Hermione and Oxford's Real Motto

So, my flatmate bumped into Emma Watson today.  She's the subject of an unfortunate number of dinner conversations around Oxford. Overheard: she lives on campus has a bodyguard outside her room in Worchester College. She carries around pictures of her and autographs them on the spot so that she can avoid having to take so many pictures with starstruck students. Her pigeon-hole (read: mailbox) is next to a friend of a friends. She's studying English? Or is it History? All we know for sure is that she was definitely at the same Fresher's fair we were at this morning.

It has to be a bit ironic (unfortunate?), anyway, that she's going to the university that Harry Potter was modeled after.  I mean, we really do wear robes. Quite often through the year.  It made sense in the 1200's. (Oxford's unofficial official motto).

It's Orientation week! It's very strange to see things like "bar crawl" on the list of events for freshmen undergraduates.  How will they get the quintessential experience of drinking oneself silly on crappy beer in a dingy basement with 100 other underage people and then running when the cops come? It's a rite of passage in the U.S.

In an instance of "It made sense in the 1200's," graduate orientation week involves a lot of rushing between one's course events and one's college events which are seemingly completely uncoordinated.  Each student, graduate or undergraduate, is affiliated with a college, where you get housing, pay tuition, use the libraries, join the sports teams, etc (I'm at St. Hilda's College).  For undergraduates, all of their courses are taught at their college. But for graduates, all of our courses are taught at our department or faculty, and all of our social and housing activities are at our college.  And these two entities don't coordinate.  Or seemingly talk to each other. At all.  Mine (St. Hilda's and the Department of Education) are two miles away from each other, and so I've been jumping between events at both all week, most of which overlap. Why do they still do it this way? Well, it made sense in the 1200's....It drives everyone nuts.

Another "It made sense in the 1200's:" Everything is done on paper.  Account balances.  Health forms.  Which means they misplace and lose these things (they've lost both of these for me thus far). No automated system. That would mean procedures would change. Another: we take final exams in the Examination School in front of a proctor. In our robes. It's tradition.  We matriculate in a closed ceremony (wearing guess what).

I'll leave you with my favorite joke this week.  A student asked a professor, "How many Oxford professors  does it take to change a light bulb?"

The professor replied, "Change?"

Haha. ha.  Hope all is well! LP