Part One: The End

(Written July 13)

Where to begin?  I’m back in St. Louis now (unless I find Wi-Fi in Heathrow…not likely), but there’s a lot to cover from my last month in Oxford.

Sara visited at the beginning of June.  It was a week of grand adventures and riotous living.  We saw a play about Mary Shelley.  Five minutes into the play an actress broke her wrist onstage.  It got better after that.

The annual choir punting trip was nothing short of idyllic.  We dropped anchor (so to speak) somewhere along the riverbank to eat little bits of things and sing madrigals at very fast tempi.

Early in her visit Sara and I set out in the morning on a great expedition to find the horses in Port Meadow.  Undaunted by an ominous sky, we set off into the great unknown with nothing to guide us apart from the vague rumour that there were horses somewhere within the county.  That was enough to be going on with.  Roughly two hours later we emerged from a thicket to find our way blocked by the Bridge of Death, a rudimentary alliance of three planks of wood that were slowly sinking into the bog and floating/melting away.  Lesser adventurers might have been thwarted by the threat of plunging into unknown depths (maybe two feet) of icy, muddy swamp water.  But not we.  Armed with my wellies, I ventured forth first to test the structural integrity.  To be fair, my test of the bridge did in fact confirm our suspicions that this was a totally unsuitable structure that was likely to disintegrate at any moment…on the other hand, I didn’t fall in.  And there were horses out there.  Good enough.  Sara followed (barefoot, in the absence of wellies) and together we conquered the Bridge of Death.

The herd was somewhere in the vicinity of the next town, but dang it, we found them.  They were a sociable bunch.  Most were in need of a serious hoof trimming and a diet, but they were as pleasant and cheery as could be.  Having satiated our need for pony snuggles, we set off through the mud in the direction in which we thought Oxford probably was, and eventually found our way home, exhausted but victorious.

The rest of the week was a procession of one adventure after another, irritatingly punctuated by my battles with printers and envelopes and candidate numbers and other logistical aspects of submitting my portfolio of essays and compositions for my degree.  I’d written the thing before Sara got here, but even though the real work was done, there were still many skirmishes to be had.  I was thwarted at every turn.  I marched the thing over to the Exam Schools, in much the same way as one marches to the scaffold, through driving rain that Friday morning, and Sara and I promptly collapsed into a coffee house.  That evening, once I had unwound myself a bit, we joined Bill Spectre (dressed as a nineteenth-century undertaker) on his theatrical ghost tour of Oxford.  So worth it.  I recommend that tour to anyone with a healthy sense of whimsy and an appreciation for silly ghost stories.

We spent our last day of Sara’s visit at the varsity polo match with a gaggle from St Cross.  We braved the tempestuous winds and largely worthless alcoholic teenage upper class spectators and saw most of four polo matches: an alumni match, Eton vs. Harrow (Eton won by a healthy margin), Oxford vs. Cambridge (we’re not talking about that match), and Harvard vs. Yale.  Now, why Harvard and Yale had to come to England to play each other is a mystery to me, but whatever.  But it was great fun and I am sorely tempted to get involved in polo next year.  I am currently investigating the possibilities.

That night I sent Sara off to Copenhagen via the midnight bus to Gatwick after a week of legendary Sara/Anna adventures.  The next day was the leavers’ service at Wadham (meaning the last evensong of the year) when leavers (people who are graduating or otherwise moving on from Oxford) choose the music.  I had the great privilege of conducting this service.  The musical high point of the service, for me, was the anthem we sang:

The next few weeks were consumed by the composition that stood in place of the dissertation for my master’s degree.  That was a labour of love, but it was a long and arduous labour.  It was a mostly instrumental piece based on the structure of an Anglican evensong service.  It was more consonant than a lot of the music I’ve written: each brief movement was written using its own seven-note scale.  Some of these scales aligned with traditional modes, and some did not.  I was pleased with it, but I’ll feel more secure, of course, once I’ve been given my results.

The Olympic torch came through Oxford on Monday the 9th, and since I’m not going to be here for the Games themselves, I volunteered at the torch relay, wanting at least to have some role in the Olympics.  My job was to hold back the raging crowd as the convoys of vehicles, performers, and torchbearers came through.  My friend Will joined me in volunteering.  The torch wasn’t expected to come through the street where we were stationed until about 18:15, but we had to be there by 15:30.  I donned the surprisingly complex uniform (comfortable shoes, ginormous white polo, fluorescent day-glo yellow vest, lanyard with event staff ID, random blue silicone bracelet, and drawstring backpack), put on my usher face, and went forth to herd humans.  Moooooooo.

On Wednesday the 11th I went to London to see Les Misérables at the Queen’s Theatre.  It was a spectacular performance.  Jean Valjean is being played by a legit Argentinian tenor, and Sierra Boggess, a personal favourite of mine, is in the role of Fantine for a short period this summer.  I’d seen the show live three times before, and I’ve seen recorded “in concert” performances a number of times and have listened to the CD to the point of memorization, but still this performance was truly thrilling.  It was certainly the best live performance of the piece I’ve seen.  After the show I pranced around to the stage door, and I got a photo with my girl Sierra Boggess.

The rest of the day in London was delightful.  We went to the British Museum, where I found the most fantastic factual error:

On my last day in Oxford, I got back to St Cross at about 11:45pm to nap (not to sleep, but to nap) before catching the 6am bus to Heathrow.  In the end I only got an hour of sleep last night because I was freezing—I had moved my sheets and pillow and duvet into storage yesterday morning, and without my duvet it was too cold to sleep, even wrapped in a hoodie, my bath towel, and my bathrobe, with various other bits of clothing from my suitcase piled on top of me.  I gave up at about 2:45am and got up to take a hot shower and warm up.  I fiddled around cleaning my room and perfecting my suitcase until 5:30, when I left to catch the bus.

And here I am at Heathrow, way too early (but better than too late), waiting for the screen to tell me which gate to go to.  I am sore from dragging around heavy suitcases for two days, I am tired, and my stomach is slightly upset because of the bus and because I ate breakfast at 4:00 and my body doesn’t really know what to do with that sort of nonsense, but I have had a glorious last week in Oxford, at the end of an unbelievable year.  I said goodbye to the City of Dreaming Spires reluctantly, but I am looking forward to a summer with family and friends and horses, and joy of joys, I get to come back to this amazing place at the end of September.  So I am glad.

Click here for the full album on facebook.

Update (20.7.12): Passed my degree.  Bam.

Good New Days

There are some days I will always remember.  Some days that are so intensely full of joy I don't know what to do but sit in the corner with wide eyes and listen, and give as many hugs as I can.  Here in Oxford, those days come far more often than I have any right to wish for.  They come as part of the routine.  To live here is to be very awake.

I met C.S. Lewis's stepson a few weeks ago.  Douglas Gresham, the son of Joy Davidman, spoke for an hour and a half at C.S. Lewis Society.  He elected to answer questions rather than deliver a lecture, and his answers were full and thorough and often blossomed into stories.  He was a gifted storyteller.  People asked questions about his family, being raised by Lewis, his life in America, England, and Australia, his writing, Lewis's writing, and his involvement in the Narnia movies.  He compared film and stage depictions of his story with reality.  He asserted some political views I could have done without, and related scenes from his childhood at the Kilns, which I could have listened to all night.  He said he was once criticized for writing an autobiography because he hadn't done anything worth it.  But, he told us, no one should be arrogant enough to write an autobiography because of the great things they think they've done.  His was worth being written because such extraordinary have happened to him.  And it was true.  His life has been extraordinary.

A good friend finished two grueling weeks of exams in May, and I was introduced to another delightfully bizarre tradition: trashing.  Friends of the examinees clustered behind metal barracades outside the Examination Schools, after subjecting ourselves and our bags to a security inspection, and there we waited for Rachel to emerge victorious.  When she appeared in sub fusc, wearing a red carnation to signify that this was her last exam, the caged party assaulted her with confetti, champagne, and gunpowder-powered party poppers.  (Say that five times fast.  I dare you.  Gunpowder-powered party poppers.  Gunpowder-powered potty papa.  Gunpowder-patta patta patta heyyyy, batter batter batter.  I give up.)

On May 24 the William Jewell College choir finished its tenth triennial UK tour in St Peter's College Chapel in Oxford.  I had been looking forward to a reunion with my Jewell people for months, probably driving people crazy with my jittery anticipation, but I underestimated what it would feel like to come around the corner of the St Peter's chapel and see those bright red robes and white collars, which I had spent so many sweaty hours inhabiting, singing with aching back and feet, packed into a space that was inevitably too small with elbows pressed against some of my favorite people.  It's been three years since I graduated from Jewell, and I only expected to know one or two people, but when I rounded that corner I was greeted by the faces of almost the entire Jewell music faculty.  The next few minutes were a blurred succession of warm exclamations and hugs from some of the kindest people I know--people to whom I owe enormous gratitude for some of my best memories, and for being where I am today.  The choir gave a stunning performance under their excellent new director, and I swelled with pride to hear the choir that will always be my choir making such music.  Two good friends came with me to the concert, and it was a thrill to be able to share this thing that was so important to me with them.  It meant a lot to me that both of them took the time to come.

That Saturday, May 26, marked two years since my Patrick died.  It hurt during the first year--a lot.  In the second year I have found myself recalling all of it with a more settled sense of fond, thankful contentment.  I am thankful for the two years I got to spend with the best horse I've ever met, who was a great friend to me as long as he was able to be.  I'm thankful for the adventures we had together, and for all the fun we had, and for the honest hard work he gave me.  And, when it all went wrong, I'm glad no one got hurt, and that his needs could be met.  And I'm thankful that he died quickly, while he was having fun being ridiculous, with the same inappropriate level of drama that he brought to every situation.  Your heart didn't just fail, Patrick--it exploded.  Well done, sir, well done.

All joking aside, that's really what I want to say to him:

Well done, Patrick.

I didn't spend that day being sappy by myself.  I spent it out on the Cherwell watching the season's big boat race, mysteriously named Summer Eights.  The riverbanks were packed with Oxford rowing fans exhibiting varying degrees of rabies.

After an entire day spent achieving a hard-earned sunburn (no mean feat in England), we retired to Wolfson for EUROVISION.  What, you may ask, is this obviously highly significant and so dramatically-named event?

WELL.

Eurovision is not any massive international effort to save the world or eradicate poverty or wage an intergalactic war on bloodthirsty vampire aliens intent on our destruction, as its grandiose name might suggest.  Oh no.  This is a song contest.

But this is no ordinary music competition.  We are not searching for the grandest symphony or the loudest ground-shaking rock concert or the most olympian aria.  No, this is an epic monument to Europop.

On the Continent, Eurovision is taken rather seriously.  Here in the UK, the attitude is somewhat less reverent.  While each country mounts its grandest spectacle of Europop power ballads, seizure-inducing light shows, fanciful costumes, and tornadic hair, British commentator Graham Norton offers UK viewers a constant stream of thinly-veiled mockery.  The champion of the evening was Sweden with this fabulous number:

However, my comrades and I felt that Russia's singing babushkas were far and away the strongest entry:

And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us up to Sara's visit and the grand adventures thereof, which will be the subject of my next post.  Peace, love, and Eurovision.

Confirmation

Hi folks,

I know I just wrote one of these, but I've been promising a post about my confirmation, and I thought I'd better get that done before I start to forget the details.

It was a wonderful experience, and one I'll always remember.  Angela emphasized that, from the church's perspective, I didn't need to do this to be part of the community, which I really appreciated.  I wanted to do it because I felt that it was a way for me to enter this community, and also to recognize how my faith has grown and matured since I've been here.  That's why I wanted to do it.  And I'm so glad I did.

Just a quick note on what this is all about:  If you're raised Anglican (which I wasn't), you get baptized (usually) as a baby.  At this ceremony, your parents, godparents, and the church community make a commitment to raise you well and do their best to teach you about what they believe is true and important.  There is also a belief among Anglicans that God is actually acting on the person in some way at the baptism.  It's definitely not your "ticket to heaven," but it is a sacrament--"an external sign of an internal grace."  God claims you during a human act of submission.  Then, when you're older, you decide when you're ready to return the favor and make your own commitment to God, so you take a confirmation class to discuss what you're actually committing to, and then you get confirmed.

My upbringing was a little different.  In the Baptist church, you get baptized when you're older, when it's your decision, like Jesus did when his cousin John, a rabbi, baptized him.  We emphasize that it's not a magical ceremony, it's not the price of admission to heaven, and it doesn't change how much God likes you.  It is like a wedding.  When I was baptized at 13, I was saying that I was going to do my best to follow God for the rest of my life.  We do it because we're told to.  Jesus said it's good to be baptized, so we get baptized.  So the "what happens" of baptism differs a little bit, but we agree that it's a good thing to do, it's important and a duty, and it's representative of becoming a follower of God.  Baptists don't have confirmation because that public promise is at the core of our baptism ceremony.

So I had already made the promises involved in confirmation at my baptism.  For me, Anglican confirmation was a way to learn about the tradition in which I now find myself, a way to join the community and participate fully, and also just a personal statement: a reiteration of commitments I made twelve years ago but continue to hold to.

Still with me?  Excellent.  The rest will be lighter.  :)  I'm going to give you a slightly irreverent account of some of the features, but be assured that at no point do I mean to be contemptuous or dismissive.  Some of you who read this might not know me very well--I love finding whimsy in situations, including situations I think are meaningful and important.  Please don't mistake my amusement for disrespect.

I showed up for rehearsal at Christ Church Cathedral on the afternoon of the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.  John, a priest at the cathedral and someone of whose I am a big fan (give me a second to recover from that disastrous game of grammatical Twister), asked me if I was ready, spiritually and otherwise, and I went off to the side to let the little butterflies of stage fright accumulate and gather speed.  The Bishop of Oxford, who would be conducting the ceremony, wasn't actually there yet, so for a lot of the time John had to go through the program and say in effect for each item, "We're not going to rehearse this part now because the Bishop isn't here, and I don't know how he's going to do it, but it will be fine."  Move on to the next item in the program, and: "We can't rehearse this part because the Bishop isn't here yet..." and repeat.  So a lot of the rehearsal was us going through each thing in the program and not rehearsing it.

When the service started, it was of course before Easter, so we were observing that period of time when Jesus was dead.  They constructed a somber atmosphere to reflect this, with each congregant holding a candle to dimly illuminate the otherwise dark and gloomy cathedral.  The fire for the candles came from a little symbolic fire lit outside using some kind of scented wood that smelled really good.

As I learned only last week, the Anglican church celebrates the start of any particular festival at sunset on the previous day, so at a certain point in this service, it was suddenly officially EASTER.  And boy did we know it.  All at once, in the same sudden moment, the lights blazed on, the choir brought forth a fanfare, somebody in the back shook bells like he'd just stuck his finger in an electrical socket, a choir member whipped a pair of giant cymbals out of nowhere and crashed them together, and the organist--oh, the organist.  It was like bam lights on PLAY SOME LOUD STUUUUUUUFFFFFFFFFF.  I bet he looks forward to that moment all year.  I would.

For the confirmation itself, each candidate was presented to the Bishop by the clergy member responsible for preparing him or her for confirmation.  Angela Tilby, a canon at the cathedral, had given me my confirmation class, so she presented me to the Bishop when the time came.  Then the great Bishwop himself asked the eight or so candidates a short list of questions, asking us to commit to a few basic ideas.  Each of us went up to him individually to be confirmed after this.  When I went up, he looked me in the eye and said, "Anna, God has called you by name and made you his own."  He pressed both his hands onto the top of my head and prayed.  I got a little slimy oil smeared on my forehead for good measure and returned to my seat an Anglican.

I was so grateful to be surrounded that night by good friends.  It meant a lot to me to have them there.

This memory is on my mind today because this morning I had the privilege of going to the University Church to witness Rachel, a friend of mine from choir, being confirmed herself.  The Bishop conducted her ceremony as well and gave a magnificent sermon based on two assertions: all this stuff only matters if it's true, and all this stuff only matters if it somehow makes you, your life, different.

Rain Boots in the Cathedral

and other reflections on English weather

A few weeks ago we had a period of seventeen consecutive days during which it rained every single day--often for most of the day.  The world is wet.  And yet, in all that rain, we could hardly seem to manage a respectable storm.  There were two claps of thunder on April 22, and two more rumbles on Tuesday, but really.  If it's going to rain this much, I think we at least deserve a good rousing storm.

The wellies/rain boots have been given a near-daily outing during Monsoon Season 2012, and have been worked to the point of springing a leak.  But they are mighty and shall endure.

I have been criticized for wearing my wellies into church on multiple occasions--both in Wadham Chapel where our choir sings and in Christ Church Cathedral.  While I agree that pairing sky blue fake wellies with so-called "church clothes" and an academic gown is one of the more daring fashion statements I have attempted, I would also like to remind everyone that here in the land of walking miles on cobblestone through a neverending procession of five-minute rain showers, sensible footwear is next to godliness.  Make fun of my fake wellies all you want, but at the end of the day, you will look great and be freezing, and I will look silly and have dry feet.

Today is Ascension day, which if you're an Anglican is apparently a separate event from Pentecost.  I got up this morning at the crack of dawn* and trekked down to Harris Manchester to sing a little service on top of THE TOWER.  We were given a health and safety speech ("This tower was built nine bazillion years ago and has never and will never pass any safety inspection.  If you die, you may not sue us.  Try really hard not to jump off the tower because it's not good for you.") and then crept up the teeniest, creepiest, most claustrophobic spiral staircase I've ever seen.  We sang a ten-minute service, complete with prayers and readings, for a congregation of exactly zero people--which is only slightly smaller than last Monday's congregation, when we had a choir of 7 and a congregation of 3.  We pack 'em in at Harris Manchester.  Anyway, we had a good time, and the view speaks for itself.

*I use the term "crack of dawn" here in the figurative sense.  As we creep towards summer, the sun does not, in fact, rise at any hour that I would expect to be awake for.  The other night I didn't bother to close my drapes before going to bed, because I was getting up at 7:00am.  That's pretty early, I thought.  The sun won't have been up for long, surely.  It will be fine.  Next thing I knew, I was waking up at 5:00am to blazing sunlight setting my room aglow.  Fail.  We are currently at 16 hours of daylight and climbing.  I hate my skylight more than ever.

Spring has sprung.  The grass is riz.  I wonder where the daisies is.

Siyahamb'ekukhanyeni kwenkhos'

It was a month ago tomorrow that I found out I get to stay here for three more years.  In that time, I have borrowed an opera from a famous conductor, gotten confirmed as an Anglican, unwittingly watched the equine equivalent of dogfighting on BBC1, stayed up late with the Titanic victims to witness their demise, and conducted a choir in a performance of African music.  Just another month in Oxford.

Earlier this year, I got it into my head that I should write an essay on an opera called La Esmeralda by Louise Bertin (1805-1877).  This is a terrible idea for several reasons, which I shall now list for your disapproval:

1. I do not speak French.
2. No one has heard of this opera or this composer.
3. The opera was a catastrophic failure and closed after six performances, and has only been performed once in its entirety in the 176 years since its premiere.
4. The orchestrated version of the opera is unpublished and unavailable.
5. There are exactly zero English-language books in existence devoted to either this opera or this composer.

Armed with my list of reasons why this was a bad idea, I launched myself into research.  I already own a copy of the only recording of La Esmeralda.  What I really needed was the score, which it is not even published, much less in print. So I tracked down Maestro Lawrence Foster of the Orchestre et Opéra National de Montpellier, the conductor on my CD, and wrote to his personal assistant asking for advice on where I might be able to find the score.  Then something unbelievable happened--Maestro Foster totally lent me his score.  It arrived from France a few days ago.  I think we can put that one down as a win for the Oxford email address.

I went over to the dark side and got confirmed as an Anglican the night before Easter, but I think that dude deserves its own post (too much to write about here already), so stay tuned.

I watched the Grand National on BBC1 last weekend, but I'll refrain from describing it here.  Horse people: call me.  I'll just summarize by saying that it's always a treat to have equestrian competitions on TV, but I was shocked by how violent and barbaric this event was.

I'm sure the one hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic has escaped none of you.  If you haven't already, you should definitely check out the new drama miniseries on the subject (online at ITV for the UK and ABC for the US).  You may also be aware of the bizarre reenactment that went on during the last week.  For the low, low price of about $10,000 you could dress up in Edwardian costumes and board the one ship in the world that fully intended to hit an iceberg and sink.  One of the less historically accurate features of this strange cruise was a constant procession of tweets issuing from the ship, documenting in real time the detailed goings-on of the original Titanic voyage.  These began before the ship sailed and continued through the time at which the Carpathia would have arrived to rescue the survivors.  Many of the tweets were from the point of view of various passengers and crew members--some historical and some hypothetical.  This, while fascinating, was also problematic.  The tweets conjured images of people dodging explosions, being trampled by mobs, plummeting into the ocean, clinging to floating shrapnel, convulsing with hypothermia, drowning in icy seawater, and periodically pulling cell phones out of their pockets to tweet about it.  Oh no, I'm trapped in boiler room 6 and the water is up to my chin!  Hang on, Ima just send a tweet real fast.

A splendiferous choral opportunity came to me this week in the form of an invitation to teach and conduct a few rousing African pieces with the Wadham choir.  I can't tell you how much fun that was.  We did "Siyahamba," "Hamba Lulu," and "Si njay, njay, njay."  Gesundheit.  You should have seen our English chapel choir moving and dancing and improvising and giving that joyful music every ounce of enthusiasm it deserved.  My choir was thrown unsuspectingly into a choral tradition that is in vivid contrast to the one in which we live and function, and they committed to it wholeheartedly and totally rocked it.  I couldn't be prouder of the choir I get to sing in.  And it was just so much fun.

I will conclude with the latest development in my endeavor to learn English as a second language.  Tonight's subject is the word practice.  Or practise.  See, apparently here in the land of black pudding and mushy peas, there are two ways of spelling the word, depending on whether it is being used as a noun or as a verb.  So I go to practice to practise.  I feel that this is unnecessarily complicated, and it leaves me with two dilemmas:  How do I spell the word when the noun becomes an adjective, and when the verb becomes a noun (gerund)?  Is it a practice room or a practise room?  Is practicing a necessary part of my day, or is practising?  Or maybe in these cases we're supposed to use an entirely new spelling.  Maybe my pracktassing in fact takes place in the prægtizz rooms.  Or maybe--

No.  You know what?  I quit.  I just quit.  Any language that considers semihemidemisemiquaver to be a reasonable and legitimate word has serious issues that should be addressed.  I mean, that's on par with some ridiculous imaginary language that has sixteen forms of the, thinks pineapples are female but girls are not, and lets you invent compound words on the spot that aren't even in the dictionary.  Oh wait...

She practises during practice in a prægtizz room because she likes pracktassing.

At the end of the secret week

I have no intention of publishing this post today.  I'm not even sure when I will publish it.  The exact date depends upon the speed of the combined efforts of the Royal Mail and the United States Postal Service.

Let me explain.

You see, there's a letter on its way to my parents' house right now, maybe somewhere over the Atlantic, explaining that I've been accepted into the DPhil program at Oxford.  And I want a few days to live with my secret news before I make it public.  The arrival of that letter will be my cue to share this with everybody.

Here are some animals who feel the way I do about this news.

I've been waiting for this answer ever since I found out last March that I was coming here for the one-year MSt course.  It's been a year of learning to live in a state of uncertainty without being afraid of it; of learning to wait and trust and listen and follow and put down roots knowing that they might be torn up.  Of doing good work not because it will earn you a prize, but because it is good to do good work.  Of enjoying gifts like carol services and nights in the pub and the smell of ancient buildings without knowing if these things would be repeated or if they would remain little fixed gems in my memory.  Above all it's been a year of living in the present and getting into the habit of saying thank you for today.

I have felt a little like a balloon, floating around in this amazing place, not knowing if I was allowed to actually stand on the ground or if I would simply drift away.  In past situations I've joked that "all that worrying paid off."  But that is one thing I will not say now.  Nothing has paid off; nothing has been earned.  I have been given a gift that just about knocks me over, and I will respond with gratitude and good work and an ever-deepening trust.  And I will say over and over for the next three years,

Thank you for today!

The Fire Alarm

I don't know what I ever did to the St Cross fire alarm, but it's out to get me.  The first time it went off, I was in the shower.  The second time it went off, I was in my pajamas and no one else was.  The third time it went off...oh, the third time.

I was out late last night for a string orchestra concert, and by the time I got to sleep it was about 12:30am.  At 2:00am, the blaring fire alarm ejected me from my bed.  It's the kind of noise that is so offensive that it causes you to throw yourself out of bed and stand up before you actually stop sleeping.  Then when you do wake up, you find that you are standing, and you have to figure out a) why you're standing and b) what that horrible noise is.

I stumbled blearily around my room for a minute, trying to figure out how to put on flip flops and struggling to distinguish between my bathrobe and my keys (I was pretty sure one was for wearing and the other was for locking the door, but I wasn't all that clear on which was which), all the while under the relentless assault of the fire alarm.  I achieved a reasonable level of organization and shuffled down the fire escape to join a huddled gathering of similarly delighted-looking flatmates in the rain.  Facebook was promptly updated on mobile phones, and we stood around and shivered while we waited for the fire department to materialize.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I am less than impressed by the reaction time of Oxford's Finest.  The firemen took nearly a half hour to show up, and they came in carefully disorganized waves of giant men with ever-so-slightly differing job descriptions and the same clumsy questions.  One of the "early" arrivers had the nerve to issue some kind of threat about the bad things that would happen if we dared to go back inside before permission was given.  I thought that was particularly helpful at 2:30 in the morning.

It took our huddle of freezing half-asleep students about forty-five seconds to figure out what had happened to trigger the fire alarm.  Our neon-clad heroes, by contrast, stomped up and down the same stairs and asked us the same questions repeatedly for about twenty minutes before it was all over.

Their confusion was surprising, given that there was a smoking pot of charred pasta sitting on the stove in the kitchen.  They were deeply troubled by the fact that there was more smoke in the hallway than there was in the kitchen.  Well, Einstein, you took a half hour to get here, and all that time the windows in the kitchen have been, as you might observe, open.

They were so disturbed by this that they decided the fire must have occurred somewhere other than in the pot of smoking charred pasta on the stove.  Because the fire alarm itself was physically located in the hall near my door, they decided that the fire must also be in my room.  This seemed to me to be a case of confusing cause with effect, but they were thrashing around with too much enthusiasm for me to explain that the location of the fire alarm does not actually influence the location of the fire.  So I stood outside my room, in my pajamas, at 2:30 in the morning, while about seven well-meaning giant neon men clodhopped through my room in big muddy boots.

It was at this point in the proceedings, and not before, that someone thought to turn the fire alarm off.  Eventually we were given permission to re-enter the building.  The firemen continued to stomp around as we all crept back into our rooms.  I locked my door from the inside, having very little interest in any further interruptions by firemen poking their heads in to ask questions that were answered forty-five minutes ago.

Ah, dorm life.