Fifth Week Already!

Hello Family and Friends!

I apologize for my tardiness in writing an update on my life here in Oxford. It is hard to believe that I am already at the end of the fifth week of Oxford's eight-week term. I now have seven essays behind me and five more to go before the five-week post-term classes, for which I will write three long essays. I am thoroughly enjoying being in Oxford, both as a beautiful place and as an age-old center of learning.

It took a few weeks to get used to shortened days and lengthened shadows in the midday sun. The angle of the sun here in Britain makes it feel like the entire afternoon is a prolonged twilight, although now that spring is approaching, the sunshine is lasting longer. My primary (ie: only) mode of transportation is by foot, and I've loved walking around Oxford all the time. The old college buildings are so lovely that it never gets boring to walk the same paths over and over. For most of the lectures I am required to attend, I cut through the park a few blocks away from home, which is also beautiful.

I am still enjoying the academics, and finding Oxford to be more of an academic retreat than the bootcamp I had anticipated. That's not to insinuate that I'm not working hard, of course, but that having a quieter schedule than I do at home, I have more time available just to enjoy learning rather than rushing through it in the small windows of time between other commitments. The work I'm doing is much like what I do in Torrey - read books, think about them, and go to class (or in this case, tutorial) prepared to discuss them. What's difference here is that the requirement of an essay for each tutorial forces me to put the amount of effort into pre-class work that I should be doing at home anyway. I am really grateful for this opportunity to hone skills that will continue to benefit me in my academic work at home.