The orientation of Oxford finished Thursday night and I had my first tutorial yesterday. The education system of Oxford is as follows: each student has a primary or secondary tutor in which the student meets with the tutor once a week and holds an educational conversation about the topic of study. In the case of yesterday, I met with Dr. John Dowling who has retired, but as he told me, "would have nothing better to do with his time." Tutorials are supposed to be about an hour long where you discuss your findings on the subject matter (via essay and conversation) and come to conclusions as to how the information you have researched. With Dr. Dowling, my first tutorial was almost two hours long and I did not even notice how fast the time went by. Dr. Dowling and I had a conversation about the first trade routs in history. As I will be studying International Trade Channels, it is important to start from the beginning in order to understand the trade markets of today and build my own ideas of how trade is done today. After our conversation, I came out with my first essay topic, and a good list of books I have to read in order to write the essay. I will be meeting with Dr. Dowling on Wednesday to talk about my essay and further our conversation about the Middle Ages, guilds and trade. The topic fascinates me because I like history and especially learning how we are here today from what has happened in the past. This will be an exciting term.
As for my other tutor, we have yet to meet but he too has given me a list of books to read/become familiar with before we meet next week.
After my tutorial yesterday, the Summit group and I made it back to Eynsham to discuss the 10 Commandments of the Bible and how they slightly differ from Exodus 5 and Deuteronomy 20. We were there from 2-6 to study and later a couple of us spent time with the Bywaters'. There is will be our Friday routine, only the topics of study change. Kevin too, has readings that we need to be prepared to discuss before each meeting.
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From what I am learning of England, the class system has not exactly disappeared with the modern culture. There still is a base of how people carry on their formalities and customs, not matter what their income is at the moment. For this resaon, there are four ways of saying dessert in Britain. Pudding (high class), Sweet (upper class), Dessert (middle-upper class), and Afters (working class, 70% of population). These classes do not change from generation to generation. One that was born in the working class can become a professional and make as much money as one in the upper to middle-upper class but cannot change their class. A person's class is defined as how the child's parents raise them. For example, if parents sent their child to a private school when little or simply a public school, they have already chosen the path for your class. There is nothing the child can do, from birth to change that. Likewise, if a person were to change their class by becoming a professional and changing their formalities to one of a higher class, people in the class above them or in the same one will drawl the attention to others about what the person is trying to do. Crazy, right? But this is Britain.
As I need to be wrapping this up, I will let you know that my plans to go to London this morning were shattered by my first essay, I need to go and study. But on that note, here is one more thing about the library system, since the Bodliean Library (Oxford Library) has such a vast amount of books, you cannot check them out. So I have to go to the library and read the material and no water or food is allowed! In a sense it will keep me more focused.
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