The Master Fall in Oxford

Hallooo to you!
I know I'd promised to continue on my updates from the summer, but I think that it is futile at this point. Just know it was a great summer and the biggest important bits were my visits to my study sites (read more at my research blog alywex.wordpress.com) and meeting my new sister Mebbie who I absolutely fell in love with. There are not words to describe...

Back in Oxford, there have been several highlights worth noting. I went to an absolutely amazing Josh Ritter concert with some fellow Marshall folk in September. I'd known about Ritter (a singer/songwriter from Idaho) for a few years, and although his concerts came highly recommended I had never been. Who knew I would get the chance in England of all places?! I have been listening to and learning his songs non-stop since then.

Then there has been rugby rugby rugby! We had a good preseason tour, made better by my amazing social sec skills. The theme I decided was pirates vs ninjas and there were many grueling battles between the two parties accompanied by two matches and some fun nights out. We had our first official league match last week against Exeter. We lost, but we saw some great play and I think when we meet Exeter on our home pitch in a month we will have no trouble crushing them.

Since I was already in Exeter last week for rugby and therefore practically next door to one of my communities and the friends I'd made there, I stayed on for a few days to try to get some more work (and walking in the beautiful autumn woods!) done. It wasn't a good time for an extended stay at the community, so I stayed with Neo (another WWOOFer from this summer) and his family just across the hill from the community. He showed me beautiful forests with changing leaves and ancient stone circles on the tops of clear, moorish hills. All within sever miles of his home! No pics of my own, unfortunately, but here is a borrowed one from discoverdartmoor.co.uk so you can get the idea. The ones I saw weren't fully restored like this one, but that gave them a genuine, mystical feel, especially with the mist and wind... Dartmoor (Devon in general!) is an amazing place... the first place in England to which I've felt truly connected. And although my time at the community was limited, I did manage to set up a time to come for a longer visit. I also left some cameras there for my participant photography project. Hopefully they will be a hit and I can follow up on the photos when I go back in two weeks. So a successful trip, all in all.

The academics side of it all has been quite fun, as well. I have been able to spend a lot of time finding the readings I want, analyzing data I gathered this summer, etc. I have desk space in the DPhil research room, so I feel like a proper researcher now! Also, this term I have to take one more elective class and write an essay for it. None of the electives fit with my dissertation, so I decided to do GIS/remote sensing because it will be an important skill. Hopefully I will even figure out a way to use it for my dissertation! Unfortunately, it takes a massive amount of time -- lots of reading and something like 20 hours of lab work each week. But it's really nice to have a change of pace. You can also see my lab write-ups and reading summaries on my research page.

Finally, in all my spare time I've decided to try rowing. It means I will be seriously fined by the rugby team, but I thought that while at Oxford I should at least try the main Oxford sports. I've got rugby well covered, so why not try rowing for my college? It actually fits quite well with rugby... one or two rowing sessions in the mornings, and a gym session that happens to be on my non-rugby training day. I've only done one outing so far and managed to make a general ass of myself, but I'm not giving up yet. If I'm lucky, I will get to participate in one of the rowing regattas this fall (the yellow boat here is Linacre overtaking another college... it shall be me!) I dig the early mornings -- they get me up and active and ready for more reading and research...

Last year at this time my "three R's" were reading, reading, and rugby (rrremember?) I guess this year they have multiplied -- reading, research, rrriting, remote sensing/GIS, rugby, Ritter, and rowing. Yahoo!

Well, back to the GIS grindstone...

Embrace the changing seasons, it's a fabulous time of year!

Falling leaves love,
Alyssa