Photos posted!!!

Hello Everyone!

The days are just flying by, full to the absolute brim! I FINALLY got around to basically posting all the pictures from the semester so far, excepting the fall break trip. Please stop by my facebook and have a look if you like.

Well, tutorials are in full swing. We're just over the middle weeks. Course work comes hard and fast and I would SO appreciate your prayers as I wrestle with all the work to be done! I'm not sure which is worse, that the work distracts from experiencing Oxford, or that experiencing Oxford detracts from the work. I'm trying to find a balance for both.

good news! I got to be part of a little choir after all, at Keble college, that started late. We're speeding through a Schubert mass.

Hope all the Milliganites are well and that the semester's going smoothly!!!

~Heather

September re-cap

The days are getting colder, and Oxford streets are more and more lined with leaves. Fall does not come as boldly in Oxford as it does in East Tennessee, and I do find myself missing the brilliant colours and just how many trees change before they lose their leaves.

I attended my first official Oxford lecture today. The term here is broken up into two parts for us study abroad students. The Oxford term lasts just 8 weeks, and there are three terms per year, Hilary, Michaelmas, and Trinity. As our American semesters usually last quite a bit longer, the study abroad program includes classes in British history which precede Oxford term time during the Michaelmas season. We attend lectures on various aspects of British history and basically sweep chronologically through British history from early history and Alfred the great right up to women's rights and Winston Churchill. We take field trips to complement the studies including Salisbury Cathedral and Portsmouth harbor where Nelson's Victory is docked. (Pictures to come on Facebook) We also submitted 3 dreaded case studies, essays which were to prepare us for the Oxford tutorial system we are now beginning. Needless to say, the essays were fairly rigorous, though perhaps low on the scale for Oxford standard, and I found myself scrambling to complete research, which was made more difficult by the short pre-term hours of the libraries. I find more and more what a treasured commodity sleep is. Nothing like a lacking to make you appreciate the presence of something!

It was an interesting segment of time, as we settled into England, Oxford, living with a bunch of other students from all over the US and Canada (by the way, Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!), and generally making our way around this gloriously academic city. We study abroad students rather had the rule of the roost in pre-term time, but now that the students are back I, at least, am learning how busy the city can be.

We just completed noth week, or 0th week, the pre-term week before the 8 weeks of term begin. Oxford fills up, and all of a sudden the streets are more crowded, the libraries more occupied, and the shop lines longer. Its been really neat to see the city wake up. Last week I attended the "Fresher's Fair", which is basically Rush Day expanded times a hundred. Tonight I took some time away from much-needed studying (foolish? I hope not...) to attend a free beginners ballroom class. I'm tempted to go tomorrow's come-try-out-fencing invitation, but I may forgo it to concentrate on my study of Victorian social change. bah!

Oxford is definitely an interesting place. Among the clubs available to students in Fresher's Fair were all manner of political groups, including a lovely red table for all marxist students. About twenty choir members stand ready to pounce as you near the music section. I believe they purposely make their aisle narrower so as to have more chance to catch you. The neat thing is the serious value of a lot of the groups. Apparently Oxford holds claim to the best guys acapella group in the country. There's always the Oxford Bell Ringers (steeple bells, not hand bells, which I didn't understand at the time) or the Oxford Aetheist Society, or if you're really down on your luck, the Failed Novelists Society. And of course their are the necessary Tolkien and Lewis societies as well.

Life at the Vines (my house/dorm) is quite lovely. I can't remember if I've mentioned it much before, there are about forty of us who live here, twenty at another house closer into town. We are a good bit out of Oxford, and most people either buy a bus pass, or in some manner aquire a bike. I personally would have loved to bike around Oxford, but seeing as the last real time I rode a bike was probably around eleven years ago, and that in a rural situation, I thought it a wise investment to keep my limbs in their current positions and buy a bus pass. So, most of my mornings include walking out to the street to wait for one of three busses that will take me down into the city of Oxford, either to grocery shop, check my mail, or use a library.

All of us students are required to make our own food, and many band together to create food groups, where people take turns cooking for the whole group every night. I am a part of a fairly large group, in all, 13 people, which is quite unusual. It makes for lovely fellowship at mealtimes, and trickier situations during cooking ones. We arranged the food group into nightly teams so people with less cooking experience will hopefully be working with someone more experienced. I captain the Monday team, which had been quite a challenge. Though appointed a more-experienced-cooker, I really have very little solid cooking under my belt, so making sure 13 people eat is quite an interesting experience. I remember the first night praying through most of the cooking "God, please don't make me the reason 13 people go hungry!". My one assistant is a Chem major, and the scientific brain comes in handy at the grocery store when deciding which bag of carrots is cheaper. The other is a Philosophy major. There probably are not two people in the Vines you are more likely to get into a philosophical discussion with, so you can imagine when the two of them are together. The observation of an easier way to chop vegetables easily leads to a discussion of reality, and I find myself wondering if we wouldn't get the meal on the table faster if I just sat back and asked them to prove to me that our supper existed. : )

I have now met with both my tutors for the Oxford term. I am taking Victorian Intellect and Culture for my primary tutorial, and the philosophy of Aesthetics (which I'm really excited about!) for my secondary. The primary tutorial requires an essay a week (c. 2000 words) and the secondary, one about the same every two weeks. We are also working on a long essay for the term, and I considering researching the influence of Indian on architecture in England during the Victorian period, but we shall see...

I have been consistenly attending a church in Oxford called St. Ebbes. The community there is great. After every service a simple meal is offered and people basically stay around and chat and eat together. This last Sunday I had a wonderful talk with a woman whose family were missionaries in Nepal until last year. It was my first solid missionary contact in a long while and it was so good to talk about life and living between worlds and dealing with the cultural challenges that brings. I don't realize how much I miss that part of my life until I get to experience a little bit of it again.

I apologize this post has been so late in coming. The program picked up so quickly I had a bit of a hard time finding my feet. Please pray that a good pattern will start up in these next eight weeks where I can work effectively and even ahead of schedule. I have been so blessed by this experience already, and already am very streched by it. Please pray that I the stretching to come will be beneficial and not simply exhausting. I continue to marvel that I am in this place, walking in the footsteps of so many greater minds and interesting lives. The beauty of Oxford, as a city, is only a beginning to its value, and yet sometimes even that is difficult to soak in. My new friends here have been so wonderful, while I incredibly miss people both at home and at my home school, it has begun to feel like home in its own way.

I only wish I could share it more.

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.

From my "pigeon-hole" to yours...

Hello Lovely People!

Orientation is full on, the weather has been chilly and clear, and I have a record-setting blister on my left foot due to half the time here having been spent walking in the city so far. This is just a quick post as Sir Dickens is calling, but several people have asked for a physical address here:

Heather Knudtsen

SCIO

2 Frewin Court

Oxford

OX1 3HZ

UNITED KINGDOM

The above should be able to reach my "pigeon-hole" (mail box) in the basement of our headquarters. I miss you all!

Love, Heather

p.s. I'm official!

Some pictures.

Some pictures from the last two days. The picture behind the blog title is one I took tonight. It may be near the University I will be studying at.


What my countdown said on Sep 3rd.

A lovely place.

We stopped by a community garden and a woman gave us some beans! (This is Mia)

English roses...

Laura loves cows. We thought we saw one far away, but it was a black and white horse. It wanted to be a cow.

A pretty building we passed. number one million...

My "sausage and mash" at the Eagle and Child, sitting in the Rabbit Room

In the beginning...

Hello Everyone!

I have arrived. Here I am, in England. I am having difficulty comprehending a great deal of things lately, like the fact that I have entered Christ Church, eaten at the Eagle and Child, and happen to be living in Oxford at this very second... I am, at the moment sitting under a very lovely skylight in the tiny nook of a room that my roomate, Mia, and I live in. We live on the third floor of an old English house, which apparently used to be the servant quarters. :) Here is the wonderful view from our skylight.

You can vaguely see the reason Oxford is called "the city of dreaming spires" in the distance though it is a little to the left and behind a tall crane I chose to opt out of the picture. :) The room is small and oddly shaped, but Mia and I are glad to call it home.

So far I have been extremely blessed by two things I'm sure you all have been praying for. 1) I made it to Oxford. I have to say for a moment in Heathrow I thought I might be lost in London forever. It was wonderful to smell the sweet airport air again and hear the beautiful sound of planes roaring overhead, feeling you could go anywhere in the world if you really put your mind to it. However, the Heathrow shuttle system seems a little more intimidating than going just anywhere. Unfortunately I landed in the only terminal without a direct way to the bus station. My papers told me to go to Terminal 5, which required catching the right shuttle system (there were two that said the same thing, I'm still not sure where the other was going) and changing tracks. Fortunately your prayers aided my brain functions and I realized if I got off at any other terminal I could simply follow those directions instead. I caught the bus just before it left and my bus driver, who sounded very much like Alfred P. Dolittle ("I'm waiting to tell you, I'm willing to tell you, I'm wanting to tell you...") was very helpful. I got off at the right street and proceeded to pull my two roller suitcase down the lane, which was very much a lane. I didn't think cars would drive on it until I had to get out of their way. I had worried about cobblestones but got potholes instead. :) My suitcases are still in tact. After pulling through potholes for around ten minutes I began to wonder if I was on the wrong road, it feeling more and more obscure. Low and behold I arrived, and was soon happily being helped by my wonderful roomate to hoist my huge suitcases up a tiny servant's staircase to 3rd floor, number 17. Which leads me to 2). My roomate has been just wonderful. She is from Northern California and goes to William Jessup college. We have already had such a wonderful time together which included a 2am kitchen raid just this morning. Haylie, she is a morning person too. I think poor morning people should run at the sight of me coming, I have such a bad effect on them. :) Granted we are still on jetlag and it was generally supper time. Tomorrow I plan to go to church in Christ's Church, I had the oppurtunity to see it once already as I got to run around town the day I got here. (So much has happened in the last few days I feel I have been here a week!) When I arrived at The Vines (my house) a group was getting ready to go out. About twenty of us headed out into downtown Oxford, and I ended up splitting off with another student who shares one of my tutorials. We may be studying at New College and he had a way of getting into the grounds so we went to check it out, words cannot express what it feels like to be here!!! Being surrounded by the beauty and the history is something I can only dream of fully comprehending before I leave. And the minds of my fellow students. You never know what you will hear walking through The Vines. Last night, after running all around town and not having slept since Milligan, I had to go unpack and go to bed, leaving the most interesting conversation on the sin of man and perfection and "missing the mark" listening to people who knew scripture and plato so well now as I hope to ever know them. Incredible. Today I did a little shopping, though I am really still very unused to pounds. Jaywalking is a constant in Oxford and it is wonderful. I feel like I am back in the Philippines again. I have met people from different colleges (3 so far) who know people who went to highschool with me, one other MK from the Solomon islands, and just today (HA! I have only been here two days, I have to remind myself again.) I met someone who knows my old higschool principal. Please continue to pray for good fellowship and experiences, and especially that in a place and a people so rich in knowledge, fruit and God's truth will result from the meeting of minds. Thank you all for the support you are to me, and God bless.

~Your sore footed and very happy friend,

Heather