Continuing Celebrations

I have made such great friends here - they all want to make my birthday a memorable one! But I should start with Friday. On Friday I went to the library to read for my next tutorial paper, which I've been doing a large amount of reading for. In the evening, we had an Un-Special Dinner in the study room: we had pasties with either steak, chicken, pork, or vegetables, someone made a salad, and they bought cheap drinks (there were also EANABs which are equally attractive non-alcoholic drinks) to make this an un-classy event. It was really fun to hang out with everyone again, and my steak pasty was actually quite tasty. I would've liked to have an empanada, though. After we ate, some of us played the British version of Taboo, and then there was a dance party planned but our Junior Dean came back earlier than everyone expected and sort of ruined those plans. It was still a fun night though.

Today (Saturday) I woke up to work on the reading for my paper more. Then some of my friends took me out to a nice place for my birthday dinner. It was nice to go out to eat, and I was excited for their boba, but it wasn't all that great, so they all suggested I try my first "drink". I went up to the bar to order it (I'm not going to post the name, but the drink was very girly and hardly had any alcohol in it) and my friend Zander bought it for me. Apparently tomorrow, in Stratford, people are planning to take me to dinner before we see Twelfth Night, and my drink will be payed for as well. After dinner, we walked back to the house and my friend Thuy had made a special birthday dessert for me. Everyone sang, and they even lit a candle for me, but I was nervous that it would make the super sensitive smoke alarm go off so I blew it out straight away. It was really nice of everyone to care about my 21st birthday (especially since we're in a country that doesn't see 21st birthdays as a big deal) and I can't wait for tomorrow and Tuesday (May DAY) celebrations!

Thursday: Pride and the Beginning of Celebrations

I had such an eventful day yesterday, I can't even believe it. In the morning, I woke up super early (7am) so that I could allow myself time to get lost on the way to my first tutorial to turn in my first paper. That was smart, because I rode the bus past where I was supposed to go, and needed to ask for help finding the place. I met this really nice British old man who is affiliated with St. Clare's College but is currently teaching at a high school in the area. He led me to the right place while engaging in conversation and also gave me his email - see, there are nice people here!

When I found my tutor, we walked to a Starbucks and she bought me a frappuccino for our session. We talked about me so that she could get to know me better, and then we went through my paper. I was so happy to hear her positive feedback and encouraging comments. I had been really nervous because this is the first time I've ever been cautiously looked at in terms of my writing, but she explained the English grading system to me, and gave me a high mark! I'm very proud of my first paper (and I'll definitely keep it for grad school samples) but I'm hoping that I'm able to keep up the good streak and improve my writing while I'm here.

After my tutorial, I wanted to go to the Radcliffe Science Library, so I took the bus back to the Oxford Centre and tried to walk, but I got lost (again) and ended up just going back to town and grocery shopping at Tesco. (I plan on going to the RSL today after lunch.) The weather had been rather nice until I left Tesco - it started pouring as soon as I finished paying for my things, so I had an interesting walk back home.

I put away all of my groceries and went to eat lunch with some friends at Corpus. It wasn't very good, but I knew I had exciting dinner plans, so it didn't matter much. I was able to meet some of my friends' "parents" and friends of their parents, and they all seemed interested in me and my morning story. I guess I'd say that I'm widening my social sphere and adding British people into it.

Then I had my gender class, in which we learned about the history of the family, statistics about marriage, divorce, child-bearning, laws in these areas, etc (all in Britain). It was very interesting to learn about all of these in the UK, and we had some very intriguing discussions throughout the lecture. Then, one of my friends presented statistics about domestic violence, and pointed out a ridiculous case that happened last month that none of us could believe. I'm really going to enjoy that class.

I knew we only had 20 minutes to get ready for our dinner plans, so I rushed to get pretty after class. There were about 8 of us, all dressed to go to the theater, walking down High Street (yes, I did it in heels) to eat at Atomic Burger. That place is amazing! I had a burger called the "Frito Bandito" that had nachos, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, and cheese. It was delicious, and I'm glad I got to hang out with that group of girls.

Afterward, we walked over to the theater to see the London cast preform Avenue Q. It was hilarious!!! I was either laughing or smiling to keep myself from laughing the whole time! It was a little mature for some of the people we saw in the audience (especially the high school boys) but I'm really glad I was able to go. I still have most of the songs stuck in my head, but they aren't exactly appropriate to sing out loud, so I'll just have to hum the tunes! When it was over, we went to Tesco to buy some snacks, and came back to the house to plan our...

TRIP TO GREECE!!! We're flying into Athens on May 25, going to an island for the the next two days, then flying out of Athens on the 28! There are 5 of us girls flying in and leaving together, and another girl is going to leave a bit early since she has class on Monday. We're really excited about it, and I was singing songs from Mamma Mia during our planning process. The plane tickets came out to be a good price, and we've found really cheap hotels (we're planning to get one room and share to make it even cheaper) but we're going to decide which island we want to visit later on today.

Like I said, what an eventful day. And in other news, I can't believe I'm turning 21 on Monday! I'll need to post about my celebratory events, although I think they started yesterday!

Attention: I Have Completed My First Tutorial Paper!!!

What fun has this been to write a ten page paper on the classification of abnormal psychology and the problems with these methods...but I am finally done!! Phew, that took a lot of time, reading, researching, writing, organizing, structuring and restructuring, and formatting, but I am proud to say that I completed the paper the night before it's due. I will meet with my tutor tomorrow morning - hopefully our tutorial goes well.

I've basically been working on my paper and forming bonds with the people in the house these past few days, but today something special happened. I met my Oxford Parents! So I have a "mum" and a "dad" in Corpus Christi College, and I had tea with them this afternoon. My mum's name is Livvy: she's a second-year Ancient History major from the Oxford area and is the captain of the Women's Rowing Team. My dad's name is Anthony (pronounced "Antony"): he's a second-year Classics major from London and I don't think he plays any sports, but he went to San Diego when he was 7. It's a little funny that they're both younger than me, but they are really nice, and they've both expressed that they'd like to spend more time with me and invite me to events and such. Apparently I have a "little brother" as well, but he couldn't make it to our tea this afternoon because he has exams, so I'll meet him another time. I'm glad my "parents" are so nice - I was worried that they wouldn't be as welcoming as Stanford students are, but they're just as good! It'll take some time getting used to this "family" structure, especially since Stanford has "big sibs" rather than parents and whatnot, but I'm sure I'll become very close to them.

I also had dinner at Corpus tonight, and I posted a picture (taken on my janky little cell phone) on Facebook for all to marvel. Unfortunately I can't post it to this blog because the file won't transfer to the correct kind, but it was a very "Ari" dinner: spaghetti and meatballs, peas, strawberries with whipped cream, a Chelsea roll (kind of like a Cinnabon but without the cinnamon and glaze) and apple juice. I was shocked, but happy, and ate every last bit!

Tomorrow shall be exciting: After my tutorial, I'm going to check out the Radcliffe Science Library and see if I can find the books I'll need for my next tutorial paper. Then I plan on doing some reading and making it back to Corpus for lunch. I'll have my Gender and Social Change class tomorrow, which I'm excited about because one of my friends will be presenting about Domestic Violence in Britain. Then, a group of us girls are going to get all prettied-up, go out to dinner together, and go down the street to see the London Cast preform Avenue Q! I've never seen this musical, but I've heard wonderful things about it, and I can't wait! After we come back to the house, we'll plan our trip to Greece! Well it's off to beddy-bye for me, but I hope I'm able to come back tomorrow night and post about tomorrow. Cheerio!

Manic Monday

How shall I write about what I did today? Well, it involved a ton of reading, some reading, a little bit of reading, loads of reading, and still more reading. It's a wonder that I'm interested in a field with so much reading... Anyway, I gave myself some slack and slept in a little this morning, especially since I was exhausted from this past weekend. After my shower I made some breakfast and set up my little reading station in my room. The dining halls are now open, so I went to my first meal at Corpus Christi for lunch today. It was quite confusing, very different from Stanford, and nothing like what we're used to. The food wasn't too bad (apparently we have the best dining hall out of the colleges Stanfordians are affiliated with, so that's nice) but we realized that the amount of money placed on our Bod Cards isn't enough to last us the rest of the term. It's interesting because the food stipend we get isn't enough either... Anyway, the students weren't very open to talking with us during lunch, so we decided we'd be more sociable at dinner. After lunch I ran errands with one of my friends and sent postcards, which was exciting. It was pouring outside, and we were pretty soaked when we got back to the house, but we managed to stop by a cafe and grab some warm, yummy tea for our reading/paper writing. My afternoon was filled with more reading, and then dinner was a little better on the social (and meal) side. We met some nice students who pretty much only wanted to ask us about the Stanford students they knew from SoCo and the American education system (4 years of university as opposed to 3, and not being able to major in law, medicine, edication, etc). Tonight was open beer cellar night at my college, but I decided to stay in and finish my reading, which made me feel pretty productive. I rewarded myself by catching up on my TV shows, and I'm now off to bed so that I can dedicate tomorrow to writing my paper. Hopefully I can be productive tomorrow!

Chester and North Wales!

I'm back! Sorry I wasn't able to post this weekend; I had limited wifi and figured that my Facebook pictures would suffice until I was able to post about the whole trip. On Friday we saw Kenilworth Castle which was very old, and got to explore around the ruins and climb up on the ancient castle. Then we drove to Chester to drop off our luggage in our hotel rooms and took a walking tour of the town, which wasn't too exciting. Saturday we went to Conwy Castle, which was mush prettier than the previous one, and Llandudno, in which we took a tram up to see a lighthouse but we didn't have time to hike to it, so we just took pictures and tried to stay out of the pouring rain at the top of the hill. Afterward, we had a grilled dinner in the hotel restaurant. On Sunday, we went to Snowdonia (Mount Snowdon) which was really pretty, and the hike was not too rough, although it seems to always start raining whenever we leave the bus. Thank goodness it didn't snow! Then we drove to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct where we walked across the bridge and saw beautiful scenery. Afterward, we took a rest stop for a small dinner and made our way back to the Stanford House. Blimey, what a busy weekend it was! Now I need to work on my paper, which the due date was thankfully moved back to Thursday by request of my tutor (and I'm not complaining, although now I have to travel an hour to meet with her at 9am that day)!

Work already?

Hello mates! My Wednesday was filled with researching and reading, so I didn't think that would make for a very entertaining post. However, Thursday was a little more exciting. I had a tour of Corpus Christi today, in which we were shown the dining hall, the nicer-private dining rooms, each of our outside courts, the bar cellar, and again the JCR. Then we had a really nice lunch with the Stanford students in Corpus, the JCR president, our international affairs person, the two liaisons that went to Stanford's Sophomore College last summer, and the actual president of Corpus Christi. Afterwards, a friend of mine and I ran back to the house to make it in time for our class which took place in the seminar room. This is the Gender and Social Change in Modern Britain course, and the professor was really nice. We discussed the layout of the class, the assignments, and the resources she provided for us, then had a small break to determine which topic we wanted to present on. I chose "Gender Dynamics in the Classroom," so I'll be presenting during the week 4 seminar, and my paper on that topic will be due the following week. I'll also have a larger paper and a smaller paper due at the end of the course, both on different topics. The size of the class is pretty small, so hopefully we'll all get to know each other better. After all of that was settled, the professor gave us a little introduction on the different theories of feminism and arguments for why patriarchy is not detrimental to women. It was very interesting to learn about all of this, and the layout for the rest of the course looks super intriguing, so I have a feeling I'm going to really enjoy this class! Afterwards, I began to pack for the trip to Wales and Chester this weekend, which I need to finish packing for, and I should probably go to sleep early as well. I'll take lots of pictures!

Oh! My roommate and I planned our trip to PARIS, FRANCE!!! We will be going from May 11-13, traveling by Euro-star, the train that goes underneath the English Channel, and we're super excited!!!

Tea for Tuesday

My Tuesday was very relaxing, other than the fact that I was reading most of the day for my paper assignment. I was able to sleep in, finish one of the readings, and eat lunch in time for tea. Apparently Corpus Christi has tea every week in the JCR (junior common room), and they invited us to their first meeting so that we could meet the students, and perhaps our "parents" as well (if you're familiar with siblings in clubs, ethnic groups, fraternities and sororities, it's quite like those except foreign to us since we don't go 'round calling friends "mum and dad"). I didn't get an email from my "parents" until after the tea; I think the leader of the JCR sent them an angry email about how they shouldn't have neglected to contact me :P But my "dad" was the one who emailed me, his name is Anthony, and he's going to meet me at the Welcome Lunch we have on Thursday. He told me that my "mum's" name is Livvy, but I haven't heard from her yet. The students seem really nice, at least the ones we met, and I hope I get to spend lots of time with them. After tea, my friend (who made me steak the other night to pay me back for a purchase) made chicken pasta for four of us girls. That was quite an interesting dinner since the four of us were really getting to know each other by telling "partial life stories" and things in that manner. It was quite tasty, and afterward we hung out for a little before I left to plan out the rest of my week. We got more information about the Bing Trip this weekend, but I'll let you all know where we're going as soon as I find out the specifics. Hopefully there will be internet access so that I can continue posting to my blog!

Relaxing Sunday to Busy Monday

Sunday was quite relaxing, but I also walked all over Oxford shopping. I didn't think it was exciting enough to write a blog, so I decided to wait another day. So anyway, I had my first meeting with my tutors today. They both seem very nice, and we set the schedule for this term's tutorial meetings. They also said that I don't have to read my papers aloud at each tutorial, which is how some traditional tutors hold their meetings, but I'm glad I won't have to do it. I will have an assignment due next Tuesday, which is a bit of a downer since our Bing Weekend Trip is this whole weekend. Hopefully they will email me the paper prompt and readings soon so that I can get a head start on it! Afterward, I had my affiliate college library registration, so I was able to see the Corpus Christi Library and learn about how it works. It's open 24 hours and I have a lot of friends in Corpus, so hopefully we can have study "parties" there, or more like late-night/early morning cram sessions. [Can I just say that I found out something very peculiar today - students have exams at the beginning of each term to see what they remember from the previous term...I would not be very appreciative if Stanford made us do this!] The librarian seemed very nice, and I met our liaison who will show us around after the lunch and tour on Thursday. After the college library registrations, I went out to tea with some friends but ended up getting Italian ice cream! I ordered the pistachio and the Irish creme, and both were delectable. I went grocery shopping afterward, and I'm about to eat a microwaved lasagna meal. Cheerio!

Hampton Court Palace and Kew Gardens

From Oxford, past London, to these amazing places and back, there was a ton of traveling done on this Saturday. The Hampton Court Palace was so beautiful, with the royal chambers, royal gardens, royal kitchens, everything was royal and either remained from hundreds of years ago or had been redone to model what it looked like hundreds of years ago. Then we went to Kew Gardens, which very very nice but it was super cold, so we would run to the greenhouses for warmth. When we got back to the house, a group of us went to a Thai restaurant, mainly because I've never had Thai food before. Although it was delicious, the service was terrible, so we'll find another Thai restaurant to eat at next time. Later in the night we had a house progressive (where each cluster of rooms chooses a theme, dresses up, and serves something). The overall theme was British Authors, so my "pod" chose Oscar Wilde, dressed up as dandies, and served mimosas. The progressive was so much fun, and I hope we get to have another one soon. I went to my first club afterwards, and it was a very interesting experience, mainly because the music was a lot different than what we usually hear in the states...but maybe other clubs will have better music. Time for a relaxing Sunday with errands and reading before the academia starts!

Punting is meant to be leisurely? FALSE

Wow, today sure was a doozy! We had to wake up very early to register at the Bodleian Library in order to be able to access books from every library at Oxford. On the way back to the house a group of us stopped at The Missing Bean which is a really good coffee shop, and I was excited to learn that their chai tea lattes taste very much like those from Coupa Cafe (on Stanford's campus). We then were informed about how we can check out books from the Stanford House Library, and I took two books out for my tutorial. After eating lunch and watching the latest Glee episode online, we all went "punting", in which my group had quite a difficult time, perhaps because the boat house worker didn't explain to us how exactly one "punts". We took turns trying to steer the boat with the long metal pole, but we ended up backwards many times, and we constantly ran into the sides of the river. It was quite a relief to be finished, and we decided to treat ourselves to Jamie's Italian restaurant, which was very tasty. Tomorrow we are all taking a coach to the Hampton Court Palace and the Kew Gardens, so I'm very excited for that! I'm also exhausted from today, so I'll need to get my sleep for tomorrow's travels. Ironically we did not go out to a pub today, of all days, the first Friday, but I think people were planning night outings for when we come back from the trip tomorrow. Cheers!

First Class and Welcome Dinner

I am posting about yesterday since I got back very late and went right to bed. Yesterday I had my first class, The History and Architecture of Oxford, at 2pm. It was very interesting, and I'm sure it will be a great class, but I'm not sure if it will be possible to do this class in addition to my tutorial and the other course I'm taking here. Later in the evening, the Welcome Dinner was hosted in Corpus Christi College (which is my affiliated college) and it was very nice. They started us off with bread and soup, and then served us duck with vegetables, and finally gave us sorbet and coffee for dessert. I got to know more students during this dinner, which was very nice. Afterwards, a group of us (different than the previous night) went to a pub called Cape of Good Hope, which was a lot bigger than the Turf Tavern, and I tried a strawberry beer...it didn't taste as gross as normal beer, but I really got to know more students here, and we all had a great time! I should be able to post today's happenings later tonight - cheerio!

The University Tour

Today was very busy! First we had orientation meetings in the morning to inform us about the academic and cultural aspects of the trip, house policies, and emergency situations. In the afternoon I went to get a cell phone and visited Moo Moo's, a place famous for their milkshakes. I had a nutella-flavored milkshake that was amazing! We had the university tour for two hours, and I was able to see so much history and beauty. After that, we had a house meeting and they brought us Pizza Hut, and a group of people tried to get Trivial Pursuit going until we realized that it was the British version! We all failed at that game. Another group of people wanted to go out to a pub, so my roommate and I went along with them. It was very different that clubs back home, which I was glad about because I really enjoyed having Pimm's and socializing with other students in the programme. When we got back to the house, a group of girls were watching Pride and Prejudice so we joined them. I can't wait to see what the next days will bring!

And the Adventure Begins!

It is now my second day at Oxford! I arrived yesterday afternoon and was picked up from the airport by my roommate and her father. We drove to the Stanford House and the countryside was beautiful. When we got to the house we were told that our room was on the top floor - it says floor three but it's more like the fifth floor with all of the stairs we have to climb to get up there. We have a really nice view so hopefully I can post pictures soon. Yesterday we had an introductory orientation, a small tour of the main street (High Street), and a meet and greet with tea and scones. My roommate, Julianne, my friend Pats, and I went down the street to buy my a cell phone but the stores were closed so I'm going to get one today during a lunch break. We also went to buy our groceries for today and came back to eat dinner in the house. My roommate and I unpacked and were exhausted so we went to be relatively early. Today we have to set up our laptops on the Oxford network, attend multiple orientations, go on a university tour, and learn the rules of the house. More to come!