Yay, Oxford.

I must confess that for the last couple of months, I have not been thrilled about finishing my dissertation. It is an interesting subject, but the writing of it, finding an "angle," and worrying about whether it's good enough has made it seem like a chore and an irritating imposition on my website development!

But since our return from Spain and Morocco I've been hard at work on the paper, necessitated by the fact that I need to finish it by the end of next week! And thankfully, with my increased reading and attention to it, I've become more enthusiastic about it again. And today was another of those nice days when I really feel lucky to be an Oxford student, and which I feel I should record for posterity. So here's a day in the life of me actually being a student, which I fear won't be terribly interesting reading but I'll enjoy remembering later.

I started out with a ride on the Wolfson bus to the Bod, which I hadn't visited in far too long. It is such a splendid building that never fails to impress me no matter how many times I see it, and it's really something to be able to pass by the crowds of schoolkids and tourists in the courtyard, show my card, and be let inside! I marvel at it every time.

Today I discovered a wonderful new part of the Bod, the Classical Inscriptions area of the Lower Reading Room. Most of my research on Ephesus so far has been using secondary texts, meaning other scholars writing about ancient texts, artifacts and inscriptions. Today I went directly to the source with a series of books called Die Inschriften von Ephesos (Inscriptions of Ephesus), vols. I-VII. This is basically a huge collection of every inscription found in Ephesus up to 1987.

The inscriptions are mostly Greek (a few are in Latin) and are accompanied by German titles and notes. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Oxford's finest tutors, I still have only a rudimentary knowledge of both Greek and German. But it was enough for my reading to be interesting and useful, and it was very cool to see the original text of certain inscriptions I had read about frequently. I also found some new ones that I'll need to look into further with the help of my Greek and German dictionaries.

After a few hours jotting as much notes as I could (no book in the Bod can be taken out of the library), I headed out for some food and my next library stop. As always, on the way out I had unzip my bag and show the doorkeeper I hadn't stolen any books.

From the Bod, my walk took me past the Radcliffe Camera, All Souls College and St. Mary's University Church, which are all in a group you can see at once and it's really the best place to be for beautiful architecture in Oxford. I don't think I'd seen any of these buildings for a good month or two (crazy, I know) and I'm still in sightseeing mode from our recent trip, so I was really impressed and grateful to see such things when I'm just on the way to lunch. I noticed some new gargoyles on St. Mary's I hadn't seen before, and made a mental note to come back with a camera!

I headed up High Street, rounded the corner to busy Cornmarket, and picked up a ham, cheese and tomato croissant from Pret. It's as healthy as it sounds, but warm and so delicious. I had my favorite drink of theirs, Yoga Bunny Detox, which is an organic carbonated juice something-or-other that is very tasty and the name is half the fun.

I ate my lunch on the way to the Sackler Library (walking and eating seems to be a very Oxford thing to do), a walk that took me down Cornmarket, past the Ashmolean Museum and the lovely Randolph Hotel. I remembered to look down the street where the Dodge Ram was yesterday - no longer there! Must have been towed.

My first goal at the Sackler Library (a wonderful place that consists entirely of books on the ancient world), was to check the latest journals of the Austrian Archaeological Society and make sure I'm not missing any big discoveries pertinent to my paper. I thumbed through all of them back to 1996, and nothing too earthshaking seemed to be in there. Thank goodness, because then I would have had to read a highly technical archaeological article in German.

Next I pulled off the shelf a thick book that contained an article I had only recently discovered existed, an extremely useful summary of pagan religion in Ephesus - in English! Hooray! I sat down at a desk with a lamp for this one, and took as many notes about Artemis, Dionysus, Apollo, Demeter and Serapis as my time and hand endurance allowed. I only got halfway through and will have to return, but the article is a great find and will make that section of my paper a lot easier.

By then it was nearing 5:00 and I still had a third library I wanted to visit, the Theology one, and I wasn't sure when it closed. It's not far from the Sackler in the direction of home, and the route between the two is always wonderfully quiet. I slipped into the library just before it closed at 5:00, and found the two books I needed quickly. These books are great because they're related to a mystery about what happened to the Temple of Artemis that I've been trying to get to the bottom of. I haven't been able to read them yet, because I've been writing this, but I'm excited to read them tonight, and watch Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty. Probably not in that order.

While checking out my books I had a good laugh at the latest cheesy tourist trinket from Rome displayed on their desk, which seems to be becoming a tradition. The librarian who helped me is a friendly and funny guy I really like, and he was the one who brought the treasures back. The first was a cheap little bell with a sticker of Pope Benedict on the handle, which became the library's official "ring for assistance" bell. Now there is also a little snow-globe with a plastic pope inside that is so cheap it hardly has a face, and a sticker on the outside that says "ROMA." The librarian told me his colleagues said to bring back something awful from Rome, and I told him he'd certainly succeeded.

From the Theology Library I walked all the way home and was proud of myself for not getting a bus (or a taxi if I was really naughty). Even though it was along busy Banbury Road, it was a pleasant walk with lots of blooming trees and bicycle riders. I picked up our mail at the lodge, came in the apartment, opened the window to the fresh air and highly allergenic Scotch Broom that is growing directly beneath our window, got a Pepsi Max out of the fridge, checked my website earnings, and started writing this.

How's that for detail? Bottom line: it was a good day and I'll miss Oxford when I leave. But it must be said that it doesn't have Burgerville, and for that I fault it a great deal. Back to more interesting stuff next time, probably about Spain.