First, I had both of my first tutorial meetings this week with my primary and secondary tutors. I had my secondary tutorial on Tuesday, and the meeting was fantastic! I adore my professor. The tutorial system is interesting because it basically requires students to write a paper for each tutorial meeting, and I regrettably fell behind on my work last week. However, I was able to find some good research material to support my paper, and I think that my professor was fairly pleased for my first essay. I received a 68 on my paper, which threw me off until I found out that a 70 is basically an "A" by Oxford standards. Anything above an 80 is considered "publishable," and it's rare to get anything above an 80. That was comforting to hear, but I'm a bit nervous about how grades will transfer back to Eastern. I'm trying not to think about it for now though. Anyway, I ended up writing about Christian symbolism in Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Sonnets of Desolation," and I thought that the paper was pretty well-written! I did have some places where I could have condensed my thoughts a bit better, but now I know how to improve my next paper.
I applied a lot of what I learned paper-wise from my secondary tutorial to my paper for my primary tutorial. Honestly, I hated my paper for my primary, but my professor said that it was "extremely fluid," so I guess that that's good. I've never had to write footnotes before, but this professor requires them, so that was a new experience. For my paper, I was to reflect on the quote, "Shakespeare's kings were not, nor were meant to be, great men" (Walter Pater). I'll admit, however, that I only spent two and a half hours writing the paper. Honestly, had I spent more time working on the paper, I'm not sure that it would have been any better, but if I hadn't started it at 2 in the morning, I'm sure it would have been a bit more coherent.
Yes, I started my paper at 2am on Thursday morning and finished around 4:30. It was a poor decision, for sure, but it happened that way because I over-scheduled myself on Wednesday with social activities. Steve and some of my housemates went with me to see Spamalot at the New Oxford Theatre, and it was spectacular! I had seen the show on Broadway, but this rendition was still unique and funny. After the show, we came back to the house to prepare for Burns' Night, the celebration honouring the Scottish poet Robert Burns. We had decided to invite people from the OSAP program to join us, but it really ended up being me, Spencer, Kirsten, Sarah, Rachael, and Gabby from the house, as well as Carl, Ricky, Ben, and Eric from over at Venneit Close. It was nice to finally get to hang out with some people from OSAP, although most of them were tipsy, if not drunk, by the end of the night. However, I had a lot of fun drinking my water (yes, I did hold to the "no alcohol" thing). Actually, I do have a fun story: I told all of my housemates that I'm really not interested in drinking at all while I'm here because I really want to be as focused as possible while I'm here, and everyone really respects my decision. I was afraid that they'd be put off by that, but they're all really great.
Love to everyone back home! <3
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