A Gathering of Days

Having been justly chided by the Marauders for my lack of updates, I will endeavour to sketch some of my doings over the last few days, in the style of A.A. Milne.


Friday: In Which I work very hard in the library

This represents a typical day. Admin stuff at home for an hour or two in the morning, followed by work in the American History Library from late morning until about 6:00. Today I prepared a progress report for my supervisor. This involved summarizing my work from the previous week and compiling a list of research questions. In the evening, Helen came round for dinner. Watched a film and chatted until quite late.


Saturday: In Which I go to Blenheim Palace

This morning I took the bus to Woodstock with Emma, a visiting student from the States. We walked through Blenheim Park and had a picnic by the lake with a view of the palace in front of us. Our faces grew stiff from the cold, and we couldn’t feel our fingers or toes, but we bravely pressed on through frozen sheep pastures, talking the while about books, poetry, and stories we’d written. We left the estate by a different gate from the one we’d entered by, and so ended up taking a very scenic and adventurous detour back to the village. We rewarded ourselves with tea at the Bear, in the excellent company of Robert Frost and Christina Rosetti.

Later in the evening, a group of us from church went out to the Dancing Dragon, an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in Summertown. Settlers of Catan afterwards.


Sunday: In Which I sing evensong at Jesus College

Choir rehearsal this afternoon felt a bit rushed somehow. We struggled with the Psalm, and didn't have enough time to work on the Mag and Nunc, which were a bit on the tricky side. During the service, there was one awful moment in the Mag where I thought we were going to fall apart. We pulled through in the end, but only just. Hopefully our distress wasn't too obvious to the congregation.


Monday: In Which I work very hard in the library and nearly meet a Heffalump

Spent many hours in the American History Library, cataloguing early efforts to limit the length of the working day. A bit ironic, if you think about it...

I rather thought I’d meet heffalump today. The weather was indeterminately overcast -- just the sort of day on which heffalumps walk along looking at the sky and wondering if it will rain (which, of course, means that they will not see any Very Deep Pits until they are halfway down, when it will be too late). Alas -- no heffalumps, but, like Piglet, I went home with a headache. Plowed through a batch of student essays in the evening, but felt too ill to do much of anything else


Tuesday: In Which I give three tutorials and have a singing lesson

The day actually began with the singing lesson, but the title sounded better the other way round. I've recently started working on "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth" from Handel's Messiah. Some quite high notes there, which is what I need to practice. We worked on support, breathing, and tilt.

After the singing lesson I gave three tutorials on Thomas Malthus almost back to back: a double, a triple, and a single. Twenty minute break for lunch. By 3:00 I was exhausted -- or perhaps zombified would be more descriptive. Felt a bit headachy still, so went home and straight to bed. Made some cookies later on and felt human again -- cooking can be wonderfully restorative.

This evening’s entertainment was so unusual as to merit a separate post. More soon...