Short and Sweet

Hello, dear friends :)

It's funny how you make a blog and expect to write on it daily, but then life happens and you'd rather sleep or stay awake in the house kitchen eating crumpets and talking about nothing. Don't you hate it when that happens?

As usual, I have a lot to update about, but I'll start with my day!
At the end of last week, I was overwhelmingly frustrated. It came in this large bout and forced me to sit down and evaluate how I was spending my time here and who I was spending it with. When you live with 40 other people in a house kind of removed from campus, it is too easy to isolate yourself. In fact, it is the default setting. Then, students come, and you must make the switch. You must jump out of the circle you've just created and extend the olive branch to the locals, or in this case, the scholars. I decided I was going to be more independent, and I took it upon myself to inform all of my friends, so they didn't think I was abandoning them or anything. I just want to be able to do all that I can here, including making English friends and connections with some of the smartest people in the world!! That's another thing about being at Oxford. You smile at someone walking by or smirk at a cyclist next to you at the traffic light, but it takes and extra second to realize that you could be making eye contact with a future world leader or casually walking by the scientist who formulates and mass produces the AIDS vaccine. So, in the past couple of days I have created an Oxford Bucket List of things I have to get done while I'm here.
Having said that, today I got up for a class at 10:30 AM and briskly walked there (my bike has been acting up...took it to the bike shop and discovered that hte tire was flat. At least I'm not terribly out of shape like I thought, when I was exhausted after 5 minutes of riding it.) After class, I went to Keble café (we have an adorable café within the college that our UGA mealplan part of the program cost covers...so we are always there) and registered for classes! Holler at me Spring Semester 2012! Can't believe I am that much closer to being a Senior. Let's not dwell on that. Then, I walked back to the house, dealt with my bike situation, and wandered through Summertown, where the bicycle shop is. I relaxed with a pot of tea and read through my Genetics textbook. Then, I went and studied for an hour at the Bodleian Library (central library here...), where I passed a tour group on my way to the room I was going to read in. Talk about feeling too cool for school. "Oh, excuse me, pardon me, I need to get through so I can study. Here. At Oxford. While you take a tour." Of course, I didn't say that, but I definitely chuckled, as I sat down and set up my macbook and note-taking supplies.
Now, I'm sitting at Pret, a bakery/café, overlooking a small courtyard next to a church on Cornmarket St. It is 6:22 PM and dinner is at 7 PM. My bike is less than a 3 minute walk from here, and I'll throw on my gown to walk in with the students. Oh, I almost forgot!! Tonight after dinner I am planning on attending a lecture/session with the Oxford Global Health Group. The speaker is the former Chief Executive of the UK NHS and he is going to be talking about healthcare around the world. SO excited.

Week Two of tutorials!!! This means that I've already had class twice for Physiology and once for Genetics (my next session is tomorrow). And boy oh boy, I'm on Academic Cloud nine. My physiology tutor is with New College, and my Genetics tutor does research in/works in this futuristic sci-fi Biochemistry building that feels like I'm going to Scientific Disneyworld, when I'm going to class. I have been geeking out with Physiology. I have 5 books related to Neuroscience in my amazon.co.uk shopping cart, so I will be ordering those soon....

Keble Updates: Well, we've started the official integration of UGA at Oxford kids with Keble students, and I think it has been really successful. Haha or at least, socially successful. What could I mean by that? Oh yes. We've partied with the Keble kids. For the most part, they are on the same page as American college students, except of course they are cooler because they even PARTY with English accents. English accents make everything cooler. You would think I would be used to it by now, after 5 weeks, but I still feel like I'm on a movie set.

Have made 2 day trips in the past week! Birmingham and Bath. Stories/descriptions coming soon.