Both my courses started today, and now I officially have homework. Fortunately for me, I also have a city full of wondrous resources known the world over for being a good place to get information, like the Bodleian Library, so I just might enjoy writing these papers more than I think.
I woke up just in time to catch the last few minutes of breakfast. My bowl of corn flakes marked the 8th overall day of my English trip I have started the day with that particular cereal, so that is an integral part of the British lifestyle for me. I'm working on saying corn flakes in a British accent to make this point more clear.
After breakfast, I went to my first class, The European Union in Perspective. Dr. Stuart Kewley is the tutor, and he seems pretty dang qualified. We introduced ourselves (13 people in the class), and discussed why we thought the Union was formed in the first place. He seemed to want to make the course much more of an open discussion with him doing a bit of lecturing when we get to a good point, which I really like. We have people from the U.S. and Australia in the class as the outside the EU people, and students from England, Spain, the Netherlands, and one girl from Turkey as the EU member state students (or potential member as far as Turkey goes). It's a good range of opinions, with the Spanish needing help from the EU, Turkey wanting to be in it, the Netherlands already there, England disliking it, and we Americans not knowing what to talk about.
I left that class with the task of thinking up what I want to write my paper on. Tonight and tomorrow I'm dedicating some time into researching it. I think I want to write it on Italy and the Eurozone, but I haven't decided on any specifics yet. The lecture all History students had to go to for today was by the same Dr. Kewly, and also focused on the EU. The title was "European Union: Integration or Disintegration?" He is a big proponent of European states becoming less nationalistic and more part of a European identity. It was a good lecture, and I think he will be a lot of fun to learn from.
I met Blake after the lecture and we walked over to lunch in the dining hall. We ate pretty quickly and then went back to our rooms to rest for a minute before we both had class again at 2. I showed my room to Blake, but he was unimpressed since he has a bigger one. I'm going to build an expansion on mine to compete with him. I hope Oxford doesn't care.
My second course, taught by Dr. Buchanan, is called British Politics 1900-1945. It's a much smaller course, only 6 students, and it is also very discussion driven. We covered 1900-1914 today, and I need to pick a paper topic for that one as well. For the paper I think I want to write about Irish nationalism and the formation of the Republic of Ireland. On top of that I also need to present on the very simple topic, Britain in WWII. That should be no problem, seeing as there are only like 12 libraries full of books on it within 2 minutes of where I'm staying.
After class I walked with Dr. Buchanan and one other student over to a library that should be all I need though. It has a shelf full of 20th century England texts, and I can check books out unlike most other places. I walked back to the college and took a nap before heading to dinner, and then had coffee in the undercroft with Joanna and some of the Australian students. I think tonight I'm heading to bed early and trying to do some basic research on my two papers using the good old internet. Thanks again for reading all my updates.
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