We Goin' Light It Up Like It's Dynamite

Hey Everyone! So after many days of excitement, little food, little sleep, stress and sillyness (on my part), I've made it through the seventh week of term, and somehow I am still alive. I think this week has certainly been my most eventful.

The biggest event of the week was Christ Church Regatta, which was a series of novice rowing head-to-head races. The races began on Wednesday and continue on until Saturday. We won our first race on Wednesday against Jesus College, which was extremely exciting. On Thursday, I ended up crashing our boat into our opponent New College's boat, which had veered into our racing lane and completely cut us off. Today (right after my poor bicycle broke ;_;) we had our rematch with them, and we lost but not by much. We were right on their tail the whole time, and the team was able to keep their rating at about 36 the whole time with a couple pushes up to 39 (which I think is extremely impressive). Overall, I thought our team did really, really well at this Regatta, and Torpids next term should be very exciting. Unfortunately, I used up all of my uploading quota on flickr for the month, so I'll have to upload photos from this regatta next month. Until then, here are some of the photos:

Day One


Numbering Off From Bow & Getting Ready to Push Off.


Heading Downstream to Queue


Racing


Victorious


Bringing the Boat In


Day Two


Racing and Gaining


CRASH. (No one was hurt, thankfully)


The Damage


The Christ Church Regatta Team. Well Done, Guys. =)


Look at the Damage I Caused!

Thank you to everyone who came out to support us during the Regatta! I'm sure one of the reasons we did so well was because of the support we had. So thank you. ^_^ And after looking at these pictures, I have just realised how incredibly short I am. xP

Anyway, the friars also threw us a really, really nice Thanksgiving celebration yesterday. The friars provided the turkey, potatoes, and gravy, while the rest of us brought side dishes and puddings. Unfortunately, because I wasn't in the best mood and I had only an hour to cook, my dish didn't turn out nearly as well as most of the other dishes I have made in the past. Originally, I wasn't planning on attending, but Maggie threatened to force feed me if I went home early, so I ended up staying. And a few friars kept trying to pour more and more wine into my glass, even though I had to race again the next day. One of the friars kept saying over and over, "You've had a traumatic experience today, so you need this," and pretty much ignored my protests. Overall, it was a really nice evening. So far, dining with the friars has been one of my best experiences here at Oxford. =D

Well, now I have to catch up with all my work for the upcoming week (LAST WEEK OF TERM) before all the Christmas and End of Term celebrations begin. I'm sure I'll have more stories of adventures and pictures later. =)

Happy Belated Thanksgiving and Cheers!
Nutmeg

You've Got Designer Shades Just to Hide Your Face and You Wear 'Em Around Like You're Cooler Than Me

Hi, hi! Sooooo, another week has come to an end, and another has just begun. And I haven't finished my reading for this new week yet, hooray! x_x I'll fill you in on why I've done so little "real work" this week.

On Friday, we had our first 6:45 am rowing water session. Meaning that I had to get up at around 6:00 am and pedal my way through the dark and empty streets of Oxford down to the freezing cold Isis/Thames. Luckily, the bike ride woke me up enough to where I could notice how incredible the river looked at 6:30 am. It was extremely foggy that morning, and the Isis/Thames runs right along Christ Church meadow, which had even more fog billowing across it and into the river. Yes, I realise I don't know the science of how fog works, but the point is that there was A LOT of fog on the river. And it was very, very, VERY dark out, which meant that all the boats practising (you'd be surprised how many teams practise that early) had to have lights on. It was so dark and foggy that all you could see were these boat lights and as the boats drifted closer to you, all you could see would be the boat and very, very dark figures in it. IT WAS PROBABLY THE SPOOKIEST YET COOLEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN A LONG TIME. It certainly reminded me of how I would imagine the Japanese Obon Festival (the festival where you bring the dead home and then send them back out again via candles in paper boats) to be like or the River Styx. Probably more like the River Styx actually. Anyway, by the time the entire team got to the boathouse, the sun had started to rise, and I had to wear my somewhat ridiculous pink Cher sunglasses with my usual coxing hat. Needless to say, the combination of the two accessories brought many weird stares in our boat's direction. And that is the story of my first 6:45 am rowing water session.

On Saturday, we had our first head to head race in the Nephthys Regatta. Again, I was a complete bundle of nerves for this race, and our start was rather frantic and messy, but we WON. =D Unfortunately though, there was a bit of a mix-up with schedules so we didn't get to race our second race and were disqualified. =( But that only means that we have to save all our energy and hype for the upcoming Christ Church Regatta this Wednesday through Friday. And I see a future where Nutmeg will once again be running on very little sleep.

Then that night, we had Karaoke night at HM College. No, I didn't sing, but I took a bunch of pictures and videos of others singing. I think we all had a great time, and kudos to the people who had the courage to get up and sing ridiculous Glee and Pop songs. ^_^

And today (Sunday), an extremely kind and generous Blackfriars alumni invited a group of us to have Sunday lunch at her gorgeous house in the Cotswolds. First off, her English country house is probably one of the most beautiful houses I've ever been in. It was a little too big for me to feel comfortable in, but she had decorated and arranged it to feel extremely cosy and quaint. Secondly, the food was DELICIOUS. We had a roast, Yorkshire pudding, fresh baked rolls, tomato soup, fried? potatoes, a potato-carrot mixture, lemon meringue pie, pears in red-wine sauce and of course, tea/coffee and cake. I don't even want to think about the amount of calories I consumed today, especially with Thanksgiving around the corner. After all the food and conversation, we went for a walk around her town (Cirencester, Gloucestershire), but it was too dark to do much sight-seeing. We agreed that we were going to have to come back during the day to revisit everything.


Our lunch set up.


The Inside of Cirencester Parish Church of St. John Baptist


The Ceiling


Me in the Church (Photo courtesy by K.P.)

Anyway, all the pictures I took from this adventure are on my flickr account, which can be found via that link or the one on my sidebar. It was a fun adventure, and I am definitely going to have to send her and her family a thank you card of some sort.

Well, I think I've procrastinated long enough, and I should get to that reading I've been putting off.

Cheers and Happy Early Thanksgiving!
Nutmeg

What do you want to take out? The Librarian. SHH!

Hi Everyone! So our first rowing race was this afternoon, and it was pretty insane. Due to a combination of nerves, rain and freezing weather, I was shaking so badly that I'm surprised anyone in our boat was able to understand any of the commands I was giving. We got off to a pretty rocky start, but we finished 14 out of 17 novice boats. This sounds really bad, but we made our time goal (to be no more than 6 minutes) and many of the novice boats we were up against were from large colleges. The rowers kept their rate above 30 strokes the entire time through and out of the Gut (the narrowest and probably most terrifying, well for me anyway, part of the river), which I think is incredibly impressive. AND WE DID NOT CRASH. =) Anyway, yay St. Benet's novices, and thank you to the people who came out to support us! Seems like we're going to have an awesome year if we keep this up. I think we have at the very least two more races for the next two weekends of this term. Again, I think I'm going to be running on very little sleep this week. x_x

In other news, I finally used the Blackfriars library tonight (Ordinarily I use the Radcliffe Camera's library), and since there wasn't anyone there, I sneakily took a few pictures for all of you:


A very poor view of the second/third floor.


A very poor view of the first/second floor.


My "reading cubby" or study area if you want to be boring. =P The windows are actually beautiful stained glass, which you can't see because it's night time. I promise to try and take pictures during the day when it's brighter.

As you can see (or can't see because my photography skills are horrendous), this library is AMAZING. It's pretty much what I used to think a library looked like when I was a kid. And the reading cubbies are really, really cute. I swear being surrounded by several bookcases while you study makes you at least 5 times more productive/smarter. At least, that's what would happen in the Sims...

I've added these and a couple more poor photos of the inside of a pub to my flickr account, which you can reach via that link or the link on the sidebar.

Anyway, time for me to get back to work. Cheers, everyone!
-Nutmeg

P.S. If you would like a post card from me, please send me your address via email or facebook or whatever. I'm going to try and send them out so you can get them by Thanksgiving. ^_^ Oh and in case you were wondering, this post's title is a quote from one of my favourite scenes from The Music Man. Most of my blog post titles are quotes from songs and such, in case you were wondering about that too.

となりのトトロ、トトロ！

Hey Everyone! Michaelmas Term is slowly winding down, and it's just been getting busier and busier for me. I have my first rowing race this weekend, and I am definitely a bundle of nerves. I still have at least four essays due within the next few weeks, and I have a Yellow-Tag Assessment for Sulkido coming up too. I have a feeling I will be running on very little sleep for a little while. xP

Guy Fawkes Night was a lot of fun. Bonfires blazed in people's backyards and lots of fireworks went off despite all the rain. Unfortunately, because of the rain I don't have very many good pictures. So here are the two best ones of the fireworks from that night:

In happier news, today I decided to take a small break after running around to different libraries and had a small shopping trip. I found a store that I have absolutely fallen in love with.

It's called Cath Kidston, and it has so many adorable domestic things that I want but will probably never use like a giant sewing box kit. I'm sure a giant sewing box kit thing would be extremely useful...if I knew how to sew. I think the rose patterns on everything are what I love the most about this store. Especially the rose patterned tea sets. I really want one of those. =D

And I know a couple people really wanted to see a picture of my bike:

So there you are, and also, you might be wondering why the title of this blog post is called 'My Neighbor Totoro' in Japanese when this post clearly has nothing to do with that movie. Well, it's because 1. 'My Neighbor Totoro' is one of my favourite Hayao Miyazaki movies and 2. South Park recently did a parody of a couple Totoro scenes in one of their episodes, which I found hilarious and made me incredibly happy. (If you don't like South Park's humour, DO NOT click on the parody link. If you want to see the original Totoro scene, click on the Totoro link. Enjoy!)

Anyway, it's bed time. Good night and Cheers!
-Nutmeg

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November...

Hello everyone! So today is Guy Fawkes Day! (Well, at least here it is. ^_^) Or Bonfire Night here in Oxford. V for Vendetta pretty much explains Guy Fawkes Day, but in case you want something a little more factual, here's a link. In a nutshell, Guy Fawkes was part of a group of conspirators who planned to blow up Parliament, and he was unlucky (or lucky depending on your point of view) enough to be captured. I've always wanted to see what it would be like to celebrate this day ever since I saw V for Vendetta, so needless to say, I'm very excited about the upcoming festivities. =) I'll be sure to post more, including pictures hopefully, later.

In the meantime, I've recently discovered a new online game that I absolutely love. It's called Haunt the House. You play an absolutely adorable little ghost trying to haunt his house in celebration of Halloween. I know it's probably a little past Halloween to be showing everyone this, but I think it's too cute not to share. ^_^ Be warned though: this game is incredibly ADDICTING. Be prepared to spend at least an hour playing it.

Enjoy and Cheers!

P.S. Sorry about the comments problem, everyone. I've adjusted the settings on my blog again, so please let me know if they work or not! And because I know a lot of you were curious, here's a picture of my Halloween costume. Can you guess who I was? =P