Week One

Rowing camp was terrific! Each day we did two outings in the morning and had another erg session in the evening. Although there was still a lot of snow on the ground, I never noticed the cold after we had a few minutes to warm up. This is a picture Becca took of us clearing off the raft using the blades (again, no shovels…). My British friends couldn’t believe I was wearing shorts, but most of them haven’t been to Michigan.

The beauty of rowing on the morning river was almost surreal (just look at the background of the picture!). Each morning started the same way. Illuminated by the diffuse twilight, we pushed off from the dock onto the glassy water. The boat cut a narrow wake as the gentle ripples from our measured strokes slipped into the veil of fog, the vestiges of which were still shrouding the river in their hopeless struggle against the suns’ persistent rays. The rhythmic splashing of the blades alternating with the tempered groan of the oars straining against their locks were the only sounds on the Isis. It was mesmerizing… Those moments, though they would inevitably succumb to the sun and wind, are certainly among the many that I will cherish from my time in Oxford.

Hilary term began last Monday. My schedule is slightly busier than the previous term, but I really like my schedule. I am particularly looking forward to my course in quantitative research methods since I have a strong background in math and am familiar with most of the analytical software we will be using.  In addition to the two courses that carry over from Michaelmas term, Diplomatic Practice and International Diplomacy, I also have NGO Politics. What makes this course especially interesting is that there are only three people in our seminars: the professor, a student from Macedonia, and me. We had a great discussion last week and I am looking forward to the conversations we will have the rest of the term.

Last week, we also had our first rugby match of the season. We won handedly, 29-0, and I scored my first try! The downside is that our performance, coming after a long break with little exercise and much inebriation for most of the team, was easily one of our best of the year. Many players have been prompted to reconsider physical exercise as a means of preparation, favoring this recently validated training regimen.

This picture is from a presentation at Cookham Bridge Rotary Club last Wednesday. The other scholar is Giulia, from Italy. Among many interesting questions posed by the attending Rotarians, one observation stood out. While Giulia, who studies philosophy, described a number of Italian and European stereotypes (of academics and women, among others) she has experienced, my presentation was characterized by a lack of similar societal biases and a wealth of unique opportunities.  The Rotarian credited much of this to America’s youth and I would be inclined to agree. I think even among Americans I have been exceptionally fortunate, but the differences in social structure and opportunity between Europe and the US have been evident during the last several months.

A friend of mine studying as an Ambassadorial Scholar in Spain is coming to Oxford in a few hours and we are both excited to share our experiences. I need to do some cleaning before she gets here though!

Until next time.

The New Year!

Hello! I hope you had a Merry Christmas and a terrific New Years! I know I haven't had a new post in a while, but it's for good reason; I went home for Christmas!

Shortly after last term, I went to the my host rotary club's Christmas dinner. We had a lot of fun performing pantomimes or pantos, which are traditional British plays (such as Jack and the Beanstalk or Little Red Riding Hood) performed each winter. Not only do the plays usually have a lot of jokes and men playing the roles of women, they are also a lot of fun because the audience participates throughout the show. My table put on Cinderella and I got to be Prince Charming (and yes, middle-age male stepsisters were sufficiently ugly!). The next day, I went with the president of the Banbury-Cherwell Rotary Club to Stratford-Upon-Avon. If that name sounds familiar, it's because it's where Shakespeare was born! On the other hand, if you didn't recognize it, then I guess now you have another piece of trivia, right?

This picture is from outside his childhood house. His father was a leatherworker, so their house doubled as his shop and warehouse. The welcome center next to his house underwent a recent renovation and has several terrific videos that talk about his life and the vast impact he has had not only on British culture, but the entire world. The glass panes signed by the first visitors are still in the house, but since it has now received over 27 million people, I could only sign the guest book. The number of visitors to the house is staggering, but even more amazing considering there were only about five million people living in the U.K. during Shakespeare's time!

 

This is a picture of one of the main streets in Stratford. The decorations looked great! On a completely unrelated side note, Stratford also had some delicious pasties, a pastry crust with some kind of meat and vegetable filling.  I always tell my British friends that if I could take one thing back ot the U.S. it would be pasties.

Like I mentioned earlier, I made it home for Christmas! Other than my brother, my family wasn't expecting me, so it was a pretty epic surprise. In addition to spending time with many of my Michigan friends, I also went out to New York to be a saber bearer in a friend's wedding where I could also catch up with several of my West Point friends. I had a wonderful time seeing everyone back in the States, but it was also a lot of fun to drive (on the right side of the road no less!), watch football, listen to country music, and eat American food. My suitcases were full of presents for everyone on the way there which afforded me plenty of room to bring American food back over. James studied at Harvard for a year and developed a taste for peanut butter and Lucky Charms, so I brought him a 6 lb. package of the former and 2 lb. box of the latter. Hooray for Sam's Club! I also had some Betty Crocker cake mixes, pumpkin, and a few other things I've had trouble finding in Oxford.

Below are some pictures from around Oxford over the holiday season. The right is one of the butcher shops in the covered market downtown. Christmas dinner is much like Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S., so they had dozens of turkeys, pheasants, rabbits, and other animals hanging from the storefront. A few days ago, Oxford had an unusually large snowfall--about 8 inches--so of course I had to play in it! The second picture is the snowman I built outside of my house after a snowball fight I had with some of my friends; it's about eight feet tall!

These are some of the snowmen the other students built. It's a game- you have to find all ten.

I rode my bike down to a pub quiz before the snow really started coming down. The trip down was fine, but it was tough going on the way back, especially since I forgot to switch to my snow tires and chains.

Just a few more pictures from around Oxford. The bottom one is Hertford's chapel.

The first day of rowing camp went well! My legs are feeling fine, but my hands are already torn up pretty good. A friend has some great pictures of us clearing the snow off the raft with oars before we brought the boats out, so I'll try to get those up when I get them from her.

Filler Post

I’m in the middle of another post, but I have to get to bed! Rowing camp starts tomorrow at 0745 with three hours in the morning and another hour in the evening, so I need to get some sleep. I’ll finish the post tomorrow (lots of pictures!) and get it posted. Until then, I’d just like to say how thankful I am for the great support I have in Rotary, my wonderful family, and my amazing friends. You all are wonderful and mean the world to me! I’ll leave you with my art project from the huge snow I brought from Michigan to Oxford (yes, the same snow we’re rowing in). Enjoy!