At times it feels like I've barely just gotten settled in, but then I turn around and realize that, oh no, Trinity Term is already well underway. My very last semester in Oxford! There's suddenly so many things that I want to do, or meant to do earlier but never got around to it. The weather these days isn't awfully cooperating (it was hailing -- hailing! -- earlier and now it's pouring cats and dogs), but weather and schedule permitting, here's what I'd like to get done in the next few weeks:
- Go to classes, catch up on readings, write amazing tutorial essays, etc. The usual school-related ambitions and wishful thinking.
- While studying, visit as many libraries as I can! (Yes, that is indeed my studying plan.) I made it to the Rad Cam the other day and promptly spent an hour staring at the baroque-style ceiling instead of reading. I still need to go, erm, "study" in the Bodleian, particularly Duke Humfrey's Library. My college library is rather standard and the law library boring, so I shall try to avoid spending too much time at those.
- Take part in yet more exchange dinners. So many colleges (39 in total!), so little time and stomach space. My college is also organising an exchange dinner with Peterhouse College in Cambridge, which ought to be really really interesting! And speaking of social events, I'd like to make it to more bops this term. There's only so many times I can dress up as an elf on strike in my lifetime.
- Attend more conferences and talks. The sheer number of events going on in Oxford never ceases to astound me, but there is still and always so much more to see, listen and participate in. Union debates, Amnesty lectures, religious debates (I'm still miffed about missing the (ex-)Bishop of Canterbury vs. Dawkins one), discussion groups, other people's seminars...the list goes on and on.
- Okay, so that promising fencing career never quite materialised (I think that missing a million practices in a row had something to do with it), but never fear, I shall get my fitness some other way! Right now a few friends and I are looking at taking part in a 5km run (don't laugh, some of us have no cardiovascular ability). I've also got incredibly optimistic plans about dance lessons with the Dancesport Society, but...erm. We shall see.
- Go punting. Preferably in sub fusc and followed by a picnic and Pimm's. This one might take a while to make happen, since it does, in theory, require sunshine and access to the college boathouse, and neither are available right now. Sigh.
- Keep on playing the violin. Hopefully I'll play in the college end-of-semester concert again, and will by then have regained some sense of knowing how to count bars. (The Handel never did quite recover from that, oops.) My friend L and I have also started exchanging violin and guitar lessons, so maybe by the end of Trinity I'll be able to play more than three chords?
- Aaaand to wrap it all up, a bit of traveling would be nice too. Of course, there are those pesky things called exams which put a serious dent in my schedule, but I'd like to make it to London a few more times, as well as rekindling my old flame for Paris. I've also got tickets booked for a weekend in Rome in two weeks, which I am insanely excited about as IT PROBABLY WON'T BE RAINING IN ITALY. Hopefully. Oh please let it not rain on my Italian parade.
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| Oxford, you're pretty and all, but you would look even better WITH SUNSHINE. |
