There and Back Again

Today I sit once more at my desk in my room in Oxford. I am wrapped in a blanket and sipping on tea while waiting for my small heater to gain ground in its fight against the January damp cold. My eyes are trapped in their own battle, to stay awake and fight against jet lag. I took a fifteen minute nap already and I'm hoping to stay up for at least a couple more hours. We'll see how I do.

I got to go home for about two weeks, so I apologize for the long delay. When I walked off the plane in Kansas I got to meet my favorite baby in the whole world. My niece Joanna is three months old now and absolutely the cutest child I know, she holds my heart back in Kansas. My whole family, all five kids and the baby and the brother-in-law and parents got to be together. It was such a refreshing time to see friends and family and go to my home church and to see the prairie. England is beautiful, the rolling hills, the hedges and trees, the mist and green grass but my heart belongs to the grasslands of the USA. They stretch to the horizon, endless and vast, dotted with patches of cottonwood trees marking the site of dry creek beds. It had snowed over New Years and my little brother and I explored our newly white pasture, throwing snowballs and making a fort. I also got to go on a date with him, I promised that we would watch The Hobbit together.

Home was fantastic, it was like taking a deep breath during half time of a game before plunging back into the fray once more. So here I sit once again at the desks of the Bodleian Library. I have a couple of books open next to me and the sounds of other keyboards clicking greets me among the gentle swish of turning pages. Outside the sun is just beginning to set, I have officially about 45 more minutes of sun than when I left. I go to meet some friends for tea in about an hour and my body hasn't quite gotten over jet lag. In many ways I am glad to be back, its very much due to getting to be with my family for a few days. I was not completely prepared for such a different school experience but I am ready for what I face in the next six months this time. I see the dome of the Radcliffe Camera out one window and the towers of All Soul's College from another. Monday I turn in my first major paper of my experience at Oxford University, I begin once more language training and classes, books that I need to read, want to read, and should have read will begin to pile up. Ok, the jet lag is still affecting me, I keep getting sentimental. I hope you all had a marvelous Christmas and have had a great New Year so far. Greetings from this Kansas girl in Oxford and I will talk to you again once I've had more sleep.