Into the Storm

Well, the storm which I had been talking about and talking about has finally arrived-- last Thursday in the course of one afternoon Kasyn and I were assigned a tutorial, met with him, and received our first assignment. By next Wednesday, we needed to have 17 books read and a 2000 word paper (approximately eight pages). Now luckily mostly we only needed to read excerpts, but it still made for quite a bit of work. And to make it all the more painful, I was feeling sick and was going to be gone for the weekend in Edinburgh.

Regardless, we got it done and are now into the second week (basically the same thing with different books and a different prompt). Luckily our topic is pretty cool (the tutorial is on the European Union), and the tutor is really engaging and obviously very smart. His name is Dr. Martin Holmes, and he is a tutor at St. Hugh's College. So that is good, while its hard to have to do lots of work again it is nice to feel like I am accomplishing something academically. And despite not being what I intended, it is still something I am interested in.

Other things from the past ten days-- Twelfth Night was very very good, and the two standouts for me were John Lithgow as Malvolio (Lithgow is the guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun) and James Clyde as Feste. Theater was nice, and in general had a fun night.

Trip to Edinburgh (click here for pictures--went a little crazy taking weird pictures in the bus once we landed, sorry bout that) was awesome! Way too short, but still lots of fun. Edinburgh is an amazing city, I hope I get to go visit there again sometime. The main highlight was climbing Arthur's Seat, which gives you breathtaking views of the city (and is a decent workout!).





While there, we took the scotch whiskey tour, saw lots of other cool sites, and visited Adam Smith's grave. The three Econ majors in our group took the obligatory picture there (yes we realize that is weird).



Back here in Oxford clubs and sports are starting up, which is exciting. Starting to meet more Brits, which is quite a relief. What else is new? Well I am going to be playing rugby, which I am pretty stoked about. Actually four of the five guys from Pomona are going to play. Practice is once a week for all of an hour and a half, and then we have games every Tuesday. And it sounds like all of us will definitely get on the field, despite having never played before. So that is something fun to look forward to. Anyhow, I'm off to get some sleep and figured that a shorter update would be in order this time around.

P.S. Yes I'm still mourning the abysmal performances of the Angels and the Cubs, but hey at least they made it to the postseason (yea, I'm talking to you Mariners fans)...

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