A lot has happened in the last few days. It's been extremely emotional, both ups and downs. It started out much worse than it's turned out.

I came to a sudden conclusion the other night. Given that I've had so much space from everything, I realized that I can't deal with a serious relationship with someone. I had the talk with Camilo and was pretty sad and upset about it for a while. But judging how everything is between us, I know we'll be ok. He's one of the best friends I've ever had and this is definitely not the end. The situation just needed to change. And yes, he's still coming into town next week and I'm looking forward to having a loved one from back home to see me.

The other day, a girl from next door came to me and asked if we could switch rooms. Her and her roommate are not getting along well at all. I talked with her roomie and mine; we've all come to the conclusion it would be better for everyone's mental health if I moved in with Jenn and Ashley moved in with Bethany. I will be upgrading in terms of roomsize and amenities, which I'm very pleased about. This small room and the amount of socializing I've had to do in it has been getting to me. I make the move on Saturday, so I'll let you all know how it works out sometime soon. I'm excited!

We had our Integral course exam today. Everyone has been getting progressively more wound up about it all week. We're all glad it's finally over. It wasn't necessarily tough, but I think it could have been put together better. I'd guess I got a B, but I won't know till after the term is over. My advice to anyone stressing themselves over a test or something like that:


Pour yourself a nice cup of tea (or several!!)

That's my new teapot by the way. I think it's adorable!!!  I got it for 3 quid (slang for pound, like "buck" for dollar) at the charity shop.

Tuesday was a pretty exciting day! We went to the Bodleian Library finally to get our reader's cards. After getting an overview of rules, we had to read an oath and sign our names. This is the oath:

I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.

I particularly like the part about kindling fire or flame. Apparently back in the days before electricity and heating, the Bod would get freezing cold and super dark cause of the no-fire policy. I'll write more about the library when I actually start spending time in there, which will be as soon as possible once I've recovered from the exam this morning. Here are some pics from that day:

That's us waiting in line to read the oath and get our reader's cards. This room has been used for meetings of parliament, though I can't remember when the dates were. We then walked through a door that led into the Divinity School:

Look familiar? The Divinity School was used in the filming of the Harry Potter movies, specifically this is where the sanitorium scenes take place (nurse's hall).




the fan ceilings are amazing!!

Wednesday was "Fresher's Fayre" (or Fair, if you must be modern about it), a HUGE event where all the clubs of the University set up information booth. Ok so I've been to things like this before, but uh...seeing as how Oxford is a large university, this was probably about 5 times larger than anything I've seen of its kind. I signed up for lots of email lists, so I can hear about activities going on. I found two groups like Dagorhir, one uses authentic Middle Ages weaponry and the other uses hard foam weapons that actually look authentic. Not sure which I'll get involved in, but I signed on to both! Here are a few pics from the day:


Yeah, I was taking the picture and I kinda cut my face off. Oh well, you get the idea. From left to right: Christa, Julia, Hannah and Rebecca. There was a LONG line to get in to the fayre.

It was held at the university "Examinations School". I particularly liked the sun clock and the roses at the top of the gates:


Rebecca and I then went to Blackwell's bookshop to get our free coffee mugs. One the way there, I found a few neat little guys:

Pan - one of my favorite of the Greek gods, he is also the son of Hermes, one of my very TOP favorties :)


And the wind.....there's really no need for words.

Whilst at the fayre, I came upon the "Oxford Union" table. This is a world-famous debating society of sorts, though now they seem mostly to hold speeches by famous people and celebrities. They have their own little gated grounds (right around the corner from us actually) with a lovely library, debate hall, bar and nightclub. The sign says it all:

And see, to get past this little issue, you have to pay a "discounted" membership fee of £170. Methinks not. But here's the coolest thing. The next few weeks they're having free events to try to get people interested in joining. Last night the actor Christopher Lee gave a Q&A evening in the debate hall. You may remember him as Dracula, Count Dooku in the new Star Wars trilogy and Saruman in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. FREAKING AWESOME! Daniel was the only one interested in going, so after we got our studying done we headed over last night and sat in. I couldn't get very good pictures from where we sat, but I did get a video of him singing "The Man of La Mancha", which I will leave you with today