Frivolities

One of the things I really like about England is the unusual frequency of fancy-dress parties. I have gone to two this term already. The first was, of course, the annual epic that is the Constantine House Hallowe'en party. Throwing to the wind the English custom of dressing in a scary manner for this holiday (which, we must admit, does make perfect sense), I became my 19th-century alter-ego Elizabeth Bennet with a little help from a costume I made a couple of years ago. Thus:



The most illustrious inhabitants of 2, Precentor's Court: Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the man from The Deerhunter, and a random guy dressed in black, already a little intoxicated by the early evening. Good times were had by all.

The other fancy-dress party was one with a nautical theme. I only heard about it 24 hours before the fact, so my ingenuity was a wee bit challenged until I pinched a straw boater hat from the fudge shop and became a lady gondolier:


Best costume, however, went to housemate John, for being a lighthouse. He spent most of Saturday morning making a rather impressive cardboard contraption, which had a torch in the top to make it light up. Points for creativity and sheer bloody-mindedness, minus points for wearing it only for the first 30 seconds of the party. Oh, and that's his friend Alex, who stayed with us for the weekend and went to the party as the Captain from the fish fingers box.

Pictures at long last!

I finally got my pictures from the last three months developed! I will post them over the next couple of weeks, just so I don't over-tax the system and your patience both. First, my house, unartistically.



This is the sitting room the evening before I left for Canada. Ross and Nancy are staying in York over Christmas, so they bought a tree. Doesn't it look good? It smells nice too. And John ordered posters for the room - who likes Gary Cooper? I do! And if you look at the television carefully, you can see what I was watching that night...how British is that?


Hmm, this could have worked a bit better, but you get the general idea. My room!




And finally....the floor in the dungeon! Check out those tiles, Lindsay! Actually, they are more like bricks. And they are quite possibly going to give out over the next few months and let the house go tumbling down into the Roman remains of the city. But you must admit it all looks deliciously historical.

Okay, that's all for now. Stay tuned for the wonderful world of costume parties!

WOAH!

Sue is also a hairdresser (among her many talents)

Explaining to Chloe how a Christmas Tree works.

The Jameson family is putting up the xmas tree one fine Sunday morning.

My new shoes.

Samy

Christmas time...

Have you guys ever noticed how depressing Christmas music is? I'm having a nice work day at home working on a report and thought it would be a good chance to listen to the 1.6G of Christmas music that I got off of my boss (Paul). Yup. That amounts to just over 25 hours of music, granted there seems to be some repetition. It seems that the Christmas Blues due to not being with the one you love is the most common theme. What's with that?

Jolly Christmas!

Guess what girls! I get to go home for more than 10 days!!! As I have no money, I asked my parents for a flight home for Christmas, but it was going to be a shamefully short visit, because I was told I had to work New Year's eve at the fudge shop. But I have been crossed off the roster (no idea why) and now I do not have to work until the following weekend! So I sheepishly phoned home on Sunday and asked if it was possible to change the ticket. Although early January is nearly all booked up, they found a flight through Chicago on January 4th and I will have a real visit at home in the glorious snow! Cheers to one and all!

Wintery expedition

Highway 11

Highway 630

The bridge

View from the bridge

Last Monday I drove up North for about 4.5-5 hours to Eau Claire Station, a hamlet somewhere between Mattawa and North Bay and about 30 km north of Algonquin Park. Hmmm i suppose that means nothing to most people. I'll have to find a map of Ontario.....

Anyways took photos along the way (kept me entertained) and listened to cds from the 1990s when I lost interesting radio-station contact. I must say that I am slightly saddened that there is a Walmart in Huntsville (where I of course stopped for a cup of coffee at Tim Horton's). Huntsville reminds me of fun family camping trips in 'pristine' wilderness and cottaging... somehow a Walmart within 5 minutes of the entrance to Arrowhead Provincial Park just ruins this for me. Oh and the purpose was to document a bridge for work... and there turned out to be more snow than I had realized, or any of the survey people who were there at the same time as me, for that matter.

While a lot of driving - it was a wonderful day and I think as of last Monday I was officially happy to be back in Canada.

To be a doctor...

Celebrate!! I have a PhD topic!!

I just got back from a meeting with Matt Townend, truly the most encouraging and inspiring professor at the CMS. I have been spending the last couple of weeks at the JBM, and it seems to have paid off, as Matt appears to find my idea quite exciting and trendy. I have decided to look at *ahem* THE THEME OF LOSS IN SKALDIC VERSE. Let the thunder roll.

Okay, it doesn't sound massively exciting like that, but it's really very neat. First I am going to make a survey of the vocabulary of loss in 11th-century skaldic verse and runestones. That's right, runestones. Cool or what? Then I will focus on the verse itself, and on how the poets express loss. The idea is to use poetry to expand our understanding of how people expressed emotion all those centuries ago, and to see how poets used the theme of loss to comment on contemporary events.

Anyway, that's a major weight off my shoulders. Now I have to start applying. And I need to find the money to do this.