Day Twenty and Twenty-one

Come on Dad, you know I'm under a no alcohol contract, except for communion of course. Otherwise, I probably would have tasted some ale. They all thought I was crazy going to a pub and getting coffee.

So I'm exhausted today and getting tired of keeping up with this blog. I'm glad to be going back just so I don't have to keep writing on here.

Let's see...
Monday:
I met with my tutor for the last time. We met at Blackwell's, the largest bookstore pretty much ever. Five floors I think and a wonderful selection of books. I was tempted to buy many of them. The tutorial went well. She was very pleased with my work and showed me the documents she was submitting to Taylor with comments about my progress.

I went to Green Templeton College for lunch where I met with a Master's student from Virginia named Brooke. She is getting her second Master's in Oxford in educational research methodology and going straight into her DPhil from there. But her focus is in math education and she taught junior high in Fairfax County in Virginia for several years. I got to ask her quite a few questions about British education and about Oxford's education program for postgraduates. It opened up my mind to other career paths with my degree and she gave me a great deal of advice about teaching and continuing my education. All in all, a very profitable lunch and another contact made.

Amy and I hit up so many colleges my feet were aching by the end of it. We got to all but two, making a total of 36. Apparently this is quite a feat as any we told about it was amazed. Many people who have lived in Oxford for decades haven't visited all of the colleges. It was definitely an experience.

Supper was an event. All the host families and students met together for supper. We were served sparkling juice in wine glasses and a vast array of food. It was a lot of fun and the girls got quite goofy by the end. We decided not to let the night end and headed to George & Danver's, an ice cream shop, to play cards. Katherine and Nick, two of the Jones's, whose house we were at, came with us. They're 19 and 17. We played a few rounds of Euchere at two separate tables. I had tea instead of ice cream as I was low on cash. G & D's is one of the only places open late, besides the pubs. We stayed til midnight and then headed back.

This was my second night of less than six hours of sleep so I'm starting to feel it today.

Today, several of us met at Blackwell's and had coffee and chatted. I went to lunch with Amy and Haley, but ate the leftovers from my trips to Sainsburys, the grocery store nearby. It was warm enough to eat outside. Then Amy and I walked around, got chocolate and a card for my host family, and looked at clothes. She wasn't feeling well and I was tired so we ended up back at Blackwell's so we could sit down.

We met Janelle later in the afternoon and went to the Botanical Gardens. They aren't too fantastic in the winter, but still pretty. Amy and I hit up the last two colleges. It was a bit anticlimatic, as we were very tired, but still an accomplishment. All 38 colleges in 3 and a half weeks!

Mike and Liz are having a farewell dinner for us tonight. I plan on napping a bit before then. Tonight will be packing and taking care of last minute things. We are to be at Gloucester Green at 11:30 tomorrow, bags in hand, which means a call to the cab company tonight. We fly out of London-Heathrowe at 3:30 and arrive in Chicago around 7, although it's actually a nine hour flight. Then we drive from Chicago to Taylor and should get in around one in the morning. Please pray for safety on the van ride back to Taylor as our professor, who already has a track record of bad driving, will be jet-lagged and driving late at night.

Overall I'm thankful for the experiences and learning I've had over these last few weeks. It was a great trip and a good balance between sight-seeing, experiencing the culture, and studying. The learning that occurred was extremely impactful for teaching and my view of mathematics. Oxford is definitely a place I would love to come back to in the future.