Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Week 6 and the beginning of week 7

I last wrote about 10 days ago... right before I chopped about 10 inches off my hair.  It still is quite long and it looks healthy.  I'm happy with it, though next time I may go closer to shoulder length.

That whole weekend was quiet and kind of a detox and catch up weekend.  I did lots of reading on Saturday and then went over to Brittany's to cook dinner.  We made a curried red lentil stew with homemade cornbread and a big green salad and I think everything turned out well.  I stayed over there pretty late Saturday night and then walked home and crashed.  Sunday, it was more reading and several skype sessions, including catching up with an old Penn friend who I have not talked to in at least 2 years.  

Last week itself was relatively quiet.  Early in the week I'm pretty sure I did things, fun things.... but unfortunately they didn't make my google calendar so now I don't remember most of them... my brain stays pretty constantly fried here.  On Thursday I went to class and then to a branding lunch (as part of a focus group to help with the branding of Oxford's new environmental/sustainability group).  I got a free lunch (kind of... kind of wimpy for a lunch) but a free goody bag including a tote and a notebook AND I got to hopefully help brand a cool organization, so that was all good.  

From the lunch I rushed over to Green Templeton College to meet my International Environmental Law professor to get my long essay topic approved.  I came with 2 ideas for a topic, and Catherine (the professor) much preferred one to the other so I'll be writing on the 1996 Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion (which stated that it is actually NOT illegal to use or test nuclear weapons... but left the ICJ lots of wiggle room to change their minds on this in the future).  Fascinating stuff, though it's been awhile since I'm written a long essay and I'm not excited to have to relearn how to cite Blue Book.  My meeting with Catherine also included 2 of my friends/coursemates, Lisa and Louis so from the meeting we headed to get coffee/tea and then an event at the Oxford Martin School entitled: Now for the long term with a lecture entitled "Governance, sustainability and future generations: designing institutions with a long term focus" given by Prof Simon Caney.  It was okay, but I was a bit fidgety/just really distracted.  

After the lecture I headed home to do more work, then re-met up with Lisa for dinner, then we headed to an debate at the Oxford Union (This house believes positive discrimination is a necessary evil) and met up with Brittany and Rob.  It was okay, but not as good as some of the other debates they've had and we ducked out about 3/4 of the way through to meet Sophie, Dennis, Louis (and as it turns out, others too!) for drinks.  We hung out at the Turf Tavern, in the outside area and just sipped hot mulled wine and still froze.  We weren't out too late and had a pretty relaxed time.  

Friday is when it hit that I had 2 papers due on Monday (a short response paper for my international environmental law elective and an outline of the direction I want my thesis to go) so I spent all day reading and writing like crazy.  That evening, I decided to meet up with friends who had tickets to an event at the Oxford Union.  I hadn't snagged a ticket, but they said they may let in Union members on a first come, first serve basis so Brittany and I decided to tag along with everyone and try to get seats.  Beforehand, Brittany, Dennis, Ole and I met up for dinner, but we were worried about being at the front of the line so we ended up going straight to the Union.  The event was the filming of a debate/t.v. show called "Head to Head" that is aired/run by Al Jazeera. This episode was Jimmy Wales, who is the founder of Wikipedia who was being interviewed by/debated with by Mehde Hasan, who is a British political journalist and broadcaster.  There was also a panel including Herman Chinery-Hesse (a Ghanaian software entrepreneur), Isabella Shankey (political director of the non-profit Liberty), Bob Ayers (former US intelligence officer in the army and Defense Intelligence Agency) and Oliver Kamm (journalist for The Times).  The discussion centered around whether or not wikipedia makes us better informed, freer?  Or if the internet more broadly does.  It was really good. 

After the event we all went out for sushi and then went to St. Cross College to play pool and fooseball.  It was an incredibly fun time and I learned quickly that I am really, really terrible at fooseball.  From there, we went to Freuds and hung out until they closed.  All in all, it was a great night out with a large group from NSEP, including a few people who rarely come out with us, so I felt like it was a wonderful Friday night.  

Saturday was another day working away, but I finally took a break around 5PM to go take a stroll around the Oxford Christmas Market with Brittany and Andreas.  It really wasn't so good (nothing on Prague or Munich!) but I'm glad I got to see it.  From there, I went home and made dinner, did some more work, and then went to meet up with NSEPers for a Latin BOP at St. Cross.  A big NSEP group was there and it was fun to dance, though there was very little latin music which was kind of a bummer.  I randomly danced with a guy who looked familiar.... turns out it's b/c we went to Penn together and graduated the same year, so it feels like a small world.   One of the NSEPers, Dennis, had friends visiting from home, 4 guys he grew up with, so it was also fun to get good stories for teasing/blackmail and hang out with them as well.  After the BOP a few of us (Louis, Katherine, Sophie, Brittany, me, Dennis and the 4 dutchmen friends) decided we weren't tired, so we headed to Maxwell's.... but it seemed that everyone had a similar idea and it was too crowded to get in.  After standing in line for an insanely long time, the boys all ate at a foodtruck and we all headed back.  

Sunday it was even more work... had to really crank those papers out.  The only break I took was about an hour in the evening to go hang out with the dutch guys again before they left.  

This week has also been busy (I sound like a broken record... but it's the truth every time I write it!) Mondays I'm in class from 9 until 5 and after class I went to the library and read for several more hours to prepare for my dissertation meeting on Tuesday.  Tuesday I had class and then met with who I think will advise my dissertation, Jamie Lorimer, to discuss my topic.  The meeting didn't go quite as well as I had hoped.  I'd read a great deal of what he'd recommended, but unfortunately that broadened rather than narrowed my interests and I think I may have come across as scattered and unprepared.  Regardless, Jamie didn't seem too concerned and is supposed to be sending me another mountain of reading to move forward.  

From there, I headed to a cafe to do some work, and then to my friend Ben's to check out the space fro Thanksgiving.  Ben offered to host thanksgiving for NSEP which has turned into me and Brittany heading up all the food/cooking/prep (with the exception of desserts!).  We wanted to check out the kitchen and figure out where to serve and seat the THIRTY (yes, thirty) people who are coming.  Needless to say, this week has also included lots of menu planning, gathering resources, grocery list making, etc.  After checking out Ben's, the 3 of us (me, Brittany and Ben) walked to buy a few necessary items for cooking that none of us had... things like: a meat thermometer, a turkey roasting pan (really just a giant pan big enough for a turkey), and heavy duty oven mitts (I normally just use tea towels... but I'm not normally handling a 15lb turkey).  After that, Ben split off and Brittany and I walked to Summertown (a small town a few miles from Oxford's city centre) to the mark's and spencer's grocery store where we picked up a few hard to locate spices and ingredients.  

Today has also been busy, lots of class and a lecture by Prof Susan Jebb (Prof of Diet and Population Health) entitled "Diet, Health and the Environment: Towards a More Sustainable Diet."  

Tomorrow I have class and a meeting with the course director on my progress (a requirement each term) and then Brittany and I will be doing shopping and prep work for the afternoon before heading to watch some Thanksgiving football at a place we found the airs American football!  I think we're going to watch the Detroit Lions play the Green Bay Packer.... naturally I am pulling for Matthew Stafford and megatron (though I never watch NFL... sorry if that's an unpopular decision? It's also a pretty arbitrary one).

Friday is the day we are celebrating Thanksgiving so that we have all day to cook... due to dietary restrictions (both allergies and some vegetarian/vegans) most of our menu will be dairy, gluten and soy free (impressive, no?)  What's on the menu? Turkey for the meat eaters (not very many of them, actually... a guess unsurprising on an environmental course), regular stuffing, cornbread stuffing, brussels sprouts, sweet potato souffle, rosemary garlic mashed potatoes, green salad with veggies and homemade dressing, deviled eggs, fruit salad with an improvised dressing of honey/lime/coconut cream, roasted butternut squash stuffed with wild rice stuffing, peach cobbler, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and homemade mulled wine.  Should be a busy and crazy 2 days prepping and cooking with Brittany but I'm so excited that she has done this before and I think we are going to make a great team in pulling this off! 

More updates post Thanksgiving!  




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