December, but hold the Christmas cheer.

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So I went to the book store this afternoon and picked up a Robert & Collins English vocabulary study guide, which I'm planning on using backwards. I thought it was pretty clever. Plus, it'll teach me Britishisms! The better to understand my rapidly expanding base of non-American anglophone friends.

On the way to the book store I took several photos of the various Christmas trees and light displays near my house. Unfortunately, I discovered that the photos are just a little too blurry even for my hasty posting here. I'll go back and take more time with them. Practice holding my breath and being really still for those long exposures. Maybe I should get a tripod. Point being: you have to wait a while for Christmas photos.

In other Christmas news, I've expanded the Great European Christmas Adventure of Ought Nine/Ten (I'm rethinking this title as a result of the awkwardness of the year 2010. On the one hand, I'm already angry about not being able to use the word "ought" as often -- on the other hand, I'm looking forward to referring to this decade in the past and using "ought"). It'll now include a pre-Christmas Eve trip to Bournemouth, on the southern coast of England, to visit my friend Tom.

This week has been a blur of working and procrastinating, though mostly the latter. I've almost finished my history of art paper. Tomorrow will (hopefully) find me gathering some last sources to lend credence to the ideas I've already had and asking a francophone to read over it for me to minimize my glaring errors. Then I should start reading for and working on my next paper, which is eight to ten pages on linguistics.

I've been in a very Tilly and the Wall mood today. I spent the afternoon drinking most of a pot of coffee and listening to Bottoms of Barrels a lot. It rained. It always rains here, lately. I've stopped looking at the forecast. Curiously, I have not yet learned to take an umbrella with me when I leave the house. It's good for me that the rain here is seldom worth hiding from. Its most potent moment really only causes me to be vaguely disgruntled that my pant legs are wicking water up my legs.

Tomorrow, I have plans to go see Paranormal Activity, which came out yesterday in France. I heard good things. I'm still waiting for Where the Wild Things Are, which I'm really hoping doesn't disappoint me. But the trailer had The Arcade Fire! How could it be disappointing?

Comments

  1. Unknown04 December, 2009 08:50

    There is a trick you can use if you don't have a tripod. Insert a small screw into the place the tripod normally attaches, on the bottom of your camera. Tie one end of a string to the screw and attach a large washer to the other end. The string should be long enough to reach the ground when you have the camera in position. You step on the washer and it will help stabilize the camera. Plus, it just tucks away in your pocket.

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