Chateau de Chenonceau

Wednesday was a national holiday in France to mark the Armistice. As everyone had a day off, we went to Chenonceau, a nearby chateau. I regret not having a camera because it was very impressive. I thought it would be quite dull, but it was surprisingly interesting – built on a bridge and, therefore, in the middle of a river, it was the home of Catherine de Medici as well as a few other king and queen type people at various points. I spent the day waving a small European Union flag I had got that morning and singing the European anthem. Hooray!

Teaching

Teaching has not been bad. I have some classes that are quite dire as the students don’t say anything or, in some cases, are simply incapable of expressing themselves in English. However, when I get students who actually speak English reasonably well, it seems well worth it – I had one girl say at the end of a class “that went well, we had fun!” I think the key seems to be to appear cheerful and friendly and loquacious, as the children then feel guilt-tripped into participating. :D

German guilt

Knowing lots of Germans makes me feel extremely bad. They all speak better French than English people, and on top of that they all speak almost perfect English. And it’s not even just language students – I have met several friends of German assistants who don’t study languages, and can still hold a conversation in fluent English. It’s just embarrassing. The only Anglophone who speaks any German in our friend circle here is me. I took it to GCSE and then gave up 5 years ago; as such, what I occasionally speak can barely even be called German.

So I feel embarrassed in comparison with multilingual Germans. Britain, France and Germany are without any doubt the most important nations in Europe and have contributed the most to its literature, philosophy and values; I kind of feel that to be the best European possible, I should learn German.

There is also a more personal aspect to my guilt. I took French rather than German to A level and subsequently to university for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons was that French is a lot easier than German. I feel as though I ran away from German. I know that, if I put my mind to it, I could learn German – I always complain about its cases and verbs and genders, but I’m a logical, rule-minded language learner and, though it would be difficult, I know I could do it.

So, feeling so guilty, am I about to try to start German again for the umpteenth time? I lack time and, I think, sufficient motivation; after this year abroad, I will have little use for German. But I’m picking up a lot by listening to Germans and haltingly talking to them in German, and I may do an oral course once I’m done with Spanish in February or something. So, at the very least, my German will become slightly better, and that’s something.

Life has been as wonderful as Oxford always is of late.

1) Colin Pillinger
2) Ambassador from Albanian
3) Sunday
4) Today

1) Colin Pillinger. He's a British physicist who more or less organised the (failed) Beagle 2 project to Mars. I went to an interesting talk by him. He seems convinced that there is life on Mars, and I guess he's kind of convinced me on a question I was reasonably ambivalent about before. I so hope the question gets settled relatively soon - and it won't be hard to settle, as long as we can get the appropriate equipment to Mars.

2) Albanian Ambassador. He convinced me that Albania is full of shiny happy people having fun. My friend, who has been to Albani, confirmed this. There are Orthodox and Catholic christians in Albania as well as a majority of Muslims, but they all seem to get along really, really well. This is encouraging and adorable.

3) Sunday was beautiful. I went with a friend to get ice cream (FREE!) from the Oxford Union. This deliciousness was followed by a phone call in which it was decided that we would have an impromptu barbeque. So we went to Sainsbury's, bought meat and a disposable barbeque, and went to the parks by the riverbank to have a small barbeque of four. It was beautiful. I chased a moorhen. Many friends from college came up and two of them fell into the river; one, meanwhile, voluntarily took a dip therein, although this is largely because he is mad. After this I hosted a mead-tasting event in which people tried some of the mead I brewed. Responses were overwhelming positive, which was great; I feel vindicated in my mead-brewing, and will definitely do so again in future. After this, pub quizzing occurred and my time came second.

4) Today, more mead was tasted by a different set of friends (the Amnesty lot). At 5pm, we held a commemoration march for the Tiananmen Square massacre which was exactly 20 years ago today. I always feel in two minds about these kinds of events. I love letter-writing because I feel like I've achieved something, whereas commemoration doesn't seem to actually do much. However, I came out of the event profoundly moved. While we were there with our large "Remember Tiananmen!" and "Human Rights for China!" banners, two huge groups of (I think) Taiwanese tourists separately came upon us. They were incredibly, incredibly supportive of us - they took photos, came and stood with us to have their photos taken, told us to continue the good work and even corrected some of the faulty Chinese on our banners. The response we got from them - and from a small number of people from the PRC - was really heartwarming; it was so nice to know that these Chinese people knew and, more importantly, cared about Tiananmen.

Today, one of the colleges also decided to give out free pizza and alcohol to gays, lesbians and bisexuals. I took advantage of the offer, but also invited my straight friend, which was nicely subversive - I don't approve of segregation of gays, just as I disapprove of segregation of women (who get their own chocolate and strawberry parties in my college, infuriatingly) or ethnic minorities.

Finally, today was also the day of European elections. Europe tends to evoke strange feelings in the British, who tend not to appreciate what it has done, and does, for us. I voted Lib Dem on the basis that Tories are intrinsically evil (not to mention their fucking nasty Euro-allies), Labour are authoritarian gits, the Greens are ridiculous, and everybody else is mad, Eurosceptic or racist. I was sorely tempted to vote for the Roman Party though - Ave!

In other news, I fixed a bike puncture ALL BY MYSELF* a couple of days ago.

Work is going well - high 2:1s have occurred, and my tutor accidentally told me I was good at linguistics. Diderot is turning out to be far more interesting than he at first seemed.

As for my year abroad, I am definitely going to the Centre region, hopefully to Orléans or Tours, although I wont find out where I am - city or village - for a while yet.

Plans to work at Vauxhall appear to have gone down the shitter. Alas.

*Well, one person helped slightly.

Well, as ever I have been rubbish at LJing while in Oxford, but I've finally found some time to blog a little. Or a lot, as there's quite a bit to cover; unfortunately I wont be able to go into as much depth as I'd have wanted.

Contents:
Picnic
Chinese ambassador
April 30th
Linguistics Pub Crawl
Cinema Paradiso
Age of Empires
Punting
Staying awake
AI - asylum seekers
Sushi
Headington
Eurovision
General

Picnic - This will sound more exciting when photos happen, but after our tests upon getting back, we went picnicking in a park about 5 minutes from where I live which I knew nothing about. It was good, and there were strange trees.

Chinese Ambassador - I went to see the Chinese ambassador in first week; she's more or less the only good person to come to the Union this term. She talked on whether China is a power, and it was interesting to listen to her. Obviously what she said had to be taken with a pinch of salt - she claimed that China wouldn't be a hegemon, but couldn't quite explain why - and there was one point where I knew she was lying (she claimed the Dalai Lama wanted independence for Tibet - he wants autonomy). All in all, though, I am becoming increasingly sinophilic in all ways of life. Although human rights are a serious issue, I think the level of state control has been helpful in improving the lives of the average Chinese citizen when compared with India. I particularly approve of the one child policy, which has been a significant factor in improving the lives of the Chinese; India, on the other hand, continues to have massive problems with poverty (not to mention associated issues of illiteracy, disease etc). At the end of the talk, I was given some free propaganda - a "China Encyclopedia, supervised by the State Council Information Office, P.R.C." in CDROM form. I haven't explored it in much debt yet, but it seems both informative and amusing so far.

April 30th - In Oxford, there's a tradition of staying up all night so as to go to Magdalen Tower at 6am on May 1st, whence some kind of prayer is sung and festivities ensue. I went last year and found it fairly dull, so instead we went to Port Meadow, a common meadow to the North of Oxford, where there was a bonfire and happiness. It was pretty cool - there was a guy who had a stick and firedanced with it and general amazingness. Then we went off and stayed awake til 5am for no real reason, going to bed just before the festivities that are the whole point of the day. We also drank a bottle of the mead I brewed on this day; it was delicious. There are two left now.

Linguistics Pub Crawl - As a Linguistics Society committee member, I had to organise all this. It was pretty fun, considering linguists rock.

Cinema Paradiso - As part of an Arts Festival, this was screened outdoors. If you have seen it, you will know why this is amazing; if not, go watch it. I was freezing throughout, but well worth it.

Age of Empires - My friend Kristian from Norway figured out how to make it work on my laptop. This has slightly ruined my life, and I am obsessively playing campaigns as opposed to, you know, socialising or working. Apparently the college chaplain plays, so we're considering inviting her to a multiplayer game - it would be interesting to say the least.

Punting - i.e. pushing oneself along a shallow river by means of a pole, the most counterintuitive form of river transport imaginable. But an Oxford tradition, and good fun - there were goslings, some good graffiti (I hope it comes out on my rubbish camera phone) and a pleasant pub at the end of it all. Definitely worth the effort.

Staying awake - Since May night, I couldn't really sleep at night because I'd gone to bed so late and my circadian rhythm got fucked up. Until the 10th of May I went to bed between 4 and 5:30am each night. To get my body back in order, I stayed awake through the night on the 10th. I felt fine as well, so perhaps I should do this more often...

Amnesty International: Asylum Seekers - Amnesty stuff goes on as ever. We had a really interesting workshop on Asylum seekers which got me so angry that it deserves its own post as some point, possibly on facebook. Sometimes I really can't believe this country... bring on Norway.

Sushi - My friend can make it. I can eat it. This happens frequently enough for me to be happy.

Headington - I had a fairly exciting day yesterday. I got 4 and a half hours sleep, woke up at 8:20 and went cycling to the outskirts of Oxford, where there are numerous charity shops and a SHARK, which I took photos of. We also posted a note through the letterbox thanking the creator for his shark's existence, and taping a small plastic narwhal to it in tribute. We went through loads of charity shops, whence I bought an Atlas from 1934. It's interesting looking at the pre-war, imperial years; also, I lolled at the Anglo-centricness of it. Then we went to a Chinese shop, whence I bought plum wine (mmm) and chopsticks. My friend and I simultaneously and independently had the idea of using chopsticks more often in non-Chinese settings (although I will of course use them for Chinese food). I find a knife and fork can be annoying and ineffectual; stab and slash are not very useful when consuming, for example, salad. Grabbing, however, is possible with most things. My friend also argues that they are more elegant, which is also true. After this I climbed my first tree in several weeks, which involved scooting along a branch upside down. :D Curse that tree.

Eurovision - I have never followed Eurovision before, but we had a party this time in the TV room, which was delicious and awesome. I do not understand why the UK received any points at all, nor why Ukraine received so few.

General - I am happy. This is meant to be the best term of my University life (no exams, summer, not too much work) and I think I am making the most of it. Spanish has foundered a little as I suddenly find myself lacking time to do half an hour of study a day, but I bought a Teach Yourself Norwegian book, which seems pretty good. Tonight we're celebrating the National Day of Norway with traditional Norwegian cuisine (and less traditional plum wine...) which should be fun.