Crap! I'm failing in my resolution to update more often.

I'm in the middle of my winter term 'reading week', which means I'm already half-way done with this semester. It's gone really fast. Lit. and Psychoanalysis is loads of fun, even if the professor is a bit scary. Last week we talked about birth anxiety and the Oedipus complex in Alice in Wonderland. Fun, fun. Early Modern Sexualities is fascinating, because well, let's face it--we all know how obsessed I am with sexuality. We've spent two weeks analysing interpretations of incest, one on rape, and next week we're moving on to homoerotic desire. Shakespeare is great, even if I'm starting to feel like there's a pattern I can recognise in all his plays, and maybe they're not so original after all. Deep down, I know that's not true, because there's so much in his writing that's below the surface; I think it was just a bad idea to take two Shakespeare classes in succession. I shouldn't be surprised that I'm getting sick of it. My final class, Memory & Time in the 19th Cent., is doing pretty well for itself. Sometimes it gets a bit philosophical for my taste, but it's definitely helped me rediscover my love for Dickens and the Victorians in general.

Last weekend was a busy one. Nora and I left on Friday morning on a train for Oxford, which we spent all day exploring before bunking down in a hostel that night and heading on to Cambridge early Saturday morning. Both towns have their charms. I think I liked Oxford better, but I'm not sure if that would be different if I had seen Cambridge first. I have to give Nora credit for coming up with the perfect way to describe both: Oxford is 'classic', while Cambridge is 'quaint'. The architecture is beautiful, the Rivers Isis and Cam are gorgeous, and the historic pubs are... cramped. But cozy, and very awesome.

Photos of Oxford here and here. Photos of Cambridge here.

We were both very tired after two days of intense sightseeing, so we left Cambridge a little earlier than planned Saturday night. Sunday was a not-to-be-missed Scientology protest over on Victoria Embankment, complete with nerds in Guy Fawkes masks making fun of the 'church' across the street, and one awesome dude wearing a horse mask and playing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' on his ukelele. Photos here.

I didn't spend long at the protest before heading to Trafalgar Square and Chinatown for the Chinese New Year celebration. Fireworks were going off every hour in Leicester Square, and the stage at Trafalgar had nearly continuous martial arts and opera/dance performances going on. Sadly, I didn't get up early enough to catch the lion dance/parade, but it was still pretty awesome. Trying to get through Chinatown to get something to eat was an adventure. At times the crowd would just stand completely still, everyone jam-packed in, and no one able to move an inch in any direction. This did wonders for my claustrophobia, of course. :) I don't think I've ever been somewhere so crowded. I can only imagine what the New Year must have been like in Beijing. Photos here.

I was sad to find out, upon returning home Sunday, that a large section of Camden Market had burned down on Saturday night. For those of you who haven't heard me rant about how much I love Camden market, I LOVE CAMDEN MARKET. It has such a collection of weirdos, cheap goods, illegal drugs, punk-rockers, crepe-stands, shady produce, and bad moroccan food, as I have seen anywhere. I don't think they know how the fire started, but I'm pretty sure no one was hurt. A large portion of the busiest part of the market was completely destroyed, however. I made a trip there on Monday to survey the damage, and was happy to see that many of the market stalls were still up and running. When I got to the damaged part, though, I felt like I'd lost a friend. The brick walls bordering the market were scorched black in parts, and there was a whole open area where construction workers were busy removing the refuse. The blaze must have been enormous. Photos here.

For most of my break, I've been doing a lot of relaxing and a little bit of reading. Today, though, I went to explore Hampstead, a picturesque area on the outskirts of London, former home of John Keats, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lord Byron, William Blake, J.M. Barrie (creator of Peter Pan)... and plently of other authors that I couldn't wait to get my nerdy hands on. I got to see Keats' old house, the overgrown graveyard where the Llewelyn Davies family (inspiration for Peter Pan) was buried, the 18th century pub where highwaymen used to hang around before holding up travellers... Not to mention the old hospital now converted into luxury apartments where Scary and Baby Spice are currently living. I didn't have much time to explore Hampstead Heath before sundown, but I did manage to take a nice walk through a corner of it. It's lovely, a complete wilderness, nice and muddy and deserted. It was a really nice change from central London. I don't have pictures yet, but I'll post them in the next couple of days.

The last week or so, I've been working with my dad to take out another loan to fund my travels over here, since money has been running out rather quickly over the past months. London has turned out to be quite the financial committment for me. But, I've decided that I would rather make the most of my time here and pay it off after graduation, rather than staying in London doing basically nothing but studying for the rest of the term.

Plans are in the works for Nora and I to take a trip to Scotland (Glasgow, then Edinburgh, followed by a guided tour of the Highlands), leaving next Wednesday. I'll be sure to update to let you know how that goes, but for now, since I don't have any papers due for midterms this time around, I'm merely off for some more relaxation. Cheers!