Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Keele Diary #9

Let's see, in the last 24 hours I've:


Discovered the postgrad pub here that everyone raves about. Well, not discovered, it was already there. But I found it.


Walking home (sober) I stepped off the sidewalk to let three students pass. But the sidewalk was on a slope, and the sidewalk is flanked by a thin strip of concrete that protrudes an inch or so above the surface. The ground on the slope was muddy and slippery, I wiped out, and smashed my shins directly on the concrete trim. My biggest problem at first was saving face, which became impossible when the very sweet students kept trying to help me, and I just wanted to get away. Then I discovered, once my shame faded that a contusion that size of a cricket ball (culturally assimilated!) has instantly sprung up on my leg.


They show The Wire at 11:25 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights on BBC 2. They are in the midst of season two, which is probably my least favorite of the five seasons but is still among the greatest television seasons ever put on the screen. I was ready to go to bed when it was done, but I noticed that NBA basketball was coming up. I assumed it was a highlights show of some sort. Nope -- Celtics-Magic Game 5 live! I was up all night. Great win for the guys in green, coming from a double digit deficit to take a 3-2 series lead.


Still got up early to come to campus to participate in the last meeting of the Southern History seminar. I talked a bit about school integration, focusing on Ole Miss, a topic on which I am working on a project of undetermined outcome.


Had lunch with several faculty and graduate students before my research presentation, which I thought went quite well. I was happy with it anyway, and we had great conversation afterward and I have several great ideas to carry me forward.


Tonight Wigan Athletic Club is nearly the last line of defense between Manchester United and another Premier League title (ManU may still need a tie this weekend if they do win). Given that Manchester is about 40 minutes away from Keele, I expect a heavily ManU crowd to gather at the student union, so I might have to go check it out, as a live Premier League game appears not to be in the cards. Plus I have a soft spot for plucky Wigan, which was promoted to the Premier League when I was in Oxford in 2005.

4 comments:

dcat said...

It only hurts when I use my leg and when I don't.

dcat

Jeremy said...

I hope you are alright Dr. Catsam. It seems to put somewhat of a damper on our potential tennis meeting sometime when you get back.

The Celtics did do a great job!

dcat said...

I'm fine. The swelling has gone down. There is a nasty bruise and the soft tissue damage is still pretty obvious, but nothing I won't shake off.

I'm banking on the C's finishing Orlando off in Game 6 tonight.

dcat

Thunderstick said...

You will find that most of Derek's injuries are greatly exaggerated because he is a total baby. I fully expect the wound is no wider than a paper cut and required no more than a Snoopy band-aid and a kiss from his mom on his boo boo for treatment.