Almost February

It has been a few days since my last post, but nothing earth shattering has happened so it isn't that big of a deal. On Friday the 28th we had presentations. There was a bit of a mix-up about where the class was being held and when the class was supposed to start we realized that the schedule said we were supposed to be at the other building.

We had already set up at this building and John showed up shortly after. We were told that we had messed up though and that it was going to cost us extra money because we were dumb. It turns out that we were actually in the right building all along because they had changed the original schedule. That wasn't a very fun experience.

Today I stayed at home and read a bit of Macbeth. It is one of the few Shakespeare plays that I have read before so it will be nice to be able to talk about one that I actually know pretty well for once. After supper Mark, Beth, and I relaxed playing DS, and giving the dog belly rubs.

Tomorrow there will be church and pizza with some of the students from RPC so hopefully it will be a good time.

January 24th

The 24th of January began with Beth, Sally, Hannah, and I catching the early train to Oxford. We killed time before class and then discussed The Merry Wives of Windsor until it was time for lunch. After lunch we had an exam talk, which seemed kind of pointless to me, but it was nice that they took the time to explain it to us anyways.

After school business had been attended to, Beth and I looked around some shops for things that we both needed. Beth needed boxes and we both needed to find a way to charge our DS lites. I am told that I can just buy a UK charger and it will work fine, but I want to do a little more research before committing to anything.

Today is the day that we are supposed to take the garbage out at the baptist church, but we forgot to do that on the way by. We were halfway to our homestays and realized that we needed to go back. When we got there it appeared as if Maria had already done it, but one of the garbage bins wasn't emptied and the recycling bin wasn't at the road. At least the trip wasn't all for nothing.

Tomorrow we are planning on doing all kinds of research at the Bodleian so we will be ready for our presentations on Friday. Hopefully we can get as much done as we hope to and still make it back to meet with Marion about the London trip.

Looking forward to:

-London trip meeting

-London trip

-researching at the Bodleian

Second Sunday

Today was the second Sunday of our trip and our first service at the baptist church. There was a guest speaker because they are presently without a minister. Some of the timing on the music was off, but besides that it was a pretty good service. After church finished we began the progressive lunch.

I began the progressive lunch with spicy tomato soup that burned my mouth and also bread. It was pretty tasty even though it was quite hot. At this house we discovered that pretty much everyone at the table played a musical instrument and the idea of a jam session was raised. It sounds like a good idea, but sadly I do not have a trombone and I doubt anyone has one to let me borrow. I would still go check out a jam session though.

The next meal was roasted lamb, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, parsnips, gravy, zucchini, etc. It was very tasty. Oh also there were sausages.

Then we had pudding (dessert) which wasn't really pudding at all. It was very good though. Some sort of apple crumble type thing only it was more like cake. Also profiteroles, custard, lemon pie, some thick cream, and yogurt.

I guess you could say that I ate well today. After the final meal all of the hosts and students met at Marion's house for coffee/tea (or fizzy lemonade if you are me and don't like either tea or coffee). To end off the night I read Merry Wives of Windsor for class tomorrow.

Things to look forward to:

-Tuesday with no class (serious Bodleian study day)

-Presentation on Friday (woohoo!)

-lunch at RPC

Week 1

It is already the end of my first week in England. Kind of hard to believe, but I am sure that time slipping by will be a common theme of the trip. I was planning on doing a blog post for every day, but that didn't happen, so in an attempt to get back onto that track I will summarize my first week up until now and highlight all of the cool parts.

First thing that stands out in my mind was being sworn in at the Bodleian library. It was funny because we had to promise not to kindle fire in the library, which I guess would have been a problem back when people used candles, but now it just seems to be there for history's sake and for a bit of comedy. The buildings in the Bodleian library are amazing! Enough cannot be said.

Taking the train to get to Oxford is a new experience. It is nice to be able to have a way to get places if you don't have a car (which is a topic I could discuss at length - they drive fast here). I have figured out how the train system works and also I have a pretty good idea for where all of the essential places are located.

Classes have been interesting so far. It isn't exactly what I expected and it almost feels like they are shoving us into whatever corner of space that is available, but I am studying at Oxford so I will try not to complain too much. As far as the actual classes go, a lot of it is discussion based so it is nothing too different from my communications courses.

Today we went to the Ashmolean museum and saw a lot of neat things there, but sadly the Egypt section is closed until November while they build a time machine or something. The rest of the week so far has been fairly standard and quite frankly I forget a lot of the specifics (part of why I wanted to blog everyday). Overall, I would consider England: Week 1 a success.

Things to look forward to:

-progressive lunch!

-learning!

-walking!

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures, and hopefully consistent blog posts so I can remember what I have done over here whenever I am older!

Day 1

In an attempt to actually remember what happened during my trip to England I am going to try to do a little bit of blogging. If you are reading this then I hope that something cool happens so that it isn't just me writing about common stuff because that way no one in this process benefits.

The trip to England began with the uncomfortable, long flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Beth, Shawna, and I bounced around in airports and airplanes and managed to find our way to the meeting place. Since none of us remembered to print off the directions on how to get there, we had to go based on memory. It all worked out well in the end and it was quite easy to navigate.

I ran into a couple of people and recognized them as Peter and Kay. They directed me to the other group of students who were also in the program and sitting right beside us the whole time.

After everyone finally managed to get to the meeting point we took off in a bus toward Charlbury. We all struggled to keep our eyes open, but not wanting to miss any of the new scenery tried our best to fight the need to sleep.

After winding through the narrow English streets we came upon the Baptist Church, where we ate some pizza and greeted a bunch of new people. They were all very nice, but meeting so many new people while operating on zero sleep just isn't fun. I was very surprised at how narrow the streets were, but it was quite normal for them. After the food we went back to our homestays and continued fighting the urge to sleep until it was closer to nighttime. The sleep that night was the sweetest sleep that I had experience in a long time, and in the morning I woke up feeling refreshed, but still not quite at my best.