Still Kicking!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am alive and getting over my sinus infection (yay). I've been keeping up with the homework pretty well too - one of my papers had me a bit worried because I got through one part of three and realized I was going to be way too long... but then I had to sort of go with it... Turns out my tutor was quite pleased with it overall, though we only got through the first seven pages - now I am worried he won't like the other 11 pages!

Right now I'm chilling in the Common Room with some of the CMRS people. It is Halloween weekend so there are tons of dress up parties and drinking and general carousing going on around here. Needless to say, I am keeping a low profile just coming off being sick but I have been social around the common room since I'd been locked away in my room or a library most of the week

Meanwhile, to reward everyone for their patience these past few days without any updates I have the second half of the Iffley video!

Sinus Infection, called it.

Yup. Had my first (and hopefully last) experience with the British doctors today as I went in for an appointment to get a prescription for what I suspected to be my sinus infection. Since I've been sick all week and barely claiming an ounce of productivity - hence the lack of posting - I figured it was time to see the pro's. Well I called it, sinus infection all the way. I'm on some anti-biotics that, among other things, might turn me yellow and make me barf for 7 days to clear it up. Hopefully none of the particularly nasty side-effects come on, cause that would be bad. Then again, they're always bad, who am I kidding?

Basically I paid a guy ₤30.00 to let me diagnose myself in front of him and scribble on his prescription pad after pushing on my face to see if I had painful swelling in my sinuses and take my pulse with his fingers on my wrist. Same as home really, maybe a little less high-tech. Then I got to hoof it to Boots, the local "chemist" - a Walgreens essentially - and get my script filled. I've been keeping up on homework as best I can, though some of the reading that isn't related to immediate papers has been bumped out of the routine in favour of much needed napping.

I figured out that if I put my computer, with cooling pad under it, on my desk chair it sits just right to be viewed from my bottom bunk bed, so I was really glad I brought some DVDs with me to watch on it. Planet Earth series is great to go to sleep to. A steady diet of Ramen when the hall food isn't appealing has kept me fed (Thanks babe for sending the box of provisions!) and I've been sticking mostly to my room and the libraries between meals so as not to spread my illness and also because I am not particularly social when I am coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose every 3 minutes; incidentally, I've been through three boxes of tissue.

Of course, I am not the only one who is sick. Half of the building has a cold or a flu or something - the locals call it Fresher's Flu, which is basically when all the students share germs and get each other sick, their professors too usually. I just happened to luck into the bonus round of sinus infection since I am prone to them.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you all know I am still alive and will hopefully be getting better and having more to say as the week wears on.

Dinky Disasters

I’ve been rather ill with some kind of ick-cold from hell; it started Monday, which was particularly unfortunate because that was my “push” day for library time and an essay due Tuesday.  I got much worse Tuesday, so much so that I basically stayed in my room for the duration of the day, only emerging to make Ramen for myself and use the bathroom.  The internet was down as well, which was sad because I’d been entertaining myself with little movie clips between naps – having no ability to read or comprehend anything anyway. 

Today I am feeling marginally better, and I haven’t coughed out any more bits of myself so all to the good.  That said, it isn’t like I could start doing back-flips – still rather achy and my head feels like it is stuffed with wool, but that’s a big improvement and – apparently – I am not “as pale as death” today either.  Huzzah.  I would put myself at about 75-80% about.  Not great, not on death’s door, over all a “Meh.”

Also, apparently, today the water pipes here at CMRS decided to start flooding the store beneath us in the same building and I guess (I was asleep because I did not wake for breakfast this morning) some students were a little flippant to the workers in that store and didn’t alert the proper authorities to the problem.  So said authorities might not think much of us at the moment, as indicated by a lovely e-mail we got from Dr. Philpott this evening which more or less said: start acting like you aren’t a bunch of selfish brats in the smooth English perfection that makes it sound like he said nothing of the sort.  Some of the bathrooms and showers were out for various portions of the day while they tried to locate the leak and turned off water and so on – half the building, or maybe it is down to a quarter now I don’t know is still without water.  They’ll keep trying to sort it out tomorrow I am sure.

I won’t be here for that, because I will be at the library, once again, for the duration of the day trying to complete the research for a paper due the following day because I lost so much time this week to being ill.  Even though it was only a total of two days (last half of Monday, all of Tuesday, and half of today) when you only have 1 week to read and write – and 2 classes to read and write for – and a seminar to be reading for, and a colloquium to be reading for – 2 days is a HUGE chunk of your usable time.

Before all this calamity came in, I had used some “spare” time to make a little video of one of my mini-trips last month when we visited Iffley church, enjoy.

Friday!

Let’s see… met with my Classical Mythology tutor today, he continues to be awesome and we discussed the Iliad at much greater length than the Odyssey, which is good because I didn’t really have the time to read both.  Thankfully I’d read both before so it was more a matter of at least finding time to review what I couldn’t read fully than not having read it at all.  I am glad I gave my full attention to a real annotated read of the Iliad though, because we discussed that in some detail.  I arrived in an apologetic panic, however, because I was late!  Fiona had to ring my room and ask me if I had forgotten my tutorial at 10 past 9 – I had it written down as 9:30… /cry!  He was very understanding though as I was furiously apologizing and explaining the misunderstanding which will not happen again!

After my tutorial I was going to head to the bookstore – as I have decided to purchase the actual works he assigns and borrow the critical material on them or read those in the library – but I stopped by Alix and Claire’s room first because I saw on Facebook that Alix hadn’t left for London yet.  We were all supposed to go to London today for a day trip to the museums, but Lauren is sick and Lady Katherine has a trip to Norway next week so she’s got double papers to handle in a short span and I was trying to cram in a bunch of reading with what I think is a cold I am fighting off too.  So we all backed out on the trip last night but she was going to go anyway – super independent awesomeness that she is.  Turns out, she made a call to get extra sleep instead (it is gray and rainy out today, I don’t blame her). 

Claire asked me to return some books for her though and stop by Dr. Philpott’s office on my way out to let him know she was sick and would be missing her tutorial this afternoon as well.  This is the second time she’s been sick and missed class, so he asked me to tell her that if she stays sick he’d like her to see the doctor.  There is a doctor that is affiliated with CMRS whose contact information you get during the orientation period and he comes in for a chat as well (those are what the medical forms you fill out are for).  He is not on-site, but house calls still exist in this country so it is possible for him to come to you (more expensive though).  I am not sure how the insurance thing works, I think you pay and then are reimbursed, because they have the national health care system here.  At least that’s what has happened so far – we have a girl who thought she broke a bone in her foot, but wasn’t sure and went for non-emergency X-rays that came to about £40.  Another one of our number cut himself on a glass, if you recall from an earlier episode, and had to get stitches; the ER trip cost him nothing I think, but the removal of the stitches by the local doctor was about £25.

For EC students: I recommend a £100 allowance for ‘medical expenses’ if you should get a serious flu or what-have – just in case.   

** Later

I did go out for drinks and had a nice time, then went to the Tolkien Society meeting – which was fun but really more of a mixer than a meeting since it was the introduction for the year.  After that we (Lisa Rose, Blue, and I) came home and joined the other girls for some movie time with Monty Python and the Holy Grail – a DVD since the VCR they have here is for some reason only playing things in black and white.

For EC Students:  CMRS has a Universal DVD player, along with a VCR, and many movies that students buy here on the cheap and donate to the Common Room – if you wish to bring some favorite DVDs to share with your fellow students, be aware they will play – but video tapes will not (we don’t think, no one brought any to test) being coded to the countries they are sold in. 

Laura and I both broke out our personal DVD collections, but being things we’d brought just for ourselves maybe to play on our laptops (not knowing they had these facilities) we settled on Monty Python because the whole group could get behind it.

Now for bed!  It has been a long day – and I just found out that the library I need to go to for my Viking Literature books has ridiculous hours on Saturday, 10-1, so I’ll be doing something else tomorrow than I planned – different reading and working on a different paper – because brunch falls right between those hours and a girl’s gotta eat.

Must Read Faster... again?

My blog is playing tricks on me, and that's not nice!  First I thought my last post vanished, then it reappeared.  I took a nap today... weird.  Anyway!  I decided not to go to the little Sci-Fi "my book is better than your book" meeting and read the Iliad instead which I really should get back to, but I took a break to walk around with Claire for a minute who is having trouble communicating with her financial institution back home and this is causing her some distress.  It would cause me distress too, that's just the last thing you want to have happen when you are across an ocean.  We walked down to Tesco (it's a grocery store like Sainsbury, in fact one is right next to a Sainsbury near Broad Street which seems like it would be too fierce a competition but I guess that sort of thing is allowed here) and I got a Fanta - Fanta is delicious over here where it is considered second rate by most people who like soda (or pop if you like) in the States.  KitKats are also way better over here, the chocolate is superior in some way I can't explain and I have become slightly addicted to them, but I figure that's ok for now.

I need to pick an activity before they all get going without me, but it is a pain to have to actually go to them when you are trying to get your studying done and maybe - just maybe - relax a little bit afterwards.  Ah well, I can always fall back on the Tolkien Society (though after I saw their list of events, I am fairly dubious... Mock trial for Sauron for environmental crimes - REALLY?! Oy!)

Must Read Faster!

Cracking down hard to get things read and so forth hasn’t left me a lot of time to get these little entries in.  Similarly, there hasn’t been all that much to report when I am in a book.  I read two of the Arthurian Romances by Chrétien De Troyes – The Knight in the Cart or Lancelot and The Knight with the Lion or Yvain depending on what titles you want to go with.  Still finishing up with the Illiad before I head into the Odyssey tomorrow and in between that I’ve been reading some Norse Mythology overviews about Odin and Loki and how all of that got recorded so far after the telling of the tales and the practice of the religion and what that has done to the stories in terms of what we can learn from them.  Good times.

Incidentally, if anyone wanted to listen along to Lancelot, there is a lovely lady who read this and recorded it as a book on tape on the internet - I really hate Guinevere because of things like the crap she pulls in this story, but I am not going to write a report on that here, hate her for yourself by listening.  Summaries of what's going on in each section are under the link to that section - have fun while getting some high culture of the Romantic courts of France!

Meanwhile my duckies still won’t all swim together, but it is getting a little better.  Lady Katherine was very cute the other night – she’s been trying to join everything that she signed the sheet for on Fresher’s Fair day, or at least give it a try – when she couldn’t decide which dance thing to do and I ended up walking her to the Scottish dancing meeting down the road and dropping her off – very kindergarten / mom moment but it was all good and she really liked that club too, so bonus.  I am trying to figure out which one I should go to, since it is required that I attend one.  I think this requirement should be re-thought though; I am plenty busy enough with classes, reading, papers, and general living to be worried about making weekly meetings and writing my observations on another culture from them.  My guess is that, like so many components of the EC study abroad program, this is a one-size-fits-all measure that might vary in effectiveness from international travel program to international study program.

Anyway – I could go to a “talk about the 10 sci-fi books you would want with you on a desert island” meeting they are having in the Sci-Fi book club tonight at 8pm – if nothing else it would let me get a peek inside Queen’s College.  I had a long late night last night though finishing up the Arthur reading (more assigned today, huzzah) and my nap today just made me want another nap – it was needed though, functionality had dropped to unacceptable levels after the two hour seminar class I had this morning – so I am not sure if I am up for a meeting of the minds on Sci-Fi books… we’ll see.  

BOP part 2 and some Monday Woes

Well there was a spot of trouble – potential trouble more accurately – and I did get a call at about 1:30 am from a disconcerted Lady Katherine and Laruen who weren’t totally sure what to do about Clair and Alix being so friendly with the dancers in the club, or if they were sober, tipsy, drunk, or completely ‘faced.  It was an adventure to go find them and persuade them to come home, but they were never in any real danger I don’t think.  We also ran into Christian, who is a guy here at CMRS, who was also having some trouble wavering between going full on drinking and being sensible, but try as I might I could not talk him out of giving up the plan of ruin – mostly because Alix chose that moment to break away and run into the nearest club to avoid coming back with us (which prompted me to attempt to retrieve her again).  So that’s two more clubs I’ve been to in Oxford (yay?) and honestly, not impressed with the scene still.

The Purple Turtle, which is one of the more popular clubs among the CMRS crew because of its cheapness, is – I would say – the 10^th circle of hell where Satan’s toilets seem to empty.  It is underground and the building would be pretty interesting, if not for the fact that it was crowded on every inch of space with people sweating and spilling their drinks in an effort to get it on with anything that wanders past them.  It is probably fine if you are drunk enough not to notice your surroundings anymore, which seems to be the case for most of the patrons. 

There was some drama after we got back, which I cannot go into in detail without breeching the confidentiality barrier existent amongst friends.  Suffice to say that, if people of mixed tendencies go out together and those general ideas clash it does produce some animosity and fallout if things become intense at any point and people who don’t anticipate those things tend to react strongly when they occur.  Happily, things seem to already be on the mend and I don’t think any lasting damage to the peace and tranquility of the group will have resulted. 

I was up until about 4am myself trying to be a good friend to everyone involved and bring the evening in to as soft a landing as I could contrive; thus, I slept in the next morning, but it was fine since the libraries are closed on Sunday anyway.  That’s an important note for anyone coming here: do not plan to get your reading done on Sunday without checking opening hours of the library you are going to!  Many of them are closed on Sunday - except St. Peter’s, which is all access all the time, though not staffed access during off hours. 

Today is Monday and I am finding myself in a bit of a library crunch myself.  I had forgotten that I have Colloquium today, which will fall right in the prime hours of library time between lunch and dinner at 4pm (/sigh) and as an added bonus I managed to order all my books to what might be the most inconvenient location in the Bodleian system: the special collections room at the Radcliffe Science Library.  Not only is this building about 4 blocks removed from the main facilities, but they have special rules about bags and storage that required a £1 coin to operate the storage lockers, which of course I didn’t know to bring and didn’t have.  So.  Going back there after dinner I suppose and hopefully I can crunch what I estimated to be 6 hours of reading into about 3… huzzah.  

BOP

I know I've been talking about all my girlfriends here at CMRS - here is a photo of them just before leaving for the BOP at St. Peters.  From left to right: Lisa Rose, Lauren, Lady Katherine, Claire, Blue, and Alix all looking fabulous!

They went to the 'fancy dress' party of the BOP at St. Peters tonight - by the way for all future students: Fancy Dress means Costume - not dressing up fancy like for a wedding/dinner out.  Apparently they are big in this area, so if you are the type to want to attend such things you may want to either bring something you can adapt - they have Themes for these (tonight's was S, P, or C - anything that started with those letters, loosely speaking) - or budget to buy costume here, and there are plenty of shops to cater to this general tendency here.  

I gave all the girls my cell number in case they got into a fix or needed a friendly face or decided not to come home tonight - so I wouldn't be up worrying about them being out and about unaccounted for.  I know, very mother hen of me, but I didn't want to go myself and I still want to look out for my friends.  They are all very level-headed girls (when they aren't being silly on purpose to raise my blood pressure because it is amusing to them) and I'm sure they are having a good time meeting the students from St. Peters and making new friends at their JCR and bar area.  Yes, a lot of the colleges here (all of them I think actually) have an on campus bar and students of CMRS are generally welcome to go and visit St. Peter's JCR and bar area even when there is not a BOP going on (as well as their library and some other facilities).  

Hanging In

We all survived the exam (huzzah!) – really it wasn’t that bad, but the questions were pretty… ugh.  Just ugh.  Vague and not really all that easy to cope with based on the lecture and the reading because some of them were so tangential to the actual material covered that they might as well have been random.  Anyway – it was all right in the end.  I had to fudge the last one something fierce with a bunch of fluff but the other three were solid enough, if difficult to answer satisfactorily in 1,000 words.  I mean to knock the 2,000 word essay out this weekend, since I don’t plan on attending the BOP (Big Open Party) that they are having at St. Peters for the kick-off of the term.  It is a costume party and while I might have fun, it occurs to me that I might be just a tad bit too old (read: mature) for playing dress up with a bunch of strangers 8-10 years my junior with a bunch of booze to lubricate them.  Most of the girls are going, as well they should, and I hope they have fun, but I think that will just be a fine time for me to talk to Bruno online – I haven’t been able to get lined up to chat with him these past few days with all that’s been going on by me – and get some work done besides.  I am really feeling the distance between myself and my sweetie tonight, but I don't want to dwell on it here.

I am starting to use the Bodleian Library system and looking into my reading lists for my tutorials and seminar.  I am not entirely 100% sure what I am supposed to be looking at for my Viking Literature class because my instructor speaks very quickly with a heavy accent and I am not sure we even got around to nailing down an exact requirement for reading for our next meeting anyway.  I figure it will be best if I hit the general overview items on the list and have some background built up since that was at least a goal we discussed for our meeting and hope for the best there.  I am super psyched about my Classical Mythology class and re-reading the Iliad and the Odyssey – which, yes, I decided to purchase rather than check out of the library even though I own both at home, so I could mark them up.  That’s the one tragic thing about studying abroad: you can’t bring your library with you.  So sad panda about that, because I have a ton of books I would love to be referencing at my fingertips and I know just where they’d be at home, which is just a little out of arm’s reach at the moment.

I went to my first (and likely last) club on Thursday after the exam because I was corrupting the youth a bit earlier in the night by encouraging the straight-lacers to loosen up just a bit with a few drinks and so I took it upon myself to chaperone them around until they were safely home again.  It wasn’t bad, but I am not really a big club person and I don’t think I care to become one.  Tonight we ‘went out’ again as well, at least three of us, because Lady Katherine wasn’t able to join us Thursday night and no one wanted her to feel left out.  We hit a quiet pub just near the building and when we didn’t really care for it we went to another one even more nearby just in time for two-for-one drinks, which was unexpected but convenient.  Sadly, Lady Katherine found out she does not like strawberry daiquiris and had two of them to drink, so I took them off her hands and replaced them with a sex-on-the-beach which she was much happier with.  That, of course, left me with four drinks, but being the pro of the group I just made the best of it and we came back and watched movies in the common room until bed time.

Knew that would happen...

It is a clear and lovely day despite the earlier (much much earlier) rain that dampened (haha, puns) my plans to watch the sun rise.  Pity that, because lacking anything productive to be doing for an hour + before breakfast I decided it would be a good idea to lay down for a brief snooze.  This, it turns out, was a mistake and my eyes popped back open (with occasional interruptions of the alarm I snoozed and turned off not withstanding) at 10:00.  So for a net gain of 1 hour of sleep I managed to be late to my first seminar meeting – super good.  /rolleyes 

Happily, my instructor had gotten a late start on anyway and I only missed maybe 15 minutes in reality of her speaking about the general idea of the seminar as a class and so on – and she was really understanding, probably because I was SO apologetic and probably looked exactly as tired as I felt.  At least I hadn’t changed into PJs before laying down so I was able to roll right out of bed and out my room to class, which saves loads of time but leaves you with bed-head.

Ah well, after that I felt obligated to volunteer to give a presentation of the reading for next meeting – which in reality is just summarizing the reading we’re all supposed to have done by then and get the conversation going, so nothing too strenuous.  Then I went to lunch were the girls and I conspired to pitch in for a birthday gift for Alix (her birthday is tomorrow, unfortunate that it shares exam day) and we then proceeded to execute our plan to buy and stash her gift while she ate lunch just after us – operation successful by the way.  I added to that a little box of fruit shaped marzipan because Alix has been an awesome friend to me while I have been here and I really appreciate all the time we’ve spent together wandering Oxford and taking walks and going to the museums and such with a friend is always so much better than doing any of those things just yourself. 

After that we went to the Fresher’s Fair, which is basically a big ‘join our club’ and ‘sign up to win free junk’ and ‘give us your e-mail so we can send you spam for a free bobble’ event that we at CMRS get to take part in thanks to the affiliation with St. Peter’s College that we enjoy (they are also the ones feeding us regularly).  I think this only happens in the Fall Semester (or Michaelmas Term here) and is basically like the start of the school year fairs and such we have back at home, only bigger and louder and with more advertizing attached since they have so many colleges here and the event is actually run by the University with different groups going to different days over the course of the week I think. 

I am also pretty sure I signed up for information from about a dozen interesting looking clubs, most of which I’ll have no time to participate in, but the information is no obligation.  Some of them are having first meetings this weekend to ‘try it on for size’ so I might be busy with some of those between reading for my Viking Literature Tutorial and my Arthurian Legend Seminar; I don’t think I am going to worry about Classical Mythology Tutorial until I am into the next week coming up here since we don’t meet until Friday and I am revisiting the Iliad and the Odyssey, both of which I’ve read multiple times before.

I am thinking about going and buying some Frebreeze, or whatever they have equivilent here after being rubbed up on by the unwashed masses so much (as, lets face it, most college students can be considered) during the Fresher’s Fair – it was ridiculously crowded and very cramped quarters even though it was held in the fairly massive Examination Facility that the University uses to administer degree and program testing here (and yes, it was cool to go inside there, but it was too crowded to consider any photography). 

Tonight I go to bed early, and tomorrow we have exam all day more or less until dinner, but after dinner we are going out and celebrating both the birthday of our friend and being out of Integral Course (more or less, I mean that longer essay is still due in December)!  

Morning to Morning

Busy continues as I enjoy my first “all-nighter” at Oxford in preparation for the upcoming exam.  Competition for books remains high and many of the students have adopted a barter system amongst themselves for the books that are needed in the short time before the exam, completely bypassing the queue of the library’s waiting lists and procedures.  There are pro’s and con’s to this – the pro obviously being that the books get around a great deal faster and several people in a room might get to at least spend some time with the book they need in group clusters in the common room rather than 1 more person ‘getting’ it and the other 3 or whatever not at all seeing it; the con is that those who are waiting in the queue and not getting in on the group book swapping will not see the book that should be rightfully theirs for having waited their turn patiently.  So it is really both a cooperative effort of a community working together to mutually succeed and survival of the fittest by virtue of being in the right place at the right time and screw the people who adhere to the system. 

Today is, well yesterday was anyway, my 9 year anniversary – which I was glad I didn’t have too much time to think about while I was meeting tutors and making schedules and reading books today because I am sad not to be with my love on our special day.  We did talk and reaffirmed our promise to make it up to each other in London later on, so there is that.  If it had occurred to me that I could have been having shrimp and sake and going home to cuddle it would have made me sad while I was attending the “Stop Screwing Up Already!” meeting we had in the JCR tonight at 7pm (basically a standard reiteration of the rules and a few notes about recent events covered previously here). 

Both my tutorials seem very cool (Viking Literature and Classical Mythology & Legend in case you forgot / didn’t know) and I have my seminar tomorrow (Arthurian Legend)… well today actually, in 3 hours from the time of this typing at 9am.  Neither of my professors gave me an essay prompt for this week, preferring to start that in 1^st week rather than 0^th week – so I just have some background/foundation reading to do with notes for a discussion next time we meet.  In a way it is good, it will give me time to finish studying (they call it ‘revising’ here, by the way) for the test and probably knock out the Integral Essay as well, which is due on the 8^th of December at the end of the program. 

I am pretty sure everyone reading this is probably going ‘tsk tsk, there she is up all night!”  Well I had to offer moral support to my compatriots who are freaking out and give comfort to those who got their feelings bruised when the meeting they called to tell people what time it is on the rules got scolded by the person 1 rung up for getting emotional about it, and other things of that nature so I figured – what the heck? – I might as well see the sun rise over Oxford at least once right? 

Of course... it's raining.  Oh well, I am sure there will be other chances like tonight/today.

Books book and more books!

Today we (finally yay – woot – and huzzah) got our Bodleian Library cards!  This is the awesome 11 million volume, it is a big deal.  I even had to take an oath when I was made a reader:

"I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, or to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document, or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library." (Taken from the Oxford University Library Conduct webpage)

So the library here (several buildings in fact – I am including a link to the map of them) is not a ‘lending’ library like we have at home.  You go to the books, and the books are brought to you at the reading rooms if they are not on site via an ordering system that makes the card catalog seem like child’s play, but the books do not go anywhere with you – not even within the building.  Once you order a book to a reading room, that reading room is where it stays until the staff return it to its general resting place. 

Now I just have to find my perfect reading room, which is where the books are sent to for you to (obviously) read them.  Of course, I want to match up the area of study where ‘open shelf’ books will be handy to the ‘closed stack’ book requested to be delivered to that room since the library cannot house its massive collection in its useable facilities.  If I had time to take the tour this week I would, but it is Fresher’s Week already, there’s an exam on Thursday, and I have a full plate.  Ah well, I will just have to wander around a bit since I have access now with my magic reader card of happiness and joy (soon to be misery and being overworked – but today it is happiness and joy) that lets me enjoy a facility that is considered to be one of THE places in the world to do research. 

…Also, I suppose it is worth mentioning that the Bodleian Library has been used in scenes from the Harry Potter movies (the Infirmary scenes took place just outside the room we were sworn in at and the Duke Humphrey’s library area is featured as many sections of the Hogwarts Library, particularly the “Restricted Books Section” I believe).  That isn’t why it is so ridiculously awesome, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt.  Some other places I have been (Gloucester Cathedral, Christ’s Church’s Great Hall, and I think some bits of other places as well) have all been noted by our guides or professors –in passing – as locations used in Harry Potter movies as well.  So I guess if you are really into the movies you’ll go “ooooh!” and “ahhhh!” just like half the class usually does every time it is brought up while the other half roll their eyes or pretend they are with another passing group of strangers for a moment. 

After dinner tonight I need to buckle down and get two books noted and sorted so I can return them to the library for others who may need them for the upcoming exam.  Tomorrow I meet both my tutorial professors and then Wednesday I have my first seminar class as well – busy, busy, busy this week as the official semester gets underway. 

(We’re in 0^th week, or naught week, which is basically the same as the first week of the semester in a US college – meet your teachers, check out the school, get your stuff in order – but instead of having a short week like we usually do with Labor Day in there they just acknowledge it as its own week and begin officially after with 1^st week being the following week)

Can't forget the tea can we?

In all the hub-bub I forgot to tell you about the tea!

Well there wasn’t any major blow up, so I’ll disappoint the more bloodthirsty readers up front there.  We got to The Rose for tea and it was quite busy so we had to wait almost 25 minutes for a table, which we did outside.  Quick note here: most establishments in England, at least around Oxford are small compared to places at home (minus clubs etc. made for big crowds obviously) and it is wise to go out in small groups rather than descend on any one establishment with a half dozen people and expect to be accommodated right away.  Six people ended up coming to tea: Lisa Rose, Clair, Alix, Lady Katherine, Blue (another C/Katherine/yne), and myself of course.  They had one table large enough to seat us and it was occupied, so we waited. 

Once we were seated we all ordered tea, but because we’d had to wait we missed their window of “lunch” serving so anyone who wanted to order a meal other than tea (usually a pastry or crumble or what-have-you with tea) was out of luck; Claire had skipped lunch in favor of eating at tea and wasn’t totally thrilled with this development.  Also, they refused to split our checks – again, because we were such a “large” group – so when it came time to pay it was a bit of challenge that Claire solved by paying for all and letting everyone tally up to her later (she was pretty indignant that they had refused our request at the start to split our bills so I think she just wanted to be out of there as soon as possible).  The tea was good and the scones were good, but the service was quite poor – we had 1 little bowl of sugar that was half empty when we sat down – 6 of us mind you – and when we asked them to refill it they complied with only the most huffing response, so we didn’t even bother to ask for a second tiny pot of cream. 

Meanwhile, we’re all dressed up for this obviously very casual establishment full of normal adult people who wear normal walking around clothes just in for a spot of tea and a bite.  Overdressed is not a feeling I am used to experiencing, but we certainly were – not that we looked bad, quite the contrary, especially Alix who had on some major heels and managed the whole day walking all around to hit thrift stores afterwards for ‘BOP’ shopping (some dance thing we’ve been invited to as part of Fresher’s week with a theme: S, P, or C ‘dress up as’) that we didn’t know we were doing until it was sprung on us during tea. 

I had a few moments that made me need nicotine or want to snap at people here and there through the shopping, but I tried to keep it tacked down and I succeeded for the most part.  Then we went home all complaining and sore from all the walking and puffing about and general length of the day.  We all pitched in at a game store to buy a game of Cluedo which we played twice when we got back to the common room - well I only played once because I did really poorly and it isn't a game that really grabs and holds my attention to be honest, but it was the group's pick so meh.

My blisters have blisters and everything is wet all the time here… but I did find a Christmas gift for Mommy and something for myself at one of the thrift shops that I am very pleased with, so it was worth it. 

Did someone yell "Fire!" (?)

…. I am so pissed off right now.

I have spent the last HOUR in the RAIN outside CMRS trying to get hold of the people who are SUPPOSED to be in charge here to turn off the fire alarm that went off when someone was cooking eggs. 

Angry mob of students, me with no real authority, a bunch of people talking and being upset and what do I get?  Not even a thank you.

Lisa Rose finally got back from church about 3 minutes ahead of Dr. Philpott arriving and… well I just don’t know.  Not so much as a thank you from either of them.  I am not being paid for this, it is not my job, and the next time something happens they can all just deal with it themselves – I will just go get some fucking coffee.  When I told Dr. Philpott I’d been trying to call him for some 40 minutes the response I got was “Well it is Sunday.” … I almost – ALMOST – came right back with “Oh, it was Sunday for me too before I got kicked out of bed by the fire alarm and stood in the rain in my pajamas for all the world to see for 45 minutes!”  Not to mention the apologies I had to make to the shop owners who share our building while I explained that I didn’t have the power or the knowledge of how to turn the fire alarm that was driving off their customers and threatening to close their shop for the morning off. At least they were pissed at the alarm and not us poor schmucks out in the street trying every phone number we could think of and pacing in the rain.

Apparently, there really is no one on duty for the daytime hours of Saturday and Sunday as Dean, Junior Dean, or Assistant Junior Dean.  Nor do we usually expect the staff to be in.  Seems to me – especially in the first month when they don’t feed us on the weekends – that would be prime time for one of these kitchen smoke alarm incidents to happen, but I guess hindsight is always 20/20.  Still. 

Very frustrating, but I think I am over it now.  Mostly over it.  Had some extra cigarettes today but I feel justified in them because it was that or find someone to scream at – maybe not even words just generally screaming at the top of my lungs for a few minutes probably would have been fine.  Since I think that would land me in the loony bin and probably hurt someone’s feelings in the process in all likelihood I thought maybe a little more soot on my lungs would be an ok solution for now. 

Well I did get thanked – huzzah – by Lisa Rose and Bianca, and I made sure to thank all the helpers I had in the great chaos of it, as well as everyone via note on my door for being patient and calm as they were during the whole incident.  Today was definitely a two cups of tea day, maybe a third is in order, we shall see – but I am much calmer now and have accepted the fact that this is just what it is and it is better that I had been there than not and I don’t have to take charge of things when they happen that way, I choose to because I want to see it done so I have to accept what comes with that if I choose that. 

Just when I was feeling alright about things again though, then we find out (and by we I mean  I found out via Lisa Rose who told Dr. Philpott) that someone left a burner on in the kitchen.  ON THE SAME DAY WE WERE JUST OUT IN THE RAIN FOR AN HOUR + SOMEONE LEFT THE FRICKEN BURNER ON IN THE DAMN KITCHEN!  I mean… REALLY?!  Fuck me sideways people that is just plain stupid.  Pardon my language but I just… words fail to describe the experience of hearing about that – its incredulous, its outrageous, its frustrating and humorous all at the same time as it makes me think that I must be taking crazy pills because the world cannot possibly be that insane – yet evidently it is. 

My day, by the by, is completely shot.  It is 5pm here and I haven’t gotten a damn thing done other than stand out in the rain, drink tea, talk myself down from a shouting fest, and had a quick bite to eat.  I will just have to study tonight or tomorrow or something because it is clear that today the stars are against productivity (or intelligence apparently) of any sort.

One Month

I am stressed I think, it is hard to tell anymore when I am and when I am not because I have had so much stress over the years that it seems almost like a natural state of being sometimes.  Unless it is a major spike I don’t really notice it anymore – but I am definitely going to say I am stressed because I can sense it as an undercurrent to my interactions with other people, my restless energy, and some other key hints that have popped up enough to tell me “Hey you, you’re having stress, pay attention!”

Really there is a lot about this week to think about.  First, today is my official one month day here, having arrived last month on the 2^nd and so there are just two more 2^nd’s to go before I am going to be thinking about packing my bags (ugh, why did I ever unpack?! /shudder) for home.  This week is also my 9 year anniversary with Bruno, which for the first time ever I will be missing; we plan to make it up in London in December of course, but still it is a little sad not to be together on that day of all days.  This week is also Alix’s birthday, and everyone wants to do something with her for it – of course it is also the same day as the exam for the Integral course, naturally it would be, and we’ll have 7.5 hours (from 9:30 to 5) to write four 1,000 word essay answers to the questions picked from a selection we haven’t seen yet – but of course are supposed to be already studying for. 

By the by, that’s the only part of the CMRS program so far that I have to consider flawed in some way – the study for and test of the Integral Program.  The program itself is inspired and informative and gives students a chance to ease into classes and get to know the general curriculum that we have missed having been schooled in another country, for example there isn’t anyone in England who doesn’t know what happened in the year 1066 (the Normans) but in the US we’re a little oblivious.  Great, fine, and good – until we get to the matter of testing, everyone has to have a grade after all at some point.  The reading list, as I have mentioned in previous posts, is a packet of no less than 9 pages.  Our primary source of books is the Feneley Library here in the centre, because we are not permitted to obtain our official University Library Cards until the actual term begins next week; this makes competition for the books on the list, you can’t always get the book you think you might need, but you are not really even sure that you need it because you don’t know what you’re being tested on since the questions aren’t published until the exam – which would make sense if there was a really solid reading list rather than a nebulous one of “pick some things from here that interest you” … yes, in a perfect world we all want to do that here at Oxford where we came to do things we are interested in, but we also came here to get good grades and do well at these classes. 

They don’t have a GPA over here – they have a much looser way of quantifying accomplishment through actual talking and phrasing and putting some thought into trying to paint an accurate picture of the whole student (or so I’m told) rather than a hard mathematical fact attached to your resume which signifies your calculated value on a 4 point scale.  Maybe that is why they wouldn’t think this system would be so stressful a method to test with.  Common phrases around here the last week and a half have been: “Do you think I am reading enough?” “I can’t get the book I need” “Do you still have that book?” “What do you think will be the question on this unit?” “How much have you been reading?” “Can you read too much?” “I have 70 pages of notes, how will I find anything in there?”  and so on.  My guess is that most of the students will have read enough, some will have done far too much in preparation and suffer indecision on ‘what question’ because of it, and some will have to close their eyes and wing it on a prayer because they were too discouraged by the size of the list to have read much if anything at all.  I’m trying to put myself in the middle there, but I’m uncertain; for some units I am definitely prepared if the question is right, for others I could do more before the test to become prepared, but again, not knowing the question means I could be going in completely the wrong direction with my note taking (if not my reading, because that is all from the list) and not find out until it is really too late to fix – which will dump me right into that wing and a prayer group, huzzah!

Oh yeah, and the tea party is today.  Expect a follow up post on that I suppose, since I am – after the snipping going on last night in the common room – anticipating a bit of a fiasco. 

Hello October in Oxford

More rain, in case anyone is curious.  That’s the least of my problems though really at the moment.  Living with so many girls when you don’t typically hang out with that many is really… well it is a little like being back in high school to be honest – this one doesn’t like what that one said about something and that one is upset because they have something going on back home but this other one here is just instigating things for personal amusement and yet someone else has no idea that they are probably the most condescending passive-aggressive one of the bunch because they are also have some perpetual victim complex where everything happens to them just because the world is such a cold dark place… so let’s all wear pink and frolic in the tulips.  It’s enough to make me wish my head would just explode already and be done with it.

What is making all that considerably more strenuous is the fact that we are all basically living together, eating and going to class on the same routines right now, and with the rain and foul weather added to the fact that everything not a boozer factory in town closes at or around 6pm… it is just pressurizing the whole mix. 

Did I mention there is a tea party?  Oh yes, there is a tea party on Saturday that no less than 7 girls were originally going to when it was going to be on Thursday, but then it got moved to Saturday – very suddenly and I don’t know really why but it did and I was informed of this, not invited – and now I am pretty sure that we’re down to 3 people going, possibly 5 if two people who really don’t want to go end up going.  I wasn’t going to go – Lisa Rose is running this gig and set some dress code that I don’t really care for, not even the ‘rules’ themselves (dressed up, pink if possible, basically your teddy-bear-tea-party idea from when you were 5) but the fact that there is a dress code at all is a little bit annoying.  I would be all for going out to tea like normal adult people, but all these extra requirements basically make me feel like we’re back in elementary school and you can’t come to my birthday party if you don’t wear a pretty dress.

Then I found out that basically half the people who said they were going to go aren’t going and now I feel bad about not wanting to have gone in the first place, but not speaking up about it then and there – because as I say we weren’t “invited” to an outing, we were told one was taking place and it was assumed that anyone who could possibly attend would want to.  This is the same way she does her “I am going to bake tonight” things that she’s been doing once or twice a week.  It really rankles for me to have someone attempt to dictate such things rather than plan and arrange them through asking and working with the group itself.  I know that planning something with a group of girls is sometimes like herding cats, but only in extreme “we need to get something done” situations should that be an excuse for just thrusting an agenda on people of your own making.  I have a feeling she’s going to be really hurt if no one goes though, and that isn’t something I want either.  So… I am not sure what I am going to do with that – tea sounds nice, the BS that goes with it less so, being a bitch and maybe hurting someone’s feelings isn’t something I want to do, but smiling over a shit-sandwich isn’t my style either.

Also – lighter note – waiting for the shower in a building full of girls… yup, good times.