Early Monday morning 6/30

Okay, I have learned two things from last night's semi restful sleep. Admittedly I did sleep pretty well until about 4:30 when nature required I get up, but then back to sleep until 6 or so. Not too bad considering I fell asleep around 10:30 or so last night. But the two things are important and I will try to rectify them this morning after breakfast or between classes this afternoon, depending on when shops open this morning. 1) I need a source of white noise (ie a fan) because there is too much background noise from the street both late at night and early in the morning and 2) I need a set of ear plugs, for the same reason, but when things are really bad. My bedroom faces onto a street the college shares with the famous Oxford Covered Market, and the market people start bringing in supplies and setting up around 5:30 am or so. Rattling glass bottles, delivery trucks, etc all add to a slight cacophony of sound that I am sure I will get used to in the long run, but may take a bit of time, and time I don't necessarily have this week.

Yesterday was one of those odd and surreal days the longer it dragged on. I honestly could, by the end of the day, feel myself not quite connected to things and certainly feeling things through a bit of a haze. After writing yesterday I grabbed a shower and wandered about town, getting some lunch (a BLT, chips and diet soda) from Boots: The Chemist (an English pharmacy chain) for like 2.99. Picked up a magazine (The Economist) and showed some students I ran into on the street where the shopping mall was and the major Sainsbury grocery store. Then I stopped by my cell phone provider but they were a bit swamped, so that is a stop for later today. It felt strange and comforting to be wandering around Oxford and seeing things that were both extremely familiar and to notice the changes that were taking place with new developments and construction.

We went on the standard bus ride tour of Oxford for an hour or so, starting around 3 pm. I had seen it all last year, so I spent a bit of the time catching up with Ralph and Ingrid Lucurcio. Ralph is one of the other faculty members here, teaching a civil engineering leadership course. He is a retired brigadier general from the Army Corps of Engineers, so the students, with his playful encouragement have taken to simply calling him "The General." One of my students did come up to me and ask me if his real first name was General or not, which I found amusing and I still have to share that anecdote with Ralph later on today. They it was off to the King's Arms for a pint with the Lucurcio's and which ever of the students were still awake enough to function. After that a brief walking tour around the area where the pub was, then back to Jesus College for dinner. Dinner was something simple: sole tourine, roast chicken, roasted potatoes, string beans and chocolate cake. Good and free food.

I went back to my room to rest and nearly fell asleep before I got a phone call from Heather who had returned back to Oxford after escorting the board of trustees group to Bath for the day. We had an orientation meeting with the students from 8:30-9, then I took some students out for the last time (about a dozen remarkably) for G&D ice cream. The store is a bit of an institution here in Oxford, and while not exactly cheap (about 2 GBP for a scoop) it is darn good homemade ice cream. I think a bit more of the students would have gone if it wasn't already getting very late and very cold (into the mid 50s I think by that point).

Today is the first day of classes, so its time for me to go grab a shower. Two classes: Western Civ 2 (with about 22 students) and History of Science 2, with about 7 students. The Western Civ class is the largest course we are teaching, and it will be nice to have 2/3rds or so of the students together at least once a day. We are going to take advantage of that situation by taking them to the Bodelian library for a tour one morning, required for my students, highly encouraged for the others. Then this evening is the formal dress up dinner with the president and provost of Florida Tech and the visiting board of trustees, then hopefully another quiet night before starting the day all over again. I will have some pictures to post later today as I forgot my camera for most of yesterday and only this morning deleted the pictures from last year so I have space on the sim card.

Ah...its good to feel at home, though I do miss the sense of everything being so...new.