Right, it’s the Tuesday of my second week at Oxford, I’m starting to get into the swing of things, and I am so happy here.
It is an absolutely beautiful place, of course. Just being here turns running down the street to the bank into a minor romance; because the cobblestones are old and rough and uneven beneath your feet. They prompt my heart to leap as I turn into Trinity, and in the sunshine even the cold autumn air is something to be tasted and savoured, the sensation of a chilled nose tip to be pressed against my arm and enjoyed. The streets are for walking down in a brown dress and red tights; the air is for interrupting with an improvised tune. Oxford makes me want to sing and hop and run with delight.
I don’t think this magic will ever fade for me. As I wake up and watch the sun rise over Balliol from my bedroom window – as I tromp down the High Street to lectures in Examination Schools – as I wander into the Union for a debate – as I give a little squeak of joy at my first (and second) sighting of a compact brown-grey squirrel (possibly the only creature to walk with impunity on Trinity lawns) –
Oxford is sombre, atmospheric; her reality is everything I dreamed of and so much better.
Being in Trinity is a huge part of that, really. I can’t wait for Trinity term in the spring, now in Michaelmas all the lawns and flowers are being re-dug or some other gardening term. I know it’s so that they’ll flower better come Trinity term. It’ll be glorious. Trinity’s lawns are the stuff of postcards and TV series.
And the food! The food! Forget every single stereotype about lousy college food. Also forget tempting saints; saints are for wimps. The food at Trinity would tempt God himself. Formal Hall requires us to wear academic gowns (I look a bit stupid) but for less than four pounds you get a three-course meal that is easily the equal and probably the better of a lot of restaurants. The other day I had fried Brie with cranberry sauce, steak with green peas and potatoes, and black forest gateau. Words fail me, they really do. You have to bite it. At self-service lunch, you get things like turkey escalope with mushroom sauce… like poached salmon with cream… like chicken wings with garlic and Thai sweet chilli… rice is always available on the side… the brownies and apple crumble are to die for… Trinity is essentially providing me with some of the best meals I’ve ever had… and while multiplying by 2.4 always breaks my scholarship-student heart, it’s ridiculously cheap prices.
The work is challenging, yes, and I know that the tutors really haven’t hit us hard with everything yet, but I’m enjoying myself and I have promised myself to continue enjoying it. I am keeping up with the math in economics, and my tutor is an awesome, if slightly scary man. I am horrendously rusty at essay writing but I know I can do it anyway; it’s only a matter of getting back into the right frame of mind. I am anticipating formal logic and learning it and I hope to do well at it, because I do think it’s an immensely sexy discipline. My philosophy tutor Edward Kanterian is absolutely quintessential – he shares a study with fellow philosopher Mike Inwood and they just have piles and piles and stacks and stacks and shelves and shelves of books. Old books new books falling apart books haphazard books. They also have crumbs on the sofa and a used teabag on the floor, so there you have it. I also love picking up random books in Oxfam, and I could die of happiness in Blackwell’s.(I hope to keep my room relatively tidier, however.)
I also feel like I’m discovering and honing bits of myself that I really like, and perhaps doing a little rediscovery here and there. There’s the fact that life here is so hugely autonomous. I have so much control over what I can do, and to my surprise I’ve turned out to be ridiculously organized. I plan the next day’s schedule the night before, down to the hour. I follow it. (Largely.) I leave myself time for work, power naps, laundry, dishes, CCAs, slack. I have so much control over the food I eat, and it turns out that I eat huge amounts of fruit and wholemeal bread, and relatively little junk. (Though Sainsbury’s does do some amazing brownie bites, and I can’t help myself from time to time…) I’ve rediscovered how excited debating makes me feel, and I’ve definitely decided to devote myself properly to it again. Truth to tell, I was more than a little tired of it after JC: our results at MIDCs were infinitely disappointing, and I just wanted to stop for a while. Being at the Union – watching the debates and attending a quick crash course in British Parliamentary style – it just woke it all up again.
And with regard to social life – haven’t found any soulmates, but I’m not the sort of person who requires very, very close friends, anyway. I get along well enough and can confidently say that I know about a quarter of my cohort, though for the other sixty people or so, I’m not even sure I know their names. I know and like a lot of the second years, who are awesome and nice and really intelligent. Some of the seniors are a bit weird as well, but it’s awesome. For the bop (college party), a senior shaved his arms and legs and went as a woman. *laughs* It was awesome. A PPE third-year also has what he calls Naked Thursdays at his flat in Woodstock Road. No prizes for guessing. First week was a bit tentative and I won’t deny that it was a bit difficult for me – coming from a different culture means you talk about different things and have different references – but I’ve settled in and found my place and feet.
How beautiful can life be?
sourdough 