Little Bird in Great Britain

2010 GO!

2010-01-05T10:31:00.001-08:00

It is COLD here. Now it is snowing. I took these on my first morning back in the UK after having spent a lovely 10 days in California for the holidays. Those are ice crystals growing on a rose in my front yard and a spider's web on my way to work. COLD.

California was great. Life is constantly surprising me and I hope for good things this year. How about you? Happy New Year! (hug) HH

Bath, Bristol and Banksy

2009-09-09T09:05:00.001-07:00

Frank and I went to the Banksy exhibit in Bristol for a bank holiday.

Bath and Bristol

This is Frank in line to see the Banksy exhibit... only a 4.5 hour 'queue'. Damn, am I getting into the lingo or what? You can follow the link to check out pics I took along our rides (Bradford on Avon, Bath, Bristol, Banksy exhibit). We biked back at top speed from Bristol in order to appreciate some of the fine local Bath ciders and cute pubs.

It was just a pretty damn fantastic weekend. Bath is the location of ancient ruins dedicated to the worship of Minevera. This is the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Athena who has been a favorite of mine for a long long time. In addition to being the goddess of war and intelligence (so awesome) she is accompanied by an owl who sits on her shoulder in much of the iconography. In addition to all of this she was born from her father Zeus' forehead(no messing around necessary).

The Roman Baths were neat and we walked around listening to the likes of Bill Bryson pontificating about the Romans. After that however we visited the Thermae Spa in central Bath. This was so relaxing and amazing. I loved the steam baths and felt really good about going back to work in Oxford after this little retreat.

Huzzah! Now, back to work!

Not all birds love England

2009-03-22T04:37:00.000-07:00

As it turns out there are not hummingbirds in Europe. I know, I know, this will shock many. As a girl who has identified with birds since the age of 3 (little bird was my YMCA indian princess name) I am shocked by this. This means that the tiny hummingbird feeder that I was so delighted to receive from my brother Matt for Christmas this year, the same hummingbird feeder that was so kindly brought to me across the ocean by Kathleen when she was visiting this last week, the hummingbird feeder that I just filled with one part sugar to four parts water (the perfect nutritional combination to keep beautiful iridescent wings beating at a rate of 50 times per second), this hummingbird feeder is useless here. It will remain for the duration of spring and summer here in the UK as absent from hummingbirds as the one in this picture. This may be the most disappointing thing I have learned about the UK to date...

On the other hand... the weather is lovely today.

Hallelujah!

2009-01-05T07:58:00.001-08:00

One of the great things about being at Oxford is that there are a lot of people here who I think are really clever for a variety of reasons. One of my pals from the choir is Hugh Trimble. He is probably my best source of interesting information about the English since I read 'Watching the English' by Kate Fox (strongly recommended). Hugh recently had a short contribution published in BBC letters that has received a lot of feedback. His letter follows:

Now I heard there was a certain song
That Cowell made and you sang along
But you don't really know your music, do you?
What follows next: some Bible text,
Some music terms and some kinky sex,
Leonard Cohen composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

The song was strong, but not well known
Till Buckley came, made it his own,
Helped out by John Cale, who had been peculiar:
He'd cut out the most fervent fits
And only kept the dirty bits
Soon every busker's lips said "Hallelujah".

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Jeff Buckley's fans are grumpy now
While Alex milks their holy cow
But for once you don't hear Cohen moaning, do you?
There's royalties from every try
It doesn't matter whose you buy
When nothing's in the charts but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
Hugh Trimble, Oxford, UK

2008-12-14T03:32:00.000-08:00

I saw the Darwin exhibit at the Natural History Museum in London a few weeks ago. There was a lot of really great stuff in the exhibit but I have to admit that this note on whether to marry or not was my favorite thing. It has some tough competition. There was a tiny gun on display that Darwin had on board the Beagle. There was a description of Darwin tossing Galapagos iguanas into the ocean to see if they were ablt to recognize him as a pest, they didn't (so great!). In his pro/con list on whether or not to marry Darwin includes 'a terrible loss of time' on the Pros list by mistake. Eventually he chose to marry his cousin (-Marry - Marry - Marry - Q.E.D.). I think I love this because even here he is being methodical and debating against himself here. It is a more human look at a man whose work I more than admire.

This is the question

Marry

Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — —better than a dog anyhow. — Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one's health. — ~~Forced to visit & receive relations~~ but terrible loss of time. —

W My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won't do. — Imagine living all one's day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro' St.

Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D.

Not Marry

No children, (no second life), no one to care for one in old age.— What is the use of working 'in' without sympathy from near & dear friends—who are near & dear friends to the old, except relatives

Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one's bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much)

Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool — Translated on Darwin Online

Pittsburgh to Tennessee

2008-09-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

I am making my way back slowly to the UK after having been in Tennessee to see Lisa and Jason get married. I have never cried so much at a wedding (including my own). It was also surprisingly sad for me to leave. I don't know when I will see Lisa and Jason again. In fact I saw a lot of great friends on this trip and I will miss them when I am back in the UK. Maybe now that I have been in Oxford long enough to get a feel for what my life there is really like I can hold that up and compare it to the life that I knew in Pittsburgh and think about what I have lost. Don't misunderstand me, Oxford is great and I am happy to be there. I know today that I will always love the people I knew in Pittsburgh. This trip was great. The wedding was beautiful.

A list of things I recommend from this trip in no particular order:

filling gas tanks while the engine is still running,
calling the cab well in advance,
having just one more beer,
reading out loud at the pool,
walking barefoot in wet grass,
watching fireflies,
smoking cigars while dancing,
not catching flowers,
turquoise with brown,
tactfully not mentioning the fate of the goldfish,
Guinness shots with the bride,
talking about science anyways,
the marinated mushrooms,
playing pool in high heels,
reconnecting,
teaching others choice british phrases,
ignoring silly girls,
avoiding the ice cream by eating meat for dessert,
and drinking the scotch on the rocks.

My Life

2008-07-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

Hello there friends, I have been meaning to update this blog for awhile. I have come back to the UK with a work permit and visa and I am officially officially here. I will start posting again. Things have been interesting. I was in Norway for a conference recently and then I went on vacation in Morocco with Copic and Spoons and Scott :) I will post pics but for today Petra (my lovely Czech room mate) and I are singing an old Billy Joel tune : MY LIFE. Chew on these lyrics and I will be back soon!

Got a call from an old friend
We used to be real close
Said he couldn't go on the American way
Closed the shop, sold the house
Bought a ticket to the West Coast
Now he gives them a stand-up routine in L.A.

I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright
I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home
I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, and leave me alone

I never said you had to offer me a second chance
(I never said you had to)
I never said I was a victim of circumstance
(I never said)
I still belong, don't get me wrong
And you can speak your mind
But not on my time

They will tell you, you can't sleep alone in a strange place
Then they'll tell you, you can't sleep with somebody else
Ah, but sooner or later you sleep in your own space
Either way it's okay, you wake up with yourself

I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright
I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home
I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, and leave me alone

I never said you had to offer me a second chance
(I never said you had to)
I never said I was a victim of circumstance
(Of cirumstance)
I still belong, don't get me wrong
And you can speak your mind
But not on my time

I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, and leave me alone

(Keep it to yourself, it's my life.)
(Keep it to yourself, it's my life.)
(Keep it to yourself, it's my life.)
(Keep it to yourself, it's my life.)

Don't Stop Me Now....

2008-02-10T01:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my one month anniversary of arriving in Great Britain! Huzzah!

How do I explain this week? I mentioned that I joined a choir here, The Oxford Alternotives (pronounced alternatives... it is a visual pun only). we are in a competition tonight and we will be performing three pieces: 'California Dreamin'' by the Mama's and the Papa's, 'Don't Blame it on the Boogie' by the Jackson 5 and last but not least 'Don't Stop Me Now' by Queen. We had auditions for the 'Don't Stop Me Now' solo last Sunday and after two rounds and roughly 25 minutes of debate by the choir (for which I was not present) I was chosen as the soloist (!?!!!).

This week I have been singing this song constantly in my head. We also learned all of the completely awesome-show-stopping choreography this week. So tonight I will be rocking it out Freddie Mercury style for a small panel of judges and a small audience at the ICCAs. Learning the lyrics would not be a problem for most people who had childhoods that involved popular music. I missed out on Queen the first time around and was introduced to them ala Bohemian Rhapsody by Wayne and Garth.

I will let you know how that goes...

I n other news I baked my favorite cake yesterday, the Chocolate Stout Cake that Spoons kindly introduced me to during graduate school. One of the coolest people I have met here in Oxford, my lab mate Viknesh, is going back to Malaysia after finishing his PhD. We were having a surprise party for him in Bicester so I wanted to make this cake. First off it is a Bundt cake. This means, for the uninitiated that it has a hole in the center. I didn't have a bundt cake pan here so I started asking around in the lab... No one knew what I was talking about. Responses:

"Why would you put a hole in a cake?"
"What about the stodge? We love our stodge!"

S todge? This is the heavy delicious sweet stuff in the center of a cake. Of course the point of chocolate stout cake is to be ALL STODGE. I did eventually find a bundt cake pan but... it wasn't easy. The next tricky ingredient was molasses. It had not occurred to me that this would be hard to find. I prefer Black strap molasses for the recipe and the only place you can find any molasses here at all are in health food stores. The English have a syrupy textured cane sugar derivative called treacle. I am still not really clear on what is supposed to be so healthy about molasses but I found them.

M y last adventure was the oven. I had not attempted to bake here before and after Viknesh had once looked at my oven and made some slightly negative remark I have been a little wary of the thing. I needed to pre-heat the oven while I got the cake ready and I was shocked to see that the temperature on the oven only went up to 250. I needed to bake this cake at 350! "Oh no! This may take much longer etc etc. "

H a Ha HA!

I sincerely hope that I am not the only poor little American to look at my recipe book and forget that the oven I am using is in Celsius, not Fahrenheit. Luckily my room mate James came down and I asked him about the oven. He saw my problem immediately and kindly reminded me that the oven was in Celsius. I am, after all, living in England now.

And on the 15th day... she rested.

2008-01-23T09:23:00.001-08:00

I am making a life here! I have a bank account, a phone, and (dun-dun-du-duuuuuun) : a place to live! I am beginning to think that my new colleagues here may think of me as a generally excitable person and perhaps they are right. I am delighted to have a room of my own once again and I have not stopped talking about how great it is here.

I am living in the front room in the house-share that I talked about in my last post. I was completely won over by the place immediately and the room mates are really great so far. This is a picture of my great big bay window from the corner of the room where my bed is.

The house is on a quiet street north of Oxford in a neighborhood called Summertown. Our house is one in a row of houses and the front looks like this. The window in the front with the tree is my room and it really is very nice. The kitchen and bathroom have been re-done recently so things are in good shape. There is a washing machine and drier as well as a dishwasher and there are lots of nice touches like my gigantic antique desk and a nice garden out back. This feels good to me. Now I just need to get a bike.
I will post more photos of the town and stuff like that but the big news is that I am permanently out of the hostels and happy to have a home! There are too many funny and or strange stories from my nights in the hostel. I am very relieved to be out of there. Nothing really bad happened it just wasn't home...

I was also introduced this week to the concept of on-line grocery shopping. One of the more affordable places to do grocery shopping here is Sainsbury's. I can do all of my grocery shopping on-line and schedule a time for the goods to be delivered. In a town where many people rely on bikes this is a life saver. I was dreading going out in the rain to buy all of the basics and drag them back to my place when one of my lab mates told me about this great service. Hooray for Sainsbury's! All of my food and a bunch of wine is being delivered tomorrow!

I should mention that I joined a choir here. This was a spontaneous move on my part. I saw the auditions advertised on the day of and so I just sort of showed up. The people in the choir seem really friendly and I think this will be a fun experience. The choir is apparently the oldest mixed a capella choir in Oxford and they are called The Alternotives. There are samples of their stuff up on-line. They arrange all of their own music and they are doing contemporary pieces from popular music but breaking them down for a choral setting and there are probably about 16 members right now. I have my second rehearsal tonight. Should be fun.

That is all for today.

Cheers!

Little Bird

What could be better?

2008-01-13T11:52:00.000-08:00

I am in England. I will probably be here for three years or so for a post-doc in the Biochemistry department at Oxford. I have now been in the country for 5 days. I haven't really met any new people that I expect to see again so this seems like a good time to start documenting my time here... right? Right!

Oxford is a really beautiful town. You really do walk around and think "This is not my beautiful new home town... naaaaah." It has little picturesque alley ways and great grand stone edifices and charming little trees. It seems unreal at times. It seems unreal until you are walking along in the morning and the pile of blankets on the beautiful cobblestone happens to have a guy in it who appears to have slept there all night. It is also (ahem) more real as you get closer to the Hostel side of town near the rail way stations and you find that every morning there are little spots on the side walk where some noob drinker has barfed their dinner or simply spilled their midnight kebab. Now, I could be ungenerous and assume that it is the swarms of teen aged Americans staying at the hostel that are getting into this sort of thing in the middle of the night but I really don't *know* that.

Speaking of the hostel, I am in the process of trying to find an apartment. I have a good lead on a place about 2 miles north of the building where I work. There are buses to and from that go late into the evening and biking there is also very reasonable. I will say no more until I have a commitment but I really liked the place. It is a far cry from the horrid little place I saw on Friday. There was this letting agency that showed me something called a "kitchenette". The neighborhood was dangerous seeming and this little upstairs room was a tiny studio with a sink in the corner and a microwave size combo heating plate and *grill* on the counter-top. I might have shed a tiny tear right there if the agent hadn't been standing right in front of me. I canceled the other appointment after hearing that this dreadful place was the nicest one she was going to show me!

Today I went to the famed the Pitt-Rivers Museum. I think the thing to emphasize here is that I saw Dodo bird remains (OMG COOL) sitting next to a description of Alice Liddell (of Alice in Wonderland fame) along with the *real* Lewis Carrol l (Charles Dodgson). I also saw SHRUNKEN HEADS and a witch that had been put in a bottle. Ok, Ok, all you can really see is the bottle but still... you don't want to let that witch out of there! That is just trouble.

I think the theme of the museum is... weird stuff from around the world. In this way it reminded me a bit of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe New Mexico. The web sites for these museums do not even touch on the way the actual collections, as presented, strike you. To wander around the Museum of International Folk Art is to wander around a warehouse size room that appears to have been populated entirely by removing the contents of a crazy person's mind and putting them on display. The colors are insane and the gathering of this hodge-podge of different styles and putting them all side by side for comparison can be disorienting. The Pitt-Rivers had this affect on me as well but it has the benefit of the old-guys-in-ties anthropology stamp of approval and that makes Pitt-Rivers seem more like *Science* where the International Folk Art Museum just seems *Insane*.

Wow, I am beat. time to sign off... Here is to dreaming of tiny screams from tiny shrunken heads,
Little Bird