100 000 words lighter

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I submitted my DPhil thesis on Friday. That was really hard, and I did it. And I did it fairly calmly too ('cept for the last few days - the bibliography beat me!). Thank you for your encouragement along the way. It helped. I now feel liberated and excited. It's done! (exhale)

Thank you, Oxford

photograph by rugosa rosa

Sometimes a slab of time will pass and I won't feel a part of Oxford, even if, like right now, I can look out onto the dark, neat quadrangle lawn, and follow a student begrudgingly push open the lodge door. I will be here, though not part of it. It like it's over my shoulder, but remote. Then I have these times, when I almost want to apologise for not being adequately grateful to it.

Take this evening. After a bit of carry-on from me, I agreed to give Ultimate Frisbee a go. With a toe out the door, I had assumed my days of geek sports here were over, but it was bright and warm and it won't be so for much longer. In fact, the wind is already a little barer. As I rode up to the field, I rolled my eyes like a grotty kid, having spotted a young woman in a basketball outfit, practising. I had specifically told roperinerer that I was not up for opposing any 'bronzed, well-groomed American women of German decent'. They smash it in team sports. I asked her where she was from. Turned out she was Canadian so I made my way over.

There were nine of us - three Saffas, three Mrrkans, a Turk, a Canook and a Skip. Mostly boys. Two very, very tall ones. The game was bloody good fun. I often forget how much I love team sports. They're the best. Straight after, it started to rain rain-shards: slanty, slappy little shooty things. So many of them, and so thick! This all meant one thing: I had to take my girly bike to the max. She's named something like Maroon Dreamrider or Happy Challenger. I can never remember. I belted it - illegally, I should add (honk, honk) - straight through the University Parks, ripping up that central clay path, whipping past the cricket pavilion, dodging the odd mental poodle, and saluted all the way by the wooden benches of the dead. The sky was dirty-white until that last strip before the horizon when it became the clearest, prettiest see-through blue. (I've said this before, but England skies are marvellous.)

The rain rods wet me right through which made me start to laugh. I saw my year one primary school teacher coming closer through the windscreen wipers of my Mum's lazy, bronze Peugeot. She had her waterproof jacket pulled up over her happy-squishy face. She yelled that school had been rained out and made a 'turn around' motion with her finger. I fanged it up the walled bitumen path by Lady Margaret Hall. It's right near my house.

After I had showered, and sat down for dinner in front of a British bake-off show (so good), I realized that I was supremely happy. It was not that happiness that I sought to hold onto. And the realization did not make it go away either. It has not made it go away.

So, yes, thank you, Oxford, you thoroughly odd, magical place. You never demand that I love and respect you, you simply make it worthwhile when I do.

Life Lessons

It was my birthday yesterday. 31. I remember my 30th birthday being a surprisingly simple and elegant time, but the year that followed was punctuated by way too much personal angst and drama: big decisions, loss, two grief cycles, isolation, moving rooms five times (moving house sounds too glamorous), uncertainty, and the tension that thesis boredom and repetition can create. There were chunks of stable, productive, and very happy times, but, on the whole, I think, during 2009-2010, I coughed up some pretty staggeringly high prices for some lessons that I guess I couldn't just steal from the self-help aisle or pinch from a website. I feel better today, in most senses, than ever before, but I paid up, kiddies.

Here are some of those lessons:

1. Take charge. No one is going to get you out of situations you don't want to be in, or help you into others, and certainly not the right way, anyway. Those who love you can't always be expected to push you off from the shore, even if you're fretfully thinking, 'Can't they see that I need a push?' This goes for personal and professional stuff.
   
   
2. Beware fear of loss and rejection. These anxieties mean that you can attach too early, fantasize at the cost of really knowing the other, become ungrounded, and ultimately disrespect your own personal standards and boundaries. Don't foreclose early. Loss creates space, and rejection is, for the most part, a benevolent thing.
   
   
   
3. Fear is contagious. No matter how sensible and sincere you think you are being in a relationship or friendship, there is nothing like a bit of fear (anger, defensiveness, dishonesty etc) from the other to warp your behaviour. Builds up. It becomes very hard to listen. Goes both ways.
   
   
4. Remember the love. Lots of people love and value me, and I adore them. I am absurdly lucky in this way. I just spoke to my twin. Last week, my parents treated me to a holiday in France in which we met up with our French family friends. We also won pretty big on Neptune's Fortune at the Casino of Monte Carlo. I like that I've now been to a casino with my parents. They go all the time so it was nice of them to finally include me (wink, wink). Yesterday, a friend took me to late lunch at this nice French place in Oxford, then last night, a bunch of friends took me out for cocktails, dinner and nice chat. They also granted me my wish: to be sung Happy Birthday in a non-English language, in character. Included Latin, Dutch, Urdu, and Spanish. If that's not supremely loving...well, I just don't know...(fierce shake of my double chin)
   
   
5. Generosity emerges from unexpected sources. A new friend made my birthday very special by taking me to a lovely dinner and out to a College party on Friday night. We laughed a lot and he just knows.
   
   
6. Adversity can be a good test. Crap situations test your ability to respond to life with creativity and self-composure, and this, I think, is a reflection of how much you know and like yourself, in the good way, not the narcissistic way (narcissism actually blocks these opportunities for growth). Of course, some situations are just crap and you have to just get through without any theorising.
   
   
   
7. Maybe just don't say it. Not everything needs to be expressed. Wait and see what remains to be said. My friend says to put things through the 'necessary and kind' test. Equally, not everything deserves a response. I have realised over the year that I actually don't like talking as much about things as I used to. I don't need to. Plus, I am more practical, outward, and flexible by nature. But I did hurt someone I love with too many words. Fortunately, we had enough in the bank. I am hoping the next year is one big 'shh...'
   
   
8. Take your time. Giving yourself enough time and space for recalibration after set-backs is crucial. If you don't consciously do this, your body and mind will take it from you anyway, in some form, which means that no matter what you're intending, you simply won't have enough of the right stuff to give, and you'll probably be giving it to the wrong thing or person anyway.
   
   
   
9. Chin up, chaps. Even if you have to start again at your beginnings, you're wiser for it, and it can be quite a light time anyway.
   
   
10. Give yourself more credit.
    
    
    

The photographs are of my recent trip to France and of my party outfit that I purchased there.

Please tell me a life lesson or two that you have acquired over the past year...But only if you feel like it. ; )

To be done with these worries

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My new romantic object said to me the other day, 'Won't it be nice when you finish your thesis if only to have new things to worry about?' 'Yes, champ, it will be very nice,' I probably replied.

Later, I realised that this is part of the reason why I haven't been inclined to blog much lately. It's not being poor of time and eye strength, it's that my worries have not changed. I need to be done with these worries. A while back I saw this movie, The Blind Side, the one with Sandra Bullock in it, playing a can-do (partly because I am wealthy) Mom who takes in an underprivileged African American teen (see Alice's review for more). I thought, 'Look at you football Mom in your white jeans striding so confidently over to your new son and his footy mates...How nice would it be to have a context in which you so well knew your value.' At times, I think similar things when I see super hipsters, especially those backed up with a bit of artistic talent. They form self-affirming communities, and seem to be quite open to the present. Actually, they like the present a lot. I don't think thesis writing gives you that. It is a solitary rite, par excellence, a process that forces you to chase the future, which, in turn, teases you like a kite's tail. But these are old worries. I have worried about how one creates a meaningful context for years now. I have been playing slap and run with the future for even longer.

I wonder if buying something pretty will help, or maybe avoiding it all together. Again, I need to look at things afresh.

I have been writing about the use of symbolism lately, and apparently in traditional rites, the neophytes' masks are often black, white and red to represent the colours of human bodily functions and a rotting corpse. I am pleased that I now have a scholarly reason why I detest this colour scheme for weddings. There are a lot of ladies out there who love a blood red rose and matching red maidies, and to see their man in black dinner jackets or tuxes, but they're the colours of redbacks on white petals, Phantom, and, it seems, together, they enact the life cycle. I am not into it, though perhaps it is inspired that in one of our few modern rites, premodern symbols prevail. I raised this to some friends on Monday night, over pints of cider on tired, trendy cushions, and one of their friends who was listening said that he wasn't sure he liked me because I say scary things. In any case, wedding colour schemes have been a constant replacement obsession in times of academic stress, and I have run out of subjects to wed-off in my mind. I am off it.

I need to finish this thesis so I can allow in fresh worries, and find new things to do with myself. Until then, I may as well be in that harlequin outfit, to mark my status as neophyte, as not yet done.




(How funny is that harlequin? In my thesis, I have a quote from a businessman talking about a night out playing Limbo to a Calypso band. Every time I edit this section, I crack up. Something about these sorts of things, including A Cappella, always gets me.)

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

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Today, I seemed to be continually stumbling on different materials that conveyed two separate, but interrelated themes: Firstly, that being thankful is very, very good and, secondly, that letting go is super dooper healthy. (This repetition was probably not entirely haphazard in the context of my last post, a kind of Brazilian footballer's dive after a light ankle tap.)

First, I clicked on The School of Life and found Alain de Botton's post on gratitude. Big Al, who loves a wistful line about a the shade of piece of fruit or the sad quality of the weather, here reflects on the meaning of the secular world tendency to not say thank you. He asks whether this is because saying thank you seems undignified and unambitious, an acknowledgment of our mortality; a recognition that what we are thankful for may not come again, that we are at the mercy of something beyond ourselves. He says:

To say thank you for a glass of wine or a piece of cheese is a kind of preparation for death, for the modesty that our dying days will demand. That's why, even in a secular life, we should make space for some thank yous to no one in particular. A person who remembers to be grateful is more aware of the role of gifts and luck – and so readier to meet with the tragedies that are awaiting us all down the road.

There is, in this way, something about letting go of your bigness in being grateful.

Then one of the academic articles I read before lunch (which was about mortality - not my area, but a nice touch so far as the coherence of this post goes) headed down a surprisingly didactic path, advising the reader that it is important to only use theories if they illuminate social reality, and that it is better to take into one's own work the flashes of insight that scholars have to offer, rather then get stuck serving some 'inflexible theoretical edifice.'

Then I spotted this poignant post from A Literal Girl on the miracles of being in a place without the weight (and comfort) of the having had a childhood there; how being without a past, while frightening and lonely at times, allows a certain light openness to the present, what I had only earlier this morning been thinking, as I reflected on an argument I had recently, was a kind of willingness to be a quiet nobody for a while, to sometimes just succumb to transition and linearity, rather than impress oneself onto others, or an illusion of oneself and others.

Then a new, lovely friend sent me a link to thx, thx, thx, a blog devoted to posting a thank you note a day. (Check it out and find her thank yous to the future, people who don't get it, and pianist. Gold.)

So, yeah, I guess, essentially, the hidden curricula of today's thesis writing, if I can pull it all together very quickly (I'm hungry!) was about: 1) not holding on to stale, fearful things, including the desire to be big and immortal; 2) being receptive to fresh experiences and intuitions; and 3) being grateful to no ones, as well as ones. So, as a sort of homework exercise, and do mind the tone-shift, I end this post with some thank you notes of my own:


Dear Friends (fleshy and online), Thank you for being such cards. You complete me.


Dear Toblerone Genius, Thank you for coming up with that triangle idea.


Dear College Room, Thank you for being so teeny that it does not take a long time to tidy you, and for being so patient with me.


Dear Most of the Old People at the Nursing Home I spoke to When I was 23, Thank you for nervously laughing or changing the subject and offering me tea and a dry biscuit when I asked you what the point of life was. It has saved me a lot of time and hassle.


Dear Lavender, Thank you for being able to be used in soap, bubble bath and misty spray.


Dear Wales, Thanks for having lots of castles, craggy cliffs, medieval-themed key rings, and towns that just sit there while flocks of black birds and muscly seagulls rule.


Any thank you notes of your own to share? I'd like to hear them!

Notice to Childish Ego:

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I was wondering whether you'd mind please taking a ticket and lining up behind other customers in the queue - like thesis, outstanding publication resubmissions, job applications, exercise regime, relaxation and enjoyment, family and friends, balanced diet, regular sleep, and, right at the back there, healthy perspective. This meats and cheese counter is pretty busy right now, and I would ask you to honour the system in place, even if it's pedal powered and steaming.

When (perfectly lovely) ex boyfriend informed me that he is seeing someone else (a reasonable, natural thing), you saw it as some sort of invitation to bolt down the aisle, barge past everyone else (don't think I didn't see that neat elbow in the head to healthy perspective), and start firing your mid-late 90s-style questions about the past and my self-worth, and then you tried to distract everyone by setting up some fancy video montage of their meeting and happy moments together. It will take me some time to forgive you the video - that was low - though I recognise that you get bored sometimes, and that I don't let you run as freely these days.

Anyway, I may deal with you at some point, but, for now, you've had a good day's run around, and I'd like you to take a ticket or, preferably, step away from the counter and scamper back to the sugary cereals.

Right. Next? Thesis?

Some Belated Chrissie Treats

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I haven't written much while I have been back in Oz. I have been staying for the most part at my lovely family home, upon which two of my brothers with their partners and kiddies have also descended. I haven't been able to duck or weave past all the humans to get to a computer to blog, let alone the overdue catch-ups, trays of mangoes, justify-your-life-choices conversations, beach opportunities, thesis guilt and assorted attempts at writing, Christmas preparations, red wine and DVD sessions, a fabulous book I am reading, and two mammoth (and happy) Christmas celebrations.

I knew I had a draft post sitting in my folder, one I wrote when I had just returned from the health retreat. I thought it worth digging it out and posting it this morning, as it contains some goodies that I would like to share with you in general Christmas/holiday fuzzy love spirit. Here it is:



I am back from luxury boot camp. It involved Tai Chi at 6:30am on top of a hill overlooking rows of wild rosemary shrubs, families of kangaroos and rosellas, and regular patches of eucalyptus trees, separated by small vineyards. Then aqua running at 7am followed by wholesome (farty) breakfast, cardio classes and health and motivational seminars til lunch. The same again til meagre dinner. No sugar, wheat, caffeine or alcohol and restricted carbs. Nuts for treats (nature's goodies!). All organic. Massages, facials and counselling or naturopathy sessions most days. Each evening, zany, self-expression activities such as charcoal drawing in time to music; art guided by your special dancing shapes! (I would love it if Wednesday's blindfolded 'spirit dancing' was secretly recorded and unleashed on YouTube.) May make the retreat seem three water features and two resort-style pools away from being a cult, but it was actually wonderful and hugely beneficial.

Here are some of the messages from the talks and activities and, although they're melty cheese treats*, I think they're worthwhile:

1. Take time for yourself - actually, you should lock it in at the beginning of the week. See through the eyes of the child within.
   
   
2. Do you appreciate beauty solely when you've planned on and even paid for it? The Joshua Bell story is worth a look at.



3. Oriah Mountain Dreamer's The Invitation is something you need to ask of yourself before you ask it of a loved one.
   
   
4. Thoughts and feelings affect physical reality. Watch the words you use about yourself and other watery creatures. See Dr Emoto's The Hidden Messages in Water.
   
   
5. Understand that you didn't break them, and you can't fix them.
   
   
6. Don't be too competitive in team sports at a health retreat, especially if you're female.
   
   
7. Forgive and forget anything that would stop an endless river of love and compassion flowing out through you.
   
   
8. Super healthy toasted muesli recipe: 1kg rolled oats, 250g oat bran, 250g unprocessed bran, 1kg buck wheat roasted, 200g linseed meal, 350ml honey, 100ml apple concentrate, 400ml orange juice, 350g peaches dried, 700g sultanas, 260g dried apple diced, 200g dried paw paw (papaya) diced, 180g dried figs, 500g pecans or macadamia nuts. Mix oats and oat bran. Add honey and water, juice and mix. Roast at 85 degrees celsius for three hours. Add dried fruit. Store in airtight container.
   


9. ''Just so long as you are trying to make things better. That's what counts." (work philosophy of beautician in response to my question whether she ever feels uncomfortable doing pedis or waxes)
   
   

*In other words, only number 6 would count as evidence-based.

Rebooting the Old Blender

I have been ill these past couple of days. I had asked for it. I had been working on, but scrappily, worrying about things, letting worries feed and bleed into others. Sickness is never ideal (ideally, you would not have a backlog at all), but it has, in this case, acted as a circuit breaker by giving me the space to rest and the sense of urgency to get to the bottom of some things that had been overwhelming me.

Writing a thesis is hard enough, not to mention all the fears that a thesis comes to embody, as the supervisor of my friend, Kate, pointed out (such a smart thing to say!). Then, processing the reasons behind and emotions of a break-up (of a long relationship) and coming to terms with being alone (when you really need day-to-day kindness and connection!), on top of 4pm darkness - it was all getting too much to manage. Oh, and there's also that bloody Last Post and those sweet old men at the supermarket selling Remembrance Day poppies. Geez. Too many chunky bits for the blender!

But I am on the up! Chin is well and truly up! I just needed to get back to that whole purpose of life thing. You know that aloof little bugger that quietly asks us to to let go of things, accept uncertainty and lack of control, ground ourselves, centre courage within, and not let the past pounce.

Anyway, on a slightly less intense note (I am watching some international rugby, wearing a bathrobe over a tracksuit and Uggs, wondering whether I can muster the energy to go to fireworks and a party), here is what happened in a cafe yesterday:

Friend and me in cafe. No spare seats. I spot a man finishing off his coffee and say to friend: 'You stay in line, I will shark this table' (that is within a foot of the end of the line). I motion towards it. Then an older, shabbier and larger Ricky Gervais comes over and makes for the table (as the other man gets up). Friend says, 'Oh, excuse me, we were just about to sit down here'. Ricky: 'Oh yes, but you are in the line...' Friend: 'And you have your stuff...OK right.' I say, 'I was actually waiting for the table, while he was in the line, but anyway.' Ricky says, 'Oh! OK, you take it! I was just hoping me and this little girl here [out comes a little girl from behind his leg] could sit down and enjoy ourselves. But don't worry. You take it! You two are all grown-up, but, no, you take the table.' Me: 'Please calm down champ, this is not good for your heart.' Ricky: 'No, you sit down, go on. Sit down'. Me: 'No, really, we're not going to take it. Please.' Friend (sincerely): 'It looks like a lovely table for you to enjoy yourselves.' We then wait in line, get our drinks, find seats that have become free, then suddenly laugh, both wondering at the same time where the hell that little girl came from.

(Then since I was in the middle of Last Post sentimentalmania, the one I am thankfully shaking off, watching him share his pastry with his kid naturally made me feel sad and quietly ashamed. He was ridiculously aggressive - perhaps on visitation hour with kid? - but I didn't have to bring his heart into it. He was older than me too. Bugger. Still learning.)

Radio Silence

photos by: Simpologist

photo by: Pdam2

So, I haven't been in blogland for a while. On a few occasions, I have had the urge to write, but then hesitated. I think this is because I am often not sure where on the spectrum of non-fiction to fiction a blog like this one needs to lie. Most of the time, this doesn't matter - I am more than happy to tie together my entries with tripe, but when big things in life happen, it's not as easy. I feel some sense that this blog is an historical record, even if only partially reliable. I guess I am not the most willing or confident tell-all blogger. Plus, I am supposed to be talking about academic issues (whip crack), issues that become less relevant in the daily sense the more immersed you are in your thesis or perhaps they just become so narrow and iterative you can no longer (bear to) see them.

So here's the offload: I have spent the last few weeks dealing with breaking up with my boyfriend and moving out of a shared home. It took almost a week to complete the move, a painful and absurd task which involved dividing books and DVDs, gently bargaining over kitchen goods (with both of us declaring we didn't want any of it), cooking meals together and trying to keep things light and loving. Each day, the blunt reality of a house slowly stacking and emptying would hit us. Then, after my last load of things had been trundled to a friend's house in a clumsy wooden cart, I began the new experience of riding past shared house, empty and still, waiting for new tenants, evidence that the relationship, the sharing a home and more part, had vanished.

I am turning to thesis work, quite gladly in fact. I had been feeling terribly agitated about being behind my schedule, only getting a few hours' work done each day (even if I knew the reasons and understood the need for rest).

This post sounds far more grim than my life actually is. Time helps. The kindness of family and friends helps. Being older (hehe) is a very good thing too. I have also enjoyed some time out of the bubble, cruising through the vast green-brown Oxfordshire countryside to find thet the honey-coloured villages of the Cotswolds. One of these villages, Broadway in Worcestershire, was hosting a hearty fete, which was fronted up by a school jazz band, and supported by icecream carts and tea and cake stalls. I had a conversation with a few English people (one Burton-on-the-Water local, two from Yorkshire) about what they regarded as the decline of English society. They want to reintroduce the death penalty and to see more preventative measures against the increase in single parent families. I tried to feed a speckled white horse an apple, but backed out at the final moment. It had these pale blue eyes that seemed, to me, to be darting every which way. There was no agreement between us. I have never been good at feeding horses.

Anyway, I'd better get cracking with some work. I hope you're well. I will have a happy dawdle around blogland later on to see what's going on...

Worth Worrying About?

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It's my birthday soon and I am wondering whether and to what extent I should be worried about it. I am generally quite low key about birthdays. Perhaps this comes from being a twin. I have never seen it as my own, as a day just about me. Without want to invoke too much pity, add being a middle child and having (wonderful, kind but/and) unfussy, undemonstrative, cerebral parents to the birthday conditions I was working with. To be fair, there was a presents-in-bed-before-school ritual in my family until we were around ten. For the next decade or until we moved out, birthdays were essentially about being able to choose the brand of take-away for dinner (even on a week night!), take-away being a real treat for us kiddies. But I always had to share this decision. Plus, I knew the greasy feast was going to be shared with a bunch of other hungry attention-seekers, who would rip those chicken wings apart well before any formal acknowledgement of a birthday.

But this year's birthday heralds the start of a new decade for me - can you guess which? - and coincides with the final months (or so) of my thesis, and uncertainty about how exactly I will kick-start my academic career next year and where then I will be living. If I wanted to, if I really wanted to amp up the anxiety levels, I could also make this birthday a deadline of sorts for deciding whether I will ever use my womb and if so when (and why? Is 'why?' relevant?).

I am consciously watching myself come up with these thoughts to see whether they trigger anything within me. I feel like a child with a bug catcher rather than an aeroplane passenger floundering in the sea. But, I could send myself in a minor spin about them if I wanted to. I am wondering whether I should or not. The possibilities for a bit of internal mayhem were opened up further by a viewing of 'A Street Car Named Desire' (1951) on DVD on Sunday night.

Have you seen that movie? It is one angry, intense, brilliant movie. It had been on my 'To Watch' list for ages, but I had no idea it was going to be quite so forceful. Amongst and overlapping with the dominant themes of gender, violence, clashing cultures, illusion and reality (and mental health), one aspect of Blanche DuBois' character (pictured above) resonated with me: her fear of ageing and her desire to be elevated from mortality through, for her, aesthetics, chivalry, poetic language, beautiful artefacts and role-playing. Reading up on Vivien Leigh after the film (the actress who played Blanche, and also Scarlett O'Hara) did not provide any relief. Sadly, she suffered from bipolar disorder and recurring TB (which led to her death at a fairly young age) and seems to have been, like Blanche, haunted by her earthly vanity and impermanence.

Unless hiding away, doing a thesis in Oxford 'the bubble' England counts (?), I am no Blanche. But that small, concentrated part of Blanche, her temporality and her awareness of her temporality, struck me.

What does all this mean? Is this upcoming birthday actually affecting me? Does it mean I am finally old? Should I be worried about the fact that I may be in fact deeply worried? Or does it simply mean that I am a typical, melodramatic DPhil student? Should I bother obsessing about the onset of this new decade and take stock of my life in a chest-grabbing way or should I just get on with my thesis for now and spend the day having a nice time with friends over some good food, pretty drinks and dancing as planned?

I initially intended to mold this birthday musing into a light-hearted post, where you guys could then feel encouraged to giving me humorous tips for things I should do before or after I enter this new decade or cute ways of thinking about DEATH. So if you can somehow twist this post around so you can do this, please do so. I wouldn't even mind a bit of old-school, no-nonsense shaming. If not, hardcore Hamlet-holding-Yorick's-skull-style responses welcome. Thank you and have a good day.

Thesis-Related Neuroses

photo by: Jef Safi

I was talking to a friend on Friday night and we both agreed that no matter what personality you have - whether you're the retiring type or the sassiest person around - the last six months of PhD studies in a concentrated, iterative environment like the one we are in invariably beats you down. It magnifies all sorts of worries and insecurities and even though you have another narrative going about how silly and temporary it all is, you still fall in all sorts of psychic traps, rookie traps you thought you'd left at high school. My friend suggested it's because we're all so narissistic. It’s hard to know how much is you, and how much is the space. I guess the fact that I wrote that last line suggests an inordinate self-fascination that is closer to narcissism than not!

One thing I have been thinking about way too much recently is how I have always been pretty hopeless with having unresolved issues with people. I am hard-wired to seek understanding and consensus. This probably means some sort of addiction to approval and acceptance, but, more charitably, I am sure it also means that I am a kind, community-minded and fairly responsible person. Whatever the reasons, these tendencies can be really unhelpful when you're dealing with certain people or situations in this (last six months of thesis in Oxford) context, a context where pretty much everyone's thinking lacks perspective and their behaviour lacks consequences.

I emphasise ‘certain’ because I have met many bright, energetic, conscientious people here, I have a terrific bunch of friends and I still feel very open to meeting new people. But there are dangers. One is that I am not good at dealing with tension or conflict with people who haven't known me for very long. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often, but when it does, it really throws me and I can find myself enmeshed in these heavy analyses of the situation and crazy polarities about myself, the other person, and others generally. In these conditions, where the lightness vanishes quickly, I keep trying to make whatever's at issue (whether it's a simple action, a series of points or an entire relationship) workable, even rosy, for the other. I have never been particularly stellar at cutting my losses, but here it seems, if it means good will might be restored, I am willing to keep putting my hand back in the blender until all my fingers are mangled and I have expressed regret for things that happened well before I even met the person. This has come to the forefront recently and it sucks.

I must say, around these parts, this sort of obsessive behaviour is rife. Students here seem more likely to discuss the minutiae of their daily interactions than any urgent political event or current intellectual debate. Loads of people I know here take anti-anxiety medication. Of course, I come into contact with a skewed sample of highly-strung people, but, still, I think there is something particular about this environment that dramatises these dispositions. As another friend recently said, students here become so fretful about whether or not to accept social invitations that they end up not committing to anything, worrying about it for days, and then falling apart on the night and staying in with a curry.

To manage my own thesis-related worries, I write a blog post, belly dance, see friends, read or go for a walk or to the gym. Plus, I always feel essentially optimistic, unrestrained, and loved so the balance is never out for very long, usually just for a few hours. But it can be a tough gig: our powers of analysis and senses of control and grandeur which are so useful for our theses and other acts of awesomeness conspire to turn against us sometimes. A while back, I tried a guided meditation podcast to help counter-balance this absurdness. It was all about going into your brain's mainframe and rewiring it. The Windows shutdown sound followed by "all files have been erased" was rather disconcerting for me so I haven't been back to it. Nonetheless, it did have some judicious words for my brain, including turning frustration into gratitude.

So, instead of continuing to celebrate frustration, until the next post, I present here some things I am grateful for:

1. Being taught a belly dance-club fusion class yesterday by a teacher who was probably the original choreographer for the Fame dance sequences. Our dance started with a Michael Jackson sideways hop and ended with a street pose. Sick!
   
2. Having a midnight chocolate milkshake and chat with a top pal last night.
3. That I am soon to receive this glorious book of poetry in the post.
4. That my twin is happy.
5. My boyfriend's gentle but twisted sense of humour.
6. A holiday booked for Italy in early June with two gorgeous ladyfriends.
7. Any evening bike ride that includes Queen’s Lane to the Bodleian.

Please feel free to share things for which you’re grateful and/or send me some wise words about thesis-related neuroses and/or letting things go.

One Step Back, One Step Forward

photo by: Pat McDonald

A sign of my continuing battle:

About twelve people came round to mine this morning for a cheerful breakfast - mostly thanks to The Boy's level head - and while I had a lovely time, I had a sort of palsy, twitchy thingy when someone (great and well-meaning) on her way out, saying goodbye to me, then took a handful of strawberries from the plate I was taking in from the kitchen to offer everyone. There weren't many to begin with and I just felt that seeing as she was leaving she could have not taken any. It wasn't a take-away service and maybe you should stop eating at someone's house a little before you leave or at least if you do take a bit extra on your way out, then maybe you should make a token attempt at helping to clean up. I don't know. I then dispaired of my lack of a sense of abundance. Why did I care? I am, as I heard a snotty undergraduate say of DPhil students in the queue the other day, clearly a "mentaloid" and "craptacular".

A sign of my evolution:

I thought about an incident (vaguely and probably very annoyingly described in Hurty Wintry Ickiness) today. My feelings about it flared up again this week because of a fairly random comment someone made in a conversation. But I have decided to take responsibility for my part in the mess. I am starting to see that I was in it, and that I was not as noble as I would have liked to have been. So if you're reading, I am sorry.

How about you guys, my loyal readers? Any instances of your personal growth or regression?

Oi coxing, keep your grubby hands off my Ch'i!

Jesse Crockett

I have just returned from a morning on the Isis, coxing. It was mild. The sky was white spray-painted pink. The trees along the banks were bare and still, but the moss and grass were gently glowing - there is something child-friendly about the winter now. There was only one other boat out on the river, now dark green. We were joined by chubby geese plonking in from the banks.

I feel more like my cloudless, pre-write-up self today. I recognised the difference when one of the crew members complained to the coach half way through the outing that my calls were not aggressive enough to push their stroke. I cared enough to get a little more race-crazy in the second half, but I felt detached, like I was watching myself, and barely a trace of shame. Oh, appropriate detachment, you truly are lovely! Please stay.

Even when rower-woman apologised to me at the bike racks (it is bad form to criticise a cox in front of the crew, something about needing to maintain his or her veneer as top dog so that other crew members don't decide not to listen just as their heads are being knocked off by a short bridge) and even when another crew member said to me on the ride back to College "How bullshit was that comment?", I just didn't engage and it didn't require any vein-swelling suppression either. I have considered that my body is trying to help me out, to save my pep, my vim, my Ch'i, so to speak, for the battle with Little Bastard (although, probably relatedly, we've agreed on a few issues lately. We're not quite meeting for Christmas in the trenches, but we're OK).

It's fascinating to me to observe how strikingly the morale of the rowers diminishes by any drag of the boat, or indeed any sense that there is not enough power or a steady rhythm. These seem like big things that should be alarming, but they're made up of very small things that each person in the boat can work on. When the boat just doesn't feel right (like rowing through cement or as if it's sitting on a rolling pin), and then, god forbid, the cox hesitates or makes an incorrect call, most rowers tend to become terribly gloomy or snippy and very quickly. This then dominoes creating more devastation among all but the very few (Zen rowers, they're called). Then once focus is regained (usually by one short, sharp call) and there's a spot of long, strong gliding, the boat lifts, spirits lift, and the cox is the hero once more.

Yes, ladies and gents, it's a fickle, sometimes cruel world, this coxing business. You can be spat at (rather than "out" - they're desperate to keep coxes) quicker than you can say "Next stroke, stern six to three quarter slide. Go."

I wouldn't want to suggest that rowing is a microcosm or anything so ridiculous, but it certainly dramatises a form of mania. My emotional state, however, is drawing a clear, straight line on the top end of the spirits graph. It's been a good few days.

Plus Kate luvvy Winslet has finally bagged a Golden Globe and, as Oprah says, she has real boobs that do what real boobs do.

Hurty Winter Ickiness

Alberto Cerriteño

Team, I have another wintry post, a confessional of sorts. I have been deeply hurt by someone I regarded as a true friend. Perhaps it's hard to imagine, but there aren't as many life stairwells in Oxford as there are in your hometown and so true friendship (reliability, honesty, kindness and small acts of heroism) becomes even more important, and paradoxically rare. One of my friends told me to repeat the words from The Last of the Mohicans to myself:

[Name], you are a man [or woman] with a few admirable
qualities. But taken as a whole, I was wrong
to have thought so highly of you

This helps a little because it's probably true, but it's not the full picture.

The encouragement of two close friends (whom I dressed up with) got me to a College ball last night. The Boy had to be up North. It was hugely comforting to be amongst many friends whom I have known for a longer time.

I did not think a betrayal from a friend would inspirit much or any sympathy from others. It just doesn't seem to have quite the same kick to it in your adult life, when friendships are often shorter and more practical, and when worthy betrayals are reserved for those in romantic relationships or marriage.

But, as if knowing what I needed without any obvious cues from me, I received supportive words from various unexpected (drunken) sources, about how lovely, fun and well-liked I am, and, from one friend, that she sees me as a strong, dynamic, capable person who she looks up to (gulp). One cheeky boy voted me the most beautiful woman of the evening, which made me smile, even if I know it was essentially my pride desperately needing some mending. And then there was a young gentleman whose girlfriend could not make it who danced with me for the last few songs in a really sweet and respectful way. He had these fun ballroom moves (one quite dangerous) that he assured me were not the product of study.

It's a grey Sunday. I have to do some work and find some peace. These probably won't come together, but I am sure I will feel fine very soon. And there's always Paris.

Walk of Shame!

I decided to video myself giving a birthday messsage for a loved-one back in Oz yesterday and, completely against the spirit of the whole exercise, it led to two shame laps for me: the recording itself and then the play back.

In the recording my lips are slightly tighter than usual, my voice is rather shrill and my gestures noticeably more girly; twisting hair around finger, looking up as if to ask the camera to tell me what to say. While watching it, I started to do a mad robot dance on the spot to reflect my malfunction in front of the camera. In both instances I alleviated my discomfort by ducking my head into the chest of the Boy, as if by hiding it would mean that it didn't really happen.

Am I this lame?

I cheered myself up by spotting a blog entry by Merlin Mann:

I thought I was the only person in the universe who made an unconscious little noise when remembering something stupid I did or said.

It is dedicated to the sounds one makes when one feels embarrassed or relives embarrassing moments. So, my sounds would be those of a dalek or some baby bush animal. When I am by myself, I relive the pedestrian moment in my head and then say dryly and slowly until the last two words, with exaggerated mouth shapes: 'I can't believe you DID THAT!' If it's particularly atrocious, I may add a Napoleon Dynamite 'You idiot' on the end.

I have a beach of shameful moments that are replayed from time to time (brought on by stress and fatigue). They range from grossly inappropriate things I have said (like when I was 8, I asked someone whose parents had died in a car crash whether there was blood and guts on the bumper bar. I had heard that line in a movie, Bigfoot and the you-ruined-my-life Hendersons, and thought it would cheer them up), done (a Jerry Maguire Mission Statement-style research funding proposal that I realised only after, having discovered more about the funding body, would have caused much amusement and was duly rejected) and worn (my androgenous phase of my late teens/early twenties makes me quite uncomfortable). I have plenty of noises and mannerisms that accompany these images.

What about you? What's in your shame file? What do you tend to do when you're being sent on that lonely, well-lit march off The Weakest Link?