Oxford Michaelmas Study Abroad 2011

So I died ALL day on Tuesday, so when my tutor told me my tutorial would be moved to Wednesday, I was thrilled. Even though most of my essay was written, I looked like a hot mess. I had a really bad cough, cold, and overall allergies or something. It was progressively getting worse, even though I had it for a week and a half already and that SUCKED. Especially since I was going on the Europe trip in two days.

Anyways, I’m skipping most of Tuesday because literally just died most of the time being sick. I did hang out and watch a movie with Phil, which was a nice break from just being boring and doing nothing all day. It also required no effort except staring at a computer screen, so it was perfect for sick old me.

Wednesday involved me working my butt off to finish my essay in time. I went to the OSAP office to print off the millions and millions of papers for the Europe trip, such as flight tickets, maps, itineraries, etc. It took like an hour and a half to two hours. Then I headed back home and wrote my essay up to my tutorial at 7 PM.

During my tutorial with Dr. Mackenzie, we talked about everything related to the law of the sea for a straight hour. After an hour of it however, we were running out of material and she just asked me if I wanted to finish early. She then gave me an A- on my essay and I was thrilleddddd. Relieved because people were coming over later that night and I was sick, I said yes. She then proceeded to write me a recommendation letter and then we had a talk about masters programs at Oxford and which I should look into.

On my recommendation letter, my tutor put that I had received an A in the course…so I’m crossing my fingers that I get that in the final grades! It was such a weird feeling to be totally done with essays and know that I didn’t have to do any more work at Oxford. It was almost sad at the same time…bah.

I hurried back and then Poppy, Rachel Loughlin, Emily, and Katrina came over. KB also came down and we ordered Chinese food and just hung out. All the while they were there, I had to pack for the trip since I was leaving at 1 AM and I even had to shower while they were there hah. It was sad that I was so pre-occupied because I had to say bye to Loughlin, Poppy, and Emily that night as well. 

Today was the day we had to say bye to Will. First however, I had to read all about the law of the sea and start formulating my essay and writing almost all of it, seeing as it was Monday and my tutorial was supposed to be on Tuesday night. It wasn’t that bad, but it had to be like 10 pages about zones of the sea, so it got a bit dull. However, I cranked out a good 6 pages in like 3 hours, so I’ll take it.

Saying goodbye was SAD! Farzeen and I planned to meet Will for dinner so we could say goodbye. He was going to visit his lovely girlfriend (I never did get to meet her, wah). So we met Will on Cornmarket…right after we had been scribbling our cards and gifts out for him in a Costa Coffee (we are sooo prepared).

So we ended going to the Four Candles where we just recapped how great the whole term once. Listening to Farzeen and Will tell their break in to colleges stories kills me…even to this day. It’s absolutely hilarious and ridiculous to think about. Together those two just think every single ridiculous idea is a good one. It’s good that Farzeen found someone like that…because there’s no wayyyy I would have done those things! Even though now that I look back, they sound hilarious. 

So we gave Will his cards and I gave him a picture of us together (corny…yeah whatever) and we said goodbye. Don’t worry Will (my best blog follower) WE WILL MEEEEEET AGAIN!

So we had decided to go eat at this buffet called the First Floor on Cowley Road on Sunday night. It was a buffet of Indian, Chinese, and Thai food and it was sooo good. It was like 13 pounds to eat there, so we all decided to get there at 7 PM when it opened and just try to eat and eat and eat and eat for like 4 hours. I think that was a successful plan, because we stayed there until like 10:30 PM.

I can’t even remember everyone who went, but I know it was Farzeen, Eric, Emily, Rachel McCarthy, Loughlin, Adam, Alex, Poppy, and Will. Service started off great…but as we loitered and tried to shove food in our faces, the waiters tried to keep bringing less and less water to kick us out. They weren’t going to be successful. I managed to eat 6 plates of food and like 2 others of just dessert. AKA I died.

From the First Floor, we tried to go to a pub on Cowley Road…but after being there 15 minutes, they kicked us out. So we went to the Rachel’s house where I hung out with Farzeen, Rachel McCarthy, Poppy, Will Adam, and Loughlin for like 2 hours. I hate that I was sick the whole time this took place. We ended up having to take a taxi home…which was fine because waiting for a bus would have been mega lame.

I was sooo glad that people stuck around after the term, because it would have been really hard saying goodbye to everyone at the same time.

So December 3rd is move-out day for New College. A lot of people have to entirely clean out their rooms because they have interviews the next week for future applicants. That would be SUCH a pain for a hoarder like me.

Anyways, I met Sam on Broad Street, where he told me the epic story about his mother absolutely destroying the pole that regulated people’s cars going in and out of New College. So he hung out with me for about 4 hours before he had to board his train to London. It wasn’t sad to say goodbye to him, because he was going to be the tour guide for my fam in London like a week and a half later.

Farzeen then planned for Will to come over and Eric, Gurveen, Caitlin, and Alice for some pizza. Will said he would bring a special guest…who happened to be Poppy (good thing it was her…we threatened her for not wanting to come hang out with us). Will and Poppy bought like 10 frozen pizzas…which ended up being WAYYY too many. They also bought coleslaw, which apparently you dip your pizza crust in (WEIRD Brits)…no thanks.

We hung out for like 4 hours and then had to say goodbye to Alice and Gurveen, as they were going home the next day. It was really sad saying goodbye =(

It’s UPDATE time. And I mean MEGA update time. There’s a few days where I’m not totally sure what occurred…but I remember at least one event so that’s good enough for me.

To make things easier, I’m going to date them properly as well. The way I’m looking at it…I have 21 posts to cover. So…let’s get started.

FRIDAY, December 3rd=Last day of the term.

On Friday I had to motivate myself to get up early and go read in the New College Library. ALL my books were overdue by two days and I still hadn’t written my essay for my tutorial. The whole being sick thing and being the last week of term just absolutely dominated me.

So, I did my sad walk to the New College Library for the last time. I went inside and it was LITERALLY abandoned…so depressing. Obviously nobody was doing work but me, because I’m not a real student and therefore still had tutorials in 9th week. After reading for about 3 hours, I called it quits and went to run errands.

I needed cold medicine so I had to go to Boswells and get some of that. Then I had to go to Primark so that I could buy a plain shirt for my bop costume. I next went to Poundland to get a Santa hat (which later Will took off my head in the bop and it was never seen again hahaha). From there, I went to Apricot where I was in desperate need of a dress for Guest Night, seeing as all my clothes smelled like weird Venneit Close washer/fell apart because of said washer. 

AFTER THAT (I know, I had a few places to go hahaha), I headed to Celebrations because naturally, I needed a British flag for my bop costume. I wrapped it all up with a lovely trip to Tesco to buy some food and some booze, seeing as I had absolutely none. Of course, now that I write about Tescos, it’s making me reallllllllly hungry.

Back to my exciting life…I then headed home to make my bop costume and prepare for the various festivities of the night. I got dressed for Guest Night, grabbed Lora and her friend Stephanie, and then we walked through the ridiculous Christmas festival going on in Oxford to get to Guest Night.

Guest Night was hilarious. First of all, we were in line before any one else, yet when we got in there, our silverware was crossed like it was being saved. I haven’t saved a seat in a cafeteria since about 3rd grade, so I ignored it. We ended up making someone VERY mad…but I still got my seat so…SUCCESS.

Lora was a pro at pennying. She pennied Poppy’s drink 3 times…but on the third one she absolutely just destroyed the glass. Then there was Sophie and Tim who opened the first bottle of champagne to just have it spill ALL over the table…then followed by a second bottle opened by them where it pulled a volcano effect and just erupted ALL over our table. I was 10 people away and I still managed to get a bit of champagne drizzle. AWESOME. Then Chris, who was Poppy’s friend, accidentally pennied a virgin drink…so he had to drink out of his shoe. I could honestly smell the foot nastiness from where I was across the table (disgustinggg).

then accidentally triple pennied Sophie…so then I had to drink out of my shoe. Too bad I was wearing a boot, so I had to steal Sam’s rarely worn dress shoe and just downed some delicious shoe cider. I think they should probably serve it more like that, much more often. 

It took FOREVER for dessert to come…but I’m a lard, so I waited. Right before dessert, the high table left to go to their common room…and Chris tried to sneak in. He said he took off his coat and went to hang it up like everyone else did with their robes and there were no hangers left. So someone came up to him and said “Can I help you?” and he just ran out. Funniest mental image of my life hahaha.

After that, we all headed to the cloisters to pay 5 pounds for an awesome concert by the New Men that we all rudely talk through (I’m sorrrrrrrrrry, I’m ADD!) and there was no food left, so that was a fail. But the New Men were super good and it was really fun.

From the concert, I went with Sam, Farzeen, and Caitlin and we went to St. Giles for the OSAP going away party. I hung out for about 20 minutes, but that’s because the bop was going to start. I changed into my costume there as well, in which I was a UK Passport/Visa. The theme of the bop was “All I want for Christmas,” and judging by how obsessed I am with Oxford, it was clearly that I wanted a UK Visa or Passport haha. After saying goodbye to all the people I wasn’t going to see again from the program, I headed off to the bop.

Sam and Farzeen went to drop stuff off in his room and I headed to force Phil to go to something New College related. After lots and lots of prodding, I got Phil into a penguin onesie and we all met at the final bop of the year. It was extremely fun, but I only made it to the last 30 minutes. From the end of the bop, everyone spilled into the JCR, which just looked like a drunk santa’s workshop.

I gave Howard, the night porter, a pound just so I could get his hat and a donut from Krispee Kreme or something. It was absolutely unhealthy and absolutely delicious. I also said goodbye to Sam Cross, one of the freshers I barely saw but talked to all the through Twitter (weird, I know hahah). He was a bit intoxicated so he got really upset when we talked about me leaving. Sad times ha.

The whole night was fantastic, and I think it was of the most ridiculously memorable ones ever.

Literally, today was the least productive day ever. Aside from an awesome stop at the kebab stand, I didn’t do anything. I did break the kebab stand guy’s heart, though, when I told him I wasn’t coming back in January. He is the nicest guy ever. He offered me tea while I was ordering. 

You English are just SO classy. Always offering tea everywhere I go. Too bad tea tastes like what I’d imagine human urine to taste like (inappropriate…sorry Mom. Shield your eyes again). 

It’s 10 PM and I’m motivating myself to get some reading done, since tomorrow is the last day I can do any research here. I have to write my huge essay by Tuesday, but all the reading has to be done by tomorrow. AKA it’s gonna be a really long early day.

Tomorrow’s plans involve studying all day, buying my bop costume, getting ready and going to Guest Night, seeing the New Men acapella group, heading to St. Giles to say bye to everyone at the OSAP end of the year party, and then changing and heading to the bop for the rest of the night. Tomorrow means that the term is over.

In other words, I’m so so so sad. I’ve never, ever been so accepted so quickly somewhere in my life. I’ve never felt more at home either. And now, I have to pick up and move home. Not that I don’t love home and each and every person there, but I’m leaving so much of my heart here. I honestly can’t even face the thought of going back home. Will, Poppy, Katrina, Tim, Sam, Phil, Rachel, Farzeen, Lora, Caitlin, Eric and Alexa, you’ve all taught me so, so much. I’ve never had such an amazing time in my entire life. I know I’m here until the 23rd, but the end of the term means everything is going to be so different. 

There’s tons of people in here I need to include and I haven’t forgotten about you. 

I’m going to need to be dragged onto the plane kicking and screaming. Literally, Oxford has felt like more of a home then I could have ever imagined. It’s honestly home to me and has been from the very beginning and leaving it is going to be one of the hardest things for me ever.

I don’t know how I am going to leave so many friends behind. I love everyone here so much and I really owe you all for making this experience absolutely beyond fantastic. 

So Wednesday night=Christmas dinner and I was super excited.

But first, I had to make it through a lot of reading out maritime law and the Law of the Sea UN Conventions. Since I know NOTHING about the topic, it takes a ton of focus to read each and every little detail. Not to mention, the Law of the Sea convention of 1982 has THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ARTICLES? That’s sooooo many, most ridiculous thing ever. It’s gotta be one of the longest, if not the longest UN Convention written.

Regardless, Farzeen, Lora and I got ready for the Christmas dinner. I went with Lora to the New College bar to meet everyone prior. Farzeen was running late so she said she’d meet me when it started (Always running on Pakistan time…). We only managed to make it to the bar for about 5 minutes before we went to go find a table for the Christmas dinner in hall. 

When we got our seats, they had these weird little cracker things for each person. If you pull both end, they crack, and then have some weird little gift inside, a crown, and jokes. So Lora and I cracked open ours and both got compasses and some awesome paper crowns, which were necessary to be worn the rest of the night. Well at least, I convinced Lora we looked awesome, hahah. Dinner was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy delicious and literally was thanksgiving food. For dessert, they had Christmas pudding.

Christmas pudding=weird fruity block of nastiness. It’s not pudding, they lied to me. Pudding is a so-quid (sockquid...a SOLID LIQUID COMBO). Either way, if your dessert gets pennied, you have to eat it hands behind your back, with your mouth only. Poppy semi-pennied Lora’s dessert…so I took aim to pay Poppy back and made the best shot RIGHT into that nasty block of Christmas fruitiness and made her eat it with her FACE.

After Christmas dinner, we headed to the bar to get a drink. Right when Lora and I got our drinks, they decided to head to one of the room’s of their friend in New College. So, I just took my drink with me, as did Lora. We saw a porter on the way, he didn’t even care. I’m gonna miss that about this place.

We hung out there for about 45 minutes before deciding to head to Park End. We got distracted and ended up heading to Thirst across the street for a while instead. Probably a good idea, because Park End’s line was literally so long that we would never get in. However, in the process we lost Will and Farzeen. After we hung out at Thirst for a while and decided Park End was a fail, we went to head back to New College to figure something else out to do. 

I finally got Will to answer the phone, where Poppy and I then became scavengers in a hunt for those two troublemakers. They are literally a crazy person tag team whenever they hang out. Both rationalize ridiculous ideas with each other and make them seem like a great idea. Well, we found out that Farzeen and Will had climbed to the TOP OF THE MOUND BY THE CASTLE. It’s literally just a giant hill with a pathway up to the top. After finally getting them down, we had a fun walk back to the JCR. My phone was swatted out of my hand, therefore knocking out the battery and kind of messing it up. I spent 10 minutes trying to fix it next to the porter’s lodge before I gave up.

We chilled in the New College JCR for a good hour. Sam was the best EVER and fixed my phone by using a piece of newspaper to keep the battery in place. Literally, I think all my phones turn into the most ghetto pieces of technology. I need to stop being so clumsy.

The night was fun looking back on it. I was sick the whole night with the cough of death, which kind of put a damper on the evening. Also, the term ends tomorrow so I’m kind of depressed.

Tuesday was tutorial day. I finished my paper in the morning and then just got ready. I ended up making pasta for breakfast, pretty awesome. I headed to the OSAP office around 1:45 to print my essays and then headed off to my last tutorial with Dr. Jones.

At this point, I had almost lost my voice entirely. In the tutorial, I have to read my paper out loud. It was probably the most painful 15 minutes of my life and probably Dr. Jones’ as well because he had to listen to my raspy excuse for a voice. My essay was on the political and economic developments since 1992 that were shaping the EU into a federal entity. My essay was about 6 pages long and covered tons of information. 

The tutorial went super well though. We ended up talking about it for like an hour and fifteen minutes and he showed me an article that was written about what the EU would be in 2020. Afterwards, he said he was going to give me good marks on my tutorial, YAY! He also invited me to the pub with him and all the students he taught this term.

So I headed home to take a nap so I could try to feel a little bit less sick. I slept until about 7:30 or 8 PM. Lora then came upstairs and we headed out to find the pub.

I had looked up directions and thought that the pub was FURTHER PAST his flat. Apparently it wasn’t, because we asked a kebab stand and he had to look it up on the internet. So Lora and I took the bus BACK to the Keble Road stop, wandered around for a while, and still couldn’t find it.

Even though it was 10:40 PM and the thing started at 9:30, Lora convinced me to keep walking. We magically somehow found the Rose and Crown pub and he was still there with 3 other students. Two of them left pretty much right away, but one stayed. After about a half hour, she also left, so it was just Dr. Jones, Lora, and I. He is ABSOLUTELY hilarious. He’s kind of inappropriate at times, but then I realized, that’s how my humor is now. When I’m like 65 years old, my humor is probably gonna come off as creepy to some 20 year olds as well. He is super nice and we ended up staying until about midnight. At this point I had basically no voice so I had to have Lora do most of the talking.

We decided to head out about midnight and made the 30 minute walk home. Lora and I had good conversation about our experiences at Oxford and it really meant a lot. I was so glad she and I made it to the pub that night, because it was fun and it was memorable. Dr. Jones was a really great tutor and he said he would write me a recommendation letter.

Life win.

I had to wake up at 7:30 on Monday so that I could head to the Bodleian and read. I didn’t prepare at all for my Tuesday tutorial with reading before Monday, so I basically had from 9:30 AM in the morning to read all about it and to write an essay by 6 PM that night.

I ended up spending 4 hours in the Bodleian, stopped at Coffee Republic for lunch, read there, and then went to New College to read some more and write my paper. Aside from finishing citations, I got the whole thing done and it was surprisingly not as bad as I thought.

The best part of the night was the Christmas Party that Katrina, Will, Poppy, and Tim were hosting. I promised to teach them some American drinking games (sorry Mom, shield your eyes, I’m legally allowed to drink here), so that was fun. Flip cup and beer pong were quite the success. I also took the millions of buckeyes that I made so that everyone else could try them. Also, I had some weird mince pie that Tim made me eat (sorry Tim, it was too english-y for me) and some of “Tim’s Special Christmas Liquid”…it was Christmas in a Cup. Literally.

The night was really fun and ridiculous. I met tons and tons of people. I also ended up playing “pin the nose on the reindeer” a really quick makeshift game that Rachel Sullivan decided to make halfway through the night.

Definitely got me in the Christmas spirit! I’m sad everyone’s going to be leaving soon though.

Sunday was our trip to Cambridge. Farzeen and I woke up and got ready to get to the bus by 9 AM. We were early (we never are) and nobody else was there. Finally, more people came and we headed on a 2 and a half bus ride to Cambridge. I wanted to go so that I could compare the two places.

We first headed to the Mandingley American Cemetery, where we met the supervisor of the memorial and cemetery. Tons of soldiers from World War II are buried there, and there’s a wall of all the missing people. He told us the story of some of the MIA on the wall, including the only medal of honor recipient. I was really glad I got to go, definitely made me think that the military is probably the right path for me.

From there, we took a quick bus tour of the surrounding Cambridge areas. Let me tell you, the buildings are UGLYYYYYYYYYYYY. Cambridge is ranked 1 in the world, with Oxford at 2, but the thing that this trip taught me was that I preferred Oxford ALL THE WAY.

Maybe I’ve already been brainwashed. Probably.

There’s a clock that Stephen Hawkins unvelied in Cambridge with a giant mutant grasshopper eating the seconds on the clock. Just google a picture, it’s super weird. It’s also not exact time, but relative time, so sometimes the clock runs a bit slow, other times fast. At that point in the tour, Farzeen, Luke and I peeled off to go to the Eagle pub for lunch. This was the pub that Watson and Crick announced they had discovered DNA, so that was really cool. Also, lots of American servicemen burned their names on the ceiling with a lighter during World War II. After finally finding a table, we ordered “traditional” food. I got lamb and potatoes and it was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. We were starving and freezing so the food was perfect.

After that, we walked around. We went to the Fitzwilliam museum and saw different kinds of art. We then saw King’s College and Trinity from the outside. The annoying part of Cambridge was how many people were trying to force us to go punting. We had to be back at the bus by 4 PM, which was kind of a bummer. We ended up being on the bus longer than in Cambridge, kind of a fail.

Regardless, I’m glad I got to see Cambridge and decide that Oxford really is better =)