Last Monday, I started my academic journey, meeting my academic advisor, Dr. Rhodri Lewis, who is probably the funniest and most intelligent person I have met in Oxford as of yet. So after taking the hour long trek from our flat to his office in north Oxford (at a college called St. Hugh's), I met briefly with Dr. Lewis and he gave me the names of my tutors and the subjects I would be taking for my tutorials.
On Monday we all got to tour the Oxford Union which is Oxford's debating society! It has beautiful libraries and reading rooms and is going to be a great study spot this semester! Also the Union hosts weekly debates during term, with famous speakers and politicians coming to debate hot topics in British culture and politics. This Thursday's debate is on the Afghanistan War and whether or not the UK should withdraw its troops, which should be fascinating if we can get in (the hot topics are often very popular and space in the debate hall is limited)!Wednesday also was a day for tours! We went to the Bodleian Library and received our orientation to the library and our cards, which give us access to almost all of the libraries in Oxford. However, the Bodleian is a reference library only, so the books there can only be used within the walls of the library. Although there are lending libraries in Oxford, because we are visiting students we are only allowed to check books out of our college library and the Union library.
Kiley, Katie and I then headed over to New College for our tour by the JCR (their form of student government). New College is absolutely spectacular and the whole college looks like Hogwarts from Harry Potter. In fact, the Cloisters were actually used in the Goblet of Fire movie (for the scene where Malfoy was turned into a ferret). The Chapel was also simply astounding!That night, OPUS hosted a formal dinner for all of the St. Catherine's and New College students in the program at St. Catherine's. The food was delicious and I really lucked out in the seating arrangements. I sat right next to my advisor Dr. Lewis who, as I said before, is very entertaining, across form the representative from our JCR, Ali, and near Katie and Kiley. We had a great time with Ali and Dr. Lewis who were rather entertaining.
Most of the rest of the week and the weekend was filled with reading and reading and more reading.
Kiley and I decided to go to the college chapel for their Sunday morning communion service, which was, not surprisingly, Anglican, but was surprisingly small (only 5 other students)! Apparently, their big service in the evensong which is held in the evening with the full choir and all. Still, it was good just experiencing what it was like, and we got to talk with the chaplain and other students over breakfast afterward.
Sunday night my roommates and I went out for dinner at a localIrish pub. It was really good food for a really good price and we had a great time just recounting our most recent adventures and laughing together again!
Yesterday, I had my first tutorial on African history. It was amazing! I met for an hour with my tutor, and we talked about decolonization and independence movements. Since I did not have to prepare an essay for this one it mostly him giving me a personalized lecture, but he also asked me a great deal of questions, and then would expand on my answers. It was kind of intimidating at first, but by the end I was definitely more comfortable with my answers and confident in explaining my ideas. Our next tutorial will be in two weeks, and since I am writing a paper for that one, I will likely be doing a lot more talking, explaining my ideas and thoughts on our next topic: the ride of one party rule.
Currently I am still researching for my international relations tutorial. Hopefully, I will finish that today and can work on my paper all day Wednesday, since its due soon! I have my first tutorial for that on Friday which is really exciting, but, again, slightly terrifying.
So, now I'm off to New College for lunch, then its off to the library for research galore!
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