Today officially starts Noughth Week and the programming for Freshers Week. Tonight will be an informal dinner followed by second desserts and the rest of the week has a variety of events from scavenger hunts around Oxford and tea parties to sample lectures of the required courses as well as the optional courses. I will have the chance to meet my research advisor from Global Governance and Diplomacy, the program director, and my advisor from St. Hilda's.

This past week saw the completion of my revisions to the Phi Beta Delta paper and I re-submitted it to the editorial board. Fingers crossed for a good review!

Also, on Thursday and Friday of last week was an international students induction which was designed to introduce students not from Britain to the academic expectations of Oxford and to ease us into a comfortable social life. My favorite quote was by the Vice-Chancellor of the university who said Oxford was incomprehensible but "it made sense in 1200." He termed it the unofficial motto of the university.

Regarding the presentation on social life in Oxford I did manage to learn that "Christmas is the best holiday in the UK" and that "Skype has been a great invention!" The poor guy doing the talking was so nervous and there were many more statements that were just as off-the-wall. I was also able to attend a Cream Tea on Friday, which is the posh version of afternoon tea. It was hosted by a Rhodes Scholar and the theme was Achieving Academic Success at Oxford. The speaker was Andrew Briggs who has published over 550 scholarly articles in his academic career. I was listening very intently!!

Unfortunately I cannot think of any great cultural experiences to write about. A group of students went out on Friday night to an Irish pub and the main events were riddles and mind games. A true Oxford night out! I can proudly claim to have solved two riddles immediately but struggled with the rest. Perhaps my low point was giving the table a riddle and realizing that I did not remember all the information :P Ooops!

Here is one of the riddles: Three wizards are standing in a row. The wizard at the back can see the two wizards in front of him and the wizard in the middle can see the wizard in front of him. However, the front wizard cannot see anyone and no wizard can see themselves. There are 5 hats in a sack three of which are black two of which are white. Magically three of the hats appear on the three wizards heads. When a wizard knows what color his hat is they say "I know what color hat I am wearing." The back two wizards do not say anything and after a few seconds the front wizard says "I know what color hat I am wearing." What color hat does he have?

With that I will sign off. I miss everyone a great deal. Feel free to message me or whatever. Talk to you next weekend :)