Oxmas Part II

I can’t believe I’m already one term down into my studies at Oxford. Being used to the 14 week terms (with a mid-term break) at UKZN, that was by far the shortest term in my university career. 8 weeks and it’s all over. I feel like I’ve hardly started.

Eighth week was fairly quiet and laid back after the busy Monday evening I mentioned previously.

On the Wednesday, I had a meeting with my supervisor to discuss the terms past and future. I’m quite excited to be starting more specialised study next term in the form of tutorials in which I will be given set readings and work each week. I’ll also be more at leisure to attend lectures directly related to my fields of interest. I’ve decided to take syntax as my third topic (the other two being Historical Linguistics and the History and Structure of a Language – Classical Greek). I’m still not sure which type of syntax I will be focussing on so prayer about that would be appreciated.

On the Friday of eighth week we had our college graduates’ guest night Christmas (or Oxmas) dinner. We were allowed to invite two guests to join us. I had invited William and Bethany from TLC to come, but they couldn’t make it so Maryanna, one of the girls from my course, came instead. 

That night was also the night of the annual Night Light festival during which there is a lantern parade put on by various schools in the area, the street lights are switched on, certain shops stay open late and there is a Christmas Fair in St Giles St. I went to watch the lantern parade before the college dinner. Each school had a large lantern representing one of the gifts from the Twelve Days of Christmas along with a number of smaller lanterns. The lights were to be switched on by Sir Rodger Bannister (of “four-minute mile” fame). Unfortunately, it was so crowded I didn’t get to see him, but it was nice to see the Christmas lights come on.

A partridge in a pear tree

A turtle dove

A lady dancing

A piper piping

Queen Street

Queen Street

Cornmarket Street

High Street

After dinner, I went to see the Christmas Market at the Oxford Castle. Although it said it would continue until 10.00 pm, most of the stalls were closed when I got there at about 9.30. There was however a stall open with small cheap Christmas decorations which I bought for the Christmas tree I was planning to get for my room the next day.

As planned, I went shopping on that Saturday for Christmas decorations. I found a nice 40cm tree at Boswells and some decorations at Poundland (the shop at which everything costs £1). I even got from there a string of Christmas lights and a string of gold beads and bells. Between those and the decorations I had bought at the market, there was little need for any additional decorations. I got some red and white paper to make a Danish woven heart (I would have made more but there was hardly room on the tree) and used left-over wrapping paper to make a Danish-style cone. I also added some of the small wooden hedgehogs Nicola gave me for my 21^st for scrapbooking by attaching a paper clip.

In addition to the tree, which is sitting on my desk, I also got a piece of tinsel for my curtain rail, a wreath and some “Christmas hats” for my hedgehogs (they are actually supposed to be bottle hats, but don’t tell the hedgehogs that). The latter two items also came from Poundland so in all my Christmas decorating wasn’t too expensive. I didn’t get a nativity scene ornament as such, but I found an Advent Calendar and window sticker set with Nativity pictures so those make up for the lack.

Nativity scene window stickers

Tree decorations

Tree lights

Tinsel on window

Christmas hedgies

On the Sunday evening of 9^th week (Oxford weeks start on Sundays for any who are wondering) Robin, one of my coursemates invited us over to his place for “Advent Drinks and eats”. He didn’t mention that the real reason for the celebration was his birthday, but I guess he had a happy birthday never-the-less. 

I met up with the linguists again on that Tuesday evening for my third Oxmas dinner. We went to the Jericho Tavern (a far more reputable establishment than the name may suggest) for a Christmas dinner. It was a great evening in which we played “guess the name” and “broken telephone”. I didn’t do very well with guess-the-name since I was the leader of Germany whose name I am embarrassed to confess I had not heard before. I blame the South African media for never mentioning anything about her. Broken telephone was rather interesting considering the mixture of language and accent groups we represent.

Tucking in

Yummy food

Cheese

We three kings

The rest of 9th week was spent doing a bit of relaxing, walking around town and some of the further out areas I hadn’t visited yet like Summertown and Cowley Road. I also started on my holiday reading of Greek language history and other historical linguistics books.

The Sunday of 10th week we had carols-by-candlelight at Church. Monday and Tuesday were spent getting ready for my trip to visit the Averil, Loius and Myriam Frenkel in Hungerford.

Tuesday was rather exciting in that I saw falling sleet for the first time in my life. It only lasted a couple of minutes and I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing, but there was definitely something white and wintery falling among the rain.