So guys, I know that Wednesday I promised you that I would be able to tell you about my tutorial, but well, things happened. So instead my report includes three exciting things, why I didn't have a tutorial, what I did Friday and Wednesday night, and archery.
So first my explanation of why I didn't have tutorial. It is actually such a simple story and such a simple mistake. After finishing my first essay and turning it in on time, I exchanged emails and made plans to meet with my tutor. I had nothing that day except for tutorial and in my phone which functions as my all purpose calender, I had set the time for tutorial at 4pm. Knowing that Archery was going on at 2-4:30, I decided to go to the first half and head to tutorial. Well, I arrived at Hartford college for my tutorial and went to the room I needed to be at and waited outside in the hall reviewing my notes. A man comes up and asks me if I have the room booked, because no one is supposed to have the room. I explain that I thought I had my tutorial. Thinking we had switched rooms, I checked my phone to have a email asking me where I had been for my tutorial and that she had waited for me and searched for me. Confused, I checked the email to unfortunately discover that I had written down the wrong time and thus missed my tutorial which was supposed to be at 3pm. Distraught I sent frantic apologies to my tutorial and now we are working on rescheduling. BAD LUCK continues to follow me like a dark shadow. I will have a tutorial one of these days.
On the bright side of the tutorial bad luck boat, I did get my first assignment for my ion channel tutorial with Dr. Tucker. 30 scientific papers later, I should be able to write that paper which is due in about 2 weeks. I am looking forward to it.
I, finally, got a chance to go clubbing. On Wednesday night, which isn't as a bad a night as it sounds, we went to a club called Lava Ignite aka Park end. I didn't have anything the next day until late, so it wasn't so bad to stay out late. Lava Ignite has a £5 entrance fee to get access to their two dance floors. The downstairs dance floor is lovingly called the "cheese" floor which plays largely 70s and 80s music and a few overplayed current songs. The point is that everyone knows the music and sings along. By midnight, the floor is so packed that there is barely any room to dance. The upper floor plays more current club music but it wasn't as much fun. I definitely had fun dancing the night away.
Friday night, Sara and I got our friend Kate to get us tickets for Mansfield college event called Champagne and Chocolates which of course is the obvious thing, unlimited champagne and chocolates. Our mutual friend Heather, who is at LSE in London, came in also and went to the Formal dinner. That is where our night really got interesting. So it turns out that the president of Mansfield is close friends with all around amazing actor Alan Rickman, most people know him as Snape from Harry Potter, and he had come for formal dinner that night. Heather secretly took stalkerish picture of him at dinner, but I had resigned myself to not seeing him. Well we had had enough of the chocolate and champagne, and luck would have it, as we left so did Alan Rickman to his car. Sara and Heather followed after him a bit and he even ended up saying Hello to them. Sara about fainted. So it was quite cool to be within 5 feet of a famous actor, particularly one I admired and recognized. Talk about making the University of Oxford more like Harry Potter, despite most of the halls and college being actual sites of shooting for the films.
Finally, Archery has progressed nicely. I am going to ramp up my practices to three times a week and have been assigned a bow for me to use. My bruise has healed quiet a bit but it is still there and you should be happy to note that I got an arm guard. My first competition is in two weeks. Hopefully I will have some medals to present when it happens.
In a week, a few of us are planning to go to London. I will take pictures and tell you all about it when it happens. Hopefully, I will also have a tutorial. If nothing else of note happens, I will wait to post next Sunday. I will remain optomistic as this week continues. These weeks have tested my resilience and the worst craving I have had is a severe craving for Steak n Shake...burgers here are abysmal. I will try to keep you all updated.
Adventures Await
KH
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Odds and Ends
I don't expect this post to be a very long one. This weekend, expect to see a post about my first tutorial here in England, but for now to keep up with a biweekly plan of attack, here are few things that have happened to me in the last week or so that just didn't make the cut for my previous posts.
To start off with, I mentioned before that there were plenty of street performers in the streets of Oxford. Well it turns out that at least for any musical act, one must acquire a permit and thus perform in front of a counsel. What does this effectively mean, that most if not all of the street performances are brilliantly done. One in particular which is really odd, is a man on a bicycle which as he pedals blows bubbles. The particularly odd part is that he is wearing a rabbit head mask and is completely done up in Alice in Wonderland style clothing (picture below). These people litter the street and change multiple times a day. It certainly makes walking down Cornmarket St, the pedestrian zoned street, a fun and interesting experience.
So, even when writing this post, I am entirely exhausted. Tuesday has because my day of activity, in which I primarily devote my time to my extracurriculars. The first of which, minus a lecture, is Archery. I have made the conscious decision to try to be on the novice squad and begin competing in competition (the first of which is in a few weeks). Consequently, I will be given more individualized attention and a bow and equipment specifically for me to use. Assuming there isn't an overwhelming number of people who want to be on the team, I will also be given the opportunity to compete. Well, Archery is a more taxing sport than one might initially assume. The draw of the bow is, if done properly, entirely done using the muscles in one's back. Additionally, the pound of the bow can be quite heavy and this weight needs to be held as you aim and fire. As part of the group interested in being in the novice squad, we were moved to our own firing range with a bows that were heavier than the other lanes. The left eye dominant bow, the one I use, was around 35lbs and much too heavy for me, the only girl. to compensate for the added weight, I gripped the bow more tightly and incorrectly and as a result, each time I fired, I fired the string into my arm (picture below). Between jogging that morning, walking the 30 minute walk to the training centre, the strength required for archery and the walk back. I was pretty exhausted, but my day did not end there.
I also had the role playing society game that night. The society game is much like the LARPs I do at Gencon and last night was the first night where we actually got to play our character. This meant that I spent about 3 hours talking to other characters and plotting for what our characters were going to do, in conjunction with other characters, over the next couple of weeks. It was fun and there is a ton of players, probably around 40-50 people playing. By the end of the night, I could barely stand and found myself wanting to tap out about 30 minutes early. By the time I returned to Regent's...I was ready for a good nights sleep. So while fun, my Tuesdays are turning out to be quite a busy day.
To conclude my mini report, I want to talk about something just plain cool about Regent's Park college. And that is that we have a tortoise that lives on campus (pictured below). I don't know anything about the turtle or why it is there, but I managed to snap a picture of it. It apparently lives on our quad. Just another neat little thing about my time here.
Well my first tutorial is tomorrow, my paper turned in, and my first science tutorial a week from Friday. I promise I am doing academic-y things too! I hope you enjoyed the update.
Adventure awaits.
KH
To start off with, I mentioned before that there were plenty of street performers in the streets of Oxford. Well it turns out that at least for any musical act, one must acquire a permit and thus perform in front of a counsel. What does this effectively mean, that most if not all of the street performances are brilliantly done. One in particular which is really odd, is a man on a bicycle which as he pedals blows bubbles. The particularly odd part is that he is wearing a rabbit head mask and is completely done up in Alice in Wonderland style clothing (picture below). These people litter the street and change multiple times a day. It certainly makes walking down Cornmarket St, the pedestrian zoned street, a fun and interesting experience.
So, even when writing this post, I am entirely exhausted. Tuesday has because my day of activity, in which I primarily devote my time to my extracurriculars. The first of which, minus a lecture, is Archery. I have made the conscious decision to try to be on the novice squad and begin competing in competition (the first of which is in a few weeks). Consequently, I will be given more individualized attention and a bow and equipment specifically for me to use. Assuming there isn't an overwhelming number of people who want to be on the team, I will also be given the opportunity to compete. Well, Archery is a more taxing sport than one might initially assume. The draw of the bow is, if done properly, entirely done using the muscles in one's back. Additionally, the pound of the bow can be quite heavy and this weight needs to be held as you aim and fire. As part of the group interested in being in the novice squad, we were moved to our own firing range with a bows that were heavier than the other lanes. The left eye dominant bow, the one I use, was around 35lbs and much too heavy for me, the only girl. to compensate for the added weight, I gripped the bow more tightly and incorrectly and as a result, each time I fired, I fired the string into my arm (picture below). Between jogging that morning, walking the 30 minute walk to the training centre, the strength required for archery and the walk back. I was pretty exhausted, but my day did not end there.
I also had the role playing society game that night. The society game is much like the LARPs I do at Gencon and last night was the first night where we actually got to play our character. This meant that I spent about 3 hours talking to other characters and plotting for what our characters were going to do, in conjunction with other characters, over the next couple of weeks. It was fun and there is a ton of players, probably around 40-50 people playing. By the end of the night, I could barely stand and found myself wanting to tap out about 30 minutes early. By the time I returned to Regent's...I was ready for a good nights sleep. So while fun, my Tuesdays are turning out to be quite a busy day.
To conclude my mini report, I want to talk about something just plain cool about Regent's Park college. And that is that we have a tortoise that lives on campus (pictured below). I don't know anything about the turtle or why it is there, but I managed to snap a picture of it. It apparently lives on our quad. Just another neat little thing about my time here.
Well my first tutorial is tomorrow, my paper turned in, and my first science tutorial a week from Friday. I promise I am doing academic-y things too! I hope you enjoyed the update.
Adventure awaits.
KH
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Clubs and Classes
So I'm sorry, It has been a week and I had initially intended to post biweekly. So to make up for it, I will be covering two topics which made up most of my week.
To Begin, Clubs. As I told you last post, I attended the Fresher's fair and during which I signed up for a multitude of clubs and societies, though not nearly as many as most people. The main clubs which I have interacted with so far have been a choir, the archery club and the role playing society.
To begin with the choir, the culture of choirs are so different here. I think this may not be so much a difference between England and America, but probably the difference of a small college and a big university. There are so many different choirs and a good chunk of them are actually paid jobs of minimal stipends. As a result, there is a high bar of professional musicality to join many of the paid choirs. I did sign up for one choir with an audition, but unfortunately gave probably the worst audition of my life. It also doesn't help that as a first soprano, my voice part is probably the easiest filled in any choir. Given that the bar is set higher than I feel comfortable with as a casual singer, I have decided to join the Regent's Park choir which is a casual choir open to all of Regents. I am ok with this decision, and hopefully when I return to William Jewell, I can pick up where I left off and sing perhaps more frequently. I did however attend some of Sara's auditions, one of note was at Exeter college in a gorgeous chapel (pictured below). The acoustics were amazing as well and I couldn't help but take a few pictures like the tourist I am.
Another bonus to resolving to do less choir is that my time is already going to be filled with many other clubs, in particular archery. Students who had attended the University of Oxford last year, many of which who were similarly at Regent's Park or Mansfield, did archery and expressed to us back at Jewell that we should give it a try. This past week were free introductory lessons in which your eye dominance was tested and new members got to try shooting. As a right handed person, it is my natural inclination to fire a bow while holding it with my left and pulling back the string with my right. It turns out, however, that I am left eye dominant, which may explain why my left eye has progressively worsened at a greater pace than my right, and as a result, I am one of the very small percentage which should fire with my right hand holding the bow and my left hand pulling back the draw. Of the four ranges in the gym, three were devoted to right eye dominant and one was devoted to left eye dominant. I was most certainly inaccurate initially, as I began to practice proper stance and positioning. The bows that we had were fairly low weight, meaning that the pounds of weight we had to overcome when pulling back the string were low with the two bows we had being 20-25 lbs. After a few rounds of shooting though, everyone felt more comfortable with the bows and there was immense joy in being able to draw back the string, aim at the target, feel the rush of letting go, the release of weight, and the satisfactory thud as the air hit the straw target. While I have a long way to go before I am any good at archery, I could see it becoming a life long passion. I imagine that the power is one that someone feels when firing a gun; but the finesse of pulling back the bow and aiming all is really what speaks to me and makes me appreciate the marksmanship of archery over that of a firearm.
My week was also punctuated with meeting with the role playing society. This quite easily 60-70 member society makes me smile every meeting. \There are quite a few characters and I know I will make some lasting friendships here. Every Tuesday is the society game, which is pretty much an ongoing LARP like the ones I do frequently at Gencon, the largest role playing convention in the world which is in Indianapolis, my home town, every year. I am pumped to get started and our first session consisted primarily of character creation. Today is the first meeting for table top games, and every Sunday there will be games as well. I am looking forward to trying out new systems and maybe even leading a few Dresden Files fate one shots. On Saturdays are your more traditional LARPs. And while foam sword fighting has never really been my cup of tea, maybe one weekend I will give it a try. So with potentially three events a week, even this club is going to keep me pretty busy.
But what is most important is not my clubs, even though they make me really happy, what is most important are the classes and by that I mean lectures, tutorials and seminars. Given that my neurobiology lecturer was too busy to tutor me, and informed us last minute, I resolved to attend all the neurobiology lectures, in addition to a few lectures on topics that interested me. These included, philosophy of the mind, philosophy of science, a seminar on RNA, DNA and protein lab techniques and then all of the neurology lectures. The first lecture I went to, early Monday morning, I was nearly giddy to be in something resembling a class. Science is really different no matter where you go. Rather, science is in many ways universal. Jargon is the same and ideas are often the same, and a university where cutting edge research is going on, the lecturers really know what they are talking about. It was probably the most familiar thing I had had since coming to the UK and it made me ridiculously happy. Lectures are most often an hour long and a majority of them occur all at the same place. The information is normally used in conjunction to a tutorial on the same topic and the lecture is really an information dump. It is in tutorial that discussion happens on the topics. Seminars are often twice as long as lectures and involve the opportunity for questions and discussion. For science, this break down is perfectly acceptable and I don't mind the lack of discussion in the lectures. For philosophy, I find the process exhausting and less interesting. In America, my philosophy courses have traditionally been almost entirely discussion based and hearing a lecturer stand up and talk about ideas and then in many senses make an argument, just makes some part of me want to jump up and ask questions and have a discussion. I will probably still attend lectures, and have to get my discussion fix from my fellow students, or wait until I actually do have a tutorial on the topic.
So speaking of tutorials, my first philosophy tutorial is this coming Thursday, with my first paper due the Wednesday night before. Given how much time I have had with the topic and how little competing work I have had, I am way ahead of schedule and should have no trouble finishing on time. On the other end of the spectrum, a science tutor has been found. She is a DPhil student and is working on putting together 6 tutorials on ion channels and topics of neurology. The best part about this is that she does research of similar topic to the research I would like to do one day. So maybe if I'm lucky she will let me be her lab grunt and help her out in the lab. To make up for the remaining tutorial, the lecturer whom I had been going to see on ion channels, offers as least one tutorial on ion channelopathies during the term. Regent's Park and I reached out to him and he made special arrangements to provide me with the opportunity to take at least one of those tutorials. This is a sigh of relief, and before I know it, I will probably be busy with work for the coming term. Regent's Park and particularly Dr. Robson have been so accommodating and have worked so hard on my behalf and I can't thank them enough. Similarly, William Jewell has been in the loop and have been equally supportive making sure that my time this first term is properly compensated when I return and worked into my curriculum. It was an unfortunate rash of bad luck, but I just had to let it go and move forward.
To conclude this post which I have realized as gotten rather long, I want to talk broadly about why I think studying abroad is so important. It came to me this morning, as I jogged through the city, that I have met some amazing and diverse people. I am making friendships which will likely grow to last my entire life. I think that the reason studying abroad makes one a more global citizen, is not the experience of being in a place not so different from your home and yet so different, but it is the realization that half way across the world, there is someone who knows your name and cares about you as an individual. These connections create a web of awareness that makes you want to come back to this foreign place and makes the idea of going somewhere far away all the more accessible. As nerve-racking and terrifying as being dropped in a new place with only a small hand full of people you know is, I know now, after only two weeks, that this experience will change my life for the better.
To Begin, Clubs. As I told you last post, I attended the Fresher's fair and during which I signed up for a multitude of clubs and societies, though not nearly as many as most people. The main clubs which I have interacted with so far have been a choir, the archery club and the role playing society.
To begin with the choir, the culture of choirs are so different here. I think this may not be so much a difference between England and America, but probably the difference of a small college and a big university. There are so many different choirs and a good chunk of them are actually paid jobs of minimal stipends. As a result, there is a high bar of professional musicality to join many of the paid choirs. I did sign up for one choir with an audition, but unfortunately gave probably the worst audition of my life. It also doesn't help that as a first soprano, my voice part is probably the easiest filled in any choir. Given that the bar is set higher than I feel comfortable with as a casual singer, I have decided to join the Regent's Park choir which is a casual choir open to all of Regents. I am ok with this decision, and hopefully when I return to William Jewell, I can pick up where I left off and sing perhaps more frequently. I did however attend some of Sara's auditions, one of note was at Exeter college in a gorgeous chapel (pictured below). The acoustics were amazing as well and I couldn't help but take a few pictures like the tourist I am.
Another bonus to resolving to do less choir is that my time is already going to be filled with many other clubs, in particular archery. Students who had attended the University of Oxford last year, many of which who were similarly at Regent's Park or Mansfield, did archery and expressed to us back at Jewell that we should give it a try. This past week were free introductory lessons in which your eye dominance was tested and new members got to try shooting. As a right handed person, it is my natural inclination to fire a bow while holding it with my left and pulling back the string with my right. It turns out, however, that I am left eye dominant, which may explain why my left eye has progressively worsened at a greater pace than my right, and as a result, I am one of the very small percentage which should fire with my right hand holding the bow and my left hand pulling back the draw. Of the four ranges in the gym, three were devoted to right eye dominant and one was devoted to left eye dominant. I was most certainly inaccurate initially, as I began to practice proper stance and positioning. The bows that we had were fairly low weight, meaning that the pounds of weight we had to overcome when pulling back the string were low with the two bows we had being 20-25 lbs. After a few rounds of shooting though, everyone felt more comfortable with the bows and there was immense joy in being able to draw back the string, aim at the target, feel the rush of letting go, the release of weight, and the satisfactory thud as the air hit the straw target. While I have a long way to go before I am any good at archery, I could see it becoming a life long passion. I imagine that the power is one that someone feels when firing a gun; but the finesse of pulling back the bow and aiming all is really what speaks to me and makes me appreciate the marksmanship of archery over that of a firearm.
My week was also punctuated with meeting with the role playing society. This quite easily 60-70 member society makes me smile every meeting. \There are quite a few characters and I know I will make some lasting friendships here. Every Tuesday is the society game, which is pretty much an ongoing LARP like the ones I do frequently at Gencon, the largest role playing convention in the world which is in Indianapolis, my home town, every year. I am pumped to get started and our first session consisted primarily of character creation. Today is the first meeting for table top games, and every Sunday there will be games as well. I am looking forward to trying out new systems and maybe even leading a few Dresden Files fate one shots. On Saturdays are your more traditional LARPs. And while foam sword fighting has never really been my cup of tea, maybe one weekend I will give it a try. So with potentially three events a week, even this club is going to keep me pretty busy.
But what is most important is not my clubs, even though they make me really happy, what is most important are the classes and by that I mean lectures, tutorials and seminars. Given that my neurobiology lecturer was too busy to tutor me, and informed us last minute, I resolved to attend all the neurobiology lectures, in addition to a few lectures on topics that interested me. These included, philosophy of the mind, philosophy of science, a seminar on RNA, DNA and protein lab techniques and then all of the neurology lectures. The first lecture I went to, early Monday morning, I was nearly giddy to be in something resembling a class. Science is really different no matter where you go. Rather, science is in many ways universal. Jargon is the same and ideas are often the same, and a university where cutting edge research is going on, the lecturers really know what they are talking about. It was probably the most familiar thing I had had since coming to the UK and it made me ridiculously happy. Lectures are most often an hour long and a majority of them occur all at the same place. The information is normally used in conjunction to a tutorial on the same topic and the lecture is really an information dump. It is in tutorial that discussion happens on the topics. Seminars are often twice as long as lectures and involve the opportunity for questions and discussion. For science, this break down is perfectly acceptable and I don't mind the lack of discussion in the lectures. For philosophy, I find the process exhausting and less interesting. In America, my philosophy courses have traditionally been almost entirely discussion based and hearing a lecturer stand up and talk about ideas and then in many senses make an argument, just makes some part of me want to jump up and ask questions and have a discussion. I will probably still attend lectures, and have to get my discussion fix from my fellow students, or wait until I actually do have a tutorial on the topic.
So speaking of tutorials, my first philosophy tutorial is this coming Thursday, with my first paper due the Wednesday night before. Given how much time I have had with the topic and how little competing work I have had, I am way ahead of schedule and should have no trouble finishing on time. On the other end of the spectrum, a science tutor has been found. She is a DPhil student and is working on putting together 6 tutorials on ion channels and topics of neurology. The best part about this is that she does research of similar topic to the research I would like to do one day. So maybe if I'm lucky she will let me be her lab grunt and help her out in the lab. To make up for the remaining tutorial, the lecturer whom I had been going to see on ion channels, offers as least one tutorial on ion channelopathies during the term. Regent's Park and I reached out to him and he made special arrangements to provide me with the opportunity to take at least one of those tutorials. This is a sigh of relief, and before I know it, I will probably be busy with work for the coming term. Regent's Park and particularly Dr. Robson have been so accommodating and have worked so hard on my behalf and I can't thank them enough. Similarly, William Jewell has been in the loop and have been equally supportive making sure that my time this first term is properly compensated when I return and worked into my curriculum. It was an unfortunate rash of bad luck, but I just had to let it go and move forward.
To conclude this post which I have realized as gotten rather long, I want to talk broadly about why I think studying abroad is so important. It came to me this morning, as I jogged through the city, that I have met some amazing and diverse people. I am making friendships which will likely grow to last my entire life. I think that the reason studying abroad makes one a more global citizen, is not the experience of being in a place not so different from your home and yet so different, but it is the realization that half way across the world, there is someone who knows your name and cares about you as an individual. These connections create a web of awareness that makes you want to come back to this foreign place and makes the idea of going somewhere far away all the more accessible. As nerve-racking and terrifying as being dropped in a new place with only a small hand full of people you know is, I know now, after only two weeks, that this experience will change my life for the better.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Fresher's Week
So it has come to my attention that my audience may no longer be entirely American, and so when I can, I will attempt to compare American customs and culture difference to what I have experienced in England and may spend time explaining the differences in considerable detail.
Fresher's week is the 0 week of the term or week before term and is characterized by a week of endless orientations, meetings, and parties. It is a week in which the freshman and visiting students arrives and provides a crash course in getting to know the city, the college, and the university. The types of events which I will cover are the talks/meetings, Library inductions, the social events, and the Fresher's fair.
The week began with a tea with the dean and a few introductory talks and ended with more specialized meetings for specific majors. Rather than bore you with all the details, I will say that it was quite a lot of information and it became quickly clear as a third year visiting student that a lot of the information was not in any way tailored towards the information I needed. As a result, I took a very relaxed care to the coming week and often didn't attend events that I felt were a waste of time. The negative effect of this was that I didn't engage in Fresher's week probably as fully as I should have. I did have a meeting specifically for visiting students at Regent's and it was then that I felt I could determine which events would be important to attend and which were not.
One of the more common events during fresher's week is the library inductions. Given the seemingly endless amount of libraries at the university of Oxford, it was important for students to attend library inductions for the libraries that were specific to their subjects of study. For certain libraries the students needed to register, so that our IDs which doubled as our Bodlean library cards would open appropriate doors and allow us to check out books. I ultimately found that it wasn't important to go to the specifically scheduled time to register with the libraries and often went independently which was a much quicker process. The downside to this is that there were some resources that aren't apparently obvious that I feel were explained in the inductions that I missed.
Now all this talk and I haven't even mentioned interacting with anyone other than the administration. Fresher's week also featured many "get to know you" events such as meals and drinks at the JCR (Junior common room) bar. Additionally every night during fresher's week there was some kind of pub or club that the group went to. So as you have probably guessed a lot of drinking was on the menu for freshers week. Due to the sheer number of late nights, I didn't actually attend many of the events in which the fresher's and fresher's counsel went out; similarly, I didn't have the desire to spend most of my money on drinks, and thus, didn't actually participate in a lot of drinking.
Despite this, I did feel like I got to know quite a few of the Freshers at these events. Everyone was very kind and open to getting to know new people. I am often reminded of many awkward "getting to know you games" that we would play in the states at the start of school and at least in my experience, I found everyone to be very open and eager at at least say hi. Maybe one of the biggest differences that I have noticed is that as a broad generalization, English are quick to make acquaintances and slow to make friends.
One of the most drastic differences I noticed between British fresher's week and American freshman orientations was the way in which drinking affects the types of events. There was quite a lot of drinking and each morning you could note the sort of zombie like haze that each of the fresher's who had gone out the night before had. American freshmen orientations are largely informational and the number of events are less numerous. There are parties, but given that all the freshmen are under-age, they are often poorly attended and contain many different types of distractors such as video games, dancing, card games, and board games. Once again though, I must insist that even my own account of freshman orientation is through my own experience at such a small college in the united states. During Fresher's week, there were also events that if I could characterize them for Americans is most like stereotypical hazing. At the same time thought, it is easy to see that Fresher's week does foster a sense of community among the freshman class and the college in general, if not that then a sense of care-taking for one another as each person in turn gets to the point in which they can't handle their alcohol.
Now I realize that I have in many ways sounded like a prude through my assessment of English partying, as clubbing and partying seem to be a much more engrained cultural characteristic here than in America. Perhaps it is our puritan roots showing, but I did make an effort to enjoy many of the events during fresher's week and did have a lot of fun at the Bop or costume party that was held at the end.
Additionally, Regent's Park College does emphasize the support system that exist within the college and it was continually emphasized that if something was wrong, it was better to say something than to keep quiet.
An Aside: one of the things that I have really appreciated as a LARPer is the number of costume stores here in England. I always feel like, at least when it comes to where I am from, that it is difficult to find costumes and costume pieces if it isn't Halloween. People here seem to have a much more open acceptance towards costuming. Makes me look forward to putting together a costume for Gencon next year.
The final major event for Fresher's week is the Fresher's fair. As a university of a couple thousand students, the number of clubs is quite astounding. Towards the end of the week a line of freshman form outside the Exam college and are filtered in through a labyrinth of booths and people. The local community of business hand out free things and coupons and the clubs all compete, vying for the attention of every student they can get their hands on. It is a very overwhelming event. I approached the event with a certain amount of caution and was highly selective about what I put my name down for. I kind of regret doing this because it became clear in the next couple days that the best thing to do is sign up for a ridiculous amount of things and weed them out after. I still have plenty of things to do and I look forward to beginning some of the club events this week as well as begin my tutorials and lectures.
This next coming week is the first week of tutorials this term. The party atmosphere will likely slow down as the weight of academics begin to invade everyone's lives. There are plenty of people who already have assignments and papers. Lectures also begin in full swing and I have littered my calender with the dates and times. Unfortunately, I did have another bad luck moment this week. On Friday I found out that my tutor for my neurobiology tutorial was too busy this term to tutor me. The administration has begun their search of replacement tutor and hopefully I will have one soon.
Well I think I will leave you with all of this and have a new post later in the week about clubs. I am excited to begin term, even if I am missing one of my more important tutorials. More to come.
~KH
Fresher's week is the 0 week of the term or week before term and is characterized by a week of endless orientations, meetings, and parties. It is a week in which the freshman and visiting students arrives and provides a crash course in getting to know the city, the college, and the university. The types of events which I will cover are the talks/meetings, Library inductions, the social events, and the Fresher's fair.
The week began with a tea with the dean and a few introductory talks and ended with more specialized meetings for specific majors. Rather than bore you with all the details, I will say that it was quite a lot of information and it became quickly clear as a third year visiting student that a lot of the information was not in any way tailored towards the information I needed. As a result, I took a very relaxed care to the coming week and often didn't attend events that I felt were a waste of time. The negative effect of this was that I didn't engage in Fresher's week probably as fully as I should have. I did have a meeting specifically for visiting students at Regent's and it was then that I felt I could determine which events would be important to attend and which were not.
One of the more common events during fresher's week is the library inductions. Given the seemingly endless amount of libraries at the university of Oxford, it was important for students to attend library inductions for the libraries that were specific to their subjects of study. For certain libraries the students needed to register, so that our IDs which doubled as our Bodlean library cards would open appropriate doors and allow us to check out books. I ultimately found that it wasn't important to go to the specifically scheduled time to register with the libraries and often went independently which was a much quicker process. The downside to this is that there were some resources that aren't apparently obvious that I feel were explained in the inductions that I missed.
Now all this talk and I haven't even mentioned interacting with anyone other than the administration. Fresher's week also featured many "get to know you" events such as meals and drinks at the JCR (Junior common room) bar. Additionally every night during fresher's week there was some kind of pub or club that the group went to. So as you have probably guessed a lot of drinking was on the menu for freshers week. Due to the sheer number of late nights, I didn't actually attend many of the events in which the fresher's and fresher's counsel went out; similarly, I didn't have the desire to spend most of my money on drinks, and thus, didn't actually participate in a lot of drinking.
Despite this, I did feel like I got to know quite a few of the Freshers at these events. Everyone was very kind and open to getting to know new people. I am often reminded of many awkward "getting to know you games" that we would play in the states at the start of school and at least in my experience, I found everyone to be very open and eager at at least say hi. Maybe one of the biggest differences that I have noticed is that as a broad generalization, English are quick to make acquaintances and slow to make friends.
One of the most drastic differences I noticed between British fresher's week and American freshman orientations was the way in which drinking affects the types of events. There was quite a lot of drinking and each morning you could note the sort of zombie like haze that each of the fresher's who had gone out the night before had. American freshmen orientations are largely informational and the number of events are less numerous. There are parties, but given that all the freshmen are under-age, they are often poorly attended and contain many different types of distractors such as video games, dancing, card games, and board games. Once again though, I must insist that even my own account of freshman orientation is through my own experience at such a small college in the united states. During Fresher's week, there were also events that if I could characterize them for Americans is most like stereotypical hazing. At the same time thought, it is easy to see that Fresher's week does foster a sense of community among the freshman class and the college in general, if not that then a sense of care-taking for one another as each person in turn gets to the point in which they can't handle their alcohol.
Now I realize that I have in many ways sounded like a prude through my assessment of English partying, as clubbing and partying seem to be a much more engrained cultural characteristic here than in America. Perhaps it is our puritan roots showing, but I did make an effort to enjoy many of the events during fresher's week and did have a lot of fun at the Bop or costume party that was held at the end.
Additionally, Regent's Park College does emphasize the support system that exist within the college and it was continually emphasized that if something was wrong, it was better to say something than to keep quiet.
An Aside: one of the things that I have really appreciated as a LARPer is the number of costume stores here in England. I always feel like, at least when it comes to where I am from, that it is difficult to find costumes and costume pieces if it isn't Halloween. People here seem to have a much more open acceptance towards costuming. Makes me look forward to putting together a costume for Gencon next year.
The final major event for Fresher's week is the Fresher's fair. As a university of a couple thousand students, the number of clubs is quite astounding. Towards the end of the week a line of freshman form outside the Exam college and are filtered in through a labyrinth of booths and people. The local community of business hand out free things and coupons and the clubs all compete, vying for the attention of every student they can get their hands on. It is a very overwhelming event. I approached the event with a certain amount of caution and was highly selective about what I put my name down for. I kind of regret doing this because it became clear in the next couple days that the best thing to do is sign up for a ridiculous amount of things and weed them out after. I still have plenty of things to do and I look forward to beginning some of the club events this week as well as begin my tutorials and lectures.
This next coming week is the first week of tutorials this term. The party atmosphere will likely slow down as the weight of academics begin to invade everyone's lives. There are plenty of people who already have assignments and papers. Lectures also begin in full swing and I have littered my calender with the dates and times. Unfortunately, I did have another bad luck moment this week. On Friday I found out that my tutor for my neurobiology tutorial was too busy this term to tutor me. The administration has begun their search of replacement tutor and hopefully I will have one soon.
Well I think I will leave you with all of this and have a new post later in the week about clubs. I am excited to begin term, even if I am missing one of my more important tutorials. More to come.
~KH
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Settling In
Settling into Oxford has been quite an experience. I think the effects of Jet lag have been quite subtle for me. I find it difficult to wake up early due to the fact that I feel like I am still supposed to be asleep and my bed looks much better than the rather cold air about me. As a result, I loose a lot of my mornings. I also am not as capable of carefully measuring out the hours and the days go by quicker than I expected. Similarly it is quite easy for me to stay up until 1am like your normal college student. So on a whole, my sleeping habits have been characteristic of everyone else at college and I don't seem all that abnormal at all.
The first few days of being in town have been mostly exploring and buying things that I need for the flat. The city of Oxford has more shops than your typical american shopping mall. Oxford is quite economical with its space and most of the buildings and pubs remind me of the Tardis from Doctor Who. They are quite bigger on the inside than they look from the outside. When you think a pub or a shop doesn't have much space, it is likely in reality a labyrinth of rooms and seating utilizing at least two floors of space.
Food at Regent's is provided for lunch and dinner Monday through Friday but the process is a bit more convoluted. By 2pm the day before, you need to go on-line and book the meals for the next day, specifying whether you are vegetarian or have some kind of allergy. For meals on Monday, you must book before 2pm on Friday. The dining hall is at the far end of the quad (pictured below) and is a quite beautiful and the hall has a number of paintings depicting current and former presidents and other members of title in the college. Meals are served to you, unless you choose to eat the self serve salad bar. Dinner includes an appetizer, main course, and dessert. The waiters and waitresses are nice and I try to thank them for their work at every meal. There is only one option at each meal which makes it most different from the meals at college in America which feature a buffet style. Almost all the food has been quite good and there is always plenty of food to go around. Also, it is customary to stand behind your chair until someone has said grace at the beginning of each meal.
We have had one formal meal at Oxford which requires students to wear a commoner's gown which is most like a black vest with a collar with long strips of cloth that fall down the arms. This is generally worn over business attire/nice clothing. Wine is served with formal dinner and the food is also marginally better. Coffee and Tea are also served after.
Continuing with that line of thought, I have finally gotten the chance to explore the grocery a little more. The idea of convenient food is a fairly new idea in England. Frozen meals that are easy to heat and preprepared packaging are few and far between and often not very good. You are better off cooking when you can, and the grocery is well stocked with all kinds of fresh produce, meats and cheeses. I have settled with peanut butter and bread and pasta, at least to start with.
To finish my discussion of settling in, I will talk a bit about the beauty and architecture of Oxford. I am going to include some images from a walk I took with my fellow study abroad student, Ben. We went to one of the more beautiful parks at Christ Church Cathedral and I got the chance to take a few pictures. When walking down the streets of Oxford, each moment is one for a picture. Moss and nature intermingle with stone buildings mostly inspired by Gothic architecture. In the streets you wont see any animal life except pigeons but go a mere five feet behind the building lined streets and you can find cows and swans and all sorts of creatures.
The week before classes is called Fresher's week and I will be giving a full report of this week some time this weekend. There is a lot to say and I feel like it deserves its own post.
The first few days of being in town have been mostly exploring and buying things that I need for the flat. The city of Oxford has more shops than your typical american shopping mall. Oxford is quite economical with its space and most of the buildings and pubs remind me of the Tardis from Doctor Who. They are quite bigger on the inside than they look from the outside. When you think a pub or a shop doesn't have much space, it is likely in reality a labyrinth of rooms and seating utilizing at least two floors of space.
Food at Regent's is provided for lunch and dinner Monday through Friday but the process is a bit more convoluted. By 2pm the day before, you need to go on-line and book the meals for the next day, specifying whether you are vegetarian or have some kind of allergy. For meals on Monday, you must book before 2pm on Friday. The dining hall is at the far end of the quad (pictured below) and is a quite beautiful and the hall has a number of paintings depicting current and former presidents and other members of title in the college. Meals are served to you, unless you choose to eat the self serve salad bar. Dinner includes an appetizer, main course, and dessert. The waiters and waitresses are nice and I try to thank them for their work at every meal. There is only one option at each meal which makes it most different from the meals at college in America which feature a buffet style. Almost all the food has been quite good and there is always plenty of food to go around. Also, it is customary to stand behind your chair until someone has said grace at the beginning of each meal.
We have had one formal meal at Oxford which requires students to wear a commoner's gown which is most like a black vest with a collar with long strips of cloth that fall down the arms. This is generally worn over business attire/nice clothing. Wine is served with formal dinner and the food is also marginally better. Coffee and Tea are also served after.
Continuing with that line of thought, I have finally gotten the chance to explore the grocery a little more. The idea of convenient food is a fairly new idea in England. Frozen meals that are easy to heat and preprepared packaging are few and far between and often not very good. You are better off cooking when you can, and the grocery is well stocked with all kinds of fresh produce, meats and cheeses. I have settled with peanut butter and bread and pasta, at least to start with.
To finish my discussion of settling in, I will talk a bit about the beauty and architecture of Oxford. I am going to include some images from a walk I took with my fellow study abroad student, Ben. We went to one of the more beautiful parks at Christ Church Cathedral and I got the chance to take a few pictures. When walking down the streets of Oxford, each moment is one for a picture. Moss and nature intermingle with stone buildings mostly inspired by Gothic architecture. In the streets you wont see any animal life except pigeons but go a mere five feet behind the building lined streets and you can find cows and swans and all sorts of creatures.
The week before classes is called Fresher's week and I will be giving a full report of this week some time this weekend. There is a lot to say and I feel like it deserves its own post.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Stumbling at the Starting Line
I made it! And boy was it a long Journey.
On Tuesday the 1st of October, I began my journey at the Indianapolis international airport. Due to my parents wanting to see me off, I was at the airport 3 hours early, where I took a nap and listened to some of the pod cast Night Vale. The plane to Chicago was one of the smallest planes I had ever ridden with a whopping 3 seats across. I sat near the aisle in one of the two seat sides. The man who sat next to me was ironically also headed to the UK. He was returning but would be on a later flight that departed at 6 pm central time and flying into Gatwick instead of Heathrow. The flight was uneventful and rather short (45 min).
I arrived at O'hare at about 3:50 pm and was lucky enough to ask at the help desk how to get to my gate, because the process involved taking a bus to one of the rather distant terminals. Arriving without a hitch, I found my two good friends Sara and Katie who were also journeying to Oxford with me and were my two neighbours on the flight. It didn't take long for us to get on the largest plane I have ever been on. The first class, buisness class and world traveler class cabins made me envious as we passed through to the economy cabin which had seats in the order of 3 5 and 3. Near the front, the three of us took our 3 seats on the right side of the plane. The airline provided a blanket pillow and travel pack which included headphones and toothbrush/toothpaste. The seats were comfortable enough and all three of us were pretty optimistic that it was going to be a good flight.
Well, at least it started off that way. We took off on time and were shortly given drinks and a hot meal for dinner. I got the Tex Mex which was actually quite delicious beef chunks and rice. They also gave us a salad, roll with butter, and strawberry cheese cake. Coffee or tea was provided following the meal. I got comfortable, watched Monster's University and was pretty psyched. Kate went to sleep immediately but we quickly came to realize that sleep was not on the agenda. The three seats in the row behind us was occupied by a young family of a mother and two young children. One of which wouldn't stop crying and the both of which kicked the backs of Kate and my chair. I would have been fine if it weren't for the fact that the group of people in the row in front of us thought they were entitled to all my leg room, leaning their chairs back as far as possible. The woman even had the audacity to complain when I bumped into her seat as I tried desperately to find a comfortable position to sleep in. It soon became clear to me that I wasn't destined to sleep and so I watched movies until our flight landed.
Tired but still more than excited to land, the three of us arrived at Heathrow. Unfortunately, the machine which connects to the plane for disembarking the plane was malfunctioning and we waited an additional half hour on the tarmac until one was made available to us. I was still excited and optimistic. We went through customs with no trouble and arrived on the other side of the airport. There we met Heather, who was studying in London for her Masters and the London School of Economics. We grabbed some Krispy Kreme at the airport which made me laugh since Indianapolis has lost all of their Krispy Kreme shops but the first american thing I find in the UK is that very shop. The doughnuts were delicious and I painfully exchanged all my cash I was carrying for pounds. We collected our things and bought a bus ticket to London.
The Bus ride was calm but I did feel a bit queasy from all the travelling. It was also at this point that I realized that I had left my umbrella which I had bought specifically for England. It had been left on the trolley I had used to carry all of my luggage. I wasn't going to let this get me down, so I stayed chipper. The best part of the bus ride was that it had free wifi and it gave us our first sights and sounds of Oxford. Heather had given us some advice about which taxi service to use and we had ordered our taxis to meet us at the station. Sara and I were going to the same place, but Kate needed to go to Mansfield and she was unfortunately on her own. The taxi was relatively inexpensive and it turned out that Regent's Park College was just around the corner from the bus station anyway. We checked in and the woman at the front desk showed us our flats.
Regent's Park College is very pretty. The building looks very unassuming from the outside with only a crest adorning the wall to signify the entrance of the college. Once through, it opens up to a quad which is lined in cobblestone and grassy areas. Our flats were in the back and it soon became clear that Regent's was quite well protected behind lock and key. Most of the doors had codes that had to be in putted in to open and we were each given a key for our flat as well as our individual room in the flat. The path to get to the flats was quite beautiful and has a sort of secret garden feel as you sneak around all the structures to get to a little alcove area where the doors are. A short cut lies through a window, which one of the kind men at the front used to dump our luggage near our front doors.
We visited my flat first which was on the ground floor and houses two students, me and another Jewell student, Rebecca. We each have our own room with a bed, book shelf, desk, dresser and closet. Across the hall is a shared bathroom with a full bath and shower, shelving, a sink and toilet. At the end of the hall is a shared Kitchen which has a freezer, fridge, microwave, oven, stove top and sink. On a whole I was quite pleased with the space and the amenities. Everything has an older feel as it is clear that the rooms were not built any time recently. Sara's flat is across the alcove and three stories up, but if she has her window open I can call to her from my kitchen, or I can walk over and ring the doorbell.
We took only a moment to settle in before attempting to find Kate. Keeping only our necessities, we grabbed a map at the front desk and travelled rather blindly to the street her flat was on. Now the walk was quite farther than we were expecting, but the journey took us right through the heart of Oxford. Not but 5 minutes away is Cornmarket St which is the centre of town. It has all kinds of shops, pubs, restaurants, malls and if you look close enough apartments and colleges. Street performers, mostly musicians, but also sand sculptors worked on the street and the streets were bustling with people. We took the moment to remark at the places we recognized (mostly fast food chains) and note places we needed to visit, but it wasn't until the following days that I got to actually explore some of the shops and side streets.
Kate lived in the location called East Oxford and it was about a 45 min walk from Regent's to her flat. Which we wouldn't have found had we not used a pay phone (a fun experience all in itself). Once at her flat we, took a picture outside her balcony (see below) to mark our first day here in Oxford and then promptly shared a taxi back to Regent's where we could finally begin to settle in.
On Tuesday the 1st of October, I began my journey at the Indianapolis international airport. Due to my parents wanting to see me off, I was at the airport 3 hours early, where I took a nap and listened to some of the pod cast Night Vale. The plane to Chicago was one of the smallest planes I had ever ridden with a whopping 3 seats across. I sat near the aisle in one of the two seat sides. The man who sat next to me was ironically also headed to the UK. He was returning but would be on a later flight that departed at 6 pm central time and flying into Gatwick instead of Heathrow. The flight was uneventful and rather short (45 min).
I arrived at O'hare at about 3:50 pm and was lucky enough to ask at the help desk how to get to my gate, because the process involved taking a bus to one of the rather distant terminals. Arriving without a hitch, I found my two good friends Sara and Katie who were also journeying to Oxford with me and were my two neighbours on the flight. It didn't take long for us to get on the largest plane I have ever been on. The first class, buisness class and world traveler class cabins made me envious as we passed through to the economy cabin which had seats in the order of 3 5 and 3. Near the front, the three of us took our 3 seats on the right side of the plane. The airline provided a blanket pillow and travel pack which included headphones and toothbrush/toothpaste. The seats were comfortable enough and all three of us were pretty optimistic that it was going to be a good flight.
Well, at least it started off that way. We took off on time and were shortly given drinks and a hot meal for dinner. I got the Tex Mex which was actually quite delicious beef chunks and rice. They also gave us a salad, roll with butter, and strawberry cheese cake. Coffee or tea was provided following the meal. I got comfortable, watched Monster's University and was pretty psyched. Kate went to sleep immediately but we quickly came to realize that sleep was not on the agenda. The three seats in the row behind us was occupied by a young family of a mother and two young children. One of which wouldn't stop crying and the both of which kicked the backs of Kate and my chair. I would have been fine if it weren't for the fact that the group of people in the row in front of us thought they were entitled to all my leg room, leaning their chairs back as far as possible. The woman even had the audacity to complain when I bumped into her seat as I tried desperately to find a comfortable position to sleep in. It soon became clear to me that I wasn't destined to sleep and so I watched movies until our flight landed.
Tired but still more than excited to land, the three of us arrived at Heathrow. Unfortunately, the machine which connects to the plane for disembarking the plane was malfunctioning and we waited an additional half hour on the tarmac until one was made available to us. I was still excited and optimistic. We went through customs with no trouble and arrived on the other side of the airport. There we met Heather, who was studying in London for her Masters and the London School of Economics. We grabbed some Krispy Kreme at the airport which made me laugh since Indianapolis has lost all of their Krispy Kreme shops but the first american thing I find in the UK is that very shop. The doughnuts were delicious and I painfully exchanged all my cash I was carrying for pounds. We collected our things and bought a bus ticket to London.
The Bus ride was calm but I did feel a bit queasy from all the travelling. It was also at this point that I realized that I had left my umbrella which I had bought specifically for England. It had been left on the trolley I had used to carry all of my luggage. I wasn't going to let this get me down, so I stayed chipper. The best part of the bus ride was that it had free wifi and it gave us our first sights and sounds of Oxford. Heather had given us some advice about which taxi service to use and we had ordered our taxis to meet us at the station. Sara and I were going to the same place, but Kate needed to go to Mansfield and she was unfortunately on her own. The taxi was relatively inexpensive and it turned out that Regent's Park College was just around the corner from the bus station anyway. We checked in and the woman at the front desk showed us our flats.
Regent's Park College is very pretty. The building looks very unassuming from the outside with only a crest adorning the wall to signify the entrance of the college. Once through, it opens up to a quad which is lined in cobblestone and grassy areas. Our flats were in the back and it soon became clear that Regent's was quite well protected behind lock and key. Most of the doors had codes that had to be in putted in to open and we were each given a key for our flat as well as our individual room in the flat. The path to get to the flats was quite beautiful and has a sort of secret garden feel as you sneak around all the structures to get to a little alcove area where the doors are. A short cut lies through a window, which one of the kind men at the front used to dump our luggage near our front doors.
We visited my flat first which was on the ground floor and houses two students, me and another Jewell student, Rebecca. We each have our own room with a bed, book shelf, desk, dresser and closet. Across the hall is a shared bathroom with a full bath and shower, shelving, a sink and toilet. At the end of the hall is a shared Kitchen which has a freezer, fridge, microwave, oven, stove top and sink. On a whole I was quite pleased with the space and the amenities. Everything has an older feel as it is clear that the rooms were not built any time recently. Sara's flat is across the alcove and three stories up, but if she has her window open I can call to her from my kitchen, or I can walk over and ring the doorbell.
We took only a moment to settle in before attempting to find Kate. Keeping only our necessities, we grabbed a map at the front desk and travelled rather blindly to the street her flat was on. Now the walk was quite farther than we were expecting, but the journey took us right through the heart of Oxford. Not but 5 minutes away is Cornmarket St which is the centre of town. It has all kinds of shops, pubs, restaurants, malls and if you look close enough apartments and colleges. Street performers, mostly musicians, but also sand sculptors worked on the street and the streets were bustling with people. We took the moment to remark at the places we recognized (mostly fast food chains) and note places we needed to visit, but it wasn't until the following days that I got to actually explore some of the shops and side streets.
Kate lived in the location called East Oxford and it was about a 45 min walk from Regent's to her flat. Which we wouldn't have found had we not used a pay phone (a fun experience all in itself). Once at her flat we, took a picture outside her balcony (see below) to mark our first day here in Oxford and then promptly shared a taxi back to Regent's where we could finally begin to settle in.
This is when the bad luck continued. After unpacking all my things, I came to realize that my laptop was malfunctioning. It was turning on and the hard drive was humming and blinking happily, but the monitor refused to turn on. This is when I became good friends with IT. I went to them and we hypothesized that the video card had died given that even when hooked up to a second monitor via a VGA cable there was no visual communication. Holding back frustrated tears, I returned to my flat to find a way to communicate this to my parents, so that the next course of action could be taken. This is when I came to realize the two hardest things about being in England. 5 hour time differences and lack of phones. Over last couple days it has been difficult to coordinate with anyone. While on campus I do have wifi and am able to facebook message or email individuals, but a combination of the UK address and the having to remain in one spot made it difficult to meet up with a good friend Ben, who had been here for a few weeks, and even get in touch with Sara and Kate whom were just across the way (they don't check their phones when they are still sleeping). Secondly, the 5 hour time difference and my utter exhaustion on the first day meant that when all of this was happening to me, early afternoon, my parents were at work or still asleep.
Fortunately there was a computer store in town, PC World, where I got the cheapest quad core laptop I could find, it was a floor model and it needed to be restored, so it took an entire day for them to restore and set up the software. Fortunately I have it now and that has made the trip much less nerve racking. It was hard to communicate with only my iPhone acting as a glorified iPod touch. I can't imagine what it would have been like without these things. I came to realize how desperately I needed the internet to keep in touch with home. Without the internet and a phone, I felt desperately alone, relying on shear luck to get me where I needed to go and find the people I needed. Similarly, one of the only ways my college was communicating to me was through email and attachment. Without a fully functional computer, I was unable to interact with my college which also made me feel under prepared and unable to prepare.
Despite these annoyances, I have managed to acclimate to the time zone rather quickly and have begun exploring Oxford and even meeting some of my fellow visiting students. I sleep almost normally, which I think is pretty impressive. I have gotten groceries which has made me miss American freezer sections and have struggled to find what I need. Hopefully I will get more inclined to preparing food, but my oven is a bit of a foreign monster. I did try my first pot pie last night at the King's Arms pub (picture below) and it was delicious. Who knew Rabbit and Cider pie would be so good. The mashed potatoes were also delicious and obviously hand made. Today I had fish in Chips.
So to finish off this long post, I promise the rest wont be nearly this long, I want to remark on things that I noticed were different in England as opposed to the USA.
Quiche, quiches everywhere.
Chicken Tikka Masala served at a Pub
Left Shift key is smaller and the back slash is next to it by the "Z"
Many of the secondary symbols on the keyboard have been moved around, @ is where the " should be
Lots of Bikers
Pay before you Eat
VAT (the price you see is the actual price, no taxes after the fact)
The babble of voices on the street includes at least 10 or 15 different languages that you have never heard before
Most restaurants or Cafes have a second floor with additional seating
Ketchup tastes different, Mayo is served everywhere
Custard also tastes different
Most places that are not stores, have little to no sign-age explaining what they are unless it is some place famous
Having a Swipe card means you have to sign everything and they will compare your signature to the one on the back of the card
Getting Carded and Still getting to buy alcohol, yay!
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