Monday, July 7th - Wednesday, July 9th

There seems to be a growing trend among our group expeditions, which is that at some point in time, I become separated from the group and/or do not remember when or where I am supposed to be and everyone else gets sent out to look for me. I know this doesn't sound very characteristic of me, but I think that it's an internal compromise; I let myself enjoy seeing and doing new things and in order to do so, I can't think about time or directions or being responsible for other people because that is what used to consume me on trips (although with Mom's meticulous itineraries it was laughably unnecessary) and keep me from having fun.

Anyway, this happened for the second time today at the Pitt Rivers Museum when the other girls were divided into groups and sent to different sections of the museum to locate me. I was on the second floor still, comparing my shoes to the shoes of Chinese women who underwent foot binding. Kara said that we should start keeping score. As of right now, the score is:

Professor Connery: 1

Kara O: 1

Everybody Else: 0


Here are some pictures from Pitt Rivers. We were challenged to each find the most interesting tidbit and I played to win, only it turned out that we didn't ever actually share our tidbits so I have several leftovers.

I like this because it looks like she's laughing at me.

There was an exhibit of old-timey tattooing equipment and
tribal tattoos.

Let's just say I'm glad that I live in this century.

In this particular culture, a chest tattoo means that you have killed an enemy and taken his head.

This is an apron given by a Turkana girl to her lover in 1918 in Kenya.
It is a symbol of the girl's challenge to her lover to prove himself by killing a lion, elephant, buffalo, or man. The two iron rings mean that he killed two men.

There was a really cool ancient instrument collection... these are bagpipes from when they were made of animal skin. The sheep or goat would be skinned but basically in one piece, and the pipes come out of  what used to be the neck and limbs. I thought this was funny because the label on one of them said that it was made out of "kid."

Here's the previously mentioned foot-binding shoe comparison.

This was another one of my interesting tidbits, the label says "Buttock Ornaments - Africa."

There were also several things that I couldn't get a decent picture of, such as:

Shrunken heads (which I now know how to make)

Terrifying early surgical instruments

Amulets and charms to ward off evil, particularly the evil eye

A "fire drill," which is the name of an old method of creating fire by friction, which I thought was funny.

Some old decorated skulls from cultures where the skulls of the dead are decorated and then worn around the neck by a loved one as a good luck charm.

Anyway, now it's Wednesday and I don't have a clue where the time has gone. Yesterday (Tuesday) we saw the Ashmolean Museum and the something-something Theatre, I didn't pay attention to the name.

This is the mural on the ceiling of the hall that I've forgotten the name of. It's supposed to represent the world being enlightened by education and intellect, and ignorance being cast out. 

I guess the guy covered in snakes is Ignorance.

Then today we toured the Boudelian Library, where several scenes from the Harry Potter movies were filmed.

This is the Radcliffe Camera, an extension of the library.

We saw the restricted section of the Hogwarts library (which felt like the books might actually start screaming if we opened them because we weren't allowed to touch or say or do anything because of how ancient everything is) and the Hogwarts infirmary, which is actually an exam hall, and the place where Professor McGonagall teaches the Gryffindors how to dance in the Goblet of Fire. According to our tour guide, the added CGI effects included the flame of a candle when Harry was reading by candlelight in the restricted section because in real life, there are no candles or flames allowed in the Boudelian ever. I wish I had been paying more attention when we were seeing the restricted section because I temporarily forgot that it was a Potter film site and was instead mainly feeling grumpy about my sore knee.

Here's a mummy from the Ashmolean. My mummy count is now in the double digits, British Museum included and cat-mummies not included. (My cat-mummy count is at 4.) Apparently Tut is coming to the Ashmolean later in July.

They were both still good days, though. I had a long heart-to-heart with Jenny and our Drama class had a great discussion on Wednesday about gender roles and I got fixated on Aaron's character in "Titus" and ended up writing my essay about why he's not actually the villain because stupidity and evil are the same thing if you judge by the results. (Margaret Atwood said that, and it's come in very handy for this particular play.)

I've also been bonding with Holly, she's another girl in our group and she shares my relentless enthusiasm for almost everything we do here. (I say almost because I was in a bad mood because of all the stairs at the theater and library.)

Just wait until I get to Thursday - Thursday was an incredible day.

Recognize the infirmary?