Bounding About

This morning it was tough to get out of bed.  It is sunny and beautiful, and breakfast will be on the table at St. Michael’s in just 10 minutes (they have a window of serving, in the morning 8-8:45).  I stayed up maybe a touch too late last night editing and fussing and forcing that video up and talking on MSN messenger with my beloved; the +6 hour time difference makes it easy to want to go into the night hours to communicate with friends and family back home since what is my midnight is only home’s 6pm. 

Nevertheless, up and about I am and I must ready and get to breakfast and then to class.

Rarely am I more balefully accused of being bright and chipper than at the breakfast table.  They have more or less the same fare for breakfast daily: bacon, sausages, eggs, some potato fried product, toast, apples, oranges, yogurt, cereal, apple juice, orange juice, and both coffee and tea served on the long tables.  Added to this usually is something else – this morning for instance it was mushrooms.  I tend to stick with the bacon and potato product with an orange (the eggs are sunny side up, not my cup of tea) and juice with tea to follow if anyone is curious of my preferences.  I am curious how breakfast will go when the real term starts up and many more students attack the dining hall than just us happy CMRS goers who tend to linger at the table chatting and eating far past the 8:45 end of breakfast till the staff feel the need to prod us with the hint of removing the pots of milk, tea, and coffee from the tables at five to nine. 

By the by, for future students: if you need to use the facilities in the morning as most of us do, but are not inclined to wake up early enough to have a shower, I recommend the bathrooms either off the Lecture Hall or near the Junior Common Room / Kitchen area, as they are usually free because they do not have a shower sharing the room with the toilet.  Just a friendly tip.

Fascinating lectures today – one on St. Augustine and his contributions to the formation of the European mindset of the period, mainly via Christianity (most of the parts I don’t like about it coincidentally like predestination, the preeminence of original sin, and such) followed by a lecture on Beowulf and the heroic legacy by a charming woman whose name I have no solid hope of spelling but who I hold in great regard for her ability to speak Olde English.  It harkened to my mind the class I took with Dr. Tipton where she read aloud to us passages in the Olde English from Beowulf in the first days of class. 

Free for the rest of the day to read, wander, ruminate, run errands, or what-have-you.  I need to purchase some shoes today, even if I hate shoe shopping with the fire of a thousand suns (which I do) because we have another outing tomorrow to Winchester and I simply don’t want wet feet if it should happen to rain on us, as seems likely in the forecast.  I’m torn between wanting to re-read Beowulf, which I enjoyed immensely and am kicking myself for not bringing with me (oh how I would have loved to have brought my horde of books for this trip, but luggage capacity would not permit) and turning my full attention to Confessions of St. Augustine, which I have not read beyond Book I thus far.  Lunch must be first of all those though, which I am off to now!

It is a very dangerous thing to go stepping out unto the Road, as anyone who has read Tolkien knows from the wise words of Bilbo Baggins.  I left for lunch and didn’t return until it will be nearly time to leave for dinner.  A long story short: when a group goes out on errands it is very easy to get distracted by every little fancy that pops up and off you go to opposite ends of town before realizing you’re halfway to the wrong place and have to go back round again.  That more or less sums up the afternoon.  I did not get shoes (they were rubbish at the shops and overpriced rubbish at that!).  I did get a card out in the post to my grandma and watched the three girls I was with wait in line for stamps and such.  We went to several shops, but I didn’t buy anything until we finally went to the grocery and then I picked up some more canned soups, a can of “spaghetti hoops,” some KitKat bars, biscuits (super delicious with strawberry conserve and cream), some Nestle Aero bars which – if we have these in the States I haven’t seen them, but we should - (they taste like Baskin Robbins Mint Chocolate Chip ice-cream in a candy bar form), and a ‘blue bolt’ or Euro-Redbull as I am calling it; all that picked up for £7.40 so, not too shabby I think. 

Oh, and lunch was very decent today; I am getting very used to no dressing on my salad, its actually fine if they give us the little cherry tomatoes like they have been.

Most of the girls seem to want to go to the St. Giles Faire tonight, which looks to be your average traveling festival madness of shoddily constructed carnival rides, questionably sanitized food carts, and cheap trinket stalls.  As much as I want to be fun and all, I think I will pass unless the girls are really heartbroken about it.  I can stay in and read then in peace.  One thing about being in a dorm situation is that there are always people around to distract you and give you an excuse not to work (not that I am in some dire straight or behind, just being mindful).