doings

ostensibly one of the reasons for the blog is to keep friends and family far away up-to-date on our thoughts and doings. thoughts, we seem to be doing well on. doings, not so much. so herewith, a brief synopsis of our day-to-day:

we are happily watching Battlestar Galactica's first full season, having finished Gilmore Girls' fourth season last week. GG's ending was traumatic, but had that wonderful mix of horror, mourning, happiness, excitement, and humor that GG on good day can deliver so well. BG is exciting and intriguing.

we are also very excited that Jon Stewart is on More4, the new station that launched in early October. we are sad that we don't get to see the Colbert Report as well. can't have everything...

went to the boot sale again today (we don't go every weekend or anything) with three specific goals in mind: 1. drop off empty egg cartons to egg guy who is always asking for empty egg cartons. 2. buy a beard trimmer for Sam. 3. buy some sort of exercise bike such that we can work out when it rains, which turns out to be fairly often. As you may know, attempting to purchase anything purposively at a boot sale/flea market is folly. Folly! And yet, we succeeded on all three counts, including having the exerbike delivered to our doorstep by friendly Welshfolk (we told you they are friendly!!)

it is chilly. we are cheap. we have begun turning the heater on in the front room for 15 minutes or so each night, which warms it up nicely (this is why they invented doors, my friends. open-plan living is not so great for chilly). we have central heating only in the sense that the on-off-switch is in one place, near the water heater. no thermostat, so we just turn it on full-blast, turn off the radiators in rooms we're not using, and voilà. somewhat toasty.

have thus far tried over 6 different varieties of sausage at the local butcher. a sign there read: "pork, prune, and apple sausage: try it, it's awesome" I kid you not. Minted lamb burgers still the best burgers ever. New international market opened down on St. Helen's Road, with the most beautiful okra you've ever seen. Eid Mubarak all around, folks.

we have discovered the health stores in city centre which stock natural peanut butter by the tub. yes, just like those old school ice cream tubs we used to get... remember? imagine that filled with yummy crunchy peanut butter, no sugar, just peanuts. heaven.

Tim and Jackie send us DVD packets each week that contain the previous weekend's Gopher games, expertly edited by Jackie on the TiVo. We get instant replays, pauses to view the stats tables, and all the commercials edited out. Fab. it's like watching it with them. only a week late. so no spoilers!

Sam's job continues to go well; he has his first intensive teaching this week, and we will report on the whole "tutorial v. seminar: what's the difference?" debate.

I will be teaching a 2nd year module (trans.: sophomore-level course) in the spring entitled "Colonialism and Nationalism in India" in the Politics department. this means I have transitioned from humanities softy to hardened social scientist! I'm very excited. I plan to do a week on "the clothing of nationalism" which will involve study of the Nehru collar, the Gandhian dhoti, spinning, and fashion in general. should be fun...

I interviewed at Open University in Cardiff, but they didn't have work for me despite liking me quite a bit. perhaps something will come up later on. attempting to keep the faith there. I'm going in to chat with the fine arts department at Swansea Institute in a few weeks about possibilities there.

signed up for a library card at Swansea public libraries. they rent DVDs and CDs, which is very exciting. Libraries in general are exciting, wouldn't you say?

we may go to see the film director and writer Peter Greenaway of The Pillow Book fame talk next week as part of the Dylan Thomas festival here in town. the Welsh stick together, I think.

and the usual working, sleeping, eating, of course. and walking. lots of walking.