I can not believe it is February already! I really can't afford to take a break from writing essays at this point in my tutorials but I felt like I should do a quick update to kick off the new month and to recognize that I have been here just about a month at this point AND to share the great news that my mom will be visiting me in a month! SO many things going on within a month! As for my quick update, Oxford is (still) an incredible city and I am loving it more every single day. I really could not imagine doing my 40 minute walk that I have to do every single morning and evening to and from the library, anywhere else. My days go as follows: wake up at around 830 am, (the sun rises at about 8 here) get myself together, have breakfast, leave for the library at around 930, get to the Bodleian at around 10ish, read from 10-2, grab lunch somewhere in the city (my lunch date is always my notebook) go back to the library from 2-7, walk back to my flat, get in around 745, have dinner, study some more then go to sleep. (Reading is interchangeable with essay writing, I write about 6000 words/week and I read as much as I can of about 25-30 books a week). I have no borrowing privileges (nor does anyone in the world, not even the Queen!) at the Bodleian Library so I have to do all of my work in Library. There is no food or drinks allowed in either. This schedule is Sunday-Sunday, weekends do not apply accept that the library does not open until noon on Sunday. While my days may seem dismal and monotonous, there are certain things about the fact that this is Oxford that makes them much more bearable. For one, the walk in the morning, while it is long, cold and complete with a heavy bag filled with books and my laptop, is one where I walk over the thames river, passed oxford castle, down cornmarket street, and straight into the Bodleian Library (all beautiful and unique places in oxford). While the Bodleian can feel like a prison, I always try to get a seat near a window whereas I get to overlook the rest of the Radcliffe. Check it out! <<>> (This is the Radcliffe camera, it is conjoined with the Bodleian Library which is the square building with the open courtyard in the center in the back) I always try to stop in a new pub or coffee shop for lunch, for example i have been in the covered market several times for lunch. The covered market offers this sense of raw reality that I had never experienced back home. You walk in to a market place where butchers are doing their work right in front of you, Ben's cookies' smell overrides everything else in the market, they are baked fresh all day and upon ordering I've found that most people just ask for "whats fresh." They are all incredible...Florists are peddling carts around, theres a single barber shop where men are always drinking pints of beer, i think it might act more as a pub, and many sandwich stops, all with traditional british fare, both fortunately and unfortunately nothing American. Anyway, upon finding something new everyday, my 5 additional hours or so at the Bodleian do not seem as difficult to face. When my day at the library concludes I then take the 40 minute walk back to my house. Everything looks different at night in Oxford, especially since everything (aside from pubs) closes at 5-6 pm. The only night things stay open is on Thursday night where they have "late night shopping." On Thursday nights, most stores close at 8. So, I hope I painted a fairly concise picture of what life as an Oxford student is like...

As for today, I spent the morning refining and finishing an essay arguing that religious fundamentalism may be manipulated as a tool by men to create social inferiority of women in societies throughout the world (particularly in the middle east). Then I did my 40 minute walk to the library where I spent the whole afternoon reading about Parliamentarism, so that I can spend this evening (what I should be doing right now) writing an essay arguing that parliamentary democracies are better at enacting policy than presidential democracies are. I still have 2800 words of that to write tonight, and I have my gender issues tutorial in the morning where I will have to debate and defend my above referenced thesis with my professor (called my tutor). This is life at Oxford. While I wish that I could take just one day off and not go to the library, I am so blessed to be here and this experience is not only making me a better student, but it is absolutely shaping me into a better person. I can say that with full confidence.

Well, I have to stop procrastinating and I have to get to writing this second essay.

Cheerio!