The Sun Came Out Today

The Sun Came Out

Woke up to sunshine this morning and blue sky with pretty white accent cloud streaks to go with it.  It has had a very uplifting effect on my mood.  Since I don’t have a lecture at 9:30 today, I have the morning to sit back and enjoy some quiet time while all my comrades take advantage of an extra two or three hours of sleep. 

Boy am I glad I didn’t jump in the shower right away and worked on a quick video for you all instead this morning with my leisure time!  We just had our second fire drill that they promised us much earlier in the month and quite a few of the girls are very unhappy about being out in the 45° air in their pajamas, sweatpants, and bed hair.  Grumbling was kept to a minimum though while the Junior Dean and Asst. Junior Deans did the head count before sending us back up to our rooms. 

These are some of the views from on top of St. Mary’s Tower right here in Oxford on a clear day much like today, taken during Oxford Open Days.  It was (and usually is) £3.00 to climb the tower and take in the views.  The stairs, which I wish I had gotten shots of because they were so very narrow and spiraling and really the kind of tower stairs build right into the stone of the building like you’d imagine in the middle ages – which was exactly why I couldn’t snap a shot of them of course!  I was struggling enough as it was just to get up and down them without falling; the people back then must have been much more nimble than we are today to have climbed those steps all the time.   Really though, very worth it and you get an amazing overview of the town and the different buildings and off in the distance there are the rolling fields of the countryside for a backdrop – it is just amazing, please enjoy!

Still Raining

This week is a rather boring prospect to blog about I must say.  Mostly the days are in a pattern of: wake for breakfast, back to the room for 15 minutes to brush teeth/take a vitamin/check e-mail, off to lecture x 2 (though we will have only one lecture tomorrow and none on Friday I guess), back to the room to deposit books/bag/check-Facebook, off to lunch, back to room for study, tea break, study, off to dinner, back to room, out on an evening walk with Alix usually (she spells her name with an ‘i’ so I have to go back at some point and correct previous posts), back to the room to play a little PSP Final Fantasy IX and talk to Bruno before going to bed.  Lather, rinse, repeat. 

It is rainy and gray and has been all week, and the reason I am spending such a bulk of my time in my room is both because I need to study for the upcoming exam and because there are a number of people who have taken over the common room, which is not really intended to be a place of study but of socialization as I understand things, to do quiet reading and no one really wants to be the jerks disturbing their earnest studying.  There are rooms provided for such purposes – chiefly our own dorm rooms, but also the lecture hall (which I understand has been occupied by a clique of girls who both study and do yoga there in the evenings) and the seminar room which goes unused I think primarily because no one is totally sure if they are allowed to use it for anything and it is very ‘out of the way’ so some people may not even know where it is.

Just before sunset, on the way to dinner through the rain, the sun struggled to peep through the slate gray sky and made a rainbow.  

Long Post for Monday

We finally gave Pizza Hut a spin over here; they are sit-in, order a glass of wine with your meal, fancy plating kind of places on this side of the pond.  Lisa Rose, Claire, Lady Katherine the Giggly, Lauren, and I all needed a dinner Sunday night so we decided to try for pizza – well, except Lisa Rose, she ordered something with mushrooms and some fancy bread.  That was better really, because the pizza had 8 slices and would have been awkward to split between 5 rather than 4 as we did.  My end came up to £4.60 (drinks are the killer, £2.09 for Pepsi, but at least it came with free refills…) when we finally got the bill split properly.  Of course… trying to break up what money we had into what money we needed was another fun factor of figuring out how to pay.  Fun tip: either bring small bills to pay your part or get a separate bill if you’re sharing meal price with multiple people, it helps a lot.

Sunday was spent mostly in study when I wasn’t sharing tea and croissants with Bruno over Google chat or having a quick break for a second cup of tea.  It is rather chilly in the study rooms (what they call your dorm room here) so I had my Snuggy out and in use – Thank you Antonette! – and later for sleep I added it to my sheets, duvet, and grandma’s afghan – Thank you Grandma Nancy! – for additional warmness. 

I am on the last pack of smokes from the carton I brought in my luggage; 10 packs over 27 days and counting (I figure I can go to the end of this week probably give or take a day).  I figure on buying a pack a week next month before stepping down again to 1 pack for “when I need one” the following month to, finally, none in my last month here if all goes to plan.  Then again, if I feel at any time that not having smoking as a persistent option in any way interferes with my ability to focus on my work, I will adjust accordingly, i.e. if I cannot think about a paper I am trying to write because all that is going through my head is “I want a cigarette now!”

Today (Monday) I had our two lectures – one about Dante and one about Petrarch – and later we will meet for the colloquium about Anselm.  It is gray and rainy for the third day running here so everyone is a little more subdued than usual, including myself.  I think I will leave studying until after dinner when I can put on my comfy clothes and have a good uninterrupted stretch of time before bed.  It is somewhat difficult to motivate yourself to study when you are not really sure what it is you are looking for in an ocean of possible titles on request from the library here.  It isn’t that everything isn’t fascinating – it is – it is just that you are so uncertain of if you are doing well or wasting your time entirely looking at the wrong things. 

Also, I remember now how much I hate making my bed.  Fresh sheets weekly is a very nice idea, but having to make a bunk bed mattress is a bit of a pain in the hindquarters, especially since I have (because I have bunk beds and no roommate) elected to sleep in the bottom bunk and use the top as my “study loft.”

Bah!  We have a JCR meeting at 7:30 tonight… it better be short.

YAY!  I got my care package from Bruno today with Mini-Raviolis and Ramen noodles and stuff – including a pretty cloth rose, which was a very sweet addition!  I am very happy to have it, and will be enjoying everything in it for weekend lunches and dinners… however – for those students who come after me: don’t bother with food care packages!  They are prohibitively expensive to ship and customs regulations for many items will cause import fees and taxation to be applied to a number of items if you go over a certain quantity of items or have certain types of items coming in.  Bruno paid a pretty penny to put this box in the mail, far more than the cost of the contents would reasonably warrant (and for which I love him very very very much!!!)  We were lucky that I wasn’t charged a fee (which was our primary worry) or denied delivery based on the animal product meat in the cans of ravioli – which I found out too late was prohibited by customs in general. 

I am not the only one who has gotten a package either, so I will say a few more words on that for future students.  One girl had to have a laptop charger shipped to her from the states by her parents because they do not make them or sell them here, even though her computer is internationally sold; that took almost 2 weeks to arrive and in the meantime she was none too pleased with her situation.  I would advise that, like when you go on vacation and get your car checked, you get your computer equipment checked and be sure whatever isn’t in order is sorted out before you come over if possible.  Post script on the computer equipment here: invest in a cooling pad if you are worried at all about your laptop getting hot after extended use, it is your main computer here at CMRS really, even though they do have a computer lab available, you want to take good care of it and heat is the ultimate enemy of your circuitry. 

Another girl needed new glasses sent over from the states with some medications and eye drops; she had to pay a fee to customs for the release of her package - £35.00 I think she said it was – and it turned out that her eye doctor botched the prescription and put in an unnecessary bifocal in her glasses, so now they must be returned and the whole process repeated.  Once again, don’t leave that sort of thing until the last minute or figure on having it sent over here after you’ve arrived.  Some problems that are not hard to handle when you are in the same town become more difficult – and more expensive – to handle when you are an ocean away. 

In my case I was hungry and worried about the availability of cheap, edible, easy to make food after trying the dreadful can of spaghetti-o’s here and told Bruno as much.  We didn’t figure on it being as much of a pain as it turned out to be, and it would have been more logical to have found another solution but we were, by that point, committed to the process so I have my ramen and ravioli (yay!) but if I find myself hard up for food at any point again (or if I could re-do the whole thing) I would have to say that spending a few more pounds on food here – be it going out to eat or buying pre-made fancier meals or even ordering pizza – would have been a more economical and simple choice. 

So for anyone with parents who they might consider asking for food from because you want your pounds to go to souvenirs or “school supplies”: ask for money instead, and you can make a good case for it being a whole lot easier on the both of you for them to do that if you go to the customs website for the UK and start reading regulations.

Banned or Restricted Goods UK customs

More about Shipping to UK

Podcast discussing these issues (about 8 min) <~ that one is mostly for British people who are going abroad and might be coming back, but the logic behind their prohibitions are discussed and they apply to the mailing and you coming into the country as well so it is good to listen to even if it is not addressing the international external traveller directly.

For the Record

I just want to clear something up that may have become confused by my last several blog posts regarding alcohol.  I am not, nor have I ever been, against the idea of drinking itself.  I enjoy my boozing as much as the next person when I feel inclined to indulge and there have been times that I have over-indulged both in the past and, no doubt, in the future to come.  What I am against is acting like inconsiderate fools or being irresponsible, loud, rude, and so on wether they are intoxicated at the time or not.  I do find that there is a direct correlation between how much alcohol goes into a person and how often they put it in themselves and how often they are acting in that particular way - but it is not "the drinking" exactly that causes my displeasure, but the increase in unacceptable behaviours that tends to come with the drinking.

I do think that if you are going to go to a pub you should try the local and enjoy it.  The taps here are the kind that have to be pumped, not like ones commonly seen at home with hydraulic push the button and stuff comes out soda dispenser things.  Each pub has different tap brews that are theirs and then of course the common main brands for the area.  It has been a pleasure to visit and sample these places as I can and I hope that over the course of my being here I will have the opportunity to sample a good number.

Notice the word choices here though: sample, visit, try.  We are talking about the difference between having a drink, or a few drinks, and drinking to get drunk.  One is all fine and well and if you do so even daily or semi-daily you will not hear much from me so long as you can manage yourself.  The other is not something one should do daily or semi-daily (though I maintain that it is not something one must NEVER do strictly - but special parameters exist) and doing so will usually put you on my "avoid" list because being around drunk people all the bloody time looses its entertainment value quickly.

So yes, drinking is not the enemy when I am talking about some of the incidents and instances here at CMRS with the larger group; the inconsiderate stupidity that is enhanced by drinking copious amounts to the point of blind drunkenness is specifically what I have a problem with.  Regular having a drink or two (or four, whatever your personal tolerances permit) in the evening or with a few friends is not something I would frown upon.  I wanted to clear that up because some people who don't know me well might get the wrong idea that I am some kind of Puritan over here, which is a hearty no on that count.

Drinking leads to...

Drinking leads to bad things sometimes.  One of the bad things it can lead to is getting into fights with random people on the streets at 2 or 3 in the morning, involving a whole group of people, and returning to CMRS without your keys and (I heard) missing a shoe.  Well I guess some people had that adventure last night.  They were “pre-gaming” (which, for those that don’t know, is getting drunk before you go out to club and pub on the less expensive booze bought from stores) in the dining room from around 8pm to when those of us in the common room watching movies and old episodes of Daria on DVD went to bed at 10:30/11 ish.  Then this morning at breakfast we hear about them going out and “bumping into” a group of “French people” which sparked off some altercation that came quickly to blows.  At least three of ours took hits to the face I am told, including a girl with them who got backhanded.  If they gave as good as they got seems rather irrelevant, at least to me. 

One lost set of keys, one group of banged up students, and one sorry example to set.  I appreciate that they weren’t loud enough when they came in from all of this to wake me up in the middle of the night at least, but still…  I had hoped some of this foolishness would stop now that we are well into the later part of the first full month here.  Adjustment time is over and we all need to put on our big-boy and big-girl pants I think – I also think that Dr. Philpott might have something to say about all of this before lecture this morning.  He is already going to give us a heads up about not planning trips in such a way that cause us to miss classes (as 4 of my fellows have done, leaving for Rome yesterday without thought to the classes we have this morning that they will be missing).  This is a study abroad program, not a travel abroad program.

Nothing was said, maybe because our lecturer was a monk today (or priest perhaps?) or because Dr. Phillpott realized that the people who needed the lecture would be in Rome J

Almost Friday

Well yesterday we had our field trip to Windsor, one of the residences of Her Majesty, who was not in residence at the time of our visit. There was a pretty serious security point on entry which the examination of bags and items if need by much like - though I would say less strenuous, perhaps because she was not present - the airport security checkpoints. In fact, one of the girls on our trip was held at security for a considerable length of time because she was in possession of a can of personal protection pepper spray styled mace - which is illegal here and considered a weapon not a protection device.  That is an important note for all future travelling students, because many women and particularly young girls in high school and college are encouraged at home to carry such personal protection measures in case of attack.  This is not the case here in England, where it is generally much safer - though not, it should be emphasised, completely without those incidents - and such items are considered weapons of potential aggression against others, not as defensive items.  Eventually, I assume once this difference was realised and her intentions for having it explained, the girl in question had her item confiscated and was allowed to go on into the castle with, I believe, a warning only.

We were not allowed to do much photographing of the interior of the castle nor of the attached chapel as there were a great many priceless tapestries and works of original art (such as the famous portrait of Henry VIII) as well as the delicate fabric wallpapers, etc.  Personally, I disagreed with the prohibition of photography in the chapel portion, as there was virtually nothing there that would have been damaged by flash photography that I could see - which, even though the lighting was sufficient in all areas not to use a flash anyway, is generally the reason photography is banned in certain places.  Non-flash photography or video recording really doesn't do anything to such treasures any more than gazing upon them does.  Prohibiting photos does give people a good reason to buy the books in the shops though, and as I understand things the Royal Family does fund many of its endeavours from the revenue of its collections and tourism and so forth.  I did make some purchases of books from the shop, knowing that this particular site was probably of the most interest to people back home and that they would be something good to show for souvenirs in years to come.

I am rather upset, however, to find - while on the website looking for some links to share with you all so that you might see some of what I have seen by their photos - that we all could have made our single ticket into a full year's pass just by having a staff member stamp if after we'd signed the backs.  I don't think anyone managed to do so, or I haven't heard that anyone did - and I certainly missed it completely as it wasn't called to our attention by anyone either.  It was, I see only now, brought up in the pamphlet we were given upon entry that I didn't really look at because its primary use seemed to be as a map, and we'd already been given one of those by our guide on the bus.  So I tucked it safely away in my bag as a keepsake rather than fingering it worn with reading.  Ah well, it is just a little bit annoying in the long run I guess.

So, for all future students who visit Windsor Castle, please note that you can make that one ticket (which CMRS will have for you and distribute on site) into a full year's pass to return to Windsor Castle any time during your semester here by signing the back and having a staff member stamp it on the day of your visit.  Otherwise, you will have to pay admission for a second visit should you desire one - as I likely will either when Bruno comes out to visit or when Claire (who was ill and missed the trip with great disappointment) gets better and wishes to go on a weekend upcoming.

Meanwhile, for those of you too far away to consider making a trip yourself, I encourage you to check out this link and just scroll down looking on the right side for a nice smattering of pictures taken from the various exhibits.  I did get a good bit of footage of the outside of the castle and snuck a quick shot of the dollhouse though I wasn't supposed to (with no flash, so no harm done really) which I will have up as soon as possible.  Windsor concluded our field trip program, so any future trips and the like are "on me" as it were and might be sporadic as funding and time allows.

Here also is the final segment of the trip to Wells footage:

Two for One

Monday

We got fresh bed linen between our two lectures – one on the Art of Courtly Love and one on “Reading Oxford” as a historical text (1 of 4 – but only 1 of 2 we’ll have this semester… seems odd but there it is). I figured that made it a good day to tidy up my room again, get the little vacuum down from the common room and give my carpet a once over, put the fresh sheets on the bed, organize my books and papers, and just generally get things straightened. I’ve done all that and now I am debating if I should take a shower before I read or read before I take a shower this afternoon – both of which I’d like to have done with in time for some afternoon tea if possible.

Books won… until I found that one of them was all in middle English… in which case I switched plans to the shower and some tea – with my book in hand fully intending to read it at tea!! I ran into Lisa Rose though and she looked distraught. I guess her paper for her tutorial got rather ripped to tiny bits by her instructor and she looked like she needed a friend to have some tea and hot chocolate with. So I did that instead.

Tuesday

Busy day today. First breakfast and lectures as usual and then lunch, after which I went on the mini-field trip to Iffley Church. We had a bit of a snag meeting up with our guide though. Dr. Phillpott put us on the coach to Iffley and told us to get off at Iffley Turn stop, which we did, but our guide - who I really think is a wonderful man and scholar but whose name always escapes me - wasn’t there. We thought he might be just a moment so we waited, but as the minutes passed we started to get anxious and I suggested that three of us (as we were six in the group) go on to the church to see if there had been a miscommunication and he was waiting for us there. Lisa Rose volunteered, having been before, to lead that expidition while I continued to wait with two other girls at the stop and I gave her my phone number to call with her findings when they arrived (the church being a half mile distant up a curved road, as I was informed by a kind passerby when I inquired).

When neither my phone rang nor our guide arrived after an additional 15 minutes, I decided to lead my group up to the church to see what had become of our fellows and try to find a further course of action with them. Lisa Rose suggested we call the centre, but she didn’t have a phone so I used mine and spoke briefly with Dr. Phillpott who said he would call back after calling our guide I was unsure of my own number at that point, since all they gave me was a plastic card with a string of numbers so when he hadn’t called back after 10 minutes I called again, assuming he had tried to get me and had a technical failure. This proved to be the case and he informed me that our guide was on his way and all would be well if we’d wait patiently at the church – which we did and all was indeed well. We had a lovely tour and returned eventually to our bus and home in good order.

Upon returning I stopped up at the office to see what the trouble with my number had been – as there seems only half a use in having a cell phone if no one can call you on it (though you can still use it to call others obviously). Turns out that, even though it is the right number he dialed – and we did test it right there from the card itself – my phone doesn’t ring! I would have gone straight away to T-mobile to investigate this, since it is practically right outside our door, but as it was already 10 to 6 it was more than likely closed, so I will have to see about that tomorrow right after breakfast – because we have another trip, this one our last official big field trip to Windsor tomorrow! I am very excited, though I think I shall have to put my feet up tonight in preparation, since they are still smarting a bit at the heels and I was on them for a long time today walking about Iffley.

Off to dinner now though while the video from Iffley clears through the programs so I can have a clean camera for Windsor tomorrow!

Here's some more footage from Wells for you all

Restful Day

Today was a leisurely day. I got up around 10:30 (having been up rather late last night) and sat around in my PJ’s with my PSP for the morning, waiting on my sweetie to log on when he woke up so that we could have our “breakfast” (for him coffee and for me High Tea) together and hang out on Google Chat as we have agreed to make our custom for as often as possible on Sundays. I fortified myself for the wait with a breakfast bar (they have real fruit in them here, not paste!) that I have still from my purchases at Sainsbury. These are a very good deal for what you get, which is 5 sets of three, I still have one left.

Once my baby got on, I trotted down to the Costa Coffee in the Claredon Center, just outside of CMRS for tea and a butter croissant to smear with my raspberry conserve (again from Sainsbury) that I keep in the CMRS refrigerators in the common kitchen. It was exceedingly yummy and a very nice way to kick off the afternoon.

After we said our goodbyes I took some time to do my reading for the upcoming colloquium discussion on Anselm’s works (the ontological proof of God one which has a difficult to spell title and as I have passed the book on I won’t attempt it). I finished that up and made my dinner – tomato soup and imitation Ritz crackers (you guessed it, Sainsbury – if you aren’t getting the point by now, the grocery store is the cheapest and most effective way to feed yourself if dining at St. Peter’s is not available, as it won’t be for the first month of your stay on the weekends).

Thus I proceeded into a nice quiet evening of mixed study, internet surfing, and PSP playing. I was actually getting a bit lonely when I bumped into Claire in the hallway on my way down to the outside to have a smoke. She was on her way to get hot chocolate from one of the cafés nearby (whichever was still open, things close very early here on Sunday by and large) and I decided to tag along and treat myself. Also delicious – for reference, Coffee Republic is open until 8pm on Sundays and is an exception to remember if you find yourself with a similar craving at a similar hour.

Sadly, my evening does have one sour note. I just got an e-mail from Bianca, our Junior Dean, pointing out that the kitchen is in a sorry state and will be deemed unacceptable if not remedied by the time she makes her final round before bed. I have no dirty dishes of my own in the sink, because I adhere to the idea of doing them right after I use them, it is just much easier that way, but not everyone has adopted this method and thus the kitchen is a bit of a shambles. I want to just tidy it up myself, and avoid us all getting scolded – but that defeats the idea of us all being adults with personal responsibility for our messes and isn’t my job after all is said and sifted. I hope the people who have mess in there address it promptly. If I were them I would be embarrassed, but maybe that is just me?

Oh! And during my chat with Bruno I was able to put together the first installment of the Wells trip for you all. There will be several installments of this trip, because I took a lot of footage of the very beautiful and vast cathedral we saw. I hope you all enjoy it!

Incidents and Accidents

So I went up to the wine and cheese party (which also had fruit so I did nibble and put in my £5 contribution to the evening’s fare) and when I entered the kitchen to look for the girls who were baking fresh bread for their cheeses I saw one of my CMRS compatriots, Steven, had an open wound on his wrist that he was dangling over the sink. Having some experience with such wounds, I asked him to run it under the tap for a moment so I could see the wound itself, which was bleeding robustly but not excessively. With a few glances I could see it was short and deep and would require a stitch (or two as the case turned out to be) – his concern was that there might still be glass in it, as he had gotten the injury washing a glass in the sink and dropping it, which made him try to reflexively catch it, which is when the sharpness came in contact with his wrist apparently.

The girls were in a bit of a tizzy and one went to fetch Bianca, our admirable Resident Junior Dean who is here at CMRS working on her doctorate and supervising us undergrads in our living space this semester. Meanwhile I told our injured friend to elevate his wrist and be calm, but it was hard to be calm with the flurry of activity as people popped in and out to see what the fuss was in the kitchen. Finally, though it was very quick it seemed like a long time in the moment, Bianca arrived and it was agreed that this injury would require a trip to the Emergency Room – so they left for that after Jessica (an off duty Junior-junior dean, i.e. an undergrad here to study who has been here before meant to assist Bianca in her duties on a rotating nightly basis with one other Junior-junior dean, Lisa Marie – who was also present and had gone to fetch Bianca actually I believe) wrapped up his wound with the bandage and gauze in the first aid kit.

He is fine, of course, and after two or three hours returned with two stitches and a sore wrist. I am told Bianca will have to interview everyone present for the incident for her report at some point soon. Really, these things happen in any number of kitchens across the world every day no doubt, and it was handled pretty well over all. I, for instance, didn’t even think to mention it to either my Uncle or my friend Leah, or even my sweetie when I spoke with them at various later points in the evening, as it seems just a commonplace accident of the home. Yet, I feel it bears mentioning here in some detail to assure people that being on study-away or it being a special time for you does not inoculate you from the accidents and incidents of everyday life. If and when they happen, don’t think you are the only one who had a bump in the road away from home, don’t let it ruin your trip or define your trip in a bad light.

In which I have some misadventures

Had a bit of a misadventure on the coach system today here in Oxford. A week ago, or there about, some of the girls went to C.S. Lewis’s house to visit Narnia; having no great adoration for the man and not having read his books before being exposed to his religious writings, I did not accompany them, but rather went with Alex on a different trip around Oxford (video coming soon). Apparently during their visit they encountered an underfed horse that Claire has made it her mission to save from hunger. Thus, today she set out back to Narnia with oats, apples, and carrots on a mission of mercy. I went with her because she didn’t want to go alone, and all her companions had found other pulls on their time preventing them from this previously shared mission it seems.

Sadly, we did not arrive at Narnia, because the coaches did not deem us worthy. First the number 9 passed its stop right by with us waiting, forcing another hour of wait upon us. Then the 9 we had boarded for the return trip fee of £2.90 did not stop or, according to Claire, even go near where we needed to get off. So we returned, never having left the coach, to where we had boarded and home. She is going back tomorrow in another attempt. Ah well, such was my misadventure of an afternoon.

And straight on into evening, huzzah!

Rather than resume my reading, as I should have, I decided to go on a quest for food since it was nearly dinnertime. A solid hour and a half of walking around later I had managed to find nothing that appealed to me, certainly no where I wanted to enter and eat alone. So I returned to CMRS and abducted Claire – after a Google search and a hard glance at a map to a sushi bar / hot meal take out place – and made for the only street nearby that I had apparently missed in my wandering. It figures doesn’t it? Yo Shushi The food was alright, but the prices were high for the scanty portions and lack of any service at all (food comes by on a conveyor belt, you pick up a dish, they are color coded for price, and you pay at the dish count at the end), also there was a hidden charge for water! Needless to say, I won’t be heading back, but it was another new thing tried.

We stopped at the food truck, Posh Nosh, on the way home and got some chicken nuggets and onion rings to save the dinner hour from the bin.

I still have some group organized “wine and cheese” party in the JCR (Junior Common Room, it’s a shared space here at CMRS with a TV, VCR, DVD player, couches, chairs, tables, etc) that I engage this evening with – or skip entirely, as I am feeling like I’d rather be a hermit tonight.

Feeling it a bit today

I am a bit homesick today.  Nothing major, just have a lot of time today to have missed people and things that I would usually fill my day with.  I am half glad and half annoyed with myself that I left most of my friends and family phone numbers in my Droid at home.  On the one hand, it prevented me from calling most anyone today to talk to them and feel connected to home - on the other hand, it prevented me from calling most anyone today and burning up the minutes on my international phone and making myself more homesick.

Ah well.

Most of the other students are out tonight at the pubs and clubs, but I am not inclined to join them.  Mostly because their is a cold bug going around and I don't feel like I want to lessen my chances of avoiding it by going out drinking and such, but also because I am trying not to be too loose with my spending in the hopes that I might be able to do a tiny bit of minor travel around the area to some areas if I find something of particular interest later on.  In any event, I just don't feel like putting drinks into myself tonight.

Instead I have got the last instalment of the Gloucester Trip finished for you all, so that I can get started on the Wells and Glastonbury trip footage soon!  Enjoy.

Turkish Delight anyone?

Today we went to Wells Cathedral – our first wholly gothic cathedral without any Norman influences remaining – and walked around there a good bit.  There were a great many pointed arches and beautiful carvings (and yes I have pictures, patience – I am still dealing with the footage from last trip). 

We also got to wander around the High Street a little bit ~~  Side note: I am learning that pretty much every town has a “High Street” and that is basically English for “the main street” where all the commerce and food and busy bustle will be.  They had an open market today by chance that was very fun to wander around with lots to see and smell and taste.  I tried my first Turkish Delight and promptly bought some (lemon and rose – I like the lemon because it is familiar as a flavor, but rose tastes like you think a rose petal would, not unpleasant, but not quite expected either) and I also picked up a ball of really eccentric yarn that I saw some ladies demonstrating at their table which I hope to make a very ruffled fashion scarf with just as soon as I get round to it.

I think I enjoyed looking around the market at all the fresh produce, butchered meats, teas, yarn, baubles, pots, pans, quick bites, candies, fudge, cookies, etc and so on as much as I enjoyed the Cathedral itself.  We had a good hour for lunch when we arrived (it was a very long coach ride, two hours I think, maybe a bit more) so there was a lot of time to wander the town before we actually went in to admire the Cathedral and then depart.

We were intended to move on to Glastonbury and visit the Abbey there, which is really what’s left of an Abbey more than a whole structure really, but as it turns out today was also the Tour of Britain bike race or some such thing, and the site was closed in preparation for that function’s evening entertainment.  Our guide was quite perturbed at the lack of notice on their website.  We did see from a distance the Tor of Glastonbury – where Merlin supposedly lived for a while, and when we were driving back we went by Stonehenge – so I got to see that from the coach as well. 

We did get back in time for dinner unexpectedly because of the mix up, but they weren’t serving anything I fancied to put in my mouth other than a “jacket potato” (skin on potato) so after dinner when Alex suggested going out for ice cream I went (yay for Baileys  Cream deliciousness!) and hit the Posh Nosh on the way back home to get some onion rings and chicken nuggets.  I know it is all fried and probably horrible for me, but it tastes close to home too.

Here’s some more video from the Gloucester trip last week!  

Movies and Clouds

Getting into something of a routine now, though I am still trying to fit everything into a day’s space. 

Last night we (Lisa Rose, Alex, Claire, Katherine (we have 5, including me), and some others who came and went) made scones and watched a movie which made some of us groan and laugh and some of the others glare and huff at us for apparently having “no taste and no class” – which, considering that the “happy ending” was the woman getting back with the slightly reformed jerk who popped her in the face and forgiving her philandering father who blamed his infidelity on her not being a sweet enough daughter, I will take as a compliment - The Philadelphia Story)  She should have got with Jimmy Stewart’s character when he offered and called it a day if you ask me.  Oh well.

It has been overcast the last two days and we are all trying to guess if it will rain on our field trip tomorrow.  I am still puzzling on the reading list and trying to pick what I am going to “focus” on without the direction of what will be asked of me at the end.  Several of us are quietly conspiring to storm the office doors and demand our questions by the end of the week if we’ve not been placated. 

Huzzah!  We got some sample questions and our essay topic choices, now we can start working our little brains to mush. 

Speaking of mush… I am about half way through my trip’s footage of Gloucester and the video is already 9 minutes long.  In the interest of making these viewable, I am going to cut it there and have a second installment to follow.  I remember we’re all busy and don’t all have 30 minute blocks to view these things (that said, making them takes longer than they take to play – slapped up though they are – so please be patient, they go up as they are finished)

Weekend's End

Sunday afternoon Alex collected me from my video chatting with Bruno to go take advantage of Oxford Open days that should be noted as a special attraction to all Elmhurst College students looking into a Fall semester at CMRS.  They only do it once a year, but it opens a great many areas that are not normally accessible to the public, reduces the cost (sometimes to being free) for those areas that are, and is generally a wonderful way to see what is great right here in Oxford during your very first month in country.  (Footage to come in a later installment)  In brief: we climbed a church tower, walked through several college campuses and chapels, and enjoyed the gardens and grounds of an impressive University estate – with deer park included no less! 

Sunday evening the Alex and Claire finally prevailed upon me to go out for Indian Food.  I was very brave, I think.  We went to a place really just not quite a block away from the CMRS hall, Chutney's I had the Jingha Puree: king prawns in sweet/sour sauce (nothing like what comes in a packet or bottle, this was more of a thick with chopped vegetables and spices envelopment – not wet enough to be a soup, not dry enough to be a paste) with fried flat bread and a mint salad plate garnish.  It was actually a “starter” so it was only £6.50 but for me it was as much food as I would have wanted.  I did like it, though the mint salad was … well it was minty and I don’t care to chew fresh mint personally.  I am glad the bread came with it because even though this was a ‘sweet/sour’ it was pretty zippy.  Claire and Alex both cheered my willingness to give it a try while they noshed on their more exotic selections.

After dinner we came back briefly to CMRS to rally a few members for the Pub Quiz that Alex has been intent on going since our walking tour on Thursday, and I set the unpleasant business of popping some blisters.  The pub we went to was more up Bruno’s alley than mine, Gloucester Arms, with lots of Heavy Metal music and a decor to match, but once we were there with two other girls for our team we decided to stick it out.  It was fun – loud but fun – and we kept our drinking to a reasonable 2 pints over the course of the game (partly because this was more of a local pub than a student pub or a tourist pub and yes, there are differences – important ones, do your homework).  We lost, needless to say, given that most of those types of games are based in pop culture and the only questions we really had a decent shot at were once in which American and English pop culture overlapped – some movies, songs, TV series (Cheers was the answer to one question for instance, which was: what show was Frasier a spin-off of?) still it was fun and we had many laughs at ourselves.

After that we picked up some chips and onion rings out of the Posh Nosh truck – I do recommend them, they are open late, very near CMRS (on the same block around the corner), friendly, clean, and reasonably priced – and headed back home to our rooms for the evening’s end, which, for me, was a bit of study and some late night laundry after my goodnight phone call to my sweetie.

Right then, onward

So the fiasco got addressed (yay) and I won’t describe it here in detail but it was a lot of shenanigans of people who are old enough to know better but too young to care about what they ought to be doing when they think no one is watching.  In any case, it’s been addressed and hopefully won’t be repeated.

Meanwhile, since I didn’t get to bed until about 4am Saturday morning I more or less slept until noon and then got up, cleaned my room and unpacked, did reading and a load of laundry (which is £1.30 / machine / load which = £2.60/load to wash and dry for anyone making budgets on their future trip).  Then I made some late lunch – let me tell you now the English version of Spaghetti-O’s is actually worse than the American version by more than you would think possible, my advice is: avoid (but the Ritz Crackers are the same, even though they don’t come in sleeves, they are just chucked in the bag in the box like chips usually are at home).

After some more reading and the meeting thing, Alex, Claire, Lisa Rose, and I all went to get something to eat because we were all starving.  We detoured to the grocery store (Sainsbury’s – whose owner was in the news recently for their large charitable donation to the arts over here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11274399 ) and picked up a few things.  Alex and Claire wanted to go out for Indian Food, which is too spicy for Lisa Rose or me for that matter, but we saw on their menu (that is another great thing here, btw, places post their menu in the windows of the establishment to browse before you come in and sit down – with prices usually) said that they gave a student discount of 10% Sunday-Thursday, so we got food from one of the food coaches instead (Posh Nosh – actually quite good and sanitary looking as well).  I got chicken nuggets and onion rings for just under £5 so that was good! 

We came back, ate, watched V for Vendetta, talked for a bit, then went to bed around 2am – which none of us could figure out how it had gotten so late on us! 

Today (Sunday) I was up around 10, did some reading and had lunch (Heinz Vegetable soup, tastes just like you’d expect canned soup to taste; recommended, available at Sainsbury) and then got a latte and muffin to video chat with Bruno for some quality time – I got him to sign up for Facebook too finally (lol) – via Gmail googlechat which is much easier to use than anything else we looked into and doesn’t take up the bandwidth that Skype does.

[this post comes to you one day delayed by an internet interruption in the building Sunday night]

Don't be Stupid!

This is for all my future Elmhurst comers: Don’t Be Stupid!  Please.  Thank you.

About half of the people in this program have been out every night, until all hours of the night, getting their fill of the legal pub hopping and drinking that is denied them at their age in the States.  Fine.  It is to be expected that you will flex your wings a bit when you’re so far off the nest I suppose.

Well last night it was not fine.  There are rules that exist for the protection of everyone and when you become too intoxicated to follow them that is being extremely stupid.  I was up until 3:30 am last night with a fiasco of people coming in drunk without their keys wanting to bring a guy into the building who had no business being there, a girl who came back drawn upon all over her visible body to stumble off to bed, and a girl who we thought was missing for the better part of an hour and a half before she was discovered in another person’s bedroom, having come back earlier without anyone noticing or notifying. 

This kind of behavior is unacceptable (which, those of you who know me well are already assuming I pointed out, and I did) and now we all have a compulsory meeting in the evening to review the rules and regulations.  Hopefully that will help.  I know I certainly did not come here to be a babysitter, and neither did anyone else.  When you behave in that way you are being incredibly selfish as well as dangerous and stupid – so just don’t do it.  Have a good time, but have a sensible good time; how much fun can you say you were having really if you can’t remember it the next day?

And we're walking!

I seem to be very dumb to be in a place for people so smart today.  Turns out I bought my new shoes a size too small (they have different sizes here) and suffered with them nearly all day before my friend – blessed shall she be for all eternity for her patience and kindness in all matters relating to the shoe – Alex (girl Alex) asked me just how tight they were to the toe and if they were maybe too small.  Then she promptly scolded me and dragged me back to the shoe store to get the right size.  Neither of us thought they would exchange them after a full day of wear, but they did – so now I have the right size and start from square one on the breaking in process.  Huzzah!

We had another interesting two lectures today – one about the question of whether the Feudal System came about by revolution or by gradual change and the other about basic interaction between Regnum and Sacerdotium (which basically means State and Church respectively, but not quite, and a good bit of the first part of that lecture covered why they are slightly different and that the special words weren’t just being used for the sake of being scholarly or pretentious, really, we were assured).   We were also assured that we need not read the entire reading list provided, only those bits which we feel are going to be crucial to our essays and our colloquium discussions – which we have some input in directing by putting forth what we’ve read into the discussion.  So it has become slightly clearer than mud what to be reading; however, questions for the exam and essay topics will be published to us soon, which should go a good distance to removing any more murkiness in the task at hand.

After lunch we (Alex and I) went to the Ashmolean Museum and explored the upper floors before I had to cry for mercy because of my shoes (refer to the first paragraph about new shoes).  They have some very beautiful paintings, sculptures, baubles, coins, and on and on there – none of which is permitted to be photographed as far as we can tell (it hurts the paintings if you use a flash, and just try explaining to them that your camera doesn’t have one, really, it is a hoot), so you will just have to check out their website for an idea of what we were oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over this afternoon.  I will say that the Greek Myth statues from the 1300’s and on were probably my favorite though they had a very striking instrument exhibit that contained a Stradivarius called The Messiah which is apparently very famous but also incredibly beautiful; it made me wish rather sadly that my beloved hadn’t been bullied out of his talent as a violin prodigy as a child by those other nasty children.

The ladies want to go out tonight to the pubs and have some fun at the end of the week, so we will see how that goes.  Personally, I’d rather put my feet up anywhere and stay stationary for awhile to recover, but I don’t want to be ‘the old lady’ or ‘the mom’ so much that I don’t go have some fun – which, yes, they are calling me and I joke back that if they are going to think of me as old then I insist on being called The Crypt Keeper and cackling at them.   

One Week!

Yesterday we went to Winchester and saw the cathedral and what was left of the castle and it was lovely.  I had my first scone at high tea in a French style café with lovely berry conserve and it was just delicious!  I also saw a lot of beautiful things, took a walking tour, and saw both Jane Austin’s house and gravesite.  All of which has a good deal of video coverage that I won’t get to editing until the weekend at least, but it is coming so patience is requested (not that most of you seem to be in a hurry considering the silence on the last video).

Right.  Busy day here again: two lectures in the morning and a small (2 hour or so) walking tour of the general area around Oxford for of historically significant or just plain ancient buildings after lunch.  I did finally get some shoes, not expensive ones, but they seem all right and they were affordable and they are grey.  Trainers, they call them here.  I put my Dr. Scholl’s in them and my feet are a bit swollen from all of the walking so they pinch a tad just now, but once I break them in and get off my feet for a little bit I should be fine.

That’s one thing they don’t tell you about before you come here: all the walking.  You walk everywhere in Oxford.  I was so worried about having to figure out the bus system and all that it would cost to ride the coach here and there, but that hasn’t been at all a problem because CMRS is basically just off the center of Oxford and you can walk everywhere you are going to have an actual need to go (or, as for field trips, transportation will be provided).  You can walk and you will walk.  So all the future Elmhurst comers, please do take my advice and get some exceptionally comfortable footwear before you come, break them in, and you may even want to start taking long walks around our campus (read: several laps a day) to prepare yourself for the lifestyle on foot that you will experience here.

A point of interest for some: today marks the official one-week point in my time here.  I feel I am doing pretty well, all things considered.  I’ve whacked together a semi-decent sleep schedule, have not been late for a single class or meal (which I am eating 3 a day suddenly, a huge improvement over my eating habits in the States), and I am smoking less than I have since I started 10 years ago – down to only 3-7 a day since I’ve arrived.  My room is a bit ‘untidy’ which I mean to remedy this weekend.  I didn’t unpack my first day like most people did, so I am still living out of the suitcases more or less – though I was provided with hangers and drawers and such – so I have to tidy up this weekend or maybe tomorrow after lunch.  Also, obviously from the previous paragraph really, my feet are killing me so I don’t want to be on them if I don’t have to be this weekend; I am starting to think that Tolkien made Hobbits have thick leathery feet because that may just be the norm here in England from all the hoofing it place to place on a daily basis (and no, it isn’t just the walking its also the standing as there are few places to sit outside the building anywhere we go – except the coaches to and from field trips, which have been really nice as they are chartered for the purpose and are exceedingly comfortable). 

I also want to do a good chunk of reading this weekend because I have my first Colloquium with Dr. Crowe this coming Monday and it is tricky in a way because they do give you a reading list, but then they tell you not to read everything on it, but to read a good bit of it, but not which pieces of it so it is hard to feel prepared before you know what is going to be expected.  That would be my one complaint overall about the general program: what is expected is not explicit most of the time, and while everyone is generally very forgiving (and this applies to most things from the showers to the classes and all between) it is still embarrassing to get it ‘off’ or ‘wrong’ the first try solely for the fact that you had nothing more than a vague idea to go on.  I am not sure if that is just a cultural thing or maybe built into the program on purpose to push students to inquire after what they should be doing or build up some self-motivating method or what exactly.

Anyway, plenty to do so I will close up here – all my love to my friends and family and everyone reading! 

Bounding About

This morning it was tough to get out of bed.  It is sunny and beautiful, and breakfast will be on the table at St. Michael’s in just 10 minutes (they have a window of serving, in the morning 8-8:45).  I stayed up maybe a touch too late last night editing and fussing and forcing that video up and talking on MSN messenger with my beloved; the +6 hour time difference makes it easy to want to go into the night hours to communicate with friends and family back home since what is my midnight is only home’s 6pm. 

Nevertheless, up and about I am and I must ready and get to breakfast and then to class.

Rarely am I more balefully accused of being bright and chipper than at the breakfast table.  They have more or less the same fare for breakfast daily: bacon, sausages, eggs, some potato fried product, toast, apples, oranges, yogurt, cereal, apple juice, orange juice, and both coffee and tea served on the long tables.  Added to this usually is something else – this morning for instance it was mushrooms.  I tend to stick with the bacon and potato product with an orange (the eggs are sunny side up, not my cup of tea) and juice with tea to follow if anyone is curious of my preferences.  I am curious how breakfast will go when the real term starts up and many more students attack the dining hall than just us happy CMRS goers who tend to linger at the table chatting and eating far past the 8:45 end of breakfast till the staff feel the need to prod us with the hint of removing the pots of milk, tea, and coffee from the tables at five to nine. 

By the by, for future students: if you need to use the facilities in the morning as most of us do, but are not inclined to wake up early enough to have a shower, I recommend the bathrooms either off the Lecture Hall or near the Junior Common Room / Kitchen area, as they are usually free because they do not have a shower sharing the room with the toilet.  Just a friendly tip.

Fascinating lectures today – one on St. Augustine and his contributions to the formation of the European mindset of the period, mainly via Christianity (most of the parts I don’t like about it coincidentally like predestination, the preeminence of original sin, and such) followed by a lecture on Beowulf and the heroic legacy by a charming woman whose name I have no solid hope of spelling but who I hold in great regard for her ability to speak Olde English.  It harkened to my mind the class I took with Dr. Tipton where she read aloud to us passages in the Olde English from Beowulf in the first days of class. 

Free for the rest of the day to read, wander, ruminate, run errands, or what-have-you.  I need to purchase some shoes today, even if I hate shoe shopping with the fire of a thousand suns (which I do) because we have another outing tomorrow to Winchester and I simply don’t want wet feet if it should happen to rain on us, as seems likely in the forecast.  I’m torn between wanting to re-read Beowulf, which I enjoyed immensely and am kicking myself for not bringing with me (oh how I would have loved to have brought my horde of books for this trip, but luggage capacity would not permit) and turning my full attention to Confessions of St. Augustine, which I have not read beyond Book I thus far.  Lunch must be first of all those though, which I am off to now!

It is a very dangerous thing to go stepping out unto the Road, as anyone who has read Tolkien knows from the wise words of Bilbo Baggins.  I left for lunch and didn’t return until it will be nearly time to leave for dinner.  A long story short: when a group goes out on errands it is very easy to get distracted by every little fancy that pops up and off you go to opposite ends of town before realizing you’re halfway to the wrong place and have to go back round again.  That more or less sums up the afternoon.  I did not get shoes (they were rubbish at the shops and overpriced rubbish at that!).  I did get a card out in the post to my grandma and watched the three girls I was with wait in line for stamps and such.  We went to several shops, but I didn’t buy anything until we finally went to the grocery and then I picked up some more canned soups, a can of “spaghetti hoops,” some KitKat bars, biscuits (super delicious with strawberry conserve and cream), some Nestle Aero bars which – if we have these in the States I haven’t seen them, but we should - (they taste like Baskin Robbins Mint Chocolate Chip ice-cream in a candy bar form), and a ‘blue bolt’ or Euro-Redbull as I am calling it; all that picked up for £7.40 so, not too shabby I think. 

Oh, and lunch was very decent today; I am getting very used to no dressing on my salad, its actually fine if they give us the little cherry tomatoes like they have been.

Most of the girls seem to want to go to the St. Giles Faire tonight, which looks to be your average traveling festival madness of shoddily constructed carnival rides, questionably sanitized food carts, and cheap trinket stalls.  As much as I want to be fun and all, I think I will pass unless the girls are really heartbroken about it.  I can stay in and read then in peace.  One thing about being in a dorm situation is that there are always people around to distract you and give you an excuse not to work (not that I am in some dire straight or behind, just being mindful).

Huzzah for technology, the bane of our existence!

Well, I've been working on this video for a decent chunk of my free time today; as it was raining outside I thought an indoor activity was the smart choice. Yup, we are finally getting some solid English weather. I don't mind if it would be kind enough to let up for the field trip we have (yes another one) on Wednesday to Winchester which should be lovely even if the weather chooses not to co-operate.

I have some reading to do, which is something of both an overstatement and an understatement the way they do things here.  Essentially, we're told that we'll be discussing something that has a text attached to the idea and it is suggested that we 'may want to look at it' rather than actually assigned.  I have the strong feeling that these 'may' suggestions should be read as imperatives rather than suggestions, though some of the students who have been here before say that isn't strictly so.  In any case, it is a bit of a muddle when you don't know what exactly the correct (or rather expected) amount of preparedness you should have by a given time.  I say by a given time because we won't be tested on this until month end (along with everything else, essay format) and a paper about it won't come due until much later - the end of term actually, though it was once again 'suggested' that we have it done by month end to dust off later.

For students who are used to structured deadlines and requirements this is definitely an 'enough rope to hang yourself' situation.  Never fear though, I am on it.  That said, it would be impossible (yes even for me, freak of the book though I am) to read everything that will be touched upon in discussion over the next month - which they told us outright is not expected.  What is NOT expected seems to come up much more frequently than what IS expected.

Meanwhile, I have compiled the video from Gloucester Cathedral and Berkeley Castle (precious little there was of the Castle too, as they do not permit photography indoors - though I did get one room before that was mentioned).  Once again the computer is giving me a bit of a fit about the whole affair - hence the title of this post having such a rosy outlook on our technological world and its gizmos - so if it is fussy for you I apologise, but I'm not going to revisit the issue unless some empty time crops up.  I hope it behaves because I did take a good bit of time to get it to something watchable out of the many clips of video I took - it is about 10 minutes long, which I realise may tax the attention span but there was a lot to see.

With the music I intended, but with some slide glitches

On YouTube with replacement music (I must be the only person in the world who doesn't know how to code my way around copywrite issues) - The swap is "in progress" now, I assume it will be done sometime in the future.

A very fun day it turned out to be!

Howdy all, I had a very lovely day today.

After my soup I went sight-seeing by myself around town to take some video for you all to see.  It was very relaxing and I hardly got lost at all.  Don't expect these videos to be masterpieces please - I have not the time required to make each one a polished work or presentation, but I am sprucing them up a bit from raw footage.  When I get back I will devote January to making the most of my raw materials in the way they deserve, but I didn't want to keep you all waiting till I'm already home to see what's over here!

View on YouTube




When I got back I had a great game of Fluxx that one of the girls over here had brought with her.  It is probably the most fun game to make friends over that I could think of and I only wish I had known about it to have been the one to bring it myself!  Thus, I am providing a link for it here in case anyone wants to give it a go or bring it along themselves in the future.

A brief overview:  It is a card game that starts simple: Draw 1 card, play 1 card, turn ends.  There are cards that change the rules though - or augment them - so that eventually you might have something like: Draw 5 cards, play 3 cards, discard to 1 card in hand, turn ends.  The next round it might have changed to something like: Draw 1, play 3, discard to 1 in hand, turn ends OR Draw 5, play all in hand, turn ends - and so on.  Because some cards you play change the rules and other cards are actions themselves (Draw two, play one, discard other; switch hands with player of your choice; steal Keeper card from any player; etc.) and others are needed to win the game.  The way of winning is also changes as the way to win is dictated by "Goal" cards which are played sometimes multiple times in a single turn.  You really have to play it to grasp the dynamics of it - but we laughed for several hours over the card table and three players came and went with a jolly good time of it before we all had to head to our rooms and our beds.

On a less lovely note: dorm showers, if you are familiar with them are not the most wonderful things and I am not familiar with these enough not to scald or drown or freeze myself yet so... bit of a tangle there but it was gotten through and I am sure someone will figure it out before too long how to make the darned thing behave itself.

I hope the video is not too awful, my camera software picked a fight with me so I went through a few different programs and did a work-around on You-tube to get this up promptly for y'all!

Strollin Along

Had a bit of a lie in today since I was up rather late last night – though I note to all that I was NOT up late drunk off my skirted behind at the sketchy clubs rabble rousing with the majority of the other students here, no!  I, being the slightly more sensible and less dance party inclined, passed my time chatting up a few other like minded ladies in the common room of the dormitories (then proceeding to the kitchen as the snack attack hit) till the small hours bemoaning the inevitable and undoubtedly noisy return of our comrades.  Then I called my sweetie and put myself to bed with a nice two-chapter dose of my comfort book.

Today we had lecture for almost two hours on the field trip program we’ll begin tomorrow with a trip to Gloucester Cathedral and Berkeley Castle.  I am, of course, very excited about the upcoming trip and will be gone the entire day so please be patient for a blog update about the trip – I am 6 hours ahead of most of you (more or less) and so it shouldn’t be a tragically long wait.

No breakfast today as they aren’t serving on the weekends until term officially begins for the main buildings, which is fine because I had some breakfast bars I got at market which have real fruit in them – not paste like we have; that with some dried apricots and sparkling water provided a very healthy fare that didn’t require leaving my rooms in search of a café – a quest many others undertook with much grumbling.  I have some errands already under my belt (got my Ethernet cable and stopped to pick up some post cards and a note book and such) and a few more yet to do: I would like to get some shoes as my Keds are starting to wear, but it is proving very difficult (as it does in the States) to find something for women that is practical and comfortable.  I fear I may eventually be reduced to ordering online to save myself the walking search which is only degrading my current shoes the more. 

I am going to fortify myself with some soup and then make a foray out to the pretty parts of town to see if I can get some pictures that will convey the grandeur of the area a bit better than views from the bus.

Right Then, Another Day

Went to breakfast this morning in the small version of the Harry Potter hall, very nice.  Bacon and mini hash brown waffle things with some coffee and orange juice and an orange!  

I definitely recommend that all students who come after me from Elmhurst to CMRS bring an Ethernet cord which can then be used to give access to the internet in each study room (I am off to get one today when we do the tour of town and find the shops).  There is no shortage of shops around, honestly there’s a shopping center right off the main entrance to St. Michael’s Hall with two coffee shops, a T-mobile, a few shoe shops, clothing, and all the other – but it is a matter of finding the shop you want or need and finding your way back.

After the fire drill that is scheduled in just a few minutes, a student who has been living here for a year (lucky ducky!) is going to help me and Jake (another first timer) find the public library so we can drop off our library card forms (provided by CMRS).

Found the library with the group and was the only one to get my card via the lady at the desk.  The others were asked to fill out online at the in library computers, so I feel particularly lucky J  I also bought some towels pretty cheap at the local “everything” store (sort of a Target but obviously not) because I forgot to pack mine.  Not a big deal though. 

Just got out of a briefing on the library here and its usage and some other general things.  Time for lunch before the medical lecture at 1:15 – strange to think that it is very early morning back home and not even breakfast time really yet!  My body clock did a hard reset with the  10+8+16 =  34 hours awake thing I did (with an hour cat nap around the 26 hour mark) so I am physically on local time more or less.  It feels like lunchtime, not 6am in other words.

Tomato soup and salad (still no dressing, though I did see some people had it so maybe I just missed the bottle or packets??) and what they would call chips but were really more of a potato wedge version of fries.  Off to the medical lecture – want to be early because I guess the doctor is on his way to surgery after and we don’t want to hold him up.  I’m hearing rumors about a nearby supermarket so I want to see if I can check that out on the tour and maybe make dinner in the kitchens tonight if I can find something suitable in a can or box as what’s on the menu at the hall doesn’t sound appealing (curried chicken). Still only early morning by the homefront so I hope to have this posted by afternoon perhaps. 

As some of you can tell already I am just typing through the day when I have a moment and will post to the Blog once I get a good amount on screen to put out. 

Well the tour was long and lots of walking but I finally saw some of Oxford that looked like Oxford is supposed to look in my mind: big schools, giant libaries, and old architecture.  Sadly, I had doffed my hoodie because it was mid-day heat and it had my camera in the pocket!  However, I am assured that I will be visiting these libraries and places rather often once the seminar and tutorial classes begin, so no worries, there will be pictures in time.  Also, since tomorrow is mostly a free day (minus a lecture about Sunday’s field trip destination) I may take a walk back over there to see if I can find them properly (and my way back) after having been shown once.

I did go do some shopping at the local super market for some snack items and beverages, and that was a very interesting experience to see what types of food the typical markets stock in this part of the world compared to our stores.  Mostly the difference is in the branding and the arrangement of items, but there is also a noted lack of “pre made” foods where our stores overflow with the abundance of meals in a can, bag, or box.  I did buy a can of soup in case the meal tonight is not to my liking as I feel it is very important to my continued ‘even keel’ – which is holding so far – to maintain good nutrition, better even than I do (which I know some of you reading this are rolling your eyes knowing I don’t really maintain that all too well) in the States where life is comfortable and normal. 

So yes, these are some images taken and mushed together that I saw from the window of the bus (which they call a coach or a lorry - this would be a coach though the difference escapes me).  Mostly its some country side taken for the sake of having something to share - highways are highways after all.  Still - I did see a difference in the farm animals right away: driving on a US highway you see horses and cows, out here you see horses and sheep.  I haven't seen a cow yet.

There are a lot of little differences like that.  Instead of "Yield" the signs say "Give Way" but they are the same red triangle upside-down shape.  Instead of Thank you for your business, come again it is Thank you for your custom, please call again.  Stuff like that.  Same meaning, different way of presentation.

I got in a nap before the Safety Lecture (we have a fire drill tomorrow at 9:15 am, just after breakfast which is at 8) and the little meet and greet food party.  My ethnography was right: these are not a people of great flavor in their day to day eating.  The sweets are good (and yes, they are all called sweets here) and I hear that breakfast is supposed to be their best meal, so we'll have to see.  I did get down a piece of chicken and some salad that wasn't at all bad, just bland bland bland.

So now it is 8:30 and I am tired.  Some of the others are going to hit a pub, but I didn't join them.  I've already spent more than I like today and I don't want to get sloppy with the kids all strung out on jetlag and such like they will be.  Some of the people here seem to be on a second or even a third semester importing - with pre-made cliques that come with that shared experience.  I'm not overly thrilled about that, but it is the same as it is anywhere else I guess in that regard.

I really hope we get some homework and class time on the books right away.  I like all the professors I spoke with at the gathering and I am running out of tasks to focus on to take my mind off of being alone and far away from home.

Good, Bad, and Undecided

Well I made it through the plane ride without freaking out even once.  I am more shocked about that than I can describe given my previous flight experiences - and I am also alarmed by it as weird as that sounds.  The fact that I didn't flip out at least a little makes me worry that I am setting myself up for a big explosion sometime soon and I don't want that.

Oh well, in the meantime, I have arrived at my dorm after getting off the plane, going through customs (read: really really long line so someone can ask you why you are there and stamp your passport), picking up my luggage (it is completely haphazard out there at the luggage rotators), walking the ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE AIRPORT to get to the bussing station, beating up the machine and making it give me a ticket - I almost got one to the wrong town, but I caught my error before I committed to the purchase - boarding the bus and riding along for 90 minutes or so, and then walking from the drop off to my dorm.  Yes, sweetheart, you were right, they have stairs and I have heavy bags and it was a struggle of massive proportions, but they helped me and I got my crap in my room now so huzzah!

Once in my room I took stock of my situation and basically departed immediately to have a smoke (14 hours without one in high stress is pretty darn good so everyone who rolled their eyes can put that in their pipe), find a cold beverage (an activity that eventually got me quite lost, we'll get back to it),  and secure a decent internet connection.  Yes, I have purchased 3 months of mobile broadband on a stick just for this trip at the T-mobile (CURSE YOU T-mobil I thought I was rid of you!)  because the "wireless" here at St. Michaels leaves a great deal to be desired, such as basic functionality in rooms.  I also bought a pre-paid cell just to have and be available on or use for emergencies for a very reasonable £10.

Did I mention I got lost?  I am really tired.  I didn't sleep on the plane, my 'home time' clock says it is about 8 am now, so I've been up 24 hours at this point under some considerable circumstances and I got a little turned around already.  There are no real street markers here and everything is all narrow and none of the roads go where you think it would make sense for them to go!  Thus, I got lost for about an hour getting back from T-mobile to the dorms taking a detour to find a soda.  I was thirsty!  I eventually found my way back to the bus station drop area where another CMRS student was getting brought back, so I followed them and their guide - which was good, because I almost half know where the place is now, and I met another Katherine from Chicago who is also my next room neighbor on the way.

Granted, I don't even know where the bathroom is yet... but I am too tired to care.  We have a health and safety thing at 5:30 (Brit time guys, keep that in mind) and then some eating BBQ get to know you time - all taking place somewhere I don't know where it is mind you, but I am sure there will be a group to follow.  I'm going to go see if I can figure out the building and find the things in it before I venture out again, except out back to have a quick smoke I think - at least I stay within sight of the door doing that.

I have some video to post soon of "Stuff I saw out the bus window" but that is going to have to wait until I get some gusto back.  Fighting off the urge to tuck tail and come home this instant is taking up most of my willpower and staying positive is eating up the rest.

Love to everyone!

Swept away by the road

Well here I am at the airport waiting in what I hope and believe is my correct terminal to board the plane.  I am staying task-oriented which keeps me from missing my sweetie quite as much and also keeps me from thinking about the fact that planes go in the sky.  Yes, I am also excited.  Subduing the fear and the anxiety and the longing to stay where I am comfortable means subduing the excitement too, but all those feelings are there. 

On an unrelated note, I am highly annoyed that my nail polish chose today to flake off my fingernails and chip and crack and become a complete shambles of the manicure it once was.  Too late to do anything about it now and I can only imagine what people must be thinking of the look of it, but on the upside it gives me something to do when I land and get settled in my room: look for a nail salon in Oxford. 

We got here plenty early enough – though I flubbed a bit at security because I forgot to take my laptop out of my bad and was scolded by the attendant for not listening (though in the chaos I didn’t hear an instruction or see a sign to the effect) but other than that it was pretty smooth entry into the terminals.  My plane won’t be boarding for another hour and a half or so but they have to have the bags earlier than that so the recommendation was to arrive 2 hours prior to flight time – we added 30 min early on that.  I’m very proud of my no-tears goodbyes and trying to keep that ‘stiff upper lip’ thing going. 

(Later)

I’ve been doing the people watching thing at the terminal waiting to go in.  Yes, I could pull out a book or my game but I didn’t want to ‘unpack’ so to speak right there alongside everyone else.  There’s an elderly couple who thinks they are better than everyone whispering to themselves across from me.  There is also a French couple (at least I think they are a couple, probably married from the looks) and the man has on so much perfume it would stun an orc from five miles out.  He is, of course, sitting next to me.  Huzzah.

(Even later)

Well it turns out they changed my terminal for boarding and decided not to make an announcement until boarding was underway 9 terminals over.  Great reward for those of us who got here early and were told the ‘old’ terminal for our troubles.  I did board alright though eventually.  It is like a little sardine can in here back on the middle of economy, but the price was right and it isn’t like I am going to sleep or be moving around or looking out the windows if I can help it anyway.  No electronic devices during take off so… had to endure that without the aid of my PSP’s soothing game experience.  I did pretty well really.  I didn’t even hyperventilate.