Actually, we've been pretty lucky as far as weather goes, but the past few days have been cold and dreary. I skipped out on a scheduled tour to research my first paper. It was nice to have a day just to myself with few distractions. I walked around oxford with my pink umbrella (as only an American would) skipping over puddles and warming up in libraries. I think today was the first day that I just enjoyed Oxford for Oxford. I didn't cart around my camera or follow around a tour guide, just blended in with the rest of the population. It was a great day!
Yesterday, we were much more the tourists! A few of the girls and I went on a ghost tour that is allegedly Oxford's #1 attraction! We followed around Bill Spectre who was dressed up like a Victorian Undertaker and he told us ghost stories and did magic tricks. It was super cheesy, but super entertaining none the less. I ran into him today and he remembered me from the night before and we had a nice little chat about Virginia Woolf - apparently I HAVE to go and tour her house before I leave. I suppose I'll have to add that to my agenda - I mean, why shouldn't I trust the advice of the man who runs Oxford's #1 attraction??
English classes started this past week. The first day was a bit chaotic but overall they are going really well. My students are all lovely people. Most of them are from China and here studying for a short time. Although I spent a lot of time preparing lessons on job interviews and resumes they are not, unfortunately, at all interested in learning about any of those things. For the time being we are focusing on presentation skills. They have all been assigned to give a speech during the next class period. I think I am going to try and use their speeches to highlight some of their troubles with pronunciation and spend the rest of the week on that. Most of the students in my group are relatively advanced they just need a lot of help fine tuning. Quite the change from my class at Angel House! I miss my students there but it's nice for the time being to have students who can dialogue with me.
I have my first paper due on Monday at 1pm and I'm a little nervous about that. I spent the day gathering all of my research and there was one particular essay that I just couldn't find. When I finally asked a librarian (who happened to be, I believe, a twin of Hagrid from Harry Potter) he found it in a one particular book, but the only college that had this book was Worcester College whose library I do not have access to. So after many fruitless hours of frantic internet searching for a bootleg, I had hatched a plan to sneak into their library. After all, all I needed was one essay from one book. I figured if I acted like I knew what I was doing I could be in and out of there before anyone even noticed me. Before I left I decided to check the library catalogue one more time to make sure it was still on the shelf. Turned out the librarian had given me the wrong info and the book wasn't even there. Fortunately, it was, in fact, at the New College library of which I am a member. (Yay!) So now I have the book in hand come to find out this essay I worked so hard to find is only one page long, maybe 150 words or so. C'est la vie! It was a good day regardless.
Let's see . . . is that all? Time is flying by here. It still feels like I just arrived but my laundry tells a different story - 2 loads today! I am just trying to enjoy it and soak it all in. I am thoroughly enjoying myself. I cannot tell a lie, if Dave were here I might be tempted to stay indefinitely. I hope all is well at home (and don't worry, I will come home eventually - ). You are all in my thoughts and my prayers.
j
P.S. I am working on uploading some videos that I have taken, but it's not going so well. Keep your eye out, maybe one of these days it will work for me!
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