An Oxford Term, Completed!

Eight weeks, five hefty novels, thirteen Shakespearean and Renaissance-era plays, ten full- and double-length papers, and about four thousand pages of reading later - finally, after the most study-intensive academic quarter in my life, I am done!

And so my time in Oxford comes to an end. I have mixed feelings about this, and I'll do a series of reflection posts later, but for the meantime (if you'll pardon me) I'd like to indulge in a bit of self-congratulation before I go off to relax and unwind. One of my anxieties before coming abroad was that I would find Oxford's notoriously rigorous academics overwhelming, especially at the same time as I got accustomed to a different country and place, met new people, dealt with communication and interpreters, and traveled and experienced new things. But, as of attending my last tutorial on Middlemarch today, I did it!

Goodbye for now, library!

Study Overload

Okay, let me take a moment to confess how insanely intense the Oxford academic system is. Stanford is a challenging place academically, but not like this! I've spent virtually all day, the last three days, studying in my room or in the library. Every night I feel like I surface for a brief respite of air (i.e., sleep) before diving back into it again. I've never been expected to read or write so much, or so sophisticatedly, in my life. My brain feels like a bloated sponge.

Admittedly this week will probably be one of my worst: I've got three full-length papers due in the space of four days, and a ton of reading to finish besides. But still, prodigious amounts of work seem to be the norm for everyone. As one of my friends put it last night, "Every week here feels like finals week!" For sure.

Just to give a bit of perspective, here at Oxford I am "only" taking three classes (including my tutorial), whereas at Stanford I've always taken four, plus many hours of extracurriculars. Here at Oxford, I am "only" taking 15 units - fewer than my usual load at Stanford. And I still feel like I'm drowning in work. By the end of this quarter, I'll be either really burned out or really good at cranking out those scholarly papers. (Probably both.)

But alas, there's still time for fun, and I've had plenty of that here as well. Photo of the day: I love fall. (And can it really be November?!)