Oxford.
The City of the Dreaming Spires.
The oldest university in the English-speaking world.
And now I'm here.
It was a long flight, 13 hours to be precise. Watching the mists of South East Asia fade into the mountains of Caucasia and then the rolling meadows and meandering rivers of Europe. It felt more than strange- perhaps the sheer distance travelled made all measurement of how far I was from home irrelevant. Numbers cease to mean anything when they become too big.
And then-Heathrow, and then Oxford.
The weather was nothing like I'd experienced before. But then again, this was what the British island was supposed to be notorious for: atrocious weather.
Got my first essay assignment on the very first day of school. And to my surprise, I was informed that my tutorials would be one on one sessions with the professor- there was to be no tutorial partner for me, at least for Michaelmas term.
My room was big and weird, but in a nice way. All rooms in seventeenth century houses are weird anyway. It had a slanted floor, and a fireplace that was unfortunately sealed up. It was pretty comfortable except for the fact that it had no internet connection, something which aggravated me till no end. However, it was situated directly above a bakery- which made for very convenient breakfasts.
But my room is hardly a fair representation of my college building- let alone the rest of the university. Stained glass, decorated marble arches, marble statues, oil paintings, carved window frames, buildings that have stood for centuries- all magnificent, all resplendent. One might complain that to live here was more like living in a museum than in a school. But there is no greater measure of how great a school is than its history and its heritage, and all the achievements it has attained throughout the centuries. And fair enough, it resembles a museum- but what cause should a History student have for complaint if his school is indeed a museum?
We dine in a Hall, Harry Potter style. Wednesday nights are Formal nights, when everyone has to wear a gown and a suit. The food is good, and though I fear I will eventually get bored of it, I am equally certain that that will not happen in the near future. The kitchen boss or whatever they call him here is this David Woodfine, and he was a former steward in Buckingham Palace. He thus takes tremendous pride in his work, which is basically to feed the college, and to feed it well. Of course, this is a double-sided characteristic- if one is late for dinner, one will incur his wrath. And his wrath is not a pleasant thing to behold, and is an even less pleasant thing to be incurred. His is not “wrath” in the orthodox sense; it is not a tempestuous thunder, but it is a carefully crafted, subtle show of annoyance mixed with the plaintive cry of victimhood- “Why are you so late? Why can’t you see how hard I’m trying to keep everything running according to schedule?” I have never seen anything like it before. He punishes you not through fear but through guilt- and that is highly effective.
The people here seem to be fascinating characters, as most new people tend to be. No more being in a classroom with 97% of the people being from the same nationality. No. Now there was Andrew from Wales, Jared and Austin from the States, Julian from Germany, Jan from the Czech Republic, Ruvi from Israel, Adam and Danka from Sweden, Lisa from Finland, Stavros from Greece, Daniel from Ireland, Dimitry from Russia, and Ken from Tokyo, just to name a few. There seemed to be as many nationalities as there were people in the college. An exaggeration, undoubtedly, but one must understand the psychological impact that a truly cosmopolitan setting has on a person who has experienced nothing but living in a uniform student body his whole academic life. It is a strange thing, to study here. I have now become a stranger in a strange land. I feel like I am in one of those science fiction novels where an expeditionary fleet from the Federation of Earth has been launched into the farthest reaches of space, millions and millions of light years away from our solar system, to investigate some weird phenomenon in the cosmos or other. And now I am one of those Expeditionary Marines stuck on an alien planet. The weather is positively hostile. The food is different. The environment is surreal. The stars in the sky are arranged in such a strange way- so very different from the pattern of the constellations in Terra’s night sky. There is a new kind of enemy here- and a new kind of war. It feels very weird.
But I am here for a reason. I am of purpose. And Faith shall be my Light and my Shield, here in this strange, strange, land.
