Hilary Term has begun

The second term in the school year at Oxford University is called Hilary Term and starts in January and ends mid March. Each term is 8 weeks. Week 0 which is often referred to is the week before the term starts, where they have registrations and other events.

It's still pretty cold and grey most days, last week we had temperatures below zero. Some places in the UK even got snow, sadly we didn't :( if it gets that cold, it might as well snow. I've never experienced snow in the UK before but loved it when it snowed in Boston. Seems the sun is now setting later at 4:40.

So we've been here in Oxford for 4 months now. We haven't really had the chance to explore Oxford, with the weather being so cold. I so hope Spring comes soon, it will be fun to go around taking photos. Oxford is far less quieter than London - no comparison. While London never sleeps and there are tons of things to see and do, Oxford is rather small and the main attractions is Oxford University and its 30+ colleges.

 Trinity College

Linacre College

Wadham College

 

Hertford College - Athol's college

 



Athol has seminars on Wednesdays and Fridays. He is getting slowly used to Oxford's strange way of teaching where there are only seminars and no lectures.

Athol was invited by a friend to attend a function at Rhodes House. Yes there is a huge grand building with large lawns in Oxford called Rhodes House. So while there has been so much controversy about the little Rhodes statue outside Oriel College on High Street, nobody is upset about Rhodes House nearby. Today the College Governing Body decided that despite the protests, the statue will not be taken down.

Oriel College

To be honest, we walked past this statue many times without realising that it was a statue of Rhodes. It's quite small and high up.

 Rhodes House

 

Rhodes House

On a lighter note.... We've been watching a lot of sitcoms via Amazon and Netflix - 30 Rock, 3rd Rock from the Sun and now How I met your Mother.

We also do a lot of crosswords. In 2011, we had bought a book of 200 crosswords, which we took around with us when we travelled. Without Nintendo Wii (our favourite past-time in SA) we do crosswords every day here :) We finally completed all the puzzles, correctly completing a crossword (100% correct) 1 in every 3. Not too bad hey! It helps keep the mind sharp :) Athol and I make a great team, there's some answers that he knows and some that I know. We track our stats and try to set the record of most 100% completed crosswords in a row, as well as in a day, also the quickest completed crossword. We are nerds, I know :) It's also a bit of a travelling diary (it's been to all the cities we've travelled to - Boston, Washington, NY, LA, JHB, London, Dover, etc. ) as we both leave a witty comment on every crossword we do, depending on the circumstances - making up excuses or using cool sayings that we like from the sitcoms/movies. We have now started a new crossword book.

Crossword book bought in 2011 from Waterstones V&A, CT

 



We are busy planning to go back to SA for a couple of weeks in April. Will be great to see family, check up on things and everyone at READ to RISE! Then we are likely to be back again for a month or so in August.