Merry Christmas to all my readers.  

The corporate canyon as I walk downtown. "See me walking down Fifth Avenue, walking cane here at my side..." 

Shank's Mare; or 東海道中膝栗毛ニュー・ヨーク編

So there's a strike on, but I still needed to do some Christmas shopping, since I will be jetlagged on the 23rd and really don't fancy braving the shops in London or Cambridge on Christmas Eve. Only one thing to do - walk. And walk I did, from 110th street all the way down to 34th street where Macy's is. Managed to do my shopping and even found a couple of unexpected bonuses on the way for my family, stuff I think they'll like. And of course there's nothing like walking through a city to get a feel for it, rather than spending all one's time navigating through the subway. That said, it was bloody tiring; 150 or so blocks, about five miles in total, and my feet hurt. Mission, however, accomplished. I'm off to JFK tomorrow morning and will spend most of the day there reading and trying to amuse myself; has to be done that way unfortunately as I can't take the risk of missing the plane. Time, I have plenty; money, not so much.

I also thought I'd reproduce the above view of the Columbia Xmas lights on College Walk. Photo "lovingly ripped off" ((C) Monty Python) from the CU website. Enjoy it, though, and merry Xmas to all my readers. Next time I post I will be in the Essex countryside putting my feet up.

Strike one...

So it's the end of term, and nothing seems to be quite working how it should. The printers in Starr aren't working properly, the heating in my apartment building is making some funny noises, and, oh yes, how could I forget the MTA strike? The subway and city buses are down until further notice, making it rather difficult to get around the city. Luckily there's a CU bus available to take me to JFK on Thursday when I go back to the UK; not so luckily, the only one available is at 10 a.m., so I am going to have to kill rather a lot of time in the airport. I guess I'll just bring some work with me...might as well use the time productively.

I wish there was something of interest to report, but there isn't really. I've been spending my entire time in the library (still) getting revision and term papers done. Classical Japanese final was this morning, that's now done and dusted, though I still have the Ogai paper to get finished. I'll manage somehow, I suppose. Damn tired, though, would have liked to have had all of the holiday back in Cambridge to relax and forget about NYC for ten days...not to be, apparently.

Going out to dinner with some of the J-lit people and Prof. Ono, a visiting professor from Gunma who's been here all year and who is leaving at the beginning of the next one. Curry on the menu, at one of the better places in Morningside Heights luckily enough. Pics will be posted here if I can be arsed to take any.

Tomorrow, I'm going to have to get my Xmas shopping done, so I'm going to have to walk about 70 blocks downtown to get to Macy's. If nothing else I suppose it'll be an experience...

Slush puppies

It dumped another load of snow on the streets of New York last night, about four inches or so - I woke up to see some big, fat, fluffy flakes falling outside my window, which had mysteriously stopped by the time I came back into my room from the shower. The clearing of the snow off the roads and pavement is efficient enough, they seem - unlike the UK - to have the knack of not letting snow paralyse the transport system. It's all very Christmassy, I suppose, although the pools of slush that accumulate very quickly on the kerb don't do much for the atmosphere. Alma Mater (the statue in front of the main Columbia campus building) has a rather fetching white cape and hat right now...

Not a lot's been going on here, apart from my getting on with my two term papers - the one a translation of Nativist scholar Motoori Norinaga's poetics, the other an analysis of Mori Ogai's Maihime. Which will mean squat to most of you, I realise, but that's about it.

I did, however, attend a couple of Christmas parties here - the one in the Law school, where I work, which was very lavish as one might expect - salmon, wild rice, clowns, ice cream, all sorts of stuff. Free alcohol, too, though I couldn't indulge because I was theoretically at work. And in the evening they had a do for 1st year international students. Which is apparently me, although most of the Americans here don't really think of me as "international" in that sense. More free booze, not so much of the food, although one thing was seriously cool - a chocolate fountain. It was a sort of combined fondue and decorative implement - it melted the chocolate at the bottom and then pumped the liquid stuff back up to the top. I am convinced it must have been invented by a woman.

The nights are drawing in...

...and it'll soon be Christmas. No sooner has Thanksgiving been packed away for another year than New York shifts up and gear and gets into Xmas mode. They're selling christmas trees on the pavement, the shops put up all their big displays and decorations, and - well - there's just something in the air. Columbia is getting in the spirit, as well, or so it would appear - they've wrapped the trees on College Walk with thousands of fairy lights, so they effect as you walk into and out of college at night is quite magical. I took a couple of photos tonight, but I don't think I had the shutter setting right because they came out all blurry, so I'll try again tomorrow evening. You'll have to make do with the shot below.

Still, it snowed last night, which rather added to the Xmas atmos. Not a huge lot - about two or three inches - but enough to blanket the place and hide most of the ugly stuff. The corollary to all this romanticism, however, is that it's bloody cold - New York's grid system is wonderful for navigation purposes, but it does act as a gigantic wind tunnel, and the gusts that whip down Broadway as I'm on my way to or from Columbia are distinctly uncomfortable.

Not that I am outside much at the moment, though - term paper demands mean I spent almost all of this weekend in one library or other, though I did go for a quick beer yesterday evening with some of the Japanese history guys. Nothing too exciting, though. Seems to be the story of my life right now...

CU campus in the snow.