Ashmolean Museum
Today consisted mostly of me reading and going to a museum. I slept in until almost 9 without waking up (usually I wake up and just lie there for while)! When I got up this morning and finished reading what I had from a book for my tutorial. I still have articles from journals to read, which I hope to finish tomorrow, and then my other book. I finished this just in time for lunch around noon. I read “Hitch Hiker” while I ate. I got a message from Emily Glotzbach on facebook and Alyssa, her sister, had her baby - a little boy. Yay!
Anyway, I got changed out of my sweats and then headed out to the Ashmolean, which is sort of like an art museum but it really has some of everything. There were two exhibits that ended today that I wanted to see, one on Japanese painting and the other on Chinese painting, so that’s why I wanted to go today. The exhibits were really neat. Something about Asian painting really interests me, something about how the brushstrokes are or something. The Chinese exhibit was 20th century and had landscapes and was called the Mystery of Empty Space, which the Asian artists saw as bringing life to the painting because the empty space represented chi. The Japanese exhibit was called the Beauties of the Four Seasons and was paintings of women. The women in the paintings showed the styles and fashions of the time, especially with respect to the time of year.
There were European paintings and a silver collection and glass, porcelain, and jewelry collections as well as Greek and Roman sculptures (I didn’t really look at this part that much since I saw a bunch already this summer and I was trying to get through the whole museum before it closed) and also an exhibit on Egypt, which I really liked. There were lots of little scarabs. I love Egyptian history. There were also things on Indian art and religion. I wasn’t that impressed with the gift shop. Any kind of photography was prohibited so I couldn’t take any pictures, but they didn’t really have postcards of the exhibit stuff like I thought they would, so I didn’t get anything.
After this I went to the social sciences library and read the poverty book until 6 when the library closed. At 5:45, they rang a bell to let people know it was getting close to closing time, like a real bell, like a cow bell or something. It was sort of crazy, not an announcement or anything. I’m getting through the book but I’ve still got about half to go. I think I’m just past the halfway point. Maybe I’ll finish that tomorrow too. Probably not, but maybe.
I walked back to Stanley Rd. and I think the sky was deciding if it wanted to rain or not. It was supposed to rain all day but it was a beautiful day again, a littl cool, but sunny and clear skies until my walk back home. I think a few drops hit me but it didn’t really start until after I got in, if it started at all. I didn’t really notice. I’m starting to doubt weather.com, though. It’s predictions have often been wrong, in a good way because it mostly hasn’t rained, but I never know what to expect. The weather has been really unusual for here I think, but it’s pretty so I’m okay with it. I think it’s supposed to rain a lot this week, though, so we’ll see.
I picked up some fall leaves to keep for souvenirs when I was almost home. I got back here and ate tomato soup and peanut butter crackers and talked to Kyle. Then I read “Hitch Hiker” and fell asleep at 9:00, waking up periodically but not actually getting up. I probably should have been productive but I didn’t feel like it. I finally got up at 12:30, called my mom, washed my face and brushed my teeth, and wrote this. And now I’ll go back to bed, maybe get up early enough to get some breakfast at Regent’s tomorrow, but I would have to leave here at 7:30 so we’ll see about that. Today was a very relaxing today. I was productive, I think, most of the day, but I also had fun at the museum so it was another good day.