First of all, the bomb-scare in London was not near us. We were at St. Albans for the day and though that's closer than Oxford to London I think, its been a week since we were there, praise God. What a scary thing.
Secondly, England has a new prime minister, as I'm sure you all know: the Scottish Gordon Brown. I bought a paper to commemorate the important event. I can't believe Tony Blair stepped down; I don't know anything about British politics but apparently Britain is very glad about all that.
I am in the midst of all my papers. I have four: two for each seminar (Literature in the Christian tradition, and Oxford Fantasists). For the first seminar, I think I will be doing a book report on Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South and then a paper on salvific themes in literature by way of W. Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil. For Oxford Fantasists I may write a short paper on the role of women in the Chronicles of Narnia, and secondly, the notion of sacrifice when entering other worlds (and indeed in the Christian Story) by means of several texts. I'm excited about doing them but only have two more weeks! Justine is panicked and constantly working and I am urging her to relax but she is a dedicated, smart young woman. She, in fact, is going to London tomorrow for a seminar, so she'll get to relax then.
I, instead, am going to go to the Bodleian libraries and try to do some reading/writing, walk around town (and perhaps visit the famous Ashmolean museum). At the Bod, there is a library called the Duke Humphrey's room and it was the one they used for Harry Potter and it houses all these original manuscripts and very very important old books that a weakling undergraduate like me would never get the clearance to view. But I have heard it is breathtaking. There is also a Dante/Petrarch exhibit and I have heard rumours that a very leaves out of the pages of the Divine Comedy are there...we'll have to see.
Well, I'll write next to post some more photos. Some lovely ones of Broad Street in Oxford (my favorite street) and St. Albans, which we visited today. Oh, and there's this guy here - Rob - he talks EXACTLY like Patrick. Justine and I can't listen to him without thinking of Patrick. I couldn't believe that there are two of them :) (Not exactly, Patrick, don't worry).
Even here there are two married couples, and at least two boys that I know of about to propose when they return home. Can't even escape from it at Oxford. Bah, humbug!
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There was one married couple, two people who were engaged (one is now married, the other one is getting married later this month and I'm going to his wedding), and two girls who became engaged while in Washington out of a total of 39 people in my program. No, you can't escape it ;)
Christy, I like hearing about your classes. What are they like? Lectures? Independant study? Have you been reading anymore interesting stuff?
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