Friday evening was another guest night of fancy dress- but this time I decided not to go. Instead I went to a spaghetti dinner at Sarah's house, which is only right down the road from me.
I had forgotten to return my book back to the library earlier....and actually hadn't even brought it with me...so I had to make an extra trip into town to do that. Then I was off to the grocery to pick up some ice cream for desert....in the store I ran into Seth, my tutor. It was weird to see someone I knew in Oxford that wasn't a student at Regents....and it was equally a strange coincidence that it happened to be my tutor. No that Oxford is that huge....but its big enough.
Anyway, I found my way to Sarah's street- Arnold Road- but had the hardest time finding her house! After awhile of pushing my bike back and forth along the street to each house because I couldn't see the numbers from the road and they seemed to be arranged funny- I finally found it. I was glad that I found it.
Caitlan, my friend Celia from London, and my friend Ula from Poland who now lives in Italy met me there to have dinner with Sarah. Sarah is also a student at Regent's, but she is a graduate and is married so that is why she has a house off on her own....It was so nice to be in a real house that wasn't part of school housing. It made me feel much more part of Oxford- even if I wasn't going to come every day or anything. Just knowing someone who lives in a real house here makes me feel more at home.
Sarah is from South Africa. Her parent's were missionaries there during Apartheid, so she's had a very interesting upbringing. She was telling us of the grade school she attended where the other children wouldn't have considered black people to even be human (because when you're a kid of course you just believe everything your parents tell you without question)- and the contrast this was to the way she was being raised by her parents who were teaching the black children in their mission school. Needless to say, Sarah now has the biggest heart for overcoming prejudice. She even worries about the fact that she, herself, is prejudice against prejudice people because she thinks of herself as less ignorant and better than someone who thinks they are better than someone else based on something as irrelevant as gender, class, or color to one's significance as a human...... It was also interesting to here her stories of people's response to her being African, since she is not black....."that would be like me supposing that you are not really American since you are not American-Indian"....I can only imagine how many stories she has from childhood about the ill effects that prejudice had on her country and then realize that I should be able to share a few stories of my own on that one.
The dinner was a great time to just relax with the girls, something I really needed after what I realized had been sort of a bad day when I was retelling them all of my experiences. We watched Vanity Fair- which reminded me of a Bristish version of Gone With The Wind as the main character, Becky was almost exactly like Scarlet. I was very disappointed with the movie's ending but maybe I would have followed it better if I had read the book.
Saturday was less eventful. I relaxed most of the day then at night went to see a play called Groping for Words. It was about illiteracy in today's society and one of the guy's from Regent's, Ed, was playing one of the four characters. Ed was also in the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Ryan and I went at 7 and they had only 3 tickets left so we felt lucky to get 2 of them at the last minute.
Tonight I returned to Christ church and was again most uplifted by the amazing sound of the boys choir on this first Sunday of Lent. While I'm not giving up anything for Lent, I did participate in making pancakes with some of the Regent's girls last Tuesday night. This a big tradition here to use up all of the extra eggs, flower, and whatnot in the fridge before Lent begins. So I tried my hand at making english pancakes (Which were like crepe)...they were really thin. I flipped one in the pan and that was exciting.....
Anyway, tonight all of us Georgetowners attended evensong at Christ church with Dr. Hadaway . Then we went back to the gtown flat for breakfast dinner! I was happy to get a real meal on a Sunday besides my usual pasta and rice....and it was nice to spend some time with our group kind of reflecting on the past few weeks. Great conversation and company can never dissappoint...and this was certainly the case as it was nearly 1am when we decided to head back to home on Stanley Road.
So a nice end to a relaxing weekend...though it seemed to have come and gone way too fast. I guess they all tend to do that.
I had forgotten to return my book back to the library earlier....and actually hadn't even brought it with me...so I had to make an extra trip into town to do that. Then I was off to the grocery to pick up some ice cream for desert....in the store I ran into Seth, my tutor. It was weird to see someone I knew in Oxford that wasn't a student at Regents....and it was equally a strange coincidence that it happened to be my tutor. No that Oxford is that huge....but its big enough.
Anyway, I found my way to Sarah's street- Arnold Road- but had the hardest time finding her house! After awhile of pushing my bike back and forth along the street to each house because I couldn't see the numbers from the road and they seemed to be arranged funny- I finally found it. I was glad that I found it.
Caitlan, my friend Celia from London, and my friend Ula from Poland who now lives in Italy met me there to have dinner with Sarah. Sarah is also a student at Regent's, but she is a graduate and is married so that is why she has a house off on her own....It was so nice to be in a real house that wasn't part of school housing. It made me feel much more part of Oxford- even if I wasn't going to come every day or anything. Just knowing someone who lives in a real house here makes me feel more at home.
Sarah is from South Africa. Her parent's were missionaries there during Apartheid, so she's had a very interesting upbringing. She was telling us of the grade school she attended where the other children wouldn't have considered black people to even be human (because when you're a kid of course you just believe everything your parents tell you without question)- and the contrast this was to the way she was being raised by her parents who were teaching the black children in their mission school. Needless to say, Sarah now has the biggest heart for overcoming prejudice. She even worries about the fact that she, herself, is prejudice against prejudice people because she thinks of herself as less ignorant and better than someone who thinks they are better than someone else based on something as irrelevant as gender, class, or color to one's significance as a human...... It was also interesting to here her stories of people's response to her being African, since she is not black....."that would be like me supposing that you are not really American since you are not American-Indian"....I can only imagine how many stories she has from childhood about the ill effects that prejudice had on her country and then realize that I should be able to share a few stories of my own on that one.
The dinner was a great time to just relax with the girls, something I really needed after what I realized had been sort of a bad day when I was retelling them all of my experiences. We watched Vanity Fair- which reminded me of a Bristish version of Gone With The Wind as the main character, Becky was almost exactly like Scarlet. I was very disappointed with the movie's ending but maybe I would have followed it better if I had read the book.
Saturday was less eventful. I relaxed most of the day then at night went to see a play called Groping for Words. It was about illiteracy in today's society and one of the guy's from Regent's, Ed, was playing one of the four characters. Ed was also in the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Ryan and I went at 7 and they had only 3 tickets left so we felt lucky to get 2 of them at the last minute.
Tonight I returned to Christ church and was again most uplifted by the amazing sound of the boys choir on this first Sunday of Lent. While I'm not giving up anything for Lent, I did participate in making pancakes with some of the Regent's girls last Tuesday night. This a big tradition here to use up all of the extra eggs, flower, and whatnot in the fridge before Lent begins. So I tried my hand at making english pancakes (Which were like crepe)...they were really thin. I flipped one in the pan and that was exciting.....
Anyway, tonight all of us Georgetowners attended evensong at Christ church with Dr. Hadaway . Then we went back to the gtown flat for breakfast dinner! I was happy to get a real meal on a Sunday besides my usual pasta and rice....and it was nice to spend some time with our group kind of reflecting on the past few weeks. Great conversation and company can never dissappoint...and this was certainly the case as it was nearly 1am when we decided to head back to home on Stanley Road.
So a nice end to a relaxing weekend...though it seemed to have come and gone way too fast. I guess they all tend to do that.
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