My Dear Moo-Pa

Here is a message that my Dad sent me for Thanksgiving:

Hi princess,

Just a quickie to wish you happy thanksgiving. I hope those pesky redskins bring you plenty of traditional Indian grub to last you through the winter so that, come springtime, you can set about God's task of distributing smallpox-infected blankets and sending out the cavalry to deal with them for protesting at having their land taken away by God's chosen people... (I have got the essence of this festivity right, haven't I?).

Aah, I love my father. My parents also just sent me a choccie advent calender with festive teddies on the front. One of the teddies is eating a pretzel. Aww...

Seasonal Bloody Musings

Another sharp cold day today. It snowed and hailed yesterday, and everyone got very excited; I think it snows here about as often as it does in England, and you know how manic we get at the merest whiff of a snowflake. Today there's no snow, just the temperature drop.

I was walking through the grounds today, everything quiet, and I noticed this odd noise coming from the trees. Kind of a scratching, scraping, creaking noise. I thought, are the branches rubbing together? Is this a new kind of winter grasshopper? I eventually realised it was the sound of the dozens of squirrels in the trees surrounding me, chewing nuts. There are so many fecking squirrels on campus! They really don't mind the human presence either. I mean, squirrels on the UEA campus are bold, but not enough so you can hear them bloody chewing.

I went to the supermarket today, and they were playing Christmas carols, interspersed with warm announcements about how a particular product of theirs embodies the family spirit of Christmas, and is coincidentally $1.99 off this week. When they started playing Walking in a Winter Wonderland, I almost chewed through my scarf in frustration. The playing of premature Christmas carols in stores is one of my biggest pet hates of all time.

Somehow the impertinence of the squirrels and the terrible music got associated in my mind, and I got very annoyed at them both for encroaching on my own personal winter space. I am just generally feeling grumpy today though. I guess the chompy squirrels were fun.

Innocent Turkey= Tasty Dinner!

Oh dear, I forgot to write about my first American Thanksgiving. I was really looking forward to this momentus event in the days before it: I tried to think Thanksgiving-y thoughts, and watched Pieces of April, to get in the mood. As it turns out, it was a very lovely holiday. I went to my host family's house for the meal, along with Danni and Charlotte, their other foreign exchange hostees, (Danni is from Romania, and I've probably mentioned Charlotte, light/bane of my life, before).

The family presence was John and Jennifer, their two children Willa and Hayden, John's sister Linda with her husband Howard and 16 year old son Adam. They were all friendly people and we had some good dinner conversation; apparently Adam talked more than he usually does in the presence of three glamourous foreign college women. The food was delicious: such Thanksgiving staples as yams, mashed potatos, gravy, turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. We snagged plenty of leftovers too, to be heated up and eaten later in the evening. I'm feeling hungry right now just thinking about it.

Since Christmas seems to start as soon as Thanksgiving is over, the next afternoon we all went downtown to see the Christmas tree lights being turned on. Hundreds of people were all gathered in Pioneer Square, listening to soul versions of carols and waiting for Santa and the Mayor to join together in plugging in the fairy lights: a magical moment! The giant tree was decorated simply in hundreds of little gold lights, to match those already lighting every tree lining the streets of the city. Portland at night is gorgeous right now, y'all.

The American Day

It is one of those crisp early winter days today. A wide blue sky with wisps of cloud, a chill in the air, leaves still clinging to the trees, and everything bright and clear. The campus is almost deserted as everyone has gone home for Thanksgiving, and there's no food to be had either. Went up the road to Mickey Finn's in Woodstock and had a short stack of pancakes for breakfast, yum yum. I felt pleasantly saturated with sugar. Following breakfast Charlotte and I went to the Bubble Tea place, because a trip to Woodstock is wasted without Bubble Tea. They seem to know us there now, and we have an impressive number of stamps on our loyalty cards. The rest of today I will spend trying to get some work done. I am reading Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, also Grice's Logic and Conversation: both pretty dull. At least everything is quiet today.

Bubble Tea vignette:

"Do you think Bubble Tea counts as a meal, or a drink?"
"Well it certainly isn't a square meal."
"But it is more than a drink."
"I think you could call it an experience."

P.s. They seem to know us in Mickey Finn's too, because we keep coming in for quiz night. Also today I noticed that all the lamps over the tables are in the shape of salmon.

Queer Prom and Basketball

Man, I had a great time last weekend. I did no work whatsoever of course, but carpe diem, tempus fugit blah blah nevermind. On the Friday afternoon I went to a random screening of Saved! in the Physics building and then realised it was run by the Reed Interfaith Council. We had a discussion about the religious issues of Saved! and they took all our names and sneakily put them on the Interfaith Council mailing list. Friday evening was a wine-tasting evening- Beaujolais- run by the French House. Upon arriving at the SU, I promptly ditched my under-21 friends and proceeded to drink an awful lot of wine, all evening. There was a particularly piquant Cabernet Sauvignon, but I was only sober enough to realise this for about half an hour before it all turned into wiiiiine... Ended up in the French House, talked in a pissed manner to half the members of my Empire and the Novel class, got back to the dorm about 5.30am.

I felt about as good as a mouldy flannel the next day, and let that be the moral. On Saturday evening we all went to the Queer Prom in the SU. We got somewhat dressed up and had a little drinkie beforehand, (at least mine was little, but where did all my Southern Comfort go, Charlotte?!) Queer Prom was mostly just a massive dance party with conversation on the periphery- is that what Senior Prom is about do you think? The music was just the right mixture of cheese, danceability and semi-coolness. It has been reported that I danced like it was 1999, all night long. During the prom they crowned Prom Queen, Prom King, Best Couple and Best Genderfuck, (as in, "Is it a girl? Is it a guy? Is it something in between?", according to the compere, Pookie. An amazing Wildean drag queen with a cane won that.) The cool thing about Queer Prom is that it wasn't just a gays-only thing, there were straight, queer, bi people there; people dressed up, dressed-down, dragged up, drunk, and sober. Most everyone basically. It was generally just a really inclusive, friendly party atmos. Good old Reed.

On Sunday I mostly slept all day, but in the afternoon I went to a basketball game with Garan, Charlotte, Alice, Bryson, Asha, Noah and Leon (Leon?) Portland Trailblazers versus Dallas Mavericks; Trailblazers lost after a tense game. Now, I am not exactly a follower of sports, but this was amazing fun. I think it was the snazzy stadium, the cheerleaders, the snackfood, and the cinema atmosphere; so festive! The stadium was huge, but you got a great view of the court, and it was really fast-paced. I think we're going again week after next, I am so looking forward to it. The girls took pictures of the game, but they are using them as blackmail, since they won't let me have them until I get Facebook. Bah.

Harvest Ball

Well this is a little late for Halloween, but never mind. Here are some photo links for the Harvest Ball, yay! First is a picture of we three English girls altogether. Charlotte is dressed as a cheesy tourist, Alice as a sexy Flamenco dancer, and I am dressed as some kind of English stereotype (I started with the pocketwatch concept and worked from there, whilst cannily reusing items from Alice T's birthday party last year).

The second is a group photo of everyone hanging about in MacNaughton before the ball. I look like a lone alcohol drinking alcoholic, what with holding a beer photo-central, but this is not the case. I'd tell you who everyone is, but that would be tedious and you don't know them, do you?

Third, we have Vasiliy being a Reed student and Jennifer as threatening cowgirl. I think Vas had a T-shirt which had "I am a Reed student" written on it or something. Reminds me of that Halloween ep of Buffy where Oz went as God, with a little name sticker. Not that I am suggesting Reed=God (we're all atheists here)...

Girl as piece of pie. I can't remember her name, but I thought this was representative of the inventiveness and wackiness of the Reed Halloween costumes.

Charlotte as grinning tourist, with Erin as priest. He got a Bible out of the library and kept waving it at people, it was really funny. Erin, (I don't know why he's called Erin rather than Aaron by the way, but they sound the same over here anyway), is sarcastic and laconic with this slow deep voice expressing quiet amusement and slight contempt. He's awesome! And proves that they do make sarcastic Americans.

Nick as a penguin, Mullet Guy as a more 70s version of Mullet Guy. Yes, that is his real hairdo.

Josh as 70s porn director looking lascivious, Charlotte the tourist looking like she'd rather wander off and eat some candy corn. I just think this is a really funny photo.

And in my final photo, we have Pavel as one of the Teletubbies (he has a red thingy on his head and a hatch on his stomach, but he mostly just looked like the devil. He has a devilish laugh too. Ha, and the next day he had a small patch of red paint on his back that he couldn't reach to get off.) Also Jessica as a dominatrix, and Alice again as a flamenco type, they both looked really good.

So yes, that was Harvest Ball, and some of the fine people I hang out with. It was a great time, and proves that the Halloween experience is really well done over here. I think I'd like to spend Halloween in the States every year.

Notes on Food: Part III

Food and beverages that I miss from back home:

Sherbet lemons
Jaffa cakes
Sunday dinner- Yorkshire puddings!
Non-sugary bread
Cadbury Mini rolls
Galaxy chocolate, Galaxy Caramel
Twinings tea- if Steven Fry likes it, it's OK by me.
Kopparburg pear cider- Wetherspoons, the pub you love to hate.
A pint of Carling in tandem with:
McCoy's salt n' vinegar crisps.
Maltesers
A R Jones's cornish pasties
Chocolate brazils- pref. M&S
Jagerbombs, a bazillion more kinds of alcohol (they were anti-British and rejected my drivers license in the pub last night. Me, in most dejected voice possible: "I guess I'll have a Sprite then...")

Hamster! Squee!!

Hannah, Charlotte and I have made possibly the worst/best decision of our young adult lives: we plan to get a dorm hamster. We will all contribute to costs, Hannah and Charlotte will take it in turns to have the hamster in their rooms and clean it and feed it, (I refuse to put any effort into this at all), and Hannah will have it in future years when Charlotte and I return to England. Names suggested for the hamster so far: Huckleberry, Abraham, and Dave. Countdown to purchase of the hamster: T-minus four days. This could be a terrible idea, and of course I will have to look after the rodent over the Christmas break. I'll keep you updated...

In other news, it has been raining here for a solid week, or as Charlotte put it, "about five million bloody years". I wish I hadn't left my beautiful umbrella in Seattle. Oh well, I had a good time at the weekend scampering about in the downpoar.

Ape Cave: Creepy

So last weekend the wonderful Gray Fund ran a trip to Ape Cave, which is a several mile long lava tube running off Mount St.Helens, a couple hours drive outside Portland. A lava tube is formed when you get a massive stream of lava flowing away from a volcano, and then the lava on the outside hardens to form a crust over the still-molten lava on the inside. When the stream of molten lava slows and then stops, you're left with a long, regular tunnel such as Ape Cave. (How was my explanation? Geology isn't my strong point.)

Upon reaching the Ape Cave parking lot we had to hike a mile or two up to the entrance to the cave, then climb down a ladder into a narrow, cold passageway which continued in the same grey, cold, fairly regular fashion for another mile or two, roughly downhill. We were provided with helmets and headlamps, which is good because it was absolutely pitch black down there. No guides, (no branching passageways), no tours, and no lamps on the walls. It was utterly bizarre, and rather reminded me of the London Underground, both tubes being more or less the same size and shape. The lava had left odd ridge-like formations which occasionally looked like a car, or in fact a tube train, had run through the tunnel.

I have actually been to Ape Cave before, on a family vacation to Oregon when I was about 12, but none of it looked that familiar. This is mostly my crap long-term memory, but also because I'm pretty sure that when I was 12 we only took the lower cave. The lower cave is shorter and further down the hill, and easier to walk. This time we obviously had to take the upper cave as well, which involves far more scrambling over boulders and navigating small cliffs, (with minimal light, remember). It was harder-going than I anticipated, but I loved hiking along in the creepy darkness. At one point I was separated from my group, so I turned off my lights and waited in the pitch black for a while, listening to the distant echoing of voices and ceiling drips, and thinking the most ghoulish thoughts I could manage. Marvellous!

Space Turtles

I think this place must finally be getting to me. The other day we spent about half an hour discussing the practicalities of living inside a turtle (issues: storage space, plumbing, the turtle wanting his shell back.) I don't fully understand why, but this was the major topic of dinner conversation for the whole table, attacked with typical Reed verve.

Distinctly Reed things that have happened to me lately: at a party last Friday I kindly bought a six-pack of, ahem, beverages for some under-21 year olds, but then lost sight of them before they could pay me. Oh well, says I, there goes $8.50, chalk it down to experience you gullible English. But then today the youths tracked me down and gave me $10! "I don't have change" I said; "Buy yourself something pretty!" they said. What honesty and generosity!

The whole Harvest Ball for Halloween was very Reed. It was your basic posh dancy ball, except everyone had the most demented and fantastic costumes I have ever seen. The whole do was worth it just for the people watching. Observed; a piece of pie, two separate (Where's) Wallys, a woodnymph (topless and painted green, very Reed), a football hooligan, assorted comic book characters, etc etc. Reediest of all: someone went as a semi-colon; my favourite form of punctuation, awesome. Everyone looked so amazing, and I had a really good time! They do a better job of Halloween over here, I must say. Mind, on Halloween night the whole affair had kind of run out of steam, so we just played Pictionary til half one in the morning. Also very enjoyable, Pictionary rocks.

The final Reed fixture is the Comic Book Reading Room, which is in the basement of the SU and just blows my mind every time I visit. The Reading Room gets in about every decent comic as soon as it comes out, and once they have a good number they send them off to the thesis binder, so you have an important-looking hardback representing every Love & Rockets ever, say, or about 4 shelves worth of Spiderman. Most every comic ever, all for free.

Aside from these diversions, all has been chugging along in the Reed class routine since Fall break. Oh, one more thing! The Scottish bloke we met in Seattle has been staying at Reed since the weekend. How cool is that? You meet someone randomly, they come stay: cultural exchange. Someone commented that this is very Studenty, which is just fine by me. Hamish is a decent sort, seems to have his head on his shoulders, but makes infrequent snide comments that unintentionally drive people up the wall (very funny).