MrsHughey.com

The fishbowl

It's going to be a busy day. I worked this morning, met Andrew for lunch and then ran some errands. He's in a class now, but scheduled to meet me at 3:30 so we can go to STA Travel and buy our plane tickets for our March trip home. He's already been to see the bursar (college accountant) today regarding our battels (termly bill from the college, including our rent) because it appears we were charged DOUBLE rent last term and this term. Which means we could be in a somewhat more comfortable financial position.

Anyway, after STA Travel, we have chapel at 5:30 and the black tie Burn's Night dinner at 6:45. At some point in there we have to go home and CHANGE for the dinner and I have to help our friend Emily concoct a humorous and poetic speech for the women of Hertford to deliver to the men.

Last night after work, as I waited for Andrew and friends to finish their game of Lord of the Rings Risk in the Octagon, I finished reading The Green Mile. I highly recommend it. It is not scary, but I would call it suspenseful, engaging, touching and sad. I have not seen them movie.

A couple of funny things have happened since I've been sitting in the computer lab (I left my laptop at home this morning. I usually go back home after lunch to change and pick it up, but since today was going to be busy, I just brought a change of clothes to work and didn't worry about my computer).

First funny thing: I got a comment on an earlier entry from the OOG from a local reporter! It's funny. Poor Andrew is a bit upset because he had to kind of talk me into this whole online journal thing. Apparently he wanted HIS site to be the one where we chronicled our daily lives in Oxford, but he feels I've taken that over and it would be pointless for him to cover the same ground. ::sigh:: Anyway, he's been getting increasingly frustrated as email after email comes in from new readers. And now this! A reporter wants to know about the site. LOL. Sorry, Schmoopie!

Second funny thing: The MCR computer lab is located on the ground floor of Hertford college. Its windows look out onto Catte Street and across to the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theatre. With those buildings here and the famous Bridge of Sighs a part of Hertford, a lot of tourists wander past the computer lab on an afternoon. It can be really funny to sit here by the window and watch. First off, they trip on the sidewalk a lot. Well, to be fair, everybody does here because the pavement is completely uneven.

Second, they all take the same three pictures! One of them standing under the Bridge, one of them standing in the gates to the Clarendon Quadrangle, and one of them standing in front of the Bodleian Great Gate. You can see them take these pictures from the lab.

The other thing the tourists do is peek into the windows at the computer lab. And probably Liam's room, too, which is right next door to it. Poor Liam. Three times since I've been sitting here checking my email and writing this entry, a tourist has come and smashed their face up against the window to look inside. One was an elderly lady.

Sometimes as a regular in town (I can't call myself a resident honestly, or even a student, but I will refer to myself as a regular) you can get to feel a little bit like a theme park employee. You don't have people running up for your autograph, but they do sometimes take your picture (or, just as often, ask you to take theirs). You get asked for directions a lot and other funny things like where a person can find the nearest stationer. And you see a lot of people wandering around with maps flayed out in their hands, walking slowly and taking up most of the sidewalk. It's kind of like Disney World, except without the Disney Magic. Oxford has a magic, alright, but it's a lot older and different from the Magic Kingdom's. And in Disney World you don't get hit by a car (or bike) if you wander out into the street without looking.

Clearwater, where I am from, certainly has its fair share of tourists, but they don't wear neon signs on their heads the way many tourists in Oxford seem to. Don't get me wrong, the tourists here are nice enough, it's just funny how many there are and how much some of them stick out. It's also funny the way they sometimes unabashedly stare at you if they think you're a student. Remember, I'm NOT a student, but I look like one, so I get a lot of those stares. It's like they're thinking, "Oh, that's what one looks like!". I wonder what sort of assumptions they make about me then, too. Do they think I'm smart? Rich? Snobby? Surely they must assume I'm much younger than I am (almost everyone does). What if they found out I'm "just" a part-time porter? Or an unpublished writer, working hard and longing to find a place for her work? Would they think differently?

They look at me and write my story for themselves, and that's okay. Because they're all up for grabs for me, too, and one day that old lady with her face smushed against the glass, looking in and then saying to her friend, "It's just a bunch of computers," might end up in a story by the famous Elisabeth Hughey. Take that, touristas!

Posted by Erin at January 24, 2003 03:22 PM