Subject: So sorry for the delay

From: Send

Dear Katie,

I am staring at the spreadsheet of degree classi cations awarded in recent years / My head is spinning / My legs have turned purple and I am vibrating like a tuning fork / And I am really trying to plan / And to be on time / But it is like when W.S Merwin wrote ‘To Being Late’ / ‘Again again you are / the right time a er all / not according to / however we planned it.’ / I am trying to plan / Nothing is going accordingly / I was reading 1960s critical theory and / I based an entire dissertation dra on 1960s literary critical theory! / But I have found my way out and now

I am writing sentences like ‘Colonialism erodes diversity and attempts to control the permissions for cultural and institutional expression. It enforces punitive hegemony, acts upon supremacist validation, and rejects the legitimisation of worldviews counteracting the prescriptive bigotry-as-enlightenment it is founded upon.’ / On this, R. F Kuang wrote ‘[y]ou have such a great fear of freedom, brother. It’s shackling you. You’ve identi ed so hard with the colonizer, you think any threat to them is a threat to you. When are you going to realize you can’t be one of them?’ / Katie, I don’t think I’m ever going to recover from this. / June Jordan writes a proclamation in line, with ‘I am become a Palestinian / against the relentless laughter of evil / there is less and less living room / and where are my loved ones? / It is time to make our way home.’ / Blood from my eyes, Katie, I’m so sorry, / I’m still not done. Aaliyah

I was going to take some photos of St Barnabas’ campanile from the canal in Jericho, but I ended up watching this squirrel for around een minutes instead. It would climb up a tree and scurry along the bridge railing and onto the guttering of the residential block (bottom le ) before leaping onto the balcony of the garden nearest to the bridge. A er brie y dipping out of sight, it would then perch on the edge of the balcony and begin adapting its newest nuciferous asset for mouth-bearing mobility. I managed to get this shot of it as it came bounding back across the bridge, mid-Byzantine-obscuring ight.

Seafood EggFried Rice

This is one of my own recipes and and became an absolute go-to for me when I was living on my own in Málaga. Admitedly, the abscence of a seafood market is a bit of a downer here, but Sainsbury’s stocks a great frozen seafood mix to achieve a similar effect! Be sure to send your student recipes in to me at oliver. hall@magd.ox.ac.uk for a chance to be featured too!

Ingredients

Serves 2

• 200g cooked rice (or more if you prefer)

• 2 eggs (lightly-beaten)

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 300g mixed seafood (pick up a mixed frozen bag from any supermarket for a super cheap and varied selection)

• 2 tbsp teriyaki sauce

• 2 tbsp soy sauce

• 3 tbsp groundnut oil (any other oils will work)

• 5 chopped spring onions

• 100g sugar snap peas

Feel free to mix up any of these ingredients to ones that you prefer, just make sure that you keep the rough quantities and methods the same.

Method

1. Make sure your rice is cooked and seafood defrosted before getting started. (If not, either use a rice cooker or simply boil for 15 minutes.)

2. Heat oil in a large pan over high heat and fry the mixed seafood for three minutes in total, adding the teriyaki and soy sauce as you go.

3. Add the sugar snap peas and spring onions and fry for one minute.

4. Add rice to the pan and mix ingredients, frying for two minutes.

5. Move all the ingredients to one side of the pan and pour in beaten eggs, then stir to mix and scramble.

6. Season with salt and ground pepper and serve with soy sauce.