/52/ A cup o’ kindness

That’s it for 2013 then, I guess.

I lived in three different places (1 2 3) in three different countries. I flew spontanteously to Parma with just a change of clothes, a camera and a toothbrush. I turned 21. I wrote roughly 46,000 words in 23 essays (the 24th would have been semantics, but I guess I never wrote it). I went temporarily insane from stress and realised it was time to tone it down.

I trekked through fields full of cows in my festival gear, trying to find a shop that sold milk for my tent-side cuppa, and realised the absurdity of 21st century living. I tracked down a dead poet in the Alps. I went for a night-time dip in Swiss lake and then ate a defrosted, uncooked pizza with one of my best friends in the world. I saw Europe’s biggest waterfall. I petted a goat.

I moved to Berlin and found it challenging. I plodded through autumnal Oslo. I got my first taste of Poland and liked it. I faced Germany’s dark history and responded with many words, even though I really know what to say… I sang karaoke in a gay bar. I started to feel at home in Berlin.

I went home to Bavaria. I went home to the UK. I went ice skating. I had a heart-to-heart with a painting of Mr Darcy in the women’s loos of my favourite pub back home. I had another heart-to-heart with a dear friend on an Oxfordshire bus. I had a third heart-to-heart in a cozy Oxford coffee shop with snowflakes whirling by. Consider my heart replenished.

 

And 2013 ended much like it began, in a house full of friends with a belly full of food and happy. 

I wrote about my year 52 times here – it wasn’t always easy, and I flagged at the end. Considerably. The date tag on this might read December, but as I write this it’s almost the following June. Nevertheless, the task is done. 22,000 words dissecting, documenting and reflecting on 2013. The verdict? It was good, as years go. One of the best I’ve had, in fact.

I’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet – for auld lang syne!

/30/ - Leaving Oxford

I moved out of my house in East Oxford this week, but only realized on the last day that I failed all year to take any photographs, so I snapped some quick shots on my phone of the bare room. I rearranged it this way about two hours before taking the photos, having had the furniture in a completely different configuration all year long, so it’s doubly unfaithful! But I think it’s important, or at least fun, to have photographs of every place you live, so that one day you can sit down and look at all the places you’ve been.

 

I haven’t loved this room: the size is deceptive, and I often felt more cramped than in my tiny space back home; I had some serious damp issues for most of the year; the bed was more springs than mattress; and the aged, “vintage” furniture was a stiff and splintery nightmare. During the most hectic parts of term, it was strewn with clothes and papers, and there were weeks where it seemed I only came home to sleep. My bike tracked in mud and rain and streaks of oil, and I know I have had my fair share of furry old cups of tea forgotten on a mantelpiece or on a stack of books.

And yet, it’s the first time that I ever lived away from home properly in my own place – not lodging, not as an au pair, not in college accommodation, but in my own place, shared with seven other students. We let the kitchen and the bathrooms get too an embarrassing stage of grime before teaming together and cleaning the house all at once in a storm of Mr Muscle and elbow grease. I made midnight pasta after getting back from a party, consoled a friend with a bottle of wine, holed myself up in my room and my bed for days when I felt rubbish, watching The West Wing and eating chocolate, spent hours in front of my desk, pounding out an essay to hit a deadline, tried on outfits in front of my mirror, and used the room as a sanctuary all of my own to catch a breath and find my head.

Now on to the next adventure.

/29/ - Go to Town

On the last day of my Exon internship, I had a typically odd task, one which characterises the varied and creative role I had on the project. Pushed last-minute for a final article, I came up with the idea of writing about a current exhibition in Oxford. While the Oxford Museum of Natural History is closed for refurbishment, the management has come up with an innovative way of keeping the public engaged with the museum. They’ve installed a dozen of their most interesting items in the collection in places around town. In most cases, they linked the installation to the place it was installed, such as a dodo in the Ashmolean museum (which largely houses collections of artefacts from long-dead civilisations); a bank vole in a bank; CS Lewis’ white rabbit in a library; and a penguin outside a fishmonger.

 

After writing the article, I grabbed the camera and made my way around Oxford, snapping photos of the exhibits and the town. There was a foreign foods market and even though I’m currently doing a detox (never done one before but it’s actually kind of fun), I couldn’t resist the Turkish Delight. 

 
 

/26/ Port Meadow

This week, my friend Shawnee came to visit. Shawnee and I go way back – think back, and then go further – and we never fail to have a great time whenever we hang out. It’s Shawnee who accompanied me to IKEA back in February (remember?) and when I went to Iceland last summer, it was with Shawnee and our mutual friend Ana (for a recap, click here). So on a day we both had off, Shawnee came to Oxford from her exciting job which I’m not sure I’m allowed to talk about – but trust me, it’s very cool. After lunch in my College’s garden, we headed to Port Meadow and played around in the river. (The last time that Shawnee visited me in Oxford, she somehow ended up talking me into going for a swim despite me having no towel or swimming costume, which is something I wisely avoided this time around).

  Shawnee and I are planning a trip in central Europe in September; I can’t wait.

/25/ – second year recap (tl;dr)

So here it is; the end of year two. I can’t believe I’m already half way through my degree; I can’t believe I’m 21; I can’t believe I’m about to have a whole year in Berlin! How is it all happening so fast?

Before this portion of my life slips away completely, I want to record what an average week for me looks like this Trinity.

I spend many weekends back home with my parents, isolating myself from the world with nothing but my laptop and a stack of books for company.

Monday morning there’s a lecture on – Paper VIII, Modern German Literature – but I don’t really go now. The lecture series has covered all my topics of interest already (and I’m kind of lazy). In previous terms, I’d have two or three, even five lectures a week but now it’s just the one and I’d rather sleep in.

Most days I have coffee with one friend or another, grabbing a Cappuccino (much to the distaste of one friend, who informed me that Cappuccino is not to be drunk in the afternoon) and sitting on the bench on the Front Quad. Come rain or shine, I’m there.

I try to go to the library, but get bored quickly. I’d rather read in my bed, or in a coffee shop, or in the newly-refurbished GCR, a small common room with computers which I helped refurbish (and by helped, I mean I made most of the design decision s and the college’s maintenance team did all the actual hard work, so an ideal situation for me really even if I felt a bit lazy!). It’s a pretty sky-blue colour, and has some of the comfiest armchairs I’ve ever had the pleasure to lounge in.

I often grab a burrito or Chinese takeout for dinner – and I wonder where the pounds come from? – or make something back home, usually while watching an episode (or two, or three) of my latest favourite TV Show. This term, it’s been The West Wing, Game of Thrones, Parks and Rec and Hart of Dixie.

I don’t go out as much as I used to, but it’s a rare week that doesn’t find me in a club at least once. I don’t like to drink that much and though I’m often amused by my friends and have a good time dancing and talking, I don’t love the getting bored way before anyone else wants to leave any more than the slightly wobbly walk or bike ride home. Of course I also get wasted time to time, but the times are become further apart and I don’t miss it.

I also have my fair share of student jobs. At least once a week, I set time aside to go out and take some photos for the Development Office, be it of the College buildings, a sports match, a rowing race, or any number of other events happening around the College. On Thursdays, I work in the Development Office on our College’s magazine, Exon (you can read old editions here), where I commission, chase down, edit, and occasionally even write articles. My favourite articles are the features.

My other job is working in the bar. I love working in the bar – 99% of the time, you’re serving your friends, and there’s a really good quiz machine down there. I have no idea how many pounds I’ve wasted on playing Battleships, but I won my fair share of times! Because this term was my busiest so far, I often ended up taking the lighter shifts on Sunday evenings (which goes some way to making up for having worked every bop in the last year on top of one or two shifts a week – I’m so glad that we can have this flexibility for our studies when we need it). I’m really going to miss bar work during my year abroad but I know that job will be waiting for me in fourth year when I come back.

Of course, there never really is an “average” week in Oxford. This term, I worked on an immersive cinema event, photographed the Windsor Regatta, went to a Watsky concert, served Pimms on the riverside, stayed up all night dancing on the 1^st of May, celebrated my 21^st birthday with some of my best friends, took part in the selection process for the next rector, helped on a linguistics research project, went to three balls, and even managed to squeeze in the occasional run.

So that’s it, pretty much! I have no idea what my average week in the next year will be like but I can’t wait to find out.

/24/ - Rowing (So Much Rowing)

The last few weeks of term were a blur of sunshine, hurried essays and Pimms on the grass. On two occasions, I found myself involved in that most notorious of Oxford sports – rowing. I myself have never been in a rowboat, other than a dinghy manned by myself and my brother in a Greek bay when we were kids, but it’s inescapable here whether you’re in the team or not.

Summer VIIIs is the name confusingly given to the Summer collegiate races, since it happens at the end of 5^th week. It’s the one time of year where everyone, and I mean everyone, flocks to the boat houses on the Thames. It’s like the biggest barbeque you can imagine with dozens of collegiate boat houses selling hot dogs, hamburgers, coke, lemonade, coffee, tea, ice cream, beers and Pimms. Last year I just lay around on the riverbank, cheering along our teams and feeling awkward for a lack of something real to do. Not so this year. I worked at our Pimms stall along with Will (a housemate), Owen (one of my good friends, currently travelling across the USA) and Lu (our boss), pouring and serving for so many hours that the motions became automatic. But I’m not complaining – the Sun was beating down, we had a steady supply of cold refreshments, and I got to run out to the river a couple of times, snapping photos of the races and the festivities.

 

At the beginning of 8^th week, I got up painfully early to catch a train to Windsor with my college’s women’s rowing team. After an hour or two of bikes, trains, taxis and old-fashioned walking, we arrived in a large muddy field under an overcast grey sky. The reason for this was that Exeter College Boat Club had, for some reason or another (the details escape me), been entered in the Windsor Regatta. I had come along at the behest of the College to take photos of the event. Windsor Regatta isn’t half as classy as Henley or Marlow, but it was nice to be there nonetheless.

     

Even if I felt a little useless, I think that it was a better thing to do than wake up late, stay in bed, and watch YouTube videos in bed which, let’s be honest, is what I do most Saturday mornings.

/22/ Trashings

I don’t think I’ve ever talked about trashings. It’s one of those Oxford traditions that you just get so used to that you sometimes forget it doesn’t happen everywhere. When students finish their exams – sat in a uniform-like get-up known as sub fusc – they are bedecked with silly string and confetti and ‘trashed’ with water and champagne (or whatever fizzy wine their friends have got their hands on). It’s a kind of crude rebirth metaphor I suppose; they enter the porter’s lodge dry and still a student, and emerge on the other side sopping wet, freezing cold, and laughing in the ecstasy that their exams have finished. If you’re unlucky, you’ll get a sopping hug from a grinning friend, and if you’re really unlucky you’ll get caught in the crossfire of buckets and bottles. It’s also one of the few occasions where students are allowed to walk on the grass of the front quad, so there’s usually a large congregation of people who turn up to watch. When the history students finished, I stood at a safe distance and caught it all on camera.

    

It’s a little sad, especially for finalists because they know that’s the last time they’re undergrad students, and it means goodbye for most of them. But there’s value in the rebirth metaphor: washing away all the stress and youth and neuroses of the past three or four years, they are now ready to make mistakes and be silly in new places.

/19/ The Big Two-One

On Wednesday evening, my parents arrived from Reading – why, I can’t remember – and we ended up going to my favourite restaurant in Oxford. It’s a beautifully decorated tapas  place which feels like the South of Spain/ Morocco and whose staff are so friendly. I’ve genuinely lost count of how often I’ve been there, but if you only go to one restaurant in Oxford, go to Kazbar!

 

Did that stop me from returning the next night with a group of friends, many of whom are my closest here in Oxford? Don’t be ridiculous. Luckily Tristan, see here, caught it all on camera:

 

AH OH MY GOD YOU GUYS ARE JUST SO DAMN GREAT. Ok.

(Of my actual birthday-day, the Friday, I have few memories. Largely because I took no photos, which I really feel validates the first point on this list. Never mind. Rose, the girl whose birthday I joyfully share, and I and some friends went for breakfast and then we all went out in the evening.)

The week ended on a hilarious, wobbly high when Sam (pictured above in the red jacket) and I worked the bar at a ball. St Hilda’s Ball. It was a terrible ball, but we had a great time talking, laughing at ridiculous people and eating candy floss. That’s what friends are for, right?

I feel so so so lucky. Up until now my birthdays have always been a little bit sad and disappointing but this week was so perfect. It was not all about me, but I was all about it (if that makes sense?) and even if I never have another one again, I will always have the memory of this Happy Birthday.