Trinity
The last two days have been... strange. Things are better. Not that anything has actually changed. I still have the ridiculous workload and terrifying immediate future. But what can you do, as I seem to say endlessly these days, what can you do but live through this. It somehow takes more energy to be crushingly depressed than it does to be just generally equable. So that is what I am doing. And the weather seems to have approved of the decision, because it's rather wonderful. It's not warm yet, but it seems to want to be, and the college is collectively sunning itself on the garden quad. I am trying to keep my head above water and it's helping.
So are my lovely friends, of course. I got two parcels yesterday. One was from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hathy_col, which had apparently taken less than a day to make the journey from Fife to Oxford, and it was full of treasure. I have a bunch of new music for me and a bunch of music for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
girl_doctor - she says thank you, and so do I of course. Thank you! I opened the package in the Social Science Library and had to contain my squee. I did squee, only quietly. And the other package I didn't open until later, and didn't look at it properly otherwise I would have noticed the remarkable battered-ness of it. Okay, so it came from further than Fife. It is my birthday package from gamesiplay, and it has been in the post for FOUR MONTHS. My mind is thoroughly boggled. But it's in one piece. Thank you, Leigh! Thank you so very, very much. I love it. I plan to devour it the moment I have nothing academic to read.
Talking of having nothing non-academic to read, I stopped in Borders on my way to Sainsbury's and read the first chapter or so of Brideshead Revisited. (I have no friend to lend it to me and neither do I have £8.99, so what can you do.) I was going happily along and going "glee!" at the various bits about Oxford, and then I got to this gem, taken from advice given to a first year:
"You're reading history? A perfectly respectable school. The very worst is English literature and the next worst is Modern Greats."
Aha. Ahahaha. Knew I was going wrong somewhere. S'only funny 'cause it's true. (I actually wish PPE was still called Modern Greats. It sounds so much more interesting.)
Anyway, where was I? Going to the SSL with my packages, yes. I met a worse-for-wearwithiel on my way there, who informed me solemnly that he was going to his estate agent with his "unreliable" friend. At that moment, said friend came out of the Alternative Tuck Shop, looked at Alex, looked at me, looked down at his hands, and asked, plaintively: "Where the fuck is my sandwich?"
I tried very hard not to laugh, and did not succeed. I went off to the library before the sandwich reappeared. I only found out what had happened to it after going to Queerglish at the Union bar with other components ofou3fs. Queerglish is wonderful in that you do not have to be either queer or English-reading, but the name has stuck regardless. I seem to remember eating dougnuts, thanking foulds for leaving me flowers in his will (he is not dead), and spending a very very long time arguing with Alex about whether or not the Doctor is half-human and why the Time Lords might be far-future alternate-shifted-timeline humans.
In the evening, Maria made me rice pudding, with vanilla sugar and cardamon. I was touched.
But yes, work calls. This week so far I have managed to do Descartes reading and essy, Macro reading, and Keynes, and essay, and a few hours of maths revision. It's going all right, in that I am still alive and have interacted with other humans in that time. Tonight I realised that there is no way out for me - I have to revise, twenty minutes here and there, on top of my regular workload, because otherwise I will fail my prelims. Not that you would have thought so, off the evidence of tonight. I was sort of on a natural high post-macro - I hate Forder, oh, yes, I do - and went to G&D's and ate too much ice-cream, and came back to college and sat on the lawn. It was beautiful, so beautiful - dusky, and a little warm, with so many flowers. I sat out there with Claire, and ended up playing PPE Ultimate Frisbee (!!11) very badly, dodging wine glasses in the twilight on the grass.
I took some pictures, which ( didn't come out that well )
The rest were even darker. I should take more pictures, actually; Oxford in Trinity is lovely, just lovely. I don't know how people put it into words, because it is so perfect - the flowers and the colours and the way it just feels fresh, different and still honey-stone old - and I still love it. I didn't want to come inside, so I got my books from the attic and went across to Starbucks, and sat nursing a cup of coffee for two hours while I revised maths. It was quite nice, actually; better sitting around people than holed up on my own, and I met another PPEist doing the same thing, sat at a table next to me.
And now I guess I go to bed. Busy day as always, tomorrow. Am I the only person who's now excited about May Day morning? I've read about it, and I guess I didn't realise that it actually happens. Not that I was planning to jump in the river or anything. But I'm looking forward to it. And I suppose that's what all of this is about; having small things to look forward to do, each day, each week, and I will live through this.
So are my lovely friends, of course. I got two parcels yesterday. One was from
hathy_col, which had apparently taken less than a day to make the journey from Fife to Oxford, and it was full of treasure. I have a bunch of new music for me and a bunch of music for girl_doctor - she says thank you, and so do I of course. Thank you! I opened the package in the Social Science Library and had to contain my squee. I did squee, only quietly. And the other package I didn't open until later, and didn't look at it properly otherwise I would have noticed the remarkable battered-ness of it. Okay, so it came from further than Fife. It is my birthday package from gamesiplay, and it has been in the post for FOUR MONTHS. My mind is thoroughly boggled. But it's in one piece. Thank you, Leigh! Thank you so very, very much. I love it. I plan to devour it the moment I have nothing academic to read.Talking of having nothing non-academic to read, I stopped in Borders on my way to Sainsbury's and read the first chapter or so of Brideshead Revisited. (I have no friend to lend it to me and neither do I have £8.99, so what can you do.) I was going happily along and going "glee!" at the various bits about Oxford, and then I got to this gem, taken from advice given to a first year:
"You're reading history? A perfectly respectable school. The very worst is English literature and the next worst is Modern Greats."
Aha. Ahahaha. Knew I was going wrong somewhere. S'only funny 'cause it's true. (I actually wish PPE was still called Modern Greats. It sounds so much more interesting.)
Anyway, where was I? Going to the SSL with my packages, yes. I met a worse-for-wear
withiel on my way there, who informed me solemnly that he was going to his estate agent with his "unreliable" friend. At that moment, said friend came out of the Alternative Tuck Shop, looked at Alex, looked at me, looked down at his hands, and asked, plaintively: "Where the fuck is my sandwich?"I tried very hard not to laugh, and did not succeed. I went off to the library before the sandwich reappeared. I only found out what had happened to it after going to Queerglish at the Union bar with other components of
ou3fs. Queerglish is wonderful in that you do not have to be either queer or English-reading, but the name has stuck regardless. I seem to remember eating dougnuts, thanking foulds for leaving me flowers in his will (he is not dead), and spending a very very long time arguing with Alex about whether or not the Doctor is half-human and why the Time Lords might be far-future alternate-shifted-timeline humans.In the evening, Maria made me rice pudding, with vanilla sugar and cardamon. I was touched.
But yes, work calls. This week so far I have managed to do Descartes reading and essy, Macro reading, and Keynes, and essay, and a few hours of maths revision. It's going all right, in that I am still alive and have interacted with other humans in that time. Tonight I realised that there is no way out for me - I have to revise, twenty minutes here and there, on top of my regular workload, because otherwise I will fail my prelims. Not that you would have thought so, off the evidence of tonight. I was sort of on a natural high post-macro - I hate Forder, oh, yes, I do - and went to G&D's and ate too much ice-cream, and came back to college and sat on the lawn. It was beautiful, so beautiful - dusky, and a little warm, with so many flowers. I sat out there with Claire, and ended up playing PPE Ultimate Frisbee (!!11) very badly, dodging wine glasses in the twilight on the grass.
I took some pictures, which ( didn't come out that well )
The rest were even darker. I should take more pictures, actually; Oxford in Trinity is lovely, just lovely. I don't know how people put it into words, because it is so perfect - the flowers and the colours and the way it just feels fresh, different and still honey-stone old - and I still love it. I didn't want to come inside, so I got my books from the attic and went across to Starbucks, and sat nursing a cup of coffee for two hours while I revised maths. It was quite nice, actually; better sitting around people than holed up on my own, and I met another PPEist doing the same thing, sat at a table next to me.
And now I guess I go to bed. Busy day as always, tomorrow. Am I the only person who's now excited about May Day morning? I've read about it, and I guess I didn't realise that it actually happens. Not that I was planning to jump in the river or anything. But I'm looking forward to it. And I suppose that's what all of this is about; having small things to look forward to do, each day, each week, and I will live through this.