Oxford

Last Tuesday I arrived in Oxford for my first day of orientation. Everyone is really nice and welcoming. I was extremely surprised by the house I was assigned to - it's huge! Six bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room with tv, dvd, and vhs, kitchen, dining room, dishwasher, and washing machine. It's a great house. I expected cramped living quarters but it's not like that at all. I expected a roommate and here, it's considered unfortunate if someone does get a roommate. I'm living with two other OSAP students, Vanessa and Jaime, a Oxford graduate student, Natalie, and a British student, Hannah. The only downside is were having problems with heat. The problem is we don't have it and hot water is more a matter of chance or luck. We were promised it would be fixed days ago - promises, promises!

I've had a week of orientation and it's been really good. Some of lectures are on topics I consider to be completely dry and boring but the lecture itself was incredibly interesting. There is ALOT of drinking here. The first to days of orientation ended with 5pm drinks in the OSAP office and then an hour later going to local pubs for dinner and more drinks. Seriously, every night people head off to the pubs. There is surprisingly very little drunkenness. Most people just hangout and talk over a pint.

I was inducted into the Bodleian Library. In the states, anyone can go into a library. Here, you have to be "worthy" to study at a library and your status only admits you into certain libraries. So, even though there are hundreds of libraries in Oxford, I only have aces to certain ones. Each college has their own library, and then there is one mega-library that is universal, so any Oxford student can go in, regardless of which college they attend. The Bodleian Library is insane - over 8 billion text books that are located underground. (How did this library acquire 8 billion books? For the past 600 years there has been a law which states that a copy of every single book published in the UK must be given to the Bodleian Library.) Students aren't allowed in the miles and miles of stacks because they will get lost. To retrieve a text book, you have to summon it from Hades practically. You order it online, and librarians will find it, and send it over to the library using an underground conveyer belt. Part of my induction to the library included a solemn oath that I would bring nothing into the library (no drinks, food, water, gum), bring nothing out of the library (there are no borrowing books), and i would never bring flame in or create flame inside the library. The last one doesn't make much sense now, but this library was built before electricity or heat (those things have been added throughout the years). So the founder of the library made the decision that in order to not risk the destruction of any text, students could only study during daylight because no candles could be brought in.