Ready, Set,...Read!

The last two weeks have been full of tasks, rich in learning and piled high with books.  And I am in a place where libraries are once again libraries rather than sterile spaces where books sit on metal shelves, voices are rarely maintained at a whisper, and the clacking of keyboards is the soundtrack to reading.  Libraries here are quiet, blessedly quiet.  Books sit on dark wood shelves.  Speaking is done only in whispers.  And the smell of old books fills the air.  There are even areas where computers are forbidden and the only sound is that of an occasional page turning.   These buildings, rooms, are essentially the sanctuaries of Oxford and the book is the sacred, worshipped entity.  But far from blasphemous, it is a wonderful thing to behold.  I am finally in a place where reading is cherished rather than a necessary evil, and the space in which you read matters.  And even more heady, I am walking in the very same halls that some of the greatest minds of the West, and of the world, walked and studied: John Locke, William Penn, Albert Einstein, C.S. Lewis – just to name a very slight few. 

I am now about a week and a half into my tutorials for the term.  What does this mean?  Essentially school consists of 2 hours a week.  I have two tutors this term – one for Western Political Philosophy and one for British History from 1330.  I meet each one for just an hour each week.  This sounds really easy, I know.  Rest assured, it’s not.  I’m given a reading list, and then have to compose an essay from those readings for each tutor.  It still sounds easy – do some reading and write 2 essays each week – but it’s not.  Even after 5 years of college with a background in research, I find the most challenging part to be synthesizing my reading into a coherent and intelligent essay after only a week to take in and digest the material.  The reading load is really quite fun; I’m given a lot of freedom in my research and I enjoy learning new things because I have the time to do so here since I don’t have classes that constantly interrupt me.  But the essays are a different story.  I like writing them, mind you.  But it’s stressful right now as I learn to readjust the way I approach constructing essays, i.e. thinking and writing quickly with original and independent thought. 

Sir Francis Bacon once observed that, “reading makes a full man, conversation a ready man, and writing an exact man.”  My goals for the term are to become a woman filled with more knowledge who is ready-witted in conversation and much more exact in all my writing.  The scholastic part of the term is off to a challenging start, but good and so exciting.  This is it for tonight folks, as my essay has yet to be written for my tutorial tomorrow afternoon!