St John's College

Today I took myself on a photo tour of St John's College (henceforth to be referred to as SJC). Here I share with you the fruits of my expedition, sans the library. I didn't go in there; I'm saving that gem for a different day.

Here's the street outside the college.

 To the right of the main gate.

 To the left of the main gate.

Further down the way to the left of the main gate.

Here is the main gate. Usually just the small entrance is open, not the whole thing.

Inside the main gate is the Porters' Lodge, doorway shown above. It's quite a tight fit; you can get yourself but not my largest suitcase through the door. The Porter's Lodge has our mailboxes, the spot to put money on your laundry machine card, and some very friendly porters who don't mind how many questions you ask them.

The Porters' Lodge leads to the Front Quadrangle. The rooms around the Front Quadrangle appear to be mostly dons' offices.

A note on terminology: not all people who teach at the university are professors. To quote WeeklyHome.com's article on "Mistakes not to make when you visit Oxford", "'Teachers' is only used for school teachers and there are only a few Professors at Oxford, it's a very prestigious position. The correct general term is 'Oxford dons', although you may also hear the term 'Oxford Fellow' for a don who is a Fellow or member of a college, 'Oxford lecturer' for someone appointed by a Faculty to give lectures, or 'Oxford tutor' for someone who gives tutorials but is not necessarily a permanent member of a college or lecturer." So there you have it.

To the right of the Front Quadrangle is the Dolphin Quadrangle, which is mostly used to store bikes.

To the left of the Front Quad (I'm unsure whether or not it is gauche to call it a quad instead of a quadrangle -- I haven't heard anyone shorten it yet) is North Quadrangle, which houses a lot of undergraduates. It also houses the administrative offices, located through Door No. 7, and the Beehive, which contains dorm rooms and is considered to be a superb example of '60s modernist architecture and is thus protected from ever being torn down or significantly remodeled.

No. 7 is on the far end of North, hidden by the trees in the above picture.

The passageway between Front and North Quads is pretty important. It houses the chapel, some storage for benches and rowing gear, and the dining hall.

Passageway

To the right

To the left

Farther left. It smells deliciously of old, old wood.

 This is above the doorway in the passage. It's odd and I will have to look into it.

Past the back right corner of North (second door to the right and straight on 'til daylight) is Thomas White Quadrangle. The walls are painted with murals exalting the triumphs of our rowers. Here are a couple examples:

 Even the more modern stairways in Thomas White Quadrangle look somewhat medieval.

Behind Thomas White is the MCR. This stands for Middle Common Room, and is the common room for graduate students. Ostensibly this is where I will spend the second most amount of time, outside of the library.

There are a few other rooms as well: a computer room, a study/seminar room, and a full kitchen.

Behind the MCR is the Garden Quadrangle, which houses more dorms -- I think. It also has a chess room! Now I wish I knew how to play the game.

To the right of the Garden Quadrangle (we're making a circle here) are the gardens. Ahem, excuse me, The Gardens.

The grass is a little yellow from the undergraduate graduation stage. The groundskeepers are freaking out. NO ONE is allowed to walk on ANY part of the grass unless they are a Fellow of that particular college. There supposedly is a particular patch of grass set aside as The Croquet Lawn but I have yet to see anything labeled as such. These are precious blades and are guarded as closely as the crown jewels. I have a theory that Tolkien based Smaug's relationship to his treasure hoard off of the colleges' relationship with their grass.

Through this doorway here is Canterbury Quadrangle, which is a straight shot through to Front Quadrangle, and we're back where we started. The college is somewhat L-shaped, and this quadrangle marks the conclusion of the tour of one of its branches.

Canterbury Quadrangle is regarded to be the quietest spot in all of Oxford, according to the MCR/graduate student body president who gave me a utilitarian tour yesterday. The back right corner of the quad as one faces The Gardens through Front Quad is where the library is located.

Lots of gargoyles and grotesques, each one different.

 
One of the more seasoned students says that you can tell the comparative wealth of SJC by the ornateness of its drainpipes. I think that's as good a yardstick as any.




 And through the passageway…

… and back to Front Quadrangle!

So exiting Front Quadrangle and going back out to the road, there's the Lamb and Flag, which is the college-owned and -operated pub; St Giles House, which does admissions and such; and Kendrew Quadrangle, which houses graduate students and the Law Library.

 Passage leading to the door of the Lamb and Flag.

More Lamb and Flag. It's a very important part of SJC.

 The somewhat foreboding entrance to St Giles House.

The gate to Kendrew Quadrangle

Kendrew was completed two years ago. It blends right in to the 16th-century architecture of Front Quadrangle, don't you agree?

Bitty Zen rock garden on the roof of the Kendrew Café.

And this concludes the photo tour of SJC. All that remains are photos of home sweet home:

Coming through ...

Mini fridge!

Big window, big window seat, big tree outside of window.

Aaah. Done for the night!

The Robe Shop

I spent the last two days battling jet lag and getting myself set up in my new room. Most of this involved buying exciting things like shampoo, Post-It notes, and tea. It's amazing how much you can get done in a day when your body wakes up naturally at 3:30 in the morning.

And then I got to buy my robes. Robes are to be worn at formal dinners, during any exams, and for sundry occasions. There are several types of robes at Oxford. For me, there are the fancy, colorful robes I'll be wearing at graduation and there are the "everyday" robes I'll be wearing at the aforementioned events. I bought my everyday ones. Graduate student everyday robes are different than those of undergrads, which are hilariously called "commoner robes" because they haven't earned any degrees yet to make them special. Graduate robes are longer and have these tapers that run down the back of the gown on either side. Since they are open-faced, the clothing worn underneath them, right down to the nylons and velvet ribbon, is regulation and is called "sub fusc". The hat is also a requirement. You have your choice of mortar board or soft cap. Mortar boards must be worn outside and must not be worn inside; soft caps must be worn at all times. I opted for the soft cap because once you resign yourself to hat hair, you don't want to be forced to take the cap off and display it.

Please excuse the crooked selfie; I don't know anyone yet who can take my picture.

I know, this outfit is so fetch. What would Giuliana say?

                                               A: Doesn't matter. I get to wear it!

There are a couple robe shops in town. Madam Malkin has competition.

Shepherd and Woodward, founded in 1845

Ede and Ravenscroft, founded in 1689

And just in case we hadn't established that I'm attending Hogwarts for muggles, here's living proof, located somewhere between the robe shops:

Yep, that's a broom. And wands. In the same shop as the university hoodies. NBD.

In Transit

I've arrived! And after a frustrating chat with the man at IT Services, who informed me that he would not help me until after next week's orientation seminar but that the instructions for how to get online could be found online, I now have my laptop hooked up to the campus wifi, which is the defining quality that makes a dorm a home.

Travel went off without a hitch, and in fact a few bonuses as well. Overbooking the flight led to my unwieldy carry-on being checked as baggage for free and I flew through customs and managed to catch the earlier bus to Oxford, which meant I arrived nearly two hours ahead of schedule. Huzzah!

Fun times were had in the Reykjavik airport. Their restrooms, for starters, look like futuristic labyrinths, or perhaps the Department of Mysteries as designed by IKEA. Slick white walls concealing slick white doors that seal seamlessly closed combined with shiny white ceilings and smooth white floors to near-blinding effect. The only way you could tell there were stalls were the small metallic handles intermittently punctuating the surfaces. And the halls between them curved around, twisting until you had no idea which way was up. Each stall was its own complete washroom -- toilet, sink, dryer, mirror, everything. And they sealed completely shut; no gaps between the floor and the walls. The sink hardware was a combination faucet and hand dryer. And yep, I took a photo.

Wave your hands under the main tube for water. Wave them under the side tubes for high-speed drying.

I then proceeded to buy whiskey at 6:30 in the morning (a gift I owe a friend), trying to convert Icelandic kroner to euros to dollars in my head on precisely four hours of sleep in the past 28 (because no one, even with the best intentions, sleeps the night before a transatlantic move).

Third and last, I now understand why the Doctor craved fish fingers in custard after his eleventh regeneration. By 6:45 am Iceland time, my brain was so fried that I had a sandwich of roast beef, brown mustard, sweet pickles, and soggy French onions for breakfast and thought that the only thing that could possibly make it a more satisfying meal was if I could wash it down with some tapioca pudding.

Doctor Who, Season 5, Episode 1, "The Eleventh Hour"

"Box falls out of the sky, man falls out of a box, man eats fish custard."

Tomorrow I'll Miss You

My flight leaves tomorrow! My last weekend has been spent playing Tetris with my carry-on, going on a last horseback ride and having dinner with with my family, and watching favorite movies with my mom. And double-checking that I have all my paperwork. Lots of paperwork.

I had originally intended to write a post entitled "Odd Things in My Suitcase", but as the crannies in my suitcases shrunk and the airline weight limit reared its small but non-negotiable head, I found myself cutting out all of the fun and quirky items and praying for the basics to fit. Two suitcases, a carry-on, and a "small personal item" is surprisingly little to work with when you consider I will be living out of them for a minimum of three years. Yes, I can buy things over there -- and I intend to -- but I'd rather use what I already own.

Anticipated time in transit: 17.5 hours
Layovers: 2, plus a switch from train to bus
The one odd item in my suitcase: a $2 bill


For everyone's enjoyment while I spend the next few days traveling and recovering from jet lag:

To Be or Not to Be?

“fre liking is yharnyt our all other thing”

[“Free decision is longed for above all else.”]

This is part of one of the most famous passages in a medieval Scottish manuscript called The Brus (Modern English: The Bruce). Here is a slightly longer bit of the original:

A! Fredome is a noble thing

Fredome mays man to haiff liking.

Fredome all solace to man giffis,

He levys at es that frely levys.

A noble hart may haiff nane es

Na ellys nocht that may him ples

Giff fredome failyhe, for fre liking

Is yharnyt our all other thing.

                        Book I, lines 225-32

Ah! Freedom is a noble thing

Freedom lets a man have pleasure,

Freedom all solace to man gives,

He lives at ease who freely lives,

A noble heart will have no ease

Nor aught else that pleases him

If freedom fails, for free decision

Is longed for above all else.

                        Translation by A.A.M. Duncan

The author, John Barbour, wrote The Brus c. 1375. It’s a long narrative poem about King Robert I, the actual Braveheart (not William Wallace—sorry, Mel).

Today, Scotland is voting for or against its independence from the U.K. As an American and a medieval literature student, I have pretty much zero qualifications to be writing on this topic. Instead, I invite you to check out this website, which breaks down some of the major issues surrounding Scottish independence. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!