One Month!

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Today is the start of 8th week, which is typically the last week of the term. Most tutorials are finishing this week, though some continue through next week, like me. This is also exams time for the final year Oxford students. It's a very stressful time for them, their entire 'GPA' equivalent depends on the outcome of like, 12 tests they take over the course of about 2 weeks. It's a crazy set-up to me, but some students I've talked to say they'd rather this than have finals and midterms each semester like we do. To each their own I guess. Some of my housemates and neighbors have finished their programs and gone home already, it's a little strange with less people in this house. Jace left this past Friday, we had a midnight brunch of crepes to see him off. Julie left early in the morning on Sunday so Saturday evening we made her a little cake (our oven is really bad at cooking things in a timely manner...) But, I've skipped through a week of things!

Ok, so Monday and Tuesday were pretty much reading days, not much excitement there, I went to the library on Monday and read at home on Tuesday... but Wednesday we went on a little boat cruise along the Thames through a couple locks. We saw the sunset and the weather decided to be nice to us! We have a couple house pictures of our group and a couple pictures of the whole group. Thursday I tried to check out a different farmers market and was not impressed. There was a truck that you could walk through with produce and such, but otherwise it was just shops along the street. I much prefer the one at Gloucester Green. I did find a nice grocery store that's not the chains that I've seen. Thursday was the last debate of the term and it was about 'Brexit' or, in extended form, should the UK leave the EU. I sat in the upper level which doesn't vote, but the house was resoundingly for staying in the EU, about 75% voted to stay. The referendum happens on June 23rd, so I'll still be here for that which should be interesting.

Friday I had my fourth tutorial, they're almost over! It was about the 3rd and 4th crusades which were messes to say the least... This week we're still talking about the crusades, but this week's prompt explores crusades outside of the East. Like I mentioned, we had Jace's midnight brunch. Saturday I slept in more than I anticipated and then got a little bit of a head start on my reading for this week (my tutorial is a day earlier than usual so I wanted to start writing ASAP). There was also a rally for the Stamford Survivor in town that one of my housemates and I went to. We couldn't hear much, but a good number of people showed up, wrote messages and signed a pledge against sexual assault and to not be a bystander. The event concluded with a participant singing "Fight Song" which was a powerful way to end it. Later in the evening, (total mood change) we sent Julie off with cake and polaroid pictures. Sunday morning we woke up and found that she drew us all little pictures and wrote us individual notes, which was very sweet! I put mine in my room and headed out to another market that I'd heard about before church. However, it was rainy so it had moved inside so it wasn't as big as usual I was told. But I chatted with the people who ran the coffee station for a couple minutes. One of them knew magic and the others told him I didn't come to the station to be tricked, and that I probably just wanted to drink my drink in peace. They were fun group and I intend to stop by again next Sunday, with hopefully better weather!

Sunday evening I decided, kinda on a whim, to go to "Port and Policy." It's like a mini-debate with a certain club and people drink port whilst debating the motions. It was amusing (it was intended to be). It was the last one of the term so it was fancier, I borrowed a housemate's dress. The last motion was about the Divine Right of Kings. So the last speaker was an American who started off by saying something to the effect of 'we have to remember 1776..." before he was drowned out with cries of "shame!" which is the way to say you disagree from the audience. We continued on before the moderator called him out for "treason" and he was carried out the backdoor. The evening ends with the singing of some national songs. God save the Queen is to the same tune as the Star Spangled Banner, so a group of us Americans jokingly switched some of the lines. We sang the other songs as written on the page though and all was taken in good humor.

Today has been a fairly slow day, I stopped by the library to drop off a book and then I've been reading. I couldn't help but see the news about the tragedy in Orlando, FL. So many are mourning. I don't really have any words to say that don't sound hollow. I pray for peace and support for the families and friends of the victims and for a fast recovery for those who are injured. My hope is that some day soon the kind of hate that inspires such violence will have no place in our society. This'll require active effort, but I know we can do better.

On this unfortunate unhappy note, I say until next time, (when I hope to have more joyful things to talk about!) I will at some point get pictures on this blog, so look for those in the next couple days!

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