I am about to become trendy. And moderately angry.

This amuses me no end. But ticks me off at the same time. I will explain.

A while ago, I bought a satchel. It's big enough to fit in some papers, a book, an umbrella, and my wallet. It helps me avoid dragging a bunch of junk to work that I don't need. It has a strap long enough to put it across my body, leaving my hands free to push pedestrians walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk out of the way. It also fit in with my slightly dorky academic style, which I came by honestly by the fact a) I have a PhD in virology, and b) I have a job in academia.

Now, this style bag has been on the runway. And a designer, Mulberry, has made their own satchel which means soon everyone will have one. So, I'll look trendy! Not only trendy, but ahead of the curve by a few months! That's a new sensation. However, this will mean hipsters may start carrying one as well, which cheeses me off.

Those of you that know me well, or happen to be in my vicinity when I mutter "fucking hipsters" under my breath, know I dislike hipsters. Specifically, the ones that wear excessively dorky clothing and accessories because they are being "ironic". I feel like they're ripped off my style, and the style of anyone that hasn't quite figured out how to dress themselves (and don't care to know) without putting the work into it. They didn't have to go through the taunts because of their heavy glasses, color-clashing, ill-fitting clothes, or choice of reading material.

Are those lenses even real in those glasses, hipster? I'm blind in one eye. Mine are real. Twat. Eight times out of ten, the hipster with Nietzsche (or whatever the kids are reading these days, it was Ayn Rand in my time) under his/her arm hasn't actually read the book. Not that I've read Nietzsche, either, but that book about infectious diseases under my arm? Better believe I've read that one. Oh, you're not actually a nerd, you just play one in your social life? Gah! Poser!

I have some residual issues from being teased as a kid, if you hadn't noticed. This style isn't ironic for me. It is me. Full stop.

Working at a university, I wonder if students see me and think the same thing- that I'm just another fucking hipster. But, I know that I'm not- that I've had this same dorky, weird style since I was 10, and that it's not going to change. Once the hipsters move on from dork-chic, I'll still be wearing my heavy glasses and carrying my satchel.

PS It also amuses me that the word hipster is in the Blogger spell check. The expression Gah!, however, is not.

Edinburgh

This past Christmas, instead of moping around Leeds, I decided to go somewhere. I thought about a couple places, then it was recommended to me to go to Edinburgh. Which turned out to be the perfect place to spend Christmas, because it snowed.





Edinburgh is a great city for walking. I spent all of Christmas day just walking around, and still didn't see everything I wanted to. So much history! It's a violent, bloody, poverty-stricken, challenging-the-authority history. Leeds is a young city in the grand scheme of things, so walking around a city that's had some sort of human habitation in it since the Bronze Age was fascinating.







I went to 5 churchyards/ cemeteries while I was there. I like churchyards and cemeteries, so this was heaven. I separated out most of the cemetery pictures, so people don't groan "Not another headstone, Kat!". Here they are.

My camera battery died on my second-to-last day. I didn't bring the charger, because I'm an idiot sometimes. Not to be deterred, I bought a disposable camera, and took pictures at Holyrood Palace and Abbey, and Edinburgh Castle. Once I figure out where to get the camera developed, I'll put those pictures up. Until then, here's the rest. I put in as many notes on history and whatnot in the flickr photostream.

I realized that I never blogged about my hike around the Ring of Steall. The first pictures in that Scotland photostream are from that hike. To put it politely, that hike was not one of my more brilliant ideas. But the pictures are kinda cool. I also went to Iceland (Reykjavik) a few months ago. I should really blog about that at some point.

Run By Blogging

Been a while, hasn't it? Big update soon, I promise. Here's a little light entertainment in the meantime:

"Charles" the Cross Stitch:

While passing through the train station...

Meet My New Roommate

This is Chester:

Technology!

I learned that my camera can take short videos! So I made a 360 degree (okay, maybe more like 240 degree) view from the top of Middle Hare Head, in the Yorkshire Dales.

Oxford

I went to the International DNA Tumor Virus meeting this past week. It was held in Oxford this year.



Oxford is what I imagined an academic town to look like: lots of small, independent shops, bicycles everywhere (some with baskets of flowers on them), winding street, old buildings. The atmosphere oozes elite intelligence.





Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, at St. Mary's Hospital in London. In 1940, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain at the University of Oxford figured out how to stabilize and purify penicillin. Unfortunately, Florey was not an attention whore, so he and Chain didn't get as much publicity for doing most of the work. Therefore, to the is day, Oxford resents the fact that Fleming gets most of the credit.



The conference was at St. Catherine's, one of the colleges that make up the University of Oxford. From what I understand, students live and socialize at the colleges, but all of their lectures are at the University. Each day at 1, we were served a two course lunch, and at 6, we were served a three course dinner. This apparently is typical for students at the college. Being the uncouth working class background American that I am, I was never entirely sure which fork to use, and if I was using it correctly.




There is a lot to decipher in English culture dealing with class and privilege. It seems to be a lot less subtle than it is in American culture. It has to do with how you speak (what accent you have), where you went to school, how you eat, how you dress. Tons of little signifiers to indicate where you "belong" in society. It's fascinating, and yest frustrating at the same time.