Yesterday we welcomed 650 Medicine/Physiology wannabes (and parents) into the bosom of Oxford. And today, in all likelihood, we'll welcome 650 more! Busy days, but lots of fun! Until I realised the 6th year medical student who will be in a doctor in a month's time applied and went to university a year after me. He'll be off saving lives and stuff soon. I feel old and still can't believe I'm going to be 25 in August (and I still don't know what I want to do with my life).
In other news, we're going to Morocco for two weeks at the end of the month. Marrakech, Jbel Toubkal and Essaouira for a bit of a beach holiday. And we're staying here, here, here and here. I cannot wait...

I wonder if the reason is that I'm scared to put my thoughts down on paper, whether I'm just avoiding having to think about anything at all. Life goes on and I'm not sure what I'm doing. I have moments of clarity where I ask myself what the fuck am I doing? And then I just go back to the job, home, TV, friends, sleep, and start all over again the next day.
In reality it feels like I'm taking a break from life.
When did I stop being a positive person?

Yesterday I had to go down two floors from my office to find a free loo due to the long queues of undergrads in coat labs queuing to get ready for the 'wee practical'. Yep, they wee in cups and the analyse each other's wee.
I wonder if that's funnier than the email from the student who'd missed a lecture whose excuse was she'd been on a three day religious fast, and the only thing she could do before passing out was crawling to her emergency honey and have a spoonful of it...
Working in a university can be kind of funny sometimes.

And now Decor8, i.e. one of the better known interior decoration blogs out there, posted photos of our flat. This is awesome!

I have recently signed up to StyleRoom and uploaded a few photos of my flat. It's a pretty cool website, and I'm thinking I might make a post asking for advice re: a new sofa, since ours is slowly dying (creaking away every time we sit down). Right now I'm thinking the Charlie sofa from Sofa Workshop, but I really don't have the money right now so it'll have to wait. On the other hand, I do have the money for a Louis Ghost chair, which I ordered yesterday. I can't wait to get it delivered! For one, it's going to be SO much more comfortable than the current Ikea chair we have, which was never meant to be a desk chair. I decided to stick to black though, as I've discovered more and more I love to have a white/black canvas with lots of colour accents in-between.
Now, two things that have made me happy lately. After my post on StyleRoom, I was featured on decorology, and interior design/decorating blog. So thanks Ashley for that!
The other thing was getting a message from an ex-coursemate from my course in Oxford, complimenting me on the Oxfam report I helped write, and how it's actually made a change - which according to N, seems to be a pretty unusual consequence among Development Studies folks... It was a great feeling to know the report I put so much work into is actually read/appreciated!
Lastly, today I was in London for a Med School Fair, which was per se fairly uninteresting (especially as very few people turned up!), but as I sat outside St Barts Hospital I fell in love with London all over again. I was reminded of a great post by an Italian girl living in London (which I cannot link to as it is a private post on Livejournal!), about how the beauty of London does not lie in its cultural richness, its pretty tree-lined streets, its elegance, but is rather a consequence of its hardness and its grubbiness and its dirtiness. Wherever I end up, I am utterly convinced London will always hold a very special place in my heart because it feels MINE and it feels like HOME like no other place ever has. Not even Oxford.

I feel stuck, and I don't know why. I need hobbies, and I can't quite get there. I hear people with passions, exploring the options life is offering them, whilst I sit here just getting on. There must be something better out there, but I'm not sure what it is, and I'm not sure how to find it. I have a million ideas of things I want to do (take more photos, learn German, learn to drive, write...) and no idea how to start doing them. I can see how people spend their lives doing nothing, but I can't be that kind of person. I know it's a phase, I hope it's just a phase.
I need to wake up from this stupor and start doing instead of thinking and complaining. I need to.

I finally got off my arse and took a few photos of (bits of) our lovely flat on Norham Gardens. Just the living room/dining room/study/kitchen (yes, we live in a very open plan space, mainly because it's small!), so the bedroom will come later on!


There's a few more photos of the flat on my Flickr page, and I've decided to finally work through some of my India photos (I can't believe they've been sitting here un-photoshopped since September), so I will be adding those slowly in the next few days.
The lovely Raebe has given me some great news - she's somehow become involved in the organisation of a new space/gallery for young people/artists in Guildford, and if it all takes off she suggested I might want to exhibit some of my photos. Also, I've just received an email from someone from the Los Angeles Times asking if they could use one of my photos of Lake Toba for an online gallery on underrated holiday destinations. I was wondering what hobby I could pick up, and I'm pretty sure this is a sign I need to spend more time taking photographs. For once, I feel excited about something, and I need more of this, I seriously seriously do. I finally bought myself on of Nan Goldin's books, The Devil's Playground - she's one of my favourite photographers - and I've really enjoyed reading it. I think I need to take inspiration. Also, I need to blog more often...

Today is my last day at the temping job. It feels weird; this office, in all of its craziness, has been involving, and I've found a few people I like. At the same time, it's becoming unbearable, and just the right time for me to leave. The new office is nice, relaxed, hard-working, if somewhat boring. It's not perfect, but it's more along the lines of what I was looking for - making a small difference in how this university is run, without having to feel too stressed out, and being able to come home at 5 (well, 10 past 5, my home is a whole ten minutes away from work!) and relax.
Of course it hasn't been working out exactly as I had planned it. I've been feeling unhappy, for no apparent reason. Then I realised that my whole life used to revolve around academic work, and constantly feeling stressed out, and now I'm in a lull.
I think I need a hobby. Any ideas?
In the meantime, I'm going to Paris for a long weekend. Good food, hairdressers, and new clothes await me...!

New job, new offfice, new walk to work in the morning, new people, new tasks. So far so good. I still have a couple of days in the old place (nothing to do, incredible tensions due to the screaming match last week), and cannot wait to be out.
I am now officially employed by the University of Oxford, complete with a 'University Staff' card. Which now serves me to buy drinks in the Wolfson Bar and buy food in the cafeteria next door to work. Woohoo.
My life is so exciting right?
One of these days I will have time to write a proper entry. I feel like I constantly need to catch my breath - working has been so overwhelming, and I can't help but feel things would not be this way if I hadn't had to rebuild myself after being destroyed by my MPhil. Who knows.
I need time to think, and time to see my friends, and enjoy my life outside of work, but I feel like I'm failing at all three. I think it's time for a radical rethink of what I need out of my life (and why I'm doing the things I'm doing)...

See, I'm a worrier. I've realised that in the last two-three years (since my mum's illness, since being in Oxford) I've developed serious anxiety. I get stressed out about silly things (catching trains, making minutes I type up for work make sense), and about serious things (theses, getting a job). The most serious of which, I'm sure you've realised, is my friends, and how they're all having a crap time.
I spent the whole of today worried sick for one of my friends, and I'm just hoping she's OK. I trust her, and I know she probably is, or at least taking the time to feel better, but I worry, and I miss her, and I wish I could do something. I also feel somewhat like a failure as a friend, even though I know friends cannot control these things.
I just hope you're OK, beastly tank. I love you.
(and I'm so grateful for friends and evenings of cheese, wine, pork products, films, and where have all the hot men gone?)