Brilliance

These are the moments where you find out who you are, take chances, and learn the lessons that will stay with you for the rest of your life. If you don't question the norm or put yourself out there, there is no chance that you will ever come close to the person that you are supposed to be. These are the things that I've always known, but being here has given me a greater perspective on them. I don't want to stay in my comfort zone for that is only a restraint that you force upon yourself. When you put yourself out there, that is when you learn the greatest lessons. If you don't jump off of that edge every once and a while, then how can you know how far you can go?

This past weekend I had the chance to travel to Oxford with people from my University. It was the most amazing experience. There was first a walking tour of the city that included going around to all of the colleges of Oxford University. Oxford is the oldest university in England, so there was a lot of history. There are a total of 38 colleges and to apply to the school you must apply to the university itself as well as a chosen college.



The architecture in the city is absolutely stunning. It happened that the Saturday we were visiting, was a day of graduation ceremonies or what not. So all around the city were students dressed in their robes. It was very interesting to see, and to imagine the genius of those individuals. One of the first buildings we look at was the Bodleian library. Underground houses 130 miles of books, and the university had just build another 130 miles of bookshelves. We were told that they would be filled within the next 50 years. The library holds a policy where they are entitled to receive a copy of every book that is published in the UK. I'm not sure how one summons a book, but at the moment they are in the midst of the daunting task of digitalizing the entire library.



The thing about Oxford is that it has housed some of the most brilliant minds that have produced everything from world-famous books, to aspirin, to discovering the pattern to Halley's comet. As a student of Oxford you get much one-on-one time with tutors, which compared to lectures where there are more than a hundred students in a room, no wonder out of the entire University last year everyone but one student passed their course. Sucks to be that one student huh?

After the walking tour, we were able to actually go inside and see one of the colleges- Christ's Church. This is where they have filmed parts of the Harry Potter films. The college was stunningly beautiful, especially on a sunny day like we had.


Can you imagine living and studying on a campus like this??

This is the dining hall. In the picture below can you guess which is Harry Potter's butt-print?




My friend Amanda and I decided to depart from our class and forgo the ride home. We wanted to stay the night in Oxford and experience more of the city. This was the best of ideas I must say. There is a covered market place that has every kind of store you could think of. There were stands selling fresh fish, meat, and game.



Hope you don't think this picture is 'fowl'. haha get it?

There was also this great bakery that had the most beautiful cakes. I got a cupcake and Amanda got this great mini cake that had 'breakfast beans' on top. For those who don't know, a full-english breakfast consists of eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and baked beans. The beans on the cake were just sugar of course, otherwise it might have been gross. That night we went to dinner at a famous pub called The Eagle and Child. This place is known for housing the meetings of great writers such as C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien. They called themselves "the Inklings" and would discuss their latest works over pints of beer. The food was delicious, and the atmosphere even better





This was a letter written and signed by 'the Inklings' to the bartender, sorry for the bad quality of photo.

With happy stomachs full of food and beer, we moved on to another pub. Here we enjoyed a Guiness and people watched. We saw some pretty hilarious things. Then we moved on to another bar, where we sat outside under heat lamps and came up with some brilliant ideas of our own.

The next day we went browsing through the city, looking at an array of shops. We stopped in this great antique shop that had an amazing selection of items. They had shelves and shelves of jewelry, artifacts, books, and more. I purchased a hard bound copy of 'The Great Gatsby' and the complete works of Lewis Carroll with the illustrations by John Tenniel. I guess I was inspired, for Christ's Church is where Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll wrote "Alice in Wonderland". I also found this great vintage watch. It has a working battery and everything...!

I left Oxford mid-afternoon on the train and headed straight into London where I was meeting some people to go to the Gauguin exhibit in the Tate Modern. It was an amazing collection of his work, I wasn't even aware he did so much printmaking.
Gauguin is an amazing colorist, and I found myself being able to stare at one painting for what seemed like ages just trying to decipher the colors that he put into the work. When I finally got home, I was ridiculously excited to go to bed.

This was such an inspiring whirlwind of a weekend.


"Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos."


**i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)