The Perks of a Sick Day

So I took a sick day today. I can't even remember the last time I felt sick enough to actually let myself have a sick day. I don't ever get sick. I just don't. But that kinda means that when I do get sick, I'm a baby about it. I just don't know how to cope! (Ask my poor roommate. She had to listen to me complain for hours last night). I'm not sure if normal people have a secret for handling sickness, but I don't know the secret. I cease to have the will to live when I get sick. My universe stops. But the result of that is that this was a rather lovely day. Honestly, if it wasn't for the feeling like crap thing, sick days would be the bomb! (Can I say that anymore?) So cheers, Sick-day. Thanks for the chance to finally update my blog.

So here we go: updates on the Oxford thing. My school work is going wonderfully. I think I mentioned that I have the same tutor for both tutorials this term so that's been kinda neat being able to make the two correspond in some ways. For example, this week I'm studying Yeats' poetry for my one tutorial and the linguistic structure of poetry in my other tutorial. Excuse me while I'm a nerd, but I find that very exciting.

This past week I was reading the book Ulysses by James Joyce. It's a brilliant 600+ pg book that is full of random changes in narrator, unannounced interjections of characters thoughts, constant literary style changes; and, overall, is just physically painful to read. No, but really. I'm pretty sure that was the response Joyce was shooting for. The story is based (loosely) on the Odyssey, Odysseus' grueling journey back home, and for those reading the story, you feel Odysseus' pain. For me, I felt it so much that I got sick. (I'm not sure if it was Ulysses that caused my sickness or the fact that I stopped drinking 3 glasses of orange juice a day. Maybe a mix of both). But the story is nonetheless brilliant! Joyce brings up some really important life questions that he intentionally doesn't answer. And though I could go on for paragraphs and paragraphs talking about what I learned and what I thought of the book, I'm guessing most of you reading this probably don't care that much. If you do care, message me and we can have a nice chat about Joyce. He's such a dude!

On top of my tutorials I've been going to a couple really solid lectures. One of which is a philosophy lecture on Aesthetics. This is literally the study of Beauty. What an incredible thing to spend your life studying! "Oh hi there, Mr. Professor, what did you decide to do with your life?" Ah, you know, just STUDY BEAUTY!!! What?! How incredible! Every week I find myself walking away from those lectures inspired and desiring to live more Beautifully. I can't help but wonder what would happen if we were all students of Beauty. If we sought the Beautiful in our every day life. If we appreciated Beauty and desired to live in a way that reflected this Beauty. It's so interesting to me that there is this somewhat elusive idea of Beauty that no one, not even the smartest philosophers at Oxford, can exactly define, but nearly everyone can agree on. People have different tastes, different opinions, but there are certain things that everyone agrees are Beautiful. Why? Where does this universal agreement come from? In my very humble opinion, I think part of the reason is because Beauty is an aspect of God. If we believe that we are created in the image of God, then it makes sense that these things of Beauty that express the nature of God will speak to something deep within us. That's what I think Beauty is. When the divine in other things speaks to the divine in us. But then again, I've only been to a couple Aesthetic lectures, so I can't exactly claim to be an expert on this. I think I'd like to be some day. To be an expert on Beauty, that seems to denote a well spent life.

Random Side note: My roommate is Irish dancing, like "Riverdance" Irish dancing, in our room while I write this. Why is she so cool?

So that's all there is to say about school work these days. I'm working hard, learning lots, and being deeply inspired. I'd say that's a good report card. Of course, I'm not only doing work over here, but we are currently in the middle of term so no extensive adventures. I did go frolicking in my favorite part of Oxford the other day. A place called port meadows.




I biked through here last term on my trip up the Thames river (though I recently learned that it is called the Isis river when it runs through Oxford). I ventured here on a very rare sunny day we had last week, and it was quite lovely!












Of course, it was a bit muddy... I took off my shoes so they wouldn't get irredeemably muddy, but don't let the bare feet and the sunshine fool you. It was freezing and I ended up not being able to feel my feet by the time I biked back home. Ah the price I pay for adventure.

So there's the Oxford update. Besides being rather sick today, things are going lovelily. I live in a Beautiful place and am inspired to live a Beautiful life. What more can one ask for?