Babe's cuter little cousin...

Somehow I came across a site about Royal Dandies Mini Pet Pigs. So cute!

Enjoy :)

Pre-Oxford

"'I'm something of a cheese connoisseur. I do enjoy a stinky cheese. A pungent, ghastly, stinky piece of cheese!' Of course, anything sounds brilliant when said in such a remarkable British accent - but I digress."
~The Travelocity Traveling Gnome

Before I leave, I thought I would give a little background into my semester abroad. This is as much for your information as it is for my packing procrastination. (Pack three and a half months worth of clothes and other necessities into two suitcases? Yeah, right!)

I've always wanted to study at Oxford, ever since I was very young. I didn't know much else of what I wanted to do when I grew up but I knew that Oxford was the best University in the world and that I wanted to be there. Fast forward to last fall when I was getting ready to study in Cheltenham and suddenly realized that they didn't have any classes I wanted to take. After I couldn't physically produce more tears I realized that it was certainly a blessing in disguise.

I quickly decided that I would apply for Oxford and I was certain that if I didn't get accepted my life would be ruined, or at least very boring. The program I'll be traveling with is through Best Semester and runs from Sept 4-Dec 13.

I'll be taking two general courses: a British Landscape course, a history seminar; and then two tutorials: Nobility & Gentry in England 1550-1660, and Special Authors: Jane Austen. The latter two don't start until October, which is really good since I haven't finished all my pre-term readings. Yet, despite the mountains of reading, I'm more than excited for my two tutorials which will hopefully be the jumpstart to my Senior Thesis.

I'm completely ready for this new experience and prepared for what God has in store for me this semester. I know that it's a lot.

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I leave September 4th for my first flight by myself. I'll be flying from Albany to Philly (1 hr) and then from Philly out to Heathrow (8 hrs). I have a decent layover in Philly and I arrive at 11:00am (BST) so *hopefully* it will just be like sleeping in really late. Since I'm not too keen on planes to begin with, I'd appreciate any prayers :) 

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In a last attempt to make this first blog post interesting, I should probably explain my "Wandering Gnome" idea.

As some of you may know, this past Halloween I dressed up as David the Gnome which officially marked the beginning of my gnome craze. I now have a collection of garden and house gnomes.

Of course, the madness doesn't stop there. I wanted to chronicle my travels in a unique way by taking a small memento from home and photographing it everywhere I went. Since one of my best friends Dad's had already taken the "Traveling Rubber Chicken" idea, I felt that the only item truly representative of myself would be the gnome.

 Meet Jeffrey (kudos to my nephew Adam for the name)...

((PICTURE COMING SOON))


Seeing as the "Traveling Gnome" is taken by Travelocity, and my gnome won't necessarily go on travels, so much as he will wander throughout Oxford, the countryside and future travels (which include Cyprus, yay!), I settled on being "The Wandering Gnome."

So now, explore my blog, click on links or just go and re-read the quote at the top of the blog. You'll laugh, I promise ;)

Cheers,

Courtney

P.S.-- For those of you who are interested in contacting me (Skype, AIM, e-mail, snail mail) comment on this post or email me and I will give you more information. =)

Also, you can subscribe to my blog and receive and email every time I update. This is suggested for the truly devoted and, of course, my mom and dad.