Old and New

There's an old riddle about a town with two barbershops - one barber has a great haircut, the other's is terrible. Who do you go to? The guy with the terrible haircut, of course, as the barbers must cut one another's hair. 

This isn't quite the same, but I think it might be a generally useful rule of thumb that if there are pretty old buildings and ugly new buildings, you probably don't actually want to be in the pretty old ones. You want to be in the ugly but functional new one next to the ugly old one, so that you can sit in comfort looking at the prettiness of the new one, rather than freezing in the gloom staring at a concrete monstrosity. 

On a related note, props to Lord Rothemere and Vere Harmsworth, whoever you are, for creating the only place I know in Oxford that is reliably quiet, warm, and sufficiently well lit to actually get work done. I guess they save enough energy on the compact flourescent bulbs and motion-censor stack lights that they can put little space heaters next to each study carrel (oh, and the having individual study carrels? also good work...) Oh, and building yourself next to Mansfield gardens, which are pretty.

Sometimes we win a little

So I'm just finishing up an edited volume on Virtue Ethics, which is on the whole interesting but a lot of it is not actually as relevant to my research as I think my supervisor thought it would be when she assigned it to me. Also, some of the articles are boring, others are stupid, and a couple were both, which is mega-frustrating. 

But...

The good part is that the very last article is pretty amazing, and insightful, and I think super-helpful to my research. AND I reached the very insightful conclusion just as the Great Gate of Kiev started to play, so it felt very much like a climactic eureka movement. Which was about as exciting as it gets for spending the whole day in the library, really...

some more words

aretaic - (adj) - of or pertaining to virtue or excellence
from Ancient Greek ἀρετή (aretē, “virtue or excellence”)

rebarbative - (adj) - unattractive and objectionable
from Old French se rebarber (to face each other "beard to beard", i.e. aggressively)

ephemera - (n pl.) - (1) things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time (2) collected items, typically written ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term popularity

Could this work?

Er, so nobody is likely to care about this, but anyways, I thought about it walking home from the grocery store (mostly because being entirely unable to solve my current space/storage issues makes me turn to speculating about future ones):

On workbenches, it's common to nail the lids of a number jars to the underside of a board - then you have handy containers for nails and screws etc. 

Would it be possible to do similar in a kitchen - attach a number of jars to the underside of a (sturdily-built) cupboard? Then you could fill the jars with lentils, beans, rice, etc. Not only would it avoid spillage, I think it would end up quite pretty (with all the different colours)...kinda like the displays with jars of beads at bead stores. 

Is there some reason I'm missing that this couldn't work and thus isn't as standard in kitchens as it is on workbenches? 

le retour, 2009

Returning to Oxford (which I've now down quite a few times) has brought a variety of feelings - bewilderment about where really home is, nervousness about new places to live, excitement for new terms, and so on. This time, I was mostly feeling anxious in the lead-up; this was probably the least I've ever wanted to come back.

But the return itself was much better than expected. I had a relatively smooth journey, with only small delays and the compensation of an empty seat beside me and no screaming children nearby. Arriving back at my lodgings was much more pleasant than I thought - it doesn't feel like home (even as much as my room last year did) but it does feel like a place that I live. There was at least a sufficient degree of comfortableness and familiarity for me to be pleasantly surprised. Plus, the welcome I received from my landlords was incredibly warm...apparently they like having me as a tenant and I compare favourably to previous lodgers. The books were also well-received, by parents and children alike. Oh, plus the older child has started pre-school, and I'm hoping that will help. 

And then it was just groceries, cooking, unpacking (don't think I forgot anything absolutely crucial, just a few bits and bobs) and hopefully a good nights sleep!