Who knew Marilyn and Harry lived so close to each other?

First things first:

My address is:
SCIO
2 Frewin Court
Oxford
OX1 3HZ
United Kingdom

I don't want to allude to anything, so I'll just say it. Send me mail. Because if you send me mail, I will be very happy and will also feel obligated to send you mail back. That equals two happy people and if we're proponents of utilitarianism, then basically you should send me mail.
However, no packages please. It's complicated, what with customs, so it's best to just not send them. I do believe large envelopes are acceptable though.

In other news, orientation has gotten substantially better the last two days because we've started to actually do things rather than just talk about them. I met my tutor today. His name is Revd. Dr. Andrew Gregory, and he is a chaplain who also seems to dabble (probably not just dabble) in NT scholarship. I met with him along with the other girl in my program who will be doing the same thing. This was fortunate for me and unfortunate for her as I actually have a background in studying the new testament, and she is more or less taking the class for fun. Thus, after finding out our backgrounds and familiarity with material, he would ask the other girl questions which she was unable to answer, and then ask me to answer them when she couldn't. Awkward.

Nonetheless, I felt at least halfway competent that I could provide responses to relatively straightforward questions such as:
When would you date the gospels?
Would you place Paul's letters before or after the gospels?
Do you think the author of the gospel of John also wrote the Johannine epistles? What about Revelation?

Thank you Vonder Bruegge. Thanks to you, responding to his questions was a breeze.

I am still a little bit confused about how the whole essay process works out. For instance, the question I will address this week is: "What is the synoptic problem, what theological and historical issues does it raise, and how best might it be resolved?" Now, if you are a religion major at Northwestern College, you are perhaps thinking, "that sounds ridiculously easy. We would never be given such a straightforward paper assignment at Northwestern!" To this I respond, "Dude, I know!" Ever since I presented that paper at the regional SBL, I have operated on the assumption that if I am not attempting, at least in some small way, to be making some contribution to scholarship, then what I am doing is not good enough. Here, though, it has been emphasized over and over that our purpose is to ANSWER THE QUESTION that has been given to us. That is first and foremost our perogative before any creative freedom is allowed. Frankly, I'm still not sure creative freedom is quite allowed. I'll find out soon I guess.

Anyway, I expressed some of these sentiments to Dr. Gregory, and he seemed to think it absurd for an undergraduate to have the ambitions of contribution to scholarship. Thus, I'm confused because if I'm not striving to do something substantial, isn't that just a research paper? And isn't a research paper easy? I mean, I knew the NW Rel Dept. was BA, but is it that BA? Nonetheless, they've prepared me well, and I feel quite confident to take on these essays.

In other news, (this is probably all very boring to some of you, but I know it's fascinating to others of you), I have discovered the joy of Oxford University Lectures. These lecture options make me feel almost okay about leaving the joys of the religion department behind. The gist of it is that I am allowed to attend any lecture series that I so desire. It's like being at the national SBL for 8 weeks but even better because people aren't just dryly presenting papers on incredibly absurd topics, they're giving a series of lectures that is like a mini class for which you don't have to do any work. It's learning for the sake of learning! Thus, next week I will go to as many lectures as I can feasibly fit in to see which are worth continuing and which aren't. Topics I plan to hit up include: The Historical Jesus, Synoptic Parallels, Textual Criticism, Christianity in Rome: From Romans to Constantine. I also think I will peruse topics of interest such as: Religions and Mythologies of the Ancient Near East, American Presidential Religion and Warfare, Aspects of the Study of the OT prophets, and so on.

I was actually just sitting around the other day thinking, "Gosh I need to learn about Rome. When am I going to learn about Rome?" Well now I can totally learn about Rome! Dude, I'm so excited.

I really do think I would be quite content studying the entire time I'm here. However, I know that would disappoint many of you, and that's why I really will try to make some friends so I can go out and do things once and a while. However, the weekend is coming up and mostly expect to spend it devoting attention to my reading list. That's okay right? It will be fun, I promise!

So, before I got here, I simply didn't know what would take up my time here. I thought not having a job would be the most dreadful thing ever. However, I have now replaced working with walking. Walking is a part-time job because it takes up about as much time. I might get a bus pass someday, but for now I'm trying to save the 80 pounds and just walk. This is time-consuming though, because my house is 45 minutes away from anything. So, if I go out for the day, I will not go home until I am ready to stay home for the night. Hopefully I will find some places around town to hang out and read.

Hmm, well I did really important cool things today such as see where Marilyn McCord Adams lives (amazing) and see the Harry Potter staircase and great hall (amazing). Nonetheless, this blog entry is probably too long to go any farther tonite. I know I'm supposed to be kind to my readers and not write such long entries, but that's really my call eh? I figure you'll skim what's not of interest to you anyway (aka...much of the biblical studies jargon). Well, have a brilliant weekend.

Best,
Sara