Concerning Scholarly Life and Old Buildings

We are into our third week now, and I have been to both of my tutorials: I feel like a real scholar.  For my secondary tutorial last week, which meets every fortnight, I wrote a short story in the form of letters between two people, set during the 1850's.  It was great fun to get caught up in the period.  Even more fun, because my primary tutorial also dealt with the Victorian era--I was assigned to write a 6-pager on Jane Eyre.  It was fascinating to be reading about life in Victorian England, and at the same time to be adding to the canon myself, so to speak... as I was writing correspondence between two "typical" Victorians.  The essay for this week's primary tutorial will be on Tennyson and Browning.  I have yet to think of the next story idea........

Lectures here are equally enjoyable, at least for the most part.  Each lecture is attended once a week, and I only have about five to attend.  It's a nice break from the States' system of about twenty lectures per week!  Last Thursday, after getting out of my favourite lecture, Six Kinds of Victorian Fiction, I was delighted to find that the professor was also walking through the University Parks!  I caught up with him and we chatted for a while, mainly about Oxford at this time of year and William Morris, before parting ways.  Quite a highlight.

Other highlights of the past couple weeks have included a first visit to the Bodleian library, a meal at the 400-year-old pub King's Arms, and a symphony at the Sheldonian theatre.  The Bodleian is quite impressive.  The best visual highlights are the Radcliffe Camera and the old books section.  There are shelves upon shelves of books housed in the Bod, but what's amazing after seeing all those is realising that only a fraction of the library's books are on display.  Millions more are housed in buildings throughout the city and underground in basements, some are even kept in other cities.  We're talking over ten million books here.  I felt awed to be able to access this wealth of books and to sit and study with them for hours. 

Near the Radcliffe Camera is the Sheldonian Theatre, designed by Christopher Wren at the start of his career.  Christopher became quite the architect, if you'll recall.  He also designed St. Paul's Cathedral and the Royal Observatory in London, the library at Trinity College in Cambridge, and a lot more.  Eric and I enjoyed surveying the architecture of the Sheldonian Theatre, while also enjoying Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony performed therein.  And it was incredible.

Again, thanks for reading, and for leaving comments!  Eat lots of quesadillas and Jiffy peanut butter for me, as we lack both in this part of the world.  Eat them separately, though.