My Own United Nations

Tonight was a typical night. Cat cooked dinner for some friends, just a simple pasta and salad kind of thing. It was great because as we were all just hanging about beforehand, helping to chop, I realized how in the span of seven months just how close I had drawn to these people. Things are simple and inevitably really funny when I’m in their company and whatever internal moaning I had been engaged in about my essays or my dissertation, I let them go. (So, even though none of them actually read this blog, thanks.)

We had finished off the pasta and salad, what would have been the leftovers of a more disciplined group. The conversation was fun, but I don’t remember the specifics. Someone brought up dessert and having been talking about languages, Eva thought it a good idea to go around the table and say “Are we going to have dessert?” in our respective foreign languages.

I started with Estonian.

Then Max from South Africa asked in Afrikaans.

Julie speaks fluent Japanese.

Eva speaks Greek, owing to her family heritage.

Cat piped in with her native French.

And, finally, Kammy offered the phrase in both Mandarin and Cantonese, for she was born and lived in China until she was 12.

It struck me how special this was. Language utility is so important. Not for business or even to show off, but because it means you’re humble. While English will get you pretty far, it won’t take you everywhere. The process of acquiring a language, from the classroom to immersion is an adventure in itself, not to mention the doors that are opened in the process.

I’ve been thinking that Spanish will be next.



Pictured: Chris, Andy, Paul, me, Kammy and Max

My Day Spent Posing as a Well-To-Do in a New York City Coffee Shop

(To protect the innocent, the address and names of said Coffee Shop have been withheld.)

I’m in New York to visit Blake for a long weekend. In an effort to actually graduate, I’m spending my days working on essays and my nights faffing about town with Blake. Today, my first day of work, took me to a coffeehouse not far from Blake’s office. It’s a favorite of both of ours. It’s locally owned, always full and Blake contends it’s a damn good cup of coffee while I take the tea.

Sitting here, ruminating about the post-World War II resistance in Estonia, I look around and there isn’t an empty chair. It’s 10am on Friday. Why aren’t all these people at work? Some are obviously students, but what about these two thirty somethings next to me?

They’re talking about real estate and Paul (lets call him Paul) is going to make a killing on selling his house/apartment. Joe, the other one, tells Paul that if he has any sense, he should invest in real estate in West Virginia. Has Joe been to West Virginia? Then Joe gets a phone call and Paul, who is seated behind me, but within one foot, says, “So, you Estonian?”

I turn, “Yes, well Estonian-American…”

He’s been reading the essay I am revising over my shoulder.

Joe gets off the phone and joins in, telling me it’s Paul’s bachelor party weekend. I congratulate Paul and he tells me about having visited Tallinn. I return to my essay and the guys chat about their bachelor weekend exploits of the night before. They get up to leave, wish my luck with my degree and they’re off, leaving me with an awkward tourist couple who aren’t getting along and what I assume are housewives with a standing Friday morning date.

The tables in this coffee shop are so close, that in essence you are having coffee with twenty strangers and while it struck me as odd, I liked how those two chaps just struck up a conversation with me and some others. It makes the world seem not quite so big and impenetrable.

MCBC Torpids Dinner

This is Bess. She coxes our boat. She had been dieting all week (while the rest of us loaded up on pasta and risotto) to try to make the boat lighter.


Edward is clad in the traditional first boat red blazer and a red Magdalen bow tie, complete with an embroidered lily on each side.


Finally, this is Nic, our coach. She's great fun. She's seven months pregnant and still insists on cycling alongside us when we train at 6:30am on a muddy tow path. That's dedication.

Torpids: Day Four

Subtitle: It's over!

After four gruelling days, we finished in style. Although we started the competition in ninth place and finished in tenth, we rowed really well throughout (especially in our final day) and were especially chuffed (British for thrilled.)



A team shot with the our blades, displaying the traditional Magdalen lilies.



Myself and Frances after the race. Frances rows for Balliol and did really well, bumping each day.

When the race was over, I was handed a bottle of champagne and got to shake it up and spray it all over my team, so much fun! The boat club had a black-tie dinner last night, photos to follow!

Torpids: Day Three

Subtitle: Hot Dog!

Well, not the best day for us. We got bumped by St. Edmund's Hall (aka Teddy Hall or just "Hall") and weren't able to catch Merton to get our own bump. Tomorrow is the last day of the contest, so we're just going to come out of the blocks like madwomen with oars in hand and have fun!

Feeling a bit down earlier, I wandered to Marks and Spencer's Food Hall because it always makes me feel better to buy overpriced produce and pre-cooked meals. With pad thai in hand, it occurred to me just what I needed in that very moment. A hot dog! Low and behold, Marks and Sparks has "frankfurters" and nice buns. The only fly in the ointment was the absence of good old banal American yellow mustard. Dijon it was, I'm flexible.

And, I watched "Anchorman" for the first time.

"Grandmother's Spatula!"

Torpids: Day Two

Woho! Halfway there!

Today we started off in ninth position. We knew we didn't have to worry about the people in tenth (since we had bumped them yesterday), so we all focused in on rowing our best possible race. We were chasing St. Hilda's College today. However, before we could catch them, they had bumped New College. Unfortunately for New College, they crashed into the bank and were effectively "bumped" (aka passed) by eight crews.

So, in the end we got our bump without actually having to crash blades (or worse actual boats) with any other crew. We rowed very well as a team today and pulled through right to the finish line.

What's more, Madgalen women have never been this high up in the standings before (eighth!) It's a record for us! Altogether another great day for Magdalen women's rowing.

Torpids: Day One

Hiya!

Today was the first day of a four-day "bumps" race here at Oxford. It's inter-collegiate and absolute chaos. I can't even begin to explain how it works (mostly because I've only just regained the feeling in my hands...)

We set off to line up at the start and the most snow that has snowed this year began! You can see from the photo, it was a winter wonderland. Ordinarily I would be thrilled, but at that very moment I was seated in a very unstable boat essentially level with the water in a very cold (and dirty!) river, trying to regain the feeling in my hands. It was absolutely amazing. If I hadn't been so nervous, I would have burst out in song (ala the end of White Christmas.)

In short, we were bumped by St. Hilda's College (bad), but we recovered and went on to bump Somerville College (good!)

On to day two...



This is Sian and myself in our all-too-stylish red Magdalen caps! It was bloody cold at this moment, even in all our kit.

Dining at the High Table

Once in your Magdalen graduate career, you are graced with an invitation to dine at high table. I'd always seen the high table, perched at the south end of the hall, looking ominous and, well, high. And finally, like a kid waiting for Santa Claus, I got my invitation a couple weeks ago.

Flanked by fellow historians and classists, we rang the doorbell to the Senior Common Room at 7:05, the crypitcally specified time on the invitation. The tutor for graduates graciously welcomed us and we proceeded to what is the fellows "hang-out" spot, for lack a better phrase. I was right off offered a glass of sherry, which I declined on account of the big rowing race I have later today.

Let the awkward small talk begin! I honestly thought to myself before I left my house, just take it easy and whatever you do, don't start talking about American foreign policy, or worse, rowing!

When it was time for dinner to begin, we walked across the roof (!) to the special fellow's entrance to the hall. As we filed in to find seats, I was very aware of the importance of my dining mates and headed for sympathetic ears, an American librarian who I had met just beforehand. But, on account of gender balance, I was shifted one seat to by flanked by two male fellows, a classist and an historian.

It went off without a hitch! I was a smashing success. We chatted about Mark's driving tour through America in 1991 and Edmund's ideal monograph of modern historiography. And only when pressed, did I talk about rowing. (I promise!)

Dinner was lovely, starting with tomato (toe-MAH-toe) and bacon soup. The main consisted of goose and veg, followed up by a liqueur soaked peach with chocolate sauce.

In ordinary circles, this would herald the end of the evening. But this is Oxford, far from ordinary. I was instructed by my new friends to stand, bow my head from the closing grace and take my napkin with me.

"Take your napkin," "Oh, okay..."

Walking through cloisters, napkin in hand, a door was opened to me that I didn't even know existed. What lay beyond was the Senior Smoking Room. In two lines facing each other with 10 or so feet between them were chairs setup with small round tables in front of each chair with port glasses and a plate with knife and fork. The vice-president was in charge of the seating plan and in true elementary school dodgeball fashion, we were assigned sides and seats in the room. (I was picked near the end!)

Here I was seated next to Paul, the second-in-command at the Magdalen Boy's School. We were offered five different alcohols (port, Madeira, claret, dessert wine and one that I now forget), chocolates and the most exotic fruits (figs, plums, lychees, and blackberries.) To transport the glass bottles of alcohol between the two rows of fellows and graduates, a contraption devised over 100 years ago was used. It looks somewhat like a Nordic Track without the top half, and the downward slant is used to slide the bottles to the otherside, with one track going downwards and another back up. I honestly shook my head and thought, "This is so Oxford."

And just when I thought it was over, then came the snuff. I passed, but Evert (my Dutch friend) was brave and gave it a go. Afterwards he said, "Well, now I never have to do that again."

It was an altogether lovely evening...