Michaelmas Week 3

Week 3 involved finishing our movie (see week 2 post) and attending festive fall and Halloween activities. More after the jump.

Michaelmas Week 2

Week 2 (and the first 2 days of Week 3) was about movie-making. Some of my classmates and I participated in a week-long short film festival and created a movie called "See." More about our movie and the week's activities after the jump.

Matriculation

Saturday morning was Matriculation. In this ceremony, we formally become members of the university. We are required to dress in sub-fusc, which comes from Latin for 'dark/dusky color.' For men, this means a dark suit, black shoes, white shirt, and white bow tie. Girls must wear a white blouse, black ribbon, black skirt or pants, black tights, and black shoes. Girls have the choice of having a mortarboard or a soft cap. We can wear a dark coat, but our academic gown must be worn over it. Postgraduate students have gowns that go to the knee - undergraduate gowns are shorter. 

More on Matriculation day after the jump.

Michaelmas Week 1

Week 1 was the first week of classes. Lectures started, hall dinners started, and we matriculated (that will get its own post), played some poker, and tried to make sub-fusc "sexy." The photo above is some OIIers the afternoon of matriculation. More details after the jump.

Michaelmas Week 0

Week 0 of Michaelmas (the term from October-December) was orientation week. Oxford likes to run by week numbers instead of dates, which means I have a paper due on Friday of Week 5 rather than November 12. Monday and Tuesday were orientation days at the OII. The photo above is of all the entering MSc and Dphil (doctorate) students. It was taken in one of the quads of Balliol College, the college the OII is associated with. You can learn about my classmates here. We're a diverse and impressive group. About 40% of the class is from the US. The UK and Canada are the next most represented countries.

On Tuesday, all the masters students had to give a short presentation on what we were thinking of writing our thesis on so we could get assigned advisors. My advisor is Monica Bulger. At first I was confused why I wasn't assigned to a political science person, but it turns out that the methodologies for the projects she has done are similar to what I have proposed to do. As of now, I plan to write my thesis on congressmen who don't use social media, use it infrequently, or were late adopters. If you are interested in more details, check out my proposal.

The week also consisted of orientation activities at St. Cross and the Freshers Fair (activities fair) held in the Examinations School. Of course I signed up for many things I'll probably never do, but there just may be an interesting speaker somewhere someday.

On Friday night, St. Cross held a Freshers BOP in the dining hall. A bop is a party that a college throws - it stands for 'big open party.' After that, we went to Freud, a cafe/bar that is in an old church - talk about a weird/cool setting.

Since the weather was so wonderful in this very un-English heat wave, some of us OIIers spent that Saturday afternoon punting on the Cherwell.

More on punting after the jump:

Exploring the city

The next few days consisted of getting settled in and exploring the city (and getting my first smart phone). The picture above was taken at Christ Church College. The most surprising thing about this city is how many buses there are. I think I've seen more buses here than in DC! The city is also incredibly bike friendly. There are some roads you can only bike down because they are blocked off or are too small for a car. The bad thing about this town is that basically everything closes at 5 on Sundays. There are also a bunch of homeless people, and they all seem to have scruffy dogs with them. Fun fact: restaurants were already advertising their Christmas dinners in September. 

More photos of the city and Christ Church are below the jump:

Moving In

I was welcomed to Oxford and St. Cross College on the last Wednesday of September with sunny skies and warm weather (in the 70s -- and it lasted for about a week!). Every Oxford student is associated with a college. For undergraduates, this is where you are educated. For graduate students, it serves more of an administrative, food/housing, and social function. St. Cross is a college with just graduate students, and it is about 70% international. It is right next to the city centre and basically across the street from my department, the Oxford Internet Institute (OII).

More on St. Cross and my room after the jump: