Wild Horses Adventure, Hockey, and Volunteering!

The week of February 15th to 21st, Sunday to Saturday, I only had one class to attend and that was Monday afternoon, so I filled up my time with reading and going to do some fun stuff! Before we get to all of that, on Saturday February 14th I volunteered at the Ashmolean Museum for the first time. What I volunteer at the Ashmolean doing at least one saturday a month is that I do coin handling. This is an opportunity for visitors to the museum to come hold real historic coins. The oldest one that was out in my session was from Alexander the Great, who ruled from 336 - 323 BC.

Alexander the Great 

 



Back to the week of the 15th to 21st. That week, as I said was quite empty of classes, so on tuesday I decided to go on a little adventure to a nearby meadow called Port Meadow because there were supposed to be horses in it. The meadow was about 30 minutes from my room. I had to venture into a part of town I didn't really know, but I found the Oxford University Press headquarters which was pretty grand. I didn't really stop and look at much because it was mostly a residential area. It wasn't an area you would expect to find a huge green meadow. I started to wonder if I got lost or not because I was on this road that seemed to be in the middle of the these houses, when all the buildings seem to suddenly end. There was a bridge over the train tracks and on the other side was the meadow. It was so pretty and expansive! Once I got into the meadow I started wandering around looking for the horses and just admiring my surroundings. Sadly it had recently rained so there was a big pond in the field with streams coming out of it that were to deep and wide for me to cross, so I had to stay on the south side of the field. I want to go back sometime and wander about the north half, but to get to that entrance was another hour and a half walk and I just wasn't up to it. I didn't end up seeing any horses, I think they were farther north, but I was still glad I went because it was a lovely walk and a nice non-rainy day, which is rare here!

Oxford University Press

Port Meadow is actually a combination of three different meadows!

It was a pretty windy day!

 

The following day, Wednesday, I volunteered in the afternoon at the Ashmolean again, but this time I helped with crafts for children. That week was half-term, or spring break, so all the museums had activities on. The activity I helped with had the children making paper fob-watches they could decorate. I would show you mine, but it was taken away as an example and I never got it back. I can assure you that it was wonderful and covered in stars! Any person would have been glad to have it!

Thursday was pretty uneventful. I had a meeting for a video project that hopefully I'll be able to link you to soon, but until then there's nothing really exciting relating to that. Friday on the other hand was fun! I went skating for the first time in seven years and I played hockey for the first time in my life! I can proudly say I only fell three times, but my team came in last in the tournament with -11 points. Every team we played scored at least two points against us while we didn't get one. Oh well! The goal was to have fun and we accomplished that! Two weeks later I still have bruises on my knees, but they're almost gone now. The only pictures I have from that is a picture of the rink and my feet in the skates because I wanted to focus on making sure I didn't hurt myself to much and not on protecting my phone.  The thing about this hockey tournament is that it started at midnight! I never stay up that late! My team got to leave at 3am because we didn't make it to the semi-finals. It was a good time to leave because by then I was really tired and my feet hurt!

That weekend was spent recovering from hockey and not much else!

The following week, the 22nd to the 28th, was much less eventful overall. Tuesday was probably one of the highlights of my week because I got to see, handle, and take apart the astrolabe I'm going to work on! I'll have a special blog for that starting next week or so because it'll be much more technical, but I'll be updating this one with more fun things I find relating to it!

Here's one side of it not put together.

On Wednesday I got to go to my first formal dinner at another college! My friend David, who goes to Merton college, invited Sihong and I to go have dinner. The cake we had for dessert was delicious! It was a chocolate and peanut butter cake and pretty much tasted like a giant Reese's Peanut Butter Cup! Friday was my college's MCR night and this time David came as my guest. The theme was 'The World' and they encouraged people to dress up in clothes from their country. Sadly, I had left all of my plaid lumberjack outfits at home, so I just wore a pretty dress instead and my astrolabe earrings. I thought I was being clever with the astrolabe earrings because astrolabes are supposed to represent the universe in a flat form. I bought myself a new dress and felt really pretty for the first time in a while. My hair is also long enough that I can put it into a bun. Trevor, over FaceTime, helped me make sure my bun looked good because I had no way to see. The whole outfit together made me think of a Jane Austen movie!

On the Saturday I volunteered doing coin handling again, but this time I was by myself which was a little intimidating, but I got through it alright.

This week, March 1st to 7th, is now half way done! My birthday is also fast approaching! So far this week I have been doing a lot of work related to the museum exhibition I'm apart of. If you want to learn more about that we also have a blog for that http://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/fortheloveofit/ There are so many blogs on the go now that I don't know how to handle it! I might have to make a blog post dedicated to the exhibit once it's up at the end of April.

That's all for now! Hopefully I start to make this more regular, but I promise nothing!