Lifestyles of the Euro and Famous

Y’all already know that I am neither European nor famous, but this week I certainly felt like I was! So much has happened since the last time I wrote that I should warn you that this will be a longer than normal entry… and we all know that brevity never was my strong suit.

So let’s see; back to last Wednesday. In the morning, I had my first Mandarin class of the term. Due to a strange (and in my opinion, pretty silly) bylaw in my program, we don't have any access to language instruction. I therefore had to go through the Oxford Language Center to set up classes, and had the choice between what's called an OPAL course, which is super intense and includes tests and attendance requirements, and a LASR (pronounced laser) course, which meets once a week for two hours and is much more focused on maintaining proficiency. Since I'm still trying to find my way here and the LASR course was literally 1/5 the price of OPAL, it was pretty much a no-brainer, but I made sure I signed up for the highest level to challenge myself. However, I was still second-guessing my choice of the "Advanced" level when I was biking to class that day. 

Luckily, not only was the class not far over my head, but I towered over it the same way I normally do when I wear heels at cocktail parties. Everyone in my class (about 15 students total) thought that the "advanced" needed to advance a bit, so I'm confident that our teacher will allow us to move ahead a little farther, but it was a nice ego boost at the same time to already recognize all of the characters in the text, when I'm used to floundering around and having to study literally every day to stay ahead of those blasted pictographs. And I was surprised at how nice it was to actually be able to speak Mandarin again, beyond the usual pleasantries and restaurant lingo that I can use when interacting with Chinese people I meet in the course of normal business and can badger into allowing me to practice a bit. 

After class, I headed to Rhodes House to study for a few hours and print off my tickets for my big Belgian weekend. Not only is the House gorgeous and historic; it also has a basement full of free tea and coffee, comfy chairs, and the rare commodity of free printing. However, I only got a few articles read before I had to jump back on my bike to head across the city to the New Oxford Theatre. 

Oxford attract some of the best traveling shows and performers in the UK, and the understanding that it's a university town means that it's possible to get dirt cheap tickets to some awesome shows. There were about 8 Rhodies who'd purchased 12 quid tickets to see the Off Broadway version of "Westside Story", a play I hadn't seen since I was a child and my theater professor aunt directed a production in Georgia. We had seats in literally the back row of the entire theater and joked about the huge number of steps we had to scale to get up there, but the view of the stage wasn't actually too shabby when we finally found our places:

And the show was amazing. The singing was good, and the choreography had a lot of ballet influence, so it was beautiful. It was almost three hours, but the time seemed to fly by…which then meant I had to do a double-take at my watch when I realized that I needed to run back to my dorm and change before my next event.

Brasenose does something called a "Blurb" for its graduates once a month. I have no idea why that name was chosen (and a cursory Google search suggests it was random and not Latin like "subfusc"), but basically what happens is wine and appetizers as a guest speaker talks about his or her research, and then a formal dinner where the chef gets to cook whatever the heck they want (and there's more wine). The speaker was a noted environmental activist in the UK who argued the merits of "re-wilding"; that is, allowing large tracts of land like national parks to be turned back over to the way they would be without human intervention and reintroducing "megatrophs" like wolves and whales back into the environments. Although I found his argument a tad circular --why should we meddle with the environment in order to stop meddling with the environment?-- he was a good speaker, and did tell some interesting tales about the days when elephants, lions, and hippopotami used to roam the woods of England. Even if he had been a boring old windbag, however, it would've been worth it for the food. There was an appetizer of grilled sea bass risotto, a main course of eggplant casserole and potatoes (and duck for non-pescatarians), and chocolate pie with pistachios for dessert. By the time my flatmates and I left, I was worried I'd have to roll myself home!

The next two days were unremarkable except for the massive amount of reading I did to prepare to leave Oxford and its restrictive libraries for an entire weekend. But on Friday, we had our Rhodes "Coming Up Dinner", aka an excuse to get dressed to the nines and once again go eat delicious food and try expensive wine for free. Although there was somewhat of a flutter among the Rhodes ladies about whether short or long dresses were appropriate, I'd already made up my mind to wear a long dress, because I a) so seldom get the opportunity to do so and b)get super excited whenever I find a dress that's actually floor length on me. Plus, there's something about dressing up that triggers a sort of regression to princess fantasies from being a little girl that I firmly believe most women experience. So I spent time doing my hair and makeup and picking out jewelry and shoes to match my dress and still be comfortable, which is no easy feat. Luckily for me, I wasn't holding Joe up; one thing I have learned while dating an Army guy is that putting on a dress uniform is a long and complex process, so I was ready only a few minutes after him and early enough to force him to (reluctantly) take a junior high prom style picture before we walked across the city to Rhodes House.

We walked into a cocktail hour in full swing, and had plenty of time before we were seated to enjoy champagne and conversation and marvel over how nice everyone looked all spiffied up. With the exception of our sendoff weekend in DC, all of us have only seen each other in normal graduate student attire, usually layered under plenty of heavy clothes to ward off the British chill. So there were a few of my friends (mostly the guys) who I almost didn't recognize in their finery. It was an awesome photo opportunity though! There are many more pictures on Facebook, but I did want to include one of my favorites from the night, with some of my closest girlfriends here: 

From left to right is Rachel (who is also teaching me American Sign Language!), Kiley (my fellow District 12 nominee), and Jenny (probably the person who reminds me most of Reagan, my best friend from home). 

We weren't seated to dinner until after 8, and between the three courses, the speaker who addressed us, and the port and cheese that followed dessert, it was almost midnight by the time we ventured back out into the cool air. Although I was already doing mental math and realizing that getting out of bed at 5 am was going to be more than unpleasant, I agreed to go dancing in full black tie with some friends, because honestly, how often am I going to have that opportunity again? 

Somehow, however, the "carpe diem" argument didn't carry as much weight when I was jolted out of bed after three hours of sleep to walk through the rain to the bus station. Although Brussels isn't actually that far from Oxford in an objective sense, getting there in reality actually requires a bus, a subway, and two train rides. Luckily, I was tired enough to sleep the entire 90 minutes to London, wake up to navigate to the train station and eat breakfast, and then pass back out for the entire two hour trip through the Chunnel to Brussels. 

Everything had been going smoothly to that point, and I was on track to meet my dad at his hotel in Ghent by 1 pm as planned. Unfortunately, there was some sort of track outage between Brussels and Ghent (I think there was some type of fire, but my French isn't good enough to tell exactly and my Dutch is nonexistent), and my train was delayed a full hour. As Murphy's Law would have it, my UK phone wouldn't send emails, texts, or call, and there was absolutely no free wifi in the vicinity of the train station, so I couldn't get in touch with my dad to say I'd be over an hour late. I spent a large part of the train ride --when I finally got on it-- just praying that he wouldn't have had called the police when I finally showed up to the lobby. 

But finally show up I did, and send out a search party he had not, so I dropped my things off in the gorgeous hotel where his company gets a corporate rate, and we headed to lunch at around 2:30. We walked down to the main historic harbor area of Ghent, which has now been mostly converted into nice cafes, restaurants, and hotels. Most people don't realize that Ghent (or Gent in Dutch or Gand in French) was once the second largest city in Northern Europe after Paris, and the center of a huge textile and manufacturing empire stretching across most of what is now Belgium and part of the Netherlands and Germany. So the waterfront area is full of history and is well restored, except for the plethora of European hipsters that sit around and do silly modern things like play guitar:

After a delicious meal of pasta and coffee (always an appropriate combination in my opinion), my dad and I decided to take a boat tour around the canals of the city. I was amazed by our tour guide's ability to switch easily among Dutch, German, French, and English accounts of the various buildings and general history of the city, and a stolen glance at some of the signs suggested he could've done Spanish and Portuguese as well. I took some amazing pictures (again, see Facebook, because I can't load them all on here), but my favorite part of the tour was the explanation of the many churches in Ghent, which used to be sponsored by each of the craftsman's guild. In true Belgian form, one of the largest and most central had been built by the Brewmaster's Guild, and I dragged my dad to see it afterward. Although he swears up and down that every European cathedral is the same, I absolutely love going into old churches. I think that each one is unique, and there's both so much history and such serenity that it always makes me happy to walk around and explore. This particular church had some of the best stained glass I'd seen in some time, and the late afternoon light made it perfect for pictures:

Once I'd had my fill and my father had enjoyed his rest on a back pew, we headed back to the hotel to meet one of his colleagues, an ex-pat American who'd been living in Ghent for almost a year. He obviously loves Belgium and yet still has strong connections back to the Carolinas, so it was great to meet him and hear about his experiences. After sampling a few Belgian beers - including one that was the strangest and most delicious complex flavor combination I've had in quite some time - we let him get back to his family and dogs and struck out to try a restaurant he'd recommended that was a short walk from the hotel. Along the way, we walked past the canal at night, and I got what may be my favorite picture of all from Ghent:

At dinner, my aversion to Dutch got the best of me. Don't get me wrong; I love languages, and can normally get around fairly proficiently in countries where German or a Romance language is prevalent. But something about guttural, consonant-ridden, and complex Dutch never ceases to baffle me, and so I just blindly ordered a salad that said "Casar" on the completely Dutch menu, without realizing that it had chicken on top. Now, I've been in the process of going pescatarian for about a year now, and although I used to still eat the occasional piece of poultry, I haven't had chicken since probably August, so I knew that eating that volume of chicken would give me a terrible stomachache. Although my dad ate part of it and I sampled a few bits, I still felt bad when the woman came back to find the majority of the little cubes stacked neatly in the middle of my empty bowl. I couldn't even explain to her that it truly was delicious, and I just couldn't eat it! Anyway, we eventually headed back to the hotel to FaceTime my mom, and then I was more than happy to collapse into bed. 

The time changed overnight, and my dad would tease me if I didn't admit on here that I thought I'd set my alarm for the correct time and yet still overslept. When he did come knock on my door, I threw on some real clothes as quickly as possible, and made my way downstairs for the delicious breakfast buffet. Nice hotels in Europe tend to have an amazing selection of everything you could possibly want for breakfast, from fruit and pastries to bread and cheese and eggs and pancakes, so we tucked in and enjoyed some coffee before checking me out of the hotel and hopping on a train to Bruges.

Bruges, or Brugge in Dutch, is like the bigger and more famous brother of Ghent. Made famous partially by a movie with Colin Farrell about an assassin hiding out after botching a job, there are a huge number of tourists who visit its slightly grander central square and equally gorgeous churches. It was looking like rain when we arrived, so we walked a cursory lap around the beautiful "centrum", which features all of the flags of the city:

before taking refuge (and another cup of coffee) in a cafe on the canals that also criss-cross that city. After our great experience with the boat tour the day before, we decided that another canal visit was in order, and hopped in line for another trip around the old parts of Bruges. Unfortunately, the skies opened back up halfway through our 40 minute tour, and people in our boat were forced to resort to huddling under umbrellas, maps, and in one notable case, more nontraditional means of staying dry:

There were even earholes! I didn't get as many pictures of Bruges as I did of Ghent, since I was worried about the safety of my camera in the wet weather, but the churches and historic facades of the buildings were just as beautiful as we'd seen the day before: 

When we'd finally made it back on dry land and under the cover of awnings, I was on the lookout for art. I'm not much of a collector, but one thing I always buy when I travel is some sort of local art to remember the journey by. I don't really have a theme; I just try to find something I like and that isn't something I could buy a print of at a Hobby Lobby back in the States. Luckily, I found a street vendor with beautiful pencil sketches of Bruges's skyline and a jaunty handlebar mustache to boot! The whole cold rain bit was starting to grind on our nerves after that, so my dad and I sought refuge once again in a small place that smelled wonderfully of waffles. Although not all Belgian waffles come with the strawberries and whipped cream like Americans always assume, they are made of thicker dough and coated in sugar that caramelizes in the waffle iron, so it's nothing short of delicious. We also used the opportunity to browse for the famous Belgian chocolate, and stroll through a few free museums. Oh, and take some adorable daddy-daughter pictures:

After all of that, it was time to head back to the train station to start the long journey home. I stopped and had a snack with my dad before tracing my steps back to Brussels, switching to Eurostar in London, taking the Tube to the bus station (which is surprisingly difficult to find when it's dark and rainy and your brain was sleep-addled the only other time you've been there) and then walking back to my room in Oxford.

After all was said and done, I'd only been out of town for about 40 hours, but I felt like I'd stuffed an entire week of activities into that time. Although I've only been away from home for about a month, it's always nice to see family, and catching up with my dad while simultaneously traveling around two gorgeous cities was a winning combination.

Now, I've got to buckle back down and write the paper I'm actually supposed to be composing instead of this blog. Somehow, writing about China's ideological reasons for entering the Korean War aren't nearly exciting as reliving waffles, chocolate, and beer, but then again, I'm a student-traveler, not a traveler-student. As they say in Dutch, "welterusten"! At least, that's what Google says "good night" is. God knows I still can't begin to comprehend Dutch. 

What the subfusc is Matriculation?

I've been told countless times by friends and family that, when they picture me at Oxford, they inevitably think of Hogwarts. And although, unfortunately, there are countless ways in which that is not true (it would be much faster to ride a broom to class than a bike, and there have been a few customer service representatives I'd have liked to hex), there are times when even I look around and realize that Harry Potter is still alive and well at the University here.

One of these such occasions occurred this past Saturday, on the day of Matriculation. If your initial reaction to that word takes you somewhere between feeling inadequate about your own understanding and indignantly sure that no such word exists outside of some variety of obscure science, then we were right in the same boat until last week. But Oxford has a funny way of imparting all sorts of random knowledge outside one's subject area (mostly in the realm of stuffy anachronistic terms like "matriculation"), so I now have quite a handle on what the whole affair is about and can therefore impart it to you. Just think of the possible obscure European education trivia questions you can answer in the future!

Given that Oxford has existed since the 13th century and therefore long outdates the establishment of standardized tests like the SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, MCAT, and every other combination of letters that can possibly be concocted to terrify students, the dons (administrators) used to require a way of ensuring that every student entering the University was up to scratch and not some fraud who'd fudged their application. In keeping with the stuffy tradition of European scholarship, they naturally settled on an oral examination in Latin, which every Oxford man (because they were all men) would have to pass before being officially recognized as a student here.

Thank goodness, that practice fell by the wayside some centuries ago (or there would be far less than 20,000 students every year!). However, Oxford isn't a place that likes to fully let go of any tradition, no matter how anachronistic, and so every student is still matriculated every year. But the current ceremony bears little resemblance to the past examinations. Nowadays, the only Latin that's involved is the formal presentation by the dean of the students to be matriculated, and the Associate Chancellor's recognition of the new students as matriculated. More than anything, the day involves a lot of waiting in line, as each student is checked in and their subfusc evaluated (see below), then walking in lines to the Sheldonian Theatre, which is an Oxford landmark, and then sitting in lines to be spoken to by the Chancellor, and finally standing in lines to have the Freshers' picture be taken for each college. All in all, it looks something like this (professional picture, not mine, as cameras are not technically allowed):

Now do you see why I made mention of Harry Potter? The penguin costume that every student is wearing in this picture is called subfusc, which is another great and greatly outdated Oxford tradition. No one here seems to know the etymology of the word, but a cursory Google search suggested that the term arose in the 18th century from the Latin (always with the Latin!) for subfuscus, from "sub" meaning "somewhat" and "fuscus" meaning "dark brown". Ironically, it can also be used as a rather negatively-connoted adjective, meaning "dull and gloomy".

Each University in the United Kingdom has its own slightly different interpretation of the classic garb, but at Oxford it is comprised of a dark suit for men with a white bow tie, or dark pants/skirt/hose/shoes and a white collared shirt for women with a velvet ribbon tied at the throat. This is worn under the gown, which is hip-length for undergraduates and knee-length for graduate students, and has these curious wings from the shoulders, which most students refer to quite scientifically as "flappies". To give you an example, see the following picture of my flatmates and I from Saturday:

HARRY POTTER ALL OVER AGAIN. We're not the only people who think it's curious, apparently, because every Matriculation Day, countless tourists flock to Oxford to awkwardly snap photos of us as we walk between our colleges and the Sheldonian. If some of those lucky tourists peruse their pictures in the future, they'll find me in the background, sticking my tongue out and making other obnoxious faces to counter their paparazzi status. Hey, I've never claimed to be mature in every way!

Unofficially, Matriculation is also a day on which every new fresher boycotts work in favor of hanging out with friends. So after the ceremony finally finished and we'd finally taken our freshers' photo, I went to brunch with some fellow Brasenostrils, and then took a tour of some Oxford pubs. My roommate Heather (on the right in the picture above) made reservations at a swanky French restaurant in town, and 8 of us went out for dinner to celebrate our official status as new Oxford students:

Besides all of the brouhaha of Matriculation, pretty much everything here has proceeded as normal. There have been classes, homework, lots of good food, hangouts with friends, rowing practices, and, of course, lots and lots of rain. This coming week, however, will be (as my Aussie friends would say) a doozy. I've got the formal Rhodes "Coming Up" Dinner on Friday, a black tie affair that promises to be delicious and decorous, and then I'm heading to Ghent, Belgium this weekend to see my father.
So there you have it. I hope that you are now a bit more educated on British educational history (or at least motivated to go pop in one of the Harry Potter DVDs), and stay tuned for an (even more) international entry.

This Little Piggy Went to Bop

"What in God's name is a bop?" you may ask. Well, the Oxford English dictionary defines a "bop" as "a British dance to pop music". In practical Oxford application, it means a big party, usually with a theme and often with costumes, thrown by one of the colleges and open to other students if they are a guest of one of the college residents. And this past weekend, I went to my very first bop!

I guess I should rewind, since there is an entire 0th (pronounced "nought") week of classes and introductions to sum up before the real fun started. As I mentioned in my last post, Monday was a day of last minute errands, buying the boring but necessary school supplies like notebooks and pens and such. Then on Tuesday, I had my big program induction.

I use the word "big" a tad ironically, since the MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies is in actuality rather small by Oxford standards, with only 24 students. On Tuesday, I learned that there were only three other Americans, a large Australian contingent (6 grads who jokingly refer to themselves as the "Aussie mafia"), five mainland Chinese students, and an assortment of others who are British or from various other European countries. We definitely have a very international group, and everyone has different backgrounds. Cate, the other American Rhodie in my program, and I are two of the only students fresh out of undergrad as far as I can tell; most of my classmates have spent some time living and working in China or have already received some other postgraduate degree. Our professors are very impressive, and have come to Oxford from a wide range of fields to teach in SIAS, the School of Interdisciplinary and Area Studies. The very integrated approach to learning was one of the things that really attracted me to this program in the first place, so listening to them describe the different specialty courses they will be offering in second term was very exciting! Everyone was super friendly, so I was glad to be able to chat and mingle and hear everyone's stories.

On a much more comic note, Wednesday was the day of my first rude awakening that, as a postgrad at Oxford, I'm not in Wofford/Kansas anymore. Coming from an insular undergraduate institution where I could walk from one side of campus to the other in five minutes to Oxford, where various old buildings are so seamlessly integrated into the historic streets that the tiny blue signs denoting their actual academic functions are unfortunately quite easy to overlook, I'd gotten into the habit of leaving embarrassingly early for classes in new places to allow for time to get lost. So when I was supposed to meet my new advisor, Dr. Sarah Eaton, I left fifteen minutes early for a five minute bike ride to the China Centre, which I'd luckily found the day before.

Imagine my panic when I walked in the front door and casually asked the administrator to direct me to Dr. Eaton's office and she gave me a blank stare that plainly said, "I have no idea who the heck that is, and you're an idiot for asking." Come to find out, Oxford was kind enough to build us both a China Centre AND a China Institute, which are of course almost a mile apart from one another! The blank stare lady was kind enough to give me directions to the other China building (with a haughty stare for good measure), and I hopped back on my bike for the frantic race to the next building. Which turned out to be farther than I'd thought; so far that I stopped at one college and asked for directions, and was promptly pointed back in the opposite direction and told that I'd passed my destination. And then, when I'd doubled back on myself and still couldn't find it and was already five minutes late and on the verge of panic, I finally had the presence of mind to dig through my email to find the cell phone number of our program's administrator and give her a frantic call.

I have no idea how she managed to decipher the rush of American English that was something along the lines of, "heyLucyitsRachelIhaveameetingwithDrEatonandImverylatebutitsbecauseImlostanddontknowwhereIamandtheChinaCentreisdifferentfromtheChinaInstitutehelppppppp", but Lucy managed to be unflappably British and direct me to the building in a kind voice, as well as promise to go tell Dr. Eaton that I was not, in fact, delinquent (just a tad incompetent). Then, after about a quarter mile sprint (I ditched the bike at some rack I found in order to be able to read signs as I ran), I made it to my meeting, sweaty, late, and having lost my pen for note-taking somewhere along the way.

Luckily, Dr. Sarah Eaton is young, brilliant, and also has a great sense of humor, so she burst out laughing when I finally huffed and puffed into her office (thoroughly convinced that I needed to make it to the gym more often). We had a lovely meeting in which I managed to both reduce my heart rate and discuss with her my plan for my dissertation, and she contributed some good ideas for starting my research and told me that she was totally okay with a more independent working relationship, in which I could be left to my own devices and check in with her when necessary, as long as I continued to make the deadlines she'd set out for me.

Besides Thursday afternoon, when we had another joint introduction to the research methods course that all MSc students in SIAS take, I had the rest of the week to get acclimated to Oxford's library system. Although the sheer number of books in the University is impressive, somewhere around the 11 million mark, they're spread around the city in a combination of central libraries, subject collections, and college libraries, and each has different rules for access and checking things out. To add to the confusion, books that are in high demand for multiple subjects can't actually be checked out, and can only be read in the libraries for three hours at a time.

When I was in undergrad, I was wholeheartedly a curl up in bed with music and a cup of tea type reader, so imagine my dismay when I realized that every book I needed was of the type that couldn't be removed from the library, thereby outlawing tea, bed, and music in one fell stroke. However, I did find out that the Social Sciences Library contains nearly everything I need, is right around the corner from my dorm, and has massive windows with comfy chairs, so I guess that's the next best thing! Plus, the one good thing about the cold and rainy weather here is that it makes sitting inside and reading all afternoon much easier than it was in the warm and sunny regions of South Carolina.

Now, to Saturday! Before the bop, I had a lovely afternoon down at the Brasenose boathouse. That's right, folks, your author dearest is one of the newest novices on Brasenose's women's rowing team! Although I'd originally been very against playing any sort of sport here, having both loved playing volleyball undergrad and yet lamented the constant demands it put on my schedule and joints, I finally decided that I wanted to do something new and still athletic. Given that rowing is new, favors tall people, and is ridiculously British, I decided that I'd give it a try. My roommate Emily, who is also American and athletic but is tiny, was recruited as a coxswain, so we went down to the Brasenose boathouse on the Thames together to meet some folks and enjoy what was (for once) a warm and sunny afternoon. Then, in a fit of Oxford awesomeness, we found a sushi place and got some rolls to go for lunch, then snuck into the private gardens at Exeter College and ate lunch in a beautiful English style wildflower field overlooking the Exeter Chapel. You honestly can't make this stuff up! Photographic evidence:

For Saturday night, the bop options (boptions?) abounded. It should first be noted that costume parties, or "fancy dress" parties as they're known in the UK, are a huge thing here. Wadham had a "dress as your subject" theme, St. Antony's did an animal motif, Green Templeton chose to have a Harry Potter party, and Balliol went medieval. Because there are large groups of Rhodies in both St. Ant's and Balliol, my boyfriend Joe and I were on the lookout for costumes that could cross over from a medieval theme to an animal bop, in case we decided to jump ship at any point during the night. I had a group of friends who had decided to dress up as knights for Balliol, so I settled on dressing in all white and French braiding some "reigns" so that I could be their white horse. Joe didn't know/care what he wanted to dress as, so he made the fatal error of giving me complete control over his costume.

While at Primark, which is essentially a souped up and yet even cheaper version of H&M, I stumbled across what is perhaps the best find of my costume-shopping days: a zip-up pink onesie pajama set that turned the wearer into a pig! Now, just the mental image of my tall Army boyfriend in pink fleece with a curly tail sent me into hysterics at the store, and since my one good faith effort to call and get his permission went to voicemail, I had no choice but to spend the twelve dollars and hope he'd be a good sport. Per usual, he was, and even managed to keep a straight face as we walked across town in front of all the staring eyes of Oxford. You can imagine that we made quite a scene, but check out the amazingness of the finished product:

And here's me with one of my "knights", Jenny:

There were many other noteworthy costumes that night. Two of my roommates wore all black and went as "the Plague", Joe made a new friend in a fellow student who donned a onesie dragon costume, and my personal favorite was a dude in a cardboard box with bricks painted on it-- he was a castle. Watching him dance and maneuver through doorways was probably the high point of the night! With the exception of the weird techno and house remixes the DJ insisted on playing, which made all of the Americans grit our teeth in auditory anguish, it was a great night and a fun first of what will hopefully be many bops.




This week, or "First Week", on the all-important Oxford style calendar, has been mostly just about settling into classes and keeping up with reading for lecture, but last night we had what was probably the most fun dinner since coming to Oxford. Rhiana, one of our fellow American Rhodes Scholars, was turning 24, and since we realized the inevitable headache that would come about from trying to make reservations for at least 30 people at one of the (usually tiny) restaurants here, I offered to cook dinner for everyone at Joe and Evan's apartment, which is the largest of the scholars'. Having gotten used to cooking for an entire volleyball team, I can make a mean assembly line of lasagna, so I put together 7 and also threw in a huge salad and some garlic bread. I asked everyone else to bring drinks and desserts, and they definitely came through, so we pretty much had a feast! Besides the moment of panic I had when I realized that tiny European ovens can't keep enough heat to cook that many lasagnas in good time and had to jack the temperature up to broil in order to get all of the cheese melted and zucchini cooked in the vegetarian ones, everything went off very smoothly, and it turned into an amazing night that I'm sure we'll all remember. I even played soccer mom and got everyone to stand still long enough for a big "family photo".

So there you have it! Happy Wednesday, from my Oxford family to yours :) 

Flujabs and Humped Zebras; or, Settling In

At this moment, I've been living in the United Kingdom for a grand total of about 5 days. So I can't pretend to be an expert on life here, but I do have to say that I consider myself fairly far along in the settling in process.

I will let the evidence speak for itself. I have found my dorm, unpacked, figured out how to get on the Internet, acquired a British cell phone and a cell phone plan, gotten a bike, bought some miscellaneous items for my room, and met a ridiculous amount of new people. I know, right?! I'll sign autographs later.

In all seriousness though, the transition here has been much smoother than I could've imagined to this point. Granted, I had anticipated it to be easier than moving to Beijing, where everyone spoke a completely foreign language, or India, where cultural differences and accents made it seem like everyone did, but I had still expected a fair amount of hoopla to ensue when I got here. In the scheme of things, however, Britain has been surprisingly kind to me to this point.

That is not to say that there have not been several funny moments. I always tell people that the very first thing you should pack when you go abroad is your sense of humor, and you should always be prepared to turn it on yourself. For example, imagine the scene all of we Rhodies made when we first stumbled out of Heathrow, lugging ungodly amounts of baggage and blinking from disorientation brought on by actual sunlight and lack of sleep. Luckily for us, a porter from the Rhodes House named Bob was there to pick us up, and ordered us about in a brusque, British way that was both endearing and surprisingly effective. We all loaded up our bags into a separate Uhaul in order of our colleges, so that we could be let off at various points around Oxford. 

Although I had been proud of myself for reducing my bags down to one hiking backpack, a rolling carryon, and a small backpack, I was cursing every single extra thing I'd thrown into my bag as I lugged it up the two flights of stairs to my dorm room. I had fretted about how far away my housing looked, but when I actually arrived at the St. Cross Annexe, it was surprisingly close to the Rhodes House, Brasenose's main campus, and the center of town. Then again, I have learned over these past few days that pretty much everything in Oxford is much closer than you'd imagine it would be. My dorm was built in the 1990's, but it's still actually quite beautiful, and (I think) integrates fairly well with the stone architecture of the rest of Oxford.

My room is currently still far too messy and undecorated to post a picture, but I will give you a sneak peek of the quintessentially British scene that I can look at every day while I'm at my desk. I mean really, doesn't this make you think of Jane Eyre?

Okay, enough of my dorm. Honestly, I've had very little time to spend there myself! I only took about ten minutes to toss everything down and change clothes initially, and then I was off to run errands. And ohhhh, the errands I ran. From Rhodes House to Brasenose to cell phone stores to banks and back, I crisscrossed Oxford, trying my best to learn the streets as I power-walked them. I took one 45 minute break to take a small nap, which breaks one of my cardinal travel rules (that is, do not sleep during the day in the first few weeks in a new place), because I hadn't slept a second on the plane the night before. But then I was back up and at 'em, off to a dinner and a bonfire the older Rhodes Scholars had planned for us to meet and mingle (and, I suspect, to keep people awake for longer).

Dinner was my first experience with a real, live British pub. And I loved it! It was loud and hot and terribly decorated, and the ceiling was so low that I had to duck when walking through doors and stay on my guard fairly constantly the rest of the time. But the conversation was good and the beer/cider selection wide, and I even got some delicious salmon thrown in the mix, so I had a blast. A word about British pub life: I'm fascinated by the range of alcohol they have here! There are ciders that are sickly sweet, like the ones I don't particularly like in America, and then there are also delicious dry ones like Stella Cidre and a pear type I sampled at the Jericho Arms on Thursday. And British beers, although primarily plain old ales or lagers, come in an amazing range of local brews, with a decent foreign beer selection sprinkled in as well. And although the pound is a disadvantage for sure, the prices have seemed fairly reasonable to me thus far (but bear in mind that I was beaten down by DC bar price pricegouging all summer).

After everyone finished up dinner and their last pints, we moved as a horde to the site of our next activity, a bonfire. Bonfires are quite a thing in the South, so imagine my surprise at the discomfort of many of my classmates when our after-dinner activity took us through one of the common green areas of Oxford to a field with a large fire. There were horses calmly grazing around the periphery, which I found beautiful, but a fairly large contingent of my peers (especially the ones who’d grown up in urban areas) confessed to being very afraid of horses, which led to a lot of squealing and other fun.

Given that I’d only slept 45 minutes in the last 36 hours or so, I was quite exhausted, and more than happy to head home around midnight. Luckily, we’d managed to get all the way across Oxford from my dorm, so walking home was quite a production! By the time I’d hit my bed, I was absolutely exhausted.

The next morning was a study in the ineptitude of 21^st century twentysomethings deprived of technology. When I finally got my wifi to work to check my email at around 10:30, I found out that I’d missed a breakfast, a group trip to the store, and had also apparently left a large group of my friends standing outside my dorm looking for me for quite some time. Although I’d originally been on the fence about getting a cell phone right away, since I was still foggy on the relative strengths and shortcomings of the various providers and devices here, that incident pretty well swayed me to jump into a contract.

But first, I had to find Joe and Kiley, who were the ones most intent on getting their cell phones ironed out, and had done significantly more research to date than I had. Given my isolation from all modern communication, I had to go the old fashioned route, wandering about the streets until I finally spotted Joe’s (rather large) shaved head over the crown of Cornmarket, the busiest shopping street in the city center. Joe and Kiley are both in the Army, and perhaps the only two other Rhodies who rival me for Type A-ness, so everything fell into place once we were all together. In short order, we located cell phones (and did pretty well, with smart phones and data plans for about 15 bucks a month, thank you very much!), got lunch, and put down deposits on some bikes across town. The rest of the day was devoted unpacking and reading over the ridiculous amount of materials I’d been given by my college, the Rhodes House, my department, and the University….one of the things I’ve learned is that centralization (like personal space) seems to be a very American concept. In the evening, I met a group of my classmates at one of the most famous pubs in Oxford, called the King’s Arms. Just to give you a visual of what a classic old British pub looks like (and confirm that all of your stereotypical mental images from movies are actually very true), see the following picture:

Saturday was our formal introduction to Rhodes House and all of the other Scholars. Now, to this point, I’d only met the 31 other American Scholars, and the various foreign ones who had managed to finagle their way into our BVW weekend in DC. I’d just begun to feel confident in my knowledge of everyone’s names, backgrounds, colleges, and programs at Oxford. So imagine my surprise when we arrived on Saturday morning to meet the 50+ other Scholars from our year, the 83 in the year above us, and the 30-odd 3^rd year Scholars who’d elected to stay another year in Oxford to receive DPhils (the British name for PhDs). Just when my voice was starting to tentatively return after the cocktail parties of DC, it was sent right back out the door by discussions with Canadian, South African, Australian, Indian, and other various Scholars. It was undoubtedly overwhelming, but also amazing to see how much we all had in common and how excited we were across the board to be in Oxford….which was also fairly universally associated with a healthy dose of disorientation given our abrupt immersion into British university life.

One great victory I should mention that day was in the charity sale that took place in the afternoon to benefit the Rhodes Scholars South African Forum (RSSAF). They ask the older Scholars to donate items they don’t use anymore, and then sell them to the incoming Rhodies at steeply discounted prices. Since Kiley and Joe are both moving into unfurnished kitchens, and I plan on cooking at their places quite often, we all chipped in and bought an amazing amount of plates, glasses, cookware, and other kitchen accessories…for a total of 30 pounds! Mom, you should be proud of my bargain hunting skills J

Saturday night allowed us to take off our stuffy business clothes and re-meet everyone in our normal casual college student personas at a meet n’ mingle event at the Rhodes House. That was followed by some cultural exchanges in some of Oxford’s pubs, and finally some dancing at one of the most famous clubs here, called Maxwell’s. If meeting everyone in Rhodes House had been fun, seeing everyone relaxed and actually enjoying themselves was a blast. I had an extensive conversation with the Aussie contingent about my Lilly Pulitzer koozie, which I’ve been known to carry in my purse, and found out that such devices are called “stubbie holders” in Australia. Who knew? I also chatted with two of the Canadian women, one of whom had played rugby and one who’d played soccer in college, and we decided that the tall, athletic girls of Rhodes House have to stick together!

It was a late night, so getting out of bed in the morning to catch an early bus for another Rhodes activity was admittedly a struggle. But given that it was a trip to Windsor Castle, the most famous British castle and also the longest-inhabited residence in the world (having been lived in continuously since the 11^th century, in case you were wondering), I gave myself a pep talk and found my way to the bus promptly, where an hour nap left me feeling much refreshed by the time we were able to walk the grounds. The castle is rambling due to the many additions across the centuries, and has beautifully manicured grounds. In addition, we’d been blessed with what was probably the most beautiful October day Oxford has had in years. To prove my point, check out the following (completely un-photoshopped) picture of St. George’s Cathedral, which is on the grounds of the castle and has been/is the site of many important royal events.

We were also able to walk through the State Apartments, because none of the royal family was in residence. We weren’t technically allowed to take pictures (although I snuck some of course, which will eventually be on Facebook), but even my camera did little to capture the amazing architecture and huge volume of priceless artwork the living quarters held. Our tour guide told us that the Castle has the largest collection of original da Vincis in the world….although at a paltry 600+, it can’t be that much above anywhere else! Just kidding. Let’s just say that by the end of it, my neck was sore from craning to look at the high and frescoed ceilings, and my eyes were exhausted from taking in all of the gold leaf.

Now it’s Monday, and I’m gearing up for the start of my academic program tomorrow. I’ve many last minute errands to run, but I do want to pass along a few details of the less-than-obvious things about living in England that I’ve begun to pick up. Although most Americans know that British English calls trucks “lorries”, bathrooms “Water Closets”, and French fries “chips”, there are a surprising number of vocabulary that I think you can only pick up from being here. Luckily for you, I’ll save you a lot of money on plane tickets and tell you the definitions I have learned thus far:

-Aubergine (n)- eggplant

-Rocket (n)- argula (particularly confusing if you see a “Rocket Sandwich” on a menu)

-Flujab (n)- Flu shot

-Humped Zebra (n)- raised crosswalk. NO LIE. There are actual signs here that say “caution: humped zebra”, but I haven’t gotten the chance to snag a picture of one yet.

-Pants (n) - underpants. NOT to be confused with

-Trousers (n)-  pants. This can get super awkward, super quickly.

-Cheers (exclamation) - Thanks, you're welcome, and pretty much every other pleasantry, all rolled into one. 

-Salad (n)- lettuce for sandwiches. Chicken salad, tuna salad, and egg salad are referred to as "chicken mayonnaise, tuna mayonnaise, and egg mayonnaise". Maybe more direct than Americans want to be. 

More to come as I have more awkward, funny encounters. Cheers!

Sailing Sans a Sailboat

Let me preface this by saying, contrary to the title, that no Rhodes Scholar (or really, anyone else) was harmed in the making of this post.

Rather, the reason why I took some liberties with your cardiac health in the nomenclature of today's entry has to do with a tradition which, in true Oxford style, has changed immensely over a long period of time, and therefore rendered it somewhat incomprehensible in the modern world.

You see, historically, the 32 American Rhodes Scholars met in New York City every September to board what was not a sailboat (see, it was incomprehensible before!!!), but a transatlantic steam ship called the QE2 to make the four day journey across the Atlantic together. I'm assuming the Rhodes Trust felt that the best way to get the Scholars acquainted was to pen them all up together in a vehicle with literally no means of escape for four days, and hope that everyone made it to Oxford not too much worse for wear and inevitably acquainted with some of their peers.

Around 1980 --and I'm sure to the relief of Scholars prone to seasickness--the advent of air travel made it more expedient and cost-effective to cart the Rhodies overseas via jetliner. However, despite the equal inescapability of airplanes, six hours is a much smaller time frame for developing lifelong friends, so after a few years, the American Association of Rhodes Scholars (which is separate from the Rhodes Trust itself but also invested in us new Scholars) decided to put in place a few days of organized programming to give newbies a chance to get acquainted with each other, the Rhodes organization(s), and former Rhodes Scholars.

Today, the Bon Voyage Weekend, or "Sailing Weekend" as it is still somewhat stubbornly referred to by the old guard of scholars, is a five day affair in Washington DC culminating in an en masse flight across The Pond. And that brings me to the end of your weekly history lesson, and to Saturday afternoon, when I stepped off my flight from Charlotte at Ronald Reagan International Airport.

After a summer navigating the DC Metro system, I was confident that I could be both efficient and cost effective by taking the subway from Reagan Airport to the Dupont Hotel. What I hadn’t counted on, however, was doing so lugging a 40-pound hiking backpack and rolling a carryon bag weighed down by a backpack set ever so precariously on top of it. I was quite aware that I presented a ridiculous, and quite sweaty picture to my fellow public transport riders, but that point was ever so poignantly driven home when I switched trains and met a four year old boy who looked at me with wide eyes, pointed, and said (loudly), “MOM! Look at how big that girl’s bags are!” Luckily, we bonded over our mutual love for koalas, so we became friends, and I explained to him (more for the benefit of the adults looking at me as if I were a deranged sorority girl who packed that much for a quick weekend trip to DC) how I was moving overseas for two years, so I had lots of warm clothes shoved in those big bags.

Needless to say, by the time I made it to my room, I was flustered and frazzled and blazingly hot, so I had thrown the door open, dumped all of my bags, and was in the process of ripping my shirt off when my roommate poked her head out of the bathroom to see what the commotion was. In my usual suave manner, I froze, laughed awkwardly, and apologized for being sweaty and partially nude, and there was a moment when she was undoubtedly sizing up my sanity. However, I happened to luck out and be paired with Nina Yancy, an amazing woman from Texas who graduated from Harvard and happened to be good friends with Sophie, a fellow Harvard grad I’d bonded with in DC this summer. So she ended up giving the only response that was appropriate in my opinion, which was a hearty laugh. We chatted and cooled down (at least, I did), and I was relatively more composed by the time we had to head upstairs to officially kick off our weekend of spontaneously becoming best friends with 31 of the most overachieving college graduates in the country (no pressure).

I have to confess that my feelings toward my fellow Rhodies before actually meeting them were a convoluted mess of awe, jealousy, and terror. If you ever want to feel a simultaneous hope for humanity’s future and a huge sense of your own inadequacy, go Google the resumes of past and present Rhodes Scholars. There’s a recognized phenomenon within the Rhodes community that’s referred to as “imposter syndrome”: that is, the overwhelming feeling that the committee made a terrible mistake in including you in the ranks of the business-starting, multiple language-speaking, world-traveling, and baby-kissing Scholars. Before this weekend, however, I thought I was the only person who felt that, and fully expected to feel more out of place than a 6 foot 2 girl in Asia…not that I’m speaking from personal experience or anything.

What I found, however, was an amazing group of people who were, yes, brilliant and accomplished and definitely future world-shakers, but also overwhelmingly NORMAL. I wasn’t quizzed on my thoughts on Kant, Heidegger, or Rousseau, but I did chat with some of the girls over the wardrobe requirements of the weekend, and meet some guys who wanted to travel to the same European countries I was interested in seeing. We did have some nerd moments in our Aspen-style discussion of several texts intended to focus our first meeting on the callings of leadership, learning, and self-discovery all Rhodies describe answering in their time at Oxford, but I was struck most by how much I felt at home with the other students. As I told my sister, it was almost refreshing being one of the less nerdy people in the room for once!

Rather than give you a play-by-play of the next days, I will relate them to you as I remember experiencing them: a blur of cocktail receptions, nights out with the Scholars, delicious free catered meals, and a government shutdown. We had myriad opportunities to chat with the other Rhodies past and present, gaining insights as poignant from how to navigate the outdated Oxford bureaucracy to the best sandwich shops, and everything in between, as well as everyone’s plans, colleges, programs, hopes, dreams, aspirations, backgrounds, and shoe size. It was undoubtedly exhausting –I told my best friend Reagan that I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up in the middle of the night from a bad dream where the only words I could physically speak were “Rachel Woodlee, South Carolina 2013, Brasenose College, reading for an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies”—but also fascinating to see the breadth of experience and depth of knowledge within the Rhodes community. I met doctors, lawyers, senators, professors, business executives, artists, journalists, evolutionary zoologists, and (most fascinating to me) people who seemed to have amalgamated several of those categories into careers spanning as many disciplines as decades.

There were several moments in time that I do want to crystallize for you in the same way they are struck into my memory, so that none of us will forget them in the wash of name tag reading and house wine of the less notable social events.

At 2 AM, in a DC bar and after more than one but less than too many cocktails, laughing to the point of tears when several of us Southern Scholars, sweaty and hoarse, serenaded our less countrified brethren with a stirring rendition of “Wagon Wheel” at the top of our lungs.

Sitting between two contemporaries of Wofford’s newly retired President, Renaissance man, and all-around demigod, Bernie Dunlap, and trading stories and best impressions of a man who has been so central to all three of our Rhodes experiences. We took this picture to send to Bernie, but since we’re not quite sure if he checks his email on his mysterious island sabbatical, I shall include it here:

An entire table of Scholars, myself included, letting our food get cold at a noted restaurant, so mesmerized were we by Beth Shapiro (Rhodes Scholar, MacArthur Fellow, and badass mom of two sons) and her description of her work extracting ancient Neanderthal DNA and cross-referencing it with different Homo sapiens genomes to show that interbreeding took place in different hominid species in Europe, and leading to the discovery that the majority of modern humans of non-African lineage contain between one and four percent of Neanderthal alleles.

Meeting a Scholar about to finish a DPhil in International Relations whom I immediately admired for her gumption, intelligence, and superhuman work-life balance (she’s simultaneously planning a wedding, starting a new consulting job, and preparing to defend her thesis!), and hearing from her that she “not to sound corny and pretentious” saw some of herself in me.

Mocking the New Year’s Eve style countdown on CNN to the government shutdown, but then settling into a two hour discussion of the politics behind it until four of us shut down the bar as well.

Spending the first morning of said shutdown listening to noted former Senators Lugar and Sarbanes and current Senator Vitter talk about their personal political experience, careers, and thoughts on the motivations and remedies for the current gridlock.

I could go on, but you get the idea. By the time we sat down at a gate at Dulles to await our flight “across the Pond”, all busily calling our families and friends and scarfing our last true American food, I could legitimately look around at a group of people who were still amazing and world-changing, but also well on the way to becoming my friends. And I was more confident than ever that what awaits me on the other end of this flight will be a transformative, beautiful, difficult, and undoubtedly life-changing experience.

In all seriousness, however, before we get into all of that mess, I need to find a way to rearrange my legs in this middle seat so that I won’t require an amputation of an appendage due to insufficient blood flow. My rant against the hazards public transportation presents to tall people is another story for another day, but OW.