I’ve mentioned before that I feel like I get no real work done during term time because it all goes by in a whirl of research seminars, college and society events and so on. However, working through the vacation poses some problems too – problems which I’d appreciate some space to whine about. Skip the next bit if you have an aversion to PhD angst.

So, the catalogue ordering system OLIS is down for 10 days until they implement a new ordering system. I appreciate that this is very important, but it does mean I can’t get at books in closed stacks – ie. most of the books in the Bodleian. This makes me a bit sad, and leaves me at a bit of a loss. As if this library stalemate wasn’t enough, some books I had ordered up went back to the stacks much earlier than usual because they are opening a new bit of the library (the Gladstone Link – which appears to be the basement).

My college has gone into conference and B&B mode, so there are no cheap food to be had in Hall or anything else really going on at all. There are strangers wandering around my accommodation site, looking winsomely at me as I waddle to the recycling bin.

The number of tourists in the city has literally reached critical mass. You simply can’t get from A to B without being photographed striding past something picturesque. Last night I had to pick some things up from a friend and I couldn’t park because a tourist was filming a building (which was doing nothing exciting anyway), and when he saw I wanted to park where he was standing he filmed me parking instead. Is that even legal?

Of course, complaining about all this is merely a way of distracting myself from that chapter. I am genuinely miffed about the books though.