What it means to be in Oxford.

Dear Family and Friends,

Today was a pretty relaxed day. In fact it was optional to attend class as there were a series on lectures on the functioning of the refugees studies centre. No matter what it was i was interested in attending it. The point was that i wanted to learn more from this place. The much awaited lecture about the RSC started with the Director, Roger Zetter spoke to us about what it means to be in Oxford. They have a master's program, a D Phil program and the icing on the cake is the Summer School.

From what he said it is pretty tough to get into the Masters' program as the set the standards very high. they take only 25 students out of about 150 applicants. Moreover the students should have great references and good marks as well. Apart from all this it cost about 12000 to 15000 pounds to complete a nine month program for those India just multiply that figure by 84 and you will get the amount that it costs. But there are a few scholarships in fact they are always looking for students from the Developing World.

Had we known this earlier we could have applied well in advance when we had the age and time. the same procedures also apply to the D Phil as well. but once you get in the chances of getting funded are many. So did not sound as much as a nightmare. Listening to this made me feel that this sort of education was unreachable for ordinary people. in our parts of the world education is cheap but very few of us use it well to achieve good ends.

In fact i was thinking of my own college, the fees is comparatively cheap and students get an accommodation and food but when we organize anything after class hours it is impossible to track them. Well I know about the social burdens people come with, i guess that keeps them striving for other things apart from class room education.

The next part of the lecture was about Children and war. It was interesting see all my class mates turned up for it despite it being optional. Since the focus was on children it attracted more attention. A broad understanding of children in conflict was established. I was very familiar with the issues and was able to contribute to the issue. Some issues in the camp like early marriage, respect for elders, inter generational conflicts and economic problems were all too common all over the world.

After that interesting lecture i had a burritos for lunch. I was reminded of the lovely Burritos we had in Cockeysville. I made my own and ate and left for a walk outside. But as you may know this place has a bad weather any way. the moment i started it started to pour heavily. that did not stop me. I went to the Bodlian Library to see the very old manuscripts. I was paying attention to the mostly hand written literature that was much before the printing press. Stopping at every rack, i stumbled upon a palm leaf manuscript. I found that it was written in Tamil. But the description said that it was a common prayer book translated into malabaric. I took a closer look at it and found that i could read many alphabets and understand a few words as well. Then I learnt that it was Tamil for sure.

While i was about to leave the place i went to the curator staff and told them about my observation. He immediately got a piece of paper out and made a not of it and said, I shall let the authorities know about this. He greatly appreciated my contribution i was happy to do a bit. What i appreciated was his open mindedness to take that comment from me.

The next stop was at the History of Science museum. A place i would like to spend a whole week. They had so many astrolabes(things like sun dials) they were instruments that were used in astronomy. I realized that so much effort has been put in to understanding the earth and that universe. All the instruments were about 800 years old. I saw the first camera, the medical instruments that were used in conducting postmortems and also got to see some of the Chinese science developments. Here it was great to learn that the Jesuits were pioneers in taking mathematical equations to china. They taught the Chinese maths and also got them converted to Christianity. many of the exhibits openly acknowledge the role of the Jesuits in the social and scientific contributions.
Well after all that i went for a rain walk along the Broad street, high street, Magdalen street and so on though all this sounds long, all of it came to an end at about 6:30 since i had to get ready for the party at 8:00