Fourteen down, Two to go

Tuesday, May 29,2007

Where did May go? As of today I have exactly 3 weeks left to enjoy Oxford. I cannot believe how fast time has gone by.

Today I had my 6th tutorial of the term. Its funny that I feel how I did based on the trip following my tutor from the front door of his building to his office. Generally we discuss how much its been raining...or how nice it is that it finally stopped raining...today there wasn't any small talk on our way up the stairs. His first question to me is "How did you find the reading this week?" This allows me time to elaborate on what I didn't understand...and offer up some excuse for why my essay was not that great. This week my topic was the role of culture in conflict...I just felt so scattered in the reading and this immediately was reflected in my essay. Well, at least my intro was pretty good. The hour did go by fairly fast though, and I didn't feel as much tension as the last time my essay didn't turn out so well. I'm glad he doesn't talk about being dissapointed, which is was my last tutors response when I did less than what he thought I was capable of. I guess there was some element of motivation though....I'm horrible at just feeling guilt ridden if I think I've let someone down.

We actually did talk about allergies at one point- which I am having a TERRIBLE time with at the moment. Saturday evening, the night before I begin writing the essay, I come up with a massive headache around my eyes. No matter how much I slept I felt like I just could not keep my eyes open. I had wanted to go to the rowing dinner to celebrate the team winning blades that afternoon...but instead I fell asleep around 9 pm. (yeah these are the moments when I just feel lame) I woke up when Kristie came in- and my clock said it was 11. My plan was to get back up and read for a while so I could get started on the essay in the morning....but when I finally managed to get out of bed I realized it was 2 am!! So, it appears my clock is broken. I read an article, went back to sleep at 4 , then got back up at 1pm on sunday. 12 hours of sleep total, and when I woke back up I still felt just horrible.

I have never had time in my life to be sick. My work week is not scheduled around the possibility of being knocked out for a day until I start to "feel better". I have always had the worst attitude when I comes to being sick. First, I refuse to take medicine until the pain makes it unbearable obvious that I am ill enough for it. I never had a good reason for this. Its just how I am. Secondly, I never concede to my sickness and stop my routine for it. I have always felt that if I can tell myself not to be ill, it will be so. Needless to say, getting through my essay writing last Sunday was a tedious and painful task when my eyes wanted so badly to rest. Luckily my sister happened to go home this weekend so I was able to call her on skype..and probably spent too much time talking to her and my parents. Around 2 I did started to feel better. I slept from 5am to 7am...then went about the business as usual of finishing up the essay right in time to sprint on my bike to Regent's, print my paper, and walk the hard copy down to Nuffield college.

This walk is one of the most rewarding times of the week. Every sunday night I wonder how the week went by so fast, and when will this endless writing process ever end... and every monday afternoon I think "that wasn't so bad". James, another guy from Regent's, also has my tutor for a different topic. We usually walk together, talk about how it went...how sleep deprived we are, and how our tutorial dates go,- how his threats of no tutorial have actually been successful in helping us get the essays turned in. I laughed when James said that he's never turned in essays on time until now-and how last week he turned up to a tute with out any essay at all...I'm sure if I actually went to school here I would be in the same situation a lot. I've met a lot of students at oxford who have punctuality issues.....like I really belong..haha.

It is so nice to have someone with the same tutor as me this term, someone who can understand what it's like to sit there in an hour session being expectedto know far more than I do (and justifiably, because my knowledge of history is pathetic ow)....we laugh about the moments when he asks us the details of our discipline and all we can do is sit there in silence staring at the ground...hoping he will eventually consent to helping us about with the answer. I've finally gotten to the point where I will just admit that I don't know...rather than bearing the awkwardness of complete silence for what seems like ages.

I can't imagine what Lee's response would be if I told him the essay would just have to hold off because my face hurt.

Fortunately, I pushed through an got the thing finished, and my 14th Oxford tutorial is over. Now I can just sit in the bodleian...admire the Radcliffe Camera from this gigantic window across from me..wonder why this guy next to me isn't wearing any shoes like this is his room or something....and do some much needed catching up on my blog.