Vist to the Oxford Castle! And much more…
Today was my first day of experience at the cbl summer academy. One piece of advice? If you’re thinking of applying: do it.
Since the arrival yesterday, I have had the possibility to talk to and confront myself with people from all over the world. What most shocked me was how incredibly international the attendance is! I have since then become friends with people from Switzerland, Indonesia, Palestine, the USA, Germany, Spain, Australia, China and many more!
I gained a lot from the possibility to confront myself with people from other cultures. It is interesting and mind opening to realize that not all cultures think of things the same way. Something you give for granted can be perceived very differently. I am half jewish and found myself discussing Israel and Palestine with a girl from there. This allowed me to learn a lot of aspects of the conflict I didn’t know about, giving me the more information to consider when taking a position.
Breakfast started at 8 o clock and to my surprise, the food was quite good. Somehow I just didn’t think I would be able to eat eggs and sausage for breakfast, but ended up enjoying it! What is great about mealtimes is that people from the different electives have a chance to talk to each other and spend time together.
We visited Oxford before breakfast and were shown where we could find the places we may need. It is a very nice small town with beautiful architecture and if you want, you can buy Oxford and Harry Potter sweatshirts in many places. I haven’t gotten around to that yet, but as soon as I have free time I’m definitely getting one of each.
Talking about Harry Potter, we then went on the Harry Potter tour in Oxford. I love Harry Potter! It was both my childhood and adolescence together, so seeing sites from the movies such as the tree where Malfoy was transformed into a ferret was very exciting. All the walking around was very tiring and I was very happy when we got back to camp and sat down to take a class on how to write personal statements.
Personal statements are a curious thing to me. Italy has a very non-competitive system and they don’t exist there, so I was very worried about having to write one to apply and not having a clue about how it should be done. That is why I was very happy to receive guidelines, it also boosted my confidence and I feel less worried about having to submit one in a few months. I now have to write one for tomorrow morning, we get homework here too!
All in all it was a nice day and the welcome party in the evening closed it nicely, though it got off to a rough start. Initially no one wanted to attend, but soccer sorted that out (until we got scolded by the porters for playing on campus since it isn’t allowed). Fun day, but very tiring. I’m happy to go to bed and looking forward to tomorrow.