Today at last provides another opportunity to offer you some more Carroll-quotes (and to allude to F.'s "weblogje"):
"'Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much surprised that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). 'Now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet!' (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). 'Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure I sha'n't be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can - but I must be kind to them,' thought Alice, 'or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see, I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.' And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. 'They must go by the carrier,' she thought; 'and how funny it'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And how odd the directions will look!
Alice's Right Foot, Esq.
Hearthrug,
near the Fender,
(with Alice's love).
Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!'
Days are becoming dark, cold and damp. M.P. knows what this means: time to go out with my new Bremer-hat! But Oh dear, my head must have been shrinking, or else the hat has grown, for while it was just on the large side when we bought it, it now covers my head until over my nose... Crossing the road has become an even more dangerous businesss than it already was, being me, but it does do the trick: my head stays warm, and a (British? German?) touch of excentricity has been added to my appearance. And, it made me win a compliment (the librarian spoke the following memorable words: "Nice hat").
To make an obvious and rather shaky narrative bridge:
Speaking of appearance:
I haven't told you yet about my first real night out in town, which must have been about a month ago by now. Exeter then seemed a desolate place to go out - luckily that image/reality has changed.
I had collected A. from her new apartment in the city (that is off-campus! And it's wonderful!) and we met more exiled students, from France, Austria and Germany, and one Englishman (J., from the Guy Fawkes-adventures). We were looking for a decent place, not too loud&smoky&dancy, where we could (small) talk. We made our way through the flocks of bawdy and ill-clad kids that seem to be Exeter's only inhabitants after the clock has struck six, dinner is over, and respectable people go to bed.
We had to walk a long way before we arrived at the first venue that seemed suitable for our purposes. It looked kind (the bouncers&bartenders) and slightly glamorous (the fittings) and even gimmicky (part of the upper floor is transparent, which provides nice views. For the ones downstairs).
Now I must go back a bit to explain. To me Exeter seemed one of the most heterosexual places I'd ever been - especially when you consider it's a students' city. No (obvious) couples walking hand in hand, no gay rights society (while they have interest groups for any other disease, from folk-dancing to econometrism, from Muslemness to chocolate addiction, from political conservatism to chappism, from RPGaming to vegetarianism; and Amnesty of course) (later I found out there
is one, but from their lack of pr it was clear they were not looking for members). Of course most
LBGT's don't feel any need to be obvious - and rightly so - but the size of the tip of the iceberg definitely says something about its total weight. So I had been wondering: where do they hide?
Well, lo and behold (sorry, M.M.M.: no plagiarism intended):
As soon as we entered, the ga(y)dar went "eeweeweew!" (or something similar). There were more people present, but who probably did it was the huuuge (considering body size and length of eyelashes and height of wig and colour of dress: seen
Priscilla? That's the direction you should look.)
queen sitting at the bar.
I jested to the others that we had managed to find Exeter's only gay bar - and we weren't even looking for it - but they remained skeptical. Until we had gone upstairs and ordered a drink. But by then it was too late! (malicious grin on my face) Fortunately, everyone was fine with it. Except for one girl. She assured us she wasn't a homophobe, but still felt uncomfortable. She didn't want to say why. Which in turn made the rest of us feel uncomfortable (as I heard later). (By the way: READ THE
BIBLE!)
Oddly, this same girl, with whom I wasn't especially befriended nor in whom I had shown a special interest, kept inviting me for outings and sitting next to me and looking me into the eyes for almost uncomfortable periods of time. Maybe her discomfort had a completely opposite reason from what we had imagined? (Anyway: don't worry, I'm absolutely not interested in her.)
But the Velvet Lounge is an amazing place where I will definitely return when I have more time: they don't have traditional British closing times! (We went to some other places afterwards, but they are less interesting to tell about.)
Next subject:
Today I have been learning more remarkable 'facts' of life in the library and at home. It is of course common knowledge that every day girls, but especially boys, die from masturbation, but did you know that lesbians aren't interested in sex after all?
I should now return to the mundane activity of essay-writing.
Spelling checkers can be such a pain: what to do with a silly word-processor that doesn't know ordinary words like effeminisation, homosocial, androcentrism, contrafactum, metanarrative or even, it turns out, interpunction? That's right: teach it!
One more note, as you may (or may not) have been wondering about my plans for a second (paid) job (translating uni-stuff from and into Dutch and from French and German): it doesn't really seem to come "van de grond" (and again, we see evidence for the theory that sentences are constructed lineary instead of hierarchically, making even merges between such languages as English and Dutch possible). But to be honest, I don't really mind. I am busy enough already!
Summary:
Emotions of the day: some frustration at the beginning, when the university library didn't have the books I had reserved, and when "hospitality" services had again broken their agreements on cleaning, but for the largest part of the day: feelings of happiness, content, anticipation and Nina Simone.
