Oxford is hard.

I know that this sounds like an elementary statement, but it is a concept that I just recently internalized: Oxford is hard. I've been here for almost two months now, and just a few days ago was the first time that I grasped the weight of this semester. I guess up until now, my optimism and love of being here had been carrying me. As you read about (perhaps) in my last blog, that cloud burst underneath me about a week ago and ever since then I've been gradually coming to grips with the fact that the semester is not going to get any easier.

So, now that I know that Oxford is hard, now what? Well, I get hard with it I suppose and thank God for every bit of encouragement along the way. All week I had been whining about a certain essay I was writing and how I felt like my tutorial was going to be an hour-long explanation answering the question 'why Katie is an idiot.' I was pleasantly surprised and fortunately exposed as a drama queen when, at my tutorial, my tutor praised my essay and my treatment of the topic. I was floored. It is times that like, and people like those I live with, that will keep me going through this glorious, yet taxing experience.

Sonja came to visit me yesterday (Saturday). I'm so glad she did because I had a lot of fun. I met her at the bus station, we perused the French Market, I showed her around the city center and some of the nicer colleges and had some cream tea at the Queens Lane Coffee Shop, which was delightful, very English and convinced me to do it more often. Then we went to my home, stopping first at Tesco to pick up some chocolate-chip cookie ingredients. While we were waiting in the line to pay, I remembered that last time I forgot an ingredient so I ran back to get it. Now, what I forgot the last time was baking soda, but what I picked up was bread yeast, without thinking. We got back to the Vines and began to put the ingredients together. I realized my mistake, but decided to go with it. That was the first irregularity of these 'cookies'. The second, was that, when adding the yeast, I was supposed to dissolve it and salt into two teaspoons of hot. I didn't have salt, so we forewent that, but I also read the recipe wrong and dissolved the yeast into two cups of hot water and added it to the mixing bowl. Once everything was added, I realized my mistake. At this point, I just started adding flour, sugar and other ingredients, trying to salvage the cookie batter soup. It eventually reached normalish texture, so we started baking cookies. Actually, most of the batter went to two giant cookie-cakes because of our lack of adequately-sized baking sheets. After all, we ended up with a very large amount of chocolate chip cookie-tasting cake, because of the yeast. I also made a smaller cake with the very last of the batter and accidentally left it in the oven when I walked Sonja to the bus stop, so by the time I returned, it was nearing frisbee status. Despite the teasing, it tasted very good and the whole of it was eaten by the end of the night, even the frisbee. There you have it, the cookie-cake incident of 2007.

I also decided that I don't do enough in Oxford. It's very easy to just stay home, at the Vines because I love the people I live with, and there are so many of them, but there is also so much interesting stuff to take part in around the city. This is one reason that I accompanied my friend Hilary to a showing of an Ingmar Bergman film: Through a Glass Darkly. It was a nice outing and an intense film. I felt very sophisticated in the theater with so many artsy-types and conversing in the foyer afterwards as wine was served. I was glad I went and Hilary and I decided to try to get out more, despite our comfy home and our demanding academic schedules. I'd really like to meet new people, maybe bring some romance, mystery and adventure into my just-now-becoming rote life. Who knows what will happen, but I'll try to keep you updated.