First Day of Oxford Classes

Well. I came, I saw, I got through my first day of classes as an Oxford student.

It felt remarkably normal, considering the entire build-up and all the anticipation of getting to this stage. The professor (ok, so I had a conversation tonight with someone about how "professor" is a very particular term at Oxford, so maybe I should call him my "lecturer" or "tutor"; the American side of me is very confused) came in and straightforwardly began talking about bibliography and the history of the material book, and off we went. I also noticed the impact of my graduate degree at Stanford today, since none of the readings so far (nor the class discussions) have been at all over my head, as I was somewhat fearing they would be. Nor has it been as overwhelming to keep up with all the schoolwork as I expected -- at least not yet. That could change, since after this light-ish first week I've got the heavy hitters like Ulysses ahead of me!

Also, I got in a nice afternoon of wandering around Oxford looking for a good study spot before I looped back through the St. John's College gardens (lovely despite the rain!) and settled into the college library (also lovely in its old wooden-rafters antiquatedness -- how can they possibly let me study here?). I think I'm going to enjoy taking advantage of such a sweet study spot -- though looking up at the stained-glass windows and sprawling gardens outside became a regular, if welcome, distraction. Then it was off to yet more classy drinks with the other graduate students in college, an event at which the British gift for scrumptious snacks and desserts came into play again. Someone remarked to me tonight about how all of Oxford's traditions are essentially British upper-class traditions, due to the university's history. How true that is. And here, unlike in the U.S., we all have great fun with the game of aspiring (or pretending to aspire) to that kind of classiness. I still find this culture shift jarring whenever I take the time to reflect on it.

Unfinished musings on the British class system aside, I've got more reading to do for this week -- so, back to Herman Melville and Moby Dick...