw a guy lying prone in the bushes being poked by a police officer and two men shouting into the entryway of Magdalen, "LAY HER ON HER SIDE, NOT HER BACK! ON HER SIDE!" This was before 11pm. On a Tuesday. I've missed you, Strongbow Kids.

Return to Ox

To the surprise of absolutely nobody except myself, everything after the roadtrip has been completely madcap - I got back, stupidly watched Live and Let Die until approximately 2am, woke up and went to my last day of work, frantically threw things into suitcases and fell asleep, woke up and hiked to the top of Lion's Head, had breakfast with Anna, picked up my luggage, and went directly to the airport to get my VAT refund and promptly spend all of it on wine.

This is how I flee a country.

I couldn't sleep on the flight and somehow watched both Sex and the City movies back to back. (This included loudly watching Liza Minelli's cover of Single Ladies six times in rapid succession, which the man next to me did not enjoy at all. Then again, he refused breakfast, so his judgment is clearly terrible.) I managed to stay awake for the trip into Oxford, picking up my keys, unpacking, and grocery shopping, which is pretty impressive. I forgot how easy it is to adjust to Oxford after you have a phone, bank account, registration for all of the various libraries, and a halfway decent memory of how all of the streets fit together and where to get coffee. (After my first arrival, I consider it a success whenever I don't have to nest in a bed of towels in a fifty degree bedroom.)

Camping!

It's been a hectic last week of finishing up work in South Africa, which is why I'm kind of glad that I agreed in advance to go camping along the Garden Route this weekend. There is something kind of liberating about throwing two pairs of underwear, a toothbrush, and three bottles of red wine in a backpack and being like, peace, and see you on Monday. (And then it will be like, BAM, last day of work, BAM, flee the country, BAM, arrive in England, all before Wednesday. I am not prepared for this whatsoever.)

Parting Shots

Today, Ma looked at me and said, "I'm actually going to miss you. You're a very easy person to be around. And you're not full of shit at all."

I need to record this for posterity because want somebody to read it at my funeral someday.

The Current

I can really only vouch for their programming from about 2am to 10am CST - boo for the many time zones between the Twin Cities and Cape Town, but yay for Lindsay Kimball - but I've been rediscovering how much I love MPR's The Current. It's my go-to radio station whenever I'm working on a big writing project, and everyone should go stream it for free on iTunes and donate to MPR, because it is fantastic. (Probably even if you're not an expat who only has half a Liz Phair album and a handful of Gregory Douglass songs on his work computer.)

An Inexplicably Penitential Thing I Will Probably Never Do Again

Watching the Constant Gardener and Hotel Rwanda in the same weekend is probably among the worst ideas I've ever had. If you ever want to feel intense despair, I highly recommend it.

(Diamonds Are Forever was on afterwards, and that didn't even help - I just sadly thought that I should probably rent Blood Diamond one of these weekends.)