First day of School! First day of School!

      Well it was our first day of Oxford classes today! The first day of classes anywhere requires a good bit of adjusting to routine and learning the way things are. Every time at Rhodes is like that and this was not much different! The only big difference was that in two of my classes I was sitting in a gorgeous Baroque room that looked out on the Radcliffe camera and in between our first two classes we had a coffee/tea/hot chocolate break.
       My first class today was my Medieval Art class with Sally, our adorable/wonderful/can-I-please-just-be-this-woman-when-I-grow-up Dean. This class I already knew would be mostly review and I found that to definitely be the case. Still, I know that every professor brings something new to the table and I look forward to going back tomorrow! I was a little disappointed to hear that Sally thinks all we do in American art history classes is memorize--this is far from my experience, anyway--so i look forward to doing my best on the exams, etc to let her know that Americans can think and write analytically about art just as well as Europeans! I didn't get the impression she would accept anything less anyway, which is what I like :)
      Next (after our tea break) we had our Late Medieval History class with Professor Catto, an older and quite distinguished gentleman who opened class by inviting us over to "his college" of Oriel for drinks before the next formal dinner we have--that was different from Rhodes anyway! We all swiftly agreed and then jumped right into the Plague and peasant revolts.
      After lunch (which today was make you own sandwich day with really nice ingrediants like roast beef and coronation chicken) we had a short break and then our last class of the day, our Arthurian Legends class. Professor McClune is very young, stylish and Scottish. She graduated from Oxford and then taught here for ten years so she clearly knows her stuff! It was fun to break into groups and talk about different versions of Arthur from the various periods and she specifically brought up Game of Thrones. The only problem was that this class actually lasted TWO HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES. Don't get me wrong--it was an awesome class! But after that long I was pretty exhausted and had to take a lengthy nap to recover.
        Dinner tonight was french onion soup, chicken with pasta and strawberries and cream. Afterwards, I sat in my window and did my Art History reading while looking out at one of the spires with a little crescent moon hanging over it in a still day-time blue sky.
         I'm not sure if I'll be updating everyday the next few weeks during classes but whenever an especially good adventure comes up I'll be sure to note it! We will be having several weekend excursions and no doubt i'll be running around exploring Oxford itself, so I"m sure this blog won't be bereft of good material :) ta for now!