Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I'm getting "stuck in," as they say, and I keep running out of time to write a post. Ok, no more excuses, just action-packed adventure:
It's been a busy week and a half since I last posted. I turned in two essays on Monday, and I have another one due tomorrow. That's a lot of writing in one week. In non-academic news, I've been spending a lot of time in the Master's Lodgings recently. The Master and his wife have a house in college, so they often have students over for events. Last week, they had all of the visiting students over for drinks and canapes. The Bursar and some other important college people also came, so it was a good opportunity to put faces and personalities with names. I had some lovely conversations. The Master asked a lot of questions about how we were finding Pembroke and what we thought about all the tradition. We all agreed that we really like formal halls and things of that nature. Yes, it takes an hour of your night three times a week, but you really get to know the other members of your class. And it's nice to sit down together and have a good meal on a regular basis, instead of eating and running or heating and eating in your room, or whatever. Obviously, my class at Penn is much bigger than my class here, but I wish we could all get together like that on a regular basis. After NSO, we really don't do any activities together as a whole class (or when we try, it's a disaster - see waiting outside for an hour for Sophomore Skimmer and not even getting in) until we have alumni day and class reunions. Back to Pembroke, we also went to the Master's last night for a recital. Twice a term, the Master hosts a student musical recital - anyone can sign up to participate, and anyone is welcome to come and hear. I didn't perform last night, since I didn't bring any music with me and didn't really have time to find any, but all the performances were very good. We had a few people sing, someone played the cello, someone sang and played his guitar, etc. A few highlights: one of the fellows played a recorder arrangement of a Handel piece that he did himself in his university days; Sam Baker, one of our organ scholars, played a suite of dances for piano that he composed; and Manos, one of our music performance majors, played a Chopin Ballad that was absolutely stunning. I can't wait to sing or play in the next recital!
On Saturday, the Tufts office in London ran a bus to Stratford upon Avon for a day of Shakespeare. "Non-Tufts friends" were cordially invited, so I went along. The bus left from London and picked us up in Oxford on the way there. Saturday morning was raining and not looking very promising for a nice day. I was tired on the bus, and we got stuck in some heinous traffic on the way there - it took us an hour to go the last ten miles. But by the time we got there, the weather was clearing up and I was in a much better mood. First we went to Shakespeare's wife's cottage. Her name was Anne Hathaway, and her family lived outside of town in a 12 room cottage that was actually considered a good-sized house at the time. It still has a thatched roof and all the original walls, made of timbers filled in with some sort of organic material. The house is filled with Elizabethan furniture, including the ACTUAL SETTLE where Anne and William courted. That's one of the funny things about Stratford - we don't actually know that much about Shakespeare's life, so everything that we can prove to be his is a big deal. The tour guide kind of reminded me of the old historian in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who gets mowed down when the Medieval knights ride through the filming of his documentary. He liked to give the linguistic roots of some of the phrases we use today, like "turning the tables" (one side of the table top was polished and for display only, the other side was rough and used for doing everything else). After we finished at Anne Hathaway's, we went to Shakespeare's birthplace, back in town. There's a sort of museum leading up to it with a series of videos explaining Shakespeare's life and his importance to our culture - very cheesy. They have a signet ring on display with the initials WS, which MAY be a ring worn by the bard himself, since it was found outside the parish church in Stratford (and as if no other man in town had the initals WS). The house itself is pretty similar to Anne Hathaway's house, but has the addition of a glove-making workshop where Shakespeare's father worked. One of the coolest things about it was that so many famous authors, performers, and personalities have walked through the house at some point - one of the rooms of the house is devoted to all the people who have visited over the years. After we left "the birthplace," we wandered around Stratford to find something to eat, since it was almost 2:30 by this time. So many things in the town are named after Shakespeare or his plays: Much Ado About Toys, the As You Like It Cafe, etc. It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon, so after we ate (during which we had an intense discussion about whether Shakespeare actually wrote his own plays or not), we walked down to the river just to be outside. There's a monument to Shakespeare with statues of some of his most famous characters, so we made funny faces standing next to them and took pictures. Then we got back on the bus to come home, but instead of getting stuck in traffic on the highway again, we took the scenic route through the Cotswolds. The sun was shining, the trees were beautiful, and the villages we drove through were adorable. All in all, it was good to get out of town and out of college and do something a little different.
No set plans for the weekend yet, but I'm sure we'll find something to do. We haven't gotten the opportunity to do a lot of the touristy things in Oxford yet, so maybe we'll visit the castle or something. Hopefully I'll get back onto a more regular posting schedule.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Stress-busting and pub-hopping
I had my second Shakespeare tutorial today, which meant my first essay on Shakespeare was due. I was sort of struggling to write it, but in the process of writing my first two essays, I think I've learned a lot about how to study here. For my Milton essay, I hardly employed any critical help at all - it was hard enough just trying to narrow down something to say about Paradise Lost, since it's such a deep and complex text. By the time I was about half way through my essay, I felt like I was fishing around for information and evidence, and sort of floundered. For my Shakespeare essay, I wanted to correct that mistake by reading and using plenty of criticism. My professor gave me a reading list of things that she thought would be helpful, but it was a pretty big list. Really, I could read about Hamlet and Othello for the rest of my life and still not have read everything there is to read about those plays. At some point, you just have to stop reading and start writing. Finding that line can be tricky, but it's always better to stop sooner than you think you should, or else you'll keep saying, "well, if I just read a few more pages of this, maybe a thesis will pop into my head; maybe if I just get that book out of the extremely complicated and hard to navigate library system it will say something that sparks my interest." But obviously, you'd never write a paper then. Moral of the story: use criticism, but cut yourself off. You can't be afraid to just write!
On that note, I also realized today that I'm not getting a grade on every essay that I write. At Penn, one essay for a course could be worth 25% (or more) of my grade for the whole course. So I'm used to perfecting every sentence of my essays because of their incredible worth in terms of my overall grade. But here, I will write 6 essays for my Shakespeare class just this term. And as my Shakespeare buddy pointed out, the essays are really and opportunity to work out your thoughts. Oxford students don't get graded on their essays, they get graded on the huge exams they take at the end of the term. My grades are mostly dependent on my essay writing, but I still won't get a number grade on every essay. I'll get a lot of feedback and advice instead. And tutorials are an opportunity to ask as many questions as you possibly can and have the best discussion you possibly can with your tutor. So they're not really stressful either - they're the best opportunity I've ever had to build up a rapport with a professor. Yes, these past two paragraphs have been me explaining how I've gotten over the stress I've been feeling the past couple of days (and maybe partially explaining it away), but I feel like they're important realizations to have come to.
On a lighter note, this weekend was a lot of fun. I gave the Latin grace for the first time at formal hall on Thursday and I didn't get ridiculed for it! A bunch of people actually came up to me and told me that they thought it was really cool, so I'm really excited to do it for the rest of the year. Thursday and Friday nights were both fairly quiet - we mostly hung out in the college bar and went to bed early. "Len's" is the college bar; it's right next to our hall and it's just a little room with a bar, 2 long tables and a juke box. But everybody sort of congregates there in the evenings, so it's always fun to go and socialize. Saturday was our "fresher's photo," as you can see from the picture below. All the undergraduate and graduate freshers, as well as visiting students, met on Chapel Quad for a huge group picture. Then we ran around for probably and hour afterward finding all our friends and taking pictures, dressed all up in our full sub fuscs. After the photo extravaganza, I went to the Eagle and Child pub with the rest of the Penn people at Oxford. We hadn't seen each other yet because we're all at different colleges. For the record, the Eagle and Child is the pub where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and their literary society, the Inklings, met every week! They have a bunch of Lewis and Tolkien paraphernalia on the walls now. I almost died and went to heaven, I think. To that end, there is so much stuff to see and do around here, and I feel like I haven't had time to be a proper tourist. Maybe I'll have to work on that in the next few weeks. Sunday was full of church and essay writing. I went to a different church this Sunday - more traditional service, but it was entirely students, which I'm not sure I like. I find so much comfort in seeing people of all ages at church. I'm having a lot of fun with evensong at the chapel, not surprising given my love of singing and all. Hopefully I'll be able to continue balancing going to church in the morning and in the evening.
First Milton tutorial is tomorrow at 9 o'clock - wish me luck!
On that note, I also realized today that I'm not getting a grade on every essay that I write. At Penn, one essay for a course could be worth 25% (or more) of my grade for the whole course. So I'm used to perfecting every sentence of my essays because of their incredible worth in terms of my overall grade. But here, I will write 6 essays for my Shakespeare class just this term. And as my Shakespeare buddy pointed out, the essays are really and opportunity to work out your thoughts. Oxford students don't get graded on their essays, they get graded on the huge exams they take at the end of the term. My grades are mostly dependent on my essay writing, but I still won't get a number grade on every essay. I'll get a lot of feedback and advice instead. And tutorials are an opportunity to ask as many questions as you possibly can and have the best discussion you possibly can with your tutor. So they're not really stressful either - they're the best opportunity I've ever had to build up a rapport with a professor. Yes, these past two paragraphs have been me explaining how I've gotten over the stress I've been feeling the past couple of days (and maybe partially explaining it away), but I feel like they're important realizations to have come to.
On a lighter note, this weekend was a lot of fun. I gave the Latin grace for the first time at formal hall on Thursday and I didn't get ridiculed for it! A bunch of people actually came up to me and told me that they thought it was really cool, so I'm really excited to do it for the rest of the year. Thursday and Friday nights were both fairly quiet - we mostly hung out in the college bar and went to bed early. "Len's" is the college bar; it's right next to our hall and it's just a little room with a bar, 2 long tables and a juke box. But everybody sort of congregates there in the evenings, so it's always fun to go and socialize. Saturday was our "fresher's photo," as you can see from the picture below. All the undergraduate and graduate freshers, as well as visiting students, met on Chapel Quad for a huge group picture. Then we ran around for probably and hour afterward finding all our friends and taking pictures, dressed all up in our full sub fuscs. After the photo extravaganza, I went to the Eagle and Child pub with the rest of the Penn people at Oxford. We hadn't seen each other yet because we're all at different colleges. For the record, the Eagle and Child is the pub where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and their literary society, the Inklings, met every week! They have a bunch of Lewis and Tolkien paraphernalia on the walls now. I almost died and went to heaven, I think. To that end, there is so much stuff to see and do around here, and I feel like I haven't had time to be a proper tourist. Maybe I'll have to work on that in the next few weeks. Sunday was full of church and essay writing. I went to a different church this Sunday - more traditional service, but it was entirely students, which I'm not sure I like. I find so much comfort in seeing people of all ages at church. I'm having a lot of fun with evensong at the chapel, not surprising given my love of singing and all. Hopefully I'll be able to continue balancing going to church in the morning and in the evening.
First Milton tutorial is tomorrow at 9 o'clock - wish me luck!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Sub-fusc
For those not on facebook, here is a picture of me in my full sub-fusc: gown, ribbon tie, and all. Today we had our "Fresher's photograph," in which we all dressed up in our official academic attire and stood together for a class picture. Very Oxford.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Week One
I am spending today relaxing because it has been quite a week already! I think I mentioned that I spent most of Monday reading and focusing on schoolwork. My tutorial partner for Shakespeare, Will, wanted to work on Hamlet and Othello because he had a busy weekend leading up to our tutorial on Monday and he already knew those plays fairly well already. I read Hamlet in high school (well, sort of) but I'd never read Othello before. So I spent Sunday night after choir and hall reading Othello and Monday morning rereading Hamlet. At 2pm I had tutorial (professor, one other student, and me in a room, discussing the reading), and we spent the whole hour talking about Hamlet. I really appreciated this: in high school, we often spent our time arguing over the tragic flaw of the hero or just trying to get our heads around Shakespeare's language. But in tutorial, we got past all of that stuff to talk about more in-depth things, such as the layers of Hamlet's personality and his ability or inability to control himself and makes choices for himself. Parts of it were a little awkward, like when Madeleine, our tutor, would ask us to find an example of a something and we would sheepishly flip through our pages in silence until someone spoke up. But I feel like Will and I worked together pretty well - taking turns breaking the silence, etc - and Madeleine is really good at what she does. She's small and soft-spoken but great at asking that well-placed question that pulls the discussion in a new direction.
Tuesday I spent the day rereading books one to four of Paradise Lost for my tutorial today. I read all of PL over the summer, but I wanted to read for detail so I could start work on my essay that was due today. Yes, I had an essay on PL due today before I ever had a class about it, and without any lead-up from Milton's other works! I told Landon that it was kind of like throwing us into the ocean to be eaten by Leviathan (a reference that Milton makes in PL when describing Satan). By Tuesday night I was feeling pretty stressed about it. Madeleine gave us a list of approaches we could use to begin discussing/writing about the poem, but Milton so jam-packed his epic poem with references and big questions that those didn't really help narrow things down in terms of essay topics. I finally decided to just stop thinking about it and go to bed, and I actually woke up with a fairly decent topic floating on the top of my brain. But then I got down to writing my essay and got really frustrated. I just didn't feel that it was up to my personal standard, and if wasn't up to my standard, how was it going to be up to my tutor's standards? Thankfully I had a good opportunity to get away from it and think about something else - my basketball team had a game in Birmingham, an hour and a half away, at 4 pm.
The game was good! We didn't win, but we hung in until the last 3 or 4 minutes, when we started to get tired and make stupid mistakes. We played pretty well for only one practice together, I thought. I actually started the game, being the tallest girl who could make it, but I got taken out after a couple of minutes for making a stupid foul. I was in and out for the rest of the game. I felt ok about the game personally, but I realized that I need a lot of practice. Intellectually, I know how to run a zone defense, but I haven't actually run one for probably 2 or 3 years, and as usual, theory and practice are two different things. We have practice tomorrow morning, and I'm looking forward to really working on my skills so that I can get my body, as well as the quick-thinking part of my brain, back in the game. I thought the funniest thing about the game was its location - all the basketball games I've been to in the past two years have been at the Palestra, "cathedral of basketball," at Penn. This game was in a poorly lit gym with another game going on in the court right next to us, which meant lots of confusing whistles. There were about the same number of fans at this game as there would be at a women's basketball game at Penn, though, i.e. 10-12. The bus ride home was a good chance to chill out and not think too much about anything, and we drove past some lovely countryside and a fair number of sheep and cows.
When we got back to Oxford after the game, at about 8 pm, I walked back from the gym, where we got off the bus, to Pembroke by myself (most of the girls on the team have bikes). I mentioned something to the other girls on the team about not wanting to walk home in the dark by myself, but in the words of one of my teammates, Oxford is "ridiculously safe." I keep forgetting that I'm not in the big city where bad things actually happen after dark. I stopped to get a burrito (not as good as in the States, for the record), then came home to work on my essay. Once I started working on it, I felt a lot better about it than I did when I left it for basketball; I realized that I actually had decent ideas, I just needed to add a few sentences here and there to pull them together. At about 11 o'clock, I decided to just go to bed and get up this morning to work on it - my secret strategy, since I always think much better in the morning.
I woke up this morning with an email from Madeleine saying that she was sick and we wouldn't be having tutorial today. I was frankly glad to just finish up my essay and email it to her; it took the pressure off, at least a little. Sam and Zoe, two of the girls on my hall have been eating breakfast together every morning at 8:15 - great motivation to get out of bed. I joined them this morning, which, along with tutorial being postponed, set a really good tone for the day. I promised myself I would relax today, since I was so stressed Tuesday and yesterday, and I did so by running a significant number of errands. I needed: a sweatshirt to wear to basketball practice, so I got a Pembroke college hoodie; a water bottle for basketball; groceries, etc. I also did laundry and a lot of cleaning up around my room, including washing all the dishes and mugs that I got at the JCR's jumbo drop the first day I got here. Tomorrow I have basketball at 8:30 am, so I'll be up and ready to get some good work done, whereas I would normally just bum around on a Friday. I have my first paper for Shakespeare due Monday, so I want to reread Othello and try to get some critical reading done. That way I can finish my research Saturday and write my paper Sunday and Monday morning. Hold me to it, ok?
Tuesday I spent the day rereading books one to four of Paradise Lost for my tutorial today. I read all of PL over the summer, but I wanted to read for detail so I could start work on my essay that was due today. Yes, I had an essay on PL due today before I ever had a class about it, and without any lead-up from Milton's other works! I told Landon that it was kind of like throwing us into the ocean to be eaten by Leviathan (a reference that Milton makes in PL when describing Satan). By Tuesday night I was feeling pretty stressed about it. Madeleine gave us a list of approaches we could use to begin discussing/writing about the poem, but Milton so jam-packed his epic poem with references and big questions that those didn't really help narrow things down in terms of essay topics. I finally decided to just stop thinking about it and go to bed, and I actually woke up with a fairly decent topic floating on the top of my brain. But then I got down to writing my essay and got really frustrated. I just didn't feel that it was up to my personal standard, and if wasn't up to my standard, how was it going to be up to my tutor's standards? Thankfully I had a good opportunity to get away from it and think about something else - my basketball team had a game in Birmingham, an hour and a half away, at 4 pm.
The game was good! We didn't win, but we hung in until the last 3 or 4 minutes, when we started to get tired and make stupid mistakes. We played pretty well for only one practice together, I thought. I actually started the game, being the tallest girl who could make it, but I got taken out after a couple of minutes for making a stupid foul. I was in and out for the rest of the game. I felt ok about the game personally, but I realized that I need a lot of practice. Intellectually, I know how to run a zone defense, but I haven't actually run one for probably 2 or 3 years, and as usual, theory and practice are two different things. We have practice tomorrow morning, and I'm looking forward to really working on my skills so that I can get my body, as well as the quick-thinking part of my brain, back in the game. I thought the funniest thing about the game was its location - all the basketball games I've been to in the past two years have been at the Palestra, "cathedral of basketball," at Penn. This game was in a poorly lit gym with another game going on in the court right next to us, which meant lots of confusing whistles. There were about the same number of fans at this game as there would be at a women's basketball game at Penn, though, i.e. 10-12. The bus ride home was a good chance to chill out and not think too much about anything, and we drove past some lovely countryside and a fair number of sheep and cows.
When we got back to Oxford after the game, at about 8 pm, I walked back from the gym, where we got off the bus, to Pembroke by myself (most of the girls on the team have bikes). I mentioned something to the other girls on the team about not wanting to walk home in the dark by myself, but in the words of one of my teammates, Oxford is "ridiculously safe." I keep forgetting that I'm not in the big city where bad things actually happen after dark. I stopped to get a burrito (not as good as in the States, for the record), then came home to work on my essay. Once I started working on it, I felt a lot better about it than I did when I left it for basketball; I realized that I actually had decent ideas, I just needed to add a few sentences here and there to pull them together. At about 11 o'clock, I decided to just go to bed and get up this morning to work on it - my secret strategy, since I always think much better in the morning.
I woke up this morning with an email from Madeleine saying that she was sick and we wouldn't be having tutorial today. I was frankly glad to just finish up my essay and email it to her; it took the pressure off, at least a little. Sam and Zoe, two of the girls on my hall have been eating breakfast together every morning at 8:15 - great motivation to get out of bed. I joined them this morning, which, along with tutorial being postponed, set a really good tone for the day. I promised myself I would relax today, since I was so stressed Tuesday and yesterday, and I did so by running a significant number of errands. I needed: a sweatshirt to wear to basketball practice, so I got a Pembroke college hoodie; a water bottle for basketball; groceries, etc. I also did laundry and a lot of cleaning up around my room, including washing all the dishes and mugs that I got at the JCR's jumbo drop the first day I got here. Tomorrow I have basketball at 8:30 am, so I'll be up and ready to get some good work done, whereas I would normally just bum around on a Friday. I have my first paper for Shakespeare due Monday, so I want to reread Othello and try to get some critical reading done. That way I can finish my research Saturday and write my paper Sunday and Monday morning. Hold me to it, ok?
Monday, October 12, 2009
Getting Settled
I did a TON of work today: I figure I deserve a break, and I might as well spend it productively by writing a blog post.
So I survived the rest of Freshers Week! I can't say enough that it was totally weird going through all the orientation/get-to-know-you stuff again. One of our last official Fresher's Week events involved a pub quiz. Pembrokians have a "local," i.e. a local pub, in addition to the college bar. The local, called The Blenheim (pronounced Blenhm, for those of you who would otherwise by likely to use a more proper German pronunciation), is just around the corner from college. They have a full menu, so the night of the pub quiz, some of us went there before hand to eat (I had really tasty chili). When everyone else who was participating in the quiz showed up, we split into teams. It turns out that pub quizzes are exactly like what Philadelphians would call Quizzo: a team game of random trivia with several rounds. Ian, the guy that runs the pub, read out the questions and we answered as a team. Quizzo has three non-standard rounds - each team has to pick a round to count for double points, a pictorial round, and also a round in which all the answers connect in some way. At the Blenheim, there's still a connection round and a pictorial round, but there's also a round in which teams have to identify songs or other quotes (in this case, the quotes were snippets from Looney Tunes). My team fared very well, and though we didn't win, everyone got a bag full of free stuff including playing cards and beer t-shirts.
Freshers week is for getting to know the other students at your college and orientation events, but it's also for university-wide recruitment for sports teams and other clubs. There was a huge university-wide Freshers Fair late in the week, which was open to all Oxford students. We all went to the examination schools, big open halls sort of in the center of town, to peruse the hundreds of booths. It was sort of overwhelming - the halls were hot and packed, and the sheer amount of information available was mind-boggling. There were political clubs, musical groups and societies, language clubs, wine-tasting societies, sports teams on any number of levels, environmental groups, volunteering opportunities - really, anything you could think of. I put my name on so many email lists, I don't even remember all I signed up for. The fair was on Thursday; on Friday, my friend Anna from Tufts said that she had talked to the people at the basketball table and was going to tryouts on Saturday. I thought she meant basketball tryouts for Pembroke and agreed to go. When we met on Saturday morning, I discovered that she meant University basketball tryouts, but I was all dressed and ready to go, so we just headed for the courts. Now you have to realize that I haven't played competitive basketball since middle school. I played intermural ball all through high school, but as Maggie pointed out to me, my attendance record at Penn's gym is less than stellar. So I was sort of panting my way through drills and scrimmages, but somehow I managed to make the final cut! We're divided into two teams, the Blues, or varsity team, and twos, a junior varsity equivalent. I'm on the twos, but still, it's not bad for not having played in awhile. I have a lot of shaping up to do, but it should be good fun, as we get to travel to other universities for games. Our first "match," as they call it, is Wednesday in Birmingham, three hours away. We've only had one practice, so we'll see how it goes, but it should be a fun trip, and I'll get to see places in England I probably wouldn't have gone otherwise.
After basketball tryouts, Anna, who ended up making the Blues, and I went down to Pembroke's boathouse for an open day. The rowers were grilling out and giving people who had never rowed before an opportunity to try it out. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got there, but I had a hamburger and then gave it a go anyway. The took us into the boathouse and put us on rowing machines to teach us the basic motions, then put us straight in a boat and took us out on the river. I was fine on the rowing machine, but I ended up between two men who knew what they were doing in the actual boat, so I didn't exactly pull my weight. Actually, I got yelled at a lot by the cox. I think, therefore, my place is as a proud and enthusiastic spectator. But that's ok - I can now say that I've tried it, plus it was a lovely day on the river. The river is bordered on both sides by a park, so there were lots of people out having picnics in the brilliant sunshine. It's actually been sunny a fair number of the days I've been here, which I think is probably giving me false hope about the climate.
In addition to playing basketball, my other main activity here will be singing in Pembroke's chapel choir. Pembroke is one of many colleges at Oxford that has its own chapel. Ours is quite small, but very beautiful, with intertwining vines on the ceiling, exquisite stained glass, a marble altar and a big, old organ. The choir is run by our two organ scholars, who are here to study and write music as well as studying organ performance. The choir, about 30 members, rehearses from 3:30 to 5:30 every Sunday, with a short break for tea and cake mid-way, then sings the evensong service in the chapel. It's a very traditional Anglican service with sung responses, hymns, readings and a short message by the chaplain. After the service and a glass of sherry, the choir goes to formal hall with all the other first years, except everyone who participates in the service sits together in a small side room. The evensong service stood in stark contrast to the church I went to Sunday morning - St. Aldate's, right outside of college. It's an old church, but they've reoriented the sanctuary to be more conducive to a very modern style of worship. A very professional worship team led us in a series of praise and worship songs, then a guest speaker gave a talk about why Christianity makes philosophical sense (as opposed to other theories, like those produced by Kant, for example). It was a fun service, though VERY different from what I'm used to at home. There's another church really close by that apparently does things a little more liturgically, so I'll have to check that out next week. The contrast between the morning and evening services really struck me - I enjoyed them both, in different ways obviously. There's a part of me that loves that half-hour long, emotional worship set, but also a part that cherishes the quiet, intimate evensong service.
My actual academics began today - funny how they feel almost like a sidenote to everything else that's gone on in the past week. I had a great time in my first Shakespeare tutorial today - an hour with a professor and another student, hashing out the personality of Hamlet. Good stuff! Next up - Othello. But I do have a Milton essay due on Thursday, so I'll have to get down to work on that tomorrow. All in all, my first day of actual school at Oxford went well and I'm looking forward to getting adjusted to this whole tutorial thing.
So I survived the rest of Freshers Week! I can't say enough that it was totally weird going through all the orientation/get-to-know-you stuff again. One of our last official Fresher's Week events involved a pub quiz. Pembrokians have a "local," i.e. a local pub, in addition to the college bar. The local, called The Blenheim (pronounced Blenhm, for those of you who would otherwise by likely to use a more proper German pronunciation), is just around the corner from college. They have a full menu, so the night of the pub quiz, some of us went there before hand to eat (I had really tasty chili). When everyone else who was participating in the quiz showed up, we split into teams. It turns out that pub quizzes are exactly like what Philadelphians would call Quizzo: a team game of random trivia with several rounds. Ian, the guy that runs the pub, read out the questions and we answered as a team. Quizzo has three non-standard rounds - each team has to pick a round to count for double points, a pictorial round, and also a round in which all the answers connect in some way. At the Blenheim, there's still a connection round and a pictorial round, but there's also a round in which teams have to identify songs or other quotes (in this case, the quotes were snippets from Looney Tunes). My team fared very well, and though we didn't win, everyone got a bag full of free stuff including playing cards and beer t-shirts.
Freshers week is for getting to know the other students at your college and orientation events, but it's also for university-wide recruitment for sports teams and other clubs. There was a huge university-wide Freshers Fair late in the week, which was open to all Oxford students. We all went to the examination schools, big open halls sort of in the center of town, to peruse the hundreds of booths. It was sort of overwhelming - the halls were hot and packed, and the sheer amount of information available was mind-boggling. There were political clubs, musical groups and societies, language clubs, wine-tasting societies, sports teams on any number of levels, environmental groups, volunteering opportunities - really, anything you could think of. I put my name on so many email lists, I don't even remember all I signed up for. The fair was on Thursday; on Friday, my friend Anna from Tufts said that she had talked to the people at the basketball table and was going to tryouts on Saturday. I thought she meant basketball tryouts for Pembroke and agreed to go. When we met on Saturday morning, I discovered that she meant University basketball tryouts, but I was all dressed and ready to go, so we just headed for the courts. Now you have to realize that I haven't played competitive basketball since middle school. I played intermural ball all through high school, but as Maggie pointed out to me, my attendance record at Penn's gym is less than stellar. So I was sort of panting my way through drills and scrimmages, but somehow I managed to make the final cut! We're divided into two teams, the Blues, or varsity team, and twos, a junior varsity equivalent. I'm on the twos, but still, it's not bad for not having played in awhile. I have a lot of shaping up to do, but it should be good fun, as we get to travel to other universities for games. Our first "match," as they call it, is Wednesday in Birmingham, three hours away. We've only had one practice, so we'll see how it goes, but it should be a fun trip, and I'll get to see places in England I probably wouldn't have gone otherwise.
After basketball tryouts, Anna, who ended up making the Blues, and I went down to Pembroke's boathouse for an open day. The rowers were grilling out and giving people who had never rowed before an opportunity to try it out. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got there, but I had a hamburger and then gave it a go anyway. The took us into the boathouse and put us on rowing machines to teach us the basic motions, then put us straight in a boat and took us out on the river. I was fine on the rowing machine, but I ended up between two men who knew what they were doing in the actual boat, so I didn't exactly pull my weight. Actually, I got yelled at a lot by the cox. I think, therefore, my place is as a proud and enthusiastic spectator. But that's ok - I can now say that I've tried it, plus it was a lovely day on the river. The river is bordered on both sides by a park, so there were lots of people out having picnics in the brilliant sunshine. It's actually been sunny a fair number of the days I've been here, which I think is probably giving me false hope about the climate.
In addition to playing basketball, my other main activity here will be singing in Pembroke's chapel choir. Pembroke is one of many colleges at Oxford that has its own chapel. Ours is quite small, but very beautiful, with intertwining vines on the ceiling, exquisite stained glass, a marble altar and a big, old organ. The choir is run by our two organ scholars, who are here to study and write music as well as studying organ performance. The choir, about 30 members, rehearses from 3:30 to 5:30 every Sunday, with a short break for tea and cake mid-way, then sings the evensong service in the chapel. It's a very traditional Anglican service with sung responses, hymns, readings and a short message by the chaplain. After the service and a glass of sherry, the choir goes to formal hall with all the other first years, except everyone who participates in the service sits together in a small side room. The evensong service stood in stark contrast to the church I went to Sunday morning - St. Aldate's, right outside of college. It's an old church, but they've reoriented the sanctuary to be more conducive to a very modern style of worship. A very professional worship team led us in a series of praise and worship songs, then a guest speaker gave a talk about why Christianity makes philosophical sense (as opposed to other theories, like those produced by Kant, for example). It was a fun service, though VERY different from what I'm used to at home. There's another church really close by that apparently does things a little more liturgically, so I'll have to check that out next week. The contrast between the morning and evening services really struck me - I enjoyed them both, in different ways obviously. There's a part of me that loves that half-hour long, emotional worship set, but also a part that cherishes the quiet, intimate evensong service.
My actual academics began today - funny how they feel almost like a sidenote to everything else that's gone on in the past week. I had a great time in my first Shakespeare tutorial today - an hour with a professor and another student, hashing out the personality of Hamlet. Good stuff! Next up - Othello. But I do have a Milton essay due on Thursday, so I'll have to get down to work on that tomorrow. All in all, my first day of actual school at Oxford went well and I'm looking forward to getting adjusted to this whole tutorial thing.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
OXFORD
And so the adventures begin again - I have officially arrived at Oxford! I landed at Heathrow at 6:30 Sunday morning, a little shell-shocked, I have to say. I did sleep on the plane, but not as long as I would have liked (especially since they woke us up at 4:30 local time to serve us coffee and breakfast). My luggage was easy to find, and I didn't have any trouble finding the bus station at the airport, once I realized I needed to get to the "Central Bus Station," which happens to be quite a walk from the terminal at which I arrived. I met some other visiting students as soon as I got to the bus, though they weren't headed to Pembroke, and I even saw another Penn student, my friend Karla, on the bus! The ride to Oxford wasn't long (about an hour, I think). I couldn't believe how much the countryside between London and Oxford looked like home - rolling hills, grass just starting to turn brown, similar trees at about the same state of changing. It was kind of nice to feel familiar with the territory right away.
I arrived at Pembroke at about 9:30, and I was greeted right away by very, very nice people. You enter the college at the "Porter's Lodge" (really just a kind of foyer) to meet the Porter, a man who is in charge of all the keys and things. I got my keys and was escorted by some members of the JCR, a committee of second year students who help everyone get moved in and adjusted, as well as planning events and entertainment. We went with my luggage to my room, in the Macmillan building, commonly called "the Mac." It really reminds me of English House, for all you Penn folks, and for the uninitiated, of my dorm freshman year. The Mac is a building built in the late 1960's, I would think; it's a rather low, brick building. My single room is a good size. It's kind of a square, with the fourth wall being a wide window. The wall opposite the window is a closet and a sink. Otherwise, I have a bed, a desk, and two chairs, as well as a spinny computer chair. (Pictures to come). There are 14 girls on the hall and we share a bathroom (and on that note, I don't ever want to here another person at Penn complain about facilities - we have two showers for the hall, one of which doesn't work, and both of which are in closets with wooden doors that prevent ventilation).
Since I arrived, things have been kind of a blur. There are so many new things every day! First of all, people. In addition to all the English students, there are about 40 visiting students at Pembroke this term - 12 of them from Tufts, 3 from Cornell, 3 from Georgetown, and on down the line. I'm the only Penn student at Pembroke this term, though there are 7 of us at Oxford. I was adopted right away by the Tufts folks, who took me to their introductory meeting and on their "accomodations" shopping trip. There's a Target-like store right around the corner from Pembroke called Primark that sells duvets for 7 pounds and that sort of thing. Oh, before I get too far, a word about another new thing - the university system here. Oxford is the university and the name of the town, but the schooling at Oxford actually happens in 30 or so colleges, Pembroke being one of them. Pembroke, for example, only has about 350 students, but it has its own facilities and administration. The University is the umbrella organization above the college, and it has research, library, office, etc. facilities for students and administrators. There are many students groups and clubs at the college level, but also at the university level, and there are strong rivalries between the colleges.
Another new thing - words. I thought that the main differences between American and British English were matters of slang, but I've found that this is not exactly the case. There are a lot of everyday things that go by different names in England than they do in the States. For example, I call a knit article of clothing that you wear on your top half a "sweater." Here, unless it's a cardigan, it's called a "jumper." The kind of dress that I would call a jumper is called a pinafore here. A particular source of amusement among the girls on my corridor is my use of the word "dish soap." They call it "washing up liquid," and can't get over my term for soapy stuff you use to clean dishes. We've also had many a good laugh about accents - Sam, the girl who lives a few doors down, keeps trying to say "awesome" the way I do (it sounds cool apparently). Of course all the American students are obsessed with English accents, so I think it goes both ways.
This week has been taking up with a blinding number of information and introduction sessions, plus all the usual social activities that go along with new student orientations. The visiting students got in a day before the rest of the freshers, so the JCR took us to a posh cocktail bar. The first night everyone got in we had our first "bop," or social event. It was a "Pembroke pride" bop: our college colors are navy and bright pink, so everyone dressed up in their brightest blue and pink and craziest outfirts and we had a silent disco. At a silent disco, they bring in headphones that are attached to some sort of wireless network and play music into the headphones; there are two different stations of music, that way everyone gets to listen to music they like, and those who want to talk can hear each other perfectly. Last night we had a "name bop," where everyone dressed up to represent their name (I went as Elle Woods from Legally Blonde). The other thing we did last night was have our first formal dinner with our subject tutors. We all got dressed up and put on our "commoners gowns" (academic robes) then met our professors over champagne. When dinner was served, we went to the hall, where we have all our dinners. We had a three course meal including wine and guinea fowl for the entree. I sat near our two head tutors for English, who were discussing who was meaner. They agreed that one was worse on paper and the other in person, and the one who was worse on paper told this anecdote: one paper was so bad that she couldn't keep reading and wrote in the margin, "trump, trump, trump, this is me trudging up the stairs to throw myself out the window," then with a little line down to the bottom of the page, "thud, I've landed." I'm a little scared for classes now...
I meet my tutor for the first time this afternoon. It's a gorgeous day fall day to day - cool and beautifully sunny. Yesterday was a more typical dreary and rainy day, so I'm sure I'll be getting used to the English weather soon enough. More stories and pictures to come!
I arrived at Pembroke at about 9:30, and I was greeted right away by very, very nice people. You enter the college at the "Porter's Lodge" (really just a kind of foyer) to meet the Porter, a man who is in charge of all the keys and things. I got my keys and was escorted by some members of the JCR, a committee of second year students who help everyone get moved in and adjusted, as well as planning events and entertainment. We went with my luggage to my room, in the Macmillan building, commonly called "the Mac." It really reminds me of English House, for all you Penn folks, and for the uninitiated, of my dorm freshman year. The Mac is a building built in the late 1960's, I would think; it's a rather low, brick building. My single room is a good size. It's kind of a square, with the fourth wall being a wide window. The wall opposite the window is a closet and a sink. Otherwise, I have a bed, a desk, and two chairs, as well as a spinny computer chair. (Pictures to come). There are 14 girls on the hall and we share a bathroom (and on that note, I don't ever want to here another person at Penn complain about facilities - we have two showers for the hall, one of which doesn't work, and both of which are in closets with wooden doors that prevent ventilation).
Since I arrived, things have been kind of a blur. There are so many new things every day! First of all, people. In addition to all the English students, there are about 40 visiting students at Pembroke this term - 12 of them from Tufts, 3 from Cornell, 3 from Georgetown, and on down the line. I'm the only Penn student at Pembroke this term, though there are 7 of us at Oxford. I was adopted right away by the Tufts folks, who took me to their introductory meeting and on their "accomodations" shopping trip. There's a Target-like store right around the corner from Pembroke called Primark that sells duvets for 7 pounds and that sort of thing. Oh, before I get too far, a word about another new thing - the university system here. Oxford is the university and the name of the town, but the schooling at Oxford actually happens in 30 or so colleges, Pembroke being one of them. Pembroke, for example, only has about 350 students, but it has its own facilities and administration. The University is the umbrella organization above the college, and it has research, library, office, etc. facilities for students and administrators. There are many students groups and clubs at the college level, but also at the university level, and there are strong rivalries between the colleges.
Another new thing - words. I thought that the main differences between American and British English were matters of slang, but I've found that this is not exactly the case. There are a lot of everyday things that go by different names in England than they do in the States. For example, I call a knit article of clothing that you wear on your top half a "sweater." Here, unless it's a cardigan, it's called a "jumper." The kind of dress that I would call a jumper is called a pinafore here. A particular source of amusement among the girls on my corridor is my use of the word "dish soap." They call it "washing up liquid," and can't get over my term for soapy stuff you use to clean dishes. We've also had many a good laugh about accents - Sam, the girl who lives a few doors down, keeps trying to say "awesome" the way I do (it sounds cool apparently). Of course all the American students are obsessed with English accents, so I think it goes both ways.
This week has been taking up with a blinding number of information and introduction sessions, plus all the usual social activities that go along with new student orientations. The visiting students got in a day before the rest of the freshers, so the JCR took us to a posh cocktail bar. The first night everyone got in we had our first "bop," or social event. It was a "Pembroke pride" bop: our college colors are navy and bright pink, so everyone dressed up in their brightest blue and pink and craziest outfirts and we had a silent disco. At a silent disco, they bring in headphones that are attached to some sort of wireless network and play music into the headphones; there are two different stations of music, that way everyone gets to listen to music they like, and those who want to talk can hear each other perfectly. Last night we had a "name bop," where everyone dressed up to represent their name (I went as Elle Woods from Legally Blonde). The other thing we did last night was have our first formal dinner with our subject tutors. We all got dressed up and put on our "commoners gowns" (academic robes) then met our professors over champagne. When dinner was served, we went to the hall, where we have all our dinners. We had a three course meal including wine and guinea fowl for the entree. I sat near our two head tutors for English, who were discussing who was meaner. They agreed that one was worse on paper and the other in person, and the one who was worse on paper told this anecdote: one paper was so bad that she couldn't keep reading and wrote in the margin, "trump, trump, trump, this is me trudging up the stairs to throw myself out the window," then with a little line down to the bottom of the page, "thud, I've landed." I'm a little scared for classes now...
I meet my tutor for the first time this afternoon. It's a gorgeous day fall day to day - cool and beautifully sunny. Yesterday was a more typical dreary and rainy day, so I'm sure I'll be getting used to the English weather soon enough. More stories and pictures to come!
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