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.

What She Did Next, April - June 2014

View from the Old Bodelian library, towards the Radcliffe Camera. Upper floor reading room, my favourite place to work, probably. 

I confess that I've stolen many of these photos (but not all of them!) from my Facebook. I just don't have that many good photos of Oxford, and in a city this beautiful, there's a limit to what you can physically photograph in a single term! I'll add captions as we go, and if I haven't stated that a particular photo is mine, then presume it isn't, and I won't try to take credit for it! 

Main quad of Teddy (St. Edmund) Hall, where I've had tutorials this term.

Oxford looks fantastic in the sunshine, it attracts tourists like a honey-trap. Literally, a sandstone-formed honey-trap. All that glistens is not gold, however...

Main quad facing medieval cottages, Worcester college.

It's strange. This term I had no exams, and being 2nd year, everyone told me that I was in for the summer of a lifetime, a blissful world of eternal sunshine compared to that of the Freshers doing Prelims, and certainly a world away from the furious work ethic of the Finalists. On the one hand, I blame myself for buying into the hype, but on the other, I'll admit that I was statistically unlucky, but also that some elements of the stress I experienced were my fault, due to the fact that I often internalise stuff, and get overwhelmed, probably too easily.

Towards main quad from Nuffield lawn, Worcester college. 

Work wasn't the problem. I mean, it wasn't great, but that was because of how much time my mind was wasting dwelling on other things. The main things being my upcoming trip to China, which still has a few vital necessities to be sorted (insurance, health forms, final arrival arrangements) and, more seriously, the fact that several of my friends became quite seriously mentally ill. I don't want to make the tone of this blog post overly dark, and I feel very much as though I've now "been there and got the t-shirt" as far as the past 6 weeks or so are concerned. It was difficult (and naturally a thousand times worse for them) but I hope, in the long run, that experiencing stuff like this at the age of 20, and learning from the experience, should equip me for scenarios of a similar nature that may well occur in my future.

Ultimately, isn't that what university is supposed to be about; not just the French Wars of Religion, or the Court of Henry VIII, it's about stress, knowing how to help others, and stay afloat yourself, and taking moments to yourself so that you have happy memories to return to when needed.

St. Hugh's college

That's enough about that for now. This isn't a blog about student mental health issues, I just thought that it was an important point to raise, rather than describing my university life falsely, through a montage of sunny landscapes and concise captions. Some things are beyond the lines.

Anyway, above is a photo of where I did one of the Easter Residentials that I worked on with part of the Widening Participation programmes at Oxford. It was a fantastic experience, I got to stay in a different college for a few days, see a different part of town, meet new Oxford Uni students and of course many more secondary school students from around Oxford, who were revising for their GCSEs. The Easter residentials I worked on were some of the highlights of my vacation, and I seriously think that working with other people, and thinking that you're making a positive impact on their life, is one of the greatest cures for personal anxieties and worries.

Corpus Christi college's Tortoise fair! This is actually my photo.

A great afternoon out, based on an old college tradition - tortoise racing! So glad I got to see this (well not actually see much, because look at the crowd and consider that I'm only 5"2...) because it's such an "Oxford" thing. My friends at home could hardly believe the event description! It was lovely to get out of college and explore somewhere new, and I even got to hold a tortoise - who wouldn't be pleased with that?

OxHoli, Hindu festival of colour, Merton sports field, by St. Catherine's college. This is my photo from a safe distance!

OxHoli. Coloured powder, meets cheap white clothing, and lots of water, usually fired out of plastic water guns, or (in the case of me and my friends) just mixed into the cups of powder to make a wonderful, rainbow-coloured sludge to chuck at people. Such amazing stress relief. Things got messy, so much so that my clothes from that day (including shoes) remain in a carrier bag under my bed...it also took 3 hair washes for my hair to feel normal again.

Oxford Botanical garden, sadly not my photo!

This place is my great escape. I feel slightly guilty when I slip off here by myself, but it really is a great place to be alone, if that doesn't sound weird (esp. if you're a fan of His Dark Materials). Plus if you're an Oxford student, you get in for free! Can't beat that smug feeling of sailing past lines of tourists...

Punting by Magdalen bridge! I've been punting here, but actually in a boat, so I didn't take this one either :P

Punting is great (you get wetter than you think, even if you're not paddling/ punting). I was consumed by exam fever last year and so didn't get to go. This year I saw sense and insisted that we did. Willows, ducklings, people doing bridge stunts. Singing in a round, and exploring abandoned furniture discarded on a river bank. It was pretty special.

Zoom the tortoise! Tortoise fair, my picture, (such good quality)  woop!

You know why I like tortoises? Because they're decades old, and they just get on with life. Stuff changes, but they change very little, or if they do, they're constantly adapting so they only appear the same. We could all learn from that. Also, the amount of salad that they eat is commendable.

Corpus Christi college, front quad, decorated for the fair, reminded me of the festival/ dance scene in Disney's Tangled

Another image, that of The History Boys in which one of the boys visits the college when called to Oxford for interview, thinking it to be the former college of his favourite teacher. I remember seeing that film for the first time 2 years ago, when I was caught in the terrible limbo between sitting my A2s and getting my results.

I feel as though this post has been sufficiently long enough to explain my absence, well, if you add the 9 essays and 1 presentation I also prepared in the last 8 weeks, as well as two trips to London to sort my Chinese visa. Let's not even count the number of lectures & classes on top of that.That's pretty much it, I can only hint at the rest, as is the nature of rambling blogs about life.

One regret of term - not getting to play croquet. Me and some friends were originally entered into a university-wide competition, but due to issues with equipment and scheduling matches, it never happened. Next year Oxford, next year I'll come prepared...

PS, a reminder, my sister's blog link is; http://i-like-to-be-in-america.blogspot.co.uk/ . She's currently in her 2nd or 3rd week of being an adventure camp counselor in New York state, U.S.A :)

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?