left: emma right: yi xin 🙂
3 weeks studying literature in the most LIT it gets — Oxford University, of course. 
Right here, in the very same college that honed the so very clever mind of J.R.R Tolkien, Exeter College!
So what are three ASD majors doing in a literature course right? Ha ha. Expanding our horizons and establishing the holistic report that is sought after by employers across all disciplines and institutions all over the world. jk. Just because English Literature is the best subject and it’s more than you think! No it’s not just all about smoking and coming up with complicated theses with tons of jargon. Literature teaches you about life, and it is related to architecture and more ways than you can expect. Just as architecture changes as the period changes — the Baroque period, Victorian era, Post-Modern etc etc, literature changes just the same along with History. Just, for instance, post-modernist or contemporary architecture has encouraged the style of rebelling against the traditional, the past, and pushing the limits; contemporary poetry and fiction has also seen writers breaking traditional practices such as writing sonnets with a twist, crossing the rigid borders of the traditional rigid sonnet form perhaps to criticise old beliefs or just to express in ways people in the past never did.
And of course, what beats studying English Literature in the UK in an institution like Oxford, writing an essay and reading in a Bodleian library, so old, so grand, so magnificent and filled with history! Sitting on the same library seats, using the same tables that SO many great people have used. No, you don’t understand. Words can’t even begin to explain how awesome (for lack of a better word) (since I am trying to express speechlessness) being given the opportunity to study here is! Being under professors with the best expertise, tutors who are so passionate about Shakespeare they make you want to know more about Shakespeare as well. (speaking from personal experience)
So here’s a few pictures from the first few days.
Exeter College – this was the cocktail before the welcome dinner
– xin
