Gone, like yesterday is..

Staying up late laughing is pretty much the best thing ever.. until you feel it in the morning. I don't know WHAT the game was called, but last night, a group of us played in the common room of House 9 until 2 am. Trust me, it was that good. The basic idea is, everyone competes to create the best caption for a one-paneled cartoon. Pure genius. And THAT, my friends, is what happily replaced my blog-writing session last night.

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. The sun came out for the first time since we've been in England, and it was like a completely different city! Church at St Aldates was really cool, although the speaker was quite long-winded. The building was really neat fusion of old-style architecture with airy, arched ceilings along with contemporary glass walls composing the entry area. When church first started, it threw me for a loop - it had so many similarities to Kingdom Life (the church I attend in Abilene) that I felt like I was sitting in on the service of its English clone. During worship, everything just.. fell into place. Here I was: safe, living in England for a semester, praising my Lord, with so many opportunities ahead of me. Each little process that brought me here was executed perfectly. My life has been prepared so that this experience will bring me..experience. God has blessed me extravagantly, and the feeling that I was still at home in a worship service in Oxford really spoke loudly to me about how pervasive the hope is that salvation brings. Just wow.

Really, how could my day be bad at all after that? We found a cute pub, The Four Candles, and a little group of girls went shopping together. Primark, the cheap British version of Forever 21, (I know, you're salivating) is fantastic. We also found this indoor/outdoor market. My favorites were the flower shop (daffodils for my kitchen for one pound?!) and Ben's Cookies, which I had today. Ooohh. I paid my very first visit to Ali's Kebab Van, which is cheap and good, but I ordered the wrong thing. I'm giving it another go round this week. Both houses combined for our weekly Sunday 9 @ 9 worship, and then the aforementioned cartoon caption game began. Some of the funniest three hours ever.


Today was the first day of classes, which for me is just one: Humanities. In previous experience, I have loathed History with every ounce of my being, but this class is legitimately interesting. And we're reading Jane Austen's 'Persuasion', so at least I have an excuse to read a book by a renowned author. My roommate Katie and I cooked up some spaghetti and tomato sauce, sauteed vegetables, and bread for dinner with the rest of our floor-mates. Delicious. After I finish this, I'm considering getting ahead on required class reading. Votes?

What I'm most excited about right now:
1. Trying out Thursday night college group with St Aldates church, which means meeting British people and other study-abroaders! Love it.
2. Our group trip to London in about a week and a half. I think we're all going to stay the weekend.. and I might get to see Wicked! Yeah for discounted group rates :]
3. Our SingSong act. I cannot get over how hilarious our Study Abroad crew is.

All my love.