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I've noted before the rather pleasing view from my office window, something which gives me momentary relief the fifteenth time the phone rings and an anxious student (or worse, parent) says "I wonder if you can help me..." (they all say this. Is the phrase hard-wired in all telephone-using life forms, or is it some kind of union?). At any rate, from the window by my kettle I can look down into the attractive stretch of grass, trees and rustic paths outside the women's residence - the space wherein, of an afternoon, gazelle-like students are wont to recline in pairs on the grass in unlikely and entwined configurations while making out like crazed ferrets. (Not that any of them are today, on account of how Spring is doing an impassioned and virtuoso interpretation of full-on winter and it would take a particularly masochistically emo couple to lie in the mud under rain that's more or less horizontal owing to the gale. It's only the absence of underlying chill that tells you this climate wasn't RADA-trained).
Anyway, she says, while not spying on spooning students, and rather more frequently, I get to stand there waiting for the kettle to boil while idly monitoring the impressive population of GIANT RATS which lead a busy and complex private existence under the bushes next to the res. There are often two or three at at time, rootling around in the undergrowth or dashing across the lawns; their size and glossy health (if a bit slicked-back with damp today) is a testament to the cornucopia of delights which is the local rubbish bins. One of these mornings I'm going to look out to see the whitened bones of the unfortunate res inhabitant who incautiously left her window open overnight and was dragged out and skeletonised1. I figure, though, that I'm probably OK as long as the rats are here and haven't started throwing ropes over the freeway and running down them in orderly lines. Cherished Institution Not Yet Sinking, News At Eleven!
Obligatory Obama Content: apparently all our base are belong to him (check the comments). There's about to be a geek in the White House, people. I have womanfully restrained myself, on the grounds of my putative lack of actual maternal instinct, from posting the inutterably cute pic of him fist-bumping the little blonde five-year-old, but it's photo no. 27 on this page.
1 In seconds.
Anyway, she says, while not spying on spooning students, and rather more frequently, I get to stand there waiting for the kettle to boil while idly monitoring the impressive population of GIANT RATS which lead a busy and complex private existence under the bushes next to the res. There are often two or three at at time, rootling around in the undergrowth or dashing across the lawns; their size and glossy health (if a bit slicked-back with damp today) is a testament to the cornucopia of delights which is the local rubbish bins. One of these mornings I'm going to look out to see the whitened bones of the unfortunate res inhabitant who incautiously left her window open overnight and was dragged out and skeletonised1. I figure, though, that I'm probably OK as long as the rats are here and haven't started throwing ropes over the freeway and running down them in orderly lines. Cherished Institution Not Yet Sinking, News At Eleven!
Obligatory Obama Content: apparently all our base are belong to him (check the comments). There's about to be a geek in the White House, people. I have womanfully restrained myself, on the grounds of my putative lack of actual maternal instinct, from posting the inutterably cute pic of him fist-bumping the little blonde five-year-old, but it's photo no. 27 on this page.
1 In seconds.
