Home again, home again...

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 23:15:22 GMT

Jiggedy jig. I have lived in Oxford since I was 18. I expected to be HUGELY excited to see it again as I crawled in on the latenight bus from Heathrow off my AirCanada flight, but I wasn't. Maybe I feel I've not really been away. If anyone would like to remind me that I have by going out drinking then great, but so far there is nothing but rain and dark. Was it ever thus?

Colonial Missive

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 02:21:33 GMT

I have had a lot of things to do since I started this LJ gig ten months ago, but since none of those things has been posting anything on LJ then I would be surprised if anyone out there even knows who cynthiaprima is any longer. Hello, it's me.
The drill around here seems to be that you post a day or a week's worth of stuff, so I shall have to be brief to fit in nearly a year. Here goes.
In the last year I have: given up my responsible grown-up job and salary; moved out of nice free house in pretty village, and into college housing; lived off tax rebates and wodges of twenties posted from my Scottish granny and my undergraduate mother's student loan; realised I am an incurably shameless and selfish human being as a consequence; seen my mum married off to a nice man; fallen seamlessly back into my profligate student lifestyle, despite penury and advanced age; given a lot of extremely boozy dinners; leared how to make champagne cocktails; had to shop at Tesco instead of Waitrose (sorrow); fallen hopelessly in love with Oxford and Classics and all my friends there all over again; made lots of new lovely friends as well; sat in the Bod looking out of the window and emailing said friends instead of working; married my brother off to a lovely Italian; seen one of my best friends get together with the Man of Her Dreams; hopped off to Cambridge whenever the fancy took me; somehow still managed to do rather well in my master's degree; done a fun little job in a summer school in London; developed a bizarre passion for textual criticism; trumped up a doctoral project on a poet I had never read; accidentally been admitted to a 5 year PhD scholarship in Canada; accidentally accepted it; accidentally taken it up; left beloved Oxford, friends etc and moved to big cold skyscrapery place on a lake; thrown massive wobbly and nearly come straight back before term began; discovered I'm to be an aunt at Christmas; met a lot of NA classicsts (they are all gay); started reading all the set books for my qualifying year; remembered why I don't work on Greek historiography; missed an important wedding; missed the birth of a friend's baby; wondered (frequently) what the hell I am playing at.
In the last year I have not: grown up, lost weight, learned to drive, taken up a creative skill, joined a choir, or done any of the other things that I keep telling myself I will do; earned any money (apart from the summer school - c. 400GBP); had enough money to live on; done enough work; had a single day of true peace of mind; regretted going back into it. I'm not so sure the whole Canada gig isn't a bit of a faux pas, but I thought I may as well stay a year and see what happens. Life would appear to have a way of telling you what it wants you to do next, rather than the other way round. At least mine does. Thank God.