pembroke college

the program i'm working for, oxbridge, is housed in two colleges at the university of oxford - pembroke and oriel.  i'm in pembroke, as i mentioned before, and i thought you might want to see some photos of it!  the college system here is very different from what we have in the united states...as i understand it, students apply to the particular college within the university that they want to attend, and then live, take their meals, and take classes within their college.  colleges have rivalries between one another, and an individual college might have have cricket, rugby, and football teams that compete against the teams from other colleges.  and then maybe there is one "oxford university" team that would be the best players from each college?  i don't quite know about that.  each college has one main gate that you enter and exit through, and this entry way opens up into a series of enclosed quads that make up the college.  the main gate is staffed by porters, who visitors would report to, and who handle the keys, receive mail and packages, etc.  our college has probably 4 porters who rotate through, as each porter's lodge is staffed 24 hours a day.  i have a favorite porter so far, and one who i am scared of.  brian is the head porter, and he is gruff and scary.  he also appears to only talk to the men when we are in a group, so i will take advantage of his possible sexism and avoid him.  my favorite porter is andy, and he is my favorite because he remembered my name!  i went up to the porter's lodge to give them a list of all of the deans' cell phone (excuse me, mobile phone) numbers in case they need to get in touch with us.  i had only met andy once, so i said "hi, i'm from oxbridge, and we thought you might like a list of the deans' numbers in case you need to get in touch with us."  i did not introduce myself by name, but andy responded "thanks, claire - i'll post it right here."  i asked one of the PAs about it later, and apparently the porters pride themselves on knowing the names of everyone who lives and works in their college.  for this reason, andy and i are friends.

one thing that you MUST learn upon arriving at a college is which grass you can walk on and which grass you cannot walk on.  in each college there are certain grassy areas that are called fellows quads, which only the fellows can walk on.  it is VERY VERY taboo for anyone else to walk on it, and i think there may even be fines of several hundred pounds for walking on it.  a fellow is, as far as i can tell, a scholar or professor in the college (in other words: someone i am NOT).  this is pembroke's fellows quad.  do not touch this grass.  our office is in one of the staircases off of this quad.

this is the next quad over, still in pembroke college - the big building is the dining hall.  you can walk on this grass all you want...in fact, a group of us got take away food from a thai restaurant one night and sat on this grass to eat it.  i felt like i was doing something wrong the whole time.

and the college's gardner does such a good job that i have to post another photo of the flowers in our college.  these window boxes sit under each of the windows in the fellow's quad. (you can see what i mean in the first picture, but this is closer up.)

the brits continue to have a fit about the weather.  it's the fourth straight day of weather with highs in the mid-80s, and you would think the world was ending.  in fact: this weather is close to perfect, in my mind, and i say so about three times a day (mostly when it is 10pm, only starting to get dark, and in the 70s - heaven).  mike (PA) says he can't sleep in this heat and sits up at night trying to fall asleep.  aisha (PA) almost had a breakdown this morning because she was so hot and i had to stick her in front of the fan for a while to pull herself together.  aisha says it gets this hot in oxford every summer, "but we never have four days in a row of this weather!"  and weather.com seems to agree - the forecast for the next 7 days is rain, with highs in the 60s.  [note from the girl who grew up without air conditioning and now lives in hot-lanta (that would be me): it has been warm here, definitely, but you can walk around town without getting sweaty.  and to me that's not hot.  hot is when you leave the air conditioning of your condo at 2712 vinings central place and you are covered in sweat by the time you get to your car.  but i definitely recognize that my heat tolerance is acquired over time, so i only make fun of the PAs a little.]