leap years

i completely forgot! yesterday  (march 1st) was st david's day. i suppose it's not much of a celebration unless you're welsh, and it's not as ceremonial as eating haggis, but hey, we used to celebrate andrzejki, in fact, my family still does. it's not much of a thing anymore though.

and if the point of a blog is to celebrate the everyday (okay, the point of this blog anyway), why not point out all the mundane and seemingly inconsequential trivialities to bring them out of the mundane and inconsequential? and what is a birthday if not the everyday? so here goes, with the inconsequentiality:

my arms hurt today. this is neither a revelation nor a surprise. but i'm not complaining - i sort of like this feeling.

BUT NONE OF THIS COMPARES to the extraordinariness of the everyday that occurred on the everyday of february 29th (which is not really everyday since it comes once every four years. (all those proto-feminists up there, shut up for a second, this has nothing to do with that).

lookie what came in the post!

a friend of mine very jokingly called it 'a giant wheel of gouda', which wouldn't be a bad name for a bike. though i was contemplating 'bronislaw', though perhaps something less stately and dated (it is my grandfather's name, after all). i will let you know when i think of it.

here was the grand surprise!

and that's me sitting on my newly-unpacked Trek 1.2. it's my first real road bike, so i'm tremendously excited! i was a bit alarmed when it arrived all wrapped up (WITH NO BOX) in bubble wrap and parcel tape, but boy did the chap do a good job! the thing is in mint condition, shiny as silverware. i don't know what it is about animals liking shiny things, but i definitely don't mind being a magpie for a day (apparently they're not very well liked here - you can even destroy their nests!); heck, i'm a magpie every day, picking up shiny things off the road.

SHINY SHINY SHINY!

what a great leap year it was indeed! i also found out that my supervisor's aunt, dorothy robinson, turned 100 (or 25, depending how you look at it) on the 29th as well! she sounds like an absolutely endearing woman! BBC interviewed her on her birthday: you can listen to the little clip here. she is absolutely adorable!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOROTHY!

what gorgeous spring days are for

i went for a cycle this morning.
that is a bit of a lie, it was more of a commuter cycle, but i enjoyed it tremendously nonetheless. it was one of those intensely foggy mornings (i can never get up without the excitement of a 5-year old on her birthday when it's like this outside! and it always smells so good!) visibility could not have been more than 50m, maybe even less! i wanted to stop to take a picture by thought it was wiser of me to enjoy the ride instead... that'll do.

i attended yet another seminar at the OUCS, this time on choosing the best Referencing software that works for you. as a linux user and a devotee of OpenOffice, as well as being a poor, unfunded student, i found it really hard to find a satisfactory system that doesn't compromise too much. either i must fork up about £100, or switch to Word, or continued referencing by hand.

i managed to get rid of my frustrations however by going to the gym. The had a new machine this time, one of those for those beefy guys who like to pump their arms and then look like little chickens down below. as i have no worries about looking like a little chicken down below, i went away at it. it felt great, until... i got home and had to shower. i could not keep my hands above my head long enough to massage the shampoo in. tomorrow is going to be interesting, that's for sure.

now i'm off to this: http://www.romanticrealignments.blogspot.com/2012/02/double-bill-this-week.html
it's my supervisor giving at a talk at my seminar. well, i co-convene it, but it's becoming a baby of mine. i'm a bit attached...

:D

MOVING SITES (sort of)

in an effort to improve my online existence and cater a more audience-specific program (see entry below), i will be moving to

http://judytafrodyma.wordpress.com/

this blog will still be maintained for the regular useful/less miscellenia and minutiae of my every day life, but the new one, also entitled 'the different mosses' will serve to disseminate my research and academic interests.

see you all there!
jf

lessons in letting go

i thought i'd surprise my boyfriend and actually post something on here again.

contrary to grand original plans, i have abandoned yet another blog...though i learned an important lesson in avoiding the twenty-first century. it doesn't get you places. there is this girl in my department who started the dphil at the same time i did. like me, she was an unfunded student form canada, hoping that somehow, somewhere, someone will take pity on her and help her out. as it turned out, we both applied for the same inter-faculty job. it was a project to get literature into the public sphere - all that stuff about 'impact' that humanities departments are wettting themselves about. it makes sense, in the large scheme of things, especially given when we are (hardly) competing for funding against the sciences, where impact is implied and doesn't need to be explained. they're all out there looking for a cure for cancer or some shit. anyways, i didn't get the position. i was quite eager and hopeful about the job - it consisted of keeping a blog and writing about 'great writers'; maintianing some sort of online presence for the general public that would link them to humanities research. i didn't get it, despite my enthusiasm. i found out the other day that aforementioned girl did.

i feel like i'm playing all my cards wrong. i did this whole rowing thing (stupid, stupid jf!) and because of it was not able to establish myself in the english faculty. i do run the romantic realignments seminar and website and will continue to do so next year, with many plans for it, but it's not enough, i suppose. i should have gotten myself on the EGO committee when i had the chance. i should have become more involved in the english faculty and what the do. i should have gone to lectures and made myself seen and heard. i should have attended more seminars about things that interest me, even if they are not about romantics. but no, i decided to fucking pack my days with rowing. idiot child.

and now i'll i'm left with is all these 'should haves'. i know i only really wasted a term and a half, but it still feels like a monumental amount of time if i only have 9 terms in total to complete the dphil. maybe doing it in 6 years like they do in america (that's canada too, united states of america) is a much better idea. and then i'd have guaranteed teaching. it's such a free for all tackle here. i really feel like it's a game of prey and predator between the post-grads. 

so now here i am, trying to make up some sort of presence. i've signed up for a workshop on how to maintain an online presence, since i figured i have no idea. i don't use social mediums effectively and am generally speaking, opposed to any sort of 21st century communication. i'd write everyone letters if i could. luddite.
it's going to be a long uphaul battle from here. i'm stuck living next to someone who ceaselessly works 10 hours a day like a mule, fuelling all sorts of wonderful anxieties about how much effort i put in and what i'm getting done. i hate it. it's so negative - it just infuses this incredible feeling of envy (what else can it be?) at his discipline and successes and makes me hope he secretly screws up. gawd, i feel like an awful person. but it all boils down to the same thing: letting go. i don't get why i can't just let him do his shit and be good at what he does. it doesn't in any way step on my toes, we're in different departments after all. but no, it's got to bug me.

it's like with the darned rowing. sometimes i truly do feel that if you're not going to be the best at something there's no point in doing it at all. so i wonder what the fuck i'm still doing here.


umm.


i walked into an at studio today and offered myself up as a life drawing model. the artist and owner said he's booked up full but would love to have me near the end of march. i'm a bit nervous, but this is soething i've always wanted to do, and all i can think about is whether or not i can be 'natural'. perhaps this will be a way in to a new way of thinking about  myself in the world.

SEE THIS IS WHY I HATE BLOGGING BECUASE I'M SO EFFING GAY AT IT.

fail.

Running up the Ngong Hills

by Adharanand Finn

My alarm goes off at 5.15am. I sit on the edge of my bed trying to wake up. It's still dark outside. I'm in Nairobi, about to head out into the Ngong Hills to run with a group of Kenyans I've never met before. Right now it all seems vaguely ridiculous. I'm 37. An average runner. I've got a nice, warm, cosy bed. Why am I leaving it to try in vain to keep up with a bunch of stupidly fast Kenyan runners? I must be mad.

It's a thought process that runs through my mind virtually every time I wake up for one of these early morning runs. But today it's worse. I've been given directions to a side street in Ngong, a busy, run-down satellite town on the outskirts of Nairobi. At 6am, apparently, a group of athletes meet there every morning. That's all I know. Just turning up unannounced is a daunting prospect.

I drive up to Ngong and pull my car up on the side of the street. I turn off the lights and sit tight, listening to the Christian rap music on the radio. I'm about 10 minutes early and the side road is deserted as far as I can make out in the darkness.

A figure comes walking past suddenly, peering in through the window at me. I turn off the radio. I feel suddenly vulnerable sitting here in my car. I imagine what the runners will think when I step out of my car and walk over to say hello. It would be better without the car, I decide. I've got 10 minutes to kill, anyway. It would be safer parked on the main road.

I turn the engine back on, like a loud cough, the headlights glaring at everything as I turn the car and head back up into Ngong.

Once I've parked, I jog back along the edge of the main road to the side street. And sure enough, there they are. About eight athletes stand stretching in the tiny beginnings of morning, a red glow scratching the horizon behind them.

They all turn to watch me as I walk over. One smiles. "Jambo," he says.
I shake his hand, and ask if it's OK if I run with them.

"Fine, fine," they say.

"We're running up the hill," says one. That doesn't sound promising.

"I'll try to keep up."

"Up the mountain," he says. "But not fast. Easy." Like other Kenyan runners, he over-emphasises the word "easy", as though he means it's going to be the easiest thing you've ever done, like lying back on a sun-lounger as someone slices up a mango and feeds it to you piece by piece. Not like a run up a mountain in the cold dawn.

We set off jogging slowly and I slot in behind the front few runners. After a few moments we start our ascent, going at a comfortable pace. I've seen the Ngong Hills from a distance. They didn't seem that high, so I'm not too worried. I'll just stick with them for as long as I can, I think, trying to remember the way we've run so I can turn back if I need to.

After a while people start dropping off from the group. Is the pace too quick, I wonder. Perhaps the runners here are not as good as in Iten. They all look like decent runners, with their long, skinny legs and calf muscles like bricks inserted under their tights. My calves just don't look like that, even when I tense them as hard as I can.

After about 20 minutes we're still climbing, running past small houses and children walking to school. The dawn is in full bloom now, striping the sky in red and yellow. One of the runners turns to me.
"How are you feeling?" I'm fine, actually. My legs don't feel tired. I'm breathing OK. But I don't want to sound cocky.

"OK," I say. "A bit breathless." Suddenly I do feel breathless. Another of the runners looks at me over his shoulder.

"Is it OK?" he asks. They seem surprised that I'm still with them, and their lack of belief is sowing doubts in my mind. Before I know it I'm starting to struggle. I wonder what happened to the other five runners. Maybe I'm going too fast. Perhaps I should slow down and wait for them.

"Where are the others?" I ask, but almost before the words are out I hear the patter of feet as they run up behind us. The pace suddenly picks up and they all start pushing on. The path seems to be getting steeper. I'm done for.

One of the runners kindly slows down to wait for me. Up, up, up we go. Out of the houses and on to a neat, sparse mountainside.

On we run. Every time I think we must be reaching the top, it turns out to be another false summit. And each time the next bit is even steeper. I begin to labour like a 20-stone jogger. Tiny pitter-patter steps that barely seem to inch me on. And still it goes on. Past huge swooping wind turbines, like spaceships from a distant future that have landed silently in the night. Up more, along a path so smooth, so steep. And all the time, the other runner stays with me, quietly encouraging me.

Virtually every athlete I have met in Kenya has shown me the same kindness. Many of them are struggling to make enough money even to buy food. They live in small shacks without electricity or running water, struggling to make headway in a saturated field in which only a very few will succeed. Yet they do it so well, and with such dedication, that every one of them would be a champion in virtually any other country in the world, would be lauded and celebrated, instead of being just another nameless runner making his way along the roads and tracks of Ngong or Iten.

Yet in this struggle there is no resentment towards the hapless mzungu [white man] with the car and the money to shop in supermarkets and travel the world and eat ice-cream. Instead, all they ever show me is compassion. As a fellow runner, no matter how slow, they offer me only encouragement. It is quite humbling.
As we finally approach the great peak of Ngong Hill, the whole of Kenya seems to stretch out around us. Distant mountains poke up out of the dawn mist, as a huge orange ball of sun begins its own ascent up into the hazy, pink sky. The air is cool and fresh, breathing life into me with each gulp.

"It's beautiful up here," I say to the runner beside me. He looks around as though he hasn't considered this before. "Yes," he says.

We're almost at the top when the rest of our group comes trundling back down the slope towards us. "Turn around," they say. Relieved I turn my weary legs. It's hard to believe how high we have come. It's like looking out across the world from an aeroplane. Did I really run up this far? I must be getting fitter. Surely.



original article in the guardian can be found here

banana bread muffins

not long after my near-baking fail with the coconut lime cake (note to self: malibu rum tastes like sun-tan lotion) i decided to go for something a bit more tested & true. now, i am not a patient person. i am definitely not a patient baker. i don't know why i like it since i never eat anything i bake (tastes bad to me, go figure) i do like the baking bit itself. a bit like doing arts & crafts even if you suck at art... or something.


however, the problem with being a perfectionist & not being patient is that you never end up with perfection. unless, of course, you are my father & make dad's banana bread muffins. this is how they turned out:

who stole one?

roughly translated, here is the recipe:

4 over-ripe bananas
6 table spoons of oil
1/2 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 well beaten eggs
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
1 leveled teaspoon of baking soda
optional: 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts, almonds or chocolate chip

method:
with fork mix oil, vanilla essence, sugar and mash in the bananas then add the well beaten eggs, baking soda, baking powder and the flour.
mix the dough well and add the nuts
grease the baking tray and bake at 325F till golden brown (approx. 30min, maybe a little less)

om NOM nom nom

may morning weekend

sometimes i struggle a little with what this blog is for. i know i don't really write for an audience, and yet at the same time i constantly feel like i do, however small it is. i don't keep it as a personal or private record - between my email and notebooks, i don't need yet another venue to document my hum-drum daily life. & who cares if i bake shit anyway? but i keep wanted to 'post things on my blog' for whatever reason, so here goes.


i'm tempted to explain certain bits of my oxford life to 'everyone back home' but it feels rather redundant, so i'll stick to links to the ever-so-trusted wikipedia for know. it frustrates me that anything i post is always a month behind--i'll log in my ideas and then forget to finish until a time like now (28th may, for example) when i'm sick in bed on a saturday & can't really concentrate on one task to completion. 


already today i've managed to start doing laundry but not finishing, because someone left their wet stuff in the machine, i went into town to get some medications & only to find out i have been mixing the wrong ones & came back with perogies instead, i've watched half a tv programme on italian food & religion which has been making me LOL all afternoon, and i've updated facebook about 10 times now. dreadfully boring being sick. i pick up my book but i get sleepy but i don't want to sleep but i can't go outside & i want to go running but can't because i'm ill and all together this is just a frustrating unpleasant place to be. remind me to book tickets for london, btw. on top of it all, i keep swallowing my own snot which is getting disgusting. perhaps that's why i'm not hungry.


this has nothing to do with what i meant to write about, which was may morning.

it's been a weekend of baking for me. david was having a few old friends from undergrad over for the celebrations so i thought i'd bake a cake. alas, i forgot to take a picture of the said cake & the only one i have is of it in the fridge, which is not a very nice one at all. it was a coconut lime cake (infused with rum). i didn't like it, but everyone else did. one chap ate three slices in a go, so i was pleased. 

perhaps not the nicest cake picture ever... it was slightly lopsided toO! but was it ever difficult to get the toasted coconut only on the sides & not on the top!  & for comparison purposes, here is what i was going for (the light green coconut lime one, obviously):

we're getting there.