(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.
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.
Ever since third week, I’d been hearing rumors of a sort of unplanned Oxford tradition: the fifth week blues. Apparently, this hits the student body during the fifth week of every term. After the halfway mark of fourth week, everyone gets tired of working all the time, of reading and writing taking up a majority of every week, and of how even when we go out to have fun, we know there are pages and pages of words to read and words to write waiting for us back at college. I was determined for this not to be a bad week. Because the two essays and being ill during fourth week had stressed me out so much, I was determined not to lose another one of my weeks here to anxiety and over-thinking.
At first, I wasn’t very successful. As I said in my last post, I spent Sunday of last week at the second day of the Oxford Playhouse’s Writers’ Weekend, workshopping my latest play project with the help of some local actors. In many ways, this was an incredible opportunity. While I have had a play produced, I have never given myself the chance to interact with actors or a production team that are working with one of my original scripts. When I left, I had so many ideas of where to go next with my current play project, which is great since I had finished a rough draft of the first act upon arriving at Oxford and had no idea where the second act should start—or where it should end. On the downside, all the feedback overwhelmed me. It was a pretty intimidating situation to be in: there I was, one of the youngest writers in the room, the only American/foreigner, and I was holding the least polished four pages out of anyone else there. But everyone was really nice. They acknowledged that my pages definitely were the roughest of the bunch, but nobody said it was bad writing; in fact, everyone seemed really intrigued by my idea for the play and kept telling me that I would probably get the most out of the workshop because, with a piece at such an early stage of the writing process, I had more of an open mind and would get more out of the reading. So I left the day feeling encouraged about my playwriting—but then had to immediately put my four pages at the bottom of one of my desk drawers and plunge into Victorian Literature once again.
It’s crazy and sad to think that I’m already half way through my time here at Oxford. It has already been one month. On the other hand, as this week has shown me, I have done quite a lot in the span of this one month and that I still have a lot more to look forward to in the coming one. And more importantly, I need to slow down to enjoy all of it.
I started off the week on a great note. After finishing my paper Sunday morning at yet another café (Morton’s, which had a yummy hazelnut cappuccino), I had the rest of the day free to celebrate Halloween. So many people had warned me that Halloween here is not as crazy as it is in the States. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not so interested in the creepy or because two of the big Rice Halloween celebrations include being naked, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the holiday and I wasn’t too bummed about missing out on the “American” version. I thought I was just going to skip the whole thing, go back to my room, and finish editing my paper, but my Hertford friends had other plans. They made sure that not only did I go to formal hall that night, but that I accompanied them to the Halloween BOP afterwards. And I must say, it was one of the best Halloweens I’ve ever had.
I have now officially been at Oxford for a week and now that I have a start for my first essay, I can finally provide myself time to share my adventures here with the rest of the world.
It’s surreal finally being here. I couldn’t even take it in that I was staring at the Thames when I looked out my bedroom window or that when I stare straight out of the main entrance to Hertford College, I’m looking directly at the Bodleian Library. It took so much for me to get here, both literally and figuratively, that I couldn’t believe that these weren’t more of my best dreams. I can see why so many people see Hogwarts when they walk around the city. The old buildings, the green meadows, the banks of the Thames, the cute shops, and the people walking around in black robes all contribute to this idea of the fantasy school. I try not to walk around with my camera out all the time because the tourists can get really annoying, but it’s hard not to want to capture every moment.
(The view out of my window. Over to the right, the river continues and that’s where all the boathouses are located. Oh yeah, and the bridge to the left, which I walk over everyday, is from Saxon times. What the heck!)
