the week in review

After the migraine on Monday I thought my head was going to be a calm sea for at least a month, so I was pretty surprised to get another one this morning. It was over in an hour, after which I had lunch and a bar of chocolate (for medicinal purposes - incidentally, I quite want to lobby to replace the school's Nestlé vending machine with a Cadbury's one; I feel we're getting subpar and morally inferior chocolate), and now I feel reasonably good. Slightly worried, though. I don't want these things to get any more frequent.

Neurological events excepted, it was a good short leave. Cambridge was lovely though brief; Sam and I found a bar we'd never been in before and had ice cream cocktails, then as we walked back the sun was setting behind King's in a rosy blaze, you know the kind of thing, and I was all "look! look!" Sam looked; I gestured at the sky. "Oh. I thought you were talking about the Mercedes." I think Cambridge inures you to it.

Vicky's plays were terrifying, although going out with the actors afterwards helped. We sat outside, without heat lamps (though heat lamps always make me want to go to sleep, which is probably dangerous outside a pub in January); we were all quite wrought-up and giggled a lot and promised ourselves that we would never throw an engagement party in the Maypole, which is what the people inside the pub were doing. The next morning I went to London, where my mother and I were unexpectedly amused by "Un Chien Andalou", ate a lot of ice cream, and failed to find the King's College library. (Upon investigation, there are tons of them, all scattered around town.) And I read "The Interpretation of Murder", which made me feel much more charitable towards Freud than I usually do. (Mostly what annoys me is how confident he always seems about his conclusions, all "ta-daaah!" I admit this is a little petty.)

Since then I've finished watching "Friday Night Lights", which makes being married to a football coach, having a child with preternaturally straight hair, and living in Texas look really, really appealing, and started rereading "Border Crossing". Pat Barker, write more books.

Application for a deus ex machina

Am suddenly struck by nerves, as if I have to hurry up and get myself sorted out RIGHT NOW, which isn't really the case, logically. The sad thing is, I think it's probably traceable to nearly having finished the final season of Gilmore Girls. I feel like if Rory is going off into the future, so should I. Actually, as yet Rory doesn't have a plan, but there's only about half an hour left and I think Christiane Amanpour is going to act as a deus ex machina and get her a job.

So I started looking at Trinity College Dublin, because apparently they have lots of Ph.D funding (I'm not actually thinking about a Ph.D at the moment, it's more of a what-if), and huh, it looks exciting. All - well, an unusual percentage of - their researchers are obsessed with horror and new gothic! I've picked out one who might be a suitable supervisor! It would have to be a research course because none of their taught courses suit me, but that might be a good thing anyway.

It is in Dublin, which is nowhere I've ever really thought about living, and which would put me even further away from people I know. I was there with Ellen on the great interrail trip, though, and I liked it, especially their beautiful Harry Potter library (possibly not its real name). It might be worth a try. Being a plane trip away or a four-hour train ride away like I would be in Durham, das ist mir egal, as Karsten would say.

I'm going to have to buy my referees so many chocolates to make up for adding another school at this point.

I'm sorry this has turned into the Further Education Weblog, but writing all this down seems to help. Also there is not much else going on. Oh, I ran for half an hour this morning, but am still no closer to beating my record of 46 minutes in hilly terrain. Maybe if I got a bigger water bottle.

Huh

Upon Googling: Iffley College actually exists. Or it used to. It was the original name of Wolfson College, an obscure (to me) graduate college in Oxford.

In which puppies are rebuffed

Last night was the ball, and I had a lovely time, although I'm not sure the weeks of practice were entirely justified - in some of the dances I thought I knew I ended up having to be flung in the right direction by my partner and assorted bystanders, and ones I'd never managed successfully, like Strip the Willow, suddenly made perfect sense. At dinner I ate my first haggis, which was spicy and not at all bad, probably because I purposely didn't stop to think about what it was made of. Around midnight the entire hall was bellowing the lyrics to "God Save the Queen", including me. I like to think I still have Norway loyalty and was merely swept up in the moment.

Most importantly I didn't have to change from my heels to my less-attractive back-up shoes, and my dress held up well, at least until I arrived at the staff after-party and two puppies of indeterminate breed launched themselves at the lacy hem. I *think* it survived. (The hem. The puppies were fine, and we spent the rest of the evening petting them and drinking g&ts.)

Today I woke up very slowly, watched Gilmore Girls in bed, had a bath, and went to seek out coffee and glossy magazines. I also took one of history's worst passport photos, which I will nevertheless have to use so I can get a new travelcard tomorrow. Never again a photobooth when I haven't had much sleep.

Everyone is finding out the results of their PGCE interviews (the postgraduate qualification for teachers); suddenly it weighs on me a little that I probably won't know anything definite about my future for months. I dreamed about interviewing at Oxford (which I won't actually have to do), but rather than either of my chosen colleges I'd ended up somewhere called "Iffley College". I had huge difficulty imprinting this in my mind, and kept thinking, God, I can't even remember the NAME of the place. Then suddenly I was at the local university in the town where I'm living now. It seemed oddly idyllic in the dream, all golden fields of wheat and bridges over streams, when in reality it is essentially a construction site.

Less than a week until Short Leave. Very much looking forward to Vicky's avant-garde play, the probably slightly less avant-garde party after the play, and Sunday and Monday in London with my mother. I should buy an overnight bag.

Keys

In the dispensary in House there is a key cupboard that holds the keys to everywhere in the house. The key cupboard is locked with a key of its own, so that no one can, for instance, get the keys to the kitchen on their own and make unauthorised toast. This uber-key is kept in one of two locations: a secret one, and one that everyone knows about because they see me remove the key from it all the time. The secret location is used for occasional added security, and when the key is removed from it, the girls have to be sent out of the room first. I did this just now.

I quite like these traditions that accumulate like coral on workplaces.

In which desires conflict

It's still raining. A good percentage of the roof area near where I'm sitting is made of glass, so it sounds like we're being attacked by the sky. However, I have about an hour until my next engagement, and I really, really want to go and get a latte. (From Costa. The new coffee shop in town, which I had such hopes for, turns out to do the worst coffee I've ever had, which might have been my own fault for ordering it "skinny", but Starbucks manages it and they're not even very good with coffee.)

I think it's easing up. I'm off. But not before warning you that if anyone ever asks you to invigilate a national exam, as I've been doing this morning, you may not want to do it. They don't let you read anything except the official instruction booklet, and you get very twitchy about being accused of endangering the exam every time your chair scrapes.

Also, I saw "P.S., I Love You" yesterday. I think Jeffrey Dean Morgan is just going to make a career out grinning adorably on film now, which is not the worst of plans. Apart from that, I would not necessarily recommend it. Everyone should see "Sweeney Todd" instead; there's no way that won't be good.

ETA: Blogroll now contains a link to Ellen's actual blog. And I got my coffee, at the cost of becoming only quite damp.

Thursday list.

No mind for connecting clauses today, hence list form. ("Hence" might be a connecting clause.)

- It's not nearly as cold as I'd anticipated here; it is, however, raining hard. I wear my red raincoat around school and feel very conspicuous in the mass of navy.
- We are allowed to pick our own titles on the new intranet system. "The", as in "The Erika Unpronounceable-Surname", was actually an option, so I picked that and spent most of the induction class giggling to myself. I am a value-added employee.
- Considering how long last term was, I am surprised to find that this term's Long Leave starts in a month. Excitingly, I'm flying to Trondheim on February 10th and staying until the 14th. Others may question the excitement factor of Trondheim in February, but I do not.
- I keep nervously checking my email to see whether any new references have been submitted to my Oxford application. Eight days to go.
- In the last week I've read two chick-lit books on the theme of infidelity without at all trying (one turned up free with a magazine, and had the distinction of having possibly the most stilted dialogue I've ever read, including that of Ayn Rand). It must be part of the zeitgeist.

People are turning up for the RT meeting. Time to go and be given tasks.

I don't actually WANT a dog, even

When I went to clear my Google search history just now (I compulsively clear my search and regular histories; my brain categorises it as clutter), the only two searches were "chuntering" and "doctor kisses". I almost wanted to keep those.

("Chuntering" was a word I wanted to use in an email to describe my research proposal, but it turned out to have overly whiny connotations, so I went with "meandering" instead. "Doctor Kisses" was my attempt at finding the Achewood strip where Ray names his 34 AIBOs. It mostly turned up lots of chuntering about Doctor Who. People should probably stop thinking so much about Doctor Who. Then again, I should stop thinking so much about dog names.)

It's been a very lovely Christmas and New Year's, particularly if I selectively edit out the part where I was ill with influenza and massively contagious: I've seen everyone I wanted to see, though not for as long as I would have liked; I've been to Gothenburg; I've watched "Demolition Man" in Ellen's basement; I've eaten two of the giant buns (one glazed cinnamon, one with raisins) at the Trondheim library café. At some bizarrely early hour on Sunday I'm flying back to England. This term, I think I will: spend a lot of time under blankets (England is colder in January than in December, and they don't insulate their houses very well), watch The Wire, get involved with the creative writing group at school, go home in Long Leave, try to get an exciting summer job, read Elizabeth Bowen, and finish my MA applications. (No, the Oxford one isn't in yet. But it will probably happen today. When Becky finishes hers as well, a massive celebration will be in order due to how stressful we've managed to make the whole process.) So at least there's a plan.

Short-term plan: walk to Dromedar and get some cheese toast, also possibly quantities of coffee.