One week from today I will have handed in my dissertation and I will have a few weeks left as a Master's student at Oxford. I have my alumni card already and several emails telling me what to do next. They are even helping me find a job if I would like. I'm still not sure what is going to happen after July. For now, I am very excited to get to go home and see my family. I'm also excited to go to sleep and not have my alarm set, get up and then take a nap.
Right now I'm in Duke Humphrey's library, my favorite spot inside spot in all of Oxford. (I have several favorite spots outside.) Above me is a portrait of Elizabeth I from 1571 and a beautiful bride in her wedding dress just walked by outside between the Divinity Schools and the Sheldonian. I think they rent the Divinity Schools out for wedding receptions. I have a pile of books on both sides of my computer, a hard copy of my paper with my notes tearing it up spread out in disarray and the huge books that make up part of the special collections are in front of me on shelves that remind me "Please do not touch these books." A friend of mine tried once and an alarm went off, libraries here don't joke.
So yesterday I went on a road trip, it was very random, but three friends from Keble and I went to Wales to see Caerphilly Castle. Its the largest castle in Wales and second largest in England. The funniest thing about the trip was trying to read the road signs once we were actually in Wales. You see, Welsh is a very strange language. It uses Roman letters but the pronunciation matches nothing in English at all. Welcome to Wales is Croeso i Gymru. Oh, if you've ever heard of or read the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander then you probably already knew this but Prydain is Britain in Welsh. Makes sense because of Alexander's love of Welsh legends and King Arthur. (Arthur was supposed to have come from Wales, the Welsh dragon and all.)
I need to get back to work. If I can work for another two hours then I get to go on a run. Exciting life is the life I lead. Oh, this is fun news, I'm on a girls basketball team here, closely associated with Magdalene College but with girls from a couple colleges. We played our first game last Thursday and we won, quite handily. There are a few more games and then we start in the finals for cuppers. I don't really know what that means, I think its Oxford speak for tournament. Anyway, I'll see ya soon.
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