May 31

Well y'all, its happened. I went to my tutorial.

Today I had my first tutorial where I had actually written an essay. Some teachers do it differently, but mine is sent in the day before so he has time to read it and mark it up. Also, as a side note, this is not a paperless campus like Mississippi State. They love printing things here. Like 10 page paper? Both you and the teacher print it out and bring it. But anyways that's just a little fact for everyone. So some teachers have you bring your essay that day and you present it to them, but not mine.

My professor let me know today that he really only teaches grad law students and third year students. And I let him know that I could've read constantly for the past two weeks and not been ready for today. So he had my essay and he led me through it. The thing is he was super nice, like they said British people definitely aren't direct in telling you that you suck. But I think by the end I got the jist. He led me through all the things that I had gotten wrong, and I just felt two inches tall. Then I finally got my essay back and it was completely filled with red, along with the whole back of the paper filled in notes. So he wanted a real law paper, and I wrote a political science paper. Oh well! But here, essays are only for practice for your final exam. There's no grading really until the final. Good thing Jure told me that mine today was for practice and he will just grade the other ones after this. The point is that you're supposed to learn in your tutorial after you've prepared an essay. I must say I feel like this style of learning would really prepare you. There's no where to hide, its you and a teacher. And next time we meet he's going to make me read my essay out loud to him. I probably can't think of anything worse. There's nothing like being in a city where my college is actually older than the U.S. to inspire you to learn something.

Also, it really is like Harry Potter right now. Everyone is finishing finals, so they have to wear black tie and robes to take their finals. The girls wear black skirts white tops and ties, and boys black suits. Then the robes have pink carnations on the collar. It is really cool to walk around the 500 year old buildings with all these smart kids.

Last night we went out to this club called Lava. I have so many issues with British sense of whats fun. Number one, they love techo/Euro music. Its terrible really. Then if they're playing music its most likely at least 5-10 years behind whats new at home. But what was fun is when we met Alex, a British student. He proceeded to do an American accent, then I asked him to do a southern accent. He said, "Hey yall, lets go down to the farm on some tractors and ride cows." How stereotypical. But it was still very funny. Brilliant!

 My classroom

New College lawn

 Trinity lawn

After my tutorial today I finally went shopping. Zara and Topshop are my two new favorites. Everything here is just too cute. If not a little expensive. But I for sure looked like a local student because had to go to the grocery. So I was walking home with all my groceries and finally an old English  woman stopped and asked me for directions! I was like now I'm official. Even though I still didn't know how to tell her where to go. Oh well! Class tomorrow in the Ashmolean museum, thats going to be great. Cheers! (cheers is like saying thank you, just so much easier)