Race for Life

There are a lot of differences between the UK’s cancer research fundraiser Race for Life, and the US cancer research fundraiser Relay for Life. Relay for Life is based on time, and you’re generally sponsored a certain amount for a time or a distance walked. Race for Life is a 5K (although some places have 10K events as well), and most of my sponsorship came straight in, not contingent on anything else. Relay for Life is also open to anyone – my family usually does it as a team event, and trade off shifts to walk. Race for Life is a women-only fundraiser, which I find both awesome and disturbingly sexist.

I participated in Race for Life in Nottingham this last weekend. My fundraising page is still up for a few weeks, if you want to donate. (www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/rachelandkendra) My friend Rachel pulled in a couple of her other friends, and together we were Team Pink.

Race for Life is a very pink thing. Pink has become the traditional colour for breast cancer support, and because it’s women-only, there was an awful lot of pink around. We helped contribute to the pink atmosphere by wearing pink wigs, pink headbands with either pink mouse ears or pink devil horns on them, pink shirts, pink leg warmers, pink face paint, pink grease paint on our arms, and pink spray-on glitter (which you couldn’t really see, but we knew it was there). It was so very pink, and we weren’t even the most pink team on the track.

I’d had big plans, when Rachel and I signed up in January, to actually get into the habit of running and be able to run the 5K without stopping. That didn’t happen. I started training pretty well – more consistently when it started getting warmer – but my ankles started hurting, and I lost my ankle supports, so I stopped until I could get more. Then, the week before the race, I did something to my foot – possibly exacerbated by the too-small shoes I accidentally wore one day – that made it very painful to walk. It’s something that’s happened before, and I still don’t know what it is other than “painful”. So when the race came around, I didn’t run more than about five minutes at a stretch (although, for whatever reason, running was actually easier on my foot than walking. But still – ouch). My goal is to be able to run 5K by next year’s race, whether I participate or not. This does, of course, depend on my feet not being stupid and injury-prone, however.

Our team name got a slight alteration when the day of the race came. It started raining Saturday night, with proper thunder and lightning and everything else that makes me slightly homesick for the Midwest. Sunday morning, it poured (and there were a few cracks of lightning). It rained, and rained, and rained. The sheets of water that came up from the bus I was on to get to the race went almost as high as the bus itself. The sweatshirt I was wearing was drenched by the time I got to the place where we were getting ready. My socks stayed wet until I got home several hours later and peeled them off. Given all the rain, we renamed ourselves Team Pink Drowned Rats.

But the rain stopped about an hour before the race started, and by the time we were actually going, it was bright, warm, and incredibly humid. I think by the end our faces were just as pink as our wigs.

It was interesting that we were one of the tamer groups racing. There were quite a lot of wigs – pink or otherwise. There were babies in pushchairs, puppies wearing pink boas and Race for Life signs, printed T-shirts with pictures and race numbers on them. But the best were the costumes. Three rabbits with “Durawell” batteries, and, the best thing, SpongeBob and Patrick. I was warm enough in jogging trousers and a T-shirt; I can’t even imagine how hot it got inside a giant SpongeBob.

About 5000 people participated, they said. Plenty of people ran, even more walked. There was an aerobic warmup at the beginning, including a performance by the Nivea Boys (Nivea is a sponsor of Race for Life) where they sang and danced to one of the cheesiest songs that was out when I lived in England as an undergrad. (DON’T STOP MOVING!!!! WOOOO S CLUB 7!!!!) I laughed hysterically for about thirty seconds, and then started dancing along. Because you have to, when you hear a song that brings up those kinds of memories.

At the end, everyone got a medal and a carrier bag with stuff – a breakfast bar, a bottle of water, some Nivea products, and entries to various contests. I haven’t really looked through it in depth yet. After the race, I went home with my wonderful housemates who’d come to support me, and we all just collapsed on the couch and watched movies for the rest of the day. But the reason that they were also exhausted is another story…..

I’m glad I participated in Race for Life. I wish things had gone differently: I wish I hadn’t hurt my foot, I wish I could have run the whole 5K, I wish I had been more active (and potentially annoying) about raising money. But every little bit counts, and I’m glad to be the European branch of my family’s cancer research fundraising.

Hoarding Minutiae

I am a packrat. A hoarder. A collector. Whatever you want to call it. I make excuses like “it’s genetic” (my grandparents all kept everything “in case it was useful someday”, almost to the point of pathology), “but what if I will want it eventually” and “nostalgia” and in the meantime, books and papers and …..well, mostly books pile up around me.

And right now my mom and my uncles are sorting through my grandfather’s house, and his lifetime of hoarding and saving everything that came through the door. It’s a daunting task, and a stressful one, and a sad one. How do you balance the longing to acknowledge the past with the desire to lead a simple(ish) life yourself, and the space limitations of modern middle-class living?

It’s made even more difficult, emotionally, by the fact that my family has not just a lengthy history, but a strong sense of history. We are all well aware that sometimes the most innocuous-looking things can turn out to be important. I just read a biography of a Tudor woman where most of the information for her life comes from household accounts. But, really, once the account books aren’t of any use for tax purposes or something similar, who wants to keep them around? But they are historically one of the best sources we have for daily life one or two or five hundred years ago.

We want to keep the important things, but how do we know what the important things are? What’s important now may not be important in one or two or five hundred years. And while there is an argument to be made about the cultural knowledge that comes from shifting priorities, I also can’t help but wish that more minutiae survived.

This is one reason that I’m so excited that the Library of Congress has the entire public Twitter archive now. Past Tweets may not be of huge significance (although some are, either culturally or personally), but the collection of cultural minutiae has the potential to be fascinating not only for current sociologists, linguists, and anthropologists, but for future historians as well. I just wish it were so easy to save and store the physical collections of minutiae as well.

(Apparently I really like the word "minutiae"...)

Ponderings

I just started reading Bess of Hardwick by Mary S. Lovell. It’s been on my TBR list for literally years, and last year I picked up a copy at Oxfam, and now I’m finally getting to it.

One problem I have, as a confirmed book addict, is that everything I read makes me want to read more. Reading Blink, which I finished this afternoon, made me want to read The Tipping Point and other sociological/psychological things. But Bess is insidious. Even after just reading the introduction, I want to read a ton of stuff.

None of it’s really related to the Tudors, though – they’re a little bit out of my period. No, what the introduction to Bess did is make me want to get back to my own research: music in Middle English literature. I have over 200 articles and many, many poems saved on their own hard drive, just waiting for my attention. And they’re always at the back of my mind, but what the introduction to Bess has done is bring them to the front.

Blink aided and abetted this as well, with all its talk of experts being able to hone their snap judgment ability. I found myself wanting to be an expert in something – and what am I an expert in? Middle English poetry and its connection to music. I also had lunch today with a PhD-student friend of mine, and that helped the motivation as well.

I have been telling myself that I will keep collecting and reading articles and poems (thank goodness for TEAMS) so that when I am financially able to do a PhD, I won’t be completely out of the loop. Maybe it’s time that I make a dedicated study plan and actually do it.

Epic films, part one

Over Easter, I had a lot of time on my hands and, like I said in a previous entry, I was in the mood for long-form entertainment. So I fulfilled some Easter traditions, and gave in to some cravings, and watched some epic films.

Gone with the Wind:

This had been on my mind for ages, probably close to a year off and on. And when mental_floss reminded me of the Carol Burnett “Went with the Wind,” and posted some of the screen tests for Gone with the Wind, I decided to watch the whole thing.

I had forgotten how incredibly good that movie is. Yeah, it’s incredibly long, but it doesn’t drag. The story keeps moving, from pretty nearly the first scene all the way through to the end. So much happens, but it’s not overwhelming with anything either. It’s incredibly well-paced.

And it’s incredibly well-acted, too. Hattie McDaniels, of course, won Best Supporting Actress (her acceptance speech was another clip on mental_floss, and it made me tear up). But Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable are nearly perfect. Rhett is not a horrible person: he’s mercenary and he admits it. But Scarlett …. is. She’s mercenary, and knows it, but does her absolute best to make it appear otherwise. She’s a horrible person, but you can’t help but sympathize with her. You love her and, even while you want her to get her comeuppance somehow, you still want her to succeed.

I had expected to find the movie more dated. It is so often seen as a love song and an elegy to the Old South. There are definitely elements of racism. And it certainly wouldn’t be made today. But I felt, while watching it this time, that the “oh, woe are we” part of it was found more in the screen narration (someone pleeeeease tell me the actual term for this? The written narration that comes up on the screen, like the dialogue in silent movies) rather than in the story or the acting. Scarlett was a belle of the Old South, no question, and she milked that for all that it was worth. And there are certainly characters who moan the loss of the Old South way of life. But both Scarlett and Melanie do their absolute best, everything they can, to move on from that way of life and to adapt to the new order and the new lifestyle that they must. Scarlett does it by becoming a businesswoman and a fantastic manager of Tara. Melanie does it through emotional support, and by refusing to give in to fear and despair the way that Scarlett’s family does. Two very different women, but both adapting in their own way.

I also found myself much more frustrated with Ashley than I remember being before. He explicitly tells Scarlett that if it weren’t for Melanie, he’d marry her, that he loves her. Is it really any wonder that she can’t fully move on from that? If Ashley had been harsh at the beginning, and been honest with Scarlett about his true feelings, it could have been a much different story.

I love the ending, too. It’s complete, but also full of hope for things to come. I like to think that Scarlett finds a way to get Rhett back, and makes Tara a successful plantation again. I can’t quite imagine the exact way that she does it, but I fully believe that she will.

The Ten Commandments:

This is an Easter tradition in the US, and it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it. This, unlike Gone with the Wind, was dated. The acting was good, but the presentation was incredibly dated. There was even a speech at the beginning about … I don’t remember, something about standing up to government and following rules and whatever else. I didn’t really pay attention.

The acting was so incredibly stylized. It’s not bad, of course, but it’s very stylized. There were a few points where I couldn’t help laughing, because by modern standards, it’s so ridiculous. The plagues were skimmed over – not even montaged! River to blood, immediately followed by death of the first-born.

I also, as a feminist, was a bit disturbed by the implication that “God hardening pharaoh’s heart” was done by a jealous woman. A beautiful, well-acted jealous woman, but still a jealous woman. It struck me as sexist in a way that it hasn’t before. (of course, it’s been at least ten years since I’d watched the whole thing. Probably more like fifteen.)

But Charlton Heston is fantastic. So once I’d watched The Ten Commandments, I had to watch something else of his.

Ben Hur:

What can I say about Ben-Hur? It, like Gone with the Wind, is a nearly perfect film. It’s got good pacing, good acting, everything. There’s a reason that it won a record number of Oscars. It actually wouldn’t be unthinkable that this could be made today.

*sigh*

As you can tell, I’m kind of running out of steam. I’ll have to write about my absolute love for Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter, sparked by Casanova) some other time. (And maybe by then I’ll have watched Becket.) (And, also, hopefully it won’t take me a month to get to it.)

Election thoughts

It’s Election Day in the UK. It’s a tense election here, and people are really looking forward to the end of the campaigning. To which I say, “You have no idea of how easy you have it.”

I kind of like the UK system of elections. I don’t mean the bizarre constituencies or the first-past-the-post thing (although I think it makes some sense with a more than two-party election) or the whole “voting for a party and not a candidate” idea. No, I like that you don’t officially know when an election is until a month or so before the election. I like that elections must be no more than five years apart, but can be less if needed. I like that the UK politicians aren’t in a nearly-constant state of outright campaigning. I understand the benefits of knowing that there will be an election for this post on this day in this year (aka the US system), but I have to say that I really like that the UK, in general, lets politicians do their jobs without the pressure of spending half their time trying to keep their job. I like that there aren’t political posters plastering the streets for more than a month.

It will be interesting to see what happens in this election. It’s always slightly more interesting when you don’t have a huge emotional investment in the outcome; you can see a little bit more clearly. Because I hold fairly liberal political views on most things, I would like to see Labour and the Liberals do well. But when it comes right down to it, I don’t have a real investment in this election, because I can’t vote here.

I saw a headline yesterday – and, to be fair, I didn’t read the article – that said that Gordon Brown claimed the debates had clouded the campaign. There’s a lesson in that for everyone, I think: Just because something doesn’t go your way doesn’t mean that it is essentially bad. The actual voters I know who watched the debates appreciated them. Just because Gordon Brown didn’t do well at them doesn’t mean that they have been bad for the process. If you can’t hold up your manifesto and maintain your position at a debate (for which you have had quite a lot of preparation time, theoretically), how do you expect to be able to run a country? It’s an attitude that I think is more prevalent in the US. Frequently, if an election doesn’t go a party’s way, they expend a lot of money, time, and energy on trying to discredit that election. Both sides do this. It’s a very bipartisan thing, this sense of entitlement. But, as in a quotation from The West Wing: In a democracy, sometimes the other guy wins. Also: You lost, deal with it.

(And maybe try a little harder next time.)

Restarting, take 29348

I am lying on my bed, in my pajamas, watching the darkening grey sky that is either a result of the Icelandic volcano or just normal England spring, and it’s 8:30 pm. Why am I in my pajamas at 8:30 pm, you might ask? Well, because this week I started an internship. It’s supposed to be only four days a week, but since this is my first week, I’ve gone in every day – to make myself known, to let myself get to know the project and the people.

It’s a four month internship, so I’ll be there until the end of July. Four months of sitting in an open-plan office, making databases and sending email. I honestly could not be more thrilled. I said, after last fall, that I needed a quiet office job, and that is what I have right now.

Plus, the database I’m currently making is of research case studies from every school in the university. I get to read representative research from every field. How could I not love this? I said in an email to my supervisor today that I keep getting distracted from building the database by actually reading the case studies. I keep finding out about research centres that are based here that I had no idea even existed. Like the Centre for Evidence-Based Dermatology, which is actually in the same building as I am.

It’s amazing how hope and energy come back when you have something external to do. I’ve picked up some writing from a “content mill” (where you get paid by pageviews, for the most part), plus this internship, and I’m starting to feel like a productive member of society again. And even though I’ve been fairly tired when I’ve gotten home this week, it’s been the kind of tired that makes me yawn, not the kind of tired that makes me unable to do anything but stare mindlessly at the computer. (Instead, I stare mindfully at the computer. Or something.)

The tiredness also may have something to do with the commute – I’ve walked both ways every day. There is a bus combination that could do it, but honestly with the waiting and the changing it would probably take about as long. And it’s been mostly nice outside. Like I said at the top, the greyness of today is either due to typical English spring or the Iceland volcano that’s pushing an ash plume across the British Isles and northern Europe today. Tuesday afternoon was drizzly, and I probably should have taken the bus, but every other day has been fine or sunny. It takes me just under an hour to get to the campus where I’m working. Home again takes a little bit longer if I stop at the store for some food (even though I really should be eating what I have in the house, by the time I am coming home I am so hungry that I can’t focus on “what do I want to make tonight”). As the weeks go on, I’m sure that I’ll get used to the hours and the walk and the lack of snacking (or manage to snack more) and I’ll be fine. I’m developing some calluses on my feet already from the shoes I’ve been wearing.

I really am excited about the project I’m interning on. It’s sort of a University-wide practice for the research assessment that’s coming up in a couple of years – the guidelines and requirements have changed, and no one really knows what to expect, so it’s probably best that we figure it out before the real thing comes. It manages to satisfy my mild organizational obsession with the database creation and the file-naming, it lets me be in thrall to academia and research (even if it’s not my research) for a little while longer, it lets me work with adults who know what they’re doing, and work on things that I kind of know how to do, and am getting better at every day (even little things like “go to Marie and ask her to do this thing” – that’s something I’m getting better at!)

I’m already not looking forward to (late) August, after this job is over and after my mom goes home. I know that this summer is going to be fantastic, and I won’t want it to end.

Media Roundup, Part 1

I have been in a "long-form" video mood lately. Actually, I've been in a long-form everything mood: instead of single tracks, I've been listening to whole albums (Ocean Eyes, by Owl City, mostly, although I also finished the Ring last night) and instead of random TV episodes, I've been watching movies or whole series. (There is one tiny exception to this, which is Doctor Who, which is possibly self-explanatory.)

It started with Casualty 1900s, which I wrote about before and have watched all of about five more times since my birthday. But even I can't watch a series incessantly. I needed a break, something new and stimulating. But I was still in a "historical" mood, so bring on Foyle's War, which my best friend had been recommending for ages.

Foyle's War, if you don't know, is a British TV series set in WW2 Hastings. Each episode is about an hour and a half long (so two hours when it aired on ITV, a commercial network). Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle is a WW1 veteran who (eventually) sees his role in the war effort to be keeping down crime on the homefront - murder doesn't stop being murder just because there's a war on.

Each episode is a discrete story; the story arcs come from the war itself and the main characters. Foyle's sergeant lost a leg in the Norway campaign; Foyle's son is in the RAF; they're in Hastings, on the coastline, so fear of invasion is a running theme for a while. Each episode is incredibly grounded in the real events: Dunkirk, the American presence, the Blitz, the Normandy invasion, etc. It's so well-researched; in addition to being a compelling procedural, it gives such a vivid picture of life on the coast and the homefront during the war. I learned about things that I'd never known existed (like Exercise Tiger) and got a sense for things that I couldn't possibly experience. And I can't say enough good things about the actors. I fell in love with them all. (However, as a warning: the murder in the first episode is the most vivid and quite horrific.)

Next on the list was Life on Mars, which keeps on with the historical police drama theme. It's so different from Foyle's War, though: in Life on Mars, the main character is in a car accident in 2006 and wakes up in 1973. Is he mad? in a coma-induced hallucination? or actually a time-traveller? It's never made 100% clear, although the last episode leans greatly toward the coma-induced hallucination with a touch of near-death time-travelling.

This is another series where the actors and the characters totally make the series. The stories themselves aren't anything too special and unique; it's the characters, especially John Simm as Sam Tyler, that make them shine. The final episode in particular was stunning. I had tears in my eyes at the end. It was heartbreakingly sad and inevitably right at the same time.

Next on the list was the BBC miniseries of Casanova. David Tennant and Peter O'Toole. *sigh* It was incredibly funny. I don't know why I didn't expect it to be funny, given that it was written by Russell T. Davies... There were some absolute laugh-out-loud moments. David Tennant overcomes many different levels of bad hair and just leaps off the screen. I may be biased here, but he was just fantastic. And Peter O'Toole as the aged Casanova exuded faded sexuality - he's always been wonderful and I'm so glad he's still acting. I completely believed the love between Casanova and Henriette (even though it's probably not historically accurate....and why isn't Laura Fraser better known?) and now I want to read Casanova's memoirs. Just skimming the Wikipedia article made me realize that his romantic reputation is only a small part of who he was. (Well, not small. That enduring legend couldn't be founded on anything .... small.)

The last series I want to mention is Lost in Austen. It was quite cute, and I enjoyed some of the liberties they took with Pride and Prejudice (especially Wickham. I unashamedly loved Wickham in this version. They made him believably redeemable). It did fall into the Darcy trap but not for long, and it was quite amusing to watch Amanda panic and try to "fix" everything. Causes and consequences were kind of hand-waved away, but it's a charming enough series.

Next time: films.