quoted: "that tastes coloured" -jeremy

reminiscing about oxford: dinner with a justice of the south african supreme court of appeal. what an opportunity...i almost feel as if i missed it, but clearly i didn't. hurrah.

even at its worst, oxford is lovely. even at its saddest, oxford is candy land. and now i'm leaving. i feel as if i underappreciated this amazing place for 3 years now. i know i didn't, but it feels that way. all the smells. all the sights. all the people. if i had it to do over again, i would. only i'd spend more time meeting strangers, because (although i'm scared of them) they really are rather lovely.

mark teased me and christine about the quality of chch balls at lunch yesterday. i walked past the magdalen ball on my way back from rhodes house. those particle-board signs = sad. very sad. and forcing guests to queue on the high street = totally naff. i'm just saying...

the farther you get...the closer to me.

going down dinner (at rho.ho) was lovely. absolutely wonderful. i got to talk to chesa for a long time...longer than any time since sailing weekend in DC (in september 2003). he's great. i hope he gets a good job. cali or london. but i hope he doesn't pass out of my life for good.

i had other interesting things to say, but now it's time for me to climb onto an airplane. perhaps another time.

quoted: "she kisses everyone on the lips. you probably have herpes." -jack

quoted: "we're not very good at controlling that" -christine

reminiscing about oxford: the fact that i've actually learned to be a pretty good historian. tricksy.

i don't mean to be a killjoy, but you know the days only get shorter from here on out. kinda depressing, really. the bodleian was closed yesterday. closed! not that it really mattered that much. i'm totally out of practice on this working thing. i spent almost three hours in starbucks yesterday, and all i have to show for it is a somewhat incoherent attempt at a conclusion. sigh.

it is thursday. i tried to buy padlocks yesterday for to lock up my stuff in my room over the summer, but i didn't buy big enough ones, so i have to walk all the way back to robert dyas today to exchange them. grr. and then i guess i really do have to pack sometime.

when did i become so boring? i've been doing quite a lot of social stuff, i'm just feeling totally flat on describing it with wit or poise. maybe after the beach. which reminds me i'm leaving for the US on saturday around midday, so tomorrow will probably be the last update until july. hurrah for family vacation.

happy summer solstice!
quoted: "it tastes like eating flowers..." (me) "...or a urinal cake" (andrew)

happy fathers' day (one day late)!
quoted: "what was the word? love meat!" -lydia last night

quoted: "be glad you're not jewish" -pink giraffe

reminiscing about oxford: all the garden parties over the past three years that have made strawberries a staple of my summer diet, and the fact that champagne bottles are the most common litter in trinity term.

you know that moment when you first hear a musician for the first time, and you can tell almost instantly that will soon know all the words to that and every other of his songs? it's a nice feeling.

do you know why i like linen? for the same reason my mother hates it: the wrinkles. i was walking down high street yesterday and saw a store display that involved a linen shirt. and of course it was wrinkled. because even in a store, where the clothing doesn't move, linen wrinkles. that's what it does. but there's still nothing as nice as putting on freshly pressed linen. it's so smooth. contrast makes everything better, even wrinkles.

today: lunch with yannis, rssaf garden party, then to london for the night, followed by canfield moat tomorrow and then (sometime) back to the ox for one last week. tear.

quoted: "i quite like mouths" -trevor (but i don't remember who that is)

reminiscing about oxford: underwear party at St John's in first year. gretchen getting trashed and locking herself in the bathroom accidentally. getting hit on by straight guys.

i'm not hung over today. just negligent. i didn't sleep well, the inconsiderate flatmate had another party in her room...without closing her door. on the plus side, considerate flatmate came back from africa (south america?) today, so that's exciting.

i'm frightfully boring today. working on the introduction (i think it's really really good, if i do say so myself) and hopefully going to the gym here before too long. then its the going down party at the deanery, a GCR barbecue, and all-you-care-to-consume MSG'ed chinese food at pink giraffe with andrew. i'm looking forward to it.

quoted: "i got to come in the end" -sean

belated happy birthday, stephen!
quoted: "guess who tried to befriend me? the dirty swede!" -christine

happy birthday, gordy!
quoted: "i hate watching men get crabs" -mom, via little brother

reminiscing about oxford: forget the three martini lunch; try the two bottle of wine lunch. definitely a favorite of mine.

well, london was quite nice. i had to drag two moderately large suitcases down there on wednesday, which is always a bit of a pain. but now my room is slowly emptying of things. i'm hoping to get the stuff for storage out by wednesday. maybe even tuesday. it will be great.

matt finished his exams yesterday, so after getting back from london i spent most of the afternoon lying about in the master's garden getting sun and thinking about having a picnic, which we accordingly had in the evening. then we watched television (rare, i know)...a show called buildings that shaped britain. it included christ church (and new college and the divinity school) as some of the best non-religious examples of gothic architecture in england.

my presentation at the IHR was, on the whole, good. reading the paper wasn't so great, but i really enjoyed the question and answer period afterwards, and the dinner. it was great to finally meet some of the london historians whose work i'm constantly reading.

i've run out of razor heads, so i think i'm just going to suffer under clippers and stubble until i go home. partially because i'm lazy, forgetful and cheap, but mostly because i think i look good with stubble. i may only think that for the former three reasons, though. who knows?

quoted: "what's that book? facebook!" -sean's barbecue sunday

reminiscing about oxford: how much i enjoyed seb and tash's wedding, even though i was sicker than a dog and had to sleep on the floor of the dampest cottage ever (in a village called briantspuddle).

short update today. i'm a tad overbooked, and heading to london in the evening. presenting this paper at the IHR tomorrow, which is scurry, and simultaneously trying to sort all my earthly belongings into four groups (going home, locking in the room, storing at jack's, and storing far away). i have a ridiculous amount of stuff to do today before i head out, so i'll say more on saturday.

quoted: "i will make a trip to canada for fries. and i am not a fat kid" -beckers

reminiscing about oxford: watching the general election in the upstairs flat's scantily-clad-man-clad kitchen. lara's confusion over conservative the adjective and conservative the party.

history society dinner was a lot of fun last night. except then i had history dreams all night. which is to say i didn't sleep all that well. not nearly as much fun as two nights ago, when i had a dream about a talking mokey king on the banks of the ganges, who had an army of spear-wielding monkey followers. let me tell you, that was a cool dream.

my room is a pit. it must be cleaned today.

meeting with the supervisor wasn't all bad. terrifying, but really good advice. i only made two or three awful gaffes in the draft, which are easily fixable. and i need to comb through it to work out where to say certain things so that i don't repeat myself. on that note, i should get to work. two long days in oxford should get a lot of the work done, and then i'm in london from tomorrow evening through friday around noon, so i can go to the BL and the GL that day.

happy 25th birthday, mike!!
quoted: "i love men" -greg's birthday party

reminiscing about oxford: pink drinks, monday, 1st week, michaelmas term 2003. somerville and OFS. best night out. EVER.

as you may have guessed, yesterday was a hangover day. barbecues followed by birthday parties are very dangerous. i really need to remember to drink water between alcoholic beverages. and not eat 3 hamburgers and 4 sausages. on the other hand, i did manage to make some final tweaks to the paper i'm presenting at the IHR on thursday. i read it out loud just now for the first time. i'm at 28 minutes (it's supposed to be 25 minutes), but that was with me making marks when i needed to change something every few paragraphs. so i should be fine.

yesterday i went to evensong at new college, where my friend mark gave a wonderful sermon on the importance of the pentecost to progressive christianity. very very good. and then i met christine for dinner at chiang mai. what a lovely evening it was.

i got the 2nd draft of my thesis back from my supervisor today. i'm meeting with him in a few hours to discuss it. i haven't actually looked through the comments yet, but i must do so shortly. hopefully i'm not in too much trouble. time is limited. also tonight: ChCh history society black tie dinner. hurrah. and the weather is lovely. so far, at least.

quoted: "i don't like free stuff" -andrea

quoted: "if i come out do you think my hair will be a problem" -iffley road