Mid-Michaelmas Update

I've been back in Oxford about a month and a half now. It's been a very busy few weeks. During the weekend 27-30 September the Christian community in Oxford ran a number of events to welcome international students to Oxford: a free diner and two paid-for cream teas with guest speakers. I volunteered to help host a table at the dinner and the Friday cream tea. It was a great opportunity to meet new students and welcome them to Oxford. It turned out that one of the girls at my table both days is a literature student at Worcester college.

The following week was "freshers" or "noughth" week at Oxford. This involved a number of social events to meet up with the new students in college. There are four new linguistics masters students at Worcester this year (which is exciting since I am the only one in my year).

On the Saturday of noughth week, one of my friends from primary school, Lauren Pearce, came to Oxford and I took her on a short tour around the city. She and her family were having a holiday in London after being at a family wedding in Ireland and they came to Oxford for the afternoon. We went up the University Church of St Mary's tower to get a bird's-eye-view of the city. If you've been following my blog since last year, you'll know that I have already been up three towers in Oxford: Carfax (the popular tourist one which I went up with my dad when we first arrived last year), The Saxon Tower (which I took Sarah Docksey up when she came to visit last year) and the Magdalen College tower which Prerna took us up when Maryanna's parents were here in June. After doing these four, I think the University Church tower wins the prize for having the best views of Oxford. Magdalen comes close, but the beauty of St Mary's is that it looks down into a number of colleges including All Souls, Brasenose and Exeter with their beautiful quads as well as the splendid Radcliffe Camera (which are on the whole prettier from above than the roofs of buildings). I think as an architect, Lauren particularly enjoyed seeing Oxford.

 

Term began officially on 8 October. I don't have a lot of lectures to attend this term, but there are a few that I missed during Michaelmas term last year because of timetable clashes. These include the Introduction to Philology lectures, a Homer and Early Greek class and a class on Greek Dialects. I'm also continuing to attend the weekly Philology (Historical Linguistics) seminars which are themed "Towards a synchronic grammar of Proto-Indo-European". In addition, I have weekly individual tutorials this term. So far I have been having tutorials for the exam paper I will be writing on The History and Structure of Greek. I have written an essay on the Greek Middle Voice and another on the Greek dialects. Currently I am looking at the tenses (in particular the different tense stems).

During second week, one of the American ladies from the Narnian web community I belong to, The Lion's Call, came to visit Oxford with her husband. We met at the Eagle and Child (the Inklings favourite pub) for dinner, and I showed them around Worcester College including our lovely chapel. We had considered going up to the Kilns, CS Lewis' home, but there wasn't enough time for that. The two of them had taken themselves on a tour of Oxford during the day while I was in lectures and were immensely pleased that they not only got to see where Tolkien's room in Exeter College had been, but the girl who is staying there now let them take a photo of the inside.

 

I've made a couple of great new friends in the Worcester CU. Emily is doing her year abroad, studying Linguistics and Philosophy. She was naturally "introduced" to me every time another CU member learnt she was studying Linguistics, until "have you met Sonja?" became something of a joke between us. It turns out and is also a fan of CS Lewis. Mary is a first year biology student and shares my fondness of hedgehogs. If you should hear us simultaneously break out in to a squeal of excitement or an "awww!", it's probably something hedgehog related. They are both in my CU small group together with Emma, another graduate student (yay!) doing Mathematics.

Last weekend, Tim from CU had a fancy dress birthday party with the theme "London Underground Stations". I had no idea how that was supposed to work until I looked at a list of the stations and saw Paddington on it, which made me think of going as Paddington Bear. I already had the right coloured blue coat and could get away with wearing my pink gum boots (wellingtons). I was looking for the right kind of hat, when I remembered that "teddy bear" hats are a phenomenon here. So I ended up buying a cheap teddy hat from Poundland (where everything costs a pound) and making him a red hat out of the socks I got for free on the Virgin Atlantic flight over. I bought some toggle buttons to add to the coat, and made a "suitcase" out of one of my boxes I'd used for storage when I went home. I was worried that my coat would be too warm to wear (since it was my really warm one), but it turned out that temperatures were down to 4°C that weekend, which was annoying in general, but handy for my costume. It did get a little warm indoors, but I could keep the coat on long enough for people to see my costume. One of the guys, David, also went as Paddington, but since we did our costumes quite differently, it didn't really matter.

Me (Paddington) and Mary (Chalk Farm)

Me and David (Paddingtons)

Me and Tim

Sometime over last weekend, I picked up my second cold of term (I had "freshers flu" during first week). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to shake it and am still feeling congested and coughing. Hopefully it won't last much longer.

And that pretty much wraps up the last few weeks. I can't believe we're half way through Michaelmas Term already. It's Guy Fawkes on Tuesday and the big bonfire and fireworks celebration is happening tonight, but I guess I won't be going with this cold. The Christmas lights have already gone up in the streets, though they won't switch them on until December. I suppose I should start thinking about putting up my Christmas tree again (yes, the one with the cheery fairy lights that I only took down in June). Clocks went back an hour last week, so it's now starting to get dark decidedly "early".

Until next time, I hope you are all doing well, and thanks for your continued support and prayers.

... And back again

South African winter's passed and it's back to the UK where wintry weather reigns (or rains) eternal. The break was really good. It was lovely to see the family again and meet Jackson (our new dog) for the first time. He's really lovely (except that his colliesh nature means he nips visitors' legs, mistaking them for sheep) and a good addition to the family. Somehow he recognised I was part of the family (from seeing and hearing me on skype - or recognising my smell from my bedroom?), and decided I didn't need herding.

Jackson

Everyone back in the UK is asking what I did over the "summer". I guess a (summery) summary  would be: hung out with family, especially mom, took part in the TLC Summer Challenge (in which we read through The Silver Chair in a week and wrote reflections on each chapter - if you're curious, you can read mine here), watched Olympics on TV (I saw all of our medal races), did some Greek text analysis for my thesis, read stuff for and tried to come to grips with my thesis and syntax essay topic, visited friends at UKZN (my old uni), finally went on the Moses Mabida stadium arch skycar (from which there's a cool view of Durban and the sea), watched Paralympics, went on a family weekend away to the KZN Midlands and tried to get as much sun as possible. I was most impressed that we had a couple days of over 30°C weather in August (which is still technically winter). One day even may have topped 40°.

Moses Mabida Stadium

View of Durban from Stadium

Family trip in the Midlands

Natal Midlands

I departed for the UK on 11 September (the safest day of the year to fly(?)). I decided to take the shorter, more direct flight this time which meant flying up to Jo'burg (my first domestic flight ever) and then heading from there to Heathrow where I arrived at about 7 the next morning. I preferred having one longer (11 hour) leg to two short ones (7 and 9 hours via Dubai), and I even got a teeny bit of sleep (maybe half an hour - an hour at the most). I flew on Virgin Atlantic. It was pretty nice - their food wasn't quite as good as Emirates but the service was good in general and there were lots of empty seats (including the one next to me).

I arrived in Oxford around midday on 12 September and got the key to my new room in Franks Building, which I'm very happy with, despite the higher rent. I only got my boxes back from Tam 'n Heather's place the next evening. This meant eating out for a day and sleeping in a sleeping bag at night, but that was okay.

On Friday 14, I left Oxford again (having hardly unpacked anything) as the Worcester Christian Union had a weekend away (called "House Party" - the official UK term for such CU events). We had an amazing time catching up and preparing for the year ahead, studying the bible and worshipping God. We stayed at a converted vicarage at Viney Hill in the Gloucestershire countryside (an extremely pretty part of England). One of my highlights was going through a walk in the Forest of Dean (which I believe is one of the oldest and largest forests in England). We were only on the outskirts and following well defined paths and roads. But it was still really amazing to think that when I read about such places as a child, I never dreamt I'd ever find myself actually walking in the English countryside. It was about as believable as finding myself in Narnia :-P.

The Vicarage

Forest of Dean

The walking party

Old church

I came back to Oxford on Sunday afternoon and spent most of last week unpacking, settling in to my new room and relaxing. This week I'm back to work on my Greek analyses and readings. There are still two weeks till term officially kicks off, but there are a lot of events for new students (some of which I'll be at to welcome them) so it will be a fairly busy two weeks.

"North Week"

So last week was what was known as "Freshers' Week" in Oxford, or more correctly the "0th Week" (pronounced noughth, though it sounds more like north with a British accent).

For me the freshers' (newcomers') activities actually began on the Thursday before (of week -1) in which I attended international graduate orientation where they tried to tell us a bit about how Oxford works. In reality, we learned that no-one actually knows how Oxford works, it just does. And if there's some tradition or practice that doesn't quite make sense, we are to remember, "it made sense in the 1200s".

On Monday of noughth week, I went to Hall for the first time. Hall is basically the dining room. We have First Hall which is a two-course meal, slightly cheaper and we wear informal dress. Then we have Second Hall at which we have to wear smart clothes with an academic gown. It is a little more expensive, but is a three course-meal. We can choose to go to first or second hall, or neither as we wish. Breakfast and Lunch are also offered in the hall, but I haven't been to any of those yet. I should probably specify that the each college (the mini-community you belong to within Oxford) has its own hall, so it's not the entire university all eating together :-P

I went to first hall on Monday and Tuesday and enjoyed it. Monday's food wasn't my favourite, but I'd gone just for curiosity. Tuseday's food was spaghetti bolognaise and was very good.

Tuesday was departmental induction. We had a meeting at the linguistics department where we were introduced to the staff and other students and had a lecture on the department's IT rules, followed by drinks and snacks. After Hall in the evening, we had an address by the College Provost (the college head, called the "president" at other colleges). He seemed very casual and approachable. I've since learned there's a semi-domesticated hedgehog in his garden that he feeds in the evening, so I'm trying to find out how I can see it. The college dean (welfare officer), nurse and chaplain also spoke to us.

On Wednesday evening I went to an evening Bible Study for 20 and 30 year olds at St Ebbe's, the evangelical Anglican church I've been visiting. The study was preceded by a £3 dinner. Then we studied together with the group at our table.

On Thursday I went to the "Fresher's Fair". This is a kind of expo at which all the different University committees and societies (sports, religious, geographical, fields of common of interest etc) try convince you to sign up to be on their mailing list. It was a little intimidating having all these different people vying for your attention, but they couldn't force you to sign up for anything. All they could ask for was your email address, so they can let you know about events. I put my name down for the Tolkien and Lewis societies, and the South African group (although it appeared no one was even manning that table, which I walked right past the first time and had to go back to look for), so if I hear of anything interesting on that front I can attend, but there's no obligation.

On Thursday evening I made my own dinner for the first time. I made Macaroni Cheese. I made extra, which meant Friday night's meal was also taken care of. On Friday evening, I went to movie night at our MCR. The MCR is the Middle Common Room (the central room for all graduate students at the college); the term also applies to the group of members who are allowed into the room. We watched the Pixar movie Up, which I'd seen before but thoroughly enjoyed watching again.

On Saturday we had a Fresher's Fair at the college, similar to the university one, but much smaller since it just had sign-up forms for college groups and teams. I signed up for the college Christian Union (CU) and found out about a free freshers dinner put on by the university CU. It was held at one of the nearby churches and was a gathering of all the college CUs. 

Sunday was the busiest day of all for me. The college CU had an early breakfast at which college members from different Oxford churches shared a little about their church so us new-comers could get an idea of "what's out there". Most services here start much later than what I'm used to (like at 11 am). I could have waited and gone along with other members to the 11.45 service at St Ebbes, but I went to the "early" 9.45 one because I had to get back to college by 11.30.

After church, I returned to college for the MCR brunch, we were going to visit Blenheim Palace after brunch, which was why I had to be there on time.

The Palace was very interesting and pretty. It has been and is still the home of the Duke of Marlborough, to whom Winston Churchill was related. Unfortunatel,y we were not allowed to take photographs inside. I have some of the outside, which are a little dull, as the weather wasn't so good. I'll post them at some time. There are two parts to viewing the house. The one is na audiovisual virtual tour which takes you to different rooms. In each room, a projected image of the housemaid to the first Duchess tells us something about the palace's history. While interesting, it gets a little weird towards the end, because the woman is now seeing the palace in her future and meeting subsequent dukes of the palace. The second part is a walk-through self-guided tour. There are displays about Winston Churchill and various rooms done up as they would have been, with large tapestries and antique furniture. The most interesting sight was the massive pipe organ. We were blessed to be there on a Sunday which is one of the days they have someone playing it.

Sunday evening (officially the first day of Week 1) was the first Second (or Formal) Hall. I thought we had to wear full subfusc (white shirt, black skirt or trousers) under our gowns, but apparently anything formal is acceptable. It was quite enjoyable. We are not allowed to sit down until all the Fellows have entered and grace has been said. They have this strange custom at the beginning which involves the hall door being slammed, someone banging on the high table with a hammer and the door being slammed a second time. Then someone reads the prayer in Latin. It was too fast for me to follow it.

Well that brings me to the start of lectures on Monday which I'll cover in a later post. On Saturday we have college "Matriculation". Unlike in South Africa, this means we will be formally welcomed into the college community. For this we do have to wear full sub-fusc.