OXFORD REMINDS ME of a very old person. It's wise and witty and full of great stories, but also possessed of creaky joints and prolific nose hair.

This place is straight out of Harry Potter (or the other way around). We have castles, cathedrals, myths, ancient traditions. You name it: robes, great halls, secret passages, chocolate frogs, gargoyles, ghost stories, common rooms, St. Mungo. So much of my day-to-day life feels like it's taken from a fantasy book. Instead of the houses of Harry Potter, we have colleges, which are not academically oriented, but the places where you live, eat and hang out. Magdalen, my college, is the equivalent of Gryffindor. It is one of the oldest colleges at Oxford and has the largest land holdings - several square miles, and we even have a deer park.

I'm working hard on my Ph.D. and trying to make the most of my time here. I'm busy with my classes, my research in string theory and my tutoring (lecturing) at various Oxford colleges (with names like Exeter, Brasenose and Lady Margaret Hall). Unlike the large lecture classes at public universities in the United States, we receive the bulk of our instruction in small group meetings called tutorials.

I'm teaching tutorials in "maths" and physics -from first-year undergrad to first-year grad level in an environment that has remained unchanged for centuries. There are tapestries on the walls and cooing doves on the window sills. On display in my college are the bed slippers of William of Wayneflete, Bishop of Winchester who founded the college in 1448, and the big, fluffy white wig of a 17th-century Oxford president.

Other aspects of my life include practicing Aikido, playing the violin and involvement with student government, the Magdalen rowing and soccer teams, and giving volunteer "physics-is-cool" talks at the university and local schools. During Spring Break I was shipped off by my department to attend a two-week school in theoretical physics in northern Italy, and this fall I went to South Africa as a member of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Conference on Physics and Sustainable Development. more