Thursday, February 25, 2010

On Oxford (part vii: Foodgroup)

So, a tidbit of life here at Oxford that I have yet to mention is foodgroup. Foodgroup is easily one of my favourite parts of living here so far. It is essentially a group of people who cook for one another and eat together. You see, buying food for dinner and cooking it every night can be both tedious and expensive. What is more, thirty people in a house trying to use the same kitchen, even if it is spread out over a couple of hours, is bad news. This is why you form foodgroups.

My foodgroup has ten people in it and we have dinner together five times a week. We cook in pairs, and one person from each pair is the "head chef" who picks the meal, pays for it, and leads prayer, while the other person helps out. This way, everyone only cooks once out of those five days, and there are only expensive dinner groceries every other week. Brilliant.

On the whole, my foodgroup rock. Every meal has been delicious, and so far, everyone has also been very creative too. The closest we have come to a repeat was delivery pizza compared to homemade pizza. It is also a good communal aspect. We aren't all there every night, and sometimes people are late, but it is still very much a family time. We pray holding hands and serve one another. Most everyone pitches in to do dishes. It has a very distinct family feel which is nice being so far away from my own family.

The reason I have chosen to write on this now is in celebration of a particularly successful meal this week. My buddy Eric and I cook on Tuesdays. This week was my turn to serve as head chef, and I was feeling ambitious, so I decided to imitate one of my favourite dishes from one of my favourite restaurants: The Cheesecake Factory's "Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp." It is a sort of Thai dish where the meat is covered in a curry-coconut sauce with peas and chopped carrots and zuchinnis. It is also served with a mound of rice covered in this delious peanut-soy sauce and sprinkled with peanuts. It is astounding. I also decided to go for the visual presentation that night and ended up with something like this:


I have never been more pleased with something I have cooked.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

On Oxford (part vi: Self-Awareness)

In the months of looking forward to studying at Oxford, I naturally expected that it would challenge me more academically than I have ever been challenged before. So, I don't know why I was so surprised to find myself feeling somewhat insufficient.

For one thing, owing to my broad interests and the broad style of the liberal arts education to which I am accustomed, I have developed fairly good skills and fairly good understanding in many areas, but I have mastered none. Now I am here in an extremely focused program that emphasizes particularization of study. Basically, Oxford expects a broad understanding of a narrow focus rather than the narrow understanding of the breadth of foci I have developed. That has been a challenging adjustment.

Then there are the tutorials. Most of my time here is spent reading. I have to read at least one volume every week for my Victorian Lit. tutorial. Most of these have been hefty Victorian novels, though the last couple of weeks have been poetry, which has been quite rewarding. When I'm not reading such primary texts, I am reading secondary sources, critical books and essays. There are some days where I will spend several hours in multiple libraries pouring over books. By the time I finish all of these, it is time to write an essay. I write 1,500 words a week, at a minimum. That's not a terrible lot of words, but when it has to be packed full of critical analysis, it gets daunting.

After all this work, I come out with what I consider to be a solid and well-reasoned understanding of the assigned material only to arrive at my tutorial and have the tutor ask me a question that I had not even considered. Suddenly, the essay I just turned in feels insufficient to me. It was not thorough enough--my argument will not hold up--I could have done better. This happens pretty much weekly, and it got pretty discouraging after a while. It took until after my most recent round of tutorials this week for me to realize that this is what is supposed to happen. That is what the tutors are for. If all they did was tell me everything I had figured out for myself, what good would they serve? I felt very foolish at this point.

However, even more discouraging than this, I have been feeling insufficient in my art. It is amazing how simply being exposed to a new writer or a fresh perspective can completely shatter a conception of good writing. In my readings, in my lectures, and by recommendations of some friends I have made here, I have come across some truly fantastic poetry that has made me completely reassess my standards of poetry. This has been furthered by reading some of the poetry written by these friends. It is better than mine. If nothing else, it is good in a way completely different from what I normally write, and it has made me see how I have limited myself in style, method, and perspective.

It was good to learn.

All of this has made me sound rather prideful. Perhaps I have been. Perhaps I have been happy with what I had and forgot what I lacked. Why did I ever let myself get so complacent in my efforts?

On a happier note: I'm going to Wales in three weeks.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

On Expressing Love

Every now and then, it can be fun to write some poetry that I don't take to seriously. I think I take myself too seriously on a consistent basis, but this can be especially true about my poetry. Tonight, in honour of Saint Valentine, we had a party including tea and biscuits, a movie, and a bad poetry contest. I love such endeavours, and I took it upon myself to contribute to the festivities.
Here is the award winning fruit of my labour:

Is there a way that I can show my love
To you and prove that you alone can make
My soul ascend beyond the stars above
And then return to greet you when you wake?
No, I'm unable to declare in word
The true intensity of all that I
Have felt for you, since no one yet has heard
A phrase that can articulate my sigh.
If I desre that you shoule ever know
How fully I'm devoted to your name,
I'll tell you not with speech but with a show
Of faith and sacrifice unto your fame.
This Valentine's, I'll give my heart to you
Still beating, like the pagans used to do.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

On Adaptation

I have had a stressed relationship with the internet over the past several years. On the one hand, I have made a sincere effort to assert my independence from the internet ever since it became a fad. On the other hand, I have become increasingly dependent upon it for academics, connecting with friends, and entertainment. And here I am blogging. How preposterous of me to think I should be condemning the world wide web. Nevertheless, I maintain my insistence that connecting with people over the internet is hollow and insubstantial.

I guess this comes back to my tendency to try to see both sides of every situation, but that is another discussion.

Both my studies and my own personal reflections have led me to think more and more about the internet and its role in society, particularly when it comes to the written word. I want to make a career out of writing after all. Nevertheless, I must admit that print is a dying art. I don't want to downplay it; I love print. I love having a good book to hold. But it is impossible to deny that the internet is the new medium for information. Newspapers and books are increasingly web based, and internet culture is changing the way that people look at these genres. We are a culture that prizes speed and efficiency. People don't want to sit down and slog through a whole mess of words (okay, some of us still love it, but I am making generalities here).

This brings me to the novel. Writing a novel has always been a dream of mine, much like it has been a dream of most of the English students I have ever met. I remain convinced that I will one day author a novel, but if, in the future, no one is going to be interested in printing or reading it, then to what point and purpose will I be writing? Perhaps products like the Amazon Kindle will keep novels as we know them alive for a bit longer, but the irrevocable fact is that the future of the written word lies on the internet.

People like me and others more talented have been dabbling in how the internet may be used artistically. There are sites featuring photography, poetry, short stories, web comics, etc. Even novels can be easily found online thanks to sites like Project Gutenberg. However, I don't believe that the internet has met its full potential yet, especially when it comes to writing. If the written word is going to find a niche in artistic expression, it is going to have to look much different. Perhaps not something completely new, but definitely different. I think that with the post-modern novel, things could be moving in the right direction. But perhaps writers need to look back as well as forward. Many Victorian writers (such as Charles Dickens) published their novels in serial formats, releasing small vignettes on a monthly basis. Blogs and web comics already function this way. Why can't the epics of our time do that?

My thoughts on this have been mostly conceptual thus far. I'm not sure how something like this would actually play out, but I am imagining lots of short vignettes around a common theme linking to one another, maybe incorporating images and even poetry. Who knows? It may not even have to look like traditional prose. The amazing thing about the internet is how limitless it is. Perhaps it is time I got over myself and accepted the internet as the medium of our time. Maybe it is time I realized adapting does not mean assimilating.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

On Oxford (part v: Surveying)

This last week was a weird one for me academically. The source of this strangeness was the fact that I was ahead of schedule--rather an oddity considering the rigour of my studies here. I finished the essay for my primary tutorial halfway through Saturday even though it wasn't due until Monday afternoon. What a relief. Then I began the reading for my secondary tutorial. This was daunting, but not bad, and I only had to focus on one thing. Well what should happen Monday? My primary tutorial was postponed until Thursday. I sent in my paper that day regardless and was relieved to have three days I could dedicate solely to my secondary tutorial.

Well, of course I didn't dedicate them solely to my tutorial. With the extra time I did some writing, took a bunch of pictures, watched and reviewed another play, and spent some general time with my fellow students. There are some very cool people here. With this loose schedule, I was able to get the essay for my secondary tutorial done in good time and met with both of my tutors on Thursday. They both went well. I am really enjoying this tutorial system. I think I might miss it when the term ends.

Friday, there was an optional trip to Blenheim palace in Woodstock, where Winston Churchill himself was born and buried. We could not go into the palace itself, but we got to walk around the grounds, which are extraordinarily beautiful. I took hundreds of pictures. I also climbed a tree and chased a flock of sheep. Speaking of which, seeing a sheep jump is quite possibly one of the funniest sights nature has to offer. After touring the grounds and paying our respects to Mr. Churchill, we stopped at a small tea house in town. The tea was fantastic, but even better were the scones.

Now, I must explain, much in the same way that when a Brit says "chips," they mean French fries; and when they say "biscuits," they mean cookies; when they say "scones," they are not referring to a small triangular pastry filled with fruit and/or sugar. Rather, they are referring to something much more like what an American would call a biscuit, but a bit softer. This biscuit is then cut in half and spread with jam (what those of us Americans call "jelly") and clotted cream and then sandwiched back together. Here again, I must explain. Clotted cream sound disgusting and would seem to conjure images of scabs and heart attacks, but it is, in fact, one of Britain's most angelic creations. It is little more than cream and sugar that has been whisked until it begins to clot. It is as though you took whipped cream and kept whipping it until it reaches a consistency a bit softer than butter. There is nothing like it in America, and that is a tragedy.

Well, that was a delightful sojourn, and later that evening I had the pleasure of seeing The Godfather for the first time. I now know what all the hype was about. I suppose it met my expectations. It is not my favourite movie, but it is a good one.

The final thing I will leave hear is a poem. It has been a while since I posted a poem on this blog, and I think I am well overdue. God has really been calling to me lately. It can be easy to lose focus on what is important if I put too much pressure on my academic work, but I'm trying not to do that.

Hear from Me

I haven't heard from you
Not for some time
But when was the last
Time you heard from me?
I feel again
That need
That urge
Pressing against the walls of my chest
To shout
Shout what?
Why?
Shout at you?
At nothing?
To you?
Will you hear me if I'm louder?
Or is that the only way for me to tell you
All
In one gasp
An indecipherable syllable
To say I'm lost
I'm hurting
I'm angry
I'm sorry
Can you hear me?
Will you
Now that I'm speaking?
Now that I am sorry?