About and Abroad: September 2013

Very first post of the new blog! This is to chronicle my adventures here in Oxford, and wherever the spring takes me, and perhaps the years after. It'll also be a chance for me to post some of the photos I've taken, and get them beyond the facebook world to which they've been confined for a long time now!

England is one interesting place. Oxford especially. The trick is that its close enough to America as an english-speaking first-world power that its not too foreign, but its quite foreign enough for the novelty to still have not worn off even after 3 weeks. I'm still surprised by most shops closing about 6, the remarkably poor quality of beer for such a beverage-based society, the absurd density of city life, the unfathomable age of most buildings, and my personal inability to clearly understand most locals the first time around amidst the accent. But Ive adjusted quite a bit by now too. I bike beneath rows castle-like colleges without the awed gape anymore, and no longer feel doomed to being run over by a bus even as I stand on the sidewalk. I count change a lot faster now, and have learned to not do the conversion in my head as I shop and think of my budget.

I've been granted the unbelievable right to study here, something I've had a taste of so far. All the courses are one-on-one, once a week meetings that rely on a students ability to individually motivate and research and come back with a good paper and lots of read pages. It's a remarkable system, and now that I've been a part of it for a month I can't imagine a better way to learn academically -- there are other ways to learn, but for academic's purposes it astounds how much better I can do here than in a traditional three times a week and a load of hw system. And while it's always been true in school, you are made aware of how directly responsible you are for how things go and what you get out of the study. There's no one to hide behind when it's just you and a tutor. You can't help but read closely and seek to understand, not regurgitate, because the hammer falls in your meeting when the tutor smells bullshit. It's wonderfully refreshing, and the best way I can think of to end undergrad.

I've only been a part of one tutorial so far, a group-based September politics tutorial we're doing as we wait for Michaelmas term to start in early October and have our major courses get underway. So for now, we 45ish kids in this odd OPUS program are some of the only undergrad students around.

There's so much to say about Oxford and what I've seen in three weeks here so far. I have missed a lot of where I've come from -- Alaska is especially dear in this land of low hills and over-dressedness (where's all the fleece and two-week unwashed softshell pants?). I've been dreaming of climbing and hiking and surfing and kayaking ever since I showed up, but I have plenty of time for those things later in the year and perhaps sprinkled into my term. My background on my laptop is Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk in a portaledge halfway up Meru, and I think that'll tide me over.

Although I've really just arrived and moved into a perfectly quaint 51 Walton Crescent Street, I'm almost off on my first travel break! We're going up to SCOTLAND! And duly stoked! Edinburgh calls, and we decided a bus would be more efficient than mopeds, so we answered. I'll post some pictures of that adventure too when the time comes.

Slainte!

Riley