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In Oxford, installment one
Dec. 5th, 2004 04:27 pmI'm here, where "here" is the JCR at Balliol College. I'm actually quite calm and enjoying myself, having arrived monumentally early as my parents managed somehow by the grace of all deities out there not to get lost. Absolutely amazing. Anyway, we got here about twelve, wandered into the college and I was met by a phalanx of current students ready to help me get around. They gave me a room key and everything. So I took it, deposited my stuff, and ran out into Broad Street again to hunt for my parents. Who were nice, and took me to lunch, and generally encouraging over pizza. This has contributed to my unexpected sense of calm. As my guide put it, the interviews are only a few hours and entirely incidental to three pleasant, fun days in a beautiful city.
We hope.
So when my parents left, I wandered back into the college and on my way I met Lara, a friend of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hathy_col's whom I seem to meet every time I come here. We only spoke for a few minutes - she's at St. John's - before I went on again. The problem is the reporting time is eight o'clock, and I was here about six hours early. Better than the poor sods who were here a full day early, but still gives me entirely too much time to kill and I apologise for the random texts some people may have received from me this afternoon. Hannah in particular may have suffered from this, I don't know. Anyway, I hung around in citrust-type fashion for a while before one of the current students took pity on me and took me and all the other applicants who had also arrived - there were a whole three of us - on a walking tour of the immediate area, and it is beautiful here. Once again I'm trying to stop myself loving it here, but I do and I can't help it despite the fact I am faced with a set of even more immediate statistics. This year for PPE at Balliol, there are forty-two applicants (an auspicious number, to be sure) and fifteen places.
The other two applicants are rather intelligent, have done excessive amounts of work experience and have heavy accents. One is half-Norwegian, half-Iraqi and the other is from Dusseldorf. I feel curiously out of place. There is actually one more applicant now, whom I can see getting tea behind me, who is a bit of an oddity. Clearly considers himself well hard, with red and black sweatbands just like the ones I dither over in Woodstock, massive baggy jeans (more than mine) slicked-down, gelled-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life hair and a pierced lip; however, he keeps being followed round by a woman who can only be his mother. He doesn't intimidate as much as mystify me, but he's the only one so far.
Dinner in hall is at half six, at which point I hope to have met the other forty-one applicants. I want to meet the competition, and mostly I just want someone to talk to while I'm here, but not if they're going to make me feel quite so unprepared. And yet, as the annoying rational part of my brain keeps pointing out, I'm just as good as everyone else here when it comes to pure academic achievement. I know that because I was called to interview. The interview itself is to ascertain je ne sais quoi, as it were. While we're on the subject, the last set of graffiti ("I like warm milk sandwiches") has been replaced by French anarchist graffiti which I probably can't remember and/or spell.
From what I hear, the interviewers (who are both female) are nice people and will not be attempting to shred me into tiny little pieces. This is good. I'm actually feeling okay. I'll probably make lots of irrelevant posts over the next three days, so watch this space, or don't if you don't care.
We hope.
So when my parents left, I wandered back into the college and on my way I met Lara, a friend of
hathy_col's whom I seem to meet every time I come here. We only spoke for a few minutes - she's at St. John's - before I went on again. The problem is the reporting time is eight o'clock, and I was here about six hours early. Better than the poor sods who were here a full day early, but still gives me entirely too much time to kill and I apologise for the random texts some people may have received from me this afternoon. Hannah in particular may have suffered from this, I don't know. Anyway, I hung around in citrust-type fashion for a while before one of the current students took pity on me and took me and all the other applicants who had also arrived - there were a whole three of us - on a walking tour of the immediate area, and it is beautiful here. Once again I'm trying to stop myself loving it here, but I do and I can't help it despite the fact I am faced with a set of even more immediate statistics. This year for PPE at Balliol, there are forty-two applicants (an auspicious number, to be sure) and fifteen places. The other two applicants are rather intelligent, have done excessive amounts of work experience and have heavy accents. One is half-Norwegian, half-Iraqi and the other is from Dusseldorf. I feel curiously out of place. There is actually one more applicant now, whom I can see getting tea behind me, who is a bit of an oddity. Clearly considers himself well hard, with red and black sweatbands just like the ones I dither over in Woodstock, massive baggy jeans (more than mine) slicked-down, gelled-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life hair and a pierced lip; however, he keeps being followed round by a woman who can only be his mother. He doesn't intimidate as much as mystify me, but he's the only one so far.
Dinner in hall is at half six, at which point I hope to have met the other forty-one applicants. I want to meet the competition, and mostly I just want someone to talk to while I'm here, but not if they're going to make me feel quite so unprepared. And yet, as the annoying rational part of my brain keeps pointing out, I'm just as good as everyone else here when it comes to pure academic achievement. I know that because I was called to interview. The interview itself is to ascertain je ne sais quoi, as it were. While we're on the subject, the last set of graffiti ("I like warm milk sandwiches") has been replaced by French anarchist graffiti which I probably can't remember and/or spell.
From what I hear, the interviewers (who are both female) are nice people and will not be attempting to shred me into tiny little pieces. This is good. I'm actually feeling okay. I'll probably make lots of irrelevant posts over the next three days, so watch this space, or don't if you don't care.
