Wednesday Evening

As I said, today was a day spent shopping for a new suitcase. I got one with a warranty, and seems pretty durable, though it did cost 75 GBP. I will get back 14.25% of that price for a VAT refund, but I am also going to buy a smaller suitcase for the Paris and Edinburgh trips next week. I didn't want to sticker shock myself all in one day! After that, it was off to class, then I went out to a larger supermarket a short bus trip away, but it turned out to be an adventure in and of itself. They are doing so much construction here in Oxford, that what should have been a 5-10 minute bus ride home took over 30 minutes. It was so bad that there were 5 more buses all stacked up behind the one I was on because the construction on Magdalen Bridge is so bad. I will try to take a picture of the roundabout construction to show you what a mess it is. But just think, three major roads dump into a roundabout, which in turn, dumps into a two lane bridge. One lane of the bridge is shut down for repairs, and repairs are supposed to take more than 18 weeks. They did manage to repave oneside of the bridge and they are now working on the other, but how long it will take I don't know. Its a good thing the dorm is the opposite direction from that mess.

After that, it was lunch in my room: ham and cheddar (real English cheddar is quite different than anything we get in the states), on a fresh multi grain roll. Then back to class, some work in my room, and then off to dinner. Dinner was the usual once a week semi formal thing, though tonight the dining hall was quite crowded. It was roll and butter, a piece of fish in puff pastry with a nice cream sauce, then a piece of beef with a tomato based sauce, boiled new potatoes with mint, and mixed vegetables heavy on green beans. Finally, desert was chocolate gateau, and it was really good.

Then it was meetings with the students, and we decided what we are going to do on Sunday (Stonehenge and Bath). I tried to convince them to go to Hampton Court, but it was overwhelming the number of students who wanted to go to Stonehenge and Bath. I have been to both places, and Stonehenge is okay, Bath better, but I really wanted to head off to Hampton Court. Oh well, I will get a chance to do that at the end of the month in my free time in London before I fly home.

So now you know what a typical day is. Its now about 9:15, its still light outside, though the sun is finally setting. The weather forecast keeps changing, though we are supposedly due for a real warm up this weekend, into the upper 70s, near 80, though the weather forecasters say it won't last more than a day or two before it cools down again. That should be good news, because the lows around here most evenings have been in the mid to lower 50s, and on Sunday, there are supposed to be in the upper 60s. When it is warm here, it is almost as humid as it is in Florida. Still, I am glad I have a fan and hopefully the warm weather won't last long. The weather has mostly been in the mid to upper 60s, today the low 70s, and the nights comfortably cool. A bunch of the students are getting colds, which is inevitably: not enough sleep, too many late nights, the strange adjustment to the weather, maybe one too many pints. Remarkably, the drinking has been well under control, even on weekends from what I can tell, because of the class schedule that makes most of them stay in a couple nights of the week to get work done. I really am not sure what all of them do at night, but many of them are up and bright eyed and bushy tailed since the first class for many is at 8:15.

Tomorrow is a quite day for me. I am off to go see the new residence with Heather and Rosemary around 2, then back to class in the afternoon. My first grading assignments are coming in on Friday and there is a test and another grading assignment due on Monday. I should be busy for much of next week in the evenings with grading exams and short research papers. It shouldn't take very long: there are only 16 students in the civ 2 class, and they are each turning in a paper and taking a final, and 7 History of Science students who are turning in their longer papers on Monday. I am hoping to have it all done by Wednesday. Tonight its answering email, writing on this blog, and getting some of my own work done. I'll probably post more tomorrow night. I also think I am going to try and get up extra early tomorrow or Friday to go and take pictures while the streets of Oxford are relatively empty.