burn him, burn him, i say!

there are riots in paris, in australia the anti-terrorism law has been passed and people have been arrested, and in the little town of nottingham, england, a small asian girl is going to primary school today.

yes, i am going to primary school today. i'm not doing well in class and they demoted me.
either that or i'm going to volunteer to teach kids how to read there.
maybe a mixture of both?

if i DID get demoted, it would be because i keep going away over the weekend, and after a really good trip to oxford last weekend, i came back to find that i had to read 2 whole books in 3 days because the library wants them back. also that i had to do some tute work, and some finance coursework. and that i have work, as in, work i get paid for, tonight. and that i'm going to wales on friday for the weekend, so i don't actually have much time to do it all in.

i work at a conference centre next to my hall, by the way, waitressing in a black skirt, white shirt, and a dorky vest and tie.

but oxford was good! blogger is being slow in loading up photos though, so i shall wait till it is fast fast fast. i spent my first guy fawkes day there, out in a random allotment [a little piece of land] in oxford, watching some fireworks some friends of a friend of a friend of a friend put on. guy fawkes was this guy, way back when, who was catholic and was angry at the king [james I, i think], for not being very catholic, and so wanted to blow the king up with lots of dynamite. but the dude was found out, it was treason and all, so they had him hung, drawn and quartered, which i gather meant that he was hung until nearly dead, then fastened to a horse and dragged around the town square or whatever, maybe they detoured down some side streets, i don't know, and then they cut him open and pulled out his intestines. presumably they also burnt him over a bonfire just for good measure, cuz every year now an effigy of guy fawkes is burnt on bonfires all over the country, the poor boy. the english people i talked to about the history of guy fawkes were a little hazy on the details.

so now people just stand around bonfires, burn replica guy fawkes, set off fireworks, and drink a lot.

i had a great time in oxford, thanks in no small part to nam and her friends. nam rather enthusiatically took me around some of the colleges, all were beautiful indeed, and took me to her formal dinner at her college, and generally showed me life as a uni of oxford student. there was a french fair in town, so we gorged ourselves on lemon and sugar crepes.... every day, went to a diwali party at her college adn walked around the river where the colleges were engaging in the very english sport of rowing.. so thanks to nam and her friends for being all nice and showing me a good time!

but now it's back to the books and look, i have to go to the primary school and inflict myself on the next generation of english kids. muahahahahaha... i'm going to teach them all to eat hard-boiled eggs with marmite, fart back at cows, and say 'but why' constantly!