The End

This is me in the Great Man's chair at 221B Baker Street.

Home!

I'll update tomorrow, but wanted to let y'all know that I made it home, safe and sound.

Londinium

I wonder if I should start feeling like a local, now that I'm bumping into people I know? After spending some time at the reference library inside of the British Museum, I ran into one of my classmates and her mother on the way out. Considering that there were thousands of bank holiday-ers cramming the museum, the odds of a chance encounter were not very good.

They hadn't heard about the dinner this evening -- which appears to be back on -- so I'm going to meet them at the Holston tube station and then go eat with my other classmates before heading over to Whitechapel for a Jack the Ripper tour tonight (assuming that it doesn't get canceled by the rain).

I wasn't quite as successful with my tourism as I'd planned, but I did still see the Sherlock Holmes museum (I have a horrible/funny picture of myself in a deerstalker which I'll upload if I'm ever able to get the wireless up in my room) and the Chelsea/Kensington/Notting Hill area -- the Portobello street shops were very cool, though 75% closed. I'll add them to the list for a must-visit with Andi. With her along, open shops, and sunny weather, we'd only need a dash of Hugh Grant to produce a romantic comedy. Not too much Hugh Grant, mind you. And I get to be Colin Firth. But tougher. Hmm. Somehow, that whole metaphor seems a little dangerous, but you get my drift.

On the school front, I have an outline for my paper and I've also put together a few threads for my eventual Master's thesis (nice to kill two birds with one stone).

That's about it. I checked on the planes, trains, and automobiles for tomorrow's travel home and everything should work out just fine.

S'okay, I need to go switch out my wet socks and head out again. I might update this one more time before leaving tomorrow.

Best wishes to all!

London, part three

I am at my hotel in London for my last day o' the UK. Unfortunately, the wireless in my room is still non-functional, so I'm posting from the lobby. Anyhoo, it's a lovely, rainy, London day. Quite nice to look at, but it remains to be seen how enjoyable it'll be to walk around in it (actually, I'm enough of a weirdo that I'm sure I'll enjoy it even if waterlogged).

The Cliff's Notes version of yesterday afternoon and today's plans:

Yesterday, I wasn't able to check into my hotel until the late afternoon, so I spent a fair amount of time strolling. Leicester provided some excellent noodles, courtesy of the HK Diner, as well as the wonders of Cecil Court (a small alley composed of nothing but booksellers). I walked over to and through the National Gallery, and finished off with Covent Gardens. Still empowered by noodle energy, I walked along the South Bank for a while and then headed for home by way of a semi-super-secret meeting. I'm not sure if was the two Red Bulls that I'd had in the afternoon, or what, but I stayed up way too late watching the "50 Movies to See Before You Die" countdown on Channel 4. Oh, and I'm reading a book which is just about the creepiest thing I've encountered in quite a while. Fun stuff.

Today, I have lots of ambitious plans, but we'll see how much I actually get done. I suspect that I might be slightly hampered by the Bank Holiday, but I doubt that it will be too big of a deal. In no particular order, I want to do the Baker Street/Sherlock Holmes area, Chelsea, The British Museum, The Library (again), and a Ghost/Jack the Ripper tour. There are a few neighborhoods, like Belgravia and Little Venice, that I'd like to see, too. Finally, there were rumors that a couple of Oxford people wanted to get together for dinner, but I haven't heard the final plans, yet.

I'm getting pretty excited to see Andi tomorrow; It will be very nice to be back home.

PS - The best snack bar in the world? Frusli: http://www.jordans-cereals.co.uk/page.asp?partid=32&minmnth=7&maxmnth=9&year=2006

Also yummy, but with no aspirations towards healthiness: Jammy Dodgers.

The last day in Oxford

So, we had a nice lecture this morning from the President of CILIP (which is the UK counterpart to the American Library Association), followed by a plenary session/trivia contest and the last lunch. Tonight, we have our last shindig and then that's all she wrote.

As for tomorrow, I need to be out of my room by 9:30, so I'll probably start wheeling my way to the bus station at that point. Once I'm in London, I'm going to return to the British Library tomorrow in the afternoon and then attend a foreign version of my super-secret club which shall not be named (there are 11 meetings in the central London area at 8:00pm!).

Sunday, I think, I'll scope out the admission cost for the London Aquarium and then just spend the balance of the day strolling and people watching unless it's pouring rain. There's a good chance that I'll do dinner on Sunday night with a couple of the people from this program who will also be in London and flying out on Monday.

So, that's the plan, Stan. It's sad to be finishing up so quickly, but I'm also looking forward to seeing Andi and the crew back home. I'm trying to scribble some essay material on the side, so if I come up with anything readable, I'll throw it up on the ol' blog, as well. In the mean time, I made sure to get a hotel room with wireless, so I will be online until I head home. So, yes, that means you'll have to endure a few more days of bloggy blather.

Some random pictures:

The exciting bedroom (note the proximity of my bed to the window).

















Oldest, most famous, booksellers in England: Blackwell's. I must say, though, that the Strand in NYC and the Tattered Cover in Denver are both better.










I didn't take many pictures of our primary lecture room, but here's a blurry view of where I spent 4-odd hours every day. Bill Clennell (sort of visible in the way back) is a scholar of Bodleian history (both the man and the institution) and just about the sweetest guy you'll ever meet.







Nice lawn, eh?

The Final Full Day

It was, again, pretty full today. The day began with the ceremonial banging of delivery lorries outside of the window, but the thing that keeps me from complaining is the fact that the banging always begins just about when I should be getting up, anyway.

So, post shower and a quick stroll, a couple people and I had an interview with the Librarian the the John Johnson Collection, which is a huge collection of ephemera. It's a ton of really interesting stuff that libraries feel should be collected, but which don't fit into the traditional categories. So, the result is that there are beautifully mounted and selected examples of everything from menus to 13th century indulgences to playbills to ticket stubs to football pool notices... Several million such things, actually. The collection is in the midst of a digitization project, but it will be quite some time before they even put a dent in what they have. Although it seems sort of random, this kind of material is much beloved by anthropologists and sociologists and historians for providing a really unique window into the past. Nifty.

John Johnson, I should mention, also had a really cool attitude about collecting stuff, which was basically the idea that ephemera should be collected largely by chance; to let history decide what was important, but not stress about getting one's hands on everything.

Afterwards, we had a seminar about school libraries in the UK (not really my cup of tea, but interesting, nonetheless) and then a "speed-dating" series of QA sessions with a bunch of working university librarians. This, combined with a lecture about how librarianship works in terms of certification, education, and the job-acquisition process, provided a really solid, multi-dimensional, picture of what it is like to train for, look for, interview for, get, and keep a job as a librarian in this country. Although I do sort of smack my forehead for my lack of a second or third language, it was pretty encouraging (not so much in an, "I want a job in the UK" sense, as in an, "I can do this stuff" way).

Then, there was a reception (just what are we receiving so frequently?), followed by a late lecture with Antony Brewerton, who is somewhat of a rock-star librarian who's specialty is making libraries sexy and trendy. He seemed cool enough, and I "get" the idea of libraries as brands and the importance of marketing, but I think I was too tired to appreciate the presentation all that much.

So, then came late dinner (my first quail eggs) and some sit-around chat with the librarians and a nice French scholar. One more shower later, and it's bedtime again. Madness.

I also sneaked a little bit of work on my paper in.

Tomorrow, I should have some chill time to catch up on my journalin' (and maybe blog a bit), as well as do some final touristy stuff. I have my hotel reservation for London for Saturday and Sunday nights, and then it's home on Monday. Time flies and all that.

Just some quick hits:

Today was session heavy, with three seminars, including a small little presentation by my group about blogs (in the midst of a rushed melee of a participatory discussion). I was called out of class to give a statement to the police, and to watch them take fingerprints from my dresser.

I then went down to the river to watch the colleges "bump" it out during the Eights Week boat races. Basically, the simplified version is that the various boats take off at the same time, from staggered positions, and try to physically tag the boat in front of them in order to advance in position in the subsequent race. Very cool and really exciting to watch. I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow.

Finally, some of my group were able to take over a classroom and the watch today's biggest game of the year, the Champion's League title. Liverpool lost.

Hmmm. I thought that I had a lot to bloggle about, but I am beat again. I don't seem to have much steam when it comes to the ol' computer interface at the end of the day. Also, tomorrow is threatened to be quite busy.

So, on that note, I hope everybody's doing well out there! More tomorrow.

Long Day!

Wow, it was a long one today. In fact, most of the youngsters are still out for dancing and such -- I am quite happy to be back in the room and readying for bed. So, today:

Turns out that there were multiple thefts last night, probably during dinner. I feel a little bad, as mine was the least of the losses (the others were all electronic equipment), but we were all issued gift certificates for the local bookshop as sort of "no hard feelings" gifts -- Very considerate. I'm actually enjoying it a little, as I have been interviewed by the police and, now, they want to do a forensic run in the morning in all of our rooms. Pretty exciting stuff. Also funny, the boarding house gave us all bottles of wine by way of apology, which was good for a chuckle for me until I realized that I was thusly forearmed with a gift to bring for the "soirée" that we had tonight. True serendipity.

This morning, we had a somewhat painful presentation about the catalog system but then I was able to spend several hours with the map librarian and in the map collection at the Bodleian. There is some very interesting and cool stuff therein and I had a great time.

Some of the surprisingly cool things I encountered were some very early mountaineering maps and a collection of recently declassified survey maps of the former Soviet Union; It's amazing how, even now, our (as in the West) map coverage for Eastern Europe and Russia is still decades behind our knowledge of the rest of the world. Funny.

Also funny is the fact that we gained some of our map knowledge during the cold war by covertly excavating Russian army latrines (which, evidently, was something that the Soviets -- if they knew about it -- regarded as being of low threat value). The deal was that the Russian army was very stingy with toilet paper. What they did issue, though, were a lot of highly disposable maps for field use. Well, once the TP ran out, the maps were pressed (and, you know, pressed) into service and thrown down the toilet. As one thing follows another, there were then British spies digging around in the filth to recover the maps. Not exactly James Bond, but I guess it worked.

I could go on and on about the maps, but I'll just say that it was very interesting, very stimulating, and very encouraging for a prospective scholar. Maps, you see, are considered a special collection, so that would give me a specialty within the category of "special." But, then again, there's still rare books. And conservation. And archives. Sigh. What's a guy to do?

In the afternoon, we toured the libraries of two colleges: All Soul's and Christ Church. Both were very nice. The former was, perhaps, a bit more impressive on an aesthetic and technical lever. The latter was cool because lots of Harry Potter was filmed there, including several quiddich and staircase scenes. The dining hall was also the inspiration for the cinematic Hogwart's dining hall, and you can tell. Also, Christ Church was the school at which Lewis Carroll was teaching as he wrote the Alice books, based upon the Dean's daughter.

We also took a break for some tea in the room which once housed the University's first library and, indeed, the first library in Britain. A few other lesser-known folks also hung around in the place, from John Wesley to the chaps who founded OxFam in the '40s. Oh, man, I've also learned some mad information about the post-war food rationing in the UK, but I'll save that for elsewhere.

Finally, we had a dinner party with some faculty and peers. It was a good time, mostly notable for the EXCELLENT food. Cucumber mousse is amazing. I was a little burned out towards the end due to my increasing tiredness and the ever-growing schism of volume and boisterousness between we non-drinkers and those whose casbahs were rockin'. It was all good, though. I am now home and ready, again, for bed.

Some tools of the conservator's trade.













A bad picture of Christ Church dining hall.


















Look, I'm wearing a suit!













I'm afraid that I cheated on Humphrey with this British hussy. She was very insistent that I scratch her ears. A lot. In typical fashion, though, she left before I even had a chance to learn her name...









She had places to go, and lawns to oversee.

Speaking of security...

Alas, my room was lightly pillaged today -- All of my change and cash that was not on my person was taken (not much, maybe 15pounds). I suppose that, since I've never had anything stolen form me, even in really scummy hostels, I was just about due.

Anyway, I'm really not too worked up about it because I had my laptop locked up and the camera on me, so there really wasn't anything else of value with which to abscond. My roommate's stuff was unmolested (which is good for him, since he went from no luggage --> injured knee --> sore throat plague during the first week here; he needed the break).

I'm pretty sure it's a situation wherein a former employee has a key, and there have been a few other mysterious events that sort of raised my eyebrows: Someone hurled in an upstairs hallway, for example. It's easy to put together an imaginary profile of the guilty party.

So, the loss is reported but it's really not that big of a deal.

In other news, we went to the Sheldonian Theatre today, which is where modern matriculations and degree ceremonies are held. We had a series of Rare Book presentations that were, to be honest, a little dry but still lots of fun. The durability of older materials still impresses me, especially some 500-year-old Chinese texts that we were looking through which were as flexible and durable as a glossy magazine (and, in fact, the nature of that particular paper weave responds most favorably to being folded over in a manner which sort of makes one cringe at first sight). They'd also been stored in a camphor chest, which gave them a really strange smell. Cool stuff.

Some librarians looking at a 13th century bible. The print in this manuscript was tiny and it's extremely rare to find a bible of that era in such a "portable" format.

Here's some trivia for you: We're not wearing white gloves because it turns out that the loss of dexterity caused by wearing them tends to inflict more damage than skin oil ever could. In theory, when you see somebody at an auction house or wherever wearing gloves, they've been trained in their use.



From the cupola on top of the Sheldonian Theatre: The City of Dreaming Spires.

Misc:

1. My grades for last semester were posted and they came out very well... I may yet have a shot at the honor society.
2. I've just received my permission to visit the Map Room at the Bodleian tomorrow, which is something I've been looking forward to for quite some time.
3. I've noticed that most banks in the UK offer even basic savings interest returns of 6-6.5% annual, typically with balances as low as 2500pounds. Interesting.
4. Oh, I want to mention, for those parties who might be interested in such things, there is some mad shopping to be done in Oxford and, of course, London. One of my fellow librarians went on some sort of insane shoe-buying mission in London yesterday and was gushing about the experience. What I like is that, for every new or upscale or contemporary store, there is a hole-in-the-wall with nifty antiques and strange tchotchkes sandwiched between dusty books and random medieval weaponry. Cool stuff.

Wow. Random things one learns from the BBC

Did you know that Julia Louis-Dreyfus (of "Seinfeld" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine" fame) is a billionaire heiress of some candy fortune? Wacky.

Sunday means: "No Books For You!"

Alas, the libraries were closed (and, by closed, I mean chained and barred -- It's pretty impressive) today, so I slept in until 8am and did some laundry. I passed the balance of the day roaming around, eating a pasty (mmmm, Pasty... Cornwall's greatest contribution to the world, just ahead of King Arthur and those wee little chickens), reading, and watching the rowers warm up for the big races this Wednesday (more on that, later, but if you're curious, it's Eights Week). The weather was very warm and very clear and I feel tired from so much strolling but very recharged and ready for the coming week o' library madness -- One thing that I haven't done is outline my paper for this class, which I'd planned to do today. I have some ideas, though, and I'm not too concerned about it.

Also, note to the wary: Mushy peas do not taste like peas that have been mushed.


OK, some quick pictures:

This goose was worrisomely convinced that I was withholding bread.

In the background, crew on the River Isis (which is the somehow pretentious name for this small stretch of the Thames).










Directly behind me = (Meadow + Cows)Beautiful Church. And families with kids who babbled on and on in an absolutely, and ridiculously, cute accent ("Please, Mummy, may I feed the lovely duckies?")








Radcliffe Camera, as seen from the top of St. Mary the Virgin (an awesome and ancient church). It is also part of the library system, and I've been through the super-secret book transport tunnels in the basement. And, alas, it's not open to the public.

Thank you for not smoking

Oh, I should also mention that, as of July 1, there will be no more smoking in any public building or space, anywhere in the country. It'll be interesting to see how that affects pub culture here.

Also, for those who care, the most widely-viewed domestic football game of the year was today (a superbowl?), and Chelsea beat Manchester United 1-0 after extra time.

Family Day

Well, it's 7:30p.m. and I've just arrived back from the train station. I had a very nice trip to Lichfield to visit John and Andrew and Julie and the respective families. Everyone seems healthy and happy and it was great to reconnect with them all.

John's new (to me, at least) place is quite lovely and roomy, complete with a very tidy garden and a shiny red mini in the garage. In an impressive bit of technical know-how, he's in the process of applying his tinkerer's tendencies towards digitizing his LP and cassette collection. Oddly enough, I've plans to undertake the exact same project back home. Great minds and all that. Actually, I found myself noticing quite a few similarities of personality and habit that have trickled down to me. Very cool.

Andrew and his sweet, math-teacher, fiancee, Lisa drove us to the ol' Malt Shovel pub, where we met Mark and Julie and Danielle and Amy for lunch. Julie's family lives about 1/4 mile from the pub, and are in the midst of refurbishing a new (to them) house. At the moment, they are living in two rooms but soldiering through with an impressive display of good humor. Julie is keeping a journal of the project by scrawling updates on the entryway hall; quite amusing. Today's excitement was an adventure involving an inadvertently walled-in cat who refused to leave the new kitchen superstructure.

I have been charged, in no uncertain terms, with the task of convincing Mom and Suzie to go for a visit -- Possibly next summer, once Julie's house is finished. I must say that I like the idea of planning a trip and bringing along Taylor and all of our various family members, but I realize that the logistics of such a campaign would be quite a little project.





Amy, John, Julie, Mark, Pixie (who is 21 years old!), Danielle, Andrew, and Lisa.









Unfortunately, Danielle's new boyfriend was not along, but I was able to find this artist's concept, which according to Mark, is a very close surrogate (although slightly less green):

Oh, one technical note

It looks, at a glance, that some of the pictures I've posted have disappeared. I'll try to take a look at it this weekend.

Special plant ghost day

Today, we had an excellent trio of presentations, dealing with Special Collections, Conservation, and Preventative Conservation/Emergency Planning. The first speaker, Richard Ovenden, was very engaging both because of his presentation and because I suspect that he might just have something like my dream job.

This trip is actually helping me to solidify some of my ideas about just what kind of a librarian I might want to become. To begin with, I am very glad that I am embarked upon the Library Science, in contrast to Information Science, path at UNC. It suits my interests and, just as importantly, is definitely the path to a properly portable pedigree.

Anyway, I'm definitely leaning towards Special Collections (well defined by the University of Idaho as, "...includ(ing) those materials that, because of subject coverage, rarity, source, condition, or form, are best handled separately from the General Collection"). In other words, the fun, random, fragile, dangerous, ephemeral, and, well, special stuff in a library or museum. I may or may not dip a toe into archives, as well -- And, from there, into digital archives, by extension, and thereby edge somewhere near the Information Science universe, anyway.

I also was struck by the thought that I would really like to learn everything that there is to know about library, museum, archive, and general facility security. After all, I do spend a significant amount of time in such places considering how I would go about breaking into them after hours.

After the morning sessions, we visited the Oxford Botanical Gardens, which rocked. They are a "physics garden" and considered a library of sorts, which means that it is a working laboratory garden, complete with a vast range of medicinal and edible plant life. Not to bang the Tolkein drum too much, but it was also a favorite place for him to hang out (and I have a picture of the tree which inspired the Ents, too). It's also a notable location towards the end of the His Dark Materials books, which I just finished again and were much better the second time through. I have a million and four pictures of the gardens, but most of them wouldn't be well served by webification.

I then wandered some of the book shops around town, pondered buying an Oxford mug for Andi (SPOILER ALERT: I didn't), grabbed a street kabob, and met up with some other librarians for Bill Specter's Ghost Trail, which rocked. Some late night tea at the Rewley House common room and I am, again, tired. I hope that the "I'm knackered" theme isn't too annoying to read in post after post. I should clarify that my "tired" is a good tired.

S'alright, I'm about done for the evening. I bought a 3-pound book called the "Xenophobe's Guide to Americans," which is pretty amusing in a sociological sort of way. Oh yeah, I also got to play around with a strange polymer produced by some company called Tyvek that makes inert gel out of water in a ludicrously absorbent fashion. Pretty cool stuff for flood-fighting in one's book stacks.

*Yawn*

Oh, by the way, I am skipping a Cotswolds trip in order to save them for a future visit with Andrea (HINT). And, of course, the ol' filthy lucre factor.

One more one more thing:

I found this in Oxford. As it's late and I'm beat, please write your own comedic material:

One more thing

I have made contact with Uncle John and will be doing lunch with him in Lichfield on Saturday. I'm really psyched!

One other thing: My "no-TV" roomie is watching Lethal Weapon 2 on ITV. I had either forgotten or repressed how absurd that movie is, in both good and bad ways.

OK, 'night.

Thoughts after a second serving of London

The Millennium Bridge

London has changed significantly in the 9 years since I was last here (has it been 9 years? wow): It is cleaner, newer, and considerably reconstructed. It seems odd, especially since I am exactly the same as I was then, but never mind that.

As a footnote, Andi will be interested to hear that there is nary a trace of the printed smut that we used to make fun of; No soft-core fliers or magazines lining the news stands.

Much of what I've noticed may well be the result of post-millennium cleanup (not to mention the pending overhaul for the '12 Olympics -- which, by the way, is drawing out the whole budget of the same department which addresses library funding here. Yikes!)

Some dorks:

St. Pauls

After the library, I finally made it to the inside of St. Paul's Cathedral. It was very impressive, almost worth the 8.50-pound ($17.00!!!) entry fee. There are some amazing sights both within and, after one mounts the 434-odd stone stairs to the top of the dome, without. I took three pictures of Florence Nightengale's grave for Andi, but the no-flash rule resulted in a series of duds. I also lit a votive for Emma, as it struck me that she might like the thought of being thought of in the English national church.

British Library

We took off bright and early for the coach to London, arriving at the British Library around 9:30ish. Although I thought the "Love Boat" architecture was iffy when viewed from the outside, the inside is gorgeous. Throughout the day, a choir of madrigals were singing in the atrium, which lent an otherworldly and sublime air to the whole place. I saw the oldest known printed manuscript in the world, a 10th century copy of Beowulf, a first edition of Richard III, and a few other of those kinds of boring, coffee-table-type, books. For some reason, I actually choked up a bit when looking through an Alexander Pope translation of the Illiad; I could actually feel the weight of the man's hand pressed into the paper. Truly amazing and an absolute high point of this experience.

The King's Library, George III's vast donation to Britain.












Almost as cool was this hard-core librarian porn:

Check out the retrieval system for the books that get pulled up from the buried stacks.

British versions of those horrible Mac ads

I can't decide if these are better or worse than the American ones: http://www.apple.com/uk/getamac/ads/

How did this post turn out to be so long?

Today, we had a presentation from the Head of British Collections at the British Library in anticipation of our visit there, tomorrow (which, by the way, means that we'll be in London and I'll be offline until Friday). It was a good talk, although I got a curiously evasive reply when I asked him about their UKWAC (sort of the UK union archive) data storage and redundancy. Apparently, they're currently outsourcing everything to corporate third party but have vague plans to bring it all back in-country at some point in the future -- Somehow that seems unlikely, especially once they've offloaded terabytes of data.

Oh well, I encountered something similar when asking the head of the Oxford Digital Library about their partnership with Google and just how "black-box" the OCR QA technology is. That may not mean anything to you, but it definitely demonstrates how significantly the UK libraries are leaning on outside sources to leverage their digital initiatives. Of course, that kind of information is always shrouded by non-disclosure legal stuff, anyway.

We also had an interesting talk with one of the heads of the London Libraries Development Agency, as well as a lecture from the Assistant Director of the University of Bristol about her studies regarding the integration of Academics and Librarians in the various strata of UK higher ed.

Then, we attended a tour of the Oxford University Press and fondled some lead type and first-edition Lewis Carroll. Interestingly, the OUP doesn't actually print anything, themselves, any more. They resell the physical printing and binding to hundreds of smaller shops around the world.

Finally, I made a solo run-through of the Ashmolean Museum (mind you, I haven't had to walk more than two blocks for any of this), which was pretty cool, though much limited due to the extensive renovations that are underway. Then, a quick stop by Sainsbury's for some trail mix and I'm back here prepping for dinner.

Tonight, I believe, some of us are going to go dig around one of the nearby libraries (the Sackler library, perhaps). Alternately, there is also a crew going to the Eagle and Child pub, which -- known locally as the "Bird and Baby" -- was the hangout for those "Inkling" malcontents, especially C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein (speaking of whom, did you know he did much of the editorial work on the Ws in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, due to his philological mastery of Germanic and Scandinavian languages? I actually read a letter he'd written about the etymology of the word, "hobbit," today.)

Whew! OK, I'm off for food. The weather has been cloudy but dry and I understand that tomorrow is going to be sunny, humid, and hot.

Cheers!

It's Late

I should mention that the lectures have been pretty stimulating... This huge library system and university is grappling with a very interesting set of issues. I'll write a bit more about it when it's not so late.

Two unrelated things:

One, I am so grateful for the ability to walk. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it is so cool to be able to just amble around and over and through. Despite a creaky knee, I started having some dim fantasies about planning a tip-to-tip hike of the UK some day. Perhaps right after the lottery plan comes together?

Two, the sobriety thing has actually been great. We went to a pub today and I had just as much fun ordering soda and lime at the bar as I ever did ordering anything alcoholic. After that and then the wine at the reception, there were some chatty (and wobbly) librarians in my party and it randomly struck me that I was quite satisfied without drinking. It's a nice feeling.

Anyhoo, my laundry is done but I'm behind on some reading for the paper that I need to write for this seminar -- I suspect that sleep will trump school, however. Goodnight!

Piper's Heaven

I have prettier pictures of this area (Port Meadow on the way to Wolverton), but this one, I suspect, would most appeal to Ms. Piper:

Friendly humans, off-lead dogs, both sunshine and rain, slow waterfowl, a gentle river, mud, sticks, balls, rowers... All that is good in life.







For you Inspector Morse fans, here are some cows next to the path to the Perch Inn.











The Thames

Some Oxford Prettiness

This is the hall of the old Divinity School, wherein we had a meet-and-greet reception this evening (the day after this picture) -- I wore the new suit, drank orange juice, ate Pringles ("Official Oxford University Pringles," I wonder?), and chatted with the faculty after being serenaded by a quartet of black-robed University Librarians.

Also, by the way, a set for Harry Potter and some other films.
















Christ Church Gardens

Swear words

In order to be a "Reader" at the Oxford University Library system, one must swear an oath to, among other things, not steal or deface the books, nor to kindle a flame within the library walls, nor to smoke (presumably tobacco).








This room has served as the Parliament for both university and --on occasions of plague and instability -- the United Kingdom, itself. Sort of a nifty place to swear fealty to the ol' "Republic of the Learned."

But it turned out alright...

Now that's a good looking library... It has been in continuous use of one sort or another since 1602, but there is evidence that there has been a library on the site for significantly longer.

Scaffle!

I was worried when I saw the dreaded scaffolding:

Librarians on Parade

Rewley House

I am installed in my residence, which is decent for a dorm apartment. Despite early signs indicating a solo assignment, I do, in fact, have a room-mate (Pete, who actually lives about two miles away from Andi and me in Chapel Hill). No biggie. It just means that I will have to curb my BBC immersion, as Pete is of the anti-television persuasion. Also no biggie.

Actually, I feel pretty bad for Pete, as he is not only jet-lagged, but also luggage-less. I tried to foist a shirt and tie off on him for dinner, but he's a bit to large for my hand-me-overs.

I suppose that I should mention that Oxford is amazing. It has an excellent level of functional, exciting, city life that nicely balances the seductively beautiful weight of history and tradition. Plus, it has that globally ubiquitous aura of an academic town -- Although I have a variety of opinions on the matter, it is somewhat reassuring to feel the same lefty, compassionate, silly, and naive vibe that wouldn't be unfamiliar to someone from Boulder, Chapel Hill, or Berkeley.

Oh, yeah: I can report that Serbia did, in fact, win this year's Eurovision (http://www.eurovision.tv/) contest. And no, I doubt that anyone here cares about it any more that you do.

Some pictures

In no particular order, with no particular significance:

Me at Trafalgar Square

Brad (who does not have a ponytail, despite how this looks)














The palatial Chez Doran (the thrilling experience of which Andi and Amy, sadly, missed)

London Calling

The flight was excellent: On time, good food, and a spare seat. I slept for at least five hours, so life is good. Brad and I met up with only minor delay and I'm now at his place for some tooth-brushing, etc., before heading into London for some tourist action. Brad is doing well and obviously loving his Euro-centric lifestyle -- We had a great conversation about his theories on Plutocracy on the way in from the airport. We also talked about the recovery situation, which was cool.

His place is nice, in my humble opinion, and well suited to his nomadic lifestyle. I'll try to take some pictures later.

In other news:

• It appears that my cell phone is not working; I will address that once I'm at Oxford.
• Uncle John emailed me back and it looks like I'll be able to see him next weekend.
• It's sunny!

Weather in Oxford looking pretty good...

Suited up, etc.

Well, I am now the proud owner of a pair of suits. I suppose it's a necessary evil; I'm taking one along for the trip, as well as some other "dress-up" clothes. In a way, I really look at this as an opportunity to be thankful that I've been able to dodge the grown-up clothes bullet this far. There was a time when I thought that the idea of wearing business attire on a daily basis was tantamount to indentured servitude, but my stance on the subject has softened somewhat. If nothing else, suits and ties can go a long ways towards taking the guesswork out of wardrobe selection.

Anyhoo, I have a non-clothing pile of books and electronics to pack and plans to stuff a few pieces of luggage in the morning. As I will be unable to pick up the new suits until tomorrow at noon, the final packing will necessarily be last-minute, anyway.

Starting to get excited!

Overview deux

Well, I am still a few days out from Oxford. I'm excited, but not mind-blowingly so. I expect that will change as the date approaches. I think that the nice lil' break I've been enjoying these last few days has contributed to a general sense of relaxed preparedness. Speaking of which, if you're a real glutton for this, I've thrown a copy of my packing list up at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pzOfLAC3ZZyr7pdTIincPIw&hl=en_US

That's about it for the posts for now. More to come once I actually hit the road.

So, the overview:

OK, here are some important dates for my summer. I may or may not start actively publishing my Google calendar (mostly depending on whether or not I bother to finish setting up my Outlook replication).

May 10 : Leave Chapel Hill
May 11 : Arrive London
May 13 : Arrive Oxford
May 28 : Back Home

June 2-6 : Denver for Special Library Association conference
June 21-July 24 : Summer Class Session II
June 21-27 : ALA National Conference in Washington D.C. (this one probably won't happen)

Early August : Oregon Trip
August 13 : Probable EPA Start date
August 20 : Fall Semester Start

Mission Statement

Well, I have decided that one blog is not sufficient to circumscribe my massive ego, so welcome to another chance to ignore some ramblings... Seriously, though, I'm starting this blog as a way to share some thoughts about my experiences this summer. I will try to post semi-regularly.

My general blog lingers on at It's OK (shanewallace.blogspot.com). I expect to pretty much neglect its care and feeding for the foreseeable future.

As always, some variation of the usual rules apply to Sic Transit Shane:

1. I'm too lazy to prepare drafts of my entries, so expect the standard errors of grammar, spelling, and opinion. Please don't judge me too harshly. Or, if you do, keep it to yourself.
2. I almost never write anything with an agenda of malice or anger (not because I'm genuinely serene or compassionate; it's mostly because I don't want to disturb the illusion that I'm a nice guy). If you happen to read something that seems nasty, the odds are that I've simply failed at an attempt to be humorous or ironic.