Okay, It's Really Happening

It’s really quite amazing, this life is. Sometimes I feel stressed, exhausted, apathetic, but then God throws a few more blessings my way so that I can’t help but realize His work in my life, His grace and glory.

Today I had my first tutorial, which perhaps is a momentous occurrence. Really my tutor talked the majority of the time about basic information concerning taking a tutorial and writing the papers and so forth. That she is brilliant, sharp, and engaged was immediately apparent. When she got around to briefly discussing Far From the Madding Crowd, my first assignment, I had a minor epiphany: all my literary life I had longed for one thing which I could not even realize I was longing for until it had been fulfilled—to have English literature discussed by an expert with an English accent. I was in heaven. By this time next week, when I am in the middle of writing two papers for my tutorials, the joy may have ebbed a bit. Or a lot.

As nervous and excited as I am for my tutorials, my biggest hope is that even among all the many mistakes and crummy essays I write, I develop as a student and writer and soak up even a fraction of what my tutors have to offer me.

Following my first tutorial I went to buy the next few books I’ll have to read; it’s quite expensive to buy books, but I love to mark them up as it helps me when I write papers. Also, I’ve convinced myself it is a worthwhile investment, as I’ll have these wonderful books that I bought in Oxford in my personal library for many years to come. I’m learning my way around Oxford though I have experienced only a tiny bit of all its wonders thus far. I love to walk, and despite what I wrote in my last entry, I’m contemplating getting a bike again. It would be a bit expensive but worth it, I’m thinking. I was so excited to do so before coming to Oxford, intimidated once I got here, and now I am sort of jealous of everyone riding their bikes. Ah, my indecisive nature can be a hassle.

This evening I went to the C.S. Lewis Society meeting, where an excellent speaker discussed Lewis and evangelicalism. All of a sudden the speaker referred to a member of the audience, sitting casually against the wall—Walter Hooper. I have just finished reading his quite famous Companion and Guide to C.S. Lewis, and to have the honor of hearing him chatting about a conversation he had with C.S. Lewis about aliens on Cornmarket Street wanting to know the Good News was unreal (that’s another story). After the meeting, I walked up and told him how much I had enjoyed his book while having a minor freak-out internally. My tutor this term for my C.S. Lewis tutorial is probably the foremost scholar on C.S. Lewis, so to actually be able to meet one of the other foremost scholars on Lewis is just insane.

Every time I try to convince myself that I am in Oxford cannot begin to compare to these surreal moments that force me to ask “How could you be anywhere else but Oxford?”