Week 6 Update

 ~ 18/11/2011

The term is fast coming to an end, only two more weeks left after this, and I still feel like it's only just begun. The last four weeks (since my last full post) have been very busy. I'm still trying to get used to the idea of living on my own and doing my own "housekeeping" (which involves buying groceries, keeping my room in order, cooking and washing clothes, all of which, bar the second, are relatively new to me). This in addition to keeping up with my workload.

A couple weeks ago, a friend of Pamela Thabete's came from London to take me to the Hebron Gospel Hall in Bicester. They are a brethren assembly and were holding a special service that Saturday evening. We had a great afternoon and I got to show her around Oxford a bit. Carfax Tower, the iconic view-site from which one can look out over Oxford, was closed for maintenance so we instead climbed the lower but older Saxon Tower at St Michael's at the Northgate. This is the oldest building in Oxford and dates from around 1050 AD. After that, I took her to see the Radcliffe Camera and associated buildings which form the iconic architectural centre of the city.

The work has been plodding along. Still lots of lectures with various homework activities. From fifth week onwards, I've been able to go to some undergrad lectures on Indo-European and historical linguistics (the compulsory lecture that prevented me from going before was only for the first half of term). Last week's lecture was very interesting since it looked at attempts to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European grammar and semantics. This week's was on more general dialectology, which is an interesting area, but pretty much a repeat of what I learnt (and have been teaching in tutorials) in first and second year at UKZN.

Some elements from the last couple weeks reminded me a lot of my childhood. To be specific: Guy Fawkes and Poppy Day!. There were big Guy Fawkes celebrations the first weekend of November and last Sunday was Remembrance Sunday.

The day before Guy Fawkes, someone nearby put on a beautiful fireworks display which I could see out of my bedroom window. While I don't like the loud bangs, it was really pretty. I'd forgotten how pretty fireworks can be because the selection we see in SA at Diwali and New Year are generally rather limited since the ban on selling them in supermarkets was enforced. On Saturday 4 November I went with some of the people from St Ebbe's to the annual Guy Fawkes celebration at Headington Hill. There must have been thousands of people there. There was a lovely display of which I managed to get a few nice photos. They also have a huge wicker man that gets burnt as part of the bonfire. I think there's a design competition every year so see who can create the best wicker man. This years was actually of a woman with a rather African-art type look to her. I actually found the whole watching her burn thing a little disturbing, as did some of the others with me, but the evening was worth it to see the fireworks.

Last week the weather started to turn. Monday and Tuesday were miserable and rainy. I was assured by those who know that this was the weather to expect for the next three months. Apparently they were wrong. We had wonderful weather last weekend and it even reached a warm 15 degrees on Sunday. (I'm not being entirely ironic, we're bordering on an average of about 11 degrees daily at the moment, so it really was a warmer day and I could tell. Also it was nice and sunny which made it more cheery). This week has been cooler again with a little rain, but not too bad. On the whole I'm hearing it described as "an unusually mild November".

Last Friday I got to observe the 11.11.11, 11:11:11 moment three times. At 9:11 am here, I was chatting to my mum and brother Keith on Skype and so got to celebrate the moment as it passed in SA. Then I marked it two hours later that morning and again at 11:11 in the evening.

On Sunday morning, I overslept (for the first time in my life I overslept on a Sunday, meaning I was late for church). I blame it on the fact that my neighbours two-doors down were having a rather loud party at 1.00 am and that my alarm didn't ring to wake me up (I obviously missed the final "okay" when I set it). It wasn't the end of the world though, since St Ebbe's has one a second service at 11:45. 

In the end I'm actually kind of glad it happened. Shortly after getting up, I heard one of the nearby churche's ringing it's bells in a special remembrance-day tune continuously for about 15 minutes. I turned on the computer (we get TV stations broadcast on the internet here) and watched the royal Remembrance Day celebrations at the Cenotaph over breakfast. At church we had a special part in the service to remember those who died in war and a minute's silence bounded by The Last Stand played by the church trumpeter. In the earlier service they had placed a wreath between the two plaques listing names of Church members who had died during the two World Wars.

 

Last Saturday, I took a walk to Headington, the suburb of Oxford where CS Lewis lived and that my dad and I visited our first week here. They have lots of charity shops all together in the main street. I was going to the only remaining Christian Book Shop in Oxford which was pretty much half way there anyway. I had a great time browsing the shops. I saw a number of hedgehog things (which you can read about if you click here), found a really nice clothes shop and just had a nice relaxed day in general. I caught the bus back to Oxford in the afternoon.

This week's been a bit tough for me. There's a phenomenon here called "fifth week blues" because fifth week marks the second half of the term. I think it was delayed for me and I've had "sixth week blues". There's nothing wrong in particular, I've just been feeling a little down and a little homesick, but I'm already feeling better than I did earlier in the week.

Thanks again to everyone who reads my blog, supports me in anyway and prays for me.