Oxford Adventures: Day Four.

This morning we slept in a bit and got breakfast at a little coffee shop on our way to St. Aldate's. I could just taste that the eggs on my breakfast baguette were free-range, even through the saltiness of the bacon. Oh British cooking.

This morning's meditation was led by a man named Gil Bailie, yet another aclaimed author and lecturer! I was surprised when he went up to speak - I had chatted with him at dinner sometime this week, not knowing who he was. I think it's pretty cool that such a brilliant philosphy lecturer could just chat it up with me about life and school.
His talk was really good - he talked about how God created us for communion and that has a biological dimension (human to human) and a "neurological" dimension: God created us to imitate Him.
Human nature is to imitate - despite what postmodern thinkers may like to believe, man will always be imitating. There's no such thing as "indiviuality". He elaborated on it very clearly and concisely... unfortunately I can't do the same, as it's 12:30 AM here.
His conclusion was that in order to attain true peace (goal of postmodernism) we have to imitate Christ.

The speaker at the first session was a real Oxford professor, Richard Swinburne. The man fit so well the typical image of an English professor, it was hilarious. He had the proper accent and everything! And he kept stopping and saying "Right!" So good.
But... his talk was uhm... well. My brain blew a few fuses. It was a philosophical rationalization of how Humans are Made of Two Parts: Body and Soul. Now... attempting to rationalize something that isn't rational is quite the feat... and have you ever read anything written by a philosopher? Long, run-on, confusing sentences.... That's how he spoke. Granted, there were many brilliant people in the crowd who understood and enjoyed his talk, but the majority of us artistic ones were completely and utterly without hope. I attempted to quote him in my notes: "If I were just a physical property, my mental survival would consist of several variables of physical parts, mental properties and pure mental events, which of course would all depend on other variables, including..." And then he lost me.

So yeah. I was mentally exhausted that, the longest 90 minutes of my life - so to my room I returned to sleep, which I happily did until after noon.

Our concluding film class was today. So sad. I enjoyed it thoroughly! Today we talked a lot about editing and frame sequence and stuff, but also about the industry, which was very interesting. We talked about independant films in relation to big budget and all the politics behind the corporation and what not. At break a lot of us talked which was nice - there's so many awesome people there! And at the end of the class we had a discussion about Heath Ledger, which started with some questions I asked Prof. Romanowski about the stats behind Brokeback Mountain's success and yeah. That led to me asking his opinion about his portrayal of the Joker and then we all started talking about our favourite films of his and making speculations about his death and stuff. It was interesting!

At dinner, I sat across from another student named Nelly, who I knew from earlier in the week, and an American professor of architechture named Marc. We talked for ages about all sorts of stuff, but eventually our discussion was focussed on demographic stuff - talking about the effect of big development in a downtown area (I had asked him about that huge building plan in downtown Hamilton) which led to us talking about street involved people and how it would affect them and yeah. It was so interesting!

After dinner I went for another photo-op stroll (I'll conclude the post with the evidence).

At the University Church they put on a music and poetry evening which was beautiful! Kate Butler (a famous mezzosoprano) sang some English poetry put to song, which was nice, but opera has never been my thing...
But! Dana Gioia, one of the speakers here and a poet, read some English poetry, but also a few of his own unpublished pieces, which were amaaaaazing. He is incredible, and when he does someday publish those poems, I will delight in buying them.
Paul Barnes played the piano again :) He played a beautiful Phillip Glass piece and a craaazy contemporary piece by Joan Tower (just another one if his Grammy winning friends) and he finished with Chanson d'Amour by Liszt... he had me in tears. He is a spectacular pianist, and I think he was made to play Liszt cause he did so immaculately.


Here are some of my photos from my stroll - these are all from Ship Street, probably my favourite of all the little side streets; it's very quiet and charming.









A door in the wall. A very beautiful and tiny door in the very ancient wall.














A view down the street.
Charming, n'est pas?
























Street corner [this is the corner of a couple small side streets - see how quiet they are? The main streets are just jam packed with pedestrians, but these little streets are just delightfully calm and quaint.]
















Ship Street's finest doorway, complete with a crooked awning and news on every event happening in town for the next year.













Unicorn, a most intriguing little shop! I have yet to go in there, but I'm planning on it tomorrow. Look at the trenchcoated man walking along. He sort of scared me.
















Look at all the stuff packed in there! It's all old, sort of antiquey/second handish I guess. I can't wait to check it out.
















That's all for today. Sorry for the brevity in postness - I was a little skimpy on the details. But I'm exhausted! So now I shall happily sleep.

Cheers!

-CH

Oxford Adventures: Day Three [Written on Day Four...]

Sorry this entry is a day late - I've been quite busy with things.

And now I shall do my best to remember the important details of yesterday.

Wednesday morning went as usual - I awoke begrudgingly, but perked up by breakfast, at which I sat beside another conference-goer and chatted [this time it was a young law student from Texas] then we went to St. Aldate's for the morning sessions.

A man named John Lennox led this morning's meditation - he was the epitome of a stereotypical old Northern Irish man [he was adorable!] He had met C.S. Lewis when he was a boy - his dad was a great admirer of Lewis' and they some how knew each other. He told a brilliant story about how his dad found Mere Christianity so helpful that he kept copies of it for "intelligent hitchhikers, not to use as their guide to the galaxy, but rather their guide to the significance of the galaxy." I found this quite clever.

I'll quote him again - when speaking about his relation to Lewis, he said "I owe him a huge debt for sparking my imagination; for teaching me there is a door to another world..." He went on to explain [in such eloquent words that I dare not paraphrase] that the other world was Heaven. John Lennox is a math professor, but he explained that Lewis' writing taught him to believe in things that can't be proven, and that seem illogical to our little minds.

His meditation was beautiful. I won't go into massive detail, but at one point, he was tying his talk into the conference's theme and he was saying how so often we ask ourselves "Why am I?" And he said "The answer is simple: I exist because God wanted me to be." It was amazing - I don't think I was the only person in the church with tears in their eyes.

After the meditaion, a highly acclaimed writer and professor, Diana Pavlac Gluyer, gave a talk on C.S. Lewis and the Algebra of Friendship. She was so delightful to watch! She was so sincere and so genuine. She explained what Lewis wrote about friendship, and here's the quote that her talk was based around [I believe it's from The Four Loves]: "Charles Lamb tells us of three friends - A, B & C. If A should die then B not only loses A but also part of C... The alphabet sickens by subtraction." So true, n'est pas? She elaborated on how different relationships bring out different facets in a person... I thought of many of my friends throughout the talk and started missing them more accutely.

Another interesting thing she mentioned was how Lewis is often misinterpretted/misrepresented as some stiff, static, lonely introvert (ex. Hopkins portrayal in Shadowlands! gasp!) Lewis was rich with relationships and valued them very highly - he was a good friend.

Anyways, after her talk was the conference break, and I decided to skip the next talk entitled "The Language of God: A Scientist-Believer Looks at the Human Genome" [as soon as I heard the words 'scientist' and 'genome' I decided it wasn't for me] and go shopping instead!
How delightful that was. I ended up buying a couple things - no shoes, shockingly enough. I was sickeningly close... but then I somehow managed to throw myself out of the store. What a personal victory!

In the afternoon, I went to my film class [which has definetly been the highlight of my past few days] and we discussed the Classical Hollywood film and how/why writers and directors achieve that. Basically every movie you've seen fits into the Classical Hollywood film category - it is centered around a hero [with clearly defined traits, motivations, goals] and focuses on self-reliance and achieving their goal. There is ALWAYS resolution in a Classical Hollywood film... aaaaalways. And usually along the way, the hero discovers that he "had it in him all along" and he just needed to "believe in himself"! Oh, brother. Yes, it sounds pathetic in theory, but when you start thinking about it, a staggering amount of films fit in this category. Depressing. But hey, that's what America wants: resolution, not matter how unrealistic it is.

Anyways, we discussed this and the cultural landscape around it and also camera techniques - how to achieve certain emotional effects, etc. I love this class :)

At dinner, I was surrounded by old people. It was awesome! There was this man diagonalish from me and he was from Virginia, so he had a great accent. And I talked mostly with the woman across from me - she was from New Mexico, and was a retired College teacher who taught Latin and Russian and another language I can't remember, but yeah. She was soooo cool! We talked about Latin for quite a while and how it should be learned in grade school. Then of course we ended up talking about her kids and where they all were around the world - I love how every conversation you have with an elderly woman always leads to her kids :]

At night there was a concert at the University Church. The City of Oxford Orchestra played some Handel, Mozart, Gluck... I had perma-goosebumps the entire performance. And then! They were joined by Paul Barnes, who I forgot to tell you about -on Monday night, my mom and I met him. We had no idea who he was, but as it turned out, he's an extremely accomplished pianist who is a Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Music who performs all over the places, teaches in Vienna during the summertime and is friends with Phillip Glass! And the man was just showing us pictures of his wife and kids... average joe-like. It was incredible. Phillip Glass is one of my favourite soundtrack composers. And they're friends. But yeah, he's a really nice, hilarious man and an excellent conversationalist.
Anyways, the concert - Paul Barnes joined the orchestra to play Mozart's three-part Piano Concerto No. 17 in G which was BREATHTAKING. Barnes looks like he's have the time of his life when he's performing.

Throughout the day, I made various observations which I shall share with you to conclude this post:

1. The rumours about British teeth are true.
2. I dream in anime when I fall asleep listening to BT.
3. I didn't think it was possible, but organic peppermint tea is even better over here.
4. The Brits are all anarchists: signs that say "NO PARKING BICYCLES AT THIS PREMISES" are always, without fail, surrounded by bicycles.
5. The plantlife here grows vertically as opposed to horizontally - just like the housing.
6. The Brits' favoured seasoning: salt. They use it liberally. Especially on meat.


Bonne nuit!

-CH

Oxford Adventures: Day Two.

Alright. Tuesdays in Oxford are... probably as splendid as every other day of the week.

This morning I awoke early (and very unwillingly) to the oh so dulcet tones of our alarm clock...


I promptly fell back asleep.

Eventually Mom and I made it to the great hall for breakfast, then we went to St. Aldates church (about a 15 minute walk from Keble) for the opening presentations and sessions.

The first speaker was an American pastor named Todd Lake. He meditated on the conference's topic (I now know the official title): Imago Dei? The Self & the Search for Meaning. He had a good sense of humour and was very passionate. He spoke enthusiastically about how we have to find our meaning in God. Unfortunately his time slot was far too brief, but here's a quote from his conclusion: "Our selfish little hearts are restless until they find rest in Him." Aaaaamen.

Next, the president of the C.S. Lewis Foundation, Stan Mattson, gave his words of introduction. He spoke about God's goodness even in the darkest of days, which led to him sharing his testimony which I imagine was very good, but I could hardly hear the man - he lacked volume, and to makes matters worse, we had a seat near the back by the doors through which street noises came in a constant stream. And since I could hardly hear him, and since it was so warm in that church, and since I had not near enough sleep last night... I was very zoned out. I tried! I really did! But even when I did, I could hardly hear him.

After his speech, there was a break and I decided I should go back to Keble and sleep so that I would be wide awake for my afternoon elective session.


On the walk back I couldn't resist but to fight my exhaustion and stop briefly in a few stores (I needed to buy a drink anyways... not that you can find drinks in shoe stores...) But anyways, soon I got back to our room and passed out til my mom woke me at 2:25! It was a wonderful nap, and I felt much better, except that my elective started in 5 minutes, and it was all the way down by St. Aldates. So I rushed down there, found the parish centre it was held in (hidden amongst a long row of townhouses on a tiny side street) only to find that the building was being vacated due to a fire alarm! (Selfish as it may be, it was quite the blessing in disguise: I was late.) Thankfully, there was no fire - one of the building employees informed us that a bug most likely flew into the smoke detector (RIP dear insect) and that all was well to return to our sessions.

My elective is called Persistence of Vision: Popular Art, Culture and Industry and is led by Prof. Bill Romanowski, a lecturer, author, critic, and teacher at Calvin College. The two and a half hour session was amazing! We talked about how Christians view film (and in reference to this, the downfalls of narrow-mindedness) but the main topic of the session is film as an art, and how screen writers and directors can express views on aspects of culture in (seemingly) subtle ways.


For his examples he used a wide array of films, ranging from old classics like The Rear Window (yussss!) to teen flicks like American Pie.


He showed us a freeze frame from the movie American Beauty and had us comment on what we could observe from this one still image - as a group we pulled out all sorts of commentary on class, gender role, and family life, and also all sorts of information about the characters in the frame. And that was just from one single frame... think of hundreds of frames strung together. We're subonciously fed a lot of information while watching films.

He showed us clips from Rocky, The Rear Window, Notorious, Casablanca, and more to show us tricks/tools in editing and camera-use that indicate all sorts of things.

I could go on for a long time (I have 3 pages of notes) but I shan't. If you have any questions, you can leave them in a comment :)


During the fifteen minute session break, I met some really nice people who are in the class with me (they're all American! Ah!) and after some customary introductions and small talk, we discussed the session and stuff. It was very cool.

Soon after, I met up with Mother-dear and we shopped for a bit before dinner (no success yet. I have to be careful about spending my pounds, since each one is worth 2.439482384.. dollars and the prices here are pretty much the same as at home... except in pounds.)

Later, on my way to dinner, I met a lovely older woman in the elevator. She was from Florida, but originally from England (quite the dramatic switch - and ironically enough, she hates warm weather). We chatted easily on the walk to the great hall; she told me about her grandchildren and how she's attended the Oxbridge Conference 5 times before and how she misses her husband. I really liked chatting with her.


Then I found my mom in on one of the long, long dinner tables (when I mention the hall, think of the feasts in Harry Potter. The hall is set up in exactly the same way, sans the enchanted ceiling) and ended up sitting beside a wonderful old man and his wife who talked with me a lot about the conference and our classes and their careers and the fact that and that I don't know what I want to do with my life yet but that it's okay cause God will let me know in due time. He was a very cool man.

Across from me was a younger guy from Colorado Springs who was also attending a private liberal arts school (I told him about Redeemer). He was wearing a cap that said "Scranton - We welcome you" which delighted me! Hooray, a fellow fan of The Office!


After dinner, I grabbed the Nikon and went on a little photography walk to get some of the pictures I wanted to get yesterday. I shall share a few with you:


A section of the lovely grounds at Keble.
The archway close to the right side of the left building is the tunnel of the main entrance/exit.
The Great Hall is in the building on the right.












I love these things.

One of the entrance ways to Trinity College (it was through here that I spotted the young gents playing *ahem* croquet.) I apologize for the poor quality of this shot, but it's the one that best shows the intricacy of the gates.

The beautiful tower of the University Church (where I went last night).

















Amazing. That's all there is to say about that.





That's all for today. Time has slipped by me once again... I hope I can stay awake tomorrow. Goodnight!


-CH

Oxford Adventures: Day One.

So, if you're reading this, you most likely know that I'm in Oxford, England right now.

Yes. I know. Awesomeness to the extreme. I'm here with the mother-bird for the Oxbridge Convention, put on by the C.S. Lewis Foundation. In a nutshell, it's a celebration and study of philosophy, literature, drama and art - all in reference to this year's theme which is The Self. (oooh, it's gunna be deep.)

So! I'm going to try to blog daily about my adventures here in the Old World, just so my dear, dear comrades at home know what I'm up to.

Ok. It all started Sunday night, about 5:30 PM, when we rolled out of the homebase - Dad drove me and Mom to the airport. Everything went smoothly, we had lots of extra time in which I ate pizza and found a beautiful German newspaper! Attempts at translating kept me busy 'til we boarded. It was actually quite amusing... What would you make of this: "Daniel Richter: ,,Ich bin Reprasentant weiBer, mannlicher, heterosexueller Erfolgsmalerei." ? In all seriousness though, I did figure out some words which was pretty exciting. My 15-word German vocabulary has expanded! :O

Ok, so on the plane. It was a large aircraft... one of those Boeing-747 deals. 2 floors (or so I was told) and FINALLY... a plane built with leg room!
The stewardesses were pretty friendly and humourous, which was splendid. On our seats we found a bag containing huge DJ-esque headphones, earplugs, a sleeping mask, socks (!?) a little toothbrush and the tiniest tube of toothpaste ever manufactured.
The food was inconsumable (surprise!) but the movie selection was killer. There were 3 pages of movie titles to pick from, mostly new ones, but a lot of old classics too. I ended up choosing "The Oxford Murders" not only because it was filmed on the location that I was bound for, but also because it starred Elijah Wood.
Well. It started out with some promise. And then my favourite character died about 5 minutes in. Things went downhill from there. Elijah... what were you THINKING!? It turned out to be a stupid British thriller with a wonky plotline revolving around static characters and ending with a ridiculously unlikely twist and no resolution to speak of! In my opinion... the Brits should stick to comedy.

Anyways, since we were losing 5 hours, I tried desperately to get sleep. So I got out the old iPod and tried to lull myself with some melodic In-flight Safety (the band choice wasn't intentional.. they make relaxing music!) The sleep didn't go well - despite the leg room, there were no comfy sleep positions. So I ended up with a demented spine and a severe lack of sleep upon our arrival in London.

Ok, first impressions of coming out of the Heathrow airport: very much like Toronto - there were even cranes everywhere. But, as we drove around in our cab (headed to the centre of London to go on The Eye!) things got better. The townhouses were so quaint and some of the old architechture was breathtaking. Then we passed Buckingham Palace which was like... WOW. Unfortunately, no royals were sunbathing in the courtyard, so yeah. No paparazzi photo-op for me.
Then came Westminster Abby which I wasn't able to get a reeeal good look at (driving is INSANE in London... apparently they don't believe in the whole 'one cars length between' rule. The rule here is more like 'drive as fast as you can until you're one cars length away and then slam on the brakes so that you stop within 2 centimetres'. )
But our cab driver was a sweet old man - he was really helpful and acted as a tour guide and told us how to get everywhere and stuff. Yeah, he was great :)
He got us to the Eye of London in one piece, so we went on that which was reaaally sweet, though I would have enjoyed it more if I weren't running on a couple hours of restless sleep.
(I'll put up pictures from the Eye and other stuff from today later.. this laptop is being lame sauce about importing.)

After the Eye, we took another cab to Victoria Station and went on the Oxford Express coach to.... OXFORD! This place... is amazing. It really is. All the buildings are Medieval and beautiful and lots of the streets are cobblestone and there's little shops everywhere and the colleges are awesome! The atmosphere is wonderful too. There's not a lot of traffic - mostly pedestrians. The town is full of students, so the majority of the population are young people. Yay!

So we got off the coach and were met by a nice American lady who is also attending the conference. She helped us decipher our map and gave us directions and stuff - very helpful.

We got to Keble College, where we're staying on campus, showered as soon as we got in our room (jubilation!) and then we went and registered, then walked in Oxford for a bit (I checked out a sweet art/book store and then a music store which wasn't as good as expected... I was hoping for some rare Brit-pop CDs but all they carried was opera and classical - it was upon entering this store that I figured out I may not be classy enough for Oxford.)

There was a big dinner in one of the great halls at Keble which was very good, and again, very classy. We met some other conference-goers and I was delighted to see that I wasn't the only young person there. I met some cool people and then after dinner we went to the opening address which was held in the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin - a beautiful cathedral in which John and Charles Wesley once preached and where Thomas Cromwell was tried and convicted (and burnt at the stake out on Broad Street) and yeah. I forget all the cool stories the preacher told us about the cathedral. The preacher was Irish - he had a beautiful accent - and he was an incredible speaker. Very captivating and humourous; intellectual but still very easy to understand. He introduced the conference's theme of the Self which I'll obviously be getting more into in the coming posts.

After the service (which was full of singing by a crazy talented chamber choir) I made my way back to Keble to see Mom (who was exhausted and had gone back to our room after supper). I tried a different route so I got to see more awesome buildings and got tons of ideas for photography (I didn't have the camera with me at the time). When I got back to our room, I still felt like walking around so I went on a long, exploratory stroll. I passed the grounds to Trinity College and saw some young gents playing a friendly game of crochet on the lawn. Why can't guys in Canada do that? Sheesh. I continued my walk, taking random turns and going down streets I hadn't been down yet. I passed the gates to the grounds of the Bodleian Library and caught the distinct smell of old books. And this was just at the gates to the library grounds. I wonder how strong it is in the actual library...
I scouted lots of sweet little shops I plan to stop in throughout the week, but soon I think I strayed into the busy nightlife section of town - the people were a bit rowdier and then my walk wasn't quite as care-free. When I heard two guys talking non chalantly about getting arrested, I decided it was about time to be getting back.

Later, Mom and I went to the Bag End Cafe and got a drink, and then I started blogging. And now it's very late. And I'm extremely tired. So I apologize that this post is long-winded and most likely full of grammatical mistakes and spelling errors.

Goodnight!

-CH

God is good

all the time.

The Much Anticipated Reccomendations

Paulson - I'm writing this just because you issued such a vocal outcry (and used far too many exclaimation marks in the process).

1. Watch The Dark Knight.
2. Listen to Viva La Vida in one sitting, front to back. (Not hard to do, it's only 45 minutes and 53 seconds long.)
3. Climb the nearest chesnut tree - guaranteed good time + exercise = a win-win situation.
4. Keep a journal. Write in streams of thought. Don't read over any entries until at least a week later.
5. Space your ears and then put straws through them the next time you're at McDonald's. [N.B. I won't be offended if you don't share my enthusiasm on this one.]
6. Struggle through a book that's ridiculously above your skill level (ex. The Story of Philosophy).
7. Take a long nap.
8. Upon waking up, drink black peppermint tea. It's quite revitalizing.
9. Read some Edgar Allan Poe.
10. Go fishing asap - it just finished raining so they'll be biting like mosquitoes.
11. Start listening to Ella Fitzgerald.
12. Try ketchup on everything - you may be pleasantly surprised.
13. Hangout with a sweet friend on the roof of their house.
14. Find something you wrote when you were little. Read it.
15. Go treasure hunting in a junk yard.
16. Take piano lessons.
17. Thank God for grace.
18. Do some (or if you're feeling particularly ambitious, all) of the aforementioned things.



-CH

10:27-34 Poetry (An Experiment in Ambiguity).

The blue label reads "Pure Life";
The power button shines a blue light,
Showing activity
Even though it's surrounded by death.
Watercoloured sky bleeds with emotion,
The sheep are bleeting with emotion.
Her blue eyes, leaking tears
But not of laughter -
of emotion.
Blue pants
(Jeans, actually)
Are stained with tears. Of... sadness.
Blue October serenades the crying girl,
Blue notes gliding through the static,
Telling their story (of emotion)
To the (emotional) girl.
"I want to give you something I've been wanting to give to you for years: My heart."


-X&K*



*The authors of this highly ambiguous and symbolically advanced poem have changed their initials for reasons of privacy (and emotional welfare).**








**P.s. It's by Maria and me.

ROAOOROAOyYY ...

I wish Rory O'Shea were here.

But instead, I'm stuck with Maria, Kelly and Jess. BOO.
kidding ha, I love. I am in love. I am loved. Ha.

haha.
ha.

SO! After much Aloette exposure (Aloette, gentile Aloette! Aloette gentile plumerie!) and deliberation, we decided to blog. So we're stuck here! On a bench. Blogging away. On broadway.

So yeah. Rory O'Shea. James Mackie. Gotta love the guy.
K, spontaneous poll: What's your favourite thing about James?
Kelly: ...
Jess: ...
Maria: accent
Catherine: EVERYTHINGGGGGGGG.

Kelly decided she wants to add something. (She's not so good at the whole "spontaneous" thing).
"His wheelchair turns me on."

Jess wants to add something too now (jump on the bandwagon much? sheesh.)
"Suspenders! Of course..."

Hmm.

Kelly lost a wooden earring. *boohoo!*

That's all we have to report.

Bonne Nuit.

danke schoen darlin, danke schoen

thank-you foooooorrr all the joy and paaaaaaaain;
picture shooooooow, second balconyyyyyy
was the place we'd meet, 2nd seat
gold dutch treat, you were sweet*

...

so uhm, it's been a long time since I last blogged. Like we're talking May.. And I vowed that neglect of this magnitude wouldn't happen again.
oh, dear. i am awful at this game.


But more importantly, I am excited. Maria's coming over tomorrow. And on Saturday we're going to book shop and tea drink. But not before sleeping in.


p.s. Dear Maria: Just to inform you, on Saturday morning we're going to be sleeping in. You have no say in the matter. Love, me.


*don't quote me on those lyrics... chances are they are horrendously wrong, due to my somewhat damaged hearing.