a good start (un-serious tone)

British Word of the Day: cling film - a clear, thin, plastic sheet torn from a tube to cover left-over food items. (America's "Saran-Wrap" or "Cling-Tite" for those of you with cheaper tastes). eg: "Put the cling film on tighter, so the food stays fresh."

Went to Christ Church College today. Saw oodles of stained glass, some medieval, some obviously not (placing toilets anachronistically and discreetly in the background of a medieval depiction of Frideswide, who is buried in the Cathedral.)

It was simply beautiful there, and we also saw the hall in which a portion of Harry Potter was filmed. Hogwarts isn't a real place, but Oxford is. And I'm living here. Surreal.

There are memorials to several people including the father of William Wilberforce, first name Samuel, W.H. Auden, John Locke and other wonderfully lofty people.

In scholarly/mathematical news:

I have to read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Hoping to do this ere the weekend is through, so I can devote a lot of time to attending lectures throughout Oxford. I must be missing the logical portion of my brain.

Jane Eyre = 447 pages
Wuth. Hts = 414 pages
-----
861 pages + (2,000 word essay) = V1

I'm not exactly sure how one would add those up. But I can explain this: the constant, V, is for Victorian. The 1 subscript is for the first week.

With that fully explained, I think it's obvious that my work is most certainly cut out for me.

Also, today. An example of my bad cooking skills. I attempted to make hot chocolate this evening with baking cocoa. Brilliant!

Cheers!

her goal in life was to be an echo

British Word of the Day: sharon fruit - an orange-red fruit that is edible only when ripe. (America's persimmon.) eg: "Don't eat that sharon fruit yet, you'll be poisoned!"

Well, last night after I did my daily blog, we all went out to Chequers. "HISTORIC PUB" it read as I entered the doorway. There was a "poet's bench" though I didn't look closely enough to find out why it was historic, exactly. My pint of Strongbow was too good and the friends were too captivating.

However:

Today I received a different reading list, because they switched my tutor for Victorian literature. To be frank, I was not pleased. But it's not going to be horrible, since I didn't do too much preparatory work for the course. In fact, I should be doing some right now. However, the reading list is a bit up for debate, my tutor said.

The narration and character of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are the essay topics for next 2,000 word essay due next week Friday. I have a reasonable amount of time to re-read those classics and get to work on an essay, all while going to London this weekend, visiting a baptist church 30 minutes away with free lunch, and going to tons of lectures this week.

This Oxford stuff is crazy business. My sister Reanna joked with me and told me, "You should go sit down in the library and be surrounded by books you know you'll never have time to read." In this city of 11 million books (probably more) reading one at a time is torturous, treacherous, terrible!

I need to make so many adjustments to the way I spend my time, including doing this "daily" blog. (I've already ruined that one, haven't I?)

I'll need support from back home. Emotional and especially spiritual. I obviously can't do anything by myself, and I'll be the first to admit it. Please keep me in your prayers as I go through the semester, and don't forget to write! Message me if you need the mailing address or my e-mail address.

Please pray for: my sanity throughout the semester, my spiritual life to get back on track, the reading to be quick, and my writing to come easy (within reason).

This will be a learning experience of every kind, and I don't doubt that there will be some rough parts, but I pray that I learn from those as much as from the easier parts of the term.

Blessings, and cheers!

British Word of the Day: expiry - (eks-PI-ree) an ending, a cut-off time (American's "expiration") eg: "Well, did you check the expiry date on the milk?"

I didn't blog yesterday. I can't believe it. Please forgive me.

Today was another orientation day (shocking, I know). I'm listening to Pink Floyd's "Goodbye Blue Sky" not to be creepy, but because it's English, and means more than war--it rained today, and there will be about 179 more days of that weather business by the end of this year, I've heard.

Simon Lancaster, an Scholar's Semestre in Oxford's go-to-guy, said, "In England, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes." I enjoyed him immediately. (It also helped that the evening of the same day, he had Katie Melua and Andrew Bird playing on his computer.)

This evening, I have some soup to make. We have cooking groups here at Crick House and I've joined one with a girl that's already made two loaves of bread for everyone since we've been here. I have a lot to learn, and I figure she might be a bit more experienced than I.

I need to contact my professors as well, so we can make a meeting time. They're both within reasonable walking distance of The Crick (probably within 10 minutes). The other house is huge and amazing, and everyone there seems like bundles of fun, but they're on the upper edge of Oxford, making walking cause blisters and sore joints and muscles. They'll get more exercise that way, but many of them will buy a bike before the week is through, is my bet.

Until next time,
Cheers!

mac and cheese, thinking outside of the blue box

British Word of the Day: litter (pronounced LI'-tuh) - refuse, waste, garbage. (An American's trash) eg: "Put that in the litter bin, under the sink."

Today was another one.

I'm quite exhausted, but I've decided that there will be more days like this, more worthy of my exhaustion--probably days that I actually read more than 2 pages at once.

I attended two church services today. Both in the morning, incidentally, at St. Andrew's church, a parish church. I attended the 8 AM and the 9:30. The first had no music and we read several times out of the book of common prayer, which was new to me (the book, at least.)

During the services I was struck in two ways:
1) How heathenistic does our communion sound to those who have never heard of drinking our Saviour's blood and feeding on his flesh? (This was simply because the Book of Common Prayer worded it differently than I'd ever heard before.)
2) How religiously-based Oxford really is, compared with the rest of the spiritually dark Europe.

St. Andrew's has a wonderful programme for everyone that is young of age (me three years ago, say) and has several different names for them, very active, like, Crawlers, Creepers, Jumpers, Soul Survivors, etc. It sounds almost like a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, but it seems to have gone in the other direction: wonderfully right! There were children galore in the service, along with plenty of participation from the youth. St. Andrew's is completely thriving, in a very healthy way, it seems like.

Tomorrow is orientation--serious business. With a planned schedule from 9-4. I really am a professional student these days. On Thursday we'll stop with the orientation business and finally get to have free time again--to meet with our tutors and decide when to meet with them each week (primary tutors) and when to meet with them fortnightly (every two weeks, secondary tutors).

I look forward to it all.

Cheers!

P.S. If you wonder about the blog titles, just ask; I'll be happy to tell. I'm not certain if it's exciting blog material or not.

bobbies without guns

British word of the day: tea towels - a towel used for drying off dishes, not decorative but not to be soiled with wiping up messes (America's dish towel)

Today was a good day. I have a feeling there will be a good amount of these sorts of days. It was still a bit cold, but I woke up at 7:30, and upon noticing my roommates still fast asleep, decided to sleep in until a very luxurious and unusual 8:00. I began a few postcards, and drank some more tea.

I ate my first digestive biscuits today--they are cookies that aid in digestion that have one side dipped in chocolate (which, in turn, makes them slightly more appealing than just calling them "digestives") Unfortunately, I find myself eating nearly anything that is dipped in chocolate. This isn't the worst thing I've eaten after getting here. Much better than mince pie:

We went for a jaunt about Oxford this afternoon, and it was fun to see things, and actually recognize them from my trip to Oxford during the Beatles interim in England. Surprisingly, I arrived exactly one year later in the UK than I did last year--the immigrations officer was extremely confused as to why I had a stamp from Heathrow with exactly the same date. She excused her mistake with her forgetfulness of the new year--I told her that I still had trouble that I was remembering it was 2009 instead of 2008. I do like writing 8's so much better than 9's. An unfortunate year change (as far as writing numbers goes.)

Today I saw the covered market, which is one of my favourite places here--there's a coffee shop that I was told about that has a really cutesy, girly name, with pink and purple things everywhere. (I may be in line for the next Queen of Ambiguousness--splendid.) And now I've forgotten who told me the place--I'll have to ask around because my memory seems to fail me so often. I'll find it sometime.

I also saw St. Mary Magdalene's church; it's beautiful and apparently they have a modern praise and worship. Not exactly what I'm looking for. And tomorrow, I believe I'm going to the 8 AM service at St. Andrew's. I've heard it's fairly popular with the students at SCIO, but I'm going to try to find a smaller church later on and get to know the people there really well, and let them get to know me, and recognize my face when I come in. But the preaching must be interesting, good, and quite anecdotal. It will be a "Rog" stand-in, I guess.

Saw a Starbucks today. Disappointed. Although, the Brits do have both Costa Coffee and Caffe Nero, both chains, and not much different. No strange creature for the logo, though.

We start our term the week after next; until then, it's orientation, orientation, orientation.

Until tomorrow (I hope), cheers!

arrivals & discoveries

British word of the day: queue - a standing line (eg: "Please form a queue behind the counter.")

I've landed, if you couldn't tell.

We made about four circles 'round a city name Something-Upon-Something (the exact name escapes me) and then finally landed in London/Heathrow.

From there I took a rather EXPENSIVE coach to Oxford and then took a taxi to Crick Road. This will be home for the next 3 months. The bathroom smells like fresh paint and there seems to be an endless supply of tea. What kind of island is this?

Because of impending jet lag, many girls at the Crick went for a walk with a girl in her second semester. It was cold, brisk, invigorating (yes, all that) and within minutes, I couldn't remember whether I had toes or not. I checked when I returned and indeed i did have them. I placed them immediately above the room's heater.

i have some clocks to reset and some e-mails to respond to as well as a bit of skype-ish things to download, so excuse me.

cheers!
marissa

inner nets

struggle between getting worthless ethernet connection fixed and [ab]using the wireless connection here at Trinity.

struggle?


constant.

but i will do this--following is a video of singing a happy birthday song for my sister, Reanna. She is in her last year of 20's: twenty-nine. maybe she'll turn 29 again next year.

i did forget the words for a second, but i come back strong, and aaron certainly reinforces it with ample facial expressions.