In Which I Try Many Things

New College

Before diving into everything I did in the past week, I need to say something.

Thank you.

I just want to say thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who helped and supported me. I had another moment of wonder this week, where it just struck me to my core, how crazy this is. I've loved Great Britain since I was probably 12. I've dreamed of living here for years. I worked toward this for just over a year. So many people supported me when it felt impossible. And here I am. Walking down the streets of a place I've loved so long. It's been great fun seeing Oxford pop up in my medieval history reading. Basically, I'm awestruck, and just felt the need to say thank you again. :)

This week has been amazing and slightly crazy! For 1st week, our first real week of Oxford University, we fittingly had our first week of real British weather. Basically, it rained every day this week. A few days it just was a misty drizzle all day long, some days it was light rain off and on, sometimes a combination, sometimes one or two instances of slightly heavier rain. But it has not poured, at least not during the day. Last night the rain hitting my window woke me--it wasn't slamming into the window, and it first I wasn't sure what it was, but it was closer to the rain I know in Colorado.

Sunday I tried fencing. It was a ton of fun, but the practising centre is a 40 minute walk away, and that just eats too much of my time.

Monday I met with my secondary tutor for my History & Theology of the Reformation tutorial. He's very nice and let me borrow a bunch of his books for my reading for the term. I'm currently reading an overview of the Reformation in Christian Thought: A Historical Introduction by Meister and Stump. It's well-written and very interesting, and I'm excited for the rest of the semester.

Also on Monday night (I think--it can be hard to keep track of days here!) I went with some other Summit students to a nice Chinese restaurant and ordered lamb. It was super good. And I tried a dumpling, which was ridiculously good, and we all sampled each other's food and basically everything was delish.

Tuesday I went ceilidh dancing (Scottish folk dancing) which was quite fun.

Wednesday I went ballroom dancing, which was a ton of fun. I'm going to join the Oxford University Dancesport Club and take ballroom lessons, and maybe Latin and salsa lessons. Should be pretty awesome.

Bodleian

Thursday I submitted my first essay, studied at the Bodleian (always a pleasure), and spent a night in watching Take the Lead after all this dancing. ;)

Friday (yesterday) I had my first honest tutorial. We basically discussed the Norman Conquest and my readings for an hour, then he told me what he thought of my essay (he really liked it, with a few critiques--whew), and assigned next week's readings. He assigned me some tough reading on the medieval English state, so that should be interesting, and gave me some information to start looking at a big issue to tackle in week 8.

Then yesterday afternoon we had worldview class, which was nice to get back to, then had dinner with the lovely Bywaters (Kevin Bywater teaches the worldview class).

Today it's studying and shopping and wasting the morning talking about dresses and weddings with my awesome flatmates. ;)

Also--Christmas is coming... :)

Corn Market Street