Happy Thanksgiving

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving, that most anticipated of American holidays when the only demand placed on you is to eat as much as physically possible then fall asleep whilst watching football. We celebrated in style here at the house with a dinner composed of various family recipes contributed by the people on the program and prepared by an army of conscripted housemates. We were divided into three castes: those who gather, those who cook, and those who clean. I was fortunate enough to be one of those who gather. While it required quite a few trips on my bike, laden with cranberries or flour or parsley, it was much better than having to cook or clean. I spent most of the day at the faculty apartment that UGA owns in Summertown, waiting for a call to fetch one foodstuff or another. But after about 3pm, the calls stopped coming and my job mostly consisted of watching the Scottish version of "Legends of the Hidden Temple". Dinner was of course amazing, and I didn't even have to clean. For those of you who have read Brave New World, we've been joking that those who clean are the gamma minuses of the house.

In other news, it was great to see the family some more. Unfortunately I had lots of work early in the week so they kind of had to do their own thing, but on Wednesday we had the chance to see Oxford together. I'm not much of a tour guide, but I think we hit all the big attractions and even got to see some rowing. The Christchurch regatta is this week, meaning the novice teams from all of Oxford's colleges are racing each other in a double elimination tournament. I enjoyed watching the racing (especially since they're novices) but I would have like to have gotten a chance to race. Because I've competed before, I'm ineligible to race at Christchurch. Also, since I'm leaving next week I think our coach made a decision to leave the Americans out of the boat so that the real rowers have more practice together. Both the men and the women's boat (which, for the record, contains 3 Americans, including one that's raced before) advanced out of the first round and race again later in the week. Should be fun to watch.

Next week is the last of our stay here. In addition to being one last chance to impress our dons before they give us a grade, it also means that we have to deal with all of the little things to do with leaving your apartment at the end of the semester plus everything associated with a transatlantic trip. Just like the rest of the semester, I expect it to be busy, busy, busy.