Evanescent

Some closeups from a fun art installation at Brookfield Place in New York, where I had lunch with my class on Saturday. It's called Evanescent and was created by Atelier Sisu, a design studio in Sydney.

The young daughter of one of my students informed me that the bubbles were “awesome”. And she was right.

Still lifting her lamp

I posted this on a political blog (Balloon Juice) I follow today, about the ugly rally that took place a few blocks from my apartment last night:

...Something that kept me hopeful through the barrage of ugly news yesterday:

I teach English to adult immigrants. This semester we’ve been learning about American elections, and I’ve been surprised by how interested they are in the history of the Constitution, the various compromises that were made, and the struggles for voting rights. So for our class trip, I took them on a walking tour of Lower Manhattan on Saturday. We visited Hamilton’s grave at Trinity Church, Federal Hall on Wall Street where Washington was sworn in and the first U.S. Congresses met, the plaque marking the building on Maiden Lane where Jefferson used to live and where he, Madison and Hamilton had the famous dinner in “The Room Where it Happens,” Fraunces Tavern where all of them used to eat and which was damaged by a British cannonball during the revolution. Then a ride on the Staten Island Ferry for a good look at the Statue of Liberty.

All of my students have kids, many of them have multiple jobs, and they give up their Saturdays to learn English. They are smart, funny, interesting, curious, and remarkably kind. They are everything that is right about this country, and we could use several million more of them. When I vote this week, I will be voting for many things and many reasons, but I want to give them the country they deserve.

I ended up voting today instead of waiting. Voting, for all of us.

Sunday bird blogging

A few seagulls following in the wake of the Staten Island Ferry yesterday, with the Manhattan skyline in the background.

The warmer than usual temperatures have finally cooled down enough to give us at least one week of perfect October: crisp but not cold, leaves turning, our sidewalk shadows stretching longer as the sun moves south.

Saturday reflections

October skies reflected near the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan today. I took my class on a walking tour to see where some of the history we've been reading about happened. We had a wonderful time, and I am exhausted.

Good exhausted, but exhausted!

Have some flowers

My Covid/flu shots knocked me flat for a few days so I'm just catching up on everything again.

My beautiful laundrette

I liked the worn-out feel of this laundry near the hotel where I stayed my first weekend in Oxford.

This afternoon, I went in to make copies for tomorrow's class, and one of the cleaning staff kindly held the elevator for me. He asked if I was late for my class and I said no, that I was just there to make copies, and he said, “You're a teacher?”

Since I'm decades older than most of the students there, I didn't know why that seemed so unlikely. (Cue imposter syndrome kicking in...)

Later I saw myself in the mirror in the ladies room—jeans, old t-shirt, hair damp and disheveled from the long walk to the Upper East Side—and burst out laughing. Yeah, I wouldn't have taken me for a teacher, either. I do dress better when I'm actually teaching.

Random things I saw in Oxford

Clockwise from top left: a homemade Black Lives Matter sign in the window of a student flat; the tower of University Church on the High Street; an assortment of condoms and tampons in the laundry room at Merton; tourists in the Schools Quad in front of the Old Bodleian.

And still more boats

 

More boats along the Thames

There are a variety of narrowboats and houseboats docked along the side of the Thames. Some of them seemed to be leisure crafts, though I only saw one or two actually out on the water, and some of them seemed to be residences.

I took the picture on the left from the water, on a Tea on the Thames cruise, where alas the high blood sugar brought on by consuming multiple scones with cream and jam apparently left me incapable of taking a decent photograph. I saw the bâteau ivre on the right on one of my walks.

Lost boat

In an inlet off the Thames path, this boat from Balliol College. There were college boathouses all along the water there, so I'm sure someone knew the boat was there.

Cricket

Coming back to Oxford, and some odds and ends. Here's something you never see in New York: a friendly game of cricket on a Sunday afternoon.

This is one of the playing fields I used to walk past on the Thames path near the hotel where I stayed my first weekend in Oxford.

Urban poetry, Bath style

And here's the last of Bath: rows of chimneys encircling a hill. A lovely image from a lovely city.