I Couldn't Predict that One

I'm am not that kind of girl who's full of surprises. Generally, people who know me well can probably predict my behavior and my reactions to almost everything. I run "right on time" (or late) for most things. I find it hard to keep up with essential life items. Things that make me angry generally include "special" treatment- with cutting in line topping my list of the most intolerable of offenses. I overanalyze most situations-and therefore am hardly ever able to be surprised even when its supposed to be for fun. And above all, I generally obsess about my work performance to the point of becoming the single greatest threat to my own health.

On Sunday night I surprised myself by actually going to bed the night before my essay was due.

This event is still unexplainable to me, but around 3am I just decided that I could go to sleep and finish the following day. I keep trying to reason out why I was so eased about the entire writing process this first week of Trinity term, but as nothing has provided much of an answer, I'm just going to hope that it is a sign of habits to come for the next 7 weeks.

My papers are due on Mondays now...something I first thought may be horrible as it destroys my concept of "weekend" However, as I have completed my first tutorial and the first week of Trinity, I feel that this will make my weeks seem a little longer and help me to be more productive with out just checking out intellectually on the days right after my paper is due. After all, there is nothing much on a Wednesday or Thursday to completely distract me from working here. Everyone is working so it seems like the thing for me to do to. Hopefully this will put me at a better pace for getting my essays written. We will see.

My topic this term is International Relations, and my tutor is a grad student from Nuffield College. I was completely terrified of what my first tutorial would bring, but all went surprisingly well in the meeting. We discussed the first major competing theories of IR and he was really good about identifying exactly what I needed to grasp about each concept- and asked a ton of questions to help me come about the answers as much on my own as possible. I feel like my understanding of history is pretty weak, but I knew a lot more than I thought I would about the concepts and their applications to post-cold war issues. Hopefully with some reading I'll improve on that throughout the term. It seems this tutor is going to focus more heavily on my understanding of the topics and my ability to discuss...whereas last term Seth focused primarily on improving my ability to write argumentatively and how to construct a logical essay.

To celebrate the end of my first tutorial session, I went to a cafe in Waterstone's bookstore with Kristie and had a blueberry/blackberry smoothie. We both agreed that when we leave we will definitely miss the atmosphere we've been able to enjoy in Oxford. The bookstore is three stories and the cafe has the perfect view of Cornmarket Street- which is the pedestrian/shopping area in the middle of Oxford. People watching is always an interesting activity- especially with the eclectic bunch of people that find their way to Oxford.