Finally, something academic

I met with my tutors this week. My Victorian Gothic Lit. tutor has a doctorate from Oxford in the subject. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn't the small, shy, hobbit-esque man he turned out to be. This week I'll be reading Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Ollala. My Greek Tragedy tutor seems to be from Greece (or Russia, as Christine says of everyone who's accent she can't place). We will be studying Sophocles in translation. For our next meeting, I will be reading Ajax and Electra. I am also using the book Reading Greek to teach myself Classical Greek, so by the end of the term, I hope to be able to do some work in the original language. I've done three lessons and really enjoyed them.

I got my books at Blackwell's bookshop, the biggest, coolest bookstore I have ever seen. It's about the width of Barnes and Noble, but it has four levels. Check it out.

I'm becoming a bit disillusioned with the world of academia as Oxford students seem no more academically minded than Cornerstone students. All of our orientation meetings and college inductions with Oxford students have focused more on pubs and parties than the three Rs. Even here, most students put off assignments until the last minute, and then pull them out of their arse.

We bought the Isle of Lewis chess set today. It's gorgeous. This hyperlink takes you to the website of the store where we got it, so you can read more about it, if you're interested (as I clearly am).

As far as our day-to-day lives, we have breakfast every morning at a cafe around the corner that has vegetarian breakfast baps for £2.95. It includes an egg, cheese, tomatoes (pronounced to-MAH-to), and mushrooms on a bap (a small loaf of bread) and is served with baked beans. I never thought I would like baked beans for breakfast, but I do. Our server is the friendliest woman in England (which isn't necessarily saying much). Her accent isn't pure Brit, so Christine thinks she might be French. Or Russian.

I could post more, but I'll save it so there's something new for those of you who check us out every 5 minutes but never leave a comment (you know who you are).

Speaking of Andrew, I need to say publicly that servers here use the term cutlery for silverware. They also kick you out of the restaurant when you rub your chest and say, "Ooooooooooh! You're Canadian!"