Straight into the deep end...

Two days after I got back to Oxford - giving me about enough time to haul my boxes out of storage and get myself vaguely settled in - I had a meeting with my supervisor. He's asked me to produce a bibliography and an outline (including a hypothesis, which I hadn't quite managed to put into words... I mean, he also had a very specific idea of the direction he wants me to take, and that was a direction I hadn't really thought of focusing on. Not that I'm complaining - that's what a supervisor is for. However, I do think that a change in direction does excuse one from having a hypothesis immediately to hand! ;) ), gave me a strict deadline, and off I went.

Somehow, somewhere between talking to him and sitting down to start my literature searches, I interpreted that bibliography as "everything you will be reading for your thesis, complete with detailed notes on each source". Of course, I knew intellectually that this wasn't what was expected, but it did cause me to panic a little.

Which is probably a good thing!

Anyway, having done a whole lot of random searches, come up with quite a lot of semi-relevant sources and a few very relevant ones, I've now got another four or five days to do a few more-refined searches, finish writing my outline and email it all to him.

Oh, I've even started writing the outline.

I'm actually feeling rather disciplined about this!

As a result of which, I've clearly decided to write a blog post.

I'm really enjoying being back in Oxford. For a couple of days, I did feel a bit like a ghost: my feet knew where everything was, but it would take me half a minute or so to remember street and building names. It was also a bit odd to constantly remember that I wouldn't be bumping into many of the people that I know from here, even though I wasn't expecting to see them. And while I have seen a fair few people that I know, and I've been making new friends, it's still slightly odd to meet people from college or the faculty who have been here for a year and have that whole conversation about how I'm not a fresher, but no, they don't know me... Oh, and no, I wasn't just hiding under a rock for the first few weeks of term...

I've also fallen into my default state (in England) of not being able to work out whether Oxford-type English accents are English or Australian, because they sound so familiar. It's not that I've forgotten what an Australian accent sounds like, because I know instantly when I hear an Australian accent that that's what it is. It's just that it takes me a moment to convince myself that the English accents I'm hearing really are English, because something in my brain appears to process "normal" as "therefore Australian", even when I really know those two things aren't synonymous. It's a bit like my brain processing "sun in that direction" as "therefore north", even though I know that's not the case in this hemisphere!

Anyway, I got back just in time for some autumn colours, although I didn't get a pic of the ivy in my college's front quad before all the leaves fell. That's ok, I have pictures from last time. Oh, plus we've actually had quite a few nice, sunny days (my entire first week was sunny).

I was going to wait to post pics until I could show my room, but nobody will be surprised to know it's not in the best of states right now. I'm working on it! Or I will be, once I get this bibliography and outline done...

In the meantime, you will have to settle for some other random pics.

The view out my window (no, it's not very exciting, but it is south-facing!):



Wellington Square (how English does this shot look?):



Bicyle and ivy outside Somerville: