Austin ~ Austen

I thought I was finished with blog posts for this week, but as it turns out, I’m not.  Maybe it’s because I don’t want to think about ordering textbooks, or the resume/cover letters I should also be revising/composing at this moment in time.  Or maybe it’s because now that I’ve given myself permission to write short posts I can potentially write this before dinner.  And finally, I might be feeling particularly introspective today because I know that all my friends at Oxford are going back today (well, went back) and it throws my experience here into greater comparison to what I would be doing over there.

In many ways, I’m glad to be back at Rice.  But when people ask me how I’m feeling I don’t really know how to respond.  I love visiting with all my friends, but at the same time, things have changed.  Some things have changed for the better.  Because I walked so much in Oxford I now think walking from Martel to West Lot is a piece of cake.  If anyone complains about that to me, I will ask you to repeat my route from the Graduate Apartments to Hertford—or even better, to St. Hilda’s College and then to the English Faculty Library.  Loving to walk is making living off-campus much easier.  I also love how sunny it is here in Houston.  I claimed that having that sun set at 3 pm in the UK didn’t bother me, but that was sort of a lie.  I love pretty weather and I must say, even if I have to look at the sunshine through a library window, I’m still happier.

On the other hand, some things are very weird.  I spent so much time with the freshers at Hertford, and yet I know none of the freshman class here.  I walk around as a stranger to one fourth of the school.  Also, I hate buying textbooks now.  I loved just going to the library and checking out the book I needed for a week.  Because I just needed it for a week and there were bound to be enough copies for everyone.  Plus, I forgot about the sticker shock when your English classes assign 15 or so texts for a course …  I also loved just taking English courses.  I’m sure the computer science course on databases and Excel will help me, but we’ve only met twice and I’m already dead-bored with everything. 

Hello everyone!  I’m posting from my new apartment in Houston, Texas.  I am partially moved in.  I’m still waiting on a bed and my parents are bringing the rest of my things this weekend.  Being back at Rice is great in some ways because I love going to class again, I love seeing my friends here, and I’m excited to return to the Rice Players and other extracurriculars.  On the other hand, it’s weird not living on campus.  Martel is still home, but I have to leave every night.  I can’t just walk over to my friends’ rooms and hang out with them; I have to plan time to see them.  It makes coming back from abroad even more of an adjustment, but I’m trying to remember how I coped last semester.  I lived fifteen minutes away from Hertford College, but I ended up spending a majority of my time there instead of at my flat.

Since I have been back, many many many people have been asking me how my study abroad semester went.  I tried to tell them to go look at this blog but most of them said that I wrote way too much.  Some of my friends told me I should make my posts shorter even before I left for the UK, but I couldn’t help it.  Now that I’m back in the US and having adventures that are a little less exciting, I am actually going to make the effort to make snappier posts.  It’s not a New Year’s Resolution.  I don’t like the concept of New Year’s Resolutions because I feel like most people break them.  Plus I believe New Year’s is an arbitrary moment to choose as a threshold or a transition.  I think people change when it’s right, not just because one or two numbers change on the calendar.  And finally, I hate the date change because I swear it makes me write the wrong number at the top of every assignment for at least a month.

To all my friends going back to Hertford in the next few days, I’m so jealous.  I didn’t know how much I would miss you all until I got back here.  And Hertford College Boat Club, I miss your workouts.  Using the erg machine by myself is not the same.

Technically, every European vacation does not have to end with Brussels, but it seems that fate has just wanted me to end all my vacations in Belgium.  It has never been planned; the first two times we had our layover there after family vacations.  I didn’t expect to get to visit there again.  When the choir first announced that that was where they were going for tour, I knew my flight was booked for the 4^th for the United States and that I probably couldn’t go.  But, fate stepped in and pushed things around—my dad was able to move my flight, I was able to scrounge up the extra money for the trip, and all of a sudden I was booked for a real trip (read: more than 12 hours) to Brussels.

Even from the first coach ride, the trip was off to a great start.  After four or five days hanging out in ghostland Oxford, I loved getting to talk to some of my choir friends again.  And once we arrived at St. Pancras station, not only did I find all of my choir friends, but we also found A LEGO CHRISTMAS TREE!!!  (Yes, my Hertford choir friends are way more important than a Lego tree, but seriously?  Look at this thing!!!).

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I thought my last week at Oxford would be really emotional.  I’m the kind of sensitive person that usually has a difficult time with goodbye’s and I couldn’t imagine how saying goodbye to this magical university and all the people within it would work out—especially since I had no idea when I would be able to return to the United Kingdom.  But, I had so much fun in the course of this last week that there wasn’t really time for an emotional goodbye. 

The week started out pretty serious.  I woke up Monday morning and walked down to college in my gown for collections.  It’s weird because at Oxford collections can actually mean two different things: 1) exams that take place after each term, usually after the break or 2) a meeting with the college principal and head tutor to go over tutorial reports.  Thankfully mine was the later, but it was still a nail-biting experience.  It helped that I had met our principal, Will Hutton, a few times before the meeting.  He is an interesting guy.  If I had read The Guardian before I left, I would have known that he is a famous journalist, but in some ways it was better that I hadn’t because then I didn’t feel like I had to act different around this public figure.  As it turned out, I really enjoyed talking with him.  The first time I heard him speak it was all about economics and although I knew he was making important points, it was all I could do not to eat the dinner roll sitting in front of me.  Giving a speech before formal hall turned out not to be such a good idea.  But later in the term he told me a lot about the books in the Hertford Old Library.  Apparently they are worth millions of dollars.  But most importantly, I loved the conversation we had during collections.  We did spend a few minutes talking over my tutor’s reports, both of which gave me great marks and said that I was a promising student, but then the conversation turned to Victorian Literature in general.  The best part: I got to bring up the topic of Victorian Adaptations, which is the subject I’m really well-versed at, thanks to that class I took freshman year at Rice.  Plus, he tipped me off to a new Charles Dickens biography coming out.  After loving David Copperfield, I definitely think I should add that to my reading list. 

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(I apologize for all the alliteration in the titles—and the assonance in this sentence—but I couldn’t help myself)

Seventh week was one of the most fun, most life-changing, and most stressful weeks for me here in Oxford.  It was a bundle of emotions that turned my normal Oxford week upside down.  I still think I’m learning from my experiences during this week.  But, in many ways, that’s what makes it the best week that I’ve had here.

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Heya,

I’m leaving for Belgium today!  I’m sad to be leaving Oxford, but most people have left here and some of my best friends will be waiting for me at St. Pancras today.  It’s going to be quite the adventure.  I’m hoping it will end up something like this again—

Technically I still have one more day in Oxford when I get back, but it’s going to be a very weird day since none of my friends are coming back with me. :(  On the other hand, I’ll be back in the States very soon and while I’m still struggling against the jet-lag, I will finally update everyone on my last adventures of the term.

I finished my last tutorial at Oxford just a little under an hour ago.  In some ways, I want to shout for joy because there will be no more 500 pg novels to read in three days, no more 2000 word (which for me end up as 3500 words) essays to write in the remaining days of the week, no more waking up early to sit in the library all day.  But on the other hand, I’m incredibly sad.  While I may claim to hate those things at times, I really do like them.  Oxford wouldn’t have been worth it if I hadn’t chosen to study the subject I’m passionate about and if it hadn’t challenged me every single day.  Plus, since tutorials are over, it means that my term has really come to a close.  At the end of the week all my friends will be leaving and even though I get to go to Belgium first, it means that my return to the States is quickly approaching, too.

I know that I should be working on my own writing or enjoying the beautiful city while I still can, but I can’t help looking back on pictures from this semester, scrolling through all the different events and all the different places I experienced in these past two months.  I know I will still have regrets when I get home, that I didn’t go to enough lectures, that I could’ve read more, that I could’ve traveled more, but in the end, I have learned so much and I know that I will remember this term for a long, long time.

I will continue to post on this blog about my last fews day in Oxford and about my crazy choir adventures in Belgium, but the writing won’t stop there.  Originally I started this blog just to record my semester abroad and to help keep my friends and family at home updated.  Now I think I will adapt my original goal and find new things to write about, especially since I want to now keep my British friends updated with my writing and my life back in Texas!