I'm listening to Adele right now on an overcast day...which we haven't seen much of at all this week. It's been consistently sunny. After reading for most of the day yesterday, I decided to have some original and non-violent thoughts for my blog. By non-violent I simply mean not any of the four books I am attempting to read over the course of the week. Here is the most time-consuming struggle of my week: the only books I can find not checked out in the library for either of my classes, when I can find them, are in the short loan section. The rules of the short loan are that you are only allowed to have each book for four hours at a time, you cannot renew them online. The trick is to return them then check them right back out (they have machines here where you do it all yourself, thus enabling such cheatery, and if you check them out after 4:55, you get to keep them all night. If you check them out after 4:55 on Friday, you get them for the weekend!! Up to a four book limit. So, since Wednesday, I have been making three trips to the library a day, in four hour increments to be able to keep books long enough to finish them. It's a beautiful walk and not incredibly far, but I will not pretend to appreciate this fully. I feel like I am in an invisible battle for these books at every hour of the day.
So I spend most of time reading like I can hear the clock ticking, and I really want to find a way to scan my reading list from my classes on here to show all of you because it's mindblowing. I have 5 books and two articles to read in entirety this week for just one of them. And these are lengthy novels...not booklets. My roommates tried to get me out last night for a Friday night, or tonight for the ball. But until I get my first week of reading behind me, to know how much it affects or does not affect class, I don't think I could enjoy myself. This morning, I did enjoy traditional pancakes with Canadian maple syrup with Paige (from Canada), my flatmate, at Northpointe before we went grocery shopping. Last week we began a tradition of Sunday night flat dinners, where we rotate who cooks each week. Tom, from Scotland, cooked a crackling roast pork, carrots, roast potatoes, grilled onions, gravy, and an apple sauce gravy. Tomorrow is the Canadian Thanksgiving, though, much like ours. So Paige has taken over duties and we had to both haul the groceries back. I'm most excited about the rhubarb and apple charlotte pies that are delightfully fancy from Fisher and Donaldson's bakery in town. I sometimes pass that place when I'm in town, just to look in the window. I also stopped in a Bouquinique, a bookstore in town that looks straight out of Notting Hill and found a little booklet called Hospitality at Home, an Exhibition of Furnishing for Entertaining, that looks like its straight out of the 40s...I think it is. It was in the antique section but I only paid a pound and am going to pull it apart and make a wallpaper collage out of it for my wall. It has teatime sections, nightcap sections, and children's tea party sections--all on how to decorate with furniture for these different occasions.It made me laugh but seemed fitting.
For those who don't yet know how my class system works, I have one lecture from 2-4 on Monday afternoons called Issues in Peace and Conflict, and one on Tuesday from 2-4 called Theories in Peace and Conflict. There will be 1-2 hour seminars to go to once a week sometimes, but I missed the only one so far by being late. (Segment deleted from this location due to hazards of public consumption.) I work better when left to my own devices, but have heard that we're splitting up into reading groups since no one person could do all the reading in a week...which I guess is a comfort to me. The rest of the week, outside of class, is entirely at my disposal. But its been harder for me to get to sleep at night and get over jet lag than I thought and the readings are conducive to relaxation. I'm ready to get the first week behind me and hope that I don't spend the rest of my days here making thrice-daily trips to the hideous library. Even if the way there is an absolutely perfect walk.
And The Office episode this past week was one of the best I have ever seen.
K
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