Well, the end of the first term has come and gone. It was remarkably fast, but overall I feel really, really good about it. I got some really good feedback about my essay for my cultural heritage management class, and going into the summative essays I felt very confident that I could rock them.
I don't know if I've explained before, but the archaeology department does grading and feedback in a very different manner from American universities. Around week 4, you turn in a formative essay, which is 'graded' and returned with lots of feedback, and you meet with your professors (or tutors as they're sometimes called), to talk about what you did right, what you did wrong, and what you need to change to do better on the summative essay. Formative essays, though, don't actually count toward your final grade. It's just practice. Which is nice, especially when you are coming to a whole new field as I am. The thing about good writing is knowing your audience, and what they're looking for. History writing and archaeology writing are actually two very different beasts. A lot of the conventions found in archaeology writing I would consider lazy writing in history, but it's really all about what you're used to seeing. So as you can imagine, there was a bit of a ... learning curve when it came to my essay for buildings archaeology. But now that I've got the conventions down, I think I'll do much better on my summative essay.

Which is the whole point, of course. Our summative essays count for 10% of our master's grade, which can seem intimidating, but to be honest, I didn't even think about it. If you get caught up in worrying about grades and making every single word perfect, you'll never write anything. So I just sit down to write the best essay I can, don't really worry about grades at all, and focus instead on what the class is about and how I can best exemplify that in my writing. (And it's worked pretty well, so far.)

So yesterday, essays were due at 12, and we hit the pubs at 12:30. It was really nice to see everyone not totally stressed out by school, and to chat and catch up with people you had assumed were missing or dead. We didn't end up leaving the pub until at 7, and we made our way to Constantine House where we mulled some wine and popped in A Muppet Christmas Carol. It was utterly lovely.

Tomorrow, my floormate Mimi and I are going down to London for about 5 days, where we will be touristy and ridiculous and I cannot wait. The most exciting part is that we're going to St. Paul's for evensong (at 3:15...explain that one to me) and then! then! We're going to Stick and Bowl for Chinese that I've been dying for since I left this wondrous land almost 3 years ago now. (And yes, I double checked to make sure they still exist. They do.) After Chinese we're going to pop into the pub where I spend an inordinate amount of time as a young, fresh faced undergrad living in a world not my own. It will be nice to go back.

I probably won't have a chance to update before the holidays begin, so let me just take a second to wish you all a very merry, happy, peaceful non-denominational winter holiday! Even though I'm so far away from you all, I think of you constantly, and am very blessed to have you in my life.
xoxox