jadesfire

Protesters occupy a Bodleian Library building. It's a Gaza protest, and they have a list of demands. Um. I'm honestly at a loss as to what to say. Of all the places to protest about the Israel/Palestine issue, Oxford is not even on the list, let alone near the top.

Also, I just watched Criminal Minds 2x20 "Legacy" and ( is it still a spoiler? Just in case )

It is entirely possible that this morning, I encountered the cutest thing in the whole world. A baby sparrow fluttered over a car and landed in the road in front of me. It was fine, although it looked a bit confused, but oh my soooooo cute. It was about the size of a ping-pong ball with lots of fluff and a tiny, tiny beak. I tried to keep the squeeing to a minimum to avoid scaring it, but I did flail, just a little :) Happy thoughts to get me through the day.

In other news...Oxford University is raiding Facebook to find evidence of students breaking university regulations. I guess it was only a matter of time... The thing is, yes, Facebook has lots of filters and things built in, but it's still essentially a public forum. I don't think the University should go raiding people's accounts for evidence, but then, would you want to come back to your car to find that it had been covered in eggs, flour and glitter, all with a nice layer of champagne to stick it down? Not to mention that it takes months, literally, for the glitter to come out of the cobbles.

I approve of trashing*. It's fun and traditional and highly entertaining to watch, but please, people, apply a bit of common sense. Most colleges have an 'informal' garden where they're happy for you to do what you want (Jesus college has got it about right, I always thing) and it's not like you didn't know about the fines in advance. And really, is it a good use of University staff's time (not to mention wages) to go trawling through Facebook for evidence? An Oxford degree is three/four years of brain-melting culminating in a week that decides the rest of your life - let them (us) let off steam a little!

Can't the Proctors get over themselves a little and the students stop and consider that maybe other people live in Oxford too? Please? *sigh*

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*I should note at this point that, because I don't drink, my own trashing consisted of large quantities of confetti, silly string, Ben's cookies and Schloer after which they threw a large, fluffy dog at me. Oh yes. I know how to live :)