The Joy of "Cooking."

I live with people who do proper cooking. I, on the other hand, do "cooking." I like to keep the time between when I get hungry and when I get fed to a minimum, but without resorting to eating dry cereal out of a box for every meal (oh, freshman year. Good times). And contrary to popular belief (and my own desire), I don't eat paninis for every meal, either. That would get redundant.

I do tend to eat the same things over and over again, however, and I am content with that. I do enjoy trying new things from time to time, but in the end I am loyal to what I like. And I like:

Sammiches. Lots of sammiches, with turkey or chicken, cheddar cheese, and lettuce.


Yogurty granola. You scoop the yogurt into the bowl, then sprinkle granola on it until you can't see the yogurt anymore. Then, consume. I should really write a cook book.


Soup and nan bread. The soup is carrot and coriander, or something like that. The nan is from the store and today is the first day I have tried it. Not nan in general, but this particular store-bought nan. See? I can try new things.


Lastly, dessert:


Mmmmm, tweed.

Tweeeed.

Today I wore not one, but TWO items that I have knitted, AT ONCE. Behold, Selbu Modern II and my garter yoke cardigan, Ostara.




This all seems great, until you realize that, statistically speaking, wearing two knitted items at once increases the chances of your getting yogurt on one of them.

Other things that happened today - I went to the yarn store, the privilege of which I "earned" by writing an essay yesterday. Yeah, I know - I'm one of those people who is inclined to reward themselves for doing things that other people just do with no expectation of anything. But the truth is that I was going to go to the yarn store anyway, eventually, whether I finished an essay or not. I was also going to finish the essay, whether or not a reward was promised. So there's really no point in any of it, except to make me feel like I've actually accomplished anything. Somehow the finished essay itself doesn't provide enough satisfaction in itself - I need a more tangible, sheep-derived satisfaction. Hence:



Satisfaction is better when it comes in tweed.

Piles of rocks.

It's interesting how different an impression you can get of Oxford based on different pictures. Some perspectives portray it as a bustling city, while others are positively green and country-like.



I really don't have a lot to write right now; I've been spending my days reading, and writing, and goofing around in the basement of the Archaeological Institute with cow bones and such. Oh, and our group took a trip to the Ashmolean, which I have visited only 5,000 times, but it was nice to go there with everyone else. I always manage to see something I haven't seen before at the Ashmolean.

That's not always a good thing. Observe:


Just because you saw it in one of your ecstasy-induced pseudo-Apocalyptic bestiality-related nightmares doesn't mean you need to make art out of it, you know.

Meanwhile, my time spent at the Archaeological Institute makes me wonder if the History Faculty Library is jealous. I feel bad, especially remembering all of the good times we've had. Just look:


Those were such happy days. Okay, those days were this Tuesday. But still.

The HFL can't blame me for straying. Just look at what the Archaeological Institute's library looks like:




Pretty snazzy. Like practically every room in the building, it has a picture of Stonehenge on the wall. Which is nice and all, but from looking around in the Archaeological Institute you'd think that Stonehenge was the only big pile of rocks in England, when I happen to know there at least 200 or a million big piles of rocks. But no one ever fictionally died on any of those other piles of rocks, so no one cares.

Cow jaw.

I spent the morning brushing the teeth of a cow. It wasn't so much a cow as it was what was left of the cow, which was the jaw, and, of course, the teeth. The lesson learned? Cow teeth are pointy.

Later I went to the Pitt Rivers Museum/University Museum. I like the Pitt Rivers a lot, but it's too dark in there. It makes it very difficult to take decent pictures, although I did take some photos anyway.



The lighting in the University Museum is much better. I've been there quite a few times now, but this time I was struck by a particular display:


Awww, look at the crows feeding their babies a ... chick? Some other bird's chick? Uh, interesting. Despite the goriness, I quite like this little display and would like it in my room, please. It also made me miss my mom.

As did this one ...


Note the dead bird that that bird is standing on. What the hell is going on with these displays?

The next picture is for my dad.


At the University Museum it's always fun to play a certain game I call "Which Would be My Pet." You go around and look at all the animals and decide which one you'd pick as your pet.


I picked this one.

Then there's another game I like to play call "Find the Weirdest Piece o' Crap in the Museum," which is self-explanatory. This is what I found:


I call him ... Elvis.

Two more items of interest: CAT and MAUS.



Things such as these and the above make me reconsider my career of choice. I may just have to become a museum curator so that I can write museum card descriptions such as:

Picture of a MAUS, by Darwin or whatever.

You can tell it's a MAUS because it's furry and fott and would probably fight you.

The End.

Bangs and moss.

I always thought that moss grows only on the north side of things. That's the way it is in the U.S. Here in the U.K., where several laws of physics seem to be suspended, moss grows everywhere - on all sides of everything. Is it because this is the north? Is moss suited to the dampness of the English environment? Who knows? I am fond of the moss, especially the big blobby kind and the little blobby kind, and the kind that's really, really green.





There's no real proper way to transition into my next subject from that, so I'll just do it. I've decided, after much deliberation, to grow out my bangs. This is a HUGE decision, akin to choosing to come to Oxford. Really.

Yeah, but not really. I've just decided that I'd rather not have bangs anymore, for many reasons, but mainly because I think my face looks mildly better without them. Other factors: the ability to wear hats (some people can wear hats with bangs, but I find it annoying because they always push the bangs down into your eyes), maintenance (bangs require constant trimming and extra-special blow-drying), and skin issues (bangs do make my forehead break out more. Of course, the silver lining in this is that the bangs hide it).

Before I came to this decision, I spent hours (eh, more like fifteen minutes total) deliberating over it, scrutinizing pre-bangs and post-bangs photos of myself, and generally overanalyzing things, as usual. In the process I took a lot of pictures of myself to see how no-bangs would look.



These are actually not good examples, because I am making totally different expressions in them, but you get the idea.

When I was done devoting my time to that, I went on a long walk around Oxford to take pictures of moss and clouds. Also, Wadham and St. Mary's.

Ashmolean faces.

I've been spending a lot of time at the Ashmolean recently for an assignment. I'm writing an essay about the development of the modern museum, which is fun. On my way to a specific exhibit the other day, I got distracted by a gallery of busts. As you may have noticed, I've been very interested in profiles of faces for a while now. I think it's because I spent most of my life only noticing the way faces looked from the front, and not from the side. Seeing a face in profile is a very different way of seeing it. It can bring to light features that aren't noticeable from the front. From the front I strongly resemble my mother; in profile, my resemblance to my father is quite obvious, and in silhouette, I hardly look like my mother at all.

I like sculpture because no side of the body is hidden; you can look at it from all perspectives.



Betty
Sir Edgar Bertram MacKennal
Bronze, 1925



Hindu Girl
Sir Richard Westmacott
Plaster cast, 1821



Anne Lucy, Baroness Nugent (1790-1848)
Sir Francis Chantrey
Plaster cast, 1820

Betty is my favorite; I like her hair.

Ravens.

Yesterday I finished these raven fingerless mittens for my Mermy. They are from the pattern Annemor #5 by Terri Shea, from the book Selbuvotter: Biography of a Knitting Tradition. The pattern itself is for full mittens, but I easily adapted it to make fingerless ones, because those are more practical for Mermy.



The yarn I used is Bernat Satin Sport Solids, which is remarkably nice for an acrylic yarn.

Pig bones.

Today I cleaned Iron Age and Romano-British artifacts in the basement of the Institute of Archaeology. I'm not sure if "artifacts" is the right word. The finds are from a nearby site; the ones I cleaned today included a lot of pottery shards and animal bones. It was basically the coolest thing ever. All of the stuff comes in a little ziplock bag. You spill it out carefully on to a tray, and every piece you see is covered in dirt that makes it unrecognizable. When you pick one up, it could be anything. The best part is when you start to see the color of the thing through the mud and realize that you're the first person to see that color in 2,000 years.

I also got to see the sun rise, around 8.00 am.



It was cold (for Oxford), so I put on my OWLS sweater. Remember it? I knit it in AUGUST and I haven't worn it until now. It's surprisingly warm, but not hot or itchy. It's also (I think) figure-flattering.


This, by the way, is my morning nest, complete with computer and Hans the knitted hedgehog. I wake up a bit earlier than necessary in order to have the time to peruse websites and eat my Raisin Bran leisurely.


Here's another angle:


And here are my books:


Here you see my knitting things and my beloved new map of Oxford.



I also arrive early at my Latin tutorial in order to have the time to take gratuitous pictures of my sweater.



Last important thing of the day: on the way home I saw a pure white dove. This is the second time I have seen this particular dove, I think. I'm assuming it's the same one because it was in the same area I saw it last time and I haven't seen any other white doves around Oxford. It seemed cold and was hiding above this drain pipe.