Busy continues as I enjoy my first “all-nighter” at Oxford in preparation for the upcoming exam. Competition for books remains high and many of the students have adopted a barter system amongst themselves for the books that are needed in the short time before the exam, completely bypassing the queue of the library’s waiting lists and procedures. There are pro’s and con’s to this – the pro obviously being that the books get around a great deal faster and several people in a room might get to at least spend some time with the book they need in group clusters in the common room rather than 1 more person ‘getting’ it and the other 3 or whatever not at all seeing it; the con is that those who are waiting in the queue and not getting in on the group book swapping will not see the book that should be rightfully theirs for having waited their turn patiently. So it is really both a cooperative effort of a community working together to mutually succeed and survival of the fittest by virtue of being in the right place at the right time and screw the people who adhere to the system.
Today is, well yesterday was anyway, my 9 year anniversary – which I was glad I didn’t have too much time to think about while I was meeting tutors and making schedules and reading books today because I am sad not to be with my love on our special day. We did talk and reaffirmed our promise to make it up to each other in London later on, so there is that. If it had occurred to me that I could have been having shrimp and sake and going home to cuddle it would have made me sad while I was attending the “Stop Screwing Up Already!” meeting we had in the JCR tonight at 7pm (basically a standard reiteration of the rules and a few notes about recent events covered previously here).
Both my tutorials seem very cool (Viking Literature and Classical Mythology & Legend in case you forgot / didn’t know) and I have my seminar tomorrow (Arthurian Legend)… well today actually, in 3 hours from the time of this typing at 9am. Neither of my professors gave me an essay prompt for this week, preferring to start that in 1st week rather than 0th week – so I just have some background/foundation reading to do with notes for a discussion next time we meet. In a way it is good, it will give me time to finish studying (they call it ‘revising’ here, by the way) for the test and probably knock out the Integral Essay as well, which is due on the 8th of December at the end of the program.
I am pretty sure everyone reading this is probably going ‘tsk tsk, there she is up all night!” Well I had to offer moral support to my compatriots who are freaking out and give comfort to those who got their feelings bruised when the meeting they called to tell people what time it is on the rules got scolded by the person 1 rung up for getting emotional about it, and other things of that nature so I figured – what the heck? – I might as well see the sun rise over Oxford at least once right?
Of course... it's raining. Oh well, I am sure there will be other chances like tonight/today.
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