Hilary term wrap-up

Hilary term is officiallly OVER!

--pause for celebratory dancing--

I don't know how it happened. One minute it was January and I was immersed a West Wing marathon demonstrating near-hibernatory habits and then suddenly it was March and the second of three terms had passed.

Overall, term went well. Though I didn't love the Women and Politics course as much as I'd hoped I would. It was less about women and politics in the realm of practice and way more focused on feminist interventions into liberal-democratic theory. I know theory is important, but after a point I get frustrated with philosophical debates and criticizing nuances in argument and want to talk about the reality of how things work. Also, I spent so much time hunting down readings in Oxfords hundred gazillion (that is an exact figure) libraries and writing essays for the tutorials, none of which were graded or count toward my degree, that I didn't really get to work on anything that will determine if I find myself on the other side of these nine months with a Masters or not.

BUT, lots of fun things happened, too:
--the aforementioned hibernation/marathon (really, how fantastic is it to have an excuse to wear flannel pajamas and do nothing but watch DVDs and sleep for ten days? thank you, student life.)
--the heroes and villains bop; Shirley's and my belated birthday at the Big Bang
--attending debates at the Union and heckling the pompous, ridiculous little boys with Julia and Liz
--Wednesday afternoon support group sessions with my fabulous, brilliant Women's Studies classmates.
--the opening of the Kellogg bar & hanging out there with college pals
--Pancake night at 7 Bradmore (see picture below) with toppings including honey, jam, syrup, nuts...yum.
--Informal dinners at Kellogg, including the one when WS friends came along; then having lunch at St. Cross and their epic salad bar two days later.
--Visits from home and traveling with visitors, including Gil's and my trip to London/Ox/Manchester and Duane, Becky's and my trip to Dublin/Ox/Stonehenge/Bath/London
--Helping to plan and then run the Women's Liberation Movement @ 40 conference with the phenomenal organizing committee: our fearless leader, Louise, and then Andie, Whitney, Liz, Suzie, Karen, Debbie, and Berna.

And lots more. Below are pictures from this past weekend's Moulin Rouge Bop

This board reminded me of those light up boards we used to have as kids, where you'd put the pegs in the holes and then switch on the light and have it light up your design....anyone?



Here are Michael, Julia and Liz ready to go to the Moulin Rouge bop--


I turned off my camera's flash and it looked like a heat sensor photo...


Julia and I had fun peering over the fan. Good thing there was one on hand because the dance floor got pretty hot. And stinky, actually. We had to evacuate.



A bit of housemate love--


Okay, and a few photos just to wrap up the rest of the term.


Master chef Julia making pancakes on Pancake day/shrove tuesday/mardi gras


Ah, and here's another "sometimes in Oxford moment" from this term--

Sometimes in Oxford, you walk around a corner and find

A judge in a wig on his cell phone. Natch.

Also--less hilariously and somewhat more concerningly--sometimes in Oxford, you stumble upon the modern Jesus army. Really? Have we really not learned that war/military imagery is probably not the best to pair with religious purposes? Armies kill people and destroy homes and devastate nations...do you really want to couple those connotations with your jesus mission? Seriously, people.

(above 2 photos courtesy of Julia)


Anyway--this term I did a lot of working, a bit less sleeping, a lot of creeping....



And while I fear my face too often looked something like this---


At least I haven't emerged like this--

Yet.


What's up next: term "break", a phrase used loosely because there's just as much if not more to do in the next 5 or 6 weeks than over this past term. I will be finishing my theory essay (6,000 words, 25ish pages?), researching, writing and revising my women and politics paper (10,000 words, 40ish pages?) and trying to make serious headway on the dissertation research, outlining and preliminary writing.

Fun things happening over "break": tomorrow my friend Liz and I are headed to Malta for three days, then Rome for four. Then after a few frantic weeks of doing schoolwork, Gil and I are headed to France for 10 days, staying in Paris and hopefully taking a few day trips to Giverny and Mont Saint Michel.

And in the 16 hours between me and my departure lays a massive binder of 120+ articles about Sarah Palin that need to be read, coded, and entered into a database, then sent to my supervisor for review. So... peace out and ciao, bellas.