Of Families and Museums

I really must say that the tutorial system is much more fun than the American system of classes.  Anyone who knows anything about me will know that that's saying something: I love William and Mary and actively enjoy classes there, so the fact that I find Oxford even more enjoyable is really telling.  My tutes aren't quite the norm amongst normal Hertford students, in that I only have one-on-one sessions, while I've heard of others having two or three students in each.  It's a very energizing system, though.  In a class, there's the option to just sort of passively sit and not engage; I'm among the best of us who have occasionally spent an entire class surfing the internet or playing old N64 games on my laptop.  (I can feel Nana disapproving from 3,500 miles away.  Sorry, Nana!  I don't do it often!)  Tutorials pretty much wipe out that option, especially mine.  The format generally for my first two has been the tutor saying, "I read your essay.  I liked what you said here, but this bit is crap.  Give me why you think this makes any sense at all."  That's a bit exaggerated, but that's the basic format.  I found it a little terrifying at first, and my first session pretty much involved me panicking and being entirely ineloquent, but by this Friday I found myself really looking forward to them.  I had my third meeting with Helena at 11, and my first with Jennie at 2.  Both went very well, though both emphasized that I need to include more knowledge of criticism in my papers.  I honestly just didn't have time to read much this week; between the 870 page Bleak House, the 460 page The Moonstone and a 20-page poem, I felt myself lucky to have finished the primary material.

Choir was pretty awful this week; not that I didn't enjoy it, but that we were just kind of terrible for some reason.  Numbers were low, and I think we were all frozen; not sure what else could account for it.  Even the girl that I love to stand next to because she's both loud and right most of the time was making mistakes.  We went to Noodle Bar after, though, and that was very nice.  I don't think we have anything like it, at least not on the East coast.  I had egg fried rice (which was just that, much plainer/paler than at home, without the sauce pre-mixed in,) with duck meat, onions and peppers in black bean sauce on the side.  It was quite good, and if I can remember how to get there from the Grad Centre, I'll definitely go again.  Afterward I let about six members into the MCR with me (they're all JCR and thus can't get in,) and we sat in front of the fire in the Octagon (pictured) and had tea.  I'll have to take some pictures of the Octagon next time I'm in there; it's a pretty coveted place by all the undergrads who can't get in, with big comfy arm chairs, and a gas fireplace.  Another room in the MCR has a Wii, plus free fruit and tea, which is very nice.

Saturday morning I had my family brunch!  (A normal English brunch/breakfast is pictured, though the picture is not mine.  It's pretty much exactly what you can get in Hall, though the tomatoes are not nearly so pretty as they are in the picture.)  This is something that I'd forgotten to describe, I think, and it's both really strange and absolutely charming.  Apparently, it's tradition that everyone gets a college family composed of other students upon matriculation.  As in, you're given a "mother" and "father," who may or may not have other "children" that are your "siblings," and you may have "aunts" and "uncles" and everything.  By the end of your last year you're pretty much "related" to everyone by "blood" or "marriage," so it's a fun way of relating to other students and providing a sense of community.  Though, I must say, it's very odd to be introduced to someone with the phrase, "Oh, this is my daughter," and both the people are between 18 and 21 years of age.  My father is J-L, who reads my blog (hi, J-L!) and my mother is Inge.  I'd seen my father once at the ball, after he was pointed out to me by someone who already knew who he was, but I met Inge for the first time at the brunch.  Arranged by Vanessa who has something to do with watching out for us International students, the four of us new William and Mary students had our family brunch all together where we all either met or hung out with our parents.  It was nice!  Inge's very busy with an Engineering group, so I was lucky to meet her, but they're both very nice and I like them very much.  I'm not sure if this is a Hertford thing or an Oxford thing, though...

Yesterday I went to the coolest museum I have ever been to.  The Natural History Museum in Oxford is amazing, and I can't wait to go back.  The Smithsonian back home is trying to get rid of the idea that it's the Nation's attic, but the Natural History Museum and the Pitt-Rivers Museum here seem to revel in it.  Natural history was full of interesting things, including dinosaurs everywhere, and Pitt-Rivers was much more about human history.  It was definitely a sort of collection of  Imperialist memorabilia, though; it pretty much yelled, "Hey!  Look at all this cool stuff we picked up when we colonized pretty much the entire known world!"  What was especially interesting is that, while museums back home organize things by culture, time period and then similarity, this museum pretty much focuses on similarity only. You'll find a mask from Peru next to a mask from Tahiti under a mask from colonial America, from the 1600s, pre-history and 1800s respectively, and they're all together just because they're masks.  Even though the museum takes up very little space in terms of square footage, there's so much to see that even though we spent over two hours there, we barely scratched the surface.  I plan on returning very soon.

Sorry about the day-late update!  I was planning on doing it last night when I got home from evensong and dinner, but my internet died as I was uploading photos, and as the English say, I was "knackered," so I went to sleep instead.

As usual, to conclude, Things I've Noticed:

• There are a lot of peas.  I don't know if that's an English thing or a Hertford Hall cafeteria thing, but I've had peas at least four times a week.
• What would be either "the check" or "the bill" at home is only "the bill" here. A cheque is a cheque and only a cheque. 
• "Urinal" = "yer-EYE-nul."  Yeah, that's pretty odd to me.
• You don't eat with your hands nearly as much here as you do at home.  People seem to usually eat chips (fries, though I've only seen the big thick steak-fries type) with forks, and burgers are only hand-food at cheap places.  (It's a sandwich!  Its form was created by the Earl of Sandwich so that he could play cards and eat with his hands at the same time!)
• Sausages are different here, as is bacon.  Bacon here is more like ham at home, and sausages aren't just seasoned pig bits in a tube; it's pig bits and breadcrumbs and all sorts of other stuff.  As J-L said today, cheap sausages are only about 10% pork, which I'm sure is an exaggeration, but the sausages I got from Sainsbury's in my first week pretty much tasted like it.
• Breakfast includes beans, mushrooms and grilled tomatoes.  I usually abstain from the beans, at least.