Sickness + Writing Paper = Not fun . . .

So I woke up this morning after sleeping well over 10 hours and felt like I had just been hit by a mac truck.  My entire body was achey, my lungs hurt, I was coughing, sniffly, and just felt plane old yucky.  I am officially sick! This was just great seeing as I have to write a 2,500 word essay today, read a book, and write another 2,500 word essay tomorrow.  It was not fun, but I got prepared to head to the library with an army of tissues, cough drops, blistex and hand sanitizer.

So while I was getting ready to leave for the library, I went into my drawer to get my grocery bag full of cough drops.  I had them in a grocery bag because I bought them right before I left for England.  When I reached into the grocery bag I pulled out a pair of glasses and just started cracking up.  My roommate looked at me weird and I then had to explain the hilarity in these glasses.

So going back to before I left, I was at my Dad and Stepmom's house and my dad is (for the one millionth time) complaining because he cannot find his glasses.  I kept telling him, "Dad, they are probably in the car or in your bedroom." I just rolled my eyes  because (no offense Dad I LOVE YOU) my dad always loses his glasses! Well back to England, he somehow put the glasses in the grocery bag full of stuff I bought for England and forgot where he set them.  Now his glasses are safe and sound in Oxford, England with me! It was the highlight of my day :).

So back to getting ready . . . . I finished and got on m bike all bundled up and road to the Van Hemsworth Bodlean Library at the American Institute.  I know its a mouthful!  I got my desk all set up to go with my sickliness, books, and all!

This is my desk at the library, all ready to keep me comfortable.

This is me putting my game face on?  Halls wrapper told me to do it!

So now I have eaten lunch and about to have tea at the SCIO office, and then back to writing my Primary tutorial paper!  707 Words down, 1,793 words to go!

Tata for now!

-Katie

The Ashmoleon

Yesterday, after I woke up and read a bit, I went to the Ashmoleon Museum with Anna Harris.  Anna lives in Warrenton, Virginia, which was so ironic that I met her in Oxford, England when we live so close to each other!  Anyway, we went to the Ashmoleon Museum to look at art and artifacts from Ancient Greece up until modern day England.

It was wonderful to be able to look at all the history and the beauty of it all.  I took a ton of pictures and here are a few:

This is me with a smiling Egyptian, I thought he looked awesome! 

This is Anna with the smiling Egyptian! :)

I wanted to blend in with the artwork, pretty sure everyone thought I was just part of the sculpture!

This is an actual mummy that they MRI'd.

This was in the Indian section of the museum.

This was my favorite painting from the Baroque era collection, it is An Allegory of Innocence. 

This was in the contemporary section of painting.  It reminded me of something my Grandmother would paint.

This was another one of my favorite paintings.  The boy in the picture showed so much emotion, I love it!

I was too tired to post yesterday because I walked around the museum for about 3 hours, went to the store, came back from the store, forgot cheese for my enchiladas, went back to the store, got cheese, came back to the Vines, and finally cooked 20 cheesy chicken enchiladas for my food group.  The food group loved them and so did I! I recommend the recipe if you like cheese, chicken, and Mexican food!  I have the recipe so if anyone wants me, just message me on Facebook or look on my Pinterest.

So today I went to the Library and was pretty productive.  I read the Origins of the American Political Party and read a bit for my secondary tutorial. When I got back the sun was setting and it was absolutely beautiful so I had to take pictures of course!  So here it is:

Now I am off to make dinner and read a bit before I go to bed!

Tata for now!,

Katie

The two and a half mile journey!

Today was a beautiful day outside, a little cold, but sunny.  I decided to take advantage of this rare occasion and so I took pictures of the park and my entire journey from Oxford City Center to my Oxford home, The Vines.  My bike ride went from a 20 minute bike ride to about a 45 minute bike ride, but it was worth it.

Here are the pictures:

                        Here are wonderful Geese swimming in the Park I ride through.

                                      There are sometimes swans, but none today :(

                 

                       This is the bridge I go over and yes that is my wonderful bike!

                     This is the bike path to get to the road, which leads to Pullens Lane

        When the bike lane ends I turn right on Ferry Road and start hiking my way up.

  

You know that phrase, "It can only go up from here"? Well that is the case from this point on.

                     And look! SHOCK! AWE! SURPRISE! More uphill biking!
                             (This is the point that my breathing gets heavier)

And this is the final hill before I turn onto Pullens Lane and ride about 20 feet to The Vines.

I have seen people (Oxford citizens) bike up this hill and I have no idea how they do it.  I walk my bike up this hill and am dying by the time I get to flat land!  Well this is my journey that as you see in the title, is two and a half miles just to the city.  It is 3.3 miles to Wycliffe, which is my college and study area, and it is 3.8 to my tutorial.  It is easy to say that I get a lot of exercise here at jolly ole' Oxford!

Well I hope y'all enjoyed my little virtual tour of my everyday commute!
Tata for now,
Katie

Great Day!

Today was a great day, especially for a Wednesday.  Wednesdays are my busiest days because I have two lectures, speech and vocation, and my two tutorial essays are due on Thursday.  So you probably guessed that I don't really look forward toWednesdays.  This was not the case though!

This morning I was able to sleep in because my first tutorial is not until noon and I finished writing my essay Tuesday night.  It felt great to sleep in till 10:30 get up and relax while getting ready.  I went to my tutorial, which was about Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe.  It was interesting and it gave me some good ideas for my next paper due next Thursday.

Here is where the really good part starts happening:

After the tutorial I decided to go to the History Faculty Library to return four books and pick up two.  To understand this story I have to kind of give a back story of the first week of school:

(wooosshhhhh traveling to the past) It was my third time coming into the History Faculty Library to get the millions of books I had to read for my first tutorials.  I was being helped by the same Librarian as the last two times and he was helping me find a missing book.  We started joking about how much we see each other and I told him, "I think we will be best friends by the end of this term!" And he replied, "I am looking forward to it!"  This made my night and from then on I had a bestie old man librarian!

(woooossssshhhhhh traveling back to the present) So I am walking up the stairs to enter the door of the History Faculty Building and my bestie librarian friend was sitting at the front desk with a serious look on his face.  He looks up, sees me, a smile beams from his face and he says, "Hi Katie" and waves to me!!!!! I smiled back and said hi back to my friend and he said, "I saw that you reserved a book, it hasn't come in yet, but I will let you know when it does."

This completely made my day and made me feel so special inside.  He recognized my name and was looking out for me! He is the sweetest old man librarian I have ever met!!  The awesome part is, this wasn't the only great thing that happened in my day today!

So after going to my lecture I went to 8 Norham Gardens and ate my lunch I packed and headed to the Speech and Vocation lecture that all SCIO students are required to go to.  We had a special speaker today who was the head of the Scotland Yard for man years.  This guy was very prestigious and awesome to listen to.  He had such an interesting life story and had hilarious jokes, I really enjoyed myself.

When I got back to the vines, it was Christoff and Tom's turn to cook dinner for our food group.  I went in to the Kitchen and asked what they were making and wait for it . . .  (drummmmmm rollllllll pleaaasssseeeeeeee) . . .

THEY MADE AN ALL AUTHENTIC GREEK FOOD DINNER!!!!! For those of you that don't know, I am obsessed with authentic Greek food.  They had made Chicken Souvlaki with Greek style potatoes, tatziki sauce, and legit greek salad WITH NO LETTUCE.  It is a HUGE pet peeve of mine when American Greek salad has lettuce in it because there is absolutely NO LETTUCE in greek salad in Greece.

After eating a wonderful Greek meal until I felt like I was going to burst, I was able to Skype my mom and then sit and watch Home Alone 1 with a couple people in the Common Room.  Yes I know, Home Alone is a Christmas Movie (whiney sarcastic tone), but it is also a classic, and the only movie that looked good in our collection.

                                                       
                                        This girl up there on the left is OFFICIALLY HAPPY!

Oh and for all of you who don't know, the girl on the right in this picture is Esther, my wonderfully amazing roommate while here at Oxford.  She has been great fun and I cannot wait to get to know her better. :)

Well I shall let you all go now,
Tata for now!!
Katie

Eureka!

So today was a really good day! I was very productive with my reading and will be able to start writing my paper tomorrow.  I spent the day in lectures and reading at 8 Norham gardens, the SCIO office.  I went back to the Vines for dinner with my food group at 6p.m.  My food group consists of ten people where two people cook a night Monday through Friday.  It is really nice because I only have to cook one night a week, Fridays, and I have to provide my own food on weekends.  It is an awesome deal and saves a lot of money.

BUT ANYWAYS, as you saw in my title, I had a Eureka moment tonight.  I was at the lower reading room in the Bodlian Library reading the Brutus Essays from the Anti-Federalist and it just came to me.  My long essay topic that I have been stressing out about popped into my head.  I have decided to use the Federal Farmer, Brutus Essays, and other Anti-Federalism works and show there warnings.  Yes, there warnings, I was thinking about how many Americans are complaining about there freedoms being taken away with new bills that are being written.  It is a rough rough idea, but I love it and will love it more when I get a more final question to write on.

This is a short post because it is late and I just wanted to share my Eureka moment!
Goodnight all and tata for now!
Katie

The Oxford Term Begins

So many of my friends here at Oxford have started a blog to tell their friends all about their Oxford experience this term.  I decided that this would be a great idea, so I copied them and now officially have a blog!  I have been at Oxford for about two weeks now and during that time have had to adjust to a lot.  First off, bus drivers are very difficult to understand so make sure you know your stop very well.  When I first got to Oxford I missed my bus stop and had to travel the route again, get on another bus, and eventually get to Pullens land to arrive at my oxford home The Vines.  

This is my house that I live in with about 36 other SCIO students from around the United States.  It is a beautiful house with a lot of room.  All of the people that live here are wonderful as well.  We all get a long very nicely.

After we got here we had an entire week of Orientation where we went around Oxford learning the area, the schools, and the libraries.  There are SO MANY libraries in Oxford, over 100.  In all of these libraries there are a total of 12 million books circulating around Oxford.  Because there are so many, they have to keep some of the books in salt mines and underground bunkers.  This entire city is a history lesson waiting to happen!

Orientation week was interesting because we were able to get a feel of what tutorials and lectures would be like before they started.  We were all freaking out because it is a completely different teaching style than the States.  We have a primary and a secondary tutor.  We see the primary tutor ever week where we have to read a certain book list and write a 2,000-2,500 word essay based off of a question given to us.  Our secondary tutorial meets once every other week (or in British terms: a fortnight) and we have the same requirements of a reading list and an essay.  We also have lectures that are not attendance based, but as SCIO students we are required to go to 32 during the term.

The Saturday after orientation week many of us from the SCIO group took an optional field trip to go to London.  I now had the chance to act like a real tourist and take tons of pictures!!  Here are some of the pictures I took:

London was sooo beautiful! I absolutely loved all the scenery.  London was a great end to the orientation week.

Last week was my first week of lectures and tutorials.  They went well and I survived what I thought would never end.  Because of the amount of work we have at Oxford, every week feels like finals week at Olivet, but even though it is difficult, it is worth it.

I am off now, I hope you guys enjoyed my first blog and there will be more to come soon about my Oxford experience.
Tata for now!,
Katie