Oxford Myths & Legends

During my first couple of weeks as an Oxford student, I've been regaled by the older grad students with all sorts of myths and legends about Oxford student life. Here follows a short selection of things I've been told that I don't (quite) believe:

1. In the infamous Balliol vs. Trinity feud, the death toll stands at four: one Trinity student and three Balliol students.
For those of you who have never heard of the Balliol/Trinity feud, it supposedly started back in the sixteenth century, when Trinity was founded. Apparently Trinity's founder, Sir Thomas Pope, purloined some land from Balliol in order to build his new college. Balliol has never forgiven us, and the feud dates all the way back to, well, several decades probably. Anyway, they sing at us every time they have a party and get drunk, and occasionally attempt to scale the walls into our college. I guess they're just not satisfied with their own grounds!
Supposedly, sometime in the seventeenth century, one of Trinity's more elderly fellows had a stroke and lost his mind. He proceeded to march over to the senior common room, which overlooks Balliol's grounds, and shoot several Balliol students with a shotgun. According to the story I heard, he managed to kill three of them.
No one has yet provided me with any stories behind the one Trinity death.

2. Somewhere in the Oxford University Exam Regulations, it states that if you appear for your exams riding a horse, dressed in full armor and carrying a sword, the examiners must provide you with a pitcher of ale.
I'd like to see someone try this one.

3. Several years ago, an undergraduate fresher booked the Trinity college chapel for her wedding date seven years in advance. When asked whom she would be marrying, she replied that she didn't know yet.
The person who told this story swears that it's true, but I really don't believe it. It can't be very cheap to book the chapel!

4. Noted medievalist Eric G. Stanley once made a seminar presenter shrivel up and float away like a little puff of smoke solely through the use of sarcastic comments made after his or her presentation.
OK, so I made this one up. But it's by far the most believable myth I've recorded here.

On the subject of Oxford legendary, this Friday marks the feast of St. Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford. She was an eighth century abbess who managed to preserve her virginity from the lecherous King Algar of Mercia through the grace of God, who struck the King with a mysterious blindness which prevented him from finding the saint. I'll be attending an evening service in the chapel at Magdalen College in her honor.

Fresher's Week

I have officially made it through the craziness that is fresher's week at Oxford.
I've met a lot of wonderful people, and I feel ready to start term. Yay!

Oxford in the Rain

It's the week before fresher's week here in Oxford, and it's starting to feel like fall. Today was very wet; it rained heavily most of the afternoon and even hailed for a few moments. I ventured out of my house for only a few hours, in order to purchase my hideously expensive and hideously ugly academic dress. This consists of:

1. A gown that makes no sense. It is basically a sleeveless, knee length coat with a high collar in the back that surrounds my neck, and two streamers actually coming off at the shoulders. These hang in the most awkward fashion possible. Insane.
2. A mortarboard cap. This is also completely nonsensical, as I am never actually required to wear it. Instead, I have to carry it about with me whenever formal wear is required. What on earth do I need it for at all then?!
3. A black ribbon tie, which, apparently, no one is sure how to tie correctly. Hmm.
4. Sub-fusc. This is the clothing I am required to wear under my robes on all formal occasions (formal dinners, appearances before the president and vice chancellor, exams, and matriculation). Sub-fusc consists of: a white button-down blouse with full length sleeves and a collar, a black skirt or pants, black shoes, and black stockings (if I am wearing a skirt). Academic dress favors black rather heavily. Not very helpful for being seen on a bicycle when riding home at night.

I'll try to get some pictures of myself in this ridiculous getup soon.

At any rate, I managed to make my purchases and get home without becoming too soaked. Thank goodness for my Berkeley instinct to always carry an umbrella, even if it looks as though it isn't going to rain. Bay Area residents know not to trust a clear sky.
The rain actually gave everything a kind of homey feeling. As I picked my way home through the puddles (there was a big white puddle outside of the Inorganic Chemistry department that I skirted very far around), and past the animal rights protesters outside of the University Pathology labs (when are people going to admit that they'd really rather have that polio vaccine than a free monkey? I'm not for animal cruelty, but frankly, we're all hardwired to value our own lives more than those of other species), I realized that I am starting to feel like someone who is living here, not just staying here. Perhaps that is partly because I am now able to get home by three different footpath routes without once consulting a map, meaning that even on a rainy day I am able to get home with relative ease and dryness. Bravo, me!

Carnival in Oxford

There is a summer carnival going on in Oxford, so last night I stopped by to check it out. I spent maybe a half an hour wandering around looking at booths and rides, and I have to say, the whole thing seemed rather bizarre! Apparently, America has been turned into a carnival ride.
You could visit Miami:


Or go to the superbowl:


Or go to a Mega Dance with Mariah Carey and the Riddler:



Or you could go to the thousand year old buildings right next door:


Keep in mind that all of this is happening right next to St. Giles church, which has a very quiet-seeming English graveyard with tombstones so old that many of them are unreadable.
The whole thing was so interesting!
By the way, sorry for the blurriness. Low light, no tripod!

My Feet Hurt

So I've been doing all kinds of errands today, and when I got home, I found that I had several blisters on my feet! So I went to Gmaps Pedometer to see how far I walked today. Here's the map (click for a larger version):


Look at all of those calories! Good thing I came home and had a cheese sandwich!

Updated: Add another four miles and 385 calories to that. I just went to town and back again.

I Made it To Oxford!

I'm sure you'll all be glad to know that I made it here safely, and in only about 24 hours of traveling! (Insert sarcasm into that last comment). I got up at four in the morning on Saturday in order to make sure I made it to my flight at 9:50 out of SFO. Jonathan and my dad both came with me on BART and helped me with my gigantic suitcase, which turned out to weigh 57 pounds, landing me in the over-weight line and earning me an extra $50 in fees. Oh well. I managed to make it through the check-in line in an hour and a half, and then through security fairly quickly, so I had a good half hour before my flight was scheduled to leave. I got a snack and watched the other people as I waited for my flight to Chicago which was, miracle of miracles, on time!
We managed to board fairly quickly, but once we were all boarded, the pilot announced that we were going to have to wait a little while for the maintenance crew to check "a small problem." No matter, I thought, I have about two hours between my connecting flights. Plenty of time, even if we get delayed a little bit.
We got underway fairly quickly, and took off with no problems whatsoever. Then, about fifteen minutes after take-off, the pilot announced that "there was a small problem getting the landing gear up, no big deal, but we were going to circle SFO until the maintenance crew on the ground determined whether or not it was safe for us to go on to Chicago." Great.
We circled for an hour and a half.
Finally, the pilot told us that we were going to fly by the control tower at about 1,000 ft in order for the maintenance crew to look at the airplane and see if they could figure out what the problem was. Oh, and meanwhile, the flight crew was going to go over the emergency evacuation procedures with us again, "just in case." And also, if there were any flight attendants, pilots, or mechanics on board, could they please make themselves known to the flight crew?
That was reassuring.
Actually, I wasn't particularly worried at this point because the entire flight crew just looked seriously annoyed. No one was looking alarmed at all as they went over how to brace for a crash landing, and how we absolutely needed to leave everything behind. At this point I got out my passport and stuffed it in my bra. No way was I going to go through having to get another student visa in the unlikely event that we actually did have to evacuate. I spent most of this time chatting with the woman sitting next to me, who was on her way to Roanoke, Virginia to visit her son.
So about fifteen minutes later we did the flyby, which, the pilot informed us, yielded no results. So we were going to go ahead and land, and chances were, it would be just fine. But, again, "just in case," there were going to be fire engines and emergency vehicles waiting for us on the ground.
At this point a few of the passengers were quietly starting to panic, but my new friend and I remained largely unconcerned. We started the descent for the landing, and suddenly the pilot shouted over the PA system, "Brace! Brace!" Immediately we all put our heads down and braced for impact. No one screamed, thank goodness, but I think more than one person started crying. The pilot and the crew continued to shout at us to brace for about two minutes, and I was getting ready for impact when suddenly the pilot said, "Please remain seated, thank you." We had landed and I hadn't even felt us touch down! It was one of the smoothest landings I'd ever had.
We waited on the runway for the maintenance staff to check the plane - apparently the problem was that one of the landing gear doors wasn't closing properly - and then taxied back to the terminal. They unloaded us all off the plane and told us to wait in line at the customer service desk while they tried to re-book our connecting flights from Chicago. All of the giddy relief at not having crashed wore off and we quickly started to get irritated and then angry as we waited hour after hour for the three customer service representatives that United had assigned to help the hundred or so passengers from the flight.
Finally, I made it up to the customer service desk. By the time I got there, it was about three in the afternoon, west coast time. The flight had originally taken off at 9:50. They had wasted about five hours of my time! However, they were able to book a flight straight to London from San Francisco for me on Virgin Airlines, which left an hour and a half later. Since I had to go from the domestic terminal to the international terminal and through security gates again, that meant that I had to get there quickly. I ran all the way across SFO with a bag that weighed at least thirty pounds on my back, and I managed to make it to the gate before the plane even started boarding. And, wonder of wonders, ten hours later when we landed at Heathrow my checked bag was at the baggage claim - they had actually managed to get it to the flight I was on!
So, after an hour or so bus ride through the British countryside, I managed to make it safely to my house in Oxford, where my lovely new roommates welcomed me, cooked me dinner, and helped me get settled in. After a very dramatic 24 hours, I had finally made it to Oxford!

Medieval Manuscripts and The Geeks That Love Them

So, in preparation for the forthcoming year, I've been reading and re-reading a variety of books on medieval literature, and it has inspired me to put together a list of favorite Medievalist resources. I'm including both books and websites in this post. I'll have to do a follow up post once I've gotten a term or two at Oxford under my belt -- I'm sure the list will increase!
So, here we are:

Books:
Bernard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: This book is extraordinarily detailed. I'm always quoting interesting facts from it (for instance, in the later Middle Ages, extremely thin parchment was made from the skin of unborn lambs). It is considered one of the best Palaeography guides in the world.

Seamus Heaney, Beowulf: Heaney's translation is beautiful. I love how he incorporates translations of Anglo-Saxon composite words, which are lovely, into his modernization of the text.

Wace, Roman de Brut(ed. & trans. Judith Weiss): Weiss includes the original text on the facing page, even if her translation isn't always what one would wish. I included a large section on the Roman de Brut in my honors thesis. I found the way Wace identifies himself as an author extremely interesting.

Peter Damian-Grint, The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: An interesting look at the increase of historiography in the twelfth century renaissance.

Havelok the Dane, ed. Ronald B. Herzman, Graham Drake, and Eve Salisbury: Interesting Middle English romance

The Middle English Dictionary

Early Manuscripts at Oxford University

British Library: Turning the Pages

Yes, there are more, and I'll probably edit this post later, but for now you have a selection of my favorites.

Update: My friend Marcus reminded me of another favorite that I left out:

The Medieval Sourcebook: Full text sources online -- all free!

The Countdown Begins

In three weeks (approximately) I will be in an airplane on my way to Heathrow. I'm nervous, excited, and scared -- it's starting to sink in that I'm actually leaving my beloved Bay Area! I can't wait for all of my relatives and friends to come visit me in my new home, but, oh I am so nervous about starting at Oxford. It sounds so intimidating, studying Medieval Literature at Oxford. Or, as one girl told me, it sounds very over the top and romantic. I'm not sure whether she meant that as a compliment or not.
At any rate, I'm worried that I won't know as much as the other grad students (the list of thirty or so books that the English department wants me to "be familiar with" before I start classes in October isn't helping), that I'll be somehow not good enough, that my acceptance was all some sort of mistake, that I'll lose my passport on my way to the airport or on the way from the airport, that my roommates won't turn out to be nearly as cool as I think they are, that the heating in my house will be broken and my poor little California self will freeze to death, and, well, you get the point.
I'm sure I'll love it once I'm there and I realize how silly I've been to be frightened of a new place!

Oxford is Flooded!

I'm getting slightly worried about my roommates not responding to my emails. These past few weeks large portions of England have been flooded due to the heavy, persistent rain. The Thames river runs right through Oxford, so several neighborhoods in the city are flooded. I am fairly sure that the house that I have arranged to let for the next year is still on dry land, but I don't know if it has electricity or water at the moment.
Hopefully, by the time I arrive on September 1st, it will be back to semi-normal. Or maybe I should buy a rowboat to commute to school!

Getting Prepped to Go

As crazy as it seems, in only a few weeks I will have moved to the other side of the globe, to a damp foggy island northwest of the European Continent. Since so many of my friends have been enthusiastic about keeping in touch, and since I am not one of those people who sends lengthy and boring mass emails, you can check my blog as often as you like (or as little as you like) for the latest Oxford photos and stories of my humiliations and small triumphs as I attempt to navigate that foreign land known as Britain. Wish me luck!