Day 3: Cleaning, washing, and packing

Today's task is starting the top-to-bottom cleaning of the apartment prior to leaving for nine weeks. Ugh. I mean, hurray!

Today's discussion is exhibits in London. Yes, I'm buying tickets to London exhibits and programs as well. On my one night off, should I see a string quintet at St. Martin in the Field doing a predictable program of Baroque favorites (Vivaldi, Handel, Purcell, Pachobel) in what will undoubtedly be a fine concert and cheap, or get a ticket to Long Day's Journey into Night, the summer tourist version with David Suchet and Laurie Metcalf, 3 hours of O'Neill suffering? Should I plan a loooong day at the Victoria and Albert with lunch in the Morris Room (a favorite and always delightful) or branch out to 2 new, small museums? Ah, questions, questions.
What I'll do on Day 9: Well, we're back to the Sunday market at Richard Lenoir. Probably followed by some Tuileries action. I love to spend Sunday afternoon in the Tuileries with a book and some picnic items. A little walk through the allees, a sit by the pool to read and people-watch makes a perfect afternoon, unless it's raining.

It's also a great time to figure out the plan for the coming week, what I'll focus on in which archives.  Or just walk a new arrondissement.

Posted late!

No wonder I'm tired!

At the end of April, I find that I have accomplished the following just this month:

1. produced a festival of staged readings for six original plays by my students;
• including guest artists that I recruited and hired for the project;
• including original music compositions stemming from a collaborative class with student composers, that I initiated.
2. intiated and mentored the successful submission process resulting in $7,000 in grants and $5,000 in awards to playwriting students for community/creative projects.
3. directed the Ama Ata Aidoo reading at the international-scope African Literature conference on campus, in front of Aidoo just prior to her talk on human rights.
4. mentored the staged readings of three ten-minute plays inspired by Joan of Arc for a Medieval Studies/English/Women's & Gender Studies/Creative Writing class, a project in play for a year.
5. dramaturged an original play at one of the top local theatres.
6. completed three upperclass courses successfully.
7. found and rented an apartment in Paris for June, and made/confirmed all my travel plans to home, Paris and Oxford this summer.
8. deferred my taxes, paid my traffic ticket, joined Women in Film and completed my Search Committee assignment.

My reward?

I mean...

Elgin Marbles, at the British Museum, summer 2010

Finally posting pictures taken this past summer at British Museum. Beautiful things...

Oxford rooms

This was the way I walked into my rooms all summer. Jusr some random pictures for the end of Thanksgiving weekend.

Glass windows, University College, Oxford

These windows date from the 17th-century, made in Holland. They are not stained glass, but painted glass.

In order: Jonah and the whale, Jacob and the ladder, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac. Dig the funky whale.

Boat trip, Oxford

Some of my students from the summer, on a trip down the Isis.

Oxford Bikes, 2010

I just found a folder full of photos from this summer that I never uploaded. Bikes from Oxford's City Center.

Stonehenge 2010

This summer I managed to get some great pictures of the ancient site when we visited as a group. This was my fifth visit, and for the first time I actually captured the feeling of the site.

The weirdest thing is trying not to get the two streams of traffic surrounding the peaceful stones, the constant stream of visitors (us included) circling the stones and clicking away, and in general the ridiculousness of the noisy, superficial 21st century crashing up against the solid constancy of the unknowable prehistoric past.

Our students, unable to walk among the stones, to touch them or to confront them one-on-one, can only snap camera-phone pix and chatter about the same old/same old as they circle around, thru the gift shop, and back onto the bus. Somehow, even the small distance of the grass here, keeping us out of their ring, disconnects us from their magic: they seem "not real," of course, but in a surprisingly unsubstantial way. The magical facts given by the headsets don't connect us.

But the stones are beautiful, silent, patient, and there as we pass through... 

In two years, I'll be back and they be the same, except for infinitesimal loss. Can I say the same? Would I want to?

Nostalgia: One Year Ago

One Year Ago today I was flying to London, ready to start my Oxford summer semester and my Parisian sabbatical directly after that. Sigh.

It's been a great year, but a long one. Here's a photo from Oxford, of the building at University College where my rooms were.



Given the heat and nasty air here in DFW, I'd rather be there... but then what about the bike?
Pearl