Dear friends,



I attended my first official Oxford tutorial today. Having said this, I realize that I have, for the most part, failed to actually explain to most of you what I am doing here. Well, I am collectively doing not much of anything alongside a level of work more substantial than I have ever engaged in previously.


Therefore, allow me to give a brief and boring sketch of my actual academic obligations while here at Oxford. Perhaps to jazz up the presentation, the material would be best outlined through dialogue.

Q&A / Important points to remember:

Q: "Dude, like how many hours do you, like, go to class each day?"

A: "Yes, thank you for your question. The simplest answer to that is zero. I do not attend class."

Q: "Dude, you don't go to class? Aren't you going to, like, fail and screw your chances of graduating summa cum laude? I mean, you already handed away your honors cords when you went through that severe stint of senioritis and dropped your honors research, don't you think you should step it up a notch? C'mon Dude, I thought Oxford was BA."

A: "Yes, that is a very good point you make when you assert that Oxford is BA. Oxford is indeed one of the most BA environments in which I've spent a good amount of time. Nevertheless, unlike most British universities, Oxford and Cambridge retain a system of schooling that is based largely on a tutorial."

Q: "Dude, is a tutorial, like, when you learn not to handle blood-borne pathogens or beat the elderly? Yeah, I'm totally familiar with a tutorial."

A: "Right, yes. Well, I'm sorry to say that you're entirely wrong. A tutorial consists of a one-on-one meeting between a tutor and a student. Thus, I reckon you could say it's like a class, as long as you remove your definition of 'class' from the compartmentalized, Western setting you're used to."

Q: "That's sweet, dude. So how often do you meet with your tutor dudes and do they all look like Albus Dumbledore?"

A: "Yes, good question. Of course they all look like Albus. I walk into my tutor's study, and I say 'Sup Albie? Can I pet your beard? Wanna talk about Jesus?' I meet with my gospels tutor, whose name is Albus Andrew, once a week for an hour. I then meet with my Greek tutor, whose name is Albus Jonathan, once every two weeks for an hour."

Q: "Dude, you only go to class 6 hours a month?"

A: "Yes, that is correct."

Q: "Dude, that's freakin' sweet"

A: "Dude, I know."

Q: "But I thought the flier said Oxford would be the most intense thing you'd ever done and that you would likely die?"

A: "The flier indeed speaks of many voluntarily maiming themselves to escape the program. This is confusing to me thus far as, on the whole, I have been relatively stress-free about academic matters."

Q: "You? Not stressed about school? That's ludicrous!"

A: "Indeed, indeed it is."

Q: "So basically you never do anything? You're spending 7 years of wages to do nothing?"

A: "I think, specifically, the 7 years of wages were used to print my name on my library card. Nonetheless, it seems that even though my schedule is almost entirely open, I actually keep quite busy, what with attending lectures that pique my interest, walking 45 minutes in order to get anywhere, and occasionally spending hours in a corner with a book."

Q: "So, is that what your entire term will look like?"

A: "No, but I don't want to talk about it yet because that part isn't as exciting."

Q: "Wow dude, thanks for the chat. I feel as though we're besties now."

A: "Besties we are...Besties we are."

Therein concludes this portion of the discourse. I hope it was informative.

Given this background knowledge, I would now like to tell you a little bit about my tutorial today. My tutor is brilliant, articulate, and an otherwise amicable fellow. It seems as if some people have tutors that are brilliant, but are a bit awkward and not skilled in speaking with a real person. In this regard, I feel quite fortunate.

Perhaps regaling you with the tale of last night's paper writing scene would be good. As per my routine, I didn't start writing my essay until the day before it was due. This is not new. I can almost never write until I am stressed. I thrive on stress. However, I planned to spend all day writing and thus thought I perhaps might be able to get some sleep before my tutorial. Nonetheless, given the combination of my procrastination and perfectionism, I had only around 3.5 pages by midnight, and I was aiming for 8. Let it be known that I am the slowest paper writer in the history of ever. You think I would get better at it, but I continually fail in my attempts to simply spill material onto paper. I do not know what a rough draft is, and I never find a need to edit my papers upon completion. Several times at Northwestern, I was assigned to write a rough draft, and I found the exercise to be an absurd request. It doesn't make sense to me that you would not strive for perfection the first time around. So, it was clearly going to be a long night. Luckily, I was quite alert and had a roommate to keep me company, as she was also pulling an all-nighter in preparation for her upcoming tutorial. Fortunately, I finished my paper at approximately half past 5.00. I needed to be at my tutorial by 9.00. I was happy about my early finish as that meant I might catch some sleep before heading into the city.

It is at this point that the story lapses into what I'd like to call: "That Damn Printing Episode." Friends, I first tried to print my paper around 5.30, and I failed to succeed at this task until 7.15.

Q: "Wow, that sounds like a blasted, terrible episode."

A: "It most certainly was."

Thus, as I trudged through the morning rain on my way to tutorial #1, I wondered if I was perhaps getting off to a bad start. However, I then arrived, was invited into Albus Andrew's study and offered a cup of tea, and settled upon the couch by the fireplace and Jesus books. At this point, Albus Andrew and I began with friendly small talk, as he enquired as to how my week was going and if I was getting to know my way around the libraries yet. It was at this point that I decided that he was quite a nice chap and that we were going to get along quite well.

To officially begin our tutorial, he had me read my paper aloud to him while he scrawled comments on to his copy. Here, I realized that perhaps another proofread might have been in order, as I noticed a few minor errors that simply shouldn't have been there. I also noticed that I had used the word "hypothesis" in my paper roughly 300 times, and "hypothesis" is not a word that rolls smoothly off the tongue when reading aloud.

When I finished reading, Albus Andrew and I engaged in stimulating discussion about the nuances of the synoptic problem. A lot of the things he pointed out in my paper were instances of my rhetoric glossing over an issue. I am usually quite conscious of what my words might be conveying in the first few pages of my paper, but as it gets later and later, I start to be much less conscious of such things. All in all, I did not feel like a daft fool. Of this I was most glad. I was more or less able to respond to his questions competently. Not brilliantly, but competently. He ended up talking for most of the hour, which I did not expect as I had been expecting to have to really talk quite a bit myself. Needless to say, I was not upset. I could sit there and listen to him for hours. Well, maybe not for hours because I was running on no sleep, but he is fascinating.

At the end of our session, I asked him if I was perhaps heading in the right direction in terms of how to properly write an Oxford essay. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was some string of affirmations that I was indeed not a daft fool. Joy.

I am quite excited to progress through these tutorials. My question for next week is: "Account for Matthew's relation to Judaism, and to Israel. Is his Gospel anti-Semitic?"

Listening to Albus Andrew talk inspired me to elevate careful reflection over reading for my next essay. Clearly, reading is important, but my own reflection and processing is perhaps more important. It is quite nice that I have someone responding to my writing that really doesn't know me at all. At Northwestern, I mostly felt as though I put on a facade of intelligence that no one ever called me out on. I generally felt the need to confess to my professors that I really wasn't smart, but just obsessed with "success." I also often felt that I was given A's largely because I was "Sara Moser." I am really quite excited to be evaluated here by people who have not interacted with me so I can see whether or not I am actually capable of doing these academic things. Don't get me wrong, I always felt that my professors at Northwestern were really hard-core and not apt to be fooled by my manipulative tricks. However, I think I came to recognize that I write in such a way that my rhetoric glosses over my incompetence. Sometimes I would write an entire paper and still not have any idea what I had said, but would receive high marks for it. I guess what I'm saying is that I want people to tell me that I'm stupid?

Well, that is not what I want. That would cause pain. I'm not sure; I just feel as though I want people to more critically evaluate my work, and the one-on-one setting here should be quite conducive to this desire.

Thank you for bearing with me through this ridiculously long and boring post. I swear I think of interesting things to blog about throughout the day; I just forget them all by the time I actually sit down to type. Perhaps I will carry a notebook around throughout the day so I can entertain you more adequately.

Best,

Sara