Nonsense, Drivel, and Balderdash

I am rarely really possessed with the desire to own something. I tend to be fairly indifferent to most material goods. I can do without them. I think we have too much crap crowding our lives anyway. There are a couple of exceptions of course, I like gadgets, though I am not a crazy fanatic by any means. I like food, if you consider that a material good, and I like to eat well. That sort of gives you an idea about what kind of things I tend to really enjoy. I like material goods that are scintillating to the senses. I will pay the extra buck for something that tastes a little better. If I were a millionaire I probably wouldn't have expensive sports cars or massive homes, but I would be very much inclined to eat in fancy restaurants. I like beautiful things. Beautiful to the tongue and to the eye. Beauty is one of the things I hold in highest esteem, as I consider it an essential part to the wellbeing of man's soul. And I mean, soul in the most spiritual way. That is why I was ca...

I cant resist telling about this: Ricky Gervais, the creator of BBC's series The Office, has a radio show. In it he and the other writer from the Office sit and just talk to and make fun of their friend Karl Pilkington, who is either a comedic genius or a complete moron. Needless to say, it is about the funniest thing I've heard on radio for years. If you go HERE you can get a nice couple of episodes á la podcast. Really funny downloads. They are clean for the most part, (every now and then it isnt, but still not bad) . Either way, its worth the listen. Check it out, if you dont like it, fine, but if you do then you can thank me later. They are starting up the show again next week (they'd been off the air for 6 months) and you can subscribe to it for 6 dollars via Audible.com. I already have.

It is 6th week (out of 8) of my second term. I know I should be focusing on my Shakespeare paper right now, but all I can think of is spring break. This term has been taxing, slow, and tedious. I hate winter. Unless I'm snowboarding. But I'm not. Spring break is shaping up to look really cool. I am getting together with my friend Dave Macadam. He is a friend from Gordon who is studying in Madrid this semester. Last summer I told him that since we were both going to be in europe for spring break that we should travel together. Frankly, I didnt think it would happen, for it sounded like one of those plans that would be great but never end up working out. In part that is true, because some other people from Gordon talked about flying out and joining us, and they arent going to now, but Dave and I are still planning on it. Not only are we planning on it, we are acting on it. We bought our plane tickets today. I get a whole month off for spring break. That is the way it works here, ...

Has anyone ever seen High Fidelity? It is one of my favorite movies of all time. Its both hilarious and painfully poignant. John Cussack's character keeps doing top 5 lists. I happen to be quite fond of lists myself, though I know some people cant stand them. I am constantly making my own "top 5 places I want to be" or "top 5 friends I would take with me to ..." or "top 5 non cheesy romance movies" or "top 5 albums" etc... So today feel like writing my top 5 jobs that I would like to have. These are all ideals, irrespective of my own talents or occupational leanings. 5) English Teacher : I don't know why this seems appealing. Who knows if it is any good in real life, but the idealized version does seem appealing. Teaching something that is not useful per say in the same way that teaching auto mechanics or medicine is useful, but yet teaching something that resonates within the soul. Also teaching creative writing for much the same reason....

When we were in high school, Charles and I would sometimes sit around in study hall dividing up the world map. He would get one country, I would get another, and yet another place would be set up as a prison colony. It was random, a bit evil, and a lot of fun. I dont know if any of you have heard of Nationstates.com. It is a website where you create your own virtual nation. Every day you get a message from your cabinet or from your senate presenting you with a new issue for you to pass a law on. The issues range from taxes to religion, or just plain random things. For example today they wanted to know if the government would subsidize baseball, but our taxes are high enough, so I had to pass. Yesterday they wanted new laws concerning Dragonfly hunting (its the national animal) and I said that you could only hunt it with your hands. According to your different laws, your nation's status changes, your economy goes up or down, your civil or human rights rise and fall and your UN stat...

Here are some pictures from the acappella competition on saturday. They are fairly small, cause I wanted them to fit, so I am sorry if you were hoping for some wonkin' big ones. Here we are, waiting for our turn to go on. The expressions on our faces are priceless. Doing some singing See what I mean about the other groups having dumb choreographies and things? Not us, we have self respect. We dont move. We groove. Post-concert. It was a moral victory, so we are in good spirits. Walking away, down an oxford street. Time to get a bite to eat and a sip to drink. Later, at the afterparty, Matt smiles, and I issue a warning to the cameraperson, "Dont mention choreographies!"

-Dick Cheney accidentally shot his hunting buddy. If he had killed him, he would have been charged with manslaughter. The vice president would have gone to prison for manslaughter. To me, that is hilarious in a strange kinda way. --I think I may be getting the flu. It is going around. I started feeling poorly this weekend. Saturday morning my throat was scratchy, but I fought it for sake of my acappella performance (ps, I know it is spelled a cappella but it is easier to write it all together, sue me). But when I woke up sunday... I felt terrible. I stayed inside and took it easy in hopes that some rest would take care of it. Alas, this morning I felt terrible, and after running errands and going to lectures all day, I feel even worse. But really, who wants to read "A Diary of Ryan's Health?" No one, I imagine. So lets move on. ---Today, whilst sitting in a coffee shop studying with Miriam (one of the girls in my program, and one of the people who lives in my house). We ...

Last night, my a cappella group, The Oxford Gargoyles, participated in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. It was held in the student union. We had about 4 groups come all the way from Cambridge and St. Andrews to compete. Oxford has the greatest a capella awareness though, as we have 4 groups in Oxford alone. It was a lot of fun. I like watching and listening to a capella anyway, not to mention singing it or competing. The Cambridge groups were pretty good, but the St. Andrews ones were not (even though the guys did all wore kilts to represent their Scottish school). In the end, we came in 4th. In some ways it was deserved, in other ways we deverved better. The problem was that 1/3 of the point system was based on stage movements and things of that sort. The three top groups had choreographies and all sorts of stuff, whereas we had very little. Of course, it was near impossible for us to have more than we did because of the nature of our songs. For example, the gr...

1. Spell your first name backwards: Nayr 2. Story behind your blogger name: I dunno, it just seems like I'm Always Abroad no matter where I go. 3. Where do you live? A little row house in oxford england. DESCRIBE YOUR: 4. Wallet: posh leather 5. Toothbrush: has a sweet tounge cleaner 6. Jewelry worn daily: none, though in the summer time I usually sport a necklace of some kind 7. Sunglasses: none yo 8. Favorite shirt: Probably a toss up between my SF59 tee with a lamb on it and another one I have that is grey but its just so comfy... 9. CD in stereo right now: Rufus Wainwright's "Poses" 10. What you are wearing now?: Jeans, shoes, zip up sweater. 11. Wishing: I didnt have to write a paper right now 12. Wanting: for the aformentioned paper to be written 13. After this: unless the rapture comes or my genitals spontanously combust I suppose I will write that paper. 14. If you could get away with punching someone who would it be? I was going to say shakespeare for making ...

In high school, all I listened to was Christian music. That was because it was all I had been exposed to. My parents did not like me listening to secular stuff, and I think that wasn't necessarily a bad thing during my formative years. But as I got older and started exposing myself to different non-religious kinds of music, I stopped listening to the Christian stuff. The main reason for that the secular stuff is just better. Not to say that all christian music is bad... some may even be just as good... but very little is better. For the most part, believers just content themselves with imitating, not creating. The Christian music industry replicates every musical and production value the secular music has and adds Christian lyrics. It has all the shallowness of mainstream pop but with clean lyrics. In fact it is more shallow, because not only does it imitate a shallow thing, but it pretends that by adding generic Christian lyrics that it becomes good. That's like putting a garn...

I remember when Mr. Musser, our high school P.E. teacher, made us play American football. There was always an uproar any time he tried to get up to play anything other than football (soccer). The worst uproar came when we were required to do the physical fitness exam once a year. We would all complain every day for about a month while we prepared for the fitness test. But in retrospect it was probably good for us to do, and got us in shape, even if it only was for one month out of the year. Street Hockey didn't get much better of a reception, though I personally enjoyed it. It was one of the few sports we played that I wasn't too bad at, though that may have only been because most of the others didn't bother putting much of an effort into it. It was the other way around when it came to basketball. I hated basketball more than any other sport. For one thing, I was short growing up. I am still no gargantuan man, but at least I am about average. But as a kid I just got trampl...

The other day, in a lecture on modernist poetry, the lecturer was talking about the sentiments prior to the first world war. Back then it was generally thought that europe was advanced enough to be free of war. Europeans actually thought that they were enlightened enough so that they would never engage each other in war again. Then, of course, the first world war happened and shattered everyone's idealism, world war two finished it off in an even different way.. but anyway, we were discussing the effects of these changes on poetic style and stuff... but then my mind started to wander away from what the lecturer was saying and I realized "we are in the same mentality today!" Granted it is a bit different, but we are stuck in this sense of human triumph and idealism. 9-11 did a bit to slap the world awake, but we are still blind to our own lack of control and chaos. Sure, we have realized that no one is immune to the attacks of terror, but we have made a critical world view...

I am sitting in my room. Its late. Its dark outside, and odds are it is wet there too. I cant be sure about the moisture since I cant be bothered to open my curtains. I must admit that today was a pretty well wasted day. I spent quite a few hours watching many episodes from the first season of Lost that I rented on a whim. I am addicted and cannot wait to get the rest of the season, but I will wait until after my tutorials on Thursday. If I get them sooner then the rest of my week will be wasted. In truth, it wasn't my plan to spend the day like that. This morning I got up to do some errands. The light outside was doing that weird thing that it does here when a low fog fills the air but the sun still shines brightly above it. The sun is diffused through the fog and shines into places usually filled with shadows and makes the streets look like a movie set, unnaturally lit with an omnidirectional light source. I left the house to go to Tesco's (the main supermarket around here) ...

I just want to say that Shakespeare kicks so much butt.

*OK, ok... after a post that was gripped by senioritis despair coupled with a healthy dash of mk angst I have regained my senses a bit and have calmed back down to a more rational state of befuddlement as I examine my many options. But options are a good thing. I just have to remember that and realize that I may have gotten a bit carried away in my assesment of my current state of affairs.* Things I Love About England >A list -The way two veiled muslim women will walk by chatting in an aristocratic, RP accented, perfect, standard, queens english. -The way the porter at the Bodleian will call me "sir" (Me: awful weather outside today isnt it? Porter: Indeed it is, Sir) -Cornish Pasties (portable meat pies... much like empanadas only hot and filled with many more goodies. -Cask Ales. They dont have cheap spigots or pressurized kegs. They have to be hand pumped out of a cask. -The fact that people like Queen and Bowie here. -The way religion is not a hot topic or political b...

This past week I have realized an important fact: I am graduating in June. It is one of those things that I have known but never fully processed until recently. I will be done with college (finally) and will be the proud owner of a fairly useless English degree. So what to do next... that is the real question. One side of me wants nothing more than to return to Spain, for I think that I could easily settle down back into the mode of living there quite easily. Unfortunately, there is nothing for me to do there at this point. I could get my TESL or CELTA certification and teach English to Spaniards, but I do not really want to do that for the rest of my life (neither could I live off that). There are a couple international high schools in Madrid, but they are quite elite and hard to get a job in. Most require at least a masters and a couple of years of prior experience. Fortunately I would like to get a masters anyway, so I will do that. I am taking a year off though because I am not rea...

I have neglected my blogs over Christmas I admit it. I will appease the blog gods by sacrificing these newly developed Ireland pictures: This was off the coast of Kerry. A beautiful sight, where the sunlight would break through the fast moving, low clouds and create brilliant pools of light on the water. Those very clouds were ravenous as they came off the sea and they ate every mountaintop that happened to be in their way. This was Killarney at Christmas time, like the song. Guinness factory. Pretty. I thought so at least. Yours truly with Killarney National Park behind me. Stained glass. Not much more to say about it. A gnarly gnarled tree.

I had arrived in Ireland an had spent and hour finding my way into Dublin. It was dark out and the streets were wet. Eire is generally always wet. But it made the streets pretty when the orange lamplight reflected off the brick and concrete. I followed my friend's instructions to get to her house. "Take the bus from the airport to O'Connell street and switch to the 121 and go to Ardee street." I had followed the instructions successfully and was then waiting alone on some empty back street. I waited 15 minutes. She didn't show up. Was I supposed to call her? I think so. Loaded down with my backpack, I walked up and down the street, looking down alleyways trying to find a public phone. It was beginning to look impossible, but I kept walking. I saw some small children playing outside with some toy guns and an abandoned mattress. Kids only play in the dark if the neighborhood is either a very safe one or or if they havent seen their parents in a couple of weeks. The ...

I was standing in line at the supermarket today, buying a prepackaged sandwich and a bottle of tonic water. The Indian cashier deftly swiped people's items under the bar scanner and counted out the change for the customers. "Do you have a Tesco's membership card" he would ask, in a voice that was dutiful but that had tinges of tiredness. I didn't have a card. I had one for the local supermarkets in Boston, but they actually worked to make things cheaper. The ones here just give you coupons. But somewhere between his question and me reaching for my wallet it hit me. I couldn't remember then name of the supermaket in Beverly that I always used to go to. I stood there, staring in space at the horror of the realization that I could not remember a place that I had interacted with for 3 years. The same place that was filled with memories of times that I had gone there with friends, preparing for parties or meals or just having conversations with apartment mates as w...

This past week has been one of the most academically intense ones I have had in a long time. In actuality it has been the most intense since the first week at Oxford. The first week was actually fairly easy going compared to the rest of the semester, for every week after the first had more work. My usual workload consisted of 3 research papers every 2 weeks. I do not use the term 'research paper' lightly here. These are not the typical 4 page projects that are meant to synthesize a book or a couple of articles. These are the kind of papers that you spend all all week in the library, from opening time to closing time, trying your best to read through the 800 pages of obscure scholarly journals, historical backgrounds, commentaries and of course the primary texts per paper. A lot of it is extremely slow and thick reading, the kind that I will read a couple of pages of and suddenly realize that I have no idea what the author is talking about (curse you Terry Eagleton!!). Of course...