My Life Outside (But Mostly Inside) the Library

Lear Quarto, for your viewing pleasure

Ready for another exciting episode of Kelly's Adventures in Oxford? Sit back, relax, maybe get some popcorn (if you're Janet) and allow yourself to be amazed by the magical world presented to you in these electronic pages...or just read my ramblings here like you normally do, probably with a slightly bored and/or confused expression as you wonder how I could possibly think you would be interested in quartos, literary criticism, or Star Driver.

Forging ahead! So as I mentioned in my recent post handing out geeky gold stars to the few people who deigned to play my ridiculous game last week, I was indeed coerced into attending the termly Geek Quiz. As for the results, well, there was good news and bad news. Good news: I was not (by a long shot) the geekiest person in the room. Bad news: I was not (by a long shot) the geekiest person in the room. So I was reassured that there are much, much more geeky people in the world than me, but that meant that I also couldn't help with that many of the questions. The format was pretty nice: 30+ people showed up and split into teams of five or six (I was on a team with Doc Soc people, btw; our team name was Doctor-Donna). Then if someone had written a round of questions they would stand up and ask all ten in succession while each team consulted amongst themselves and wrote down their best answers. Then the correct answers were read out and each team's score tallied.

I did not get any of the Star Trek trivia. Sorry guys, not my fandom.

Unfortunately, the flaw in this system became apparent (to me at least) quite quickly: viz. no one screens the questions beforehand. So we got some rounds that were fun and moderately challenging, involving things like viral videos, recent science fiction novels, &c, and others that were absolutely, utterly, impossible. One person brought a round on conspiracy theories (think Knights Templar) which was ridiculous, and someone else asked a round of questions involving 19th century French translations of Mary Shelley. Yeah. So overall my verdict was a decided shmeh; I don't think I would necessarily go again, unless it was for the sole purpose of asking a ridiculous round of seiyuu trivia out of revenge for the exasperatingly impossible questions some people brought in.

In other news, I have another installment to add to The Great Ethnic Food Quest:

Japanese food: Edamame
So I mentioned last week that this place was on my radar, and I finally made it this Friday. Good news, comrades! This place was pretty darn good. I would go as far as to say it is my first unmitigated success in this quest. The place is teeny-tiny - really, like 5 tables - and they really pack you in. Rice and miso aren't included with the entrees although they basically tell you to order them, which is kind of annoying, but then again I guess if you hated miso soup you would be stoked. I had salmon teriyaki (which is on the menu in the engrishy form of "samon teri"...yeah don't ask me) which was actually delicious, if slightly under-seasoned, although under-seasoned is the general state of food in the UK, so I can't single them out for it. Meagan, my ethnic food partner in crime, ordered tonkatsu and the katsu sauce came in its own little teapot - super cute! Or should I say, chou kawaii~!! The only drawback to this place is the completely bizarre distribution of opening hours: only open for dinner on Friday and Saturday, sushi only on Thursday, closed on Wednesday...yeah, what? Still, it was good, so SUCCESS!! Ethnic food can be good in Oxford!

English Faculty Library

In between such adventures as Geek Quiz and Edamame, of course, I've been hitting the library pretty hard. I'm in 6th week here and things are leaning towards intense. I spent all of Friday researching in the EFL (that's the English Faculty Library for those of you who don't speak Oxford) for my C-Course essay. I basically had to pull every single one-volume Shakespeare collection and photocopy the bits on Macbeth, so I am now a pro at the using the Bod PCAS (Bodleian Print Copy & Scan...see, we're learning) system and the copy machines in the EFL in general. I also got to feel like a super sleuth going through newspaper archives to track a particularly catty back-and-forth some academics were carrying out in the Letters to the Editor pages of the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) a few months back on the question of Middletonian authorship in Macbeth. No really, scholarly insults were flying. Here are a few samples of academics being children:

• "Vitriol is a poor vehicle for truth, and even a cursory examination of the 'evidence' in the TLS piece...reveals contradictions, gaps, and misrepresentations"
• "I am not worried that T might edit Macbeth again in the next Oxford Shakespeare - he has done his worst for that play - rather, concerned what may become of other texts subjected to such autocratic treatment"
• "Shakespeare deserves better than this," &c. &c.

Unfortunately, although I am discovering that this topic is more interesting than I thought, I am also discovering that there's a lot here. And from the perspective of a 15-20 pg paper due at the end of the term, it's looking a little looming and scary. I have, however, begged my C-Course professor to meet with me about it this week, so hopefully she will sort me out, because my title is due to the Exam Schools on Friday.

Corpus Christi, my supervisor's college. Pretty, right?

Meanwhile, that whole dissertation thing is sneaking up behind my back. Luckily my course adviser has decided to start pushing us little birdies out of her nest and found me a dissertation supervisor who wants to work on 1590s epyllia, so that definitely solves one problem for me. I was a little terrified because it was someone I'd never met or heard of, but I met him at for the first time earlier this evening at Corpus Christi, and he is pretty rad. He handed me a reading list right away, which is a big help, and gave me a task to complete by our next meeting: a 1500 word survey of the literature, focusing on recent criticism. This seems manageable and gives me some solid goal to focus on, which is great. He also seems pretty understanding about the C-Course essays, &c. Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful relationship. On the other hand, now I'm going to be in the library even more often, writing up that lit survey.

Now for something completely unrelated to literature and Oxford: music. So the new Hellogoodbye album dropped last week. Is anyone else listening to this piece of crap? I've been listening to it this week, specifically right now as I write this post, and I am disappoint. Okay, maybe "piece of crap" was a little harsh...it's not that the album is completely bad. The first song is relatively catchy, though I would say it's all downhill from there. It's just not Hellogoodbye. When I think of Hellogoodbye, I think of electronic pop. Where is the synthesizer in this album? Did they lose it? Did someone misplace it at their last gig? That's right, friends, Hellogoodbye has gone the way of Panic! At the Disco with their sophomore album - throwing the "dance" out of my dance rock, the "electronic" out of my electronic pop. Don't these bands realize that without this, they are just a generic alternative band? What happened to the Hellogoodbye of "Call n' Return"? Come back, please!

(I know, the lyrics video is tacky but it's about the song, people)

Setting my problems with the alternative music scene aside, Kenny's coming in this weekend for a visit to the land of crumpets AND Deathly Hallows comes out this Friday! As long as I can make it though 6th week unscathed, I have some fun times to look forward to in my hours outside the library. Tune in next time for my thoughts on the latest HP installment and perhaps some London adventures with Kenny!

Adios amigos,
KQ

You really thought you were gonna get away without a picture of Takuto this week? Please. Star Driver ftw!