"My goodness-- your accent is so posh!"

Hello, my dear readers!

I have been writing like a fiend for the past two days (thank you, Dissertation of Doom), and now that I've turned in this week's section (I'm at 6,000 words-- even better than my promised 5,000!), I can't seem to stop writing.  Hence this blog post.  But I do have some fun things to report-- I'm not just writing for the heck of it. 

When I left you on Friday, I was heading out to a pub to watch the Bath Rugby game.  I'm happy to report that Bath Rugby won (yay!), and that we have found a great new pub-- it's quiet, it's classy, it's not terribly expensive, they show all of the Bath Rugby games, and it's five minutes from my house.  Awesome.  After enjoying the game from the toasty warm pub (while watching the crowd on tv getting drenched by the rain), a few of us headed to another nearby pub that was featuring live music, and we hung out there for a while before heading home for the night.  I actually spent a Friday night out-- I know, it's weird for me to think about too.

Saturday, I went gardening in the morning, where I got to rake leaves (I realized only then how much I miss that part of autumn) and chop compost (which made me feel like a lumberjack).  Afterwards, I went to the market, bought stuffed grape leaves and lemon wine (you would not believe how delicious it is), and did the rest of my food shopping for the week-- all in all, a morning full of physical labor. 

That evening, we all took the bus up to the University, where we were planning to go see some Guy Fawkes fireworks.  We got there two hours before the fireworks started--there was a little carnival/fair sort of thing there--but it had just started to pour when we got there, so we wandered around the fair in the rain for a while, ate cotton candy, won some goldfish (Sasha and Kate Six won them, and named them "Humphrey" and "Lancelot", respectively)... and still had an hour of wandering to do.  By this point we were cold, wet, and bored, so we decided to take the bus home and watch a movie instead.  This lead to about ten of us watching "It's Complicated" in the Nunes House common room whilst eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate.  It was marvelous. 

Unfortunately, it was pretty late by this point, so I couldn't really walk home.  The Flat 4 girls invited me to stay over, so we had a spontaneous sleepover!  I slept in borrowed pjs on a spare mattress that Flat 5 had for some reason, and in the morning, we had a big breakfast with scones and eggs... I really need to hang out over there more often.

The rest of Sunday (after I finally made my way back home) was spent doing epic research for the Joyce section of my dissertation.  Interesting, but painfully long.  Monday morning I wrote for a bit, then went to Jane Austen, then came back and wrote some more, then went to knitting club for a quick break, which turned out to be not-so-quick.  I stayed for an hour and a half, doing very little knitting, but quite a bit of talking (and maybe also a good amount of hot-chocolate-drinking). 

Sasha, Kate Six, Tom and I wound up sitting near two British girls (Rosie and Dot)-- both first-years, who are actually going to be taking care of Humphrey from now on, because Sasha found out that we are not allowed to keep any pets... including fish... which is kind of lame, but they were super excited to be getting Humphrey, so it all worked out for the best.  We spent quite a long time talking to them-- mostly comparing the differences between the English and American education systems (they were amazed at how much work we do, and how long we are in school, and how many subjects we study, and we were amazed at how specialized they wind up being, and jealous at how few exams and papers they have to deal with), and then talking about accents. 

They asked us to speak in our British accents, which we were all kind of embarrassed to do-- I've never used that accent in front of an actual British person, because I'm afraid that I'll be laughed at-- however, we eventually did.  As soon as I started speaking, Rosie sat up straighter in her chair, and began to laugh almost before I finished my sentence.  I was immediately super embarrassed, and cried, "Was it really that bad?!", to which she responded, "No, no, it was really good; but my goodness-- your accent is so posh!  Like, super-upper-crust posh!  It made me suddenly feel like a commoner," which then made the rest of us laugh.  As each of us spoke in turn, they said the same thing-- we all somehow picked up really high-class accents, which is kind of awesome, but also kind of weird... where did they come from?  We mostly interact with normal people.  (The only answer that we've come up with is that the British tv we watch in the States is mostly an example of high-class accents.) 

Then they asked us about our accents, where they were from, and whether they were considered high- or low-class, which made us laugh, and we said that they were just different regions, not necessarily classes.  However, I've been thinking-- do we Americans have class-based accents?  Is there an accent (or are there accents) that is/are considered decidedly lower-class?  Or one that we understand as upper-class?  I pose this question to you, fair readers, and I would love for you to answer in the comments section below with your opinions!  (No, seriously-- NO ONE comments on my blog, and I spend a lot of time writing it, so I'd like to see some commenting action going on.  You don't even have to tell me who you are.  Please?)

Before we left, we exchanged information, and talked about a potential Murder Mystery dinner party at Rosie and Dot's house before we leave the UK (which would be AWESOME), and promised to see each other again soon.  I MADE MY FIRST REAL BRITISH FRIENDS WHO AREN'T PAID BY OUR PROGRAMME TO BE OUR FRIENDS AND WHO AREN'T OVER THE AGE OF 50!! YAY!!

On that happy note, I stayed up until 4 am working on my paper.... then woke up again at 9 and kept going until I left for class at 1:30.  But I finished the whole Joyce section, and I have only another 2,000 words to go!  Yay!  After class, I came home, registered for my second-choice Winter Study class (I got dropped from quilting, which is really, really sad.... now I'm going for "Sustainable Food Systems"...not much selection left), then started making family dinner with Ali and Clay.  We made a wonderful dinner-- broccoli and spinach quiche (SO good), asparagus, and chicken.  For dessert, we had the Ben's Cookies that I bought super cheap on my way home (a whole box of day-olds for 3.50, which is like the price of three cookies normally).... mmmmm.  I've been craving American-style cookies (soft ones, with chocolate chips-- not those hard, dry "biscuits" that they claim to be cookies) for ages, and this really hit the spot.

Settling in for the rest of the night with tea and knitting... a lovely end to a lovely day.  I look forward to seeing your comments-- talk to you again soon!