Choral Shenanigans

BAhaha!  Made it two weeks without writing every tedious detail of my currently not-very-tedious-at-all life.  The self control ends now.

First of all, to address those of you who accuse me of having too much fun and not working enough: I'll have you know I wrote an entire piano piece and accompanying essay in under two weeks.  It's simply more fun to tell you about my punting adventures and harrypotteresque high table banquets than it is to describe myself sitting in my dorm room of an evening, nose three inches from the computer screen, puttering away at the midi keyboard.

So besides that, some of my accomplishments these past two weeks include making the pilgrimage to Christ Church to see the "real" Hogwarts (and forgetting my camera), seeing a play, and having two weekends-full of choral monkey business.

The aforementioned play was a spontaneous outing last Saturday afternoon with two friends to see The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Oxford Playhouse.  Despite committing the almost unforgivable sin of being a play without music (I should say "without songs;" there was a small string ensemble perched above the stage that provided mood music from time to time), Dorian Gray was marvelous.  Behold the trailer:

Oh, I picked a church.  It's the cathedral in the college called Christ Church (but woe betide ye who try to call it "Christ Church College," for ye shall be smote.  Smitten.).  Last Sunday was "Bible Sunday" (it's a Church of England thing, don't ask me) and the sermon was mostly about various translations of the Bible. The priest had unearthed some really fantastic King James passages that talked about children issuing from Abraham's bowels and souls being plagued by "a superfluity of naughtiness."

On Monday I had a dinner in the hall.  This was the Introductory Dinner, so it was the only one we don't have to pay for.  Ergo I went.  Dress code was "smart" with robes.  It was multi-course and candlelit and all that, with an army of waiters buzzing around making sure everyone's plate landed on the tablecloth in perfect synchronization.  I found the food a little strange--the salad, for instance, was a bowl of hot stringy smashed beet goo (Dwight Schrute would be proud), followed by a main course of exceptionally dry chicken and culminating in a tiny dish of cobbler next to a great wad of whipped cream--but it was hot, and as I said before, FREE.  And I got to wear my dress.  Huzzah.

There was a bit of unscheduled excitement on the hall the other night...a neighbor of mine came into the hall just after 1:00 am, presumably drunk out of his mind and swearing loudly.  He began to be loudly and violently sick, swearing and hollering the whole time.  This went on for about an hour and a half.  I stayed in bed and heard the entire performance.  I will say in his favor that he was up early the next morning scrubbing the bathroom with great dedication.

At the complete opposite end of the fun scale is all the choral debauchery that has gone down in the past two weeks.  I've learned that wine seems to be really integral to the basic structure of the Wadham College Chapel Choir.  The chaplain came into the choir common room one night deeply concerned that we didn't have any wine and bearing fresh bottles.  He himself solemnly vowed to keep us well supplied.  "I shall never let you run dry," quoth he.  Last weekend we saw a celebrity in a pub.  I vaguely recognized him from Love Actually.  Apparently he and another guy host shows over here like "Britain's Got Talent."  They're known collectively as Ant and Dec.  Didn't mean much to me, but the rest of the choir was all atwitter and trying to nonchalantly take secret pictures of him.  The guy on the left in the striped sweater is the one we saw in the pub:

And the secret photo:

Last night after choir rehearsal was another absolutely wonderful evening of choir shenanigans, beginning with a potluck dinner (the concept having been imported by a Lutheran from Michigan and rechristened by an Englishman as "a bit of a knees-up") and concluding much later in the King's Arms pub.  Hopefully pictures will be up on Facebook soon, but I didn't take them so I'm not in charge of these things.

This coming week is packed full of choir events, so look for another report maybe next weekend.

Linguistic notes from this week:
- The term "restroom" may or may not lead you to a toilet.
- Math in England is plural.  Here at the University of Oxford one studies "maths."
- And the coup de grâce: whipped cream is called "squirty cream."

Inklings

Well, I hadn't intended to write here every week, but so many crazy things have happened this week that I have to share them.  Off we go:

Thing One is that I joined a choir!  I spent most of Sunday afternoon and evening and again Monday evening auditioning for the Wadham College Chapel Choir.  We'll sing Evensong at Wadham College Chapel every Sunday night.  Look how pretty!

On Tuesday I had my first classes--called seminars.  In the first one the composers shared our work with each other and defended it, and in the other I heard a lecture about amateur musicians in a small northern English town.  They were both awesome and I could recount them in more detail, but it might not make very interesting reading.  Less interesting, at any rate, than...

The C.S. Lewis Society meeting!  It's sort of a continuation of the Inklings.  Every week they bring in a scholar to give a lecture about something to do with C.S. Lewis.  This week a Chinese/American guy talked about Lewis's translation of Virgil's Aeneid.  It really was fascinating.  The famous Spud was there, and I sat right next to Walter Hooper, Lewis's friend and secretary, and member of the Inklings.  Wait what?  Yes, you read that right.  After the lecture, Hooper raised his hand with a question and started saying things like "I remember when he was working on this..." and "he said to me about that..."  I looked over at the dude next to me, I'm sure with my eyes bugging out of my head, and nearly fell out of my chair.  I can't wait for the next meeting!

On Wednesday I went to the Gamelan Society meeting in a hot little room full of gamelan.  Google "gamelan" if you don't know what that is--basically it's an Indonesian percussion instrument in many parts made of brass and wood and played by several people at once.  Oxford claims to have one of the best/most complete gamelans in the country.  York's is also pretty spectacular; they showed me theirs last January.  We had to take our shoes off, so then it became a hot little room full of gamelan that smelled like feet.  It was a good time though.  They keys, pots, and gongs are numbered 6, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3 from low to high, with some variation.  An octave has five notes in it, so "low 1" is an octave below "high 1."  The tuning is pretty wonky, and the different parts of the instrument are not in tune with each other (at least according to my concept of what is "in tune").  The tricky thing about gamelan is that, as you strike a key with the hammer, you dampen the last one you hit with your other hand.  So most of the time you have the right hand forging gleefully onward as a very confused left hand struggles to repeat the melody out of phase.  It was great fun though, and I hope I'll be able to keep going back, although the equestrian team might conflict with it.

That night a group of friends and I saw The Graduate (1967 comedy with Dustin Hoffman) with the Magdalen Film Society.  I highly recommend it.  Thursday was a leisurely day full of Jane Eyre, friends, and pubs.  A German-only evening was declared at the Crown pub that night, giving my brain a serious workout.  Comprehension was good, but speaking was extremely frustrating.  I felt like I was trying to have a conversation with people on the other side of a wall.  If my German friends are patient enough though, I am very eager to keep working at it.

If anyone is still reading this very long blog entry, we have now come to the pièce de résistance.  Gold star for you.  This morning all the freshers of Oxford got up at the crack of dawn and put on our subfusc to matriculate.

Let's discuss this concept just briefly, if we could.  Subfusc, while it does confirm my suspicion that we are all actually at Hogwarts, is about the most impractical arrangement of cloth I have ever put on my body.  Let's begin with the mortarboard, shall we?  Has anyone ever questioned this truly striking fashion statement?  Hey, I know, let's take a cardboard square, slap a tassel on it, and wear it around on our heads!  We'll look SO dignified and educated.  Also anyone who thinks a skirt and white button-down shirt is enough clothing to wear outside for several hours on an October morning when it's 5°C should be boiled.  My fingers were actually numb by the time we finished with all the (outdoor) photographs and marching through town in parades of freezing besubfusced freshers.  I have news for you, folks.  An open, sleeveless cloak with wings on it is not a whole lot of help as an outer layer.

Anywho, we were cold.  But it was pretty great to have everyone together looking like penguins parading down the streets of Oxford with tourists lined along the sidewalks taking our pictures.  We processed into the round Sheldonian Theatre, heard some dude say some stuff in Latin, then give us a speech for about 20 minutes, and shabang--we were matriculated, and therefore official members of the university.

We went out for tea afterwards, then three of us changed and went punting on the river.

Please see Facebook for the full album and a video of the ceremony!

Pudding

Well I've just had one of the most amazing weeks of my life.  It was beyond words.  I shall now describe it in words.

Actually, one word: Pudding.

Pudding is a word I have yet to solidly define.  Most of the readers of this blog will use this word to refer to a specific type of noxiously sweet dessert that has a consistency similar to that of yogurt, usually comes in vanilla or chocolate flavors, and is popular with children.  However, in my brave new world of Oxford, England, the word seems to mean a variety of things: It can be a general word to describe any dessert, or it can be a certain kind of sweetish bread (NOT to be confused with "sweet bread" under any circumstances), or it can be a gooey, spongey, cakey thing.  I am still unearthing further meanings and will keep you updated.  In the meantime, I would like to tell you about my amazing week, organized into vignettes named after the particular pudding that accompanied the adventures.

THE ULTIMATE BROWNIE
On Monday I went to dinner with one of the most fun groups of people I have ever had the pleasure of dining with.  Three delightful business colleagues of my dad's took me out to Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant for a very nice dinner.  We were joined by (I'm not kidding) the world's leading C.S. Lewis scholar, who goes by the nickname -- wait for it -- Spud.  Yep.  We discussed Lewis's work, debated the great music of the Western tradition, analyzed European and American cultures, speculated about the end of modern society, and made underwear jokes.  The best meal (by far) that I'd had in over a week concluded with a seriously good brownie.

COOKIES/BISCUITS
On Tuesday I spent an exhausting day with my department.  I can't tell you how excited I am to work with both of the composition professors here, as well as with my new peers in the music department.  It felt so good to be drowning in musicians again.  I learned that my schedule will consist mostly of independent work.  I mentioned my secret Beethoven project idea, just to test the waters with the faculty, and received an encouraging reply.  I can't wait to start.  Another highlight of the day was touring the Bates Collection of ancient and world instruments.  I got to play Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on a Beethoven-era piano--with the pedal held down for the entire piece, of course!  At the end of this whirlwind day, new and returning music students gathered in a music hall for drinks and cookies.  Sorry, biscuits.

SCONES
Scones, people.  It's ALL about the scones.

Wednesday was my college's version of Tuesday.  Events, explanations, registrations, and tours dominated the day.  Another exhausting day, but a lot was accomplished, and I did get to spend the better part of the afternoon and evening with three seriously fun people from my college.  We had tea and scones* in the Hall, then went downstairs and did battle with the communal TV/projector/DVD player arrangement for a few hours, then went to a pub for a very satisfying meal, then returned to the college to watch Amadeus on my laptop.  One of my best evenings so far.

*Scones are what would happen if Jesus decided to bake something.  Forget whatever you've eaten in America that bears that name.  This is so much better.  It's a sort of shortbready cookie of awesome topped with jam (not jelly, which here means jell-o; try asking someone in England how they feel about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  You'll get a pretty good expression in response.) and clotted cream, which is basically thick whipped butter carefully designed to clot and stop your heart.  Scones.  Eat them.

MACINTOSH APPLE
On Thursday I went to the Freshers' Fair and signed my life away to about fifty different groups and clubs, including auditions for a number of choirs, the German club, a few churches, the Oxford equestrian team, and the polo team.  Polo is probably not actually going to happen, since lessons are £40 each, but until I turn down the first lesson, I figure I'm on the Oxford polo team, right?  Probably yes.

I caught the train in the evening to Paddington Station in London to meet my dad, who had just come from a business trip in Paris.  We spent the evening wandering the streets of London, and passed by the tribute to Steve Jobs that was laid out on the sidewalk outside the Apple Store.  People had left flowers and candles, and the windowsill of the store was lined with apples with one bite out of each of them.  It was a touching and creative response to the death of a very creative man.

APPLE AND BLACKBERRY TRIFLE
Friday was spent entirely in London.  We had lunch with a variation on Monday night's group at a super-swanky restaurant, where I had a glorious dessert made of layers of fruit, custard, cream, and other stuff, at least one of which is probably called pudding.  Dinner with another of Dad's friends was also quite snazzy.

I like Dad's and my approach to London.  We walk and we eat.  We get up and eat.  Then we walk and walk and walk and look at stuff.  Then we stop and eat so we can walk some more.  Then we walk and walk and stop for tea.  Then we walk.  Then we eat dinner, and afterwards we walk until we're ready to collapse into bed.  Good times.

FONDANT AU CHOCOLAT
This morning we got up in London and took the train to Oxford.  We had a wonderful day of exploring the city.  I got my sub fusc (read the post I write shortly after October 15 to find out what that is) and a wool St Cross College scarf, which I shall treasure.  I showed Dad everything I could think of.  His reaction to the Bodleian Libraries was particularly enjoyable:

Dinner with Spud was the perfect bookend to my amazing week.  The rest of the day can be described better with pictures and videos than it can with words.  I'll include a few highlights here, and the complete album can be viewed on Facebook.  Don't miss the two videos at the end of dancing street performers!

inside St Cross College