Week 1 Done

Finished my firstest paper for this morning's tutorial. Analyzed a selection of 18th century sources and discussed whether politeness can be described as an external code of conduct. It didn't go to poorly -- my tutor was kind enough to say it was pretty good for a first essay, but I still found the discussion rough.* After about half an hour, my mind went blank and I would try to answer questions but would find myself incapable of completing sentences. That doesn't really leave the best impression, I've learned.

It was a relief to get the first one done with, anyway. Now I have a better idea of what the professors might be looking for and how the tutorials go. And next week I won't be detoxing from alcohol so I can drown my humiliation in red wine instead of chocolate ice cream and peanut butter. :) (OK, it wasn't really THAT bad.)

In other news, I'm finding myself feeling a bit the odd one out among my flatmates/people on the program. It's not too bad, really, but I usually do find difficulty in this sort of social situations. Strangers, I can handle. People I need to see daily? More difficult. And it looks like a SLC-organized party is going to be in our flat this weekend, so, um, that'll be fun.

In cheerier news, I got some film developed from the first week here and I'll find a way to post some of my favorites here and put a link to a Flickr page I'll create or something.

Good Shabbos, good weekend to all. Send warm socks.

*The way these tutorials work is I meet one-to-one with each of my two professors each week for about an hour, during which time I read aloud the approximately 2000-word paper I've written during the preceding week. The next 35-45 minutes are spent discussing the topic, the merits and faults of the paper, and maybe a few minutes on the net week's paper. So it's about an hour spent on tearing apart a week's work. :)