Laura Miles' Big Adventure

Calvin and Hobbes

Did you grow up loving Calvin and Hobbes, knowing your days were just as packed as that comic strip? Then read Bill Watterson's speech at OSU.
Then indulge yourself at The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I remember trying to recreate the brilliant snowmen Calvin created. Always annoyed he thought of them first!!

(Thanks BryantChoung.com for the original link.)

Shout-out to Bryant Choung, and a Nostalgic Vignette

Bryant Choung is a friend of mine from Brown. Bryant is one of those quiet brilliant kind of guys that has a great sense of humor to boot. Bryant and Loni and Jen and I hung out a lot sophomore and senior year and had many great times (Campus Dance 2001, etc, etc). He's a super computer programmer and had one of those hot-shot IBM internships one summer where they give you a car and a house and a membership to every cool club in Seattle, and you sell them your soul. I think right now he's in Washington D.C. making more money than I ever will, but perhaps he's moved on from there by now. We both spent an extra year in Providence after graduating because it's such a great town and he was getting an extra degree at Brown.

Bryant, I think you still have something that belongs to Loni and I:
a gigantic metal sign that begins, "THINK LIKE A PARENT."

This was a sign produced for Commencement weekend at Brown in 2001, aimed towards the "local" workers that had to interact with students, parents and alumni. It was one of the more patronizing, innappropriate and downright evil pieces of public message I have ever seen. Basically it said, 'Since we're elitist we naturally expect you to be uncouth and reek of that lower-working-class parfum de sweat, don't dare do anything to offend anyone, like swear or spit on our rich students and their rich parents and the rich alumni. So Worship Them or You'll Get Sacked.' It was so unbearable that Loni and I clipped it off a wire fence and walked all the way across campus and smuggled it into our room. We had to look extremely official and confident - the sign was like 4 feet high and 3 feet across and weighed a ton. But if you learn anything at Brown it is that they bill you ahead of time for stolen property and that authority exists to be undermined, so we felt very righteous in borrowing the sign; it was really for the administration's own good. Besides it provided great entertainment for all our friends.

I'll probably get in trouble now when someone important from Brown reads this but my degree's official and now I am a (poor) alumna so Ha!!

Bryant, can you send me a photo of it?

Badminton

I love badminton. It brings out my "sporty side," in remission since those golden high schools days at the Buffalo Seminary. Right now I play every now and then for the Selwyn Ladies Badminton Team, against other Cambridge colleges. We're about half-way down the ranking and I don't know if we lost or gained any ground this year.
Here we are playing at St. John's College. We got whupped that game.

I'm playing with Sarah Ward, a most excellent badminton player. We try our best but sometimes we could use a little more aggression.

Look at me with my bad, unready posture, and Sarah's lethal low serve, though her racket does creep up above waist level in this shot, which is illegal!

This is a good action shot. You can see the yellow path of the birdie, or "shuttlecock" as the natives like to call it. I hope I returned this one.

The racket I am using was a Christmas present from my dad. It is a really hot Prince racket called The Hornet (too bad I'm a Jacket at heart ;-) and I get all kinds of good badminton mojo from it because it's super light and intimidates the other team. Thanks Dad!!

Other players on the Selwyn Ladies' Team:

Helen (captain) and Lil

Kat and Sandra (Kat usually plays with Liz, who wasn't at this particular match).

Go Selwyn Go!

Happy Birthday!!!

Yesterday was Randolph's 35th Birthday. I met him at work to go out to lunch, and brought him daffodils, his birthday flower, in a vase, as well as a new book. This weekend we're going to shop around for a nice leather wallet as a present. We went out to Thai food with some choir friends, and then sang Compline, and then crashed after he talked to his parents.
Here is a very cute photo of my husband.

Spelling Disclaimer

This is just to let you all know that spelling mistakes in my posts are not due to the bad teachers I had in 3rd and 4th grade, but due to the fact that reading Middle English all day long really messes with you. Long before Webster and Johnson came along, there were few spelling rules, most of which were "flexible" or just ignored all the time anyways. So I admit that my tendency to add 'e' on the end of random words or use homonyms (sp?) is because I am rather OVER-educated.

Bad news.

I found out last night that I didn't get into one of the PhD programs in the States that I really wanted to get into. However I did get into another equally fabulous school a few weeks ago, so I am not really disappointed - I am still able to go to one of my very top choices. But it sucks to be rejected!!!

So Randolph's convinced me that these two schools (two behemoth ivies) get together and compare lists and don't let any of the same people in. Though I think this is not necessarily completely true it is a lovely thing to believe because it eases the pain a bit and turns the universities in question into even more evil scheming institutions, at whose stinky feet I have groveled ceaselessly for the last two years.

These English departments get something like 150-250 applications for about 12 PhD spots, of which two or three might be medievalists. So I do count my lucky stars - 5 so far.

I get attached fast though. Now I am beginning to feel that good "school spirit" towards the "evil scheming institution" that has accepted me, so I'm quickly over the fact they've rejected me twice before already. Third time's a charm!!!

Visits from Good Friends

This last week we had a visit from Randolph's friend from undergrad, Ruth Berry. They have been friends for many many years and she is a wonderful person. She also happens to be a gorgeous soprano, and she had a solo in our wedding, along with Lori Johnson. Ruthie flew in to stay with us in Cambridge and made a few day trips to places like Ely (with us), Canterbury, Dover, and Norwich. We had a wonderful visit.

It tempted snow all week but never actually accumulated more than a light sprinkling in the morningtimes. We went into our backyard to inspect the bulbs and see if the frost had done them in. Elsewhere there are swaths of slain crocuses but I think my bulbs, which are just rising from the ground, will make it through and really make a show in a few weeks once this cold snap breaks.

I look forward to finding a little folding chair and sitting out to read in our back garden. We've only seen it from mid-September onwards, when it had already gotten chilly out, and I can't wait for the warmth of summer and seeing how the light will come through the trees with all their leaves back on and branches heavy with apples.

Lyvden New Bield

On Saturday we went on a wild day trip to a very far away and random place. It was all the fault of our dear friend Tonya, who thought up the idea to visit this "recusant oratory ruin" somewhere in Cambridgeshire. I will put up some more details about the actual ruin later, but suffice to say it was pretty cool. However I was in no real shape to be tramping across the countryside so it was a bit more painful for me than the others.... the night before being one of our infamous MCR Dinners. Anyways here is a photo of Randolph, Me, and Tonya in the little town of Oundle, where we got a taxi to the New Bield.

Randolph and I are wearing our matching Selwyn Choir scarves. They have the yellow and red stripes for Selwyn, and then the blue racing stripe for Newnham, the girls' college next door that shares our chapel.

Overall the trip was a little stressful because we had to be back for a choir rehearsal at 4:00 pm, but very interesting, and so lovely to see the countryside. Plus I found a beautiful long pheasant tale feather which now rests on our mantle.

My view in the morning

So this is the view from my desk in the morning. I sit in my bathrobe and write emails and read the NYTimes while my bath is running and then cooling. Then I get ready and go to the library for the day. The University Library mostly, these days.

I got this vase for Randolph for Valentine's Day, and after getting it home along with way too many flowers (I overestimated, or just got a little too excited about the daffodils), found out that it leaked. So we had to put it in a pot for dinner.

But then it stopped leaking and now it's just fine. Perhaps it realized it was not in anyone's best interest to leak.

Snow snow snow snow

This morning we woke up to find a most delicate powdered-sugar snowfall on the ground. Very pretty, though it won't hold up for very long. I still want a good robust five inches before winter is over, though I should be careful what I ask for because I don't really have appropriate boots, though I am aware that might be a pressing shopping opportunity.

Randolph just directed me to a really cool website for news....
10 x 10 . Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Today is a busy day. But my paleography exam yesterday went very well I think. Today, actually, is the last busiest day of the MPhil program.

Two nights ago I had a dream about feeling desolate, lost and terrified in a market in some foreign country where no one spoke English. Then I turned around and saw a Tibetan monk much like this one, hugged him, and felt an overpowering transcendent peace. Thinking about that moment still brings beautiful blue skies to my mind. Strange, eh? What do you think it means?