What we've been up to.

Our life lately:

School, and a great Halloween Party!

More school, and beautiful fall leaves.

View from our study spot at home 

Where I have classes a few times a week

More school, reading, writing and pretty buildings.

A quick trip to France for Ayhilann's (nephew) birthday.

And, eventually, a few moments spent together, in between school, reading, and writing....

Can't wait for Christmas break... Til then, cheers!

Oxford Extraordinaire

After two weeks at Oxford, I can happily say that I have survived the Freshers' Week and my first week of class. 

The Fresher's Week was an extraordinary array of inductions from the University and College, and a fair with the university's most amazing societies from sports, arts and languages to medieval re-enactment and Scottish folkloric dancing!

Classes have been extremely busy and overwhelming, but it is amazingly intellectually uplifting to have class in the Pitt Rivers Museum surrounded by some of the best anthropologists out there. A true privilege.

Here are some of my favorite highlights:

• Matriculation- The matriculation ceremony was A-MA-ZING.

We first had to go and sign the register with a fountain pen (they like their traditions); they keep a record of all the students who have ever attended the university. After a speech on St Peter's founding family, we had to get into a line from the tallest to the smallest to take the College picture. We all got onto massive steps like you see at baseball games. It was quite the organization and they were very particular about how our gowns, caps and postures were.

We then marched to the Sheldonian Theatre for the actual ceremony; the tourists were delighted. The ceremony only lasted 15 minutes. The Vice-Chancellor marched in with a guy holding a sceptre; we all had to stand and be silent. The Dean of Colleges spoke to him in Latin, asking if he would admit us into the university as official students. The Vice-Chancellor explained that Matriculation used to be an examination 100 years ago, so the University could check that they had actually admitted the best students out there. If you passed, you official became an Oxford University student, if not, you could go home. And the Matriculation Examination was taken in Latin! They have of course done away with this, but the ceremony and Latin remain as our rite of passage into our official admission. 

• Graduation cap enforcement – Yes, there is indeed a well-founded rumor around the college that you are not allowed to wear your graduation cap UNTIL you have officially graduated. You could in fact be fined if you are seen wearing it within the vicinity of the College during the school year! We took this picture right in front of the College before finding this out…Oops.

• THE vomit policy- One of my very favorite policies at Oxford. This is the email one of the Graduate reps sent us this week. So funny!

"Vomit policy. As many of you know, a crucial pillar of the St Peter's community is the much-loved and well-used Vomit Policy. This document, agreed between the College and the JCR at the Dawn of Time, is attached for you. You should treat its commandments ("clean up thy own and thy friends' bodily fluids") as the Word of God, and obey it with religious fervour. There are bodily-fluids cleaning packs in the JCR, near to the lockers; use them, and use them well. If you don't, you will be charged £35 for your bodily emissions, which moneys will be paid directly to the unfortunate Scout (not to be confused with your unfortunate mother) to whom the task will eventually fall."

That's it for now!

Sea, Sand and Sun

We are back from our trip to South of France; I spend most of my childhood summers there. I have talked to Ben about it for so long now that I was afraid I had built it up too much. But I guess I hadn't; he loved it even more this second time around. Here is some of what he wrote to the family on our day back, and some of my contributions:

"Quite a large portion of this vacation consisted of "we woke up late and went to the pool/beach, ate some stuff, went home and went to bed." I will try to expound a little more on the parts that don't go like that. 

So we flew into Paris and stayed the night at Charlotte’s mom before catching the train to Marseilles the next morning. We went straight to Le Pradet where we rented a mobile home; it felt really warm but great. Of course the first thing Ayhilann wanted to do was go to the pool.

I am still surprised at just how white I get living in England, but worst of all, I have managed to get a little sun at work and so my farmers' tan was something of legend." (This is Ben talking by the way...I, Charlotte, obviously don't have a farmers' tan).

"So, I guess now I will outline the things that we did other than the above stated cycle of sleep, sun, and food. We went to L’Ile des Embiez, which is an island owned by one of the big alcohol manufacturers, Paul Ricard. It's not a big booze inspired paradise, it's just owned by the guy who founded it. It is absolutely beautiful, the water was crystal clear. We found a nice little beach that had some rocks and lots of sea life."

"This year I also had the chance to go to a typical South of France street market in Carqueranne, and Charlotte had been building it up for years now, but she was right, it was absolutely heaven. I was expecting fake Rayban's and nagging street vendors, but it was an endless amount of my favourite thing in the world: Food!!!! After we took in all of the endless rows of great South of France food, we grabbed a few specialities like marinated olives, tapenade (an olive, garlic and herb spread), basil cheese, a warm baguette and rotisserie chicken, and headed home to the pool."

"We also went back to La Capte, the beach where Charlotte spent a lot of time as a kid, and had a great time hanging out with Ayhilann collecting cool rocks and making a sand castle. Although it was mostly me trying to get them to work to an acceptable structural engineering standard, which is not easy when working with sand  (queue the song about the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish one on the sand). It was more sun and fun on the beach, and the water again was perfect."

"We had promised to take Ayhilann for a day of fun and so we went into Hyeres to Kiddy Parc, a cool little amusement park that catered to kids from 2-12 yrs old. He had a great time making new friends and playing on the dozens of attractions they had, like huge trampolines connected together, or the 4-wheelers they had on a little track, or the water park they had. They also had a huge play labyrinth thing like they have at McDonald's, but about ten times bigger. It was an ADD child's heaven since they could play on one thing for two minutes and then decide to move onto something else… We kept waiting for him to wear himself out, but it didn't happen. So we finally had to drag him out of there by his hands and feet."

"We eventually came back to visit Marseilles one afternoon. Well, I always forget how much I don't love driving through Marseilles; it is absolutely mad!!! You get used to it after a while, but there is absolutely no courtesy and scooters everywhere!!"

(This is Charlotte again, I can't believe Ben forgot to mention the highlight of our trip! We went to Les Gorges du Verdon. This was on my bucket list... CHECK. It is a breath-taking canyon fairly high up in Provence, filled with amazing blue and crisp lakes. It was a beautiful 2-hour drive where we passed tiny hundred-year old villages and vineyards after vineyards. The photos just do NOT do it justice.)

Back to Ben: "On the last day, we went to the presqu’ile of St Mandrier, the Almost Island (that is what it literally translates as, since it's not really an island but it is almost an island). We hung out at the beautiful beach and walked along the pier. It really was a great way to end the trip."