Well, I hadn't intended to write here every week, but so many crazy things have happened this week that I have to share them. Off we go:
Thing One is that I joined a choir! I spent most of Sunday afternoon and evening and again Monday evening auditioning for the Wadham College Chapel Choir. We'll sing Evensong at Wadham College Chapel every Sunday night. Look how pretty!
On Tuesday I had my first classes--called seminars. In the first one the composers shared our work with each other and defended it, and in the other I heard a lecture about amateur musicians in a small northern English town. They were both awesome and I could recount them in more detail, but it might not make very interesting reading. Less interesting, at any rate, than...
The C.S. Lewis Society meeting! It's sort of a continuation of the Inklings. Every week they bring in a scholar to give a lecture about something to do with C.S. Lewis. This week a Chinese/American guy talked about Lewis's translation of Virgil's Aeneid. It really was fascinating. The famous Spud was there, and I sat right next to Walter Hooper, Lewis's friend and secretary, and member of the Inklings. Wait what? Yes, you read that right. After the lecture, Hooper raised his hand with a question and started saying things like "I remember when he was working on this..." and "he said to me about that..." I looked over at the dude next to me, I'm sure with my eyes bugging out of my head, and nearly fell out of my chair. I can't wait for the next meeting!
On Wednesday I went to the Gamelan Society meeting in a hot little room full of gamelan. Google "gamelan" if you don't know what that is--basically it's an Indonesian percussion instrument in many parts made of brass and wood and played by several people at once. Oxford claims to have one of the best/most complete gamelans in the country. York's is also pretty spectacular; they showed me theirs last January. We had to take our shoes off, so then it became a hot little room full of gamelan that smelled like feet. It was a good time though. They keys, pots, and gongs are numbered 6, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3 from low to high, with some variation. An octave has five notes in it, so "low 1" is an octave below "high 1." The tuning is pretty wonky, and the different parts of the instrument are not in tune with each other (at least according to my concept of what is "in tune"). The tricky thing about gamelan is that, as you strike a key with the hammer, you dampen the last one you hit with your other hand. So most of the time you have the right hand forging gleefully onward as a very confused left hand struggles to repeat the melody out of phase. It was great fun though, and I hope I'll be able to keep going back, although the equestrian team might conflict with it.
That night a group of friends and I saw The Graduate (1967 comedy with Dustin Hoffman) with the Magdalen Film Society. I highly recommend it. Thursday was a leisurely day full of Jane Eyre, friends, and pubs. A German-only evening was declared at the Crown pub that night, giving my brain a serious workout. Comprehension was good, but speaking was extremely frustrating. I felt like I was trying to have a conversation with people on the other side of a wall. If my German friends are patient enough though, I am very eager to keep working at it.
If anyone is still reading this very long blog entry, we have now come to the pièce de résistance. Gold star for you. This morning all the freshers of Oxford got up at the crack of dawn and put on our subfusc to matriculate.
Let's discuss this concept just briefly, if we could. Subfusc, while it does confirm my suspicion that we are all actually at Hogwarts, is about the most impractical arrangement of cloth I have ever put on my body. Let's begin with the mortarboard, shall we? Has anyone ever questioned this truly striking fashion statement? Hey, I know, let's take a cardboard square, slap a tassel on it, and wear it around on our heads! We'll look SO dignified and educated. Also anyone who thinks a skirt and white button-down shirt is enough clothing to wear outside for several hours on an October morning when it's 5°C should be boiled. My fingers were actually numb by the time we finished with all the (outdoor) photographs and marching through town in parades of freezing besubfusced freshers. I have news for you, folks. An open, sleeveless cloak with wings on it is not a whole lot of help as an outer layer.
Anywho, we were cold. But it was pretty great to have everyone together looking like penguins parading down the streets of Oxford with tourists lined along the sidewalks taking our pictures. We processed into the round Sheldonian Theatre, heard some dude say some stuff in Latin, then give us a speech for about 20 minutes, and shabang--we were matriculated, and therefore official members of the university.
We went out for tea afterwards, then three of us changed and went punting on the river.
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