Finals and finality

My life. Since March.

Seeing as a detailed summary would be impossible, I've decided that what would be most accurate is a series of photos with extended captions, You add the rest.

Revision strikes :( although note the phone in the HelloKitty phone sock, that managed to break a month before exams, just to add to the already tense atmospherics. 

Don't want to think about the number of hours, from April until the beginning of June, that I spent in silence, and alone. I kept myself sane by doing some volunteering (including residential events) with the University's Widening Participation scheme, as well as trying to keep up with friends. I deliberately avoided any timetabled commitments, but in retrospect perhaps this would have been a good idea. It's alarming how much some people retreated into themselves during exams, to the point where having a conversation which didn't concern exams became difficult, as did they whenever exams were mentioned. This made life, well...difficult at times.

My escape to the....grey English seaside. 

I went to the coast to see my Dad for a much needed week in the countryside. This photo was taken during the Easter Vacation and captures the weather in all its glory. To be fair, walking along the pier was refreshing, at least.

Goodbye to a good room!

My noticeboard display, in particular the chain of photo memories made for me for my 21st, by some of my friends that I lived with. Those photos gave me a lot of comfort whilst working at my desk all day! I'd already pinned up some postcards and stuff to liven up the all-beige colour scheme of my uni room (remember at Oxford we're essentially in halls for all three years, so we're limited in what we can do to our rooms, decoration-wise).

All of the luck

Lovely view from my window, looking onto the back of a collection of strange-looking buildings. Nice cards though.

Exam carnations! 

At Oxford, it's a tradition to wear different coloured carnations to each exam. You wear them pinned to your white blouse, which students wear as part of the Sub Fusc dress code prescribed for official University exams. The first carnation, for the first exam, is white. Then it's pink carnation time until your final exam, when you finally get to wear the coveted red one!

In case you're wondering, your college children (assigned to you as first-years) buy you your carnations, just as you would have brought them for your "parents" when you were in 2nd year (most people have major exams at the end of their 3rd year). The "parent" system sounds odd, but actually it's a great way to introduce students from different years and subjects to each other, so that people feel more connected in college. My college parents were there for me in first and second year when I had questions about the year ahead, and in the same way, my college children  were another group of people that I could do fun stuff with, and receive comfort food packages from during exams!

You can say what you like about Oxford...but it'll still look this good as you're revising. This photo is of a walkway known as 'Dead man's walk' - I don't know why! Maybe the city hanging tree and gallows used to be near here?

Sorry, can't hear you over the sound of the symmetrical stripes mowed onto this lawn...did I hear "perfection"?
Back of Christchurch and Merton college, with some of Christchurch meadow in the foreground. 

Oxford, the beautiful Botanical Gardens. Free entry for Oxford students! I always made an effort to come here in the summer months, meeting friends and getting out of college. Also for the Amber Spyglass references...  

Port Meadow, slightly rugged, and definitely needed in a city as busy and tourist-flooded as Oxford in June. I went here for the first time after my exams had finished, and I literally felt as though my life had started anew. Great place to bring a book and a packet of sweets. Or to sketch the wildlife, if you're as artistic as some of my friends! 

Farewell dreaming spires! It's been cool watching you when I was supposed to be looking at books...

This photo was taken from the cupola of the Sheldonian theatre, where I'll be graduating from in about 2 weeks' time. Again, I'd never been up here before (or up the spire of St. Mary's, which I also ascended) and made the most of my student ID whilst I still good! I'd recommend it as quite a quiet place to get a good view of Oxford's spires. It's indoors, which also makes it a decent call for overcast days.

Another thing that I did for the first time after exams was to play croquet! I surprised myself by being quite good at it (well, for someone who's never played before) and decided that I liked the game, though mainly for Alice in Wonderland references and the sheer cliche of playing croquet as an Oxford student.

I left Oxford with the feeling that I was happy of everything that I'd achieved, but that I was also happy to leave. I've never been one to cling onto places (although I'm sure I'll be more nostalgic when term starts again in October) so I felt like it was my time to go. After finishing exams I had little else to do, with is a weird sensation in somewhere as work-orientated as Oxford. I'll romanticise it in years to come, no doubt, but at times Oxford could be a very challenging place to live though. However, it is that experience that has made me who I am today, and for that, among other opportunities, I am truly grateful.

Guess who's back (back again?)

Third Year, and its pros/cons

*quick note on photos, I haven't got a digital camera at the moment, so I'm waiting to finish up with my current disposable one before I can get it developed. Hence I don't own any of the photos in the following post, they have been shamefully taken from friends' Facebook pages!

Ok, so this term has been tough. There are quite a few parallels with first year, to be honest;

a) the return of the feeling that you actually have no idea what you're doing
b) the tendency to return to familiar friends/ things rather than try to find new ones (although this isn't entirely true, obviously)
c) the desire to go home and cry about how much work you have to do can be overwhelming 

Just kidding about that last point.

Well, kinda.

So I did actually find that the work/life balance was harder than it had been in 2nd year, or at least. the last half of second year, This basically has to do with the fact that I am spending more time solely on work this year, due to the fact that 100% of my degree is based on my 3rd year performance. There was also the added challenge of the fact that the day before term ended my new thesis supervisor casually informed me that I should probably be on the hunt for new primary sources, seeing as my current proposition probably wasn't steady enough to support 12,000 and original insight etc. I#m trying to tell myself that this isn't the same as starting from scratch but...it's hard to deny that it'll be a lot of work until it's handed in.

Yes, our sports field really does look like this when the sun sets. Problem?

It really is a return to first principles then, I feel like I have, in many ways, come full circle. Just as I felt like I was getting the hang of this whole uni thing, suddenly I feel like someone came along and took the bottom out of the swimming pool I was wading in.

For anyone reading this - don't be scared. The fact that I've worked the hardest I've ever worked during my final year of university is really unsurprising, It's like the fact that I'd always worked "the hardest I've ever worked" every year at school, as I went through GCSEs, AS levels, A2s etc. Although GCSEs were slightly different because there were just SO MANY exams that summer, about 25 hours in total if I remember correctly.

At least there's only 15 hours of exams next June, yay!

Christmas formal

Now for the positives, I had to get my kicks somewhere. Here are some of my highlights of the last term, so that when I look back on this post I don't think that I just spent the last eight weeks completely miserable;

> Movie nights with friends including a copious amount of sweet food. So simple. So satisfying.
> Watching The Imitation Game with flatmates, at the cinema. Yeah, I cried.
> Going to see a student performance of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (they did the same as the Golden Compass film really, covered all of the plot from Northern Lights and then half of The Subtle Knife). There was a fake snow machine and paper mache heads for the daemons. Need I say more.
> Seeing the Japanese studio Ghibli film The Wind Rises with subtitles. Shown in a lecture theatre, by good old-fashioned projection.
> College Christmas party. Chocolate fountain, photo booth and the chance to dress up whilst listening to live Christmas music.
> That time I was having a bad day and the Christmas tree was put up in the middle of the library quad (ditto the time that I was sick of work, checked my post and had received a chocolate bar from an anonymous friend - and all of the times I know for an actual fact that my friends hid chocolate in my kitchen cupboard!)
> The Christmas tree in kitchen quad that was decorated with food including lemon slices and chili peppers

NOT the food Christmas tree from my college, sadly. This is the big one outside Balliol, on Broad Street. 

I still managed to do some stuff outside of studying and having an (albeit infrequent) social life. This included a photoshoot for the new undergrad prospectus, helping to run a stall at Fresher's fair, volunteering in the museum that I know live opposite, and even a quick morning of office work for the department I often volunteer with at university.

Songs that got me through term:

Nope, definitely not a record of the latest trends, nor are they really modern classics. Just what I've found featured highly on my Youtube watch history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7T9Yd_sNMs 

John Legend - All of Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIh2xe4jnpk

MAGIC! - Rude

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNFi-nOZlAI

Kate Rusby - Village Green Preservation Society

That's all I can think of for now, I think this post is long enough. I might update again quickly after Christmas, but we'll see how it goes :)

Where She Went

I already have a link on this blog which explains my absence for the last 8 weeks (6 1/2 weeks in the U.S, and then 1 1/2 weeks recovering & generally sorting my life out...) however I think it's time I outlined everything that's happened since I last posted on here, which was, admittedly, about 4 months ago.

View of part of Keble college, from the University Parks

The main focus of my last term at university was preparing for Preliminary exams. I would write for pages about how annoying it was to have to sit my exams after term finished, and how I didn't even get a day after my exams ended just to enjoy being at university, with no exams. Yet, having got my results (I did just fine :) this seems kind of irrelevant now (I guess this is the problem of blogging everything with such a time lapse)...

I'll talk about some better things which happened last term;

- We had a garden party. There was Pimms. And croquet.
- I finally got to see Oxford in the sunshine and summertime (kind of)
- I watched the end of year rowing competition - Summer Eights
- I went out on May Day morning (along with half of Oxford) to watch the sun rise over Magdalen tower, and hear the choir sing, and watch maypole dancing
- I did a "discovery hunt" with some potential Oxford applicants, around the city centre
- I saw a performance of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice on the lake in my college
- I got elected to serve on my college's student council! (Known as the JCR, or "Junior Common Room" committee)

Provost's garden party!

Shakespeare on the lake ("Lakespeare")

So, after getting over my bitterness as I watched everyone else finish exams ahead of me, and actually enjoying being alive, I had a pretty good summer term. I should also say that after we finished our exams, there was still a chance to get silly string and various other items thrown over us, and spend a great evening chilling on the lawn by the lake. I remember going to bed towards 3am (I stayed up talking to people for what felt like a lifetime) and then having to get up at 8am, to move my stuff out by about 9 'o'clock...adrenaline does great things.

Rowing...the undoubted mother of all sports at Oxford

Trinity (the Oxford summer term which runs from April-June) should have been the most stressful part of my first year. In some respects it was, days spent revising in the library, near silent meal times before major exams, not seeing friends properly for days because they were buried in their own work routines. Yet somehow it also wasn't. Was it the weather? The range of activities and things to do in Oxford that can only be done in the summer? (Punting, croquet, walking round the University Parks, the list is endless...) I feel as though last term was the term in which I was able to make the most of physically being in Oxford as a student. I think that's down to logistics - my timetable in particular - as we were supposed to be revising for a lot of the time, we were only taught one paper, our "optional subject", and so had the flexibility to structure our days as we wanted. This is the benefit of being a History student.

As a historian, May Day morning was definitely the earliest I have ever been awake in Oxford...

The downside is that other students will hate you (just kidding, though they will envy the whole "no-lectures-before-midday" thing) or that most of your study time is extremely anti-social. You're not in labs, or scientific classes, or busy science lecture halls. You're by yourself, in a silent library, for hours at a time. But hey, you get to choose when/ if to do that, so that's a good thing, right?

116 days

Since I last wrote. Apologies. What do I have to show for those days? A few photos, (see below), some great memories and 12 assignments (well, 11 essays and 1 presentation to be precise. And I've written another essay since I've been home this vacation...that's another story!). In addition to a Neon yellow vest (for dressing as a Bumblebee) and what feels like about 10 hours sleep (across the entire 8 weeks)...

Not that I can talk now, it's the middle of the night here, and rather than genuinely get a good night's sleep, I'm updating this blog. Why? Because in the long term I'll be thankful, even if right now I'm stumbling in the half-light (don't want to wake the rest of the house up by turning on my bedroom light, which is non-energy efficient and the equivalent of a mini solar-flare) and trying to remember what I've just written, so that I don't repeat myself.

Actually, this is quite a good frame of mind to be in, I've decided. Good in the sense that this is an accurate representation of how I feel 99% of the time I'm at university. For 1% of the time, I function like a normal teenager/ student, I eat, sleep and socialise. For other 99%, I am an Oxford student. I work whilst other people sleep, I study whilst they daydream (well, I attempt to, is the point) and I (often accidentally) laugh at anyone who tells me they've done less than an essay a week (usually people I know at other universities...I don't mean to, I'm just so tired).

So last term. Went by so quickly (much quicker than the first term!) that I can already hardly remember it (this is promising for my exams...) but I found it less overwhelming and so more enjoyable. Like I was ready for the flood of work (though it still came) and I was better at locating myself (though I still took time to get lost in the architecture...you can tell I'm back in my hometown!)

It's going to be weird going back and seeing the college in a different season completely. When I left it had been snowing, and looked like the middle of winter. My life's like that though, all these snapshots in different places, different times. Seeing as I'm at home approximately 50% of the time and at university 50% of the time, I get this strange, disorientated sense of having somehow missed things in both my worlds, as though they move slightly out of sync with each other. In reality, fixed places remain the same, like rocks against the tide. It's that's changed, but I just don't feel it, like the fact that currently the earth is spinning and keeping us on it, but I can't feel it, and I doubt you can either.

So, next term. It's a longer and harder term than previously (not sure how I feel about this...) my exams are after term ends too. I have more hours of exams this year than I have for the past 2 years of A-levels. I haven't sat more than 7 hour's worth of exams since GCSE. Now I'll have to sit 12 hours of exams, probably in the timeframe of about a week or two. Fantastic.

As soon as exams end I'm hopefully going away, literally within 2 days, (ok probably 3 days, I don't have a timetable yet but it seems unlikely that even Oxford would put exams on a saturday...but hey, it's Oxford, they do what they want. I've already made travel arrangements, so the exams had best not continue into July!) for six and a half weeks. Basically, seeing as I last wrote 116 days ago, what I'm saying is, it's probably going to be over 116 days until I write again. If I'm busy now, I can only imagine what I'll be like for the duration of next term, and the weeks that follow! In 116 days from today I'll be in the middle of my vacation, and so I shall return to Blogger some time at the end of August! Time flies! A year ago last August I was still waiting for my A2 results!

Scary thought.

PS, I'm now a year older!

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

- Niccolo Machiavelli

I'm back :D

I'm back!!!

Just finished my exams! In 3 days I'm going on holiday abroad for a week with my friends, so excited! Can't believe it's all over. Considering how important these exams are, I don't think I've done quite well enough :s However, I can just pray that I scrap by...

ANYWAY, I can't think about results now, I'm free, and I need to enjoy myself for a couple of weeks, to make up for all of the stress! I've revised for hundreds of hours over the past 4 months, let alone the work I did the rest of the year, so I think I deserve a break - and now I have until September to do what I want (well, and work, because I need SOME sort of money :p).

Can't tell you how good it is to not be thinking about what I should revise next, or how long until my next break etc. AMAZING.  The collage above is a collection of images that I chose because for me they sum up all of the good parts of a holiday abroad, the relaxation, the excitement, the beautiful surroundings and of course the beach! (This is particularly significant because where I live in England I am really far from the coast, which is ironic, considering it's an island!)

I survived A-levels, and now my life awaits. Until the next stage (counting from Result's Day) I have 6 weeks, in which I can catch up with all of the things that I love, and generally just enjoy life again :')

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. (Gandhi)

It's been another long week (hence the late-night blog update!) in which I have been to the theatre twice to see Les Miserables and Trojan women. I know, cheerful stuff, right? Anyway, not much else has happened aside from the usual, except for some reason I seem to have spent a lot of time thinking about the brevity of life (ironic, surely thinking about this sort of thing defeats the purpose of living life to the full?) which may or may not have something to do with the fact that I only just learnt that YOLO is not actually some kind of African greeting, it means "You Only Live Once", which I'm guessing most people already know.

The only thing that annoys me about that saying is that recently people my age have been doing stupid things and then justifying it by tagging YOLO after (publicly advertising) whatever (usually reckless) thing that they're doing. Why can't YOLO be used in the context of "I'm helping a friend", YOLO or "I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing", YOLO. I guess the problem with humans is that we are attracted to things that don't conform.

The casual collage above however, has many objects in it that are completely normal, and seem very ordinary. That's the point, the things in my collage are what they seem to be, and the style is determined to be "mainstream" which is paradoxically the opposite these days, that is to say, it's a rarity, it feels like everyone is trying too hard to be "different" or "edgy", and due to this they loose sight of themselves. Speaking of which, I wish I owned half of the objects in the image, especially the vintage suitcase, badges and butterfly pictures, but that's just me.

In the true spirit of YOLO (although I prefer the above quote, captioned on this post) I'll be temporarily abandoning this blog to revise for my final exams, which mean a lot to me. My first exam is in 2 weeks, and I really don't want to keep staying up so late to fit everything in, so I'm cutting a lot of stuff out of my life for the next month and a half or so. I'll be back around the end of June, before I go on holiday (can't wait!:D) but life goes on in the meantime, and I think it'll be over quicker than I realise - especially with the last day of school approaching so soon :o

Don't forget me and I won't forget you! Have a nice few weeks - I'll be back ASAP- wish me luck! ;)

April Showers!

April Showers!

Decided to update this today, unusual for a friday night but it means that I have less to do on the weekend! I thought that the title seems appropriate considering the weather in England at the moment, as soon as they declare an official drought it always rains non-stop for days afterwards!

Anyway, the run-up to exams is really speeding up, in fact in 2 months time/ 8 weeks today I will (hopefully!) leave school forever, after my last A2 exam! :o Insane isn't it? Scary times.

Thought I'd share a really great quote that I saw a couple of days ago and really made me think;

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power".
- Abraham Lincoln

It's true, or it seems accurate to me. Well, the saying is true enough for women too, of course...

So this collage has a vintage/ Parisian/ floral look, which suits the current season, Spring, and also reminds me of 2 years ago when I went to Paris for the Easter holidays, and had a really great time! We stayed in an apartment and everything...have to say, since looking at this, I can't help wish that I was back there, away from the rain, and back in time, away from the stress of looming A2 exams.....

Every cloud has a silver lining!

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. No one is entitled to their own facts.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. No one is entitled to their own facts.

Half term! :) I have survived, once again, until the holidays. Now the word "holiday" is debatable, considering I will probably do as much work at home as I would in school, in preparation for exams, and in light of the work that teachers actually set :/, but hey, I'm at home, and that's about as good as it gets for now.

Strange to think that when it gets to the next holidays (May half-term) I won't be returning to school other than to sit exams! :o Where have my school days gone?

Anyway, this image is spring-like and therefore appropriate, especially considering the hot spell of weather we've just experienced here in England, if only it would last!

I guess all good things come to an end.

A cup of tea never fails to calm me....

A cup of tea never fails to calm me.... by nikigirl

I really, really love this image. I didn't even plan/ think about it, I just obsess over this shade of blue, so I put some objects of that colour together with some text and photos of an attractive model and voila, with a couple of effects and ever-present butterflies it actually turned out nice, one of my favourites I think.

Don't judge me by the fact that I'm posting so late :) I have A LOT to do at the moment, we're talking all kinds of coursework, homework, interview prep, driving lessons...wait....yes....I did just say it - INTERVIEW PREP!

Now of course I'm extremely excited at the prospect of an interview, and the free food/ accomodation (and I mean accomodation of the brilliant, beautiful, neo-classic/ gothic kind) but what makes me more anxious is the idea that I'll have to miss 4 days of revision before the mocks. And still have to do the work......all of those lessons I'll miss! (Not to mention my mum's 50th birthday :/)

Can't be helped, but I really am a busy little bee at the moment, and will be for the next 10 days, and then it's mock exams, and then the terrible waiting begins afresh! Oh my life....never mind, in one month it'll be Christmas again and all will be good in the world (how quickly it comes round!)

Tea, and other such Time

No point lying, I'm so much more into Polyvore instead of GIMP right now as far as image-editing and composing is concern which is really strange considering I actually joined Polyvore 2 years ago and only really started using it now... such is life, I suppose.

In other news, this week has been a continuation of stressful driving lessons, homework and coursework deadlines combined with the fact that I'm still waiting to hear back from universities, my mock A2s are in a month oh, and my job no longer exists so I have virtually no disposable income :(

Bad times indeed. BUT, I must remember the tone of my last post, and remain positive - things can't stay this way forever, the only thing that stays the same is that things always change! Although I titled this image "Tea time" I'd like to now draw inspiration from W.H.Auden;

But all the clocks in the city,

Began to whirr and chime:

'O let not Time deceive you,

You cannot conquer Time.


Today of course, time has a particularly special significance, not only is the date 11.11.11 but it's also Remberance Day, so let us not only remember those that fell in service of their country, but also those that were left to remember, especially during those first few Armstice Days when happiness to some, would have seemed like a different era, a lifetime away, a mere memory...

I'm aware that it has been a while - but I am now free of AS exams! Now I can finally show you what has been getting me through them, and I have to say as soon as I saw the photograph with the water lily I knew I could work with it and am happy with the result! I even managed to incorporate a stamp with our lovely Queen Elzabeth II on it, adding to the vintage-type look I was trying to achieve :)

I'm afraid I won't be uploading anything new for the next two weeks, in fact I won't be on here at all :( not entirely by choice, but exams must take priority, and so I'll put this up for you to remember me by, if anything it's almost as weird as the last :)

A nice, random collage, as it's the holidays, and so the resurrection of my creativity after last term's exams temporarily killed it...for the time being anyway, until I get bored, which is unlikely as I just found a stash of old "vintage stamp" images I have saved on my computer!

As why for all of the little animals....I have no idea, they just looked good and then I turned it into a kind of theme.

"Bland and unoriginal" according to a Yahoo! article, "you are better off being single" - I'm talking about Valentine's Day, and I know I'm early, but I'm guessing Sunday night/ Monday I will be too busy revising to care much about what all of the other happy couples/ sad singles (or, as the Yahoo! survey suggests, happy singletons and bored couples) are doing on February the 14th.

In alternate news - 60th Blog post! So happy that I've been able to keep this up, and hope to continue for many more! :)

A change in the weather this week, and with it a change of heart, where I am it definitely feels colder, and the atmosphere these last few days seems pretty depressed - or maybe that's just me. Here's to the weekend and remembering that Spring must always follow Winter (even in England, eventually) and after that Summer will finally arrive; bringing with it a mass of sunshine, warm weather...and exams.....

Ok, so this might be my last blog post in a while...

I'm on holiday AGAIN this weekend before sixth form starts :s and I might get swamped by school work! I will try to update a piece of art at least once a week, for those of you that are following me, more if I have the time!

This piece pretty much sums up my life in the last 2 & 1/2 months...summer day-dreaming after exams, and a lovely purple blend too...