July 2007 Archives

A couple of days ago, I (and a few other people) received the following email from the president of my college:
The Great Punt Rescue
Dear All,
Many congratulations on having responded so promptly and efficiently to your distinguished predecessor Admiral Nelson's signal: 'England expects that every wo/man will do his/her duty'!
I am grateful to you all for saving y/our fleet from the flood.
He is, by the way and among other things, a poet.
It made me feel very proud. This is what being part of Wolfson College is like.

I have epiphanies all the time, great moments when I realise great truths about life, and my life in particular. And sometimes, they last whole days, and they put a grin on my face as I go to bed, and make me fall asleep happy and satisfied. Today was one of those days, and I feel happiness oozing from my pores.
It started as a conversation with h after dinner, drinking coffee and smoking on the balcony. We were talking about the day we got accepted at Oxford, and our very similar reactions (read email, open your mouth, then start jumping around and feel giddy). It reminded me of how, before being accepted, I'd decided that a master's wasn't for me, I was going to get a job and become independent and whatnot. And then, the moment I got that email, all of that left my mind in a flash, and I thought: "There is no way I can miss this opportunity." Since then a lot of things have changed. Oxford has disappointed me in some ways, mainly academic, but everything else has been so much better than anything I could have ever imagined, there is no way I could leave now. The people I've met there, the life I've built, the lifestyle I have... It's incredible.
And as the day went on it dawned on me that this, this is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Being part of this close knit community makes my life better in so many ways I can't even describe. Everyday I spend time with amazing people, some of whom it took me a while to get to know (like N., whom I've just shared a cigarette with, who seems so much happier, and that makes me happy), others with whom I clicked immediately (I. of course, my wife, my other half apart from M., who spends her time being OCD with me and smoking half of every cigarette I roll); all of whom I love dearly. And there's so many more, the girls (we have renamed ourselves the Wolfson witches today), the boys, the ones who cook, the ones who always bring the conversation down, the French one and the German one, Dominatrix, and everybody else (I feel guilty for not mentioning all the others, but there are so many of us!), all of us so different. But we eat together, we drink together, we live in the same place; and I think that might seem very claustrophobic to a lot of people, but to me it's like a breath of fresh air.
It's something I've never had before, and something I'm grateful for now.

this is so scary. this amount of water reminds me of aceh, and all the tsunami affected areas. we seem to be fairly safe though - my college might be ugly, but they did build it so that we are very very unlikely to be flooded. still, the water has risen a lot, the island has disappeared and one of our punts (the only one we couldn't get out) has sunk. sigh. now a huge lake stands in front of our harbour quad, since all the land on the other side of the river has flooded. it's almost pretty, if it wasn't, again, quite scary.
anyway, my fieldwork seems to be going swimmingly. going to london three days a week (monday, tuesday and sunday) is kind of tiring, but i've already managed to get a lot of questionnaires filled out and as soon as i get my digital recorder i can get started on interviews. i'm also getting on very well with everyone in the office, even though initially i found it hard to insert myself in the pre-existing dynamic between all the people there... still, they're all lovely, and i'm spending lots of time with the workers who are at the heart of my research. it's exciting, after four years of university, to be finally able to do something that actually matters, and finding out new information, new data... even though i know it won't be easy to put it all together for my report and my thesis! before that can happen i have to learn to use SPSS anyway. i hate stats.
speaking of stats, i got the result for my exam and my second core essay, and it all went very well. even though as usual i did better in what i thought i'd done worse in (the essay, 68%), and worse in what i thought i'd done better in (the research methods exams, 66%). to be honest though, once i got the marks i was just glad it was all done!
other than that, i finished the last harry potter book - in 31 hours, during which i also managed to get a full night's sleep, go to london, get 28 questionnaires filled out, and come back from london, not bad i'd say. overall i'm pretty satisfied, even though i realised more and more as i was reading it that even though jk rowling is extremely good at constructing plots (this was one very gripping), her language really isn't amazing. there's a lot of repetition, and sometimes she seems to go too much into detail, whereas other situations that could be explained better are completely missed out on. oh well, as i said, i'm pretty happy with it anyway.
and to end it all, let me just say: i'm knackered. going into london, starting my fieldwork and thinking about it 24/7 has just tired me out. a lot. at the same time, i've been relatively productive with a lot of other things too, so i'm not too unhappy.
i do miss m though, who's off to some lab near manchester (or was it liverpool?) until thursday. sigh. see, that's the trouble with being in a symbiotic relationship. i do love it the rest of the time though, so i'm definitely not complaining. i'm madly in love and that's all that matters. :)
26 days until we move into our flat. i can't wait.

tomorrow i start my fieldwork.
and getting up at 7 two, three or possibly four times a week. doing interviews, and taking notes, and being intellectual and reading into things people say.
i'm terrified.
i'll be fine, right?
by the way, why is it that i still cry at the end of pride & prejudice, even though i have watched it at least 10 times?

i want to leave, go to asia, thailand; back to koh pah ngan, the beach, the blue skies, the white sand. i feel like leaving, taking a break, seeing all of those things i want to see. different things, the temples, the infinite sceneries, the grandiose mountains and deep green trees. weird animals and even weirder fruit, and photos that come out amazingly well every single time. i even miss the humidity, walking around in short trousers and sleeveless shirts, the pleasure of showers, even when they're just tepid. tanned skin and faded hair, the flip flop trademark created by the sun...
i'm getting itchy feet. i need to go somewhere.

so i now feel ok again. am procrastinating when i should be doing work really (finishing off preparing my questionnaires and interview sheets) but...
how can i do work when there's so much online shopping that can be done?
i've just ordered a samsung e570 (because my mobile is falling apart) and pre-ordered harry potter and the deathly hallows, and since amazon only does free delivery over £15 and it seemed wasteful not to take advantage, i also ordered a copy of pride & prejudice, i.e. one of the best films ever, which will be watched as soon as it arrives, possibly with m (if i can force him).
i'm a daughter of capitalism. you'd never think i'm doing development studies would you?
well, i guess it's back to family guy now. i'm enjoying staying in m's room far too much. :)

i am such an idiot. i have missed a meeting with my supervisor this morning (the second time in a couple of weeks, at least not the same supervisor both times!), and now she cannot meet me again until next week. both times because I was too distracted, so when she told me tuesday the 2nd (when it was in fact the 3rd, and she wanted to meet me on monday) i only focused on the tuesday bit, even when she sent an email to confirm. sigh. i am so absent minded at the moment, it's really worrying me. i think the whole moving thing has really taken its toll, and i've been stressing out far, far too much.
i am now living in m's room, until they give me something else - which might not happen before we move into our flat in mid-august. as of now, the 'other' room is completely empty. i literally refused to move anything into it, so my stuff is scattered all over college (i's room, my storage locker and m's room). i just got so worried and stressed out, and last night when i found out m did something silly with an earring i gave to him to repair (long story), i got very upset, and then felt guilty because i was being mean to him.
i thought once term was over i would be fine, but the idea of doing my own research is terrifying me, and that combined with everything else happening is driving me slightly nuts.
hopefully it'll get better once I actually start doing all this, going into london. it also might stop me from being as lazy as I've been in the past few weeks... i just feel like i have no energy and the only way to change that is to actually start doing what i'm supposed to be doing, i think.
i need a cup of tea to calm myself down now. i can't believe i've missed this meeting. i seriously need to wake up.