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I’m settled back in Oxford after a fantastic weekend in the West. I spent Friday evening in a pub with the groom-to-be and his friends from Sixth Form.* Despite threats to cellotape the groom to the Eurostar before the night was up, everything went fine. While it was a bit grey and rainy on the wedding day, the church was nestled against a hill in a beautiful little village, the bride looked gorgeous, and despite the vicar being late and the organist not showing up until halfway through the ceremony, it was still all perfect in its own way. The groom danced a jig (!) in honor of his new bride, and the entire event–from ceremony to reception to evening dancing–was dominated by these guys and these guys (who also have a Myspace page, apparently they are the hip Morris men in town), the bride’s father’s and groom’s Morris sides, respectively. The reception was held at a farm a few minutes from the church, where there was much drinking and dancing and eventually putting on of pants underneath my dress on account of the freezing cold, and also camping in a field apparently normally populated with sheep (think about how we figured that out).
The next morning, I woke up with gale-force winds bending the tent over in half, right on top of me, such that the people outside could probably make out the outline of my still-trying-to-sleep form. We headed for Weston-super-Mare, where I spent some time watching Formula One and playing with an extremely excitable puppydog with a cone around his head. Finally, I finished up my very English weekend with takeaway from the chippy and watching Spain beat Italy at Euro 2008.
Wedding photos are on flickr, though they don’t really do justice…
*One of the guys had just gotten in from an interview in Zurich. He has a Ph.D. in physics, but do you know what department he was interviewing with? To quote him: “f***ing sociology!” To which I said, “hey, that’s what I do, and that’s exactly what I call it!” Unless you are my mum, and then I definitely actually said “My word, you ought to rinse your mouth out with soap, young man.” And then licked my thumb and used it to wipe a bit of beer off his cheek in front of all his friends.
I spent some time waiting around in a bank in Oxford this afternoon, and it was thoroughly worth it just for the people-watching it afforded. My absolute favorite was a couple that came in trying to sort out something-or-other with their bank account and/or bill payments. Honestly, I wasn’t really listening until the bank representative said she needed something with both of their names on it, like a joint bank account statement, to which the woman replied, “Well, OF COURSE all of the statements and bills are only in my husband’s name, HE’S THE MAN OF THE HOUSE.”
I actually, genuinely considered jumping up out of my seat and being all, “GIRL, PLEASE” (preferably in the most abrasive American accent I could muster). But then I realized that this bank, it must be some sort of portal back to the early 1900s, and I’d better stop showing so much shoulder and hurry back to my place in the kitchen.
Via BBC News:
The High Court in South Africa has ruled that Chinese South Africans are to be reclassified as black people.
It made the order so that ethnic Chinese could benefit from affirmative action policies, aimed at improving living standards for black people.
The Chinese Association of South Africa took the government to court, saying its members had been discriminated against… (read more here)
So fascinating. (For more on the social construction of race–especially in the United States as compared to Brazil–this Wikipedia article gives a decent summary)
Right as my shuttle from Bloomington arrived at the Indianapolis airport on Monday, I got a call from US Airways notifying me that my flight to Philadelphia had been cancelled. Excellent, guys. After that, there was a lot of standing in lines whilst simultaneously talking on the phone, and a lot of being told that there would be no way for me to get to England before Thursday–and also that there would be no way the airline would pay for me to stay in a hotel while I waited for the next flight, and that instead I should pay to take the shuttle back to Bloomington and again to come back the next day. On top of the $1100 this ticket already cost.
And then, something miraculous happened: there was conversing at the United Airlines desk, and then I was rushed around, my bags were taken, and two tickets were thrust into my sweaty little hand that would get me to Chicago and then to London, that same day, with no shuttles or hotels or delays. This was fantastic enough, but then? Then, sitting at the gate in Chicago, I looked at my ticket for the transatlantic flight and realized that my seat was in an awfully low row number. And so I boarded the plane to this:
I figured this was finally all those travel karma points–from the times my flights have been cancelled, my luggage has been destroyed, and airline mix-ups and bad planning have required me to run back and forth across various airports–being cashed in. And then I proceeded to eat a delicious meal and then sleep on my recliney-bed with my real pillow and blanket from somewhere over Ohio or Pennsylvania to somewhere over Ireland. AND IT WAS AWESOME.
This is a lolcat rendition of what I expect to be doing at 9.01am tomorrow:
Boy, oh boy. Via Spiegel Online (and Susanne):
From Spiegel:
The German newspaper Die Tageszeitung has a reputation for leftist social sensitivity. All the more bizarre then was its choice of a cover to mark Obama’s victory in the race for the Democratic Party nomination: a photo of the White House under the headline “Uncle Barack’s Cabin.”
…
The newspaper’s deputy editor-in-chief Reiner Metzger says: “The headline is intended to be satirical. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a book that all Germans know and which they associate with issues of racism. The headline is supposed to make people think about these stereotypes. It works on many levels.”
(Read the rest of the article here)
This also got some coverage in USA Today, but otherwise seems to have mostly stayed off the US media’s radar. On the one hand, I can, to some extent, see the editor’s argument; it does make me think about a whole bevy of stereotypes that Barack Obama has to deal with (the Village Voice takes a similar opinion). On the other hand, were I the editor of this paper, and wanted people to think about stereotypes (think critically about them, I would hope), I think I would want an actual dialogue…not a “clever” headline that seems to be more provocative than thoughtful, that overshadows the article’s content.
But, while we’re on the topic of epic fails, Menachem Rosensaft’s response over on the Huffington Post probably offends me more than the original article; Rosensaft opens with the following statement: “Leave it to the Germans to lay bare their ugly racist proclivities.” If we’re going to go lumping everyone of a certain nationality together and making sweeping assumptions about their racial attitudes based on historical legacies…does the United States really come out a winner? It all feels a little pot, meet kettle.
Last Friday was the beginning of a bout of bad weather in Indiana. The tornado sirens have gone off in town at least twice since then–including the first time they’ve woken me up in the middle of the night, which was a disorienting experience. I guess we got off easy last summer; it’s taken a little getting used to again.
We’ve gotten thunderstorms almost every day since last Friday, and in addition to the severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado warnings we’ve also had flash flood warnings, which quite honestly I never understood until today. A storm rolled through around 4.30 this afternoon; once the storms had mostly cleared out, I hopped in my car and headed for home. This proved to be easier said than done:
When I was almost home, I found that driving home the way I normally did wasn’t going to work so well. I was a little nervous when I saw the river of water flowing down the street; I turned around in search of a new route when I saw this car, nose-down in the ditch.
I’m just glad I didn’t try to go to the bar after work:
Further down Kirkwood, the situation was no better:
The Bloomington Herald-Times has more pictures of today’s flash flooding. There are also some pictures over at the Bloomington Livejournal Community.
While I now understand how flash flooding can be serious business, I also know that we have been incredibly lucky in Bloomington; the tornadoes that have touched down in other parts of the state have caused damages, injuries, and one death. But the line of storms that produced tornadoes in Moscow and Edinburgh was just developing when it passed over Bloomington:
The stormy weather isn’t over yet, but tonight is supposed to be relatively quiet; for now, I’m just appreciating my good fortune–and watching the skies.
