New College, Oxford
Jun. 30th, 2004 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenSo, where am I? I'm in the junior common room at New College, Oxford. I wasn't expecting to get net access here, but seeing as I have it, why not update, etc. I'm very tired, just for reference, and it's nearly the full moon - blame that for any choppiness or tangential weirdness in this entry.
Everything went much better than I expected, travel-wise. I arrived in Liverpool without too much angst, and caught a train without missing it or losing my ticket or anything else. I was all right on that train, having even acquired a book (The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde) and some sandwiches from Boots. I was mainly paranoid because I had precisely five minutes to change trains in Wolverhampton, and guess what - the first train was late. I was terrified.
For no reason, as it turned out. The second train was even later and as an added bonus, it was on the same platform. So I caught it without actually crying and got sat next to an old lady who seemed to enjoy talking to me. It was all okay and I arrived in Oxford at about four in the afternoon.
It's been years since I've been here, but I decided to walk through the city on my way to New College and kept on finding parts of it strangely familiar, for example a small bridge over water with a massive, spreading weeping willow trailing over the surface of the water. It was beautiful. The whole city is beautiful. It's like Chester, sort of - but nicer, with the pretty shops and narrow roads and backstreets and immense sense of history. There are of course hundreds of students around for the university open days, and somehow they make the place even more fun. I love just about everything about the place.
The college itself is imposing. I got here at five, picked up my room key and was "shepherded" by a vaguely clueless second-year student who got lost several times on his way. The room itself is quite nice but not really worth writing about, and I went out again straight away. Out on the grass in the quad, I got talking to a girl (I later found out her name was Laura Baker, of all things) and we were advised to go and "squeak the mound."
No innuendo, honest. New College has somewhat unusual setup - the new buildings were built in the nineteenth century, but the grounds are bisected by the old city walls and the chapel and most of the buildings date from 1379. One of the eollege's more inexplicable features is the mound, a set of stone steps covered in plants and trees that sits in the middle of the glass. Due to some bizarre quirk of acoustics that apparently even physicists find hard to explain, if you stand about ten paces in front of it and clap, it squeaks at you. It really does. The sound is like the sound you get when you pop hydrogen. It's oddly fascinating.
While we were still engrossed in that, I noticed a gang of people wearing Balliol t-shirts and somehow became part of a Balliol walking tour of Oxford, or at least those parts of it that would be of interest to your average student. We saw Lincoln and Exeter (and Exeter chapel, which is really beautiful) and some of the pubs, which are definitely good.
It was a bit of an impromptu tour, to be honest. I had dinner at New, and a more incongruous meal I have never had. It was your typical mass produced school meal fare, with plastic trays, but in the grand and splendid surroundings of the college hall. Extraordinary.
After that, I didn't do much, meandering over the grass and taking in the beauty all around. I really feel very conflicted about this - on the one hand, I want to enjoy this, and on the other hand, I don't want to love it here because the disappointment if I don't get in will just be too much to cope with.
Moving on. Finally, our "shepherds" - second years called Jeremy and Andy - did their shepherding and led me and a whole load of others to the local place for ice-cream on the grounds that they really couldn't take us to the pub. So I sat there, talking to a bunch of people whom I have never met before, eating banana ice-cream as it got later and later below skies that never get dark, and marvelled at how surreal it was. While we were there, some girl came running over and asked in a pronounced American accent, "So what do you guys do for fun round here?"
It took some time to explain to her the concept of an open day, and just because we're all from England doesn't mean we're all from Oxford, and it took the most time for her to realise that people running up to you randomly in ice-cream parlours is odd. The whole encounter was odd and I don't know why I mention it.
Walking through the streets at eleven at night, below the last of the daylight and with all these students and around us all this history - there aren't words to describe it, except perhaps I don't want to fall in love with this place.
I ought to go to bed soon. Tomorrow is the actual open day, and in the evening I'm meeting![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amchau. I actually checked out our meeting-place in advance today, so everything's okay.
I'm very tired.
Everything went much better than I expected, travel-wise. I arrived in Liverpool without too much angst, and caught a train without missing it or losing my ticket or anything else. I was all right on that train, having even acquired a book (The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde) and some sandwiches from Boots. I was mainly paranoid because I had precisely five minutes to change trains in Wolverhampton, and guess what - the first train was late. I was terrified.
For no reason, as it turned out. The second train was even later and as an added bonus, it was on the same platform. So I caught it without actually crying and got sat next to an old lady who seemed to enjoy talking to me. It was all okay and I arrived in Oxford at about four in the afternoon.
It's been years since I've been here, but I decided to walk through the city on my way to New College and kept on finding parts of it strangely familiar, for example a small bridge over water with a massive, spreading weeping willow trailing over the surface of the water. It was beautiful. The whole city is beautiful. It's like Chester, sort of - but nicer, with the pretty shops and narrow roads and backstreets and immense sense of history. There are of course hundreds of students around for the university open days, and somehow they make the place even more fun. I love just about everything about the place.
The college itself is imposing. I got here at five, picked up my room key and was "shepherded" by a vaguely clueless second-year student who got lost several times on his way. The room itself is quite nice but not really worth writing about, and I went out again straight away. Out on the grass in the quad, I got talking to a girl (I later found out her name was Laura Baker, of all things) and we were advised to go and "squeak the mound."
No innuendo, honest. New College has somewhat unusual setup - the new buildings were built in the nineteenth century, but the grounds are bisected by the old city walls and the chapel and most of the buildings date from 1379. One of the eollege's more inexplicable features is the mound, a set of stone steps covered in plants and trees that sits in the middle of the glass. Due to some bizarre quirk of acoustics that apparently even physicists find hard to explain, if you stand about ten paces in front of it and clap, it squeaks at you. It really does. The sound is like the sound you get when you pop hydrogen. It's oddly fascinating.
While we were still engrossed in that, I noticed a gang of people wearing Balliol t-shirts and somehow became part of a Balliol walking tour of Oxford, or at least those parts of it that would be of interest to your average student. We saw Lincoln and Exeter (and Exeter chapel, which is really beautiful) and some of the pubs, which are definitely good.
It was a bit of an impromptu tour, to be honest. I had dinner at New, and a more incongruous meal I have never had. It was your typical mass produced school meal fare, with plastic trays, but in the grand and splendid surroundings of the college hall. Extraordinary.
After that, I didn't do much, meandering over the grass and taking in the beauty all around. I really feel very conflicted about this - on the one hand, I want to enjoy this, and on the other hand, I don't want to love it here because the disappointment if I don't get in will just be too much to cope with.
Moving on. Finally, our "shepherds" - second years called Jeremy and Andy - did their shepherding and led me and a whole load of others to the local place for ice-cream on the grounds that they really couldn't take us to the pub. So I sat there, talking to a bunch of people whom I have never met before, eating banana ice-cream as it got later and later below skies that never get dark, and marvelled at how surreal it was. While we were there, some girl came running over and asked in a pronounced American accent, "So what do you guys do for fun round here?"
It took some time to explain to her the concept of an open day, and just because we're all from England doesn't mean we're all from Oxford, and it took the most time for her to realise that people running up to you randomly in ice-cream parlours is odd. The whole encounter was odd and I don't know why I mention it.
Walking through the streets at eleven at night, below the last of the daylight and with all these students and around us all this history - there aren't words to describe it, except perhaps I don't want to fall in love with this place.
I ought to go to bed soon. Tomorrow is the actual open day, and in the evening I'm meeting
amchau. I actually checked out our meeting-place in advance today, so everything's okay.I'm very tired.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2004-06-30 03:44 pm (UTC)If you get time, go and see Hertford College, it's gorgeous (not that I'm biased or anything).
Which subject do you want to do?
no subject
on 2004-07-01 04:22 pm (UTC)I want to do PPE, though I'm not sure where yet. What do you want to do?
no subject
on 2004-07-02 06:38 am (UTC)To be honest I was very surprised they even called me for interview as my AS's weren't what they should have been; and given that both my interviews felt like huge disasters I reckon they let me in for sheer comedy value!
no subject
on 2004-06-30 04:12 pm (UTC)I know the feeling. I'm glad I am done, done, DONE with my college process, and I hope yours goes well. (I don't know when your university process actually ends, because I'm ignorant. Sometime next year?)
Does Exeter have any association with the University of Exeter, or is that just a common name over there?
no subject
on 2004-07-01 04:26 pm (UTC)Exeter College was apparently set up by the Bishop of Exeter in the thirteenth century, so there's the connection. No connection with the city now. A lot of the colleges have names like that, actually - inexplicable unless you know a thousand years' worth of history.
no subject
on 2004-07-01 05:09 pm (UTC)Ah. I think we've already discussed this -- when we discovered the Yank assumption that Every Place in England is Close to Every Other Place! -- but I was going to mention that it's quite possible that I'll be doing an exchange program with the University of Exeter in two or three years. If that were close to where you are now, I would have said it's settled, you must go to Oxford. *grins* Ah, well. I still hope you get to go.
no subject
on 2004-06-30 09:39 pm (UTC)The only downside I found to college visits is that they made me want to screw the rest of high school, claim a spot in the library, and start studying immediately. ;)
no subject
on 2004-07-01 04:28 pm (UTC)And you're so right. I cannot face ordinary school tomorrow after such a lovely couple of days.
no subject
on 2004-07-01 06:09 am (UTC)The descriptions remind me of Exeter in New England; it's an Ivy League prep school and practically oozes money. The buildings aren't nearly as old (only about 400 years old or so) but it has that same quirky atmosphere.
I would have loved to have played with the mound. Is it ancient or just a quirk of architecture?
Don't worry too much about getting in; I know things are more competitive over there than here, but you're smart and you have decent grades and you have a lot going for you.
no subject
on 2004-07-01 04:31 pm (UTC)I do love the history surrounding the university - the buildings have been there so long they have become the framework of the city, and so wherever you go in Oxford you're still within the university, which I just love.
The mound has apparently been there as long as the college, which has been there since 1379. It wasn't built with squeaks in mind - this is just something that happened by accident. The endless fascination it produces has to be experienced to be believed.
And I do hope your faith in me is rewarded. *wistful sigh*