Highlights From Oxford Thus Far

Here are some highlights from my last three weeks in Oxford, England:

1) Wrote 2 poems for my poetry class and wrote a paper on social class in America and how it affects academic achievement. Both really interesting topics!

2) Visited CS Lewis' house, home church, and gravesite (and sat on the bench overlooking the pond where he and Tolkien met to discuss their works)

3) Had dinner at the Eagle and Child, the place where the Inklings (including CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, etc. met to discuss their writing)

4) Ate an authentic kebab from a street cart in Oxford-so good!

5) Went clubbing for the first time

6) Joined my college's rowing team (which comes with EARLY morning practices)

7) Went to a Union debate regarding University fees

8) Had a pigeon literally fly into my head on Cornmarket street

9) Heard Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf from Lord of the Rings) speak about his life as an actor and his struggles with and acceptance of being gay

10) Went running along the beautiful Thames River

11) Booked a trip to Scotland for a week to go on a backpacking/bus tour. Awesome.

12) Booked a trip to Lithuania to visit my best friend the week after classes get out! More awesome. 

These are just some highlights that come to mind at the moment. It's starting to really hit me just how amazing and unique this experience is from anything I have even remotely done before. The university makes so many things and resources available to you-it is literally limitless. I live with amazing roommates, in a perfect location, in a shockingly beautiful city. I am able to choose the topics I want to study each week and am taught, one-on-one, by some of the most brilliant people I have ever met. I still walk down the street and have moments when I honestly cannot believe I am here. Even though I have months left here, I still get a little sad when I think about the fact that at some point I will have to leave. I can wholeheartedly, without any hesitation, say that I am completely and utterly in love with this place. 

Hopkins-inspired poem

Part of my poetry assignment for my second week was to write a poem inspired by the great Gerard Manley Hopkins. So, here it is:

THE SEA

Nothing is so lovely as the sea—

Where above the sun rises and reddens and rests;

Dolphins dance atop rolling, rhythmic waves, and guests

Of a breathtaking ballet we be,

Gladly; as spoken song in baby’s bin softly

Moms sing, its liquid melodies these ears infests,

Stirring, soothing this heart, ignoring protests

With deep breathes out, in: the wave ashore breaks boldly.

Oh! How wondrous the crafter of such a creature!

By it faint echoes of Thy warm whisper beckons,

Like a church bell, my soul to its Savior.

Soft ripples turning and twirling awakens

My heart, drawing me nearer when too far I wander,

In His presence, largely my burden lessens.

The hardest part about being halfway around the world...

are those random and sudden moments when I am reminded of how much I miss my sister.

Dramatic Monologue

For my poetry tutorial, my first assignment included, among many other things, writing my own dramatic monologue. Before this, I had no idea what a dramatic monologue was, but it is basically a speech given by a character (not the poet) that typically serves as a way for readers to gain a deeper insight into the character's mentality and point of view. It often causes readers to sympathize with the character, postponing any moral judgement for the sake of better understanding him/her.

So, here is my attempt. Some of the lines are a little off because of the text sizing. 

THE DEFENDANT

The jury is seated? Let us begin!

Honored am I to be standing before

You, O most admired Judge! Blissful joy

Overwhelmed my soul as I peered out the

Window from the shiny car that shuttled

Me here. The clear skies, the crisp air, the soft clouds,

Always has the world been so lovely?

Living in a cell does make one forget.

The sun seemed to be shining extra bright

Today, did it not? The flowers aside

The entrance look precisely like the pink

Ones dear Mother planted in the garden

For the butterflies! How furious she

Would be when little Brutus uprooted

Them in search of old bones! How different those

Bright flowers from this sad, dimly lit room

Where Judgment takes place, just two steps away.

Sometimes when I think about that night, a

Flawlessly clear memory, an utter

Blur, I cannot seem to remember if

His hair was blonde or brown, if he was tall

Or short. I remember only the soft

Fading of his piercing green eyes, my hands

Gripping his pulsing throat; tighter, tighter…

Forever his blood rests upon my hands

And since then twice, no, three times that number!

Hazel, my darling, I did it for her!

Naught one hand would harm her I swore; I knew

It from the moment his searching, lustful eyes

Found her that he could not love her as I.

She was naive; she did not know the harm

And pain he would cause her, and therefore me.

As my cold hands closed around his scrawny

Throat, it was like sipping tea, peacefully

By the window on a dreary morning,

like reading my favorite book by the

Fireplace during a winter blizzard;

He would bother my sweet Hazel no more.

My dear judge, why do you yawn? I see you

Glance at your gold watch; stop playing me! You have

Already made your decision; O, have

Mercy and relieve me from my role in

This puppet show! What more could you inflict

Upon me? ‘Send me to death’ you say now?

My god! If only the world were so kind!

Send me back to the zoo I now sleep in,

Where I awake to footsteps and pointing

Fingers as the guard gives daily tours of

These vicious animals that sit behind

Bars, longing so to find that dignity

They are stripped of. ‘Face the wall!’ screams the guard

As he walks by, for, unlike me, he would

Not dare protect a sweet, innocent girl.

How odd! I thought they wanted to make less

Of a menace of me. How silly they

Are to think several decades spent in a

Cold, dark stone room will change me! I am not

A mass murderer, I am only a

Boy the world would not leave alone. Sometimes

I wonder if my father was wrong when

He told me to stand up for myself: ‘Get

Them or they will get you!’ he said. Maybe

He was right; no one cares for anyone:

The world is less troublesome here.

Little do they know cages can only

‘Protect’ this society for so long.

Ah, the jury is getting restless I

See! I have rambled long enough. How have

I longed for the distant day when I am

Punished, brought to conclusion, at last done,

When I am forever released into

Oblivion, where thoughts of my lovely

Hazel will no longer plague my mind. Let

Us sit back in silence; I anxiously

Await my final release to the grave.

A beautiful day this certainly is!

The Most Beautiful City on Earth

It has been exactly two weeks since I arrived in Oxford. What can I even say about it? Where do I possibly begin? It is without a doubt the most beautiful city I have ever walked through, and I have strong suspicions that it is also most likely the most beautiful city on earth. I have only been here two weeks, but I can say in all honesty that it feels like I've been here for many, many months. I still feel like I'm walking in a dream, yet in reality I'm halfway around the world studying at one of the most renowned universities in the world. Strange. 

Port Meadow

Our flat

Well, to give you an idea of what my life here is like, I live in a flat with five other students: 2 girls from APU, 2 boys from Virginia, and another boy from Boston. I love all of them, and even though we are all quite different, somehow it just works. Our flat is literally just down the street from the city center of Oxford. Oxford University Press is in our backyard, The Eagle and Child (the meeting place for the Inklings, including CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, etc.) is just down the street, and the there are moments where, as ridiculous as it is, I feel like I'm walking through a scene from a Harry Potter movie (which is actually quite possible since many of the scenes were filmed here in Oxford). There is a wide meadow just a few minutes walking distance away that stretches out for acres and acres with the Thames River running through it. Even the high expectations I arrived in Oxford with did not even remotely match up to the utter beauty that is found in this city.

In Jericho

As for my classes, I absolutely love them. Since the University of Oxford uses the tutorial system, they are not exactly "classes" per se. We meet one-on-one with our professor, someone who specializes in the exact field and topic we want to study, once a week for one hour. He or she then gives us a reading list of books (which we can find at one of the endless number of libraries at the university) and the topic for our next essay. It is very independent, and you have to be quite self-motivated. But honestly, I love this style of teaching. Because the tutorials are designed to fit your interests and what you want to study, you are never stuck reading about something you don't care about or have no passion for. I have sat in the library and read for hours upon hours without even noticing how much time has gone by. You have an endless amount of resources the university makes available to you. It is heaven for those who love learning and have a hunger for knowledge. 

Thames River

Even though I have only been here for a couple of weeks, I am already scheming in my head different ways I can return here to study later in life (no, not next year). Maybe graduate school? Who knows. I feel so thankful to have been given this opportunity. I feel like it really is an "opportunity of a lifetime" kind of thing. After only two weeks, I am already falling completely in love with this place. 

Almost there.

As I sit here and write this, I am in LAX with only about one third of my trip completed. It is now approximately 1:30pm Hawai’i time, and I have been awake since 4:00am in order to catch my 6:45am flight from Hawai’i to Los Angeles. I will not reach my final destination at Oxford University for, at minimum, another fourteen hours. How strange. The fact that I will be spending the next five months studying at Oxford and traveling Europe seems like some distant dream to me. I feel as if I should not be sitting here at Gate 74, waiting for my flight to Heathrow, but should instead be walking down to baggage claim where Sarah, or Aaron, or maybe Sean will drive up to welcome me with open arms and bring me to APU.

My decision to go to Oxford was sudden and quite last-minute. I missed the application due date by weeks and was not even remotely considering going to England this semester. But I guess we all know, to some extent, that things do not typically turn out the way we plan them.

I find it sort of strange that I do not feel more excited, or nervous, or scared, or something right now. In fact, I haven’t really felt any emotion about the upcoming semester for the past month or two I have known I was going. Because I studied abroad last semester, living in South Central LA with a host family for four months, I was unable to attend any meetings or be introduced to other students who are also going. I do not know where I am living. I do not know anyone there. I do not know what classes (tutorials) I will be taking. I do not even know what college within Oxford University I will be a part of.

Everything feels surreal. I feel like I am in some strange in-between state in my life right now. I am at a point where I am still trying to process and comprehend all of the intense, life-changing, difficult things I experienced and learned last semester in inner city L.A. Yet, for the past three weeks in Hawai’i I also felt unsettled and out of place. Because my college experience has been so unusual and I find myself constantly moving from one place or “home” to another, it has become increasingly difficult for me to see any place I occupy as anything other than something temporary. From Azusa to Los Angeles to Hawaii to Yosemite to London, I am constantly moving from one temporary place to another. And though my life has been radically changed by each of these experiences, it has become more difficult for me to feel emotional about or invested into these new experiences and places because I subconsciously find myself thinking of them simply as temporary things. But maybe this is a good thing. After all, I suppose it is necessary to see the temporary nature of things on this earth in order to begin to see things from an eternal or heavenly perspective.

However, my prayer as I begin this new part of my life in Europe is that I will somehow manage to be wholly present during my experiences there. I pray I will take advantage of every opportunity and experience Europe to its fullest. I am absolutely certain this is where God wants me to be this semester. There were far too many miracles that occurred in order to get me here for that to be untrue. So, here I am, off on another plane, to another continent, to begin another adventure. 

Me and God

I was talking to our LA Term counselor, Heather, on Friday and she asked me a question I found interesting. I confided in her about how difficult LA Term was for me, and we began discussing why I even decided to do the program to begin with. After some thought, I told her I believed God wanted me to do it. I felt quite strongly about that last semester, and I still believe it.

After hearing this, she said to me simply, “Okay, so you believe God brought you here and called you to do this program. So how is your relationship with God now?”

It was such a sudden and blunt question that I was lost for words for a moment.

It seems like such an obvious and logical question to ask now that I think about it, but for some reason it caught me completely off-guard. Where was my relationship with God? I know God brought me here to spend the semester in LA, but where did that leave Him and me? This question seems especially significant considering I am experiencing such difficulties here.

I have never been as homesick as I have been here. I have never wanted to so genuinely just drop everything I am doing and give up. As I discussed in one of my earlier posts, I have trouble even explaining what is so difficult about this semester for me. But the bottom line is that it simply is. Life is a struggle this semester, and I am trying my best to get through it. I am learning a lot, and I absolutely do not regret doing this program.

So where does this leave God and me? My relationship with God could certainly be better right now. It could also be a lot worse. I feel like I have kind of been putting my relationship with Him on hold for this semester. It is as if I am saying, “Hold on, God. I’ll work on us once LA Term is over. Once my life is good and normal once again.” It’s almost like I don’t even have the energy to work on my relationship with God, because I always feel so drained and tired from the daily struggles of LA Term. This, of course, is not exactly the greatest approach to take, but it is the one I realize I have subconsciously chosen for most of my semester here in LA thus far.

It scares me that I can so easily push God away like that when life gets a little rough. Why is it so easy for me to tell God “later”? What scares me even more than losing my faith is keeping my faith but remaining stagnant in it.

As C.S. Lewis once said, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance and if true is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

If not now, when? When will I once again devote myself to cultivating my relationship with the one I love? When praying about this earlier, God asked me what is going to happen if I feel the same way at Oxford next semester. What if I struggle there too? What if I get terribly homesick? Will I simply put my relationship with Him on hold once again? I told Him no. I won’t feel the same way because I know I will be able to see Him a lot more clearly in the beauty and charm of London. I cannot imagine going there and not seeing Him in the plethora of beautiful, artistic, magical places in Oxford.

After my explanation, God’s only response was, “Well, you have to learn to be able to see me in the city, also.”

It frustrates me that I haven’t quite figured this out yet. And it’s not that I haven’t seen God at work here, because I certainly have. Yet, it is simply different. I have not seen Him in the usual places I see Him, such as in the sound of ocean waves crashing on the shore or the sight of snow capped mountains in the Sierras. Instead, I have seen God in the face of a homeless friend who offered us his umbrella on a rainy day. I have seen Him in the eyes of a carwash worker as he told his story of workplace abuse and wage theft. I have seen Him in the kind and gentle words of an elderly, crippled man at the bus stop.

I am seeing God in the city, but I need to learn to also walk with Him throughout life in the city. I have no idea how to change this, but my first step will simply be to pray. My prayer is for God to change my heart and my attitude. It is to ask God to hold my hand throughout all of this, even when I draw my hand back or try to push Him away. I pray He will lead me through this city and complete the work He is doing in my life. I pray that in this vast and hectic city, I will find God and I will find hope.

Daydreaming

Listen . . .
Ocean rumblings
Fade into horns honking
And humans fussing; wake up! You're
Still here.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Before coming to LA, I had heard from several different students that LA Term was a difficult experience. I had witnessed people come back from the semester hurt, doubtful, bitter, changed. After getting through the first couple of weeks in L.A. without much difficulty or pain, I thought maybe my experience would be different. I began to think back to my semester at High Sierra in Yosemite and to think that maybe this semester would be another amazing 4 months in my life as that semester had so clearly been. 


I am now moving into my eighth week of life in Los Angeles, and it is definitely getting more difficult. No, I am not miserable. No, I do not cry all the time or regret doing LA Term. I still laugh, I still have joy, I am still thankful. But at the same time, I don't think this will be an experience in my life I look back on as extraordinary or "one of the greatest experiences of my life." 


It is difficult to explain why I feel this way or what is so difficult about the semester, especially if you have not experienced it. I sometimes feel ridiculous even explaining why I'm struggling with this semester to others. LA sounds exciting and wonderful, and to some extent it is. In fact, many other students doing this program with me are loving it. After all, what could be so hard about living in a great city like Los Angeles, eating amazing Mexican food every day, living with a lovely and hospitable family, spending time with sixteen other wonderful APU students, seeing spectacular art, Broadway plays, hearing great music, and experiencing city life in one of the greatest cities on earth for a semester, right?  But different people have different experiences.


I can't quite even explain what has been so challenging about the semester. Maybe it is the lack of stability I feel. Plans are always changing, buses are always late, my surroundings continuously change. In just the past 6 months I have moved from APU to Hawaii to L.A., and next semester I will be in England. Part of me loves this, but the other part finds it unsettling. The lack of close community here in LA is also difficult to deal with. Because all of the students here live in different places all around LA and we must all go our separate ways at the end of class, my community basically consists of my roommate, Sarah, and my 9 year old host sister, Stephy. Or maybe my struggle lies in the homesickness that plagues my mind at various, sporadic moments. I miss the safety and comfort of being at home in Hawaii. I have a full week off for Thanksgiving break, and I want nothing more than to be able to go home, to escape from the stress and hardships of the city. I want to eat turkey and pumpkin pie with my family, to decorate my home with sparkling Christmas lights, to sit on the sandy beach and look out into the peaceful, melodic ocean. This is where my mind has been wandering over the past few weeks, until suddenly I drift back into reality and find myself sitting on a dark subway watching a homeless man being shunned by others, or sitting in a classroom listening to discussions of another terrible injustice within the city, or walking on a sidewalk and hearing yet another cat call. 

LA Term is difficult, and I am certainly struggling, but I am thankful I am here. I am thankful I have a roommate and friend who is having a similar experience. I am thankful other students here are having an amazing experience and loving the city, because this shows me the goodness and beauty of the city. It is not a bad place, it is a beautiful place. I am learning, and through the difficulties I am growing. Yes, I will be relieved when this experience is over and I have finished this part in my life, but I would not change my experience for another. God has me going through these things for a purpose and a reason. I know He is good, and I know He loves me. Because of this, I will persevere. 


"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever."

-Psalm 23

And off to Oxford I go..

Well, it looks like I will be spending next semester studying at Oxford University in England! Oh, how plans change.

How did this decision come about? Since freshman year, I had always planned on studying at Oxford during the fall of my junior year. Last semester I applied and was accepted into the program, but obviously God changed my plans a bit since I am now here in inner city L.A. doing LA Term. Once I had decided to do LA Term this semester, I planned to do the Oxford Semester next fall (of my senior year) instead. But a few weeks ago, the idea to go to Oxford next semester was suddenly planted in my head. My best friend, Sean, told me he is most likely going to be going to Lithuania next semester, meaning that if I went to Oxford in the fall we would be apart for 1.5 years. This is what sparked the idea in my mind to go to Oxford next semester instead.

However, soon after I began considering this, I discovered that the deadline to apply to the program had passed a week earlier. Because of this, I decided to drop the idea of going next semester and just apply to go next fall as I had previously planned. Yet I simply could not get the idea to go next semester out of my head. I regretted not thinking about the possibility earlier. Though I had already been accepted into the program last semester, they had told me several times that if I wanted to go at a later point in time I would need to completely reapply to the program; they could not defer my application. I talked to a few friends about it, and every one of them thought going in the spring would be a better idea. This way, I could spend my entire senior year on campus rather than continuously moving on and off campus as I have been doing.

By this time, it was about 2 weeks after the final deadline to apply to the program had passed. I considered emailing the Oxford Study Abroad program coordinator to ask if they would possibly consider allowing me to apply even though the deadline had already passed, but I was unsure this was even a reasonable possibility. And I wanted to be absolutely sure I wanted to go next semester before sending out an email.

So, I prayed. I told God that if I am supposed to go to Oxford next semester, then He really needs to make it clear to me and somehow open the door for me to do so (because at that point, I didn't see much of a possibility). So I prayed, and a couple of friends prayed for me. And guess what?? God answered.

The next day, I received an email from the Oxford Program coordinator saying that they still have my application and they want to offer me the opportunity to go to Oxford next semester if I am still interested. All I had to do was resubmit a paper requesting which classes I want to take. I had not emailed her about going, or even told her I was interested. She just emailed me out of the blue the day after I asked God to open the door. I tried to reason out the cause of this miracle. I thought maybe there were a low number of applicants and they just desperately needed students to go next semester, but I found out that there were many applicants and people who got denied the opportunity to go. So, why me? I have no idea. I believe this is God telling me to go. And I feel at peace about the decision. Sean may or may not even end up going to Lithuania next semester, but it isn't really about that anymore. Maybe that was just the circumstance I needed to prompt me in the direction or spark the idea in my mind. I prayed God would open the door if He wanted me to go, and He pushed the door wide open without me so much as lifting a hand. He never ceases to surprise me and mix up my life plans. And so, off to Oxford I go.