Hello everyone! In this article, i will be summarizing day 2 of my experience at the school trip to Oxford.

Contributing to Science

Waking up and breakfast

First of all, I realized when going to sleep that I left my retainer at home. I guess I subconsciously wanted the full British experience of poor dental care (they've made so many jokes about British dental care. So I do not feel bad for that).

My roomate and I both woke up around 8:15am. He showered first, and said I should try taking a cold shower (because of how hot the room is without AC). I showered with the shower on the coldest setting, and it was quite refreshing.

For breakfast, we had sausage, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. We were all much more awake and alert than we'd been the day before.

Meeting the school's headmaster

At our first session at 10:30am, the school's headmaster told us about the history of the school/church. The school started using this building in the 80's. From what I understood/remember, the building was built as a result of the Oxford movement in the 1860s as a monastery for monks to live in. I was surprised by that because that means my church has been around longer than this one. The original founder wanted the building to be "the ugliest building in Oxford" and asked the architect to make it that way, but when he left someone else commissioned the church part of the building and hired one of the best architects in the country to make it. Which is why it is so big and beautiful. In the 1920s, the originally blank white walls were decorated with paintings depicting the crucifixion (as is often the case in catholic sanctuaries).

Each painting has the names of soldiers who died in World War 1 under it, and is in memory of them. I found this to be very interesting because I had not considered before that both of the World Wars heavily and directly impacted these communities. It shouldnt surprise me to find such a memorial, but it was very cool to see.

Getting Water from Town

Between sessions, I walked to a store I saw the other day to look for water bottles. Upon arrival, I needed to use the bathroom and the store didn't have one. The new mission became finding a bathroom. I checked basically every store on the block - including the kitchen and bathroom store. I've never seen someone look as me as dumbfounded as the guy in that store, but I found it ironic that they are selling bathrooms and don't even have one available for a test run. So I sprinted back to the school thinking the whole way that this is probably why the streets of San Francisco and other cities are filled with human waste. I later went back to buy water, and they only had HUGE bottles. When I say huge, I mean huge. Like bigger than two water bottles in America.

Meeting the scientists

Right before lunch, we had a brief session with some neuroscientists from Oxford University. They explained to us how the brain works and some more information about an experiment/demonstration they needed us for in the afternoon. I was fascinated by this considering what I've been learning about neural networks.

I'm not allowed to go into further detail about what they discussed with us or what the experiment was because it is coming out on their YouTube channel soon and we were asked not to. I will say that I literally talked about tjis idea with @remlaps a few months ago based on my experience with choir and neural networks so I was so excited to share it, but I must wait to respect the team and their work. You can bet I'll be posting an article ablut their video when it comes out though.

Lunch

For lunch, we had some kind of food that I think was called Pork Coleslaw. It was alright. I really think my ability to socialize is decaying. I have had so many awkward conversations and experiences on this trip. I swear I used to be better at interacting with people.

The Experiment

After lunch, we did the experiment for the scientists. Though I'm not sure as to whether it was an experiment or a demonstration. Anyway, while I can't give away detail about the experiment, I can talk about what it was like filming it. They brought in really fancy cameras and audio gear. Everytime a plane flew overhead, we had to wait because the audio gear was so sensitive it was picking it up. There was also a really funny bird that kept loudly HONKING and it was faintly audible when we were quiet. It caused some laughter for us all because we would finish a take and there would just be silennce; then you'd hear Sil the seagull just honking his lungs out. It took about an hour or so to get what the team needed done. It wasn't easy, but I was surprised by how fast we managed to do it.

We sang this piece for the experiment:

A break

After that we were given some time so the film crew could clean up. I watched YouTube videos about working with imbalanced datasets in classification problems.

The conductor's sessions

Around 4:30pm it came time for each of the conductors to work with their choirs. My choir went to the chapel and worked with our 7 conductors. I feel very honored to be hear because I am learning a lot about conducting just watching the participants in the program get feedback from my director and the head of the program here at Oxford. If ever I need to conduct, I'll be slightly less deficient at it. Though God only knows that bodily motion and me do not go well together.

The change in the conductors from the first run to the end of their session was quite apparent. It was very cool to observe. The choir's only job is to respond to what they do.

Dinner

For dinner, we were on our own, and ny friends and I went to a place called wok 'n' pasta. I spent about 16 dollaes and got pasta with meatballs, mushrooms, corn, broccoli, and red sauce.

Learning Chant

At our last session of the day we were taught to read the old chant notation by the director of the program. It was surprisingly intuitive and easy to pick up. I had always feared chant notation, and now I understand it. We sang through a bunch of different chants, and in the room I could see why this was the church's choice of music for so long. It is very beautiful, but also allows the text to be more prominent than the music.

Going Out

After that, we went out to a bar. I ordered a coke, and everyone else ordered weird drinks I'd never heard of. Almost everyone in the program came to that bar. When that bar closed (around 11pm) we decided to go to a different bar, but that one was loud. So when I finished my coke, I walked home.

On the way home, I got incredibly lost. I walked for about 15 minutes and realized when the sidewalk ended I was in the wrong place. Aling the street was a restaurant called "Philly's burgers". I thought to myself challenge accepted and walked in through the door that was propped open. The guy at the counter told me they were closed. I don't know why the door was open, but I intend to go back to see how Philly their burgers are.

I was very scared of getting mugged on the way home using the gps. Luckily I wasn't. I made eye contact with anyone I saw to make them aware that I was aware of my surroundings.

Reading Sherlock Holmes

When I got home, I read from the book of all the Sherlock Holmes stories I brought. I decided it was fitting to read Sherlock Holmes while I'm in England. Since I was alone I practiced reading out loud in a British accent. I still suck at speaking with a British accent.

Going out again

My roomate came home at 12:30am and said everyone was going to KFC and asked if I wanted to go. So I got ready to go out again.

While we were waiting in the lobby, a girl said "I'm so drunk. Don't ask me any questions guys, I'll probably tell the truth." So I jokingly asked "What's your social security number?" No one laughed. I think people who don't know me don't understand when I'm being sarcastic.

We went to KFC and it was closed. That was really funny because the drunk people reassured me it was open until 2am. Two guys next to the restaurant told us about a place that was open. It was a kebak place, and even though I had kebak in Germany, I forgot what it was until after I'd ordered a burger. I have a feeling this place wasn't as good as the place I went in Germany anyway.

The burger was kind of alright. It was about what I'd expect from a place open so late in England. When we finished, we went back home to go to sleep. On the way, two of the guys started singing this fugue which makes fun of Borris Johnson. I was nervous about how the British people on the street would feel about that, but they reassured me that the British don't like Borris Johnson. I'll be honest, I barely keep up with American politics. So British politics are the least of my concerns.

Anyway, I went to sleep around 2am.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this! Have a nice day everyone!