Today I did four things: 1.) I wrote the majority of a paper. 2.) I ate. 3.) I went to church. 4.) I saw Harry Potter. All of these things were enjoyable, some more than others. And none of them employed the use of movement. After a trip where I have moved quite a bit over the course of every day, this sounds like it wouldn't be too bad, but I think tomorrow I am going punting again. Except this time I'm not using a boat. I'm just going to swim to London.
I got up after sleeping in a little while, and started right in on my paper. There is a little sandwich shop called Mortons about 40 feet from the entrance to Exeter, so I didn't have to go far, and I took it back to have a picnic in front of my computer while I wrote. The paper is on Irish Nationalism and Independence, and it is going well so far. Tomorrow I will hopefully have a first draft done early, so the rest of the day I can revise it and work on my presentation, which is about the Labour party in WWII. I worked on the paper in my room for close to 7 hours, which is depressing because that means I wrote almost a page an hour. I'm scouring 6 different books on Irish Independence, which was a topic apparently I knew absolutely nothing about other than it involved Irish people. Fortunately I have good music on my iTunes to keep me from going crazy. Also, out my open window there was a wedding reception or something like it in Fellows Garden. Listening to the general merryment with the city's bells in the background was nice too.
At around 6 I decided I had to move. I walked around my room by using the walls as crutches until there was once again some blood in my legs. I had planned on going to church tomorrow morning, so I was only going to go on a walk, but I saw on one of the church's websites that they had a 6:30 service for Saturdays. I went to The Oxford Oratory, connected to the Church of St. Aloysius Gonzaga. It was really cool going to Mass here, and there was a nice crowd of all ages in there with me, which I always love to see. I noticed some interesting differences in wording, which made me sound stupid when I was trying to talk in unison with them. Most of the people around me gave me dirty looks and muttered "bloody yank." That didn't actually happen, but I deserved it.
The priest had an English accent, which you already know I'm a fan of, and the Deacon who gave the homily could have talked about anything and I would have nodded along and said "of course" because of how smart he sounded. It really was a great homily on the importance of parables though. It was also really cool hearing one of the prayers for "Our Queen, Elizabeth, and our government."
I walked back to the college while everyone else was eating dinner in the hall, so I went and grabbed a bite at another little sandwich shop. It was a small, nasty piece of pizza, but I was still pumped about the English Mass so I didn't mind. I met Joanna and some friends and we walked over to the movie. I am not a fan of 3D, but I had a good seat (in a row almost completely made up of people I'm studying with who I didn't know were going too, which was awesome). A word of caution: If you ever go see a movie in England, specifically in an Odeon theater, you can expect two things: a comfortable, fine movie experience, and an amount of pre-movie commercials that put anything I've ever experienced in the U.S. to shame. And I see me a lot of movies. It was close to 25 weird commercials, and I can't really remember what they were advertising.
It was interesting seeing the movie in England, I bet a lot more people laughed here when they mentioned Kings Cross Station. I loved the movie, and it makes me sad that such a big part of my childhood is officially over. I'm a grown up now, so when I go see the movie again in the States I am going to scoff at the utter lack of talk on economics and business ventures. Walking back onto Exeter's campus was extremely neat after seeing that movie. I know Oxford inspired a lot of how she designed Hogwarts, so it felt like I was at school there. This delusion may hinder my ability to continue studying here, so I'm hoping it will wear off before Monday. I want it to be true so badly though, so I don't think it will.
On an interesting side note, I got a picture of Oxford's oldest building today. It is called the Saxon Tower of St. Michael at the North Gate, and is nearly 1,000 years old. I'm heading to sleep now so I can get up early and knock out that paper. Thanks for reading. I'm going to fall sleep tonight as I write a letter to Alan Rickman telling him how great I think he is.
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