Today, my friends, is a normal day in Oxford at the end of a normal week in Oxford. It is a day when tourists are flooding the streets and graduates in assorted coloured robes are pouring out of commencement ceremonies at the Sheldonian Theatre. It is a day where the ambiguously coloured sandstone buildings are mere shades of excitement apart from the ambiguously coloured sky. Another fleeting generation flowers and trees continue their hopeless crusade against the purgatorial, uncommitted surroundings.
It is a day at the end of a week where London's third gleaming Olympic torch (it is the first city to host three modern Olympiads) skirted the edge of town and former President Bill Clinton made an unannounced appearance in Blackwell's Books and the Covered Market. The weather conditions were only predictable in their unpredictability but my lengthy time spent in the lab was only broken to dream about a trip to the paradise of Switzerland and hash out some ever-important MCR business. There was the weekly Eagle & Child Pub Quiz on Tuesday and our second "Bossaphonik" Afrojazz/Balkan beats (still not sure what that means, but it's quite good) music night at The Cellar yesterday. Daily tea at 22.00 in the Acland kitchen has remained as institutionalized as the University itself.
But alas, like a glimmer of hope, a pinpoint of light in the darkness or a miraculous oasis in the vast Sahara, something quite unprecedented occurred today. After Saturday morning brunch in the MCR (another pillar of Oxford continuity), I came out of the college en route to Acland and felt this strange twitch of spontaneity. I wasn't sure if it was allowed or reasonable, as if I was about to break some sort of rule. Had I lived in any of a number of Big Brother dystopias, surely I would have been sacked on the spot, or worse. In that strange moment of indecision, however, I did not get sacked and my feet led me to city center where I ended up at Blackwell's Books. Here is where the real shocking part comes in, for I did not buy a single book.
I bought three.
Whoa, whoa, settle down; it will be ok, I promise! I know it is peculiar for an engineer to go into a book store and come out with three literary works for pure entertainment. I too felt this way before stepping up to the register. I thought, "Is this right? Can this be happening? Should I lay down first?" But in that bold moment, it was like the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I gained strength and confidence; after paying for my books, I proudly walked out to the street, exuberantly raised them into the air and shouted, "YES! I WILL READ! AND IT WILL BE FUN!" (Ok, that didn't actually happen, at least on the outside.)
Now here, my friends, is where you may or may not agree with my new found Oxford-influenced decision. My grandfather, at any rate, would unenthusiastic to hear that I passed up on Bleak House, and my dad that I forewent The Red Badge of Courage, but I opted for three more modern texts. Yes, it was obligatory that I procure Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (unrelated: another affirmation that Harry Potter is entirely real... O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s correspond to real English high school examinations, "Sixth Form" and "A-Levels") but I also added Tolkien's The Hobbit and a book which had been recommended to me, entitled Watching the English by Kate May.
Given that I have also been reading The Chronicles of Narnia (almost done with The Magician's Nephew!), I have a tonne of reading ahead.... So now it's time to get on that...
PS - For the couple of people who will inevitably inquire, I had 20 pounds of gift card money to spend, so my three books came to the reasonable total of 6.50 :-)
PPS - In spite of my Bleak Blog, it actually was quite an excellent week. Along with the books, a major highlight of the week was receiving a package from my dance partner, all the way from California! It's contents? Some incredible Scottish shortbread, a jar of amazing lemon curd, and a postcard! I love international mail!!! One thing though... shouldn't I be sending English things to her instead of vice versa? hmm... I guess I'll have to send her something incredibly American now...
PPPS - Happy Bastille Day! Also (alluding back to my Vienna Study Abroad) happy 150th birthday to Viennese Secessionist painter, Gustav Klimt!
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