Twenty five or six(ty) to four?

It's hard to believe we're already in Trinity seventh week! This term has absolutely flown by. With dance and the birthday bash out of the way, I finally turned my focus to several new things, which I hinted at in my late fit of exhaustion last night.

The biggest news is that I finally decided to officially run for MCR President. The president's job is to oversee the MCR committee and represent the MCR at the college and university level. Before voting opened, I had to write a manifesto of my experience and goals in addition to surviving 'hustings,' which is basically a cross between a Q&A session and a debate. I'm running against Dave and together we were battered by questions for 45 minutes regarding our views on issues such as working with college, fighting for better accommodation (Acland needs SERIOUS renovation), and our daily interactions with the MCR. It was intense! Anyway, now the voting is in progress (online ballot!) and I'll find out this weekend if I'll be serving as the MCR President next year!

So what else happened over the last week? Guys & Dolls went up and down with a bang! Even though the dress rehearsal was a bit rocky - I was not the only person who felt the show was not ready to go up - the three performances were actually really good! The show was held in the Queen's College gardens. The gardens were enclosed on three sides by stone buildings and on the fourth by a stone wall - an extremely quaint setting. The wall provided the proscenium for the musical, as there was a patio for the actors to use as a stage. To the right of the patio and still in front of the wall, a huge tree acted as a natural "pit" - an open but still sequestered location for the orchestra. Unfortunately, the quality of weather for the three shows was inversely proportional to the quality of the acting. Each night, the acting got better and better, but the weather went from cool and breezy the first night through a mist on the second night to a steady rain on the final night. Lucky for the orchestra, the tree provided us plenty of protection, but the actors and audience were, in a word, soaked on the last day. Thus, since we had to move the second act of the final performance indoors, I would have to say that Friday night - the second day - was the best overall show.

I think what I loved most about this show - aside from the fact that everyone is great friends by closing night - is that you could walk around backstage afterwards and everyone would be humming a song. There is so much good music that I woke up several mornings this week with songs stuck in my head: Marry the Man, Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat, Adelaide's Lament, Sue Me... they're all great! Oh yeah, it was also fantastic listening to the actors put on American accents ("Yeah, go on down to Mary-land. What's that town? Not Pimlico... Elk-ton. Go to Elkton."), but I admit it was quite disappointing when the poor British audience didn't understand the American humor ("Five kids! What do we do with them?! Trade them to the Phillies?!"). I really hope I get the chance to do another show sometime in Oxford!

Oh yeah! How could I forget... Friday was my birthday! As I turned 25, I spent my third birthday abroad. It's hard to compare this to the others (every country and group of companions is unique), but in spite of the stress of writing a manifesto, I had a delightful day. It started off at 9 am with a very productive research meeting with my supervisors followed by our lab's customary birthday tradition of cake consumption. As my birthday confection, I (ok, Jenna contributed more than half of the ideas, equipment, and labor... Thanks Partner!!!) brought in a batch of oatmeal lemon creme bars and a pan of homemade brownies with blackcurrant creme cheese icing! They were ridiculously delicious and I had a lot of happy lab partners. In the evening, I had the show and went out with both the pit orchestra and some of my Keble friends. To top it off, I was super excited to get some new sheet music as a gift from my dance partner! I'm thoroughly excited to dive into my Les Mis songbook.... but not now... At the End of the Day! ;-)

On Saturday before the show, I went to the Warden's Garden Party, held on a Keble quad. Garden parties tend to be quite popular in the UK, especially among the posh. Basically, everyone shows up and stands around drinking juice or prosecco, munching on cucumber (or salmon or egg) sandwiches, indulging on strawberries and cream, and topping it off with some tea. A jazz combo played in the background while the mingling droned on unceasingly. Admittedly, I had a pretty good time, but I felt slightly under-dressed. Oops! Still working out the English dress code...

 By the way... the title refers to the band Chicago (Jenna actually went to see the musical Chicago in London last week and said it wasn't very good...so Chicago was on my mind), my newfangled age, and.......

CULTURE CORNER
...the Queen's Jubilee. Monday and Tuesday were bank holidays in the UK, specially designated for the purpose of celebrating the Queen's sixtieth year of rule. Now admittedly she came to power in February of 1962 and was only coronated the first weekend of June in 1963... so technically this weekend failed to commemorate anything (except the Queen's 59th year of coronation.. *yawn*). Nonetheless, the Crown pulled out all the stops - there was a massive flotilla, a huge concert, fireworks ... and lots of patriotic goods on sale. Now before you get any ideas, I will say that London was no where near as red, white, and blue as Washington DC on a normal July Fourth, but there were certainly pockets of patriotism and a reasonable number of flags and bunting.

This raises two questions: 1. How did I celebrate? and 2. How did everyone else celebrate? First off, I celebrated by merely being a casual observer and doing something completely unrelated: by going to see the Phantom of the Opera in London with Jenna on Monday night. In fact, while most of the world watched the massive concert in front of Buckingham Palace complete with flyover, Jenna and I happily watched the Phantom prance around the stage like Golum. Ok, I jest (kind of), but the musical was really really good. I finally decided that POTO is really incredible, but it's no Les Miserables... especially when I found out that it was originally written to mock turn of the century opera using the Rocky Horror style. Anyway, it was a delightful day wandering London with Jenna in which we also saw the river in light and night, ate some amazing cupcakes at the Hummingbird bakery in SoHo, had some time of reflection in the incredible Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused with the well known Abbey), and finished by watching the Buckingham fireworks after the beacon lighting.

As for question number two, responses certainly vary! My understanding is that much of Britain quite likes the Queen, but feelings are much more tempered in Oxford. Yes, in my lovely university town, anti-monarchy sentiment is quite high. Not many openly protest about it, but several in Keble have certainly made their opinion known. Thus, I couldn't resist the temptation to purchase a Queen's Jubilee tea towel and tack it to Sam's door... considering Monday was his birthday. I wonder if he liked it... Oh well. Believe it or not, I wasn't the only one to nationalize his door!

At any rate, I'm not in the UK at the moment... I have flown home for the wedding of a friend. It's nice being back in the States (read: home = 5 days of continuity = YES!)... but it means that I don't have time to write words of the day since I'm due to go to the rehearsal! Always busy!