First Day of School

So this week was a busy week! Somehow I can see myself saying that about every week that I'm here.... 

My Norton Shakespeare...it's a brick.

Last Tuesday I had my induction to the English Faculty, and finally met the other people in my program, which was awesome. I also had the pants scared off me by one of the supervising professors, who bluntly told us not to bother signing up for any clubs or teams while we're here, since we would spend EVERY MINUTE WORKING for the next nine months. Yikes! I also had reading lists piled on for the first week of class...but more about that later.

Door to St Cross...or Gondor??

On Wednesday I had my induction to St Cross, which mainly consisted of us listening to talks about things we had already listened to talks on the week before (like IT passwords and library systems) and standing around making small talk with coffee and biscuits.  The Master of the college welcomed us, and gave us some very sage and useful (dare I say Dumbledorian?) advice about St X and Oxford, the most profound of which I will attempt to reproduce for you here: "Put lights on your bikes. If you don't have lights, most cars won't see you, and you'll die. The cars that will see you are cops, and then you'll get a ticket." Probably one of the most practical statements about biking (or 'cycling,' as they say here) I've ever heard. Take note, bikers.  I think it also says something that the greatest safety threat here is bikes without lights. I guess Oxford's pretty safe then.

Radcliffe Science Library: temporary home of Special Collections

Thursday was especially eventful: I got an induction to the Special Collections (yes, this was a week of inductions) and had the Freshers' Fair.  What are the "Special Collections," you ask? With a capital S and a capital C? They are the Bodleian collection of manuscripts and early/rare books, which I supposedly will have the opportunity to get up close and personal with this year. I thought the most terrifying part of the special collections would be handling the irreplaceable/priceless manuscripts, but I found out on Thursday that the most terrifying part is actually just finding the things in the catalog.  I suppose this is what comes of going to an extremely old university.

Basically, none of the catalogs have been digitized yet, so they are all in hard copy. Which might itself be okay, except that there are three separate catalogs. Any Western manuscript the Bodleian had up to the early 20th century is cataloged in a series of 10 or so dictionary-sized volumes, with another dictionary-sized tome as an index to the whole thing. Then between about 1915 and 1970-something, there is another catalog, with another-dictionary sized index. If the MS was acquired after the 70s, then it's in still a third catalog, except this one is in note-card form in a totally different library about a mile away, housed in cabinets that were built into the walls of Duke Humfrey's Library, so they can't be moved. And none of these three catalogs overlap AT ALL. The good news is, if I somehow manage to find a manuscript in these catalogs, then I still get to play with it. So yay for that!

Flyer for the Doctor Who club.

The Freshers' Fair was a bit of a change of pace from touring libraries.  This is the big fair they have for all the clubs, societies, teams, etc so the freshers can join things and the clubs can get new blood.  I thought the activities fair on the IM field at UCLA was huge, but man, I think the OU Freshers' Fair could give that one a run for its money. Before I went, someone described it to me as "like a haunted house...you keep going into different rooms where people jump out at you with flyers until you run away." And I have to say, this was a fairly accurate description (get it? fairly? That one's for you, Hannah).  I'm pretty sure I put my name down on way too many mailing lists, some of them just to escape the overenthusiastic stallholders.  I'm already getting random emails from everything from the choir to the break dancing club. Yeah, I said it, the break dancing club. I made the mistake of stopping to watch the video they had playing at their booth and they caught me...you win this one, Oxford break dance club! *facepalm*

Meanwhile, I've been all over that stack of reading lists I mentioned earlier.  The great thing is, I found out that the English Faculty Library is literally 300 ft from my front door, so basically I can live there. I see this as the death of my social life.

On the other hand, BOOKS. A lot of my reading has been pretty interesting, actually. Some things I've seen before, like Sidney, Dryden, Shakespeare, etc; and some I haven't.  One thing we're focusing on this term is manuscripts and hand-printed books, so I was assigned a book on printing, which I quickly learned is one of the most boring things you can possibly read about.  Just to give you a taste of this, the book was called "A New Introduction to Bibliography." Sounds thrilling, right? In addition to pages and pages about how they made each individual piece of movable type, which hand the compositer held his composing stick in, and how many journeyman operated a press in 1612 in London, the book included literally 20 pages of diagrams on how to fold sheets into different kind of books (quartos, folios, octavos, etc). 

I think this is a duodecimo. *yawn*

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, I was pretty worried that this class was going to be extremely boring. But I had it today as my first class, and actually I have to say it was extremely interesting. We're going to get more into the mechanics of printing later, but today we mostly talked about the purpose of bibliography, and ways of looking at text that take into account its material manifestation as a leaflet, book, email, etc. Here's a brainteaser from my class for you: "If the Mona Lisa is in the Louvre, where is Hamlet?" Yeah...ponder it. This is what I do here. I have to say, I was fairly nervous about starting class here, 'cause, well, it's Oxford, and everyone here is a smart cookie. But really, my first day of real school here was awesome, and I feel like I'm going to really love this course, even if it's going to consume my life for nine months.

sub-fusc?

I have the rest of my classes tomorrow and Thursday, so I'll tell you how they go in my next update.  Also, matriculation is this weekend, so stay tuned for pictures of me in my wizarding robes sexy sub-fusc outfit. 

Oh and btw, I miss all you guys tons! I've been trying to get on skype and fb but...mountains of reading! Hopefully when things settle down more I'll have some more time. Oh, and Claire...throw that baking powder away, you're freaking me out.

KQ out.

Some bonus photos:

Some pics from my desk!

Aren't this tissues adorable? I bought them at Boots. They have polka dots ON THE TISSUES.

Had to share this...I bought these to snack on while reading. "Baked with an authentic American recipe." They do taste kind of American I guess.