In need of a snuggle with the memory scarf...

These days I have been thinking about Oxford. It probably has a lot to do with all the end-of-term picture dumps that the full-termers have been leaving all over facebook, but there are other factors as well. This semester has been a new sort of experience for me--after the Oxford bootcamp, I've found myself even more at home in academics, but also able to let them be in order to just have fun. If I step back and look back on the semester, I realize that it's all kind of been an attempt to preserve what went on at SCIO, the intensity of study matched with intensity of camaraderie. Of course, it isn't the same, and re-reading journal entries and looking at photos for the upteenth time gives me strong sense of wistfulness. I miss those times a lot, and I especially miss the people. So know that you are thought fondly of, my SCIO pals!

                Please enjoy this lovely photo of David Bowie wearing a Raymond Briggs Snowman Scarf

In other news, the weather here has been rather England-y. Il ne fait pas beau at all, to say the least. If April showers bring May flowers, than I am fully expecting every darned square inch of the ground to be sprouting a well-watered daffodil or somesuch spring flower come next month. My canoeing class has been cancelled two weeks in a row, which is putting a damper on my plans for "just-around-the-river-bend" singing.

Academically, I'm having fun working on a great paper right now, or at least, the topic is great. I'm arguing why P.G. Wodehouse's "The Code of the Woosters" is a novel worth of college-level academic study, based on how well it illustrates concepts put forth by a particular school of literary theory. Though it doesn't really fit into any one mold very well, I think I'm going to approach it from a Bakhtinian "heteroglossia" angle. Humor in its basest sense often pulls from many "langues", and well-thought humor like Wodehouse's is packed to the gills with langues, everything from linguistic, literary, class, gender, political, etc. However, the thing I've noticed the most is how every phrase seems carefully crafted to be a zinger--the "langue" of language itself is one of the most prominent, so at this point I'm going to focus on that one, and (hopefully) show how it ties in the rest.

My tentative attempts to be a grown-up have not made much progress:

• Making a fried egg --  check
• Wearing/owning a thumb ring -- check
• Making ham and bean soup -- check, I have also now made Navajo Fry bread successfully.
• Ability to drive a stick shift -- no further work done here so far...but the summer is coming!
• Being financially savvy -- Well, I successfully did my own taxes, and signed up for a money management class for the fall. A small step there.
• Having a real job --Have realized that this step is impossible without the addition of an another step which is:
• Owning a car: this one is a castle in the sky at this point. 
• Living on my own --I will never do this. I think I will have to have a roommate/housemate always or else I will be too bored. Also, cooking for one is too hard.

I think that Peter Pan had some serious things going for him.

Baked squash, Bean soup, and more philosophy

So it turns out that our professor was just pulling a Socrates on us, and making us realize some of the contradictions in our thinking. Basically, my reaction was the same as Euthyphro's. I felt rather sheepish when I realized our similarities.

That being said, I am now completely loving the class! I'm thoroughly enjoying reading all these philosophers. We've just finished up Hume and are moving onto Kant today. Yesterday my professors unknowingly made a pun. He was talking about Kant's theory of consciousness or something along those lines, and said something about the "contours of the brain." However, what I heard was "KANTours of the brain." Ha ha! It was almost as good as Danny's famous "you KANT understand him" pun. Dear old Immanuel lends himself so well to name jokes.

I will be churning out an essay on Kant tonight on the role of Phenomena and noumena in his epistemology. We'll see how that goes. The idea of noumena kind of fascinates me...the 'being' of something that we can't perceive. Maybe it's just me, but any time a philosopher says something that we can't (KANT!) do, I immediately think "but what if we COULD? what would that be like?" I felt the same way when Hume claimed that we can't know necessary connection a priori, otherwise we could just pick up an object and just 'know' what kinds of effects it would have.

Wouldn't that be an awesome super power though? You could pick any plant and know if it had any medicinal properties or if it was poisonous or something. Forget Supergirl or Wonder Woman, I would be Necessary Connection Woman.

Speaking of superheroes, I felt like one this past week, because I did some real cooking! And it WORKED!
I should define what I mean by real cooking: either creating a recipe myself, or doing some improvisation off of another. This week I did both! My first success was baked butternut squash.

I'll admit that butternut squash is kind of one of the easiest things to make delicious, but it still felt like a victory for someone who a day before ruined a batch of box brownies. I managed to ruin brownies from a BOX. I'm sure somewhere, Martha Stewart was crying.

Anyway, I baked up that squash with a little oil in the bottom of a glass baking dish, then I sliced some butter on top and shook some brown sugar on top. Then I put it in the oven at 350 F for about 15-20 minutes, till the squash was soft. Then I cooked up some rice and mixed it all together.

A few days later, I made some ham and bean soup from a recipe on a bag of mixed beans I bought. I left out some ingredients, and because of time constraints, I had to figure out how to get the beans to soften quicker, so I consulted Google, and several sources said that boiling them furiously sometimes did the trick. So, I took a risk and did that, then simmered on medium low (level 3) instead of on the simmer setting, hoping that it would cook faster.
IT WORKED. It even tasted like my mom's ham and bean soup. It was like the day I learned to make a fried egg, like I passed one of the tests for being an adult.
So far I think I am doing well on these tests, at least the ones that have come up so far.

• Making a fried egg --  check
• Wearing/owning a thumb ring -- check
• Making ham and bean soup -- check
• Ability to drive a stick shift -- in progress. I have already melted some tires, so that's out of the way.
• Being financially savvy -- not even close
• Having a real job -- do I have to?
• Living on my own -- Yikes!

Yeah, those later tests are doozys. Not sure how I'll fare on that.  Now if I was just Necessary Connection Woman/Noumena-Knower, it would a lot easier.

Back at ye olde US college

Well, here I am back at college in the US. Quite a change! First off, everything seems so ridiculously nearby. I can get to class in such a jiffy, I love it! It's also been awesome being in an apartment, because I can continue some of the cooking action I got into in Oxford. Also, SO great to be rooming with a fellow Oxfordian, because when I get home from class, I know there will be someone who will listen with empathy about how much I miss Oxford.
Things I have discovered thus far about the differences between Oxford academics and the academics here, based on my J-term class:

There is not as much expectation placed on the student, at least in my History of Philosophy class. I've been a bit annoyed at how patronizing the professor seems to be, even though I am pretty sure he doesn't mean to be. He comes across as assuming that we've never thought deeply before in our lives, and his job is to fix that, or that even if we might be able to dialogue a bit, we won't have anything particularly insightful to contribute. We're just wee little bairns with nary an idea in us. So today I missed Dr. Thorpe and Dr. Plaskitt, who expected much of me, and so I gave them a lot. It also could do a lot with the discipline, English isn't necessarily logic and rational-thinking based, and Philosophy is, so maybe I really am a wee bairn, at least when it comes to Philosophy.

In fact, I know that I'm a wee bairn when it comes to Philosophy, because here are a few of the thoughts that have stuck with me thus far:

After reading about Pythagoreans, I don't remember tons of stuff about them, but what sticks in my mind is that fact that in top of other dietary restrictions based on their belief about the transmigration of souls (don't eat a cow because it might be uncle bob, that sort of thing) the Pythagoreans also were prohibited from eating beans. No one knows why, it is a mystery. I immediately thought of Blazing Saddles and the campfire scene. So Philosophical.

We also talked about quarks, and how scientist believe that they are made up of vibrating strings of energy, and I immediately thought of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles and the strings of magic everywhere that are strings of energy. Yep, real scientific there.

Needless to say, it's been different coming back, but it's still going to be good. I am determined to learn how to think differently through this class, and be ok with hard facts and waterproof rationality. I guess I tend to like things knit a little looser, a little more metaphorical, a little more mythical, a little more poetical, but I really do like some of the stuff we're talking about in the class. Now, if one could find a poetic Philosopher, THAT would be "grate stawf."

-Abby

One week

A week ago, I was getting on the bus to go to the airport...one difference between here and there is that the time seems to have gone much slower. It feels like months since I've been in Oxford, and yet somehow like I was there just yesterday.
So how's the adjusting? Number one difference is that there is not a whole lot of people here. It's a little bit of a shock to go from 40 friends to just family. I'm reverting to my more introverted self, I suppose, which is nice in someways and not so nice in others. I was happily surprised to learn in Oxford that a different place without any expectations of my personality creates an opportunity for becoming more outgoing even though I'm not usually. Coming back here, it's almost like my subconscious knows that everyone here knows me as a strong introvert, so that's it's been behaving. However, it's great to have a little quiet too...since there aren't friends all the time here, I don't feel like I'm missing out on something if I just decide to hole up in my room and read for several hours for fun. (I've just finished Persuasion by Jane Austen, and The Danger Box by Blue Balliet...both so wonderful!)
There are many things I miss about Oxford. First and foremost, the people! But secondly,
* Walking. I can walk into town, but it's not much more than a 20 minute walk, and everywhere I can walk to kind of has to involve spending money, of which I have diddly-squat.

*Gas hobs. I never realized how quick they are! I am having to relearn how to make fried eggs on an electric stove.

*Cheap GOOD shortbread cookies. Seriously USA, why do you have to make these things so expensive?

* Pound coins. I love those things.

*Academic talk on every subject imaginable.

*Food group, and along with that, believe it or not, the Kitchen Dance. It was such fun to cook with a bunch of people in the kitchen, singing along to the iPod, or just belting out Christmas carols. (O Holy Night and The Twelve Days of Christmas in particular!)

*Movie nights, whether Hornblower or Foyle's War, or some obscure, deep film, I miss all gathering in the living room and squashing on couches in blankets. Also, that tin of chocolates...the brazilian dreams or whatever they were were the best. Red wrapper with yellow on the tips.


And many many more things. But at the same time, home has been great. I didn't realize how much I missed my family until I arrived and it felt like I never left. I also have the great blessing of coming from a family who has traveled, and one that is used to family members leaving and going somewhere new and then coming back. They know how to support those of us who have gone 'there and back again,' and that has made it a great homecoming. They don't mind hearing tons of stories about Oxford, or my friends there. It's hard to help people understand exactly what it was like, but I'm lucky to have people that genuinely want to try to understand. I think for the first month of being back, I am going to have to get out my Oxford 'scarf' of memories quite often, to make sure that it's still there, that I still remember, and to reassure myself of its existence, but I foresee that in the future I will gradually be able to let it rest comfortably in a pocket in my heart, where I know that it's there and can take it out when I need it, but can just let it be what it is. That's my hope anyway.

Oh yes... MERRY CHRISTMAS! God is with us, isn't that fantastic?
here's a link to a paper by a philosophy prof from Messiah, which has to do with the significance of the incarnation in relation to atonement theory. It made me think a lot when I read it, and though it's not exactly 'Christmas-y,' perhaps a few will find it interesting: http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Philosophical%20Theology/Atonement/Atone.htm
The most recent version of the paper is the first link, I believe.

Over and out,
-Abby

Time to say Goodbye

I wished for about the billionth time today that time would move a little slower. This term has gone by in a flash.
I wish there was some way to seal memories, first feelings of something in a bottle, and then open it up and re-experience it again. Like the moment of walking around the back of The Vines and seeing everyone for the first time, and feeling nervous about making friends, or of turning in my first case study on Robin Hood, or walking across a land bridge to an island off the coast of Scotland. Or drinking tea in the kitchen of the Kilns. Or hugging a friend for maybe the last time.
Goodbyes are hard, did you know? But I suppose we're just going to have to get used to it. As Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchitt says, "Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it."
I was inspired to put some poems that I've written this term on here by my friend Zach's blog. I posted the Oxford Sestina before on facebook, but I think it's fitting, so I'll put it here too:

Oxford
It begins with the opening of books
fueled by much desperation and tea
And the attempt to awaken the stone
-like brain from granite slumber with food,
prod it with cookies and conversation.

Then within there begins conversation
between the crowded pages of books
and the busy mind; words become food
and thoughts begin to swirl, bathed in tea,
building, building, mortar upon stone
until they manifest in writing.

Then, the conclusion, and one begins writing
a new experience of conversation
steeling feeling like immoveable stone
to accept the criticism of books
and the unknowns, armed with soothing tea,
and that dear word ‘good’ that gives the soul food

to write again. Then gather round for food
with a new family, for the writing
of a new branch that is bonded by tea,
not blood, and brought close with conversation,
unity of age, and the love of books
until friendship is laid firmly in stone.

This city breathes years in yellow stone
the treading of feet upon feet is food
for poetry, prose. The scenes of books
unfold around corners, walking in writing,
from the page to life, a conversation
with art, with the past, with the tea

shops and cafes where the giants sipped tea
and now you do, touching all of the stone
they have touched, echoes of conversation
in the pubs where they sat, eating the food
you are now eating. What are you writing?
will it return to its birth like these books

will it become like they have, the food
for another hopeful pen writing,
alive in this place of knowledge and books?

And another, written as a meditation during devotions.

Mark 5
Talitha Koum
from the depths daughter
sleeping daughter, with
cheek as cold as frozen steel
and heart stiff in proportion

Talitha Koum
be warmed, have this breath
see, I have taken you by hand—
you have Heaven in your palm.
awake, and eat again with me

Talitha Koum
“Little girl, I say to you,
get up!” leave this way
of monotonous striving,
take this hand and get up

Talitha Koum
do not sink to the earth,
to the world again, you
have not finished yet.
you are not dead but asleep.

How to come back to the real world? How not to be an island? It's an end to a very golden era.
On Thursday night, we had a dance party for about 2 hours. It was such a hilariously fun "closing ceremony" type thing. Today we watched The Snowman, and gosh darn it, I felt such sympathy for the little kid. I feel like when I step onto that bus for the airport, in some ways it's going to be just like that little boy running out the door, only to find that his snowman friend has melted. But then he reaches into his pocket and finds the scarf he was given, a kind of relic, the proof that his night with the snowman really happened and that it was wonderful. I guess that's what the photos, the memories, and my new friends will be...the Oxford scarf in my pocket. :-)

-Abby

The end of tutorials

Well, today I had my last tutorial. I finished Victorian literature with Dr. Plaskitt last week, but this week I had my last Shakespeare tutorial with Dr. Thorpe. We discussed As You Like It, and looked at how strong of a woman Rosalind is. We talked about Shakespeare for a bit, but as usual we branched off onto other topics. We talked about Oxford and the kind of opportunities it provides, but how it's kind of a one of a kind place, an "island city," not only because it is almost entirely surrounded by rivers, but because it is intellectually set apart.
I've realized that returning from here is going to be harder than I thought...not exactly because I will miss the constant papers, or even the city itself (though I certainly will miss it) but because I will be back in the real world. The real world isn't a house full of intellectuals, the real world isn't Philosophy around the dinner table and speaking to nearly anyone in the house about Shakespeare and having them understand. The real world isn't walking in the snow at midnight while some of you talk about Wiggenstein's possible worlds, and others talk about how they will take up space on bookshelves in Borders with all the books they will write. Dr. Thorpe talked about Oxford as the Island City, but I guess what I kind of feel like is that sometimes being an educated academic makes you part of an Island generation.
That sounds so utterly snobby, and that kind of disgusts me, because that is exactly what I don't want to be. I don't want to come back acting like a snob because 'I've been to Oxford!' or act like some sort of elitist. I'm so very pre-disposed to have a snobby attitude too. So many people have thought I am a snob upon first meeting me. But the fact of the matter is, most of the world has not had the experiences I have had, has not read the things I have and doesn't think about the things I do, simply because they aren't academics. How do I reinsert myself into real life? How do I become a real person, and not just a white, upper middle class, intellectual, who has had many life experiences but doesn't really understand life? I don't want to be one of college kids who talk about poverty, and have visited a third-world country, but really have seen nothing of suffering, or think they have answers to real world problems because they've read about them in a book, or on some pretentious person's blog. I don't want to be the person who can read a philosopher and consider his ideas, but some how can't learn to relate to someone who might not be as educated as myself. I don't want to be an Island, mentally sneering at people who don't know who Virginia Woolf is. But it's difficult, because these topics, these authors, these ideas, this way of being, is something that I love. It's a lonely thought to think that unless I stay inside an academic bubble, unless I ignore the majority of world, I will not be able to often discuss the things I love. And I can't ignore the rest of the world...as a Christian that isn't even an option, and I really don't want to do that either. It will take some deliberate and purposeful action on my part to make sure I don't become an elitist.

That was all kind of angsty and all that, so I apologize. I'm not actually in deep emotional and mental turmoil over this, but it is something that I've been thinking about, and realizing that I need to deal with a little bit. Don't worry, I have interests beyond academics...for instance, in about 2 seconds I am going to watch Crocodile Dundee, and I am just as excited about it as I am about reading To the Lighthouse.
:-)
-Abby

Os Guinness Lecture

So, today the SCIO students got to be lectured to by Os Guinness! Pretty exciting. I had heard of him before, but not really read any of his work, so I was coming in without any expectations really. Wow. Hands down the best lecture I've been to while here. I am definitely going to try to read some of his books now.

He talked a bit about three things: calling, challenge of combating religious voices, and the notion of the public square. He spent the most time on the last point, talking about three different kinds of public squares: the sacred public square, the naked public square, and the civil public square. The sacred public square (one that prefers one religion over all others) and the naked public square (one that completely strips all religion out) really don't work in the long run, he said. The ideal would be the civil public square: a distinct political set up where different beliefs and ideologies are free to be who they are religiously, but where there are agreed upon certain political rights, responsibilities and respect. He made it clear that while it's the ideal, it's also the most difficult and is certainly not going to happen quickly, because it would take a lot of cooperation from people of incompatible world views. I'm not explaining it nearly well enough, but it was an amazing idea.

He also talked about some of the really great things that America has going for it, saying that the U.S. might possibly be the only place where a Civil Public square could even be possible at this point, if we don't wreck things further. He talked about how some of the ideas our country preserve are very good. I of course now cannot remember them all, but it was a really important thing for me to hear. I have kind of harbored a mindset that American is pretty much gone down the tubes and we've done so many terrible things as a country that we've got nothing to be proud of, but Mr. Guinness pointed out some of the really great political ideas that our country was founded on. He also made sure to point out that he was by no means saying that the founding fathers had everything right. Their views of African Americans, Native Americans and Women were abysmal. He just said "let's not throw out everything they established because they had serious blind spots in some areas." He is also one of the first people I've heard speak about having an American culture as not a bad thing. He said that in some ways the 'melting pot' idea is not bad. While saying that a person has to forget their old culture completely isn't good, the idea of saying something like "Well, in America there are certain cultural ideas, such as freedom of conscious that might not be familiar to you. That's part of what it means to be American" isn't bad, it's actually important. Maybe that doesn't seem like such a big deal, but it was rather revolutionary for me, because I've always been wary of being supportive of an 'American culture.' I don't like the idea of saying "do it our way, or get out" but I don't think he was saying that. I think he was saying, there should be certain things that people can't make a stink about. It seemed like he was advocating for there to be an Americanism beyond just legislature, because culture changes things more than legislature does. I'm probably explaining it very badly, and I still kind of need to wrap my head around it, so I may not have understood him completely, but it was something very new for me.

He also said that we were the "Crunch Generation," that how our generation handled the problems and issues arising today in the next 40 or so years would determine the course of the world. So he told us that we need to be people who think deeply and consider things carefully, to know what we believe and stick to it, none of this wishy-washy 'post-evangelicalism' ("What is that? he said, "A big bunch of nothing." Either you are or you aren't, don't put yourself in the evangelical camp if you think you're 'beyond that.').

There was a question and answer time after, and most of the questions were kind of technical, like what did he mean by this or that, or how exactly would a civil public square work, etc...I only had one question. I just wanted to ask him, "Mr. Guinness, you said we're the Crunch generation...do you think that we can do it? Do you believe in us?" I guess maybe it sounds a little hokey, but while what he said was very inspiring, it also kind of scared me. Can we be what he said we needed to be? and what happens if we can't?