For Jessica

You're right, it's been a while.
The time has flown while we've been at Oxford. Our last day of class was on Friday and this weekend was full of paper writing. I finished two, and I have two more that are due tomorrow and a final that will test my knowledge of the depths of Romanticism. I will be so glad to have it all done! We're going to the Lake District on Wednesday and this is our last thing before wrapping up the trip and heading back to London.

The highlights of the past two weeks were:

1) punting. We went on the Isis river, I believe. Punting is like, well, hmmm. There's a boat, with four seats and a person with a long metal pole and another person at the front with an oar (I liked this job) and the person with the pole pushes off the bottom of the river and then uses the pole as a rudder as it's floating back up to the top of the water. Very tricky business.

2) We went to Warwick Castle. This was the most touristy castle we've been to yet. They had a trebuchet launch that we got to see (I videotaped it, so you can watch later), we saw the dungeons, which Dr. Ryken told us would be horribly scary and we shouldn't go, but it was only one room. and not very scary. The state rooms were cool- these were the best state rooms by far and just the right amount of stuff. We saw armor, swords, helmets, and a cool horn that reminded me of Queen Susan's horn in Narnia (I'm reading through those right now). I took lots of pictures while we were there. It was a fun trip. In the afternoon we went to Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of Shakespeare, but by the time we got there, we were so tired that we didn't really care about it, lol, and none of us really know which room he was born in. That day we also went to Anne Hathaway's family's house, his wife, and the house that is now on the plot of land where he lived after he came back to Stratford.

3) We had our Gothic Drama Presentations for Romanticism. And I had a beard. We had to act out a scene and write a thesis and explain how Joanna Baillie used the Gothic in the play. Our play was about a girl who loved ghost stories and got a secret pleasure from fear, so we acted out the scene where the person coming to rescue her startles her so much (because she thinks it's a ghost, and a lot of other circumstances) that she faints and then goes crazy. I was the bad guy- for this outfit, I borrowed a dagger from my friend (lol, she bought it somewhere for her b/f. and it worked out perfectly that she had it. it made the outfit) and had a hitler stache. Then, when I was an outlaw at the end helping to rescue her, i had a different beard. These were hilarious and it was great to see everyone dressed up.

4) We went to a performance of As You Like It at Trinity College. It was set in the 60s and the music was hilarious.

5) The past two weeks I've been going to this amazing church called St. Aldates. It's a charismatic Anglican church and it's kind of set up like my church at home, contemporary worship and charismatic elements, but they do confession and other interactive Anglican elements. The kids are really involved and come on stage to sing and they're very mission focused as well. It feels like what church should feel like in my mind. The leaders are responsible and know what's going on and it's shared between several different people. I wish you could go to it.

That's it for now, back to the papers, I hope you enjoyed vacation and hanging out with the fam. I miss talking, and can't wait to show you all the pictures ; )
Love you,
Sarah