Welcome to Oxford

I live super close to this building.

Welcome to my new Oxford-centric blog! I arrived yesterday in the pouring rain and somehow managed to stay awake long enough to get keys to my room and get registered at my college.  But that day was long, damp, and mildly miserable what with the traveling and luggage situation, so let's skip ahead to today, shall we?

I began my first full day in Oxford bright and early at 7am this morning...that 8 hour time change really is killer.  Luckily it was bright and fairly sunny this morning, but cold...on the other hand, I get the feeling this is pretty rare since everybody was REALLY excited about seeing the sun.  Note to self: prepare to never see the sun for 9 months.

Exam Schools

My first adventure was getting to my international students orientation, which was way closer than I thought to the St Cross Annexe (where I live--yay!).  The Orientation was in the Examination Schools on High Street, which is apparently also where the undergrads go to sit exams in all their sub-fusc splendor.  So far every building I've been in here is built like a maze; I have no idea how I got to the South School up on the second story, but they were obviously prepared for people who are directionally challenged, and had plenty of signs.  Here I sat through such talks as "Academic Essentials," where I learned that a 70 is a good grade here and people almost never get scores in the 80-90 range, which seems depressing.  Next was "Social Essentials," in which I learned about things like the "Freshers' Fair," basically a recruiting fair for the clubs on campus, and found out that the Brits have a sport called korfball, and if I want, I can play it here. What korfball is, I had no idea, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently it looks like this:

wtf korfball?

I also picked up some extremely informative leaflets, with such titles as "International Students and Culture Shock," and "Getting to know the British."  The former warned me that I might find British food "bland or heavy compared to what you are used to."  The latter was particularly enjoyable; it began with the disclaimer that it could not "generalise a notion of British attitudes as our nation is very multicultural," then went on to 'generalise' British attitudes in concise bullet points.  Here are a few choice samples:

• The British have a tendency to talk about the weather all the time.
• Indirect speech that may seem overly formal and redundant (expressions such as would you mind, do you think you could possibly, would it be a problem if...) are frequently used.
• Many British people take time to warm to people or develop friendships so do not mistake an indifferent attitude as coolness or unwillingness to become friends.
• British people like their personal space so don't be surprised if people sit apart form you on a bus or train.

So just in case any of you encounter a British person in the near future, now you know they're not avoiding you because you smell bad, they just like their personal space.  Maybe you could break the ice by talking about the weather.

After orientation I made my way down to Cornmarket Street and acquired a cell phone at Vodafone.  Now I feel like a real person who lives in the UK...people can actually contact me by something other than email and shouting. I also picked up some wrapping paper and a new pillowcase to spiff up my room a bit: 

before

after

Not much difference really I suppose. While I'm at it, here's the rest of my room:

Pretty spacious after life at UCLA/the House of Pi. And here's the kitchen we share in my "flat" (read, "dorm suite"):

And while we're sharing pictures, take a look at this: Cheerios are different in the UK; what the heck?

what the heck?

Tomorrow I have a tour of the city/university and my college (St Cross), so maybe I'll try to take some pictures.  Hopefully I'll start learning my way around the city soon; maybe I'll even learn how to take the bus.  I also have to take my computer to the college tomorrow so the IT geeks can okay it for the network and make sure I'm not Lisbeth Salander, master hacker and destroyer of internets.  Meanwhile I need to start kicking this jetlag. I swear I had 3 cups of coffee/tea today and it didn't help at all.

TTFN, ta-ta for now;
KQ