Hampton Court and the First Paper

My dear Friends,

Forgive me for not writing sooner. Life has been uncommonly hectic the last week or so and I haven't been able to write. Between classes, field trips, and frantic researching and writing, any spare time is spent wandering about Oxford with my new friends or sleeping. The camaraderie between all of us here at The Vines is amazing! All this last weekend, while the majority of us were in the throes of of writing our first Oxford paper, we continually empathized with each other, made coffee and tea together, and at times procrastinated together. Even at four in the morning, we still found time to talk and encourage one another that yes, we would finish this paper and sleep tomorrow. So yesterday I turned in my first research paper of the semester and then spent the afternoon relaxing. I went to the Eagle and Child with Courtney, Andrea, and Courtney's friend from Messiah. Then we went to the English Faculty Library to get books for our next paper. (Mine is about the role of literature in the abolition movement.) I returned to the Vines and watched the last hour or so of the BBC "Pride and Prejudice." Later that night I got talked into watching Planet Earth, which was excellent. I finally went to bed around eight and slept soundly until about eight in the morning! At the moment I'm feeling a little bit sick, but hopefully it will blow over soon. I'm splitting up the evening researching and watching "Amazing Grace," compliments of youtube. On Thursday we will all be heading to Bath. Hopefully, this Saturday I will join a small group and go to London for the day and see some things I didn't see last time, namely Westminster Abbey and Tate Modern.

Now, for a brief summary of the Hampton Court excursion. Hampton Court began its existence a long time ago, but it is most famously known as one of Henry VIII's palaces. Before it became Henry's, it belonged to Cardinal Woolsey, who had the misfortune of being unable to get Henry a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Due to this, he fell out of favor with Henry and was forced to give up his lovely home. I don't have time to go into the fascinating history of Hampton Court, but do google it sometime. Basically, we spent the day wandering around, taking pictures, and looking for ghosts. (Rumor has it there are a few ghosts lingering in the palace, one of them being one of Henry's wives that he had beheaded.) Courtney and I bought some grapes that are grown there and felt very distinguished as we ate the "historic" grapes. I will load some pictures sometime soon so you can see what it looks like. In the meantime, I must return to my research.