I haven’t written for such a long time and I apologize for that. Also, my blog was having a „summer sleep“ :-) The last weeks were really busy but at the same time, I had the chance to collect many different experiences and impressions.
One week ago, I finally arrived at the location where I will be during the next 12 months: Oxford. Everything is really exciting for me right now, because I meet so many new people and live in a completely new environment – similar to when I first arrived in Montreal and Boston. I would like to share a little bit of what I have done and will do in the last and next couple of weeks. This is only a short update and whoever wants some more information is very welcome to send me an email.
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Arrival
Last Saturday, on the 22nd of September, I landed in England (London) and took a bus to Oxford. Everything went really smoothly and when I arrived in Oxford, I just walked to the Porter’s Lodge of New College (my College here in Oxford) and I was given my key, went to my room and had found a new home ;-)
For those of you who don’t know the structure of the University of Oxford very well – I am one of those – I have to say that every student belongs to the University and one of 39 Colleges. I live in College accommodation, I can eat in College and similar to the residences at McGill or other places, a lot of social activities are going on in College. I belong to the “Middle Common Room” (MCR) since I’m a grad student now.
My first impression from my building and my room was great (and it didn’t change). When I look out of my window, I look at the old city wall which I find quite exciting. Oxford has so many old and beautiful buildings. The entire College is like a small castle ;-) (Yes, 600 years old or so…) Come visit me, if you want to see this place! It already feels a little bit like “home”.
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The city
As I said, the city of Oxford is really beautiful. There are so many old buildings which are all in a very good condition and we also have over 100 libraries! The life in the city is mostly shaped by students and every other building is a College or University building *haha* There are many nice streets and shops and of course, consistent with the English culture, many many pubs ;-)
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The last weeks before I came here
Here is a short summary of what I did in the last couple of weeks: After having finished my internship in Boston, I came to Canada for almost three weeks. I met my parents and 3 of my brothers and we rented a mobile home with which we drove along the east coast: from Toronto to Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal, Québec City, the Algonquin Park and Niagara Falls and finally back to Toronto again. (I saw more than during the 8 months in Montreal.) It was great! Then, on the 15th of August, I finally flew back to Germany and I spent a vacation of altogether ten days with Anton whom I hadn’t seen for more then four months! It was GREAT!! We were in the Alps (Switzerland) and spent a lot of quality-time together; we also had a lot of time to talk to each other while hiking through the beautiful nature that was created by our amazing God! After that vacation, I participated in a two-week-long summer school organized by my scholarship organization which was also great. We studied “China” – Economy, Human Rights, Political System, News … It was really interesting and I met fantastic people. After that, I had one week to pack my stuff and send it to the UK and then I headed off :-)
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The next weeks and my course
So now, I’m here and what will happen next? I came here to study Neuroscience. It’s a 12-months Master’s program which usually leads into the PhD (an additional three years here in England). The system is a little different from the US/Canada. Basically everyone who wants to do a PhD completes a Master’s program first.
Last week, my class – consisting of 22 people from all over the world – participated in an autumn school in Cognitive Neuroscience. Next week, we will have some introductory classes and it’s also fresher’s week. After that, the first term starts! It goes until Christmas and I’m excited to have classes again!!! (The last time I took classes was 2006 at McGill – after that, I only wrote my thesis, went to Africa and Boston…)
The students in my class are all very nice and friendly; I really like most of them and I'm excited about getting to know them more and more in the next weeks!
Many greetings and blessings from Oxford,
Miriam
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