"Firstly, a very warm welcome to everyone who has joined us in the paradise of attrition we like to call Oxford, and welcome back to everyone stupid enough to come back to this place."
I love that this is what greets me when I open my inbox in the morning.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Freshers' Fortnight, Check
Tonight was the JCR Bop, and for it to be a bigger success than last year, I had to:
a) not lose my jumper, and
b) not have the most awkward hook-up of my life.
It is 12:40am, I've succeeded at both objectives, and I'm back in my room with my kitchen and bathroom locked so that everyone who stumbles into the MCR by mistake will only puke on the landings and not in my fridge or shampoo. Really, all I had to do to pull this off was to stay fully clothed all night, but it worked and I'm un poco proud of myself.
a) not lose my jumper, and
b) not have the most awkward hook-up of my life.
It is 12:40am, I've succeeded at both objectives, and I'm back in my room with my kitchen and bathroom locked so that everyone who stumbles into the MCR by mistake will only puke on the landings and not in my fridge or shampoo. Really, all I had to do to pull this off was to stay fully clothed all night, but it worked and I'm un poco proud of myself.
Friday, 10 October 2008
Why I'm AWOL
See, this is why it pays to have Google Alerts for yourself, even if it is totally narcissistic:
First, I wrote an article for the Advocate on the way queer issues would be treated under an Obama or McCain administration - it doesn't go to print until the November 4th issue, but it's online now. (It's also the Advocate's poll topic for this month, so if you feel strongly about it, that's here.)
Secondly, the project I'm doing on Hannah Montana and the Suite Life of Zach and Cody made it onto a Disney fan site, but the actual advertisement for the colloquium is also up. How fun is that? I've stopped telling people that I'm watching three episodes of Hannah Montana a day, and when someone asks what I've been doing, I've started lying and saying I was upstairs napping. I have about two days until everyone begins to think I've got chronic fatigue syndrome.
First, I wrote an article for the Advocate on the way queer issues would be treated under an Obama or McCain administration - it doesn't go to print until the November 4th issue, but it's online now. (It's also the Advocate's poll topic for this month, so if you feel strongly about it, that's here.)
Secondly, the project I'm doing on Hannah Montana and the Suite Life of Zach and Cody made it onto a Disney fan site, but the actual advertisement for the colloquium is also up. How fun is that? I've stopped telling people that I'm watching three episodes of Hannah Montana a day, and when someone asks what I've been doing, I've started lying and saying I was upstairs napping. I have about two days until everyone begins to think I've got chronic fatigue syndrome.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Up in Smoke
When I was flying through Duty Free in September, I spotted a carton of cigarettes for like $15, and I was like, hell, a pack of cigarettes costs like $10 in the UK, I would be a fool not to buy these. So I did, and now I've got 200 Lucky Strikes in my cupboard.
The only problem is that I don't smoke.
Occasionally - like, very occasionally - I'll have a cigarette if I'm out clubbing or with a big group of smokers at a bar somewhere. (Or if I happen to be in Peru, where I smoked constantly for no apparent reason.) But because I'm not a smoker, I only smoke when someone politely offers me a cigarette, which I never reciprocate, ever. I'd be that terribly obnoxious guy who's always bumming cigarettes off people, except I never ask for them and only smoke them when they're passed in my direction. But I had grandiose visions of me actually carrying half a pack with me out to a bar and then giving them to people and being like a cross between Santa Claus and the Marlboro Man. And with the rate that I smoke, that carton of cigarettes would probably last me for like two or three years.
Now it turns out that even social smoking is bad for you and messes up your arteries, so I should probably stop. I hope my family doesn't mind that they're all getting cigarettes for Christmas.
The only problem is that I don't smoke.
Occasionally - like, very occasionally - I'll have a cigarette if I'm out clubbing or with a big group of smokers at a bar somewhere. (Or if I happen to be in Peru, where I smoked constantly for no apparent reason.) But because I'm not a smoker, I only smoke when someone politely offers me a cigarette, which I never reciprocate, ever. I'd be that terribly obnoxious guy who's always bumming cigarettes off people, except I never ask for them and only smoke them when they're passed in my direction. But I had grandiose visions of me actually carrying half a pack with me out to a bar and then giving them to people and being like a cross between Santa Claus and the Marlboro Man. And with the rate that I smoke, that carton of cigarettes would probably last me for like two or three years.
Now it turns out that even social smoking is bad for you and messes up your arteries, so I should probably stop. I hope my family doesn't mind that they're all getting cigarettes for Christmas.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Pop Quiz
Ow. Tonight was Quiz Night in the MCR, where six teams squared away on rounds of African geography, washing machine symbols, cryptic pictures, taste-testing different flavors of crisps, Britain, incredibly obscure music trivia, general knowledge (and by 'general,' I mean 'defining words like hypocaust,' which is not the genocide of hippopotamuses), and bad teen movie dialogue. Guess which round I was in charge of writing!
So here are the questions, and the answers are below:
1. "Okay, so you're probably going, 'Is this like a Noxzema commercial or what?' But seriously, I actually have a way normal life for a teenage girl."
2. "You are cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are dancers who have gone retarded."
3. "I feel just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. You know, except for the whole hooker thing."
4. "In America, we have laws. Laws against killing, laws against stealing. And it is just accepted that as a member of American society, you will live by these laws. In West Canaan, Texas, there is another society which has it's own laws. Football is a way of life."
5. "Love's a bitch, Duck. Love's a bitch."
6. "Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns."
7. "I've been killing myself for eight days and I gained a pound."
"That's impossible. Did you deduct sixteen pounds for your shoes?"
8. "You realize we're all going to go to college as virgins. They probably have special dorms for people like us."
9. "Hello, Katarina. Make anyone cry today?"
"Sadly, no. But it's only 4:30."
10. "Whoever said orange is the new pink was seriously disturbed."
You know what's amazing? Most groups got like 6 of them, but one of the teams got 10 out of 10. I don't even think I could do that, because I would almost definitely trip up on the love's a bitch quote. (The rest are semi-intuitive, if you're one of the rare people who would give these a lot of time and careful consideration. If that's the case, I think you're wonderful.) I wandered over to their table and was like, 'so, um, which one of you knows a somewhat alarming amount about the worst films of the 1980s and 1990s?' and two people raised their hands and I was like, right, you are my new best friends.
And then I went to bed early because I didn't feel good, and now I'm completely awake at 4:30am with a generalized ache all over my body, which may be from kicking my ass at the gym for two days in a row after a three month hiatus, but may also be because I haven't shaken whatever almost killed me in the Philippines. I figured I just had the persistent cold that everyone in Oxford eventually catches in autumn that you just learn to live with until spring, but now I'm like incapacitated. Ow.
Meep, here are the answers:
1. Clueless
2. Bring It On
3. She's All That
4. Varsity Blues
5. Pretty in Pink
6. The Breakfast Club
7. Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
8. American Pie
9. 10 Things I Hate About You
10. Legally Blonde
So here are the questions, and the answers are below:
1. "Okay, so you're probably going, 'Is this like a Noxzema commercial or what?' But seriously, I actually have a way normal life for a teenage girl."
2. "You are cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are dancers who have gone retarded."
3. "I feel just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. You know, except for the whole hooker thing."
4. "In America, we have laws. Laws against killing, laws against stealing. And it is just accepted that as a member of American society, you will live by these laws. In West Canaan, Texas, there is another society which has it's own laws. Football is a way of life."
5. "Love's a bitch, Duck. Love's a bitch."
6. "Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns."
7. "I've been killing myself for eight days and I gained a pound."
"That's impossible. Did you deduct sixteen pounds for your shoes?"
8. "You realize we're all going to go to college as virgins. They probably have special dorms for people like us."
9. "Hello, Katarina. Make anyone cry today?"
"Sadly, no. But it's only 4:30."
10. "Whoever said orange is the new pink was seriously disturbed."
You know what's amazing? Most groups got like 6 of them, but one of the teams got 10 out of 10. I don't even think I could do that, because I would almost definitely trip up on the love's a bitch quote. (The rest are semi-intuitive, if you're one of the rare people who would give these a lot of time and careful consideration. If that's the case, I think you're wonderful.) I wandered over to their table and was like, 'so, um, which one of you knows a somewhat alarming amount about the worst films of the 1980s and 1990s?' and two people raised their hands and I was like, right, you are my new best friends.
And then I went to bed early because I didn't feel good, and now I'm completely awake at 4:30am with a generalized ache all over my body, which may be from kicking my ass at the gym for two days in a row after a three month hiatus, but may also be because I haven't shaken whatever almost killed me in the Philippines. I figured I just had the persistent cold that everyone in Oxford eventually catches in autumn that you just learn to live with until spring, but now I'm like incapacitated. Ow.
Meep, here are the answers:
1. Clueless
2. Bring It On
3. She's All That
4. Varsity Blues
5. Pretty in Pink
6. The Breakfast Club
7. Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
8. American Pie
9. 10 Things I Hate About You
10. Legally Blonde
Why Grad Students Shouldn't Be Allowed to Hook Up
"A year ago, I had that disastrous hookup with the first of the Dans."
"Which one was the first one?"
"I can't remember his last name."
"Cruickshank?"
"No, pretty sure it wasn't Cruickshank."
"Panopticon?"
"Panopticon?"
"Well, it was something between Cruickshank and Panopticon."
"Which one was the first one?"
"I can't remember his last name."
"Cruickshank?"
"No, pretty sure it wasn't Cruickshank."
"Panopticon?"
"Panopticon?"
"Well, it was something between Cruickshank and Panopticon."
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