Week One Down!

Ahoy!

Sorry I missed a post last week... first week of classes and I was just so busy! But week one of eight in the first term is over, and I think I will really enjoy my classes. There is a TON of reading, but I guess that's what being a grad student is all about. It's a new sensation here, being in a class of Hermione Grangers. Everyone always has something to say (usually too much of something). You know when a professor asks a question and there is that silence... and usually one person feels obligated to say something? That just doesn't happen with this group. Always an answer, even for the most rhetorical questions.

However, I adore my colleagues. Everyone works incredibly hard, but we have a great time, too. We all matriculated (were formally accepted into Oxford's stately ranks) yesterday. To do this, we all threw on our sub fusc (which I found out means sombre colours) and marched down to the exam halls for a lot of queuing and a little speech. We took some class pics (these are with our whole college, i.e. Linacre), then we got a formal lunch with bottomless wine glasses.

As per tradition, we went to "The Turf" pub (the same where Bill Clinton may or may not have inhaled). Then we experienced the first of Linacre's famous "bops." Theme -- sexy sub fusc. I may have gone a little overboard, but I wasn't the only one! (Most of the folks in the pics are in my course or are Marshall folk).

On another note, I have now played three rugby matches in 7 days in three different positions -- 8 man, flanker, and hooker. I played flanker for the Oxford Blues team and feel I did well enough to stay with the Blues at least for the time being! I never thought my Oxford experience would include playing for the university's top women's rugby team. Oh, and (I know you'd be proud, Grandpa) my nickname is "Wex." I didn't even tell them, it just developed on its own.

*Cultural note of the week: England-ish dictionary. "Pants" are underwear -- don't talk to openly about your pants. If one is "pissed" he or she is drunk. If you are "takin' a piss" you are teasing someone. Urinating is "takin' a wee." If you make out with someone, you are "pulling" or "snogging" them. "Cheers" means "thanks." This last one never fails to confound me. If I say, "thanks," I stand out, but there is nothing that makes one sound more American than saying "cheerrrs." So what should I say? Thanks, cheerrrs, or che-ahs? There is no good answer...

For more fun cultural notes (this time on Basketball), check out this link to an article that one of my fellow Marshalls, (Big) Steve Danley, just wrote for the New York Times.

Be well, and write me soon -- I love to hear what everyone is up to over there!

Che-ahs,

Wex

Ode to Wind, Rain, and Rugby

Friends and family, hello!

Another week gone by already, and so much more to talk about! My time has been full of rugby training camp and introductory events for my program.

The camp was intense, but incredibly satisfying. We worked for (often) 12 hours each day with at least 6 hours of rugby and a smattering of stretching, pilates, weights, food, and beer. By the end, I couldn't walk and had accrued some impressive bruises (namely this one, which I have already shown off to many of you). The team is really fun, open, and dedicated (but not to the point of distraction). Although we ran each other into the mud, we also had a great time doing freshers' initiation during which I got to experience my first British club and my first run-in with the British police. I claim innocence (mostly) but am actually writing this from a British prison where we have a lovely tea every afternoon but otherwise subsist on porridge and mushy peas.

Friday I left camp for my course's induction field trip. There are 36 grads in my program representing 13 countries, all of them (the students) very bright. We travelled down to the incredibly beautiful Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site in Dorset where we visited the picturesque Corfe Castle (above), the abandoned village of Tynham (below top), and oil-shale cliffs of Kimmeridge Bay (below bottom). We also, in a large-group discussion, managed to define nature, wilderness, environment, theory, policy, society, and landscape and come to a consensus on how they all interact. We also achieved world peace.

























The past two days we were back in Oxford going over the less-pleasant aspects of study here; namely exams, time-tables, and applying separately to the more than 100 individual libraries in the university. Oxford is different (and difficult) in the sense that every college, department, library, or other university entity is self-managed and independent, and thus has its own system and bureaucracy. Some of the other traditions, however, have been much more pleasant. The science library has cozy fourth-floor nooks that I shall claim as my own for my reading purposes (which will take up every minute from 9-5pm that I am not in lecture or at tea). And this evening I stepped up my Harry Potter experience at our first formal dinner. Four-course meal, Latin opening and closing "prayer," and all of it in our formal robes. Our robes have wings. Hee hee.



Unfortunately our unusual Indian summer has ended, and winter may be upon us in the way winter goes in England -- freezing rain and wind all weekend for our field trip (although it made for spectacular waves along the coast). Looking out across the hedgerowed fields and rolling downs, I felt I'd stepped out of Hogwarts and into the Shire, onto the Netherfield estate, into the landscape of the Romantics...





...O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being...




Aly