May 2007 Archives

so here i am. essay handed in. no more essays until next term, michealmas 2007. but an exam in less than two weeks now... and i've done nothing! damn. i just can't be bothered, you know. at the same time, if it took me two weeks for revise for my other two exams (and i got a 65 and a 70), less than two weeks for this is more than enough.
still, i'm making excuses and i should really get started. to be perfectly honest, i want this term to end as quickly as possible, because i don't have the energy anymore. sigh.
yesterday i tried to order another pair of jeans like the one i bought last week, and it turns out, they're out of stock and they're not making them again. why does that always happen to me? the only pair of jeans that have fit me in a long, long time. it pisses me off so much that i have to wear the biggest size in the shop, and that the biggest size is almost never there. and you wonder why i feel fat all the time. i mean, i am not a skinny person, by any means, but is it right that sometimes i feel like i'm obese? i should go on a diet, i should exercise, do something. oxford has made me put on a lot of weight, but it's also deprived me of all of my energy, so i'm not quite sure how i'm going to get rid of this.
i should start by eating at home rather than in hall i guess. i kept it up for a couple of months but got bored eventually...
anyway, enough of this. i'm getting very excited about this whole moving in thing. we already know which flat we're going to be in: we'll have a lovely view (and two balconies!). i plan on buying plants for the balconies, a sofa (we only get two armchairs! i'm thinking ikea), nice rugs, and lots of cushions, as usual. :) i've also seen these awesome eco cleaning products i'm so buying (is that sad?). it's less than three months away now.
it's going to be awesome.
awesome.

i am confused. my life is a rollercoaster of emotions, seriously.
i just got the marks for the two exams (the ones i discovered i passed a couple of days ago), and i got a 65% on anthropology and 70% on economics. which is kind of funny considering i thought i'd failed anthro and i hadn't done that well in economics... actually, what pisses me off is that if i hadn't been really unlucky with the questions in anthropology and had been able to answer the third one in full, i might have gotten a much higher mark. in any case it doesn't really matter - these marks don't count since they are only qualifying exams which i needed to pass to go onto the next year. but i still rock. :)
the essay (re)writing is getting more and more confusing though, as i'm going through the remarks my supervisor made and it seems to me like i have done most of the things she said i haven't... duh? the sort of simplest remarks (about adding bits here and there) make perfect sense, that's true; at the same time, it felt yesterday like she was telling me i had to rewrite most of it and now that i'm looking at it again, that seems very unfair. sigh. i need to write a clear list of what she wants and work through it better i guess.
still, apparently i am a genius in economics and that's enough for the moment... :)

see, good news are always offset by bad news. which is a shame.
so now my hayfever has come with a vengeance (causing really bad sinus headaches) and the draft of my core essay has just completely been rubbished by my supervisor, meaning that i will have to rewrite three quarters of the damn thing by tuesday next week. the two things combined really don't bode well for me. and i had this whole nice plan about spending the weekend relaxing, punting and bopping... afraid not.
now off to the social science library to get an extra book i need and to the pharmacy to get antihistamines.
oh, and did i say one of my wisdom teeth seems to have decided it needs to come out now?

i have passed both my anthropology and economics exam. :) no resits in september for those! now i only have to finish a core essay (i'm getting a draft with comments back on thursday!) and do one more exam... wow, this is neverending. but one more month and i'll be free... or almost.
it is also official that m and i will be moving into a college couple's flat on the 18th of august. and it's on the nice side of the main building, with a lovely view of gardens and trees and cute houses and the river. and two balconies! oh. it's going to be lovely.
other than that, communist bop at the weekend, and possibly punting, and sophie might come to visit me, and the weather is lovely and... today is just a nice day (and can you tell i'm excited?!?). :)

that thing, that urge, it's back. i felt it again, not even a minute ago, looking at someone's picture of portland at night. i want to go away, see more, feel more, i want to travel!
and yet i can't, i won't be able to, for at least a good year. not properly anyway.
how do you balance these things, dreams and the realities of work and life and money...
sometimes i really wonder whether i've taken the right route. maybe i should have done something else, maybe my destiny was somewhere else. maybe right now i should be on the other side of the world, doing something else... or should i?
i find it confusing when life here is so intense the rest of the world disappears - every now and then i realise how there is something outside of oxford, friends, family, places, and how this place makes me forget them every day. but then, forgetting can be so good, a life so limited in space and time can be so good. for the first time in a long, long time i feel part of something. and it's not the something london was, it's not the happiness of being in a big city and being able to walk down the street and no one knows you... it's the beauty of being somewhere that is mine, saying hello to people down the street, owning every step.
balancing things, it's hard. it really is.
(and this is not to say i'm unhappy, i am very happy, it's just that it's amazing how i get more and more confused about life every day life goes by)

i've actually looked at the guardian page for the first time in god knows how long (essay has been fully drafted and sent off!).
prince harry will not serve in iraq - big fcking deal, who cares, seriously?!? prince harry became a non-entity when he decided to dress as an SS for a party.
on the other hand, wolfowitz is resigning from the world bank for being an utter twat, and that is very good news indeed. even though i doubt anyone better will turn up after him. the economists in my department may try as they might to convince me that the world bank really isn't that bad, i'm not convinced.
maybe in my heart i am an idealist really, and i wish we could all love each other and share what we have. yeah, right.
in the meantime, my fieldwork is getting closer and closer (and so's my research methods exams, sigh), the results for my previous exams will be out on friday and i think i'll spend most of today watching heroes, participating in an experiment for a psychologist friend and writing a proposal for a party in wolfson in august. sounds good non?

vanina is essay.
once 5,000 words are written (hopefully between today and tomorrow), then she will be back. maybe. if she's still alive.
vanina is also realising speaking of herself in the third person is very weird.
oh well.

i now have a brand spanking new keyboard, and everything works fine - halleluja! so i reappear on this blog again. i have sent more emails this afternoon than i have in the past six months, i swear. all the excitement of a working keyboard. let me tell you, writing with no g or h or 5 or 6 is hell.
anyway, i should be reading for my next core essay right now, but of course it's not happening. i wish i could have a bit more of a break, but tomorrow it's back to work.
apart from work, this week has been nice. following oxford traditions, on tuesday (the 1st of may) we woke up at 5 in the morning and walked down to magdalen college to hear the choir singing from the tower. it was amazing, to see all of these people so early in the morning, most of them dressed up from the night before, a good proportion drunk, some dressed as tress, others dressed as clowns. it felt good to be part of it all.
overall, i realise more and more how good it really feels to be part of this.
and then yesterday i was in london (briefly, because of a severe lack of funds) for a training session with the organisation i'll be working with in the summer. i learnt many things about immigration law in the uk and it was extremely interesting.
other than that, life goes on.
and have i told you oxford is absolutely beautiful right now?