Oxford

Dear all,

I am beginning to know my way around Oxford. I am constantly in awe of this city, of its beauty and significance. To know I get to experience for several months a city which has made such a difference in this world is mind boggling. The evidences are all around... "Here lived the man who did the experiments to discover the first living cell", "here occurred the first methodist gathering", "here this or that king studied", "here you can find 8 million books", "here the Inklings met", "this college was established in the 12oos...". I feel as if every cobblestone has been stepped on by a life-changing person and every pub has heard at least one intellectual conversation worthy of print in the Bodleian itself... I wish I could soak it all in. Of course I am immensley enjoying the architecture of the place. We have one saxon tower left in Oxford, and one baroque style college. I have seen Christopher Wren's Divinity School Door, which was absolutely beautiful. Keble College has some of the most amazing brick work I have ever seen... But I won't bore you with all that. :)

Oxford is a place of some contrast. While I rode my first double decker in to class this morning, and encountered some traffic due to construction on High Street, the traffic this afternoon on my walk back through a nearby field was more or less composed of 15 cows apparently trying to get out the same gate I was. Thankfully Bessie and friends let me through and I made it home with the other students I was with. :) One of my favourite houses is on Cornmarket Street. Its a purely pedestrian street which intersects at the city center with the other major streets, High, Queens, and St. Aldates. This house is this old tudor building smushed in with a bunch of stone buildings. It practically looks like its going to fall into the street! Lovely as it is, I hate to say it, but the next door impressive stone building does happen to house a Buger King on its first floor. Oxford is such a combination of old and new, rural and urban, that you would think it would just explode in multi-facetedness! The only thing that looks remotely exploded, however, is the present construction work on High St..

Tomorrow we have our first field trip, to Stonehenge, Old Sarum, and Salisbury Cathedral. We will be gone all day and i can't believe this qualifies as school!!! Thankfully my huge blister finally popped to day on a very brisk walk to the farmer's market and my feet will hopefully be going back to normal. I don't think there has been a day yet at Oxford where I have not had to walk a couple miles around the city and it has been a little hard on the feet. So I should be all good to go for Stonehenge. We had a lecture about it today and it was fascinating!!!

The weather has been absolutely glorious here. It has been pretty cool, clear, and beautiful. The only rain we have had yet was a little this morning. England is such a beautiful place. You get the feeling that the land is at peace with itself somehow. It has been hard to know how to dress with all the walking. It is the type of weather that can get a little cold if you are inactive and can be positively hot if you've just walked a mile or two, so I've mostly resolved to dress for summer and bring a coat.

I have really been enjoying the few British people I have been in contact with. Our SCIO leaders have been wonderful, and I have met some of the sweetest old ladies in the grocery store. I was looking for Asparagus the other day, and had to be informed by such a one that they were, in fact, out of season. :) All of us at the Vines have been enjoying the kitchen experience. Forty students must provide meals for themselve all in one tiny little average-sized kitchen. As you can imagine, everyone tends to get hungry at about the same time. There was actually a point tonight in which I was holding my pot into the sink while someone else filled it for me as I stood out of the way of the sink's cabinet in which someone else was looking for something. It is quite the feat to move in there around 6 o' clock. Mia and I are planning to perhaps do a larger curry meal tomorrow or the next night to include some of our poor guy friends who are, I think, having an interesting time of it with the meal making...

I am absolutely loving the group I am with. They are, if anything else, an interesting and original group of people. I would be hard pressed to say whether I have yet learned more from the teachers than from my fellow students. The primary groups, are, I believe, the English and Philosophers, with History coming close behind and followed by Theology and Classics. Many of us are taking classes not necessarily our majors, and I even found someone else taking a philosophy class who never had before. :) Thus it is a group with multiple interests, coming from multiple backgrounds, going many places.

Well, I believe I must get going, its late, I have some reading to do, and I need to get to sleep before tomorrow. Please continue to pray for my time in Oxford, not just me, but my fellow students as well. The minds and perspectives in this group are poweful, and, as with anything, capable of good and evil, confusion and truth. Please pray that God would just be in and around all of us, keeping us safe, guiding our studies, and bringing fruit from our interactions with each other. I think many of these students, if they are a little off the right path in their walk with God, are now in the place to be surrounded with the right kind of people to influence them toward what it is true and good. As iron sharpens iron, I think some of my very intelligent classmates may be finding for the first time in a while, an iron to match their own. While I do not view myself in the same position as many of them, I do not believe God would have brought me to Oxford if it wasn't part of His purpose. Please pray that I will be a willing tool, and not get in the way of His work. Please pray also that I manage time well. It is a big weakness of mine and I would hate to undermine the gift of this time at Oxford I have been given.

I will try to keep in contact, I cannot say how busy the days will be. I have found them to be very full so far, and coursework has hardly started! A lot of time is spent getting back and forth from the Vines to Oxford. I recently got a bus pass, which has been fantastic. The normal walk to and back was about a 45 minute one. I really do want to speak to all of you individually, but for a little while I may stick to the blog.

Girls in the Suite. I hope you are well. I miss you and really think of you quite often. I hope school is going well and that your new suitemate, Rabecca, is good. Katie, I hope your Kenneson ethics class is going well. Alli, you tell these girls to be nice to you to make up for your RA job. :) Corri, I miss you. Kylie, I so often think of you with almost anything British. I saw a shop called Thorntons the other day, and had to tell my friends all about North and South, because you were not there to get excited with me about it. Emma, I miss you. Sometimes I picture you laughing at some of the philosophical conversations that go on here. :) Haylie, my dear roomie, I miss you. I don't think I pass the Eagle and Child once (I do quite often) without thinking of you. I hope Ryan is doing well (Hi Ryan), and that classes are holding up. I'm glad you got the notes. :) I hope there are some you haven't found yet.

Girls in Williams! I hope the school year is going well, and that classes are good (and that you are actually enjoying that art class ashley!).
I miss you Emily. It would be fun to check out Oxford together.

Greta, I wish you were here!

Matt, Bailey, Matt, and Suzanne. I would love to meet with you all. At the moment my schedule is not very fixed though it is quite full. We should be in touch. I want to see you guys!

Julie! I wish you were here darling, for so many reasons.

Rachel! Please don't be mad! I do have a blog! Here it is!!! I love hearing about Uganda. I hope you're having a fantastic time there. I really am glad we're studying abroad at the same time. :) We need to skype and swap stories sometime. We should plan it. I miss you.

Mom, Dad! we'll have to skype soon, I'm sorry I've been pretty unreachable. Its pretty busy here, and things are still falling into place. I hope you enjoy this blog, and that stuff in the Philippines is going well. Dad, I think you would like this place, with all its theological history. Mom, if you were here, we'd have to go walk in the botanical gardens together (I haven't quite made it to them yet, but I can't wait!)

Krista, Krista, Krista... I miss you. I know we need to talk. We should talk. And we will talk. But I'm in a city right now that needs...tweaking...
I love you.

If you have any comments, I would love to hear them.
Heather

P.S. We had the St. Giles fair (begun in the medieval era) in town last week. I rode the ferris wheel to see the spires. Here are some pics.

My first walk into Oxford, right after I arrived. I am OBVIOUSLY excited. :)

Bereft of stony saints, we decided to add to the architecture of this particular wall...

Oxford streets have the funniest names sometimes. I was tromping around the other day trying to find the Philosophy Library. I believe I was headed down Broad Street when my friend and I saw Logic Lane. Short cut possibly? Better to be safe, we didn't take it. It would have been so much faster. I learned my lesson. When on the road to higher wisdom, avoid the broad path and choose the narrow, and perhaps often ignored, way of logic.