"I Survived Week One at Oxford"

Today concludes week one of the Hilary Term. I am happy to report that I survived my first two tutorials. My Holocaust tutorial was Friday, and I was extremely nervous about what my tutor was going to say about my essay addressing whether or not Hitler was "an accident." He said that it was a very well-written paper, and that he couldn't really offer any suggestions on how to improve it. Whew! That made me feel much better, and the hour-long session went very smoothly.

This morning, I met with my Political Philosophy tutor, who I was even more nervous about seeing because he seemed a little intimidating when I met him last week. I woke up before my alarm and trudged the hour-plus route to his house (so as not to get lost again and miss my tutorial). It was a nice walk, and it woke me up before our meeting. He kind of quizzed me about what I had read (Hobbes' Leviathan): what the historical period was like, what he thought about the nature of man, what his political virtue was, etc. I felt pretty confident in my answers and even brought up some of my own thoughts about what Hobbes might think of our nation's Congress (He would absolutely hate it). We didn't even address my paper; I just left it for him on the way out. Once again, I thought I had a successful tutorial. AND I took the short cut on the way home and didn't get lost. Hooray for me!

Last night, some of us went to the Oxford Union for a forum on women in politics. There were women representing Pakistan, Wales, and the U.S. to share their thoughts on why and how women are marginalized in government, as well as how to overcome it. The 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling were mentioned on several occassions by our American friend, who worked for former President Clinton's administration and was probably hit on at some point (She was very pretty and started working for him when she was 20). My favorite moment of the night was when the woman from Wales ended her speech with something to the effect of, "You don't need a penis to succeed in politics, but you definitely need a lot of balls." Words to live by.