Day forty-eight in Oxford

Oxford pic of the day:

Nobody told this rose that it's November.

Day forty-six in Oxford

Oxford picture of the day:

Sunday mornings in Oxford always feature leftover drinks left quietly on windowsills, stoops, and curbs.

More dissertation progress

Ok, after a few days of being sick and unable to read or think, I managed to get some stuff done today.

First! I went to the OII library and got myself approved! I can take books out! Yay!

So then I came home and sat for hours on the internet looking up election stuff (Boo! Not productive!)

I sifted through the six journal articles that I'd downloaded on Saturday and decided that two of them, "Threaded Identity in Cyberspace: Weblogs & Positioning in the Dialogical Self" and "Virtually Speaking: Girls' Self-Disclosure on the WWW" look the most potentially useful, so I sent them to print.

I then went through all of the books I found through Google Scholar, cross-referenced them with the OII's holdings (ok, I just thought "cross-referenced" sounded fancy - really I just looked each of them up on SOLO), and got the shelf marks for my top three.

I also ordered a book from Amazon (dot com so my card didn't get charged international fees!).

(Update: just found a website where I could see some pages from the book and I canceled my order. Just didn't seem relevant enough to spend $20 on this early in the dissertation game).

I guess my next steps will be to try to figure out which blogs / online platforms to look at. I think that the Twitter-fying of Facebook makes it harder to use for this kind of thing; there's less of a stable idea of a profile than there was a couple of years ago.

What I'm really interested in as a person is the way that comment sections on various blogs work; i.e., you know that on Jezebel you're always going to get someone being really PC and accusing others of being offensive, no matter how much the original commenter tried to avoid that. So far the comment sections on XOJane have been very supportive, and I haven't really spent much time on Rookie, but since it's super trendy and up-and-coming, I'm really interested in it. Also, Tavi is basically who I wished I was back in the 90s - hip and edgy and quirky and confident and stylish.

I wonder if this format of blog, where there are several regular posters, a few recurring guest columns, and a regular core community of commenters would be worth studying.

Charity shop WIN

One thing you may not know about me is that I read a lot of fashion and style blogs.

I say that you "might not know" this because, well, I don't LOOK like I read a lot of fashion or style blogs... or ANY, for that matter.

Sadly, I was born without a style gene (and the languages gene, and the music gene...). Things that look cute and put-together on other people look random and frumpy on me. Most of the time, if I get a compliment on an outfit, it's because I spent a LOT of time thinking about it, or I copied it from was inspired by someone else's look.

I've spent a lot of time here in England looking at the way girls dress. There's something so effortlessly layered, so hip and indie and just a little bit grungy and twee (mixed in with just a touch of posh horsiness) all at the same time, that I will never in my life be able to emulate.

That doesn't mean I won't try.

HOWEVER, as we all know, I am on a budget. A hardcore, dollars-to-pounds, bank-taking-my-money-in-exorbitant-fees (more on that later) budget.

So here is part one in my efforts to look a little more stylish and a little more British without breaking the bank.

First: I'm working on killing the impulse buy. While 10% of the time I end up with one of my favorite items ever, 90% of the time I end up regretting it. Partly because I often end up seeing the same item for less not too long after.

This step is extra-essential when you're in a new town or a new country, especially if you're working on a new currency system. I have no idea what's trendy, what's likely to show up in all of the stores, what's a unique one-off, and what a good price is. Therefore, like my momma always said, I shop around.

I figured out pretty quickly which stores I could afford and which I could not. Since buying clothes is pretty low on my priority list (you know, after rent and food), and I have no income to speak of, I'm on a budget of... nothing. Enter cheap fast-fashion stores and charity shops. Obviously, I feel better about shopping the charity shops, as buying second-hand is more ethical (also, there's the potential for finding higher-quality clothing!), and the money is going to a good cause, but I'm also not perfect.

One of the great things about shopping charity shops is that the merchandise turns over pretty quickly. At first this bummed me out - a pretty powder-blue sweater I was thinking about disappeared in a matter of days - however, it also got me in the habit of going back every few days, trying a few things on, and not buying anything I didn't love.

Last week this finally worked out for me at Mind, as I found a super-cute plaid Topshop shirtdress in my size, and a mid-weight cotton Esprit cardigan, for the grand total of £13.25 - just over $20.

The cardigan was an awesome find, as any sweaters I've seen in the stores that are even REMOTELY in my super-tight price range are 100% acrylic, which I cannot STAND. Call me a snob, but between the weird slippery itchiness and tendency to pill, I just cannot do it.

The dress was an ever awesomer find, as it turns out; I was browsing Refinery 29's slideshow on flannel, and saw a Gap dress that looks JUST like the one I bought, only much more expensive!

Mine isn't flannel - it's a lightweight cotton - but I layered it with a pair of fleece tights (more on those later!) and a cable-knit sweater, and it totally worked (I think). Plus, layering is TOTALLY British.

Day Forty in Oxford

Oxford pic of the day:

The photo is actually from Sunday, but I've been too sick to think.

This glass, along with its brown liquid remnants and double-stirrers, sat there politely from Friday morning to at least Sunday morning. I haven't been past there since to check on it, but I'll update later!

Dissertation progress

Ok, the title of this post is misleading, as I haven't really made much progress. But, accountability.

Today I:

Looked up e-journals on the Bodleian's website, under the search terms "women" and "identity". Within each of the journals I found (ten in total looked potentially helpful), I searched for articles using terms like "internet," "girls," "social media," and "Identity".

I downloaded six that might be useful.

I emailed the library at the OII (not just the enquiries email address like I did last time) to find out about gaining access to their library.

I emailed an OII student who is doing a dissertation topic similar to mine.

Dorm Decor: Making it homey

One thing I knew for sure when I found out I'd be living in a dorm was that I had to make it pretty. If I'm going to be spending the majority of my time in one room, it has to be somewhere I'm happy to be.

Obviously, I had to do this on a pretty strict budget.

I started with my sink area. I decided that a bath mat would be a fun way to add some color to the room, while also keeping the industrial carpet from getting damp and growing mold. I saw a cute purple one at Marks & Spencers for £8, but held out. I'm glad I did, because I found an even cuter purple one for £4 at Primark. As if I needed another reason to love that store!

I looked around for some kind of storage for my makeup, extra shower products, and random crap, and ended up finding this five-drawer tower at Argos for £17.49. Argos is definitely a store you should check out if you're living in Oxford and on a budget. You go online, place your order (without having to pay online), go down to the store when you're ready, and pay and pick up your stuff. Bonus: there's no penalty if you order something and then don't ever pick it up (I got a little overly ambitious in ordering decorative storage solutions, and by the time I got to Argos I realized I'd rather have the £9.98 than a cute set of wicker baskets).

I also went back to Poundland and picked up a shower caddy. It's like undergrad all over again! You can tell from my decor choices what my favorite color is, no? The rest of my suitemates have left their shower stuff in the bathroom on the windowsill. While that's fine, one of them has started leaving his or her stuff in the shower itself, which I think is rude. But I'll probably write more on my inconsiderate suitemates later.

The next order of business was lamps. As you can see in my previous post, my lighting was limited to a single, energy-efficent bulb glaring bleakly from the ceiling, and an institutional fluorescent light above the sink. I personally feel that light can make a huge difference in the feel of a space, which is one of the reasons I made sure to ask for a south-facing room (the window in the room is really awesome; it takes up the whole wall and lets in a ton of light whenever the sun does decide to shine).

To perk things up, I went back to Argos and got this set of two fuchsia lamps for the unbelievable price of £11.98. I love the bit of color they add to the room! I also had to do something about the bulb in the center of the ceiling, as it was horribly depressing. I went to BHS and snagged a very neutral lampshade (I wanted something more fun, but the crystal chandeliers were out of my price range. Maybe for Christmas!).

Finally, in a bold move, I decided that the curtains had to go. I went back to Linens Direct in the Westgate shopping center, and they had some gorgeous curtains, but I would have ended up paying almost $100 total, and I wasn't sure I cared THAT much.

On a hunch, I checked Argos' website, and found curtains at a reasonable price. I'm really happy with the way they brighten up the room, and make it feel just a little more like mine, instead of a generic dorm.