We Have Hostages! (I mean 'Visitors'! 'Visitors'!)

Sarah, Belinda and Honor have arrived at last! A day later than expected (today is Belinda's 9th birthday. "Happy Birthday to yooou, Happy Birthday tooo yoooou!") but still enough time to be able to bug them properly.

I'm back on the sofa. What can you do.

It's late. Over and out.

Bombay Bicycle Club

I've just been typing up the last bit of the Oxford trip (pretty sensational stuff), but because it's rather a solid bit of writing I'm not quite finished. By way of a break I thought you might appreciate this video, I really like the music at the moment (although actually probably isn't the favourite of Bombay Bicycle Club songs) and the dancing in the video I think is really something.

I'm very suprised that it doesn't have more views. Do hope you like it.

Running Here, There and Everywhere (In Oxford) cont.

I was a tad worried heading up for dinner in the college hall. You've probably already fathomed that I'd arrived on my tod and since then had spotted a couple of other potential Open Day visitor-y-like people wandering about, mostly in groups.

I think I prefer organising/turning up to these sort of things (most sort of these sort of things) on my own. Not from any vaguely anti-social feeling in fact rather the opposite. It strikes me that arriving in a group is not particularly conducive to any form of social interaction with fellow Open Day-ees; they are hardly more likely to attempt the approach of a rather threatening looking crowd of Almost-Scots, whilst there is far less motivation to put in the effort trying to chat to anyone whom you don't know at all yourself.

Returning to the narrative.

Making sure to be on time, cleaned up and everything, trotted down to the hall if anything five minutes early and louged about in a casual manner with the two or so other people cool enough to have turned up. One of the organisers meandered over to where I had based myself and began trying to wheedle an intelligible conversation out of me. Needless to say this was an effort doomed to failure; two minutes in she chanced to mention the dinner ticket which had been doled out at our arrival.

Said ticket was naturally now languishing on the desk, all four floors up in my at-the-other-side-of-the-considerable-college-grounds room.

People were trickling about. The atmosphere, intense.

With the dire prospect of a ticketless plea for dinner now looming I did the heroic thing, I made a break for it.
Leaving the poor unsuspecting girl in a state of near-speechless shock, I strode away, reaching as far as the archway at the end of the hall which I was counting on to conceal the undignified sprint I immediately broke into.

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 A Brief Interlude

Just discovered a dried up contact lens beside the mouse-mat. How'd that get there?

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Self  in a slightly sweatier state ("eeeeewwww!". Ok, ok, calm it Janet.), safely sauntered into the serving space, secure in the assurance of the certainty of supper*. A lot of tasty looking stuff gets swifly piled onto my plate, then the daunting matter of a loner locating a socially acceptable seat.

A couple of girls who undoubtledly noticed my blank demeanor and misinterpreted it as having some meaning (possibly lost, not sure. Sorry! Too much parenthesis.) had the decency to beckon me over. They had acted in a sedate fashion in the queue so I judged it safe to draw near and deposit myself in their locale.

The remainder of dinner (which I feel I'm probably dwelling a bit too much over. It's simply to set the atmosphere.) passed relatively unremarkably. One of my newly introduced co-Magdalen-habiters was called Alice. Wrack my insignificant grey matter though I might, I can't remember the other. Megan? Susan? Ahh. :(
We indulged in idle chatter, marvelled at the unexpectedness of the flavour of a lime/lemon tart, discussed our present situation... and considering that I'm in danger of going off on a serious tangent, I shall take the opportunity my 'dot dot dot' affords, and skip ahead.

They generously consented to my presence for the rest of the evening. It was about 8pm, we tried to grab a quick tea from the local Starbucks, found that a group of their associates were roaming the town, dropped the -idea of- tea, linked up with said associates, grabbed a quick tea from the local Starbucks**, did some more roaming in the direction of acommodation and finally settled down to some pretty tense games of cards***.
Having alternately won and failed miserably, I slunk into bed with the comforting assertion that perhaps I wasn't an utter social pariah.

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* Enjoying some spontaneous alliteration. Minimal Thesaurus use *winks*.
** You haven't just gone back a few lines. Retain the will to keep reading.
***Snap not least amongst them.

 Starting on a new day and therefore -wait for it- an entirely new set of footnotes! Which I am now substituting in place of more disruptive forms of parenthsis.

After getting up distressingly early for a seriously devout jog, breakfast passed quickly in the presence of Alice and MeganorpossiblySusan*, we sat for a while contemplating a stray, drifting plastic bag, then bade our unintentionally last cheerios and headed off in various directions known only to ourselves.

Dumping my bags in the auditoreum and procuring a program of Magdalen college events, I set my sights on some rumoured Classics/Archaeology/Latin lectures/events and started to draw up a general mental plan of the day.

There were four C/A/L talks on the menu, of which I had thought only one would apply. However when I got there, I found the tutors so infectiously enthusiastic I sat in for three, spending my last sat in the hall with numerous bits of paper drafting up a finalized version of 'things to do' and torturing a number of students/tutors.

The first lecture was a basic introduction to the different courses on offer and a bit on admissions.

Following that, an incredibly enigmatic chap launched himself into a speech on Herodotus, by the end of which I was positively mourning my intention to embark on another course. I was experiencing a moment of black despair when a mere ten minutes from the end I heard him pull up suddenly, and apologise for his lack of concentration on the second part of the course, Classical Archaeology.
I profess myself elated.

The final talk was interesting, but not the stuff I am into myself. I'll press on.

The silly thing was then having to cross central Oxford to pick up my money -else go lunchless-, since I ended up back pretty much next to the Classics Department at one of the few quieter cafes left to Oxford this day. This did though provide the chance to stick my head into a couple of colleges (mostly Corpus Christie) I was hoping to take a shufti at but wasn't able to at present due to the impending interview with subject-you-are-interested-in tutors I had been automatically booked into at Magdalen*.

Then, as I said, lunch. And a sprint back to Magdalen.

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* But I think sadly neither.
** And one of which I had been fortunate enough to have met already at the Classics thingy (technical term).

Owing to it being nearly 11.15pm, my having had an early (6.30am) start, and an escalating headache, I'm going to have to call it a night.

This is very frustrating, there is so much happening NOW and I still have a fair-ish text to type on this!

Running Here, There and Everywhere (in Oxford).

When We Arrive.
I signed up to the Oxford Open Day newsletter aaaages ago. In fact I was getting a tad worried, it would have been very possible and typical of my luck to have accidentally sent it to the 'DELETED' folder in one grand sweep of my inbox.

These purges are conducted periodcally.

I digress. Long and short of it is, one fine morning as I was perusing my daily inflow of mail, it was with delight that I found myself scanning information regarding dates on which to show up for these Open Days. Speedy as a ninja (and having first confirmed with Papa that this was all well and good and truly ok) I pounced on the University website, following some deliberation carefully selected Magdalen and applied to stay overnight on the 26th/27th.

So, it was settled that three of us would go down on the train, Lyovka, Papa and I. I, because necesse erat, Papa because it was a nice idea and Lyovka because the nice idea extended to him.

I must say, the southward journey passed in a relatively uneventful fashion. Actually, I can't really remember it. Hmph.

The fun began on our arrival. Since I was staying over in Magdalen we first scooted over to where the other two were to be kipping down. One of the brilliant things I quickly rediscovered were the Latin inscriptions, everywhere! I realise that maybe some people think this is less than thrilling, but personally I find it a tad like being (at least partially) in on some sort of secret language, covert messages spread throughout the city. In other words, really quite exciting.
They were staying in a hall originally housing monks. As this had been mentioned to me already, naturally it slipped my mind. So whilst they were upstairs stowing their stuff I sat downstairs spotting more and more religious-y thingymigummies and finally declaring to Lev when we got outside that I thought the place had some religious connection. A disbelieving stare was quite rightly my reply.

All three of us then trotted along to Magdalen. We were sent to chat to the porters who very helpfully gave me a key and in turn sent us on in the general direction of accommodation.

My room by night. Shoes already planted firmly in the middle of the floor. It was good while it lasted.
Say hello.

Having done a bit more dumping of stuff, we had tea (the appropriate thing to do considering the circumstances), following which we split off, went our separate ways, generally said 'toodles'... & etc. I had a prior appointment with dinner (in collegium) and I suspect that they had something similar.

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Need dictates that I must sleep now. Cheerio 'till tomorrow. :)

Further Procrastination

I have to write about Oxford tomorrow. After three days of perfect idolence, I can't put it off any longer. Remind me please.

There, I've told you, now I have to do it.    >.<

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 Update (13th July): Well that worked. Ouch.

Visit of the Lama (or 'Lama Strikes', Part Two!)

This is a tad later than I envisaged making this post, due to some unforseeable delays in getting back to Haddington of which I shall be informing you all in immense detail, presently.

Meanwhile, we pick up our Lama where we last left him, of the verge of addressing our congregation (unruly mob)...

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After about an hour and a half of intensive photo snapping, Bethie informs me that “By the way, I would be careful, you do realise we're not allowed to take pictures.”.

Before setting him loose on us, a chap pops up briefly to reassure us that our Lama, is a Good Lama.

His Holiness is informed that that is a flowerbed. He says that it reminds him of Tibet and goes on to address us, his “brothers and sisters” telling us he is happy for the chance to be able to share his views with us. I'm still getting over the fact that I'm in the same room as OUR DEAR FAVOURITE LAMA! Bethie thinks he is “cute”. The chap sitting immediately behind the podium glances back at the Big Screen, spots himself on it and starts grinning.

I'm now seriously considering learning shorthand.

The talk begins with the subject of respecting all religions. This is somewhat ironic and amusing to me since coincidentally enough we had a speaker in our Advanced Religious Moral and Philosophical Studies class just the day before, who had a similar personal stance on the existence of God (broadly speaking Buddhists believe that since we cannot know it doesn't matter, and this chap was a humanist, which effectively means “don't know, don't care”- so both are more or less agnostic), and yet with regards to organised religion their attitudes couldn't be more different. The attitude of the humanist was really rather dismissive.

It strikes me that the Dalai Lama is doing a sterling job in a foreign language. Poor fellow, this must be exhausting. He is managing to talk quite eloquently about trust and friendship, the importance of positive emotions for health. Every so often he rotates around to address those people sitting on the stage.

I've been told before that the more important ('important' not being exactly the right word) the Buddhist leader, the less self-important they are (not that Buddhists in lower circles are at all, I'm oversimplifying in an attempt to get my muddled thoughts across) and brilliantly enough this appears to be very true of the Lama. At one point he turns and asks the boy sitting behind him;

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Update 1st August: Well, that cuts out abruptly! I have honestly no idea what happened there. I distinctly remember writing more. I am sorry!

Visit of the Lama. (Part One)

This takes up roughly thirty miniature pages of notes, in a similarly miniature scrawl, and essentially I'm just transcribing and improving my notes. 

In consideration of this, I am splitting the post up! Hopefully get the next bit in by later on today. If not, I'm off 'till friday, so tough cookies. Here goes:

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Waiting For Lama

Up bright and early for a spot of Lama viewing and... ick, already it's raining.

A sizeable host of people greeted us as we approached the Usher Hall. The doors were at this point still shut against us and we found ourselves filing into some sort of pen. After a few minutes spent gazing around with idle interest we observed the doors to the side entrances swing inward and a general move in that direction. It was not so much of a queue as a morass of people, but we did our best to join it anyway.

Following a few false leads, we find ourselves in the far left of the Gods or “Upper Circle”. From behind I overhear one of my cohorts mumble that he's not so good on heights. Worse luck mate.
An observation is made that the farther down you go, the comfier the appearance of the seats. I suppose that traditionally, the more “common” you were, the less you could afford to pay for a decent vantage point, the less they cared how unimpressed you were with your perch.

A small legion of Buddhist monks and nuns were scurrying about below. These brought forth exclamations of wonder from younger members of the group and some delight from those of us who were already experienced Samye Ling campaigners, past Buddhist encounters already securely under our belts.

There is an inexplicable drum kit on stage. This could turn out to be very interesting indeed. For all I know, the Lama is a drumkit-bashing NINJA.

Mrs arrives trailing Torquil in her wake. He promptly relates his horrifying two-day experience at Edinburgh High (ambushed and embraced by a some girl he had never before met) finishing a tad abruptly with quote “...so I left and been playing golf ever since” unquote.
At this point, I discover that the rubber band which I been using on my hair this morning was still restricting the blood flow to my wrist. It is tempting to ping it somewhere.

So far, so eventful.

A curious mix of people file in to fill the several rows of chairs on the stage, foremost amongst them a guitar-wielding quartet. Currently we remain ignorant of what this may portend, but I am confident that all shall be revealed in due course. Our Lama is no where to be seen.

Lights go down, everyone shuts up.

Some chap sporting a jaunty purple turban creeps awkwardly in.

The Reverend Donald Reid now gives an introduction. A jingle starts up amongst the audience and heads turn to glare. The tune finds itself prematurely cut off.
Apparently the Dalai Lama is going to be presented with a scarf in the 'new tartan of world peace'. Could this be the start of a new Buddhist trend? Out with red, we're having tartan.
The Reverend pauses reflectively for a moment and somewhere, somebody begins to clap. Again this ceases abruptly.

The 'World Opera for World Peace' stride into centre stage. The solo singer, Martin Aelred, whom they are accompanying bursts heartily into the 'Canto Della Terra' to a World-y montage being played behind him on the Big Screen.

The Lord Provost -Rt Hon Cllt Donald Wilson- of Edinburgh put in an appearance, telling us that His Holiness the Dalai Lama had not yet arrived (thank you) but that fortunately he was not very far away.
Next up was the Tinderbox Orchestra and I have to admit- pretty spectacular stuff. The moment they began I almost expected them to be twirling their cellos and jumping about the stage. Indeed I wasn't far off. The conductor bounced about, gesticulating wildly, created quite an impression, and I confess myself quite impressed.
We have a new conductor for the second piece. Far more tame.

Now on the verge of panic; I have already filled out approximately twelve miniature pages worth of notes and the reason for out visit, the Dalai Lama, has not yet put in an appearance. Happening to glance up from my notes in what I thought was a lull in the musics, I catch the last vestiges of our energetic orchestra being hastily cleared away.

Some Tibetan dancers appear in exotically colourful skirts, performing to 'express their joy at the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama'. Presumably this is anticipatory, since they are not actually feeling the benefit of his presence yet, as such; but hey, it's interesting and pleasant enough. They're doing a wonderful job of being synchronised.
They exit and something sounding suspiciously like Homer Simpson's throat-singing precedes some chaps dragging a v. comfy-looking chair into the room. 

Meanwhile our friend Martin Aelred has strolled back in.

I'm presuming that the chair is for the Lama. Beside it a table trembles under the weight of a dozen water bottles.

And at last, the long awaited moment. As the Lama wanders he is greeted by a standing ovation, he walks to the front of the stage and bows to the audience and still everybody is clapping. With nearly every seat filled, it's quite a clamour. Two minutes and he is already cracking jokes.

To be continued... :O