whatcha say

I have so many things to say, so many thoughts, but I can't find the words for them. I've sat down in front of my computer multiple times and tried to fit my recent passions and sorrows and fears and meditations and epiphanies into twenty-six letters, and I'm not creative enough to be successful. Hence the blog silence.

Some thoughts: I miss my home in Oxford. I love my home in Kansas. My love for my home at camp is being clarified and illuminated.

Even now, reading back that attempt at communication, I want to delete it because it's not very articulate.

Dr. Alpern says that if you can't express something with the correct, accurate words, it is unlikely that you really know it. Maybe. Maybe he's just being his difficult self.

articulate
-adjective: expressed, formulated, or presented with clarity and effectiveness

t minus 3

I have been posting ridiculous amounts of randomness lately. Sorry. The impending transition is just scattering my thoughts.

So lets just make a running post.

3:30 pm: Went to the Pitt Rivers Museum and it is freaking cool. A collection of all that is curious and curiouser, assembled by an eccentric collector in the early 1900s. I got to see shrunken heads, a mummy, samurai swords, and dinosaur eggs. Heck yeah.

10:20 pm: I'm packing. I weighed my suitcase before and after packing my tshirts. Learned that I have 10 pounds worth of t-shirts. I think I have a problem.

11:57 pm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G92OgJ6ZGWc
All that I know is I'm breathing.
All I can do is keep breathing.

oxford bucket list

things on my "must do in last week in Oxford" list:

punting- check
botanical garden- to do
dinner at Edamame- to do
wander Magdalen College- to do
coffee at Georgina's- check
Bodleian- to do
chapel morning prayer- check
Pitt Rivers museum- check
tea at the Vaults- check
love on people- can't get enough in

tonight's gonna be a good night

Stopped by the bop for a few minutes. I just had to go when I heard "I gotta feeling..." (:

Stood there soaking up the sweaty, loud, sticky, raucous, wonderfulness of so many people that I love belting it out at the top of their lungs, running around dressed like jellyfish and insects, dancing with absurdity. It ain't a sight to be missed. I want to brand it on my memory. I love it and I love them and I will miss them incredibly.

paper #36

Good news: ONE MORE PAPER LEFT TO WRITE!!!

Bad news: ITS FRIDAY NIGHT OF 8TH WEEK TRINITY AND I'M SITTING IN THE LIBRARY WRITING A PAPER. I CAN HEAR SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE REMIX TUNES COMING FROM THE BOP IN THE JCR ACROSS THE QUAD. AND I'M NOT THERE.

Sigh. Almost there.

we all scream

G&D's white chocolate may have just pushed dulce de leche out of my top three favorite ice cream flavors... perfection in a cone.

you bring me joi

Three cheers for Melody, the awesomest housemate EVER who is celebrating her 21st today!!!

She has been my travel buddy and my all-night essay crisis companion. She has forgiven my dirty dishes, encouraged me in Christ, and probably added three years to my life through laughter. We share a morbid fascination with all things Gaga, Bieber, and Twilight, as well as a permanent craving for Mexican food. She inspires me to run farther, write more, and laugh harder. I seriously could not have asked for a better housemate and one of the greatest blessings of Oxford has been the gain of her friendship.

I love you, babe. Thanks for being epically brilliant!!

sunday nights

We had our college Final Fling Saturday night: half ball, half party, all fun. Good times all around. Seriously wicked fun, and we lived it to the max, partying 'til the sun came up (literally). Photos to come!

So that was Saturday night. But Sunday night was a bit different. The evening was filled with sitting with Liz and Hayley in the warm Spencer House kitchen, just laptopping and chatting and being together, heavy cleansing rain falling outside, hum of the dishwasher running, chilling to Carla Bruni. I don't know if it's a character flaw, it's certainly a flaw in my social development, but I'd take Sunday over Saturday any day. There's something about the quiet peace of being utterly relaxed with people and surroundings that the bright lights of entertainment and fancy dress and loud music and glitter can't compare with.

Sigh. So I have social issues. But I am deeply grateful that I have friends (and housemates) who give freedom and embrace me even at my oddest and most awkward. And I'm so grateful for Sunday nights.

three things i love about oxford

1. The freedom: political, spiritual and ideological. Today on Turl Street I saw a table set up with posters reading "Marxism 2010: Ideas to Change the World." And a banner reading "Socialist Workers Party." Here's to boldness.

2. Bob MacIntyre. My hard disk was failing, but he replaced it and saved all of my data! AND he gave me more memory so my computer actually functions properly. Awesome.

3. My friend Dave. He's soft-spoken and gentle and always has a kind word to speak.

For all these things and more, I give thanks.

slowly falling apart

We got bumped today, but that doesn't really matter. I'm so pleased with what we did accomplish in the last four days. I think we (and I know I) left everything on the river today. We gave it everything we had.

But I'm struggling. Today was my first taste of the end of this piece of my life. At the beginning of the year I determined to be fully present here, loving people and life without being afraid of the fact that I was leaving in a year. And now I know I've succeeded, because it hurts so much.

That's it. That's the real and raw and honest deal. I am once again breaking.

summer viiis days two and three = victory

Yesterday we rowed over, which means that we rowed the length of the course without bumping or getting bumped, and today we bumped for the second time! We had a Worcester team breathing down our necks, but we nailed the boat in front of us from Balliol College faster than the team behind us could catch up with us.

I can't believe we only have one row left. It's going to be great...

If you're reading this and you live in Oxford, get your bum down to the river tomorrow afternoon and cheer us on!

summer viiis day one = victory

We bumped in our boat race today!!!

Basically, boat racing at Oxford is bumps racing, which means that the boats start off a length and a half apart from each other and the goal is to achieve a "bump" by getting any part of your boat to hit the boat in front of you. (Dangerous, I know...) We bumped the Keble College boat in front of us very quickly, only a minute or two into the race, which was awesome!

Our men's team did well too. While they didn't get a bump, they didn't get bumped either, which is an achievement in itself.

Three more days of racing left to go...

another one

Sorry all my blogs lately have been about rowing. My life is just pretty straightforward right now. I row, I make coffee, I write papers. That's pretty much it.
And so please notice the time on this post. Yes, that's right, it's 4:30 am. Why the heck am I awake?? Because I have to be at the boathouse to row at 5:10 am. That's all. I admit that I'm a morning person. But 4:30 hardly counts as morning. When I walk down to the boathouse, even the ducks aren't awake yet; they're still sleeping in the grass.
Only one more week of this, though. Summer VIIIs, the big race, is this week, and it's going to be a blast. If I get some pictures of it, I'll post them soon! (Like you really want to see another rowing post.)

as yourself

I still love that rowing thing, but it kicked my butt this morning.

On a happier note, I was the one dominating at my tutorial yesterday.

Life lesson: you try as hard as you can, and at the end of the day, you give yourself grace.

megan is my name, rowing is my game.

Seriously, how does it get better? Early morning, boat sliding through the fog like Pirates of the Caribbean, the camaraderie of your team... yes.

indian institute

I'm sitting in the Indian Institute Library. This place is epic. The rare, string-bound books are strangely organized onto metal shelves in a dim, silent room with handwritten notes explaining "58 B continues in the small bookshelf on the carrel to your right." It's the type of place that a killer would wait for his victim, in the dark cranny behind the PAK 12 overflow shelf where the faint hum from the maintenance room can cover his stalker breathing. When you walk down the rows, it smells of dust and cloth bindings and your head brushes against the swinging light cords, though few of them are turned on. I didn't bring a pen, so I can't leave slips where I've taken books; they'll never know. Most of the people in the small adjacent reading area are serious, probably grad students, though there is a couple at the back table flirting with smiles and whispers. I sat down across from a precious old man in a Gandhi cap for inspiration.

Anyway, back to work. Books can't be checked out, so I'll probably be spending a lot of time here over the weekend. If you don't hear from me in the next few weeks, you might check behind the PAK 12 overflow shelf...

you make me feel happy

Today is my friend Maria's birthday. What better way to kick off a birthday than with a French-themed picnic breakfast in Christ Church Meadows?? Answer: there absolutely isn't one.

Maria, Emma, and Charlotte.

Ruth, Abbie, Alison, and Nadine.

Maria cutting her birthday cake.

Alison, Ruth, Angie, Maria, Charlotte, Hannah, and Emma.

Broad Walk in front of Christ Church.

sunshine + picnic blanket + camembert + sweet girls = happy

may morning

It's 6:45 am and I've already been up for two hours. May morning is an epic event in the life of the Oxford student population. Everyone goes out the night before, the really committed (and even moderately committed) stay up all night. We collected a massive group of people in Regent's at 5:15 this morning and traipsed down to Magdalen College, where this is the scene that awaited us:


We lost quite a few of our bunch in the crowd, and then waited half an hour for the promised thrill of the Magdalen choir coming out to sing from the top of the bell tower.



As you can see in the video, there are neon-garbed police guarding the bridge so that people don't jump off it and impale themselves on rusty bicycle bits at the bottom. When the magical moment actually arrived, it was... less than magical. We were so close under the tower that we could hardly hear the choir and there was more attention on the random attempts by staggering performers to streak across the bridge than anything else.


It's not all a let-down, though, because the vast majority of the restaurants in Oxford open up early to provide breakfast to starving revellers. And then, the crash. Good thing it's Saturday.

guest column!!!

My grandmother thinks that I don't put enough details in my blog. So... here is her very own guest column where she can put anything and everything!
;)

From Mary Jo:

This part of Megan's blog is for family and us old people. I doubt her friends would be interested in this. I told Megan we need to hear more about her life here and she said everyone wouldn't be interested in that, but those in her family are, I told her. So here is my boring blog:

We have all wondered what the restaurant was like where Megan works. So here is a picture or two of Morton's. You will see Megan behind the counter waiting on customers.


This is the London Eye that Megan and Tuila rode on, the second largest observation wheel in the world. Wonder why Allen didn't go :-). I had an excuse. Lloyd was exhausted and we stayed behind a bit and of course I had to stay with him.


I cannot believe I am still alive and living. I have never walked so far and so long, never walked up and down so many steps in my life. It seems you have to go up stairs to go down stairs and down stairs to go up stairs. This going up and down was in the train, bus and underground, tube, or whatever it is called. It seemed everyone in London was busy walking to wherever they were going, too fast for me. Few people drive cars, they walk, and walk, and walk and go up and down stairs.
Megan walks and walks and walks almost everywhere she goes. I understand she does ride her bike quite a bit and it is a wonder she is still alive the way the traffic is. I am amazed though that I haven't seen any dented fenders or any dead bodies lying in the street. We were at City Centre today and Lloyd took a picture of some of the many many bikes parked there.


The girls living in Megan's apt are very thrifty. I won't get into all what I feel are necessities that they live without. I guess when you are a poor student you learn to live without.

We brought wonderful weather with us from the states. Everyone told us to bring raincoats and umbrellas. We only saw a very light mist for a few minutes. It was colder in Scotland and Ireland that I had anticipated and we had to buy additional jackets. As warm as it was in the U.S. when we left I just couldn't believe it could be cold here and we did not heed their advise to take warm clothes. It was beautiful here today in Oxford, probably in the upper 60's.

The scenery is beautiful, georgeous old buildings and castles. But I still like Topeka best.

Don't know what we would have done without Megan guiding us around the train and bus stations. We couldn't understand what was being said when they were making announcements even though they were supposedly speaking English. All the time Megan was so cool and collected and didn't once make a mistake. There are many languages spoken here in the UK and we didn't hear English very often.

There is some delicious looking food in the grocery stores. I wish I could take some of it home with me but don't have room. Megan cooked us a couple delicious meals. She says she really enjoys cooking.

It has been great being here and traveling and especially being with Megan. But we are ready to come home and will see you all soon. Brittany - let Lucky out of the closet!!!!

blahg

I am having a super duper lame Friday night.

There were certainly good things in this day. I'm staying at Karen's house tonight, and her hospitality is almost as beautiful as she is. I had tea with Francis and Penelope Warner for the first time today. I had a sweet skype date with Allyallyally Hall. I saw a wooly rhinocerous tooth at the Oxford city museum this morning. Yet despite all of this amazingness, I'm both physically and emotionally shot.

Out of the blue today I ran into two different struggling women who I've had repeated interactions with in the past. I am so very thankful that we have been put into each others' lives, and good things have come out of these strange relationships, and I have hope for more beauty to grow. Buuuut, those two brief conversations left me reeling, feeling as though I had been fastened to an emotional vacuum cleaner and sucked dry. I just don't know what to do. I don't know how to love them. I am unable to give them what they ask of me and I am tearing myself to shreds to make sure that my inability is not just a facade masking unwillingness of heart.

This heart strain makes me more vulnerable to other things. Like loneliness. Like jealousy. Like boredom. Like blabbering confusingly on my blog. Yuck.

And so I'm going to bed at 10:30 on a Friday night. Goodnight life. If you could please be a little less overwhelming tomorrow, that would be great.