Four Weeks!

I was downstairs chatting with Amanda, and I realized that we have been here for four weeks today. And then I realized that it was pretty much exactly four weeks since I arrived in our flat because I got to the office around 4:00. It's funny to think about how lost I was that night. I didn't want to go to the welcome party because it was dark and I didn't know my way, and my roommate wasn't home to figure it out with me. (thanks a lot Amanda. ha) Now I make that walk every day.
Since it's been a while:

Sunday: Chapel. We found the fuse box. I had seen it when I looked in the garage, but I didn't have a light to know that it was the fuse box. Ryan brought a lamp over though, so we could see in the creepy garage. There's a kayak and a grill and benches in there. Very odd. I went to see the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch with a kid named Heath who is in the program. The Magdalen Film Society put it on. I joined so that I force myself to go out and see interesting films. I had seen a clip of Hedwig at ASP, so it was really great to see the whole thing. It's amazing. Really, really weird. I loved it.

Monday: I worked all day long on my Egyptology paper. Stressed out hard core. Turned it in at midnight, five hours past when it was due. It snowed about an inch. People went nuts. Rowing in the evening. Tommy (maintenance man) came to fix our laundry machine! Yay! I had broken it the very first night... And he gave us light bulbs and hung up the mirror we stole from the guys.

Tuesday: Rowing on the river at 7:00 am. Freezing. Gareth sent me an email telling me that I turned my paper in too late, so we would have to meet on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. I thought I had a lecture at 9:00, but when I got there, I apparently didn't have one. I went to the library to get books for my Biochem paper. Amanda finished and submitted her application for the Truman Scholarship, and I had been in a funk, so we decided to go to dinner. Ryan came too. He told us he got into St. Andrew's for grad school, so it was pretty much a celebratory dinner. Meeting deadlines, postgrad acceptance, and the dismissal of a funk. Perfect. We went to this really nice Italian place that is in an Oxford guidebook. Our waiter looked like Will Ferrell. An Italian Will Ferrell. I got stuffed quail:

Isn't that beautiful? It was delicious.
And then after dinner, these egg jellies came with the check:

What an odd place.
(Photos courtesy of Amanda's blog. No plagiarizing at Oxford.)
Then Tuesday night we watched Memento. I had seen it before but I had forgotten about it, and it was really great to see it a second time. It is a really great film.

Wednesday: Read for Biochem. Had my tutorial with Gareth. He loved my paper when I had, again, thought it was awful, so that's good news. I went to see Heavenly Creatures at the Film Society. It was one of Peter Jackson's (director of Lord of the Rings) early movies. He and his wife wrote it, and he directed it. Kate Winslet was in it when she was nineteen years old - three years before Titanic. It was messed up. By far the strangest movie I have ever seen.

Thursday: I went rowing really early this morning, and it had snowed four inches. It was absolutely beautiful. When I got to the gym a girl was biking and she absolutely ecstatic and she said, "Isn't this wonderful! I haven't seen this much snow in forever! And it's my birthday!" She was adorable. Everyone was so happy, it was great. Mom, when I read your email saying that God sent England a bit of NH to help my homesickness, I laughed it off because it was such an insignificant amount. But when I woke up this morning, I thought of it again because it hasn't snowed this much in a while. It definitely makes me curious... It was warmish though, so by the time we got outside with our cameras, it was rather ugly out.
Our neighbors made a snowman, and then we dressed him up:

And to make him look even more scholarly:

Then I realized that I hadn't taken a photo of our flat yet:

I don't know what that random shopping cart is from...
View from our door of the creepy alley:

And Amanda...
River Cherwell from Magdalen Bridge:

St. John's Quad at Magdalen College:


We had lunch in Hall with this kid Patrick that Ben met in a debating society meeting. He went on a walk with us afterwards. And since I finally had my camera with me:

The middle portrait is of William Waynflete, the man who founded the college. The dorm that the rowing gym is under is called Waynflete after him. It is the only one of the three buildings designed by some guy who killed himself after the other two fell apart. So they are kind of obligated to keep it around even though it is awful. Celia, a girl on the rowing team, was telling me this. The building is so bad that the pipes broke one year, and sewage was leaking into a kid's room for a few days. Gross.

Stained glass windows in Hall.
Snowball fight in front of New Building - one of the dormitories/all purpose buildings.

After our walk, Ben and I went to have tea (and a lemon-poppyseed muffin) in the college bar:



Then to the library to pick up a book. On my way home, two girls were walking toward me, and one starts asking me a question. I had my earbuds in, so I took them out, and she goes "Sorry, but do you know where [enter street here] is?" "No, sorry..." I don't know what it is about me, but this scenario has happened several times. People stop me, I have to turn my ipod off, and then I tell them that I know about seven streets in town. I would probably seek out the person who isn't wearing headphones...

Goal: Meet at least one new person each day from here on out. There. It's in writing. Now I have to do it.