i went to the olympics and it was better than i could ever have imagined.

my friends philippa, mike, larry, and larry's son jakob got tickets through the online (authorized) resale market that is only available to the brits (phil and mike are both british and thus able to buy these tickets).  tickets would pop up and then disappear as people bought them, so we stalked the website a lot hoping to find something good.  this popped up a couple weeks ago and we pounced on them.  we liked that we got a lot of tennis, too - 8 hours for a 40 pound ticket.  we bought the "B" class tickets, which meant we wouldn't have the best ("A") seats, but the next level up (the classes went up to "E").

olympic tennis is at wimbledon, and on monday when we went there were matches from 11:30am-8pm on 12 courts!  12!  you could buy one of three kinds of tickets: tickets to centre court, tickets to court 1, or tickets that didn't allow you access to either of those courts but allowed you to sit at any of the other 10 courts on a first come, first serve basis.  we had court 1 tickets, which meant we had an actual seat at court 1 but could walk into any of the 10 other courts (except centre), too.  (i feel like i'm making this explanation very confusing, so i hope you understand.  actual seat at court 1; ability to see matches at 10 additional courts if there was a free seat.)

we arrived at noon, and i did the smartest thing i could have possibly done: i took photos of the big board that showed which matches were being played at which court.  i am a genius.

(one of many such photos.  apparently the dutch fans like cheese hats just like wisconsin fans.)

throughout the day we would refer back to the photos to decide where to head next.  first stop, court 2 to watch andy roddick play (he won).

next stop, our reserved seats at court 1 to watch serena play!  court 1 was much bigger than 2 - and let me take a minute here to say that the courts ranged in size from "oh, is that a match?" with benches to seat maybe 20 fans on the pathway between the larger courts...to a couple hundred...to several thousand seats.

serena killed this tiny polish girl.  poor polish girl.

do you see the sun?  THERE WAS SUN ALL DAY!  I GOT A SUNBURN ON MY NOSE!  incredible weather.

then we went back to court 2 because the afternoon match there looked amazing - williams sisters!  my (excellent) plan was that we would get there before the williams sisters played their doubles match because i figured that would fill up quickly.  we arrived in the middle of a match between a german dude and a serbian dude that was really fun (probably my favorite match of the day, actually - the serbian fans were crazy and there was lots of banter - and the two men were pretty equally matched.  also!  as the german lost he had a hissy fit and slammed his racket into his shoe four or five times, breaking it in half.  omg!  eek!  we were near his (pregnant) wife, who was not amused with him).  the crowd was pretty small when we arrived, so we walked ALL THE WAY TO THE FRONT ROW AND SAT DOWN.  after about two minutes i realized it was too close (too close!  i was too close at the olympics!) because it was right in the line of the serve and i genuinely thought i might get hit in the face by their 200 km/h serves and die.  we moved back one row.

so i watched venus and serena play doubles from the second row - with this view:

incredible.  the place was entirely full by the time the match started, and my get-there-early plan was a huge success.

hi ladies.

if you, like me, are not a huge tennis fan, you might think "i can't tell venus and serena apart!"  you are kidding yourself, as i was.  you just haven't been paying attention.  serena has probably 40 pounds on venus.  i was scared of serena.

the five of us in our seats!

then it was off to court 1 again to watch federer play doubles.  while court 1 was bigger, i loved the intimacy of court 2, especially when it was full...and being in the second row DID NOT HURT MATTERS.

the swiss playing the japanese.  stop wearing the same colors and confusing me.

it got cold.  we put on our jackets.  federer served at 211 km/h.  omg.  there was a tie breaking point thing that i had to learn about.  earlier in the day i learned not to call deuce "a 40-40 tie" [jenny is totally rolling her eyes at this - sorry, jenny!].  philippa and mike were excellent teachers.  i decided i like the fast pace of doubles much better than singles.

honestly?  one of the most fun days EVER.  excellent company, amazing seats, fun matches, great atmosphere, sunshine, understanding in the moment that i was incredibly incredibly lucky to be able to experience all of this.  i'm not a huge tennis fan, but the ability to be so close totally hooked me.  we couldn't have asked for a better day - better tickets - better matches - better anything.  (actually, wrong.  better vegetarian food.  i could have asked for that.)

40 pounds incredibly well spent.

i'm back in atlanta!  hooray!

an update on miss claire's whereabouts:

today: oxford, packing up the office and finishing work.
monday: wimbledon, for olympics tennis!
tuesday: in the air, flying back to atlanta!

meet my new best friend, george.

george is the 6 year old son of one of the college employees.  for two years i've been telling george's dad that he should bring george for a visit, as i'd heard about how cute and red-headed he is.  yesterday george came to help his dad around college.

after helping his dad, he came for a visit.  and by "visit," i mean it went something like this.

me: "we're watching olympics rowing!"
george: "i can draw that!"  [disappears to his dad's office for 10 minutes.  comes back with picture.]

pretty good, huh?!

i thanked george and he said, "i have more paper!"

i can take a hint.  it became a game - what other olympics sports could george draw?

this is shooting.  as you are probably aware, the people at the top are spectators, the guy in green is the referee blowing his whistle, and the other two are in the competition.  the bottom guy is saying "oh no" because he shot too low.  those enormous red and green blobs are the bullets, obviously.

the next picture is my favorite:

BMX cycling is now in the olympics and george loves that.  this is "gerney" (germany) and "team gb" (great britain - but now that the olympics have started "team gb" is the preferred phrase for cheering, i've learned) in a race.  gerney is winning, but george says "the team in second place at the beginning always wins at the end."  this picture is my favorite because:
1. george has misspelled his own name
2. george is using his "joined up" (what the british call cursive) writing very nicely here
3. george, at 6, is already aware of his country's rivalry with germany in all sports.  my first summer here i was very confused about why germany was the hated rival, and a colleague said it is because they were the enemy during world war 2.  well yes, i know that...but they were our enemy in world war 2, too, and i wouldn't think of them that way now.  but the english home front WAS much more affected by bombings and such during the war, so perhaps i can understand the difference...

“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing.”
--Susan B. Anthony

christ church college from a rooftop patio in oriel college:

fun quiz to help you know which presidential candidate your views most closely match with!

(i found that there were often better answers in "choose another stance," so don't feel constrained by just answering yes or no.)

a couple months ago i decided that the best thing i could do to help barack win in november was convince some friends who were on the fence that he was the better candidate.  if i could help sway two people that would make a difference!  (maybe.  not really.  silly electoral college...)  i've been sending these two friends occasional articles about what obama's done as president and why i think he's the right choice in november, and yesterday one of them emailed me to tell me she was on the obama team now.  (!!)

it pretty much made my day.

one down, one to go.  anonymous friend #2: i'm still working on you.  we've got 3 months.  my efforts will only intensify!  get excited!

old lady alert: i'm so bad at sleeping in these day.  i used to be a champion sleeper, my peak coming when i slept until 3pm one day during a visit home from college.  now i'm lucky if i can sleep until 10 or 11...and i feel so gross when i do.  this morning?  awake at 7:30am, unable to fall back asleep.  now, my room is not the cave that my room in atlanta is, so the light streaming through the cracks in the curtains isn't helping matters, so perhaps that is as much to blame as my impending 30th birthday...

yesterday liz, jen, and i went on this adventure!: http://goo.gl/maps/54JI6

we walked from downtown oxford to port meadow and along the isis river...

(very wind in the willows, huh?)

...to a pub called the trout, where we had a great lunch before walking back home.  it was hot here yesterday - in the 80s - and we sweated the whole way, but it was a great adventure and we earned our lunch.  along the way we passed the ruins of godstow abbey, which is REALLY OLD and very pretty.  it dates from almost exactly the same time as the events in the pillars of the earth, which i just started reading...so that was fun to think about.*

i am accidentally a little sunburned now.  for the past four weeks there was no physical way to get sunburned through the rain drops and dark clouds, so i kind of forgot what the sun can do.  it's just a baby sunburn, though, so i'll be okay.


*as a side note, people never told me how awesome the pillars of the earth is.  yes, they told me i should read it, but it has also been described to me as the story of the building of a cathedral.  to me, that sounded dry and hard to slog through, so i put it off.  they should have to described it to me as the story of the PEOPLE who were involved in the building of a cathedral, because ohmygoodness i am loving this book and it is so readable and not dry at all.  now that i'm awake far before my shift in the office today (i'm on from 4pm to midnight) and the weather is just as beautiful as yesterday, i'll be spending most of the day reading my book in christ church meadow, and i couldn't be more excited.  the kids leave on saturday, so we're preparing for the run to the end - i have to take as much claire time as possible before the chaos begins on friday!

good morning, oriel college!  it's sunny today!

i love this sentiment, and it's so important to be reminded of:

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
-- Mark Twain

i subscribe to the sun magazine, thanks to other claire, who gave it to me as a christmas present last year.  it is an ad-free magazine out of chapel hill, north carolina that is full of pretty excellent nonfiction.  one feature in every issue is "readers write," where readers write in on a topic and the best get published in the magazine.  this is always my favorite part of the issue, and i LOVED these thoughts on the topic of "the best feeling in the world."  (the physical magazine has dozens of them in every issue, though only three are available online - but you'll get the picture.)

i know there are some of you lovely readers out there who will really enjoy this!

we're entering the final week of the program - the kids leave next saturday the 28th, and then i fly home on tuesday the 31st.  it's shocking how fast the summers go by when i'm over here.  i have LOVED having so many coworkers (some returning, some new) this summer who are such good friends - some seen below - and we've had a LOT of fun over the past four weeks.  (i do this job for the fun i have with my coworkers, not for the kids.  shhh - don't tell.)

(AND: three of the four of us in this picture will live in new york next year - yippee!)

this is the point in the summer where i start to feel the pressure for all the things i haven't yet done.  i haven't spent an afternoon walking through port meadow to the pub on the other side.  i haven't been into london to see a show.  i haven't spent enough lazy afternoons in christ church meadow reading my book (because it has rained so. much. this. summer.  but the weather report for the rest of the time i'm here?  glorious!).  i haven't talked nearly enough to my other friend claire who is in cambridge.  so: i have one week to try to rectify these things.

in the excitement of bill clinton day, i forgot to tell you guys that i am going to the olympics!!!!  there are random tickets available online for uk citizens to purchase - if i'm understanding it right, in order to get rid of as much of a black market as possible, any uk citizen can return any ticket to the olympics people and get a full refund if it is resold.  as a result, for every day of the olympics there are dozens of tickets to random events available - some very expensive, some very reasonable.  a uk friend bought tickets the other day and five of us are going to olympic tennis at wimbledon the day before i leave.  so exciting!  i don't really care about tennis, but it is a sport i understand, unlike, say, judo...and it's the olympics!  hooray!

so: final week in england, here we come...

what i'm listening to right now

i saw christina perri at hard rock calling in london last week - she was one of many artists who played in the lead up to paul simon.  i hadn't heard of her before, but as she sang i realized i knew several of her songs - the radio, i guess?  this one is my favorite - "arms":



you know how some bands are disappointing live, though you like their CDs?  i found that with the avett brothers - they did a lot of SCREAMING live, instead of singing.  boo hiss.  christina perri was AWESOME live - this song doesn't match how great her energy was when she was on stage.  she only sang for about 45 minutes and even though i didn't know a lot of her songs i wanted her to keep playing - definitely a good sign.

things i love about england: their domestic fruit is labeled with the name of the grower and where his farm is!  angus davison grew me these raspberries.  knowing this little detail pleases me - it connects me in a tiny way with the origin of my food.  it personalizes the experience of eating.

the raspberries were delicious.  i ate them yesterday while lying in christ church meadow and reading my book WHILE THE SUN SHONE ON ME.  today?  today it is raining again, but yesterday there was sun...so that's something.

“No man ever listened himself out of a job.”
--Calvin Coolidge

paul simon was amazing.

(blue skies!  sun!  it didn't rain a drop!  after the summer we've been having in england, this is a miracle.)

i danced around and sang along and had a huge smile on my face for three hours.  paul simon is 70, but most of the time you couldn't tell - his voice was great, he danced around a little, he played for three hours.  he played with 5 members of his band from when he recorded graceland, plus 3 background singers from the album, plus ladysmith black mambazo for a couple songs.  it was awesome.  they sounded GOOD.

one of the coolest things was being in this huge throng of people - 60,000 is what the newspapers are saying - and every person was singing along.  to be a paul simon fan at that concert was incredible, but to share it with this enormous crowd was even cooler.  and, um, i was in the 5th row.  5th row!  there was music starting at 2pm, and paul simon was scheduled to start at 7:45.  we got there at 2:30 and marched our way as close to the front as we could and then stayed there - minus one bathroom break by yours truly - as the crowd grew and grew behind us.  the view behind me:

(there's an even better photo of the crowd from the concert website here.)

the view in front of me:

(okay, this is really the view in front of cole, who's a whole foot taller than me.  my view was between the two guys' heads who were standing in front of me, but i could see nonetheless!)

he played every song from the graceland album plus lots of well known songs.  his encore included "the boxer" with jerry douglas on dobro.  INCREDIBLE.

the concert was everything i wanted it to be and lots lots lots more.  an amazing night.  it felt like i was watching - was a part of - something really special.

it's paul simon day!!!

who's opening for him?  alison krauss and union station.  i die.

in honor of that, i give you this:



full report tomorrow!

great article - it gives me chills - and i know i'll get teary when i see the saudi women walking in the opening ceremonies.

Saudi Arabia agreed to send two women to compete at the London Olympics, meaning that for the first time all participating nations will have female athletes competing; and, also for the first time, the United States Olympic team will field more female athletes than male athletes. 
The appearance of women from each of the 200-plus participating nations captures the sea change across the sports landscape. Until the 1984 Los Angeles Games, women were not even allowed to run a marathon. Less than 20 years ago, at the 1996 Atlanta Games, 26 countries did not send women.

scenes from around oxford - cow bell next to the door outside my favorite pub!

this is what happens to the number of views of your blog when you tell facebook about your blog...and that they have to go there for the bill clinton story:

what i'm listening to right now:

bison, "switzerland":



this song, and the previous one i posted, are from a FREEEEEE 33 song sampler from an organization called noisetrade.  my friend christy (hi christy!) told me about them, as she and i have very similar musical tastes, and she was right in thinking that i would love it.  they give away free music directly from the artist, with donations accepted but (as far as i can tell) not required.  check it out!  by "liking" them on facebook you can get the same 33 song sampler that i got.  THIS SAMPLER IS AWESOME and i've been listening to it on repeat for the past week.  get itttttt.

today i met bill clinton.

here is the full story.

after lunch a faculty member comes rushing into the office to tell us that he's just passed bill clinton on the high street.  we are shocked!  bill is in town!  one of the admin members goes to stalk him and finds that he has landed at the bear, a pub right around the corner from our college.  four of us rush out - my friend liz (also in the photo), larry, and michael.  we're all americans, we're all democrats, and we're all freaking out.

we get to the bear, where there are several security guards standing around and trying to look nonchalant.  liz and i go inside (NO ONE STOPS US) and into the doorway of the room where bill is sitting.  total, there were about 15 security guys in the tiny pub, drinking beers and waiting for their lunch, and bill is chatting away with these two americans who i think were sitting there when he arrived.  there isn't a huge crowd - we appear to be his only stalkers so far.  he is VERY thin, but it is him.

one security guy comes up to us and says "are you just going to stand there gawking?  he's trying to eat his lunch!"  i apologize (ahh!  i hate confrontation!) and say we can go, which he clearly wants us to.  i lean over to liz and tell her this.  as we're backing out of the room, bill yells "do those girls want a picture?"  WE DO, and we rush back inside, where bill shakes our hands and pats the bench beside him so we can take a picture.  I AM SITTING NEXT TO BILL CLINTON.  our friend larry walks in, and we introduce him, and then for 20 minutes - no exaggeration - we talk to bill about how we're teachers (he calls it "the noblest of professions," and thanks us for our work), and he proceeds to chat with us about romney's jobs plan and how it won't work, his thoughts on charter schools, and how paying teachers more will help improve student achievement.  he's a talker, a policy guy, making eye contact and making us feel really special as he rambles on with his thoughts on any number of subjects.  after about 10 minutes his food arrives (he had tomato soup and a guinness), and i try to leave - "thank you so much for talking with us - we don't want to interrupt your meal!" AND HE KEEPS TALKING.  we stay, obviously.  at some point he's talking about chelsea and how she's overextended and he's never going to get grandchildren at this rate and how he's lived longer than all of his grandparents except the one who wore overalls all day and farmed from sunup to sundown, but with all the new technology women can have children so much longer, and if chelsea has a kid when she's 50 he'll be 84 and that will be fine.  liz tells him at least chelsea's married - that liz and i are basically chelsea's age and are behind her on that front - AND BILL GRABS LIZ'S ARM AND OFFERS SOME DATING ADVICE: "worry about the other things" - as in, the man will come when you stop worrying about it.

oh, bill.  we enjoy you.

finally he says, "it was so nice meeting you guys," and we thank him profusely and tell him we're proud democrats and shake hands again and say our goodbyes.  we freak out only when we leave the bar, calling our parents on the office phone and skipping around and reenacting the conversation for everyone.  i think about how i would love to call my grandma, if she were alive, to tell her all about it.  she'd have something witty and racy to say.  it would be awesome.  it still IS awesome, of course, but it would be awesomer.

aaaaaaand then the shit hit the fan at work.  but that is a story for another day, probably not on this blog...

“If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.”
--Woody Allen

this - this right here - is the kind of writer i want to be.  beautiful and touching and honest, and he says so much in only three paragraphs:

"one last lesson"

broughton castle

so...we took a field trip with all 440 students to broughton castle.  it poured down rain the whole time.  after the tour of the castle we had to be outside.  there was no shelter.  it was the opposite of fun.

huddling under umbrellas in the rain:

moat around the castle...in the rain:

graveyard* at the chapel...in the rain:

aaaaaand that was the field trip.

um...it has rained a lot here since we arrived.  sun!  we need you!  please come back!


*fun fact - anyone know the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard?  there is one!

what i'm listening to right now:

"guttersnipe," by bhi bhiman:



this song makes me want to dance around my dorm room.  so i kind of am.

vin came to visit me in oxford!

she brought two of her london friends and we went punting.  talia had punted before, so she was in charge.  yay!  thanks, talia!

it rained a bit, but nothing too crazy.  there was lots of laughing - such a fun day!

we ended the night at an italian place in town, where michelle kwan was sitting two tables away!  liz, my coworker here, is a former ice skater and was gutsy enough to go up to her, so i came along for moral support / to talk to michelle kwan obviously!!!  turns out that michelle is a torchbearer for the olympics, chosen by one of the olympics sponsors, coca-cola.  she was SO NICE, asking us if why we were in oxford and seeming genuinely interested that we are teachers.  while liz chatted with michelle and michelle's boyfriend, i chatted with the two coca-cola employees who were schmoozing her at dinner - they live in atlanta.  exact transcript of part of the conversation:
michelle: where do you guys live?
liz: new york city
me: atlanta
coca-cola lady #1: us too!  where in atlanta do you live?
me: vinings! [i move over to chat with coca-cola ladies while liz and michelle become friends.]
c-c lady #2: me too!
me: well, actually i live in smyrna. [smyrna is a suburb, while vinings is a part of the city of atlanta...vinings is the cool place to live, and everyone in smyrna says they live in vinings.]
c-c lady #2: ME TOO!
[we then realize that we live literally 2 miles apart from one another.]
c-c lady #1: where do you teach?
me: [name of school]
c-c lady #2: my two children go there!

it was a SMALL WORLD MOMENT, PEOPLE.

c-c lady #1 insisted that we take a photo with michelle, even though i was like "we don't want to bug her any more than we already are!"  c-c lady also forced "shelly" into the middle.  it was awesome.

good. day.

weather report

frowny face.

best quotation ever

from this opinion piece:

When I was a teenager, newly fixated on becoming a writer, I came across a piece of advice from Kurt Vonnegut that affected me like an ice cube down the back of my shirt. “Do not use semicolons,” he said. “They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”


(i happen to love semicolons, but i do kind of use them just because i can...)

yesterday a girl on the program dislocated her shoulder and then, walking to the office, clumsily ran into a wall, popping it back in.  we are considering this a victory.

in her pain, we sent a PA (program assistant - they are oxford undergrads) to the pharmacy to get the strongest possible painkillers that they sell over the counter.  the girl said that her mom lets her take ibuprofen (having a mom myself who is particular about what kind of painkillers we're allowed to have - no aspirin for us as kids - i asked her what her mom would want her to take when we weren't able to get her mom on the phone).  our PA came back with a box of ibuprofen WITH CODEINE.  they sell this over the counter for 3 pounds (5 dollars).  omg.  england.  what is going on.

we did not give it to her, as i was again channeling my mom and knew she wouldn't want her child given codeine without having been consulted, so it was regular ibuprofen for this kid.  

when i got back to my room last night i checked out the receipt, which i provide for your entertainment.

be warned, everyone - this contains ibuprofen!  we'll omit the warning about the CODEINE that you could become addicted to.

oh england.  i giggled a lot.

i registered for classes at teachers college!!

this fall i am going to be taking:

curriculum and cognitive development
leadership of private schools
ethics and education
intro to research methods (eeeeeeeek)
law and educational institutions
and i'll be doing a "field project" at a new york city school.

i didn't have any choice in the coursework - the program lays out the course of study with the exception of one elective in the spring semester.  this was actually a perk for me, and one of the reasons i selected this particular program.  they know what makes good private school leaders, and i am happy to go along with that and learn all those things they want me to learn.  registering for courses was really just the formality of going onto the registration website and putting in the course numbers that they provided me.

so registration was a breeze, but seeing the schedule makes it OFFICIAL that i'll be in new york and attending class in less than 2 months.  i. am. so. excited.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
--Eleanor Roosevelt

june: 16, 17, & 18

oh glorious summer - you allow me to read lots of books!  all women authors this month...


maisie dobbs, by jacqueline winspear (the first book in a series of mystery novels about a female detective in 1920s england.  a fine book, but not one that i was rushing home to read every night, and i don't think i'll be reading any of the other books in the series.  it was...slow, i guess...and the mystery wasn't that mysterious.)

gilead, by marilynne robinson (i. loved. this. book.  my uncle mark recommended it to me, so he gets a shout out for the great recommendation.  the book is one long letter, written by a man [who thinks he is dying] to his son.  it's a story of their family's history, but also advice he thinks he won't be around to give his son as he grows up.  so you learn this world through the little stories of their lives.  at some point in the book the narrator debates the question of whether human beings have capacity for change, or whether one is born good or evil...he is struggling with this, so you struggle with this.  it's beautiful prose...so clean...very easy to read, but a lot going on - very thoughtful.  the narrator is a minister, and if i knew more about the bible i think i would have enjoyed it even more, as there are a lot of biblical references.  this book won a pulitzer prize, which sometimes scares me; i think books like that will be too intellectual for me.  this was very accessible, and lovely.  it's not action packed, but it's definitely worth reading.)

room, by emma donoghue (the premise: the narrator is a 5 year old boy named jack who lives with his mother in "room" - the padlocked shack where his mother's kidnapper put her, where she gave birth to jack, and where he has never left.  um, omg.  i had put off reading this book because it just sounded CREEPY...and then i started it and got so into it that i finished it in 24 hours.  it didn't hurt that many of those hours were on an international flight and in between naps afterward, but i did really enjoy it, and hearing the story through the eyes of a child makes it much less upsetting than if it were narrated by his mother who understands how horrific the situation is.  a really interesting book - i'd recommend it!)

pizza van

pizza van, you were so freaking delicious last night, but perhaps you are to blame for my stomach hurting today.  we may need to break up for a bit.

but not forever - don't worry.  i'll forget about this soon enough.

arrivals day!  450 students arrived today - it's what we've been building up to for the past week.  aaaaand i felt horrible all day - i think i ate something that didn't agree with me.  UGHHHHHH - this was absolutely not the day to feel under the weather.  my coworkers kindly let me sit in the office all day, answering the phone and dealing with emails instead of checking the students in and running around the college taking kids to their rooms.  i'm not out of commission, just moving a little more slowly than normal and dealing with occasional bad stomach pain.  i very rarely have stomach issues - i really can't remember the last time i felt like this.

total food consumed today: 5 crackers and 1 small bowl of miso soup.  literally.  i also drank about 10 glasses of water, so at least i'm staying hydrated...

i was supposed to work until 11pm tonight, but when things calmed down a couple minutes ago my coworkers sent me to lie down.  i'm not tired, i just feel a million times better when sitting down or lying down.

fingers crossed i feel better tomorrow!

the view

8:30pm - the view from my dorm room window.  (this city is beautiful.)

whenever i see chimneys like this i always think of this scene in mary poppins (is it just me?):

over the past week we've been working A LOT to set up the offices and get ready for the kids to come to the program on sunday.  the craziness won't end until tuesday, really, when the students get on a normal schedule.  when we aren't working, we're out eating and drinking and laughing with our awesome staff.  i'm really loving the people i'm working with this year.  but you know...all i want right now is a day where i can lie in my bed and alternate between watching west wing reruns and reading my book.  i've been spending from 9am to midnight with PEOPLE for the past week...and we all know how big of an introvert i can be.  it's been really fun - and we have to soak up as much time as possible with each other before the kids get in the way - but i would looooooove a lazy day.

hooooooooray!

at 3pm british summer time, my co-dean (and new best friend) liz and i started refreshing the new york times' webpage; the supreme court convened at 10am eastern time to issue the health care ruling.  when the new york times didn't have any information posted, we moved to cnn, which asserted at 3:06 that the individual mandate had been overturned.  sadness in the office.

5 minutes later every other news source asserted the exact opposite.  joy in the office!  explaining of our health care system to the brits!  frantically reading everything we could!  one website included this: "cnn should have waited another 5 minutes to be sure they got the decision right."  ha!

i imagine that some poor cnn reporter got fired today.

a couple hours later one of my sweet students from this year posted on facebook: "what's all the craziness about?  thank you [insert my name here]!" and she linked to a video i showed in class that explains the health care law in a really understandable way.  with cartoons.  17 year olds love cartoons.  her facebook shoutout totally made my night.  i'll post the video here so you, too, can understand what the heck is in this bill:



(kelly - this is required viewing.  obama loves people!  he wants the government to help take care of them - and we'll all benefit!  vote for obama!)

“Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.”
—Nora Ephron, 1996 commencement address at Wellesley College

thoughts on shorts

like perhaps many women, i have a love-hate relationship with my legs.  good old legs, you take me places.  silly legs, you are larger than i would like.

i do not like showing off my legs.

but then i started running, as you may remember, and my yoga pants would be falling off me as i ran - not enough elastic in the waist - and were prettttttty warm for running.  so i started running in an old pair of gym shorts that i bought during my two season stint coaching jv girls softball.  but then they were too long and would ride up on my legs and be uncomfortable.  SO I BOUGHT SOME RUNNING SHORTS.  i can't believe it either.  they are short.  they are cute!  but they are SHORT.  i wore them for the first time today and it was pretty awesome - no riding up, little pocket in the waistband for my keys, and i didn't see anyone i knew which showing a lot of leg.  victory on all counts.

now i'm back in my dorm room getting ready to shower and go to dinner while some low budget movie involving child actors films outside my window.  actual quote from the director (? is a director allowed to wear a tube top while filming a children's movie?): "look meaner, ellie.  even meaner!  now maybe put your hands on your head and make fun of her hat!  keep going!  keep going!"  oh dear lord.

this kid is an angsty teenager WITH ACTUAL TALENT.  OMG i love it.

yesterday: sitting outside in the garden at my favorite pub in oxford, reading until my other friends got there, because YES, you can do that in england and not be weird.  heaven!

aaaaaand i inexplicably woke up at 6:45 this morning, after going to bed at midnight.

on second thought, since the sun rose at 4:48am (not a misprint), perhaps that is why.  my dorm room is awesome, with two sets of windows...and what i mistakenly thought were pretty good curtains...

first day of work today!

royal ascot!

on saturday vin (a duke rugby friend who lives in london) and i went to royal ascot with some of her london friends!

fascinators required (seriously - or hats)! (vin's is hidden a bit.)  i debated between a smaller purple one and this one...and decided to go ALL OUT.  i mean, how many times can a girl wear a fascinator?

if you were wondering, i did not look ridiculous, as everyone else was wearing crazy headpieces, too.  i DID keep running into things with my fascinator since it added a lot to my height.  oops.

the queen comes to royal ascot every year.  this is her parading in - she's wearing the sassy green dress - i loved it.

queen!

um, i have never seen our president in real life, but i got a good 5 minutes worth of the queen.  it was awesome.

i would also like to note that the queen was surrounded by...2 security guards.  2!!  and there were no metal detectors or anything when we entered the grounds.  this would NOT FLY IN AMERICA.  apparently everyone loves the queen, though, so no biggie.  she just goes out in the world.

vin's the only one of us who won any money betting on the horse races.  she won 6 pounds and 80 pence.  big time.

we watched this horse named black caviar win his 22nd straight race.  it was incredible - we were on the final stretch and he just BUSTED INTO TOP GEAR and pulled away from all the other horses at the last minute.

the odds on black caviar were 1-7.  NOT 7-1.  1-7, as in, if you bet 1 pound on him you will win 1/7th of a pound.  i had never seen this before.  vin did not bet on black caviar; she won her money in another race by betting on a horse named waffle.  yes!  waffle!  there was also a horse in that race named scarf.  clearly we picked our horses based on their names.

perusing the odds...aka another awesome fascinator shot...

yay!  thanks to vin for an awesome day!!

i've arrived!  i got into london at about 11am british time (i'll be changing the time stamp on the blog to reflect the time when i'm actually writing), and made my way through border control with no problem.  unless, by "problem," you mean i was forced to hear a 5 minute lecture from the border control guard about why the us invaded iraq and libya, but isn't getting involved in syria.  tip for better living: when asked, don't say you teach us government - pick ANY OTHER SUBJECT.  ugh.  sorry, dude.  i agree with your concerns but i can't do anything about them.

i made my way to my friend vin's apartment, where i internetted and ate and napped and read my book and showered, and when vin gets home we're going out to dinner because, yes, i'm hungry again.

let me tell you though, that i had the best international flight OF MY LIFE.  i went into it with a new attitude - who cares how much i actually sleep - i can sleep at vin's when i arrive!  i watched my week with marilyn, which entertained me.  i read almost half of room, which is also entertaining me.  i ate a delish meal.*  then i (professional move!!) put in my earplugs and proceeded to actually sleep for most of the rest of the flight.  i'd say i got about 4 hours of sleep, but compared to some of my past experiences this is a miracle.

thoughts on earplugs before this year's AP reading: eww they feel weird and don't help too much.
thoughts on earplugs during this year's AP reading: why yes, if you're offering i will take some.  um...i am so much less distracted!  i can focus!  the sound of people coughing and chairs scraping isn't grating on my nerves while i grade for 8 hours a day!
thoughts on earplugs during this flight: perhaps they will drown out the background noise of the plane.  omg they are!  now i will sleep.

in short, i am an earplugs convert.


*i have learned not to request a vegetarian meal on international flights.  it is always the overcooked, overly cheesy pasta dish that is an option for the rest of the plane - they just deliver yours first so they don't run out.  order the ASIAN vegetarian meal.  the flight attendant confirmed my belief that it is the best meal that delta makes.  i had: sautéed spinach, rice, and curried tofu.  a gingery carrot and cucumber salad.  fruit.  and then normal things like cheese and crackers.  it was actually delicious.  i am full of tips today, people.  listen up!!

i'm off!

in a couple hours i fly to england; i arrive in london on friday morning, and i'll be there through sunday morning, when i take the bus to oxford to start work.  friday will involve me sleeping a lot, saturday will involve me wearing a fascinator (omg, i know - i'll take lots of pictures!), and sunday will involve me being so excited to see summer friends that i talk louder than is polite in that country.  (i know you're so surprised to hear that.)

i'm excited about everything but the flight (ugh - long...and i don't sleep well on planes) and customs (ugh - customs officials SCARE ME), but they are obviously necessary hurdles to jump on the way to my summer of fun.

internet access will be spotty for the next couple days, but i'll try to check in!  on monday i should be set up with internet in my room in oriel college, and thus have reliable internet access for the rest of the summer.

talk to you all soon!

what i'm listening to right now

"speechless," by lady gaga:



on our last night in salt lake city we went to a bar with karaoke with lots of other AP readers - this is apparently a "last night at the AP reading" tradition.  um, people were basically professional karaoke-ers - every person that went up there was better than the last, and one woman sang this song.  how had i NEVER heard it before?  answer: apparently it didn't make it on the radio.  i'm sad about that, because i love it.

kelly sent this to me, and i love it!  30 books everyone should read before turning 30.  i've read 17 of them and i'm stumbling through an 18th, cat's cradle, as we speak.  (a list like this makes a girl feel good about the reading she's done, even though most if it was at the request of an english teacher.)  i would say YES YES YES - READ THIS! about the road and ender's game and middlesex and to kill a mockingbird, only one of which a teacher made me read.  they are ones that will stick with you.

some i won't read, i know, but i added a few from this list to my list.  specifically: the secret history, jesus' son, the sun also rises, ghost world, and invisible man.  stay tuned to see if and when i actually get around to reading them...my "to read" list is LONNNNNG and the list of months until i turn 30 is short (june, july, august, september, october, NOVEMBER AHHH).

HA!  making fun of england.  i enjoy it.

my favorite part:

Meanwhile, The Telegraph reports that there will be animals. Not awesome animals, like lions and hippogriffs and friendly dogs [Edit: there will apparently be friendly dogs; "three sheep dogs," to be exact], but boring and surprisingly mean animals like geese. 
Specifically: nine geese. 
They're only springing for nine geese.

gchat conversation, 10:50pm:

Rebecca: okay, i need to shower and then finish this episode of white collar and then try to go to sleep
i've been kind of wired today
and i just ate shake shack

me: you are mom right now
too wired to go to sleep
DON'T VACUUM*

Rebecca: zoommmmmmmmers
that is how i feel

me: hahahaha

Rebecca: i need to run around the house three times**
did you ever have to do that?

me: NO
that was only you

Rebecca: i was threatened with it A LOT

me: you were
and you had to do it at least once

Rebecca: oh, totally
okay, off i go

*our mom inexplicably gains energy as the night wears on, and has been known to vacuum the living room at like 10pm, while everyone else is lying on the couch watching tv.

**this is what my sister was threatened with as a child when she had too much energy and was driving people crazy.  THE APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE.

tragically uncentered photo of the mormon tabernacle choir and their 11,600 pipe organ:

we went to the public rehearsal of the choir on thursday night, and they were breathtakingly good.  they sang "when the saints go marching in," which (i realized upon listening to it this time) includes the line "when the moon turns red with blood." of book of revelation - you are so creepy.

they also sang "you raise me up," of josh grobin fame, which was gorgeous (i thought of you, joey, as i do every time i hear this song!), and then they sang some churchy song that i didn't know.

though i didn't hear it this time around, when i came to this same rehearsal four years ago they sang "battle hymn of the republic," which was an experience i will never forget.  it's worth a listen now because it's so beautiful.  (this one's for nora, a fellow "battle hymn of the republic" lover!)



you should also know that the choir is halfway to an egot, as they have an emmy and a grammy.  tracy jordan would be jealous.

and we're done!

i graded for 52 hours and read 1,525 essay this week.  it was at times quite painful, but overall better than two years ago - working on four different questions helped break up the week and didn't make it nearly as monotonous as it could have been.  and i bought myself a laptop!  (i will make, after taxes, almost exactly as much money as my new laptop cost.)  so you know what?  totally worth it.

tonight: karaoke with my AP posse.  i will not be singing, but this group is hilarious when we're just hanging out in a bar, so i actually can't imagine what tonight will be like.  hoo-ray.

iphone pictures from salt lake city

mormon temple!  pretty/weird.  huge fence around it to keep the riff raft (like me) out.

view from my hotel room - cute little western city streets and beautiful mountains in the background.

my new friend katie and our big beers.  so...beers are plentiful here.  my posse has gone to a different bar every night and had some awesome local beers.  sure this is the mormon capital of the world, but there's also a pretty normal-people social scene.

based on this view alone, i understand why brigham young decided to stop here.  i also learned that the REAL reason he stopped here was that the valley where salt lake city is was neutral territory between four indian tribes' land and he could populate it without making the native americans angry.  pretty strategic, that brigham.

tomorrow is the last day of the reading, and unlike in pretty much every year in the past (to hear the talk at the lunch tables), the AP government reading is going slower than anticipated and we'll probably be kept all the way until 5pm.  UGH.  two years ago when i was here we were released before lunch on the last day.  i don't know if i have another 275 essays in me (that's how many i read today).

my grandma norma died on sunday.  she lived next door to me from when i was born until i was in 4th grade and we were very close; she was absolutely the best grandma a girl could ask for.

when dad called i had a good long cry, but it wasn't a surprise and she was ready, i think.  my dad and uncle and aunt have written the most beautiful obituary ever.  for now i'll just share part of it; at some point i'll have my own thoughts on the subject but at the moment it's still a little too raw to talk about.

Throughout her life, Norma was passionate about both music and the theater, rediscovering the joy of performance in her later years at Seabury. She had a quick wit, a wry sense of humor, and a deep sense of social justice. Her positions on the important issues of the day were never ambiguous, and she loved to discuss and debate current topics. 
Norma continued teaching, instilling a love of literature and music in her children and nine grandchildren, who were her greatest pride. She enjoyed playing games, and her challengers were justifiably proud on those rare occasions when they bested her in a Scrabble match. The family plans a private celebration of her life later in the summer in North Carolina. Although Norma enjoyed gardening, in lieu of flowers you may honor her memory by voting Democratic.

though i've now read it a dozen times, i still can't get through it without tearing up - it's so perfectly HER.

my aunt lisa unearthed this photo that i'd never seen before.  that's me on the right in the red pajamas, gazing up at my grandma as she leads us in some sort of sing along.  i love that you can see our happiness.

it's 11:08pm salt lake city time = 1:08am atlanta time.  willis and i are chatting online.

me: i'm going to bed now.  you should, too!
willis: i'm making a ragu.  it's simmering away.
me: oh dear lord.  of course you are.

...only willis would be making a ragu at 1am.  how often do we use that phrase: "only willis."

AP grading fun

so...there are 575 people at the AP reading who are scoring the "operational exam," which is for the 200,000 kids who took the AP government exam in the US on the scheduled date.  each person grades one of the four essay questions...from 8am to 5pm for seven days straight.  two years ago i read over 2,000 essays, all on the same topic.

you see why i needed a year off from this madness.

this year i am grading the international exam, which is a different set of four essay questions given to students abroad...the questions are different because the time difference is so much that they fear kids will cheat.  there are 8 people reading this international exam.  8!  i am one of them.  apparently it is random, but i feel special anyway.  we are in our own room WITH A WINDOW, the only readers who are so lucky.  i look at the mountains and watch the tram drive back and forth on the street next to our building.  this is the only fun i have.

only 2,000 kids took the international exam, so instead of spending all week reading one question's answers, we will score two (or more) questions.

over the course of yesterday and today i read 490 essays* and that was apparently my share of that question, as we finished all the exams this afternoon!  tomorrow we will be re-trained on another question from this international exam and begin scoring it.  i had to sign a confidentiality agreement this year, stating that i wouldn't disclose the international questions, as presumably they will be reused in the future.  to this i say: no one i know gives a shit about these questions anyway, so it shouldn't be hard to keep this information confidential.  at the end of the day today all of our notes were shredded.  serious business.

so...this is what i'll be doing through saturday.  be very very jealous.  oh, this sounds horrible?  well, it kind of is, but the posse i have attached myself to is awesome and we've been to a different bar every night.  more on that later.  salt lake city might not SEEM like the party capital of the world, but you haven't been to salt lake city.


*"miss claire, how do you know that you read 490 essays?"  well, dear reader, in order to stay sane you make a tally mark on a scrap piece of paper every time you finish a packet of essays - in the operational exam a packet is 25 kids, in the international exam a packet is inexplicably 10 kids.  DON'T ASK QUESTIONS.  (that's really the first rule of grading this exam.)  then every day you try to beat the previous day's total, thus feeling good about yourself for no good reason.

i had a bad afternoon
and a coworker who isn't a particularly close friend -
we've hung out a couple times
but we're not, you know, super close -
bought me a beer and welcomed me into her group of friends
and that little act of kindness meant
everything.

i'm a firm believer that a little kindness goes a long long way
and tonight was proof of that.

I'm in Salt Lake City to grade the AP Government exam!

By landscape alone this place beats Daytona Beach, where the AP reading was two years ago...and I have friends here this year! Life is good.

don't mess with elementary school teachers

Rebecca: remember when mom and i had to explain to you what a mammal is

me: shut up
i knew it had milk and bones
that is all i knew
what was i confusing it with?

Rebecca: dolphins
were confusing to you

me: can you see my confusion?

Rebecca: no
because i went to college

my fault

as you've probably figured, my fault was this:

women couldn't vote in 1896!

black americans couldn't really vote!

ahhhhhhhh!

(good work, dad!)

take my number (17 million) and divide it in half (8.5 million) for all the ladies who couldn't vote...then take off maybe 500,000 or a million black voters who were suppressed, and we're very close to the 7 million people who voted for mckinley and i really DID know what i was talking about!  (small victory.)

i restrained myself and didn't pull a HUGE NERD MOMENT and tell the trivia announcer that we weren't really so dumb as to think it was 17 million, we were just dumb enough to forget when women gained suffrage.

however, i am writing about this over the course of several days on my blog, so perhaps i had my huge nerd moment anyway.

trivia fail

the answer: mckinley!  (nice work, bill!)  we knew it couldn't be teddy roosevelt (who succeeded mckinley but was too young), and then taft and wilson didn't feel right either.  so we went to backwards to mckinley.  victory!

this left us tied for second place!  the tie-breaker: how many popular votes did mckinley win in the election of 1896?

we had one minute to come up with an answer.

we (i) said 17 million.  my logic: the doubling time of the population is 50-60 years, i think.  60 million people voted for obama.  that makes 30 million voting for the winner of the 1950 election...15 million in the 1900 election...somehow 17 million sounded right.

the answer was 7 million.  7!  horrors!  the other team said 1 million, so they were closer and won.

enormous frowny face.  we were NOT EVEN VERY CLOSE AT ALL.

30 seconds later i realized the error in my logic about how many people would have voted for mckinley.  where was my fault, readers?

what i'm listening to right now

after listening to it only once, i am already IN LOVE with brandi carlile's new album, bear creek, but i mean, OF COURSE.  i bought it this morning without previewing any tracks because people!  this is brandi carlile!  i love her voice, her band, the songwriting.  obviously i need to own the new album the day it comes out.

this will not be the last you hear about this album on this here blog.

brandi carlile, "100":

trivia success!

final question at trivia tonight: who was the last (most recent) us president who had fought in the civil war?

we did some intense figuring and got it right!  answer to come tomorrow.  if you want, guess in the comments (no cheating)!

i guess i should enjoy the atlanta weather now, even though it's pretty hot and muggy, as this is waiting for me starting june 21st:

oh, i will totally be seeing this movie (click "watch now" to watch the preview).

reasons why:
1. set in north carolina
2. looks hilarious
3. i heart politics
4. will most definitely be playing at the liberty theater in downtown north wilkesboro, as it stars zach galifianakis, wilkes central high graduate.  this will make it easy to see, as the local movie theater* in my hometown normally only shows PG-rated movies that i don't want to see...but they showed the hangover 2 in honor of their hometown star.  if they will show the hangover 2, they will show this movie.


*there is only one movie theater in my county, and it only shows 2 (usually bad) movies at a time.  to see other movies, one must drive 45 minutes, and that is lame.  come on liberty theater!  show the campaign!!

this weekend was a moving weekend!  mom and dad came into town and we helped thomas and lindsey move into their new house on saturday...and then on sunday friends came over to help me move most of my belongings.  but i'm not moving to new york until august!  to help explain, here's my summer timeline:

june 9-17 - salt lake city to grade the AP government exam

june 21-july 31 - england!

1st weekend in august - denver for mike's 30th birthday

then: i move home to north carolina with my parents

august 31 - i move into my dorm room at columbia!

this weekend was the only weekend my parents could come down to help me move, so we packed up all my furniture (i'll be sleeping in our guest room for the next couple weeks) and most of my belongings - what i have left will (hopefully) fit into my car when i drive myself home in NC in august.

sad empty bedroom with lots of dust in places where furniture used to be:

i tend to get really sad about moves - pit-in-my-stomach sad about leaving a place.  i'm making this move so slowly, though, that so far i'm doing okay.  the reality will set in at some point, of course...

(in other news, let's discuss how i kind of wish i could sit in front of my tv for the entirety of the olympics and just watch all the awesome events.  I LOVE THE OLYMPICS.  instead, i'll be working/playing, which is pretty awesome, too.  and i'll be in england for the first four days of the olympics!  so that will be pretty bad ass, too, even if i'll have to work a lot and my access to a tv will be unreliable.)

may: 14 & 15

this month my reading ranged from classy to trashy.


nightwoods, by charles frazier (classy.  charles frazier wrote cold mountain and thirteen moons, both amazing books, and this is his newest.  i bought it for mom for christmas and then promptly asked to borrow it...oops.  i did let her read it first!  i love frazier's books because they're set in the mountains of north carolina and because he has such a beautiful way with words.  and awesome plot lines.  this one revolves around a murder and mute twins, and i spent about 50 pages reading frantically because A Bad Thing was about to happen and i had to know if it was REALLY going to happen.  but if you've read cold mountain you know he's not afraid to let bad things happen.  this is a great book - i'd highly recommend it! - though the way frazier tells stories leaves you confused for a while until all the pieces come together.  so be prepared for a little bit of confusion.)

fifty shades of grey, by e.l. james (trashy.  i can't even believe i'm admitting to reading this book.  i read it for my book club!  this is my excuse!  that is all i will say.  shortest book review ever.)