Another week down. Another week of library study sessions, trying to get reading done for class, roving all about town, grabbing tea and lunch and dinner, meeting with faculty members, drafting up dissertation and final paper proposal ideas, hitting up different college halls, going to the pub, and generally realizing that the best thing about this place is its people. At the end of a long day of studying, when I feel as if I'm never going to get to the end of my reading list, or when I feel as if I'll never be able to articulate my ideas clearly in writing, I take a break and swap stories with new friends here, discover how much we have in common and also how many different experiences we have to share with each other, and leave feeling as if I've gotten a larger dose of perspective. I spend all day thinking about English literature; my friends think about topics ranging from history to physics to philosophy to international relations (and beyond). We're all whirling along through this crazy Oxford experience, and that shared student solidarity has been the highlight of each day, by far. I've only got two weeks left in the term and a lot of reading and writing to do, plus a big Thanksgiving dinner to organize for next week (I somehow wound up as the committee chair for the big day), but I'm still trying to take every moment for friendships, conversation, and shared reflections that I can. That's what makes life here so rich, and the rest of it isn't as worth stressing over as I'd sometimes like to think.
Other new experiences add their own liveliness, too; for instance, today I went to a BSL class session for Oxford's Disability Awareness Week, and felt completely turned around by all the new signs and all the differences (and even similarities) that BSL has compared to ASL. The signs for "what" and "where" are swapped in the two languages, for instance -- very confusing for this American girl! "Please" and "thank you" are also the same sign in BSL, and the BSL two-handed alphabet is of course very different from fingerspelling in ASL. A small group gathered in Oxford's Disability Advisory Service building to learn, and while practicing with the other students I kept itching to sign fluently to them in ASL, but had to put that knowledge aside and admit that I was just as new to BSL as they. I lacked any vocabulary, indeed lacked any semblance of language. This was a new and bewildering place for me, since I'm so used to signs flowing effortlessly off my hands, and I think it gave me an added measure of empathy for my friends who have put in the effort of learning ASL over the years. (I'm feeling added gratitude for those friends right now!) Keeping the vocabulary straight, trying foreign motions with my hands, and trying to piece together sentences and phrases with a language I barely knew was a challenging, stimulating experience.
Then I got to turn around this afternoon and, after coffee with an American friend who is learning ASL, headed to Rhodes House for another weekly signing session (yes, by that I mean ASL signing). Settling back into the familiarity of my sign language, I looked around the room at all the faces of the people who had turned up to learn, thought about how much they'd picked up already and how much intellectual curiosity it took for them to pursue this new language, and felt so very glad to know and be able to communicate with them. We signed for a while, then headed out to a Christmas festival taking place in Oxford this weekend (of course the Brits, not having Thanksgiving on the calendar, leap straight into the Christmas festivities as early as they can). As I said, the best part of this new place is the people, the moments of personal connection I'm finding here. The rest is just frosting on the cake.
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