From Kim

First, Shimer College in Oxford Blog entry- how exciting! Wanted to pass on some fun details of this term’s activities. First- I CANNOT believe I am here!!!! A forty-something career woman with crazy work, financial and familial responsibilities, who started a serious collegiate education four short years ago…..studying in OXFORD??? Solid proof that, indeed, ANYTHING is possible! I can share with you at least one impossibility, I guess….that there could be no happier person in Oxford than I. Can’t conceive of it! Although, I have caused some consternation in my neighborhood- mainly if I am insane or not, as I am always walking around with a huge smile on my face and saying, “Hello.” to everyone I meet. Still can’t believe I am here!

Second- what a truly fantastic treat to have a chance to really get to know my fellow Shimerian students here. It’s a day-to-day interaction I have missed in my Weekend Program experience, which I have truly relished here. Fantastic people, and I am honored to be able to call them my friends and Oxford family.

Third- We all went to see The Tempest in Stratford-Upon-Avon--which was a truly exciting adaptation of the work. Although there was some debate amongst us, I found the African setting absolutely fitting from a British colonial standpoint. The ending was a particularly powerful interpretation- the colonizers leave and Caliban, an elderly black man, once bent over, shackled and spiritually defeated, stands strongly upright, throwing off the cloak-of-oppression (literally), raising his arms and fists and face to the sky; once again full of honor and power that had seemingly been inherently there all along. Quite a moving elucidation.