Just do google image searches on the cute ones.
If you're going to be shallow about it, nearly all of them are very attractive. But I watch beach volleyball for the athleticism.
I saw some short autoplay video on sexism in the olympics, and it included someone prominent (mayor? of London? IIRC) saying that the women's volleyball team looked like slippery, wet otters. Despicable but accurate.
Sexism and horrifying stories of Brazilian lawlessness.
E. Messily sent me this on Katie Ledecky last night, which I just now read. Dang.
This one popped up for me on FB today: Rio 2016: How Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova became the Olympics' biggest villain. But I read the roundups rather than watching the events, so I'm not much help.
And no one's harder to catch than a lawless slippery wet otter.
I wish the men's beach volleyball players would wear less clothing. I'd like to ogle the women without feeling quite so sexist.
Never mind what you watch, just get a few of these for atmosphere and they'll all be as good as each other.
Marisa Dick is the Canadian gymnast on the Trinidad and Tobago team that everyone in Trinidad hates, because she took the Olympic spot from an actual Trinidadian. She's known for creating a balance beam mount which is called the "Dick Move." But her performance ended up being unremarkable and that made everybody happy.
Different Facebook friends today posted a) an article about how awful it was that female Olympians were being graded by physical attractiveness and b) an article about how that really hot (male) Tongan athlete who was shirtless in the opening parade is single.
I feel I should introduce them to each other.
That guy was a dime a dozen by Tongan standards. I bet you could walk down the road and find ten guys in any village who looked that good with their shirts off.
I mean, not meant to be negative about that guy, who was lovely. But half the kids in my senior math class had muscles like that. Agricultural labor will apparently do that to you.
(I recognize that this is completely irrelevant to your point.)
Valuable context. I will add it to my snidey post.
That guy was a dime a dozen by Tongan standards.
On the islands, life is cheap.
Also, everyone appreciates the muscles. No one appreciates the fine mat he was wearing: Tongans weave the best mats in Polynesia.
First US gold medalist won the ten meter air rifle competition. The referee warned her to be careful or she would shoot her eye out with that thing.
She was from West Virginia where it isn't even considered sporting to shoot the stop sign unless you're at least 100 meters away.
17: Not true! I was totally checking out the mat. It's really impressive and I know nothing about that sort of weaving but think it seems like the kind of fidgety perfectionism-requiring task that could be fun.
Samoan mats are comparatively crude -- the finest they get is strips of pandanus slightly less than a centimeter wide. The Tongan mats get down to thread-fine strips, and they drape like cloth.
I think LB meant the heteronormative 'everyone'.
I suppose, stereotyping straight men, they'd be interested by neither the oiled up muscles nor the virtuoso fiber arts.
Stereotypically, the techbros at Mozilla haven't added 'heteronormative' to their spellchecker. A thinkpiece is called for.
I fondly remember my moment of outrage when the first spellchecker I ever encountered, in college, didn't recognize 'matriarchy' and suggested 'patriarchy' as a possible alternative.
However, the more inclusive Apple spellchecker has it. But that's just meeting a low standard, I'll give them credit when they have "misogynoir."
So are pandanus leaves the same as teh pandan leaves they make kaya jam from in Singapore/Malayasia and thereabouts? I think it must be. Also I found a good supplier of kaya jam in NYC which I took back with me to Arrakis.
Seconding 27. "It looks like you're trying to set up a society. Have you considered a system of explicit and implicit rule for the benefit of men?"
Who did you fly with? That's a very generous luggage allowance.
I would doubt it? I mean, they're pretty tough, I can't see eating them. (Checking wikipedia... I was wrong. Yep, same thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandanus )
I had assumed 'misogynoir' meant Nolan movies, but no.
Arrakis Airways. Standard 46 kg baggage allowance to and from the US. And kaya comes in little jars.
But the jars come inside a shop right? I know NYC rents are crazy, but that's just inhumane.
31 Is it used in Polynesian cuisine?
I want a fine Tongan mat now, btw.
31 They're used to flavor it somehow. I don't know how it's made but it's delicious spread on buttered toast.
34 You poke holes in the jar lids so they can breathe.
Is this squishy creamy oily green stuff that's heart attack sweet and based on coconuts?
36: It'll cost you. Two grand for the first one I found for sale, and I'm not impressed with the quality.
I was watching the women's qualifying events for gymnastics the other night, and I zoned out when they introduced the team country, and for the entire rotation I could not for the life of me figure out where they were from. Nondescript looking white girls in purple leotards with vague rainbow design. My first guess was the UK, because they usually have random colored uniforms, and then it turned out to be Belgium. That got me thinking about teams that always wear their flag colors vs. teams that don't.
40: Have they considered turning it into a latch hook kit?
39 Sounds like it. And while it's got coconut in it it really doesn't taste of coconuts to me. I'm not crazy about coconuts.
Dipping the toast in some soft boiled eggs is just the thing.
40 Those colors are horrible. I hate chemical dyes, and especially that orange.
Doesn't taste of coconuts, no. I think I bought some, but it was in Chinese.
That's more like 2/3 of a thought, but I'm to lethargic to finish it. I had some vague thoughts on types of nationalism, but my data is so unsystematically collected it's too sparse for armchair speculation.
Also, to me the faces of female swimmers tend to look the same. I was trying to figure out if hours in the pool modifies looks slightly, leading to uniform distribution of fat & muscle, or if women who happen to look a certain way all go into swimming.
44: Yeah, I'm surprised by yarn fringe on a putatively fine mat for sale. I know Samoan mats much better than Tongan, but I'd expect yarn on a (coarser, utilitarian) sleeping mat, and either feathers or nothing but pandanus on a fine mat.
47: Is there a possibility you're overreacting to swimming caps? That is, you're looking at very fit women with no hair, and turning that into a facial resemblance?
"Nothing comes between me and my pandanus."
Of course the water makes them that way. Just look at seals.
48 I want a mat like that Tongan flame bearer had. Also the abs.
Grind the coconuts for own kaya jam. Get there in no time.
I deliberately omitted the possessive there, to get Barry in body-building frame of mind.
47: do you have the same problem with male swimmers? It may just be that you're used to not looking at women's faces, because you tend to differentiate them primarily by hairstyle.
49
I was actually just wondering about that. Now I'm looking at these pictures and trying to figure how similar these women look.
In general there's a certain generic white person look that I have a real problem telling apart, so maybe it's just that.
55
Hmm...I'm trying to think. I often have trouble keeping track of who's who, but I don't think their faces look quite as uniform. Maybe it is because I have below average facial recognition skills and so I rely on hairstyles more for women? I do think someone like Michael Phelps has a rather distinctive looking face.
57: I suspect I'm in the same boat as you. It also helps that this Phelps has been extremely prominent in the media for decades, much more so than any female Olympic athlete (well, except Serena Williams, and she's not competing this year). I blame mpatriarchy.
||
Shatner had no idea you could do commerce on the Internet. He wasn't an Internet user, not whatsoever, and he had no idea you could buy things on the Internet. 'You can buy things on the Internet?' He goes, 'Well, Jay, are people really going to buy travel, airline tickets, on the Internet?' I said, 'Yes, Bill, they really are going to do it.' It's a very funny story. Shatner says, 'OK, I'm going to have my people do some diligence on this if that's OK with you, Jay.'Does anyone remember Priceline ads with Shatner?
Good article on, "U.S. women's swim team on body image, eating disorders and supporting each other."
As a young girl, Misty Hyman thought athleticism equated to attractiveness. She believed being strong was beautiful.
Hyman, who would grow up to become an Olympic gold medalist swimmer, didn't realize her personal beliefs about beauty didn't align with society's until her teenage years -- and then the realization hit hard.
58: Serena is competing this year. She and her sister already lost in doubles.
I'm currently enjoying a bit of show jumping - have never been on a horse or wanted to, but I like watching them.
I'm looking forward to the track cycling starting on Thursday.
61: My bad, I just skimmed her Wiki page. I've barely been watching the Olympics.
Because you hate America? (I only knew because I saw the doubles headline.)
I liked both the men's and women's road races on the weekend, although both had the same outcome: climber gets away with breakaway group, makes it to the bottom and onto the beach while faster and more confident descenders crash, but the slower, safer descent didn't leave enough of a gap that heavier, stronger riders couldn't catch him/her on the line.
64: The first step in the revolution is to be mildly apathetic towards international sporting events.
This didn't look good at all. I'm not a professional gymnast, but I don't think legs are supposed to bend like that.
67
I'm not clicking that link, because damn you and your lack of trigger warnings for squeamish people, but I heard a description of that break on the news and I had to curl up into the fetal position to keep from throwing up.
My general pet peeve is how America is the only industrialized nation without universal healthcare which doesn't let people stream the Olympics online for free. Fuck NBC and fuck PBS for their stupid old people concerts and zero coverage of sporting events.
Yeah, not going to click on that. One of the reasons I'm not watching is that the whole "let's expand the envelope of how far we can push the human body" thing is not something that makes me feel great.
No. You have to click on that link.
The dude's not so much "that hurts" as he is "fuck, there goes my competition." The judges look pretty upset though.
Huh, I actually thought "I don't think legs are supposed to bend like that" was an adequate content warning. To be more clear: Warning: the video shows a gymnast's leg bending inappropriately.
Personally I find this (unrelated to Olympics) much more disturbing to watch.
Paul George want to meet with Gymnist with broken leg.
U.S. Olympic basketball player Paul George is trying to set up a meeting with injured French gymnast Samir Ait Said. George has a level of empathy that most people don't.
Two summers ago in a scrimmage before the FIBA World Cup, the Indiana Pacers star sustained a compound fracture of the right tibia and fibula. He missed almost all of the 2014-15 season but returned to All-NBA level in 2015-16. He is playing in his first Olympics in Rio and had 15 points in USA's win vs. China on Saturday.
It was his idea to meet with Said, according to USA Basketball spokesperson Craig Miller. However, it is uncertain when or if that meeting can occur. Miller said Said was not yet accepting visitors as of Sunday afternoon,
I don't think it's unreasonable to think you might have a different conception of how legs bend.
Van Vleuten's crash in the women's road race was more vomit-inducing than the gymnast leg. At least he was clearly alive.
I have a parenting advice bleg - asking here because I need some fresh perspectives and I sort of know what I'll get anywhere else. Kid A has been home from her first year at university for 7 1/2 weeks. She's been on holiday with friends for a week right at the beginning of that, and house sat for a few days about three weeks ago. She has a job in theory which involved an hour's trial a couple of weeks ago, has filled in paperwork etc but not got any shifts yet. She's been for two evenings out with friends, I think.
Apart from that, she has done nothing. Sleeps all day, does very little at night. Yesterday she didn't come out of her bedroom for 24 hours. I ask her to do helpful things around the house (like everyone else does), she doesn't do them. I'm paying rent already on a house in her university city for 2016/17, and I'm ridiculously angry with her, can't even look at her today. C says it's like having a squatter in one room. Her siblings are pissed off with her too for being so lazy and selfish.
Starting to wonder if she's actually depressed, although when she does emerge she doesn't seem it, although she looks like shit and her skin is terrible. If I try to talk to her she completely refuses to respond, but she's always done that, she's stupidly obstinate. I have no idea what to do - any suggestions?
re: 47
A friend and I had a conversation a few years back, in which he alleged fit* American women all looked the same. His point being that while a uniformly low body fat and a particular fitness regime is fairly homogenising, the combination of that with a particular orthodontic regime** was what made it.
I didn't buy the general claim, but I know what he meant. There is a certain look.
* as in athletic, not in the Mike Skinner sense.
** there's a certain kind of dental profile and jaw line that he had in mind.
How much longer until she leaves again, asilon? I don't actually have advice and feel torn in a lot of ways. I was pretty openly catatonically depressed at her age and didn't appreciate parental intrusions, but they were presumably right to intervene.
In the specific context of being home from university, that sounds awful for you, but maybe wouldn't worry me as much as it would in a different context: there's something about having been a quasi adult, off on your own, and then being home in your parents' house again that can make people be really weird.
OTOH, can you throw her out and tell her to go live in her university city house if she's going to be awful?
She doesn't need to be back in Oxford until the beginning of October. But I think there will be internet connection on their house from September, so maybe then. Depends what happens with this job I guess.
Is this a huge change in behavior? I worry that big behavior changes come from some trauma that they don't want to reveal.
5: There's a more recent take on Katie Ledecky at fivethirtyeight, just before the start of the Olympics, with a whole bunch of charts and graphs on how her times compare with others and have been improving over time. Choice quotes:
That Ledecky will repeat in the 800 meters this year is certain, save for whatever allowances we must make for the potential for injury or planet-killing asteroids. Her mark of 8:06.68 is over 7 seconds faster than any other woman in history. She hasn't been challenged at this distance for so long that it's unclear how fast she can go.
As you can see, Ledecky is pretty much the Secretariat of swimming.
It's a shame that the Olympic Games don't include the women's 1,500-meter event. Ledecky is so fast that her pace over 1,500 meters is faster than any other woman in history has managed over 800 meters. Wrap your head around that for a second: If Ledecky's 1,500-meter record in 2015 were her only swim, she would have broken Rebecca Adlington's 800-meter world record -- that had stood since 2008 -- in her first 800 meters.
And yes yes yes to the weirdness, I do remember it.
And yeah, the only thing I want to do is pack up her stuff and drive it to the other bloody house. This option has been much discussed/threatened - I offered to buy her a fucking mifi if lack of internet was the only thing keeping her here.
Megan, yeah, it is a huge change, she's a real extrovert (and so not seeing people or getting out can't be good for her), but she's normally very communicative (unless I'm telling her to do something) so unless something awful has happened in the last month in her bedroom, I'm thinking trauma is unlikely. I hope.
Find a short questionnaire about clinical depression, say that it's your job as a parent to check for serious problems and ask the questions.
Basically, trouble sleeping, inability to get motivated for simple tasks like getting dressed, thoughts of self-harm are a serious warning if they coincide. Is she texting or otherwise staying connected with her friends? Not talking to anyone at all is not great.
Sympathies on the stubborn and impossible houseguest, hope it's nothing serious.
Oh, the being nocturnal is not new, that's been pretty much since birth. And as far as I know she is in constant communication with her college friends and is going to visit some on Thursday. Which I'm looking forward to.
I'd be very concerned but I think much of my reaction is very context specific, by which I mean that we have what I suspect is an atypical expectation of intrafamily social norms so that kind of withdrawal would be wildly beyond the pale.
Personally I rely to a great extent on inchworm discussion of small areas of agreement to establish I'm not coming from left field in expressing concern or disapproval and then use my own willingness to be up front to get the kid to talk about whatever is going on with him/her. This requires a maddening amount of time and patient persistence, but then all three kids have learned I'm in it for the long haul so likely as not they capitulate early.
If it had only been a couple weeks I might think it's just catching up on not having slept for a year, but by 7 weeks that affect should have worn off.
Has she been like that ever since returning from university?
Seconding 90 or any "are you really ok" discussion I think. Behavior could be nothing or could be something, but I was super-depressed & usually drunk at the same age and no one said anything other than "wash literally even a single goddamn dish, please," and when they took my brother to therapy a few years later I realized I was -furious- no one had seen me suffering (or no one been willing to engage me while I was suffering and admittedly extremely unpleasant) given the same option. I don't think there's any harm, one doesn't want kids to label themselves or get to get the idea we're labeling them I guess, but eh that's not compelling me here. You'll have to face a snarling cerberus-child who will probably tell you you're being thick, but oh well.
Although the last para in 81 suggests you may have tried to have some of these conversations already in which case nevermind that advice. Boy, kids routinely make themselves the least loveable when they actually need the most love, it seems pretty maladaptive but hey I'm not a gene what do I know.
Man, small children are relatively straight-forward, aren't they. That sucks, A. I have absolutely no idea.
Do you know (as in, have seen in writing) what her grades were like? This sounds somewhat similar to my own higher ed meltdowns.
What level of not-talking to you is she doing? Like, would an approach like: "Someone who didn't know you, and was just looking at your behavior objectively, would think you were either clinically depressed or recovering from trauma (because checklists, if you think that'd work). Even though I do know you, I can't rule that out -- you're scaring me. Is there something going on you need help with?" get you anywhere?
Yeah, I was thinking about something like, "Hey, I can't read this situation. Are you depressed or dealing with anxiety or something big? I'm worried and can't tell what's going on." But 99 is better.
Just write 99 on your hand and cheat by reading off it. Don't say "because checklists" out loud though.
Before reading 99 I said to her that if I were looking at anyone else and seeing this behaviour, I'd be worried that they were depressed, or had suffered some terrible trauma, or were just an awful person, and did she have any thoughts on which it might be?
(Oh yes, I'm a great parent!)
We're sitting here saying that we are worried about her, and she's just turned on the gymnastics and said she's trying to watch it.
Argh.
Ajay, yes, pretty much the whole time since she got back, slowly getting worse. I've considered drugs, because at least shooting up heroin in bed would explain how she can spend so long there without getting bored.
Mossy, Oxford doesn't really work like that. She hasn't even got her first university exams until next Easter, and they don't count towards her degree. I know she's a fair-to-terrible student, but she's been to most of her classes, and doesn't seem to be in trouble. She does have some work to do over the summer and she is doing some of it.
Lord knows if this will be of any use, or even understandable given limitations of my phone typing, but just bc it may be helpful ...
I would back up from "We're sitting here saying that we are worried about her". I would start by slowly and painfully building up a foundation for that question, i.e. getting her to acknowledge some basic shared ground about you and your family norms, in a very calm, patient way. The goal is to get her to acknowledge your eventual questions about how she is feeling and what she is/is not doing are both coming from your love for her and a completely understandable stance of concern.
It has to really be from calm and deep love tho otherwise it's just a cross.
I'm really feeling for both of you. My guess based on what you're describing would be depression or trauma before drugs (with plenty of room for it to be normal-range late-teen hostility (none of these things are exclusive anyway). Would she go to a therapist or psychiatrist (even if in her mind, it's only to shut you up)? It prob will not solve any mysteries but might offer some relief. In principle I agree with dq but if she's truly absolutely stonewalling and you get no purchase anywhere it's hard to commit to that kind of progressive, incremental engagement.
I was managing calm for about the first month, now I'm just fucked off. I honestly don't think there is any secret problem at the root of it to winkle out, I think she's a very bored extrovert who needs recharging.
Plus she doesn't like being asked to do things. I wrote here a little while ago about her wondering whether she had AD(H)D, and I think the issue is simply more along the lines of her balking at needing to do something, even when it's something that is useful or necessary only to her.
(Now wondering if it was in fact here that I wrote about adhd. Dunno!)
(also I think *a lot* of the benefit of talk therapy is that by its nature recharges very bored extroverts though admittedly not cheaply)
I honestly don't think there is any secret problem at the root of it to winkle out,
That was what I figured from your tone initially; I can't say if you're right, but you're there and you know her, so if you think she's fundamentally fine that means something.
I don't think she'd want to talk to a professional. She's seeing the couple for whom she house sat on Saturday - I could ask him to sound her out. (He was the leader of her youth drama group and she's done lots of work with him - lots of mutual affection but she is comfortable with him being in a position of authority when necessary.)
Have you talked seriously with the other kids? Do they think she's fine, or are they worried?
also I think *a lot* of the benefit of talk therapy is that by its nature recharges very bored extroverts
Lol, yes, there is that aspect to consider! Might be worth the expense.
I don't think they're worried - they're annoyed that she's being annoying, and I think they're disappointed that she's not being a bit more present. They haven't really felt like a foursome (well kid B was away for ages with C) this summer and it's a bit weird. The older two are very close so I think kid B would be more concerned if necessary.
I'm disappointed too - I was looking forward to seeing her properly, we usually get on well and have plenty in common.
102. last is surprising... IME everyone has some sort of exam in their first year, either Prelims or Mods. And College Collections at the start of each term too. None of that counts towards your degree of course but it's still formal feedback. Maybe that's all changed since my day.
If she's been like that since she came down, either it's something that happened during Trinity, or it's depression, or she's bored and fed up. Oxford does break (demoralise) students at a remarkably high rate, it broke many people in my college in their first year, but it is quite good at looking after them too. Maybe drop her tutor a line? Or the chaplain? Or the women's tutor, or similar?
I spent my first long vac on the fringes of (and in) a rather nasty ethnic conflict, which worried my poor parents immensely. So, could be worse.
It's true it would be worse if she were race-rioting.
You know who else was a bored extrovert?
114: actually I only instigated one riot and that was an accident. and it wasn't a race riot per se.
There is one quite longstanding course with 5th term mods.
Tutors/chaplains/etc ought to (though might not!) refuse to talk to parents without the student's consent, assuming they are over 18. But perhaps you could find a way of asking her if she's been getting support from someone - welfare officers, chaplain, counsellors, GPs, etc etc?
Asilon: that's awful, although hopefully not serious. Echoing LB at 84, once you leave home, coming back from a very structured environment that's also very novel and dynamic to somewhere familar can be a very strange experience, and you can feel very aimless as a result. Maybe encourage her to go off to ethnic conflicts during future summer holidays, or at least to other cities / countries?
Also, since ajay is around: I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying the Cave of White Water and how pleased I am that it's regularly updating again. I tend to get all F5y every Thursday.
My sister was pretty much like this on college breaks. She would basically hibernate in her room, sleeping a ton, zombie-like when she emerged. She has always been fairly introverted, which is different, but she'd sleep and sleep, hang out in her room, and join my parents for dinner. Annoyingly, she is like this as an adult, too. She and her now-husband visit over Christmas and spend 90% of the visit in her childhood bedroom, 5% out with old high schoolfriends, and maybe 5% with my father. So, some people do that? It sucks for everyone else, though.
119: this is weird behavior, and I'm pretty much of an introvert, too.
there's something about having been a quasi adult, off on your own, and then being home in your parents' house again that can make people be really weird.
I have to echo this. Since I am not a parent, I can only think back to my own experience coming back home for that first summer after college (which was the last time I did that). While I can't say I was utterly reclusive, while at college I'd become, let's say, less chaste than I'd seemingly been before going away.
I did have a summer job -- miserable -- but the fact is I now had a boyfriend, and missed him terribly. I was having sex!
So I wonder if a question to ask is whether Kid A just misses her friends -- or some people or some person in particular -- and feels she can't mention that. In my own case, I arranged for the boyfriend to come into town once or twice, and essentially snuck off to see him. I felt it was just not something I could explain to my parents, who would not welcome him.
Perhaps the Asilon family dynamics are not such that this could be the case -- in which case, ignore this.
Is that the bedroom with the wardrobe portal to Narnia?
Late, but to OP: all the news dumps using the Olympics as coverage
I did 119 too. I was definitely tired from school, but I also missed being there because it was way more interesting than being at home. I had also enjoyed being free from the questions and commands of my parents and resented having to temporarily submit to that again. Also, my family is perfectly fine, but truth be told, I didn't actively enjoy their company much at the time, at least compared to my new college friends, and was young and rude enough to act on it.
No amount of prodding, questioning, or needling from my mother would ever have dragged the truth from my lips though.
After a few weeks of his first summer back with his parents after college, my dad joined the navy without telling them.
So he was deliberately relaxed when his own kids came home.
Also, he made sure not to restart the Korean War.
120: I meant in contrast to asilon's extroverted kid. She spent a lot of time in her room as a kid, playing by herself, but the difference when on college breaks was still marked. It's certainly not charming behavior.
I never went home for longer than 1-2 weeks, after I left for college. I don't regret that, but I do wish I'd gone to school somewhere closer to home so that I could have driven home for a weekend from time to time.
I imagine that a lot of it, as has been said, having to shift gears to living in a family again. It might be wise to have her thyroid and vitamin levels checked, though, and then send her back to campus ASAP.
113 - yes, 117 is right about the fairly ancient four year degree that has Mods in Hilary of the second year, before going on to Greats! Anyway, yes, she passed both sets of collections so far. (Sorry, I'm quite amused - did you think I didn't know what she was doing? That she was lying to me? That *shock horror* Oxford had changed?)
She does very much miss her friends. She tells us this, and knows that any of them are welcome here (her friends always have been, she knows this isn't an empty promise). She doesn't spend an awful lot of time alone at college - prefers to work in the library or in a friend's room rather than her own, and sometimes sleeps in a friend's room too. And I do remember the disconcerting feeling of coming home and finding that everything was the same but different, and sort of knowing that that was true of me too, and also thinking that my mother was being horribly unreasonable.
But she's still being a tosser. I'm thinking visiting ethnic conflicts and/or signing up for the Navy would at least get her out of my sight, which would have to help. I could worry about an idealised image of her, rather than be frustrated about the lump on the sofa.
131.1: I was worried that Oxford might have changed... unlikely, I know! I forgot about the four year history degree; I don't tthink I knew anyone doing it. But if there haven't been any problems with Collections, that rules that out.
119 sounds plausible. Seven weeks is a long time to be stuck back at home, and it does feel a bit like limbo after the kind of high-speed life one leads during term.
Or there's always the possibility of a physical cause, like glandular fever? what else causes longterm fatigue?
Echoing LB at 84, once you leave home, coming back from a very structured environment that's also very novel and dynamic to somewhere familar can be a very strange experience, and you can feel very aimless as a result
Not to downplay the larger point, but Oxford is not very structured, unless you're a medic/scientist/maybe engineer. It's a lot less structured than secondary education.
136: Fair point - I wasn't at Oxford, but I did a science degree and it was very structured from the outset.
Are you still allowed to bring a pet bear or did they change the rule after Lord Byron?
I suspect Oxford's rules on that would be superseded by English law these days.
139 so that means you have to have a bear right?
No, it means they must be carried.
What about the right to arm bears? Don't let us down, Oxford.
I was assuming 142 was going to link to this.
