Catching Up

Since most of Tuesday was spent writing my Shakespeare paper this entry will just have to cover two days.

Right now I'm hating the fact that I have to leave in a little over two weeks, I like it here so much. The weather has mellowed out to this nice bearable summer, and I'm just getting comfortable with Oxford, the rail system, living in this dorm, and keeping myself out of trouble. I definitely will need to come back and live here for a little while, I have a feeling I'll enjoy that. Today I was made infinitely happy by the open market where I bought a huge tub of fresh raspberries for 2 GPB,the cheapest I'd seen them before was somewhere around 3. I also discovered alleyways through the town that let me avoid walking all the way up and around blocks to get to where I need to go, which makes me feel all local and English :). Although I did have to stop and look at a postcard map in order to find the post office...

While Katy and I were shopping for art supplies for my coat of arms project (more later) I came up with the three categories for women's dress in England, which I've been observing the last month. There are the Preppy girls, which are all dressed up in twin sets and kakhis and ballerina flats. They remind me of sorority girls back at Tech, dressed up to the nines in case they have to give an awards speech later. But unlike in the US, this group is rare, when I see them I almost immediately assume their American unless I hear them on their cell phones or speaking to their friends. Then there are the Casual girls. They wear jeans and tops and flip flops and just look like they want to be comfortable but not in their pijamas. Their tops range from regular cotton tanks to cute patterned shirts, etc. But overall their look is flexible and can be dressed up and dressed down at will, sorta like me. Finally there are the Funky girls, the ones that wear 10 tank tops and hot pink fishnets and other things like that, each has her own style but all of them incorporate the accessories of the moment. For instance right now it's these wide belts made of leather circles with metal clasps. I swear every woman I pass has one... or two in some cases. Interestingly enough this is the most common group, the English have their own sense of style to which I'm not really accustomed to yet. I know the categories are pretty broad, but each of them has a good idea associated with it and is broad enough to allow wiggle room. Throw the buisness women in there too, but I excluded them because I think they have a style outside of what their workplace requires them to wear.

Well it's very late and I'm very tired. Tomorrow I shall write about my upcomming trip to Ireland and such, stay tuned. Oh and if you want to know all about my coat of arms project.. that'll be in the blog tomorrow too. Signing off to go to bed.

Veronica,
wishing she was a Funky English girl