Tuesday 4 October 2011

three days in

What do you mean, this is only the third day? I’m sure I’ve been here for weeks! In the last two and a bit days, I have met more people than I’ve ever met in as short a period of time in my life. I’ve met people who are foreign, people who are gorgeous, people who are self-conscious, people who are martial artists, but the nicest discovery of the last few days is that even though Oxford is largely full of white middle-class people, they are all people with interesting things to say, with awkward moments or with cool hair, and I don’t have to feel the odd one out – at least not in a bad way.
Even though it feels like a lot of time has passed, very little has actually happened since I arrived on Sunday. We’ve been to a  lot of talks about everything from fire safety to the history of Exeter College – the the IT talk and the doctors talk were surprisingly the best – and learnt that six people or more in a room constitutes a party (which seems a little bit pedantic, but whatever). I proudly put up my hand when we were all asked who picked the college because of Tolkien, because I honestly did at first; I amused an Irishman with stories of Iceland; and I have been set my first pieces of work.
I’m not really excited, my life hasn’t changed, but it’s been nice and easy-going so far. The new independence means that for a lot of people this is the first time they can go out without parents watching over the shoulder, and do so without abandon; other people seem to be less of the partying type, preferring to have chilled out chats in their rooms. I reckon I fall somewhere in the middle, and my favourite hours have been spent at the pub chatting to finalists about their years abroad, or to the visiting American students on the lawn of the garden. I’m starting to recognise faces, and am even able to put names to some.
There isn’t much more to report at the time being, but I hope that you’re doing well wherever you are.

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