Week 5: Class, a girls' night, a silent disco, and a mexican dinner

Week 5 is over... just 3 weeks and I'll be done with all but 1 class at Oxford (other than taking the exams for all of them).  How time flies.  It was another jam packed week and I'm still having so much fun and learning an incredible amount.  Sometimes it's hard to believe that this is real life.

Monday was crazy busy.  I went to Corporate Environmental Management, then rushed home to meet the mobile bike repairman to pick up my bike, and then rushed back to the department for Research Methods.  Brittany had gotten me lunch since I wouldnt have time (amazing) and so I quickly inhaled it before class.  Following research methods, which was a lecture on conducting interviews and focus groups, we had a class meeting where Ole and Andreas presented their dissertation proposals for feedback. After class I came home and did work for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday I had more class.  Science and Politics was first and was an introduction to our mapping controversies class where we reviewed what we will be doing and formed groups.  From there, I grabbed lunch and then had Economy and Development- a lecture on the financial crash and austerity.  It was interesting, but half way through the professor had to leave sooner than expected for a funeral and just kind of ran out... so that lecture will be finished this week (week 6).

After she left my group for the economy and development class presentation the following day met to go over our presentation.  By this point I was feeling really overwhelmed by how much I have coming up and even though I had a bit of a cough, I thought a run would do me good- and it did.  I only ran just under 2 miles, and it was a slow, sticky, painful run- one of those where joints ache and your body doesn't want to cooperate, but the endorphins are worth it afterwards.  When I got home from my run I was planning to do some reading and then head to the Richard Dawkins lecture... but Brittany called and said the line to get in the lecture was already down the block and there was no way we would get in, so I didn't bother even trying.  At this point, I had planned to eat out after the lecture and hadn't planned on cooking, so I called Andreas and Katherine and met them at the Rose and Crown for dinner.

I met a few people at the Rose and Crown for dinner and it was nice to catch up with Katherine and Andreas over some food.  The food there is surprisingly good for pub food and reasonably priced, so I was happy with it.  Dennis and Louis met us later and ordered but I not so nicely bailed while they were still eating because I was back to feeling totally swamped.

Wednesday morning I had my elective (it's normally on Thursday but was moved this week) and I really, really enjoyed the lecture.  The lecture was entitled "Food, Climate Change and Eating" but it covered lots of interesting topics from sustainable intensification to shifting consumption patterns.  It was a well balanced lecture and I really enjoyed it.  From there, I went straight to economy and development where we had an hour of lecture on forests in India followed by my group's presentation on the Forest Rights Act of 2006.  I think the presentation went okay, but parts were kind of rocky.  Still, I think it was passable. When that class finished I grabbed lunch and then came back to the department for the CEM reading group to discuss the coming week's reading.

Following the CEM reading group I was supposed to hang around the department and then go to a risk assessment lecture for field work but I had another meeting that was supposed to start right in the middle of that lecture about a 15 minute walk away.  I skipped the lecture because we won't be tested over it and my field work will not be particularly risky (other than perhaps involving horses which is risky but something I'm familiar with) which gave me a few minutes to skype with Mom and get to my meeting with a forestry professor for the Billion Trees venture.  I've been so swamped since the meeting that I still have a lot to do between that meeting and then upcoming meeting (tomorrow) but I'll get it all done (I hope).

After the meeting I went back home and did a bit of work and cooked and ate dinner before heading to latin dance lessons.  There was a new teacher this week and I think some confusion on whether or not there would be lessons, so it was a smaller group and amazingly, there were more guys than girls (nuts!)  The samba is probably the dance with the hardest footwork out of the ones we've done but I also really enjoyed it.  After the dancing most people (Ted, Brittany, Andreas, Alex, Katherine) headed home, but Louis and I decided we'd go back to my college bar for a drink and to catch up.  A friend of Louis' joined us, and then another guy and we decided to play a game of pool (which it turns out I am am terrible at :( ).  After the game of pool, we were planning to walk to the kebab van for food but 1/2 way there Louis hailed a cab and we decided to go dancing.  We went to Thirst for a bit to dance before walking home.

Thankfully after the late night out, I didn't have anything until 2 on Thursday, but unfortunately I woke up with a cough that sounded (and still sounds) like the black lung.  I spent the morning napping and doing work for the following week (now this week) and then decided to run a few errands and grab lunch before class.  After class I needed another nap and then I got changed headed to a Lebanese restaurant, Pomegranate, for an NSEP girls' dinner.  Out of 16 of us, I think 12 made it, which was a pretty good turn out.  We ordered tons of mezze/small plates and the food was really amazing.  The boys had made a big deal about how we were reinforcing the gender binary and being exclusive so after dinner we went to join a few of them at Freud for a bit.  I headed home from there relatively early hoping to get some sleep.

 At Freud, post girls' dinner. Lisa, Fran, Kanako, me

  At Freud, post girls' dinner. Lisa, Fran, Andreas, and Kanako

 Kanako wanted to feel "posh," so she was drinking her Staropramen from a martini glass...

Friday was very productive.  I finished almost all of my reading for the coming week (I didn't get through my elective reading but did everything else, which was incredible feeling!) It took pretty much all day and I was still coughing a lot so it was nice to have a quiet and productive day reading about everything from masculine identities in the financial crisis to Hydro One's risk assessment for their business to mapping controversies.

That evening I headed over to Katherine's to meet up with some people for pizza before going out to parties.  I wasn't planning to going out afterwards, but I got talked into checking out the "silent disco bop" that Kellogg College was hosting.  The way it works is when you go in you get a set of wireless headphones.  There are several "channels" (like radio stations) playing different types of music and you can select what you want to listen to.  This means that people are dancing to the music they are listening to, but people may be listening to a range of music.  It makes it hard to dance with people and it's hilarious to take your headphones off and watch people flail around in relative silence.  I expected it to be way awkward but it turned out to be tons of fun and somehow what was supposed to be a quiet night in turned into a very late night of dancing.

Brittany and me!

 Katherine, Sophie, Gabrielle, and Lisa

 Sophie, Gabrielle, and Lisa 

Ted and me!

Saturday I slept in and did a bit of cleaning and did the reading I needed to do for a paper I had due Monday (today) entitled ("To what degree can the analysis of climate change's impact on food production underpin food security assessments?").  Midday I got my bike back (yay!).  It's all fixed up with new wheel bearings, my basket secured so that it doesn't rock around and throw my bike off balance, chain fixed so it doesn't jam, gears fixed, brakes tightened and new brake pads put on.  It feels like a new bike!  That afternoon, I met Brittany at Tesco to buy food for our Mexican dinner/margarita night we were doing for a few friends.  Grocery stores here are the worst so after Tesco, Sainsbury, 2 shops in the covered market, AND a trip to east/west provisions we finally had everything we needed.  We headed back to my place where we did handmade corn tortillas from masa harina and then packed everything else and headed to Lisa's since she has a large kitchen to accommodate cooking for so many and places for everyone to sit.

The kitchen turned out to be stocked with almost nothing in terms of cookware and one of the ovens started belching huge plumes of black smoke b/c it was so dirty inside (gross) so cooking took way, WAY longer than planned.  We had told everyone 7:30 and thought we'd do chips with guacamole and drinks and have dinner around 8, but it was 9:15 before dinner was ready.... oops?  Still, the spread of food was impressive- we had handmade corn tortillas, fajita style carrots, peppers, onions and mushrooms in a homemade fajita spice mix, a mix of corn and black beans with jalepenos, onion, lime and cilantro, homemade salsa, homemade guacamole, fish (baked and then finished in a skillet for fish tacos) and a homemade slaw made with cabbage, vinegar, oranges, and red onion.  Personally I thought everything was great (including the homemade margaritas!) and I think everyone else thought so too.

After dinner we sat around and Rob brought some of his friends by to hang out.  We had a dance party and the dishes magically did themselves (ha! Just kidding- Lisa did them all though which was really amazing!) Around midnight the group decided to head out to check out a Dutch themed bop and go to a few clubs, but I knew that I had that paper due Monday so as much as I really wanted to go out with everyone, I decided to be responsible and head to bed.

Yesterday (Sunday) I spent the entire day writing my paper and trying not to cough up a lung.  My roommate I think was really worried about my cough, which was nice- he came to check on me several times and kept offering to bring me tea or medicine.

Today has been just as busy- I had a CEM lecture this morning on risks, a research methods lecture on digital methods and large data sets, and an economy and development lecture on masculine identities in the financial crisis.

I have another paper due next Monday, I need to get busy on my formal dissertation proposal, I have 3 upcoming group projects, and tons of reading to do in the coming weeks... still, it will somehow all get done and I'll manage to continue to have fun... seems to be how things work around here.

I'll try to keep y'all posted!

Week 4 of Hilary: Stress Fest and B2E

This week has been stressful- not my best at Oxford, but I think that is pretty typical of 4th week of term. The reality that we are 1/2 way through the term hits, along with the realization that there is still way more than 1/2 the amount of work for the term left. In fact, it fully hit that in the next 4 weeks I have:

• A presentation in Economy and Development on the Forest Rights Act in India (non-graded but TONS of work since everyone has done such a great job and we want it to be informative and interesting) 
• A presentation of what my dissertation will be on and field questions on this from students and advisors  
• A presentation in research methods on the non-human charisma of wine (granted, this one is more on how we got the research and framed it and is pretty short/low-key) 
• A presentation in Corporate Environmental Management (CEM) on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and risk management... which one of the "higher ups" from BP at the time will sit in on (exciting and terrifying) 
• An application for a grant for a start up I am helping with (more on this one later) 
• 2 essays for my elective on food security 
• A group mapping controversies project in Science and Politics (I think my group will be doing ours on the herbicide atrozine) 
• Regular reading and class 
• Run a 6k (and get in way better shape to do so!) 

Besides feeling overwhelmed, here's how my week went down:

Monday I woke up really not feeling well. There is all sorts of crud going around Oxford and while I haven't truly gotten sick (knock on wood), I've been slugging/coughing/congested for well over a week now. Monday was the worst day but since CEM meets on Mondays and is my favorite class, I drug myself out of bed and went to class. After 2 hours of class, I was drained. I was supposed to have another class, an NSEP meeting, and a group project meeting for our Economy and Development presentation (see bullet 1 of things to do!), but I just wanted to curl into a ball and sip tea and sleep- so that's what I did. I have missed VERY little class at Oxford and I honestly feel it was the best decision I could have made. That evening I don't think I even did any work- I just napped, drank tea, and did some reading for pleasure (a rare, rare luxury as a grad student).

Tuesday I went to Science and Politics. I really enjoyed the readings for class, largely about mapping the arctic sea floor and native peoples' rights in the arctic, but I felt like the lecture fell a bit flat so that was disappointing. From class, Brittany and I went to Itsu to satisfy my sushi craving and then headed to the Oxford Union to hear General Michael Hayden speak (Katherine and Cody came too!) Gen. Hayden was director of the NSA and head of the CIA and the talk was: "Beyond Snowden: An NSA Reality Check." Super interesting stuff and we stayed afterwards to ask some questions and to take a picture with him.

Katherine, General Michael Hayden, Brittany, me 

After the talk I headed home and did some work because I knew Wednesday was going to be a busy day.

Wednesday morning I had a meeting with the Warden of St. Antony's (my college at Oxford). She meets with all the students just to check in and see how things are going, and while I expected it to be a bit lame/awkward, I actually had a nice chat with her and really appreciated that she was so engaging/easy to talk to. I left the meeting feeling really happy/energized, which was perfect since I was meeting Katherine for a run. A group of NSEPers signed up for a relay. We are teams of 3-4 (there are different types of entries) but each leg of the race is 6k. I'm really out of shape and having signed up for a race, especially one where other people are depending on me is great motivation to get me off my lazy bum and go run. Brittany and some of the others (but especially Brittany) are already runners/sporty, but a few of us are not. Katherine and I have decided to train together and hold each other accountable and the first run went really well.

After our run I went home to shower and change and then to class. From there, I had a meeting with my CEM professor, Gordon Clark, to talk about my dissertation. As I've been leaning possibly away from academia, I've been thinking that maybe I want to redirect my dissertation topic. I still want to write on horse importations, but I've been thinking about making it less theoretical and more geared towards the economics/business models/contracts/trust issues surrounding the importation process. I felt like Gordon might be a better supervisor to explore those themes with, and thankfully, he was excited about the project. I need to email Jamie and explain to him that I think I am changing direction and that Gordon may be a better fit, but I've already spoken with Kersty and she assures me it should not be a big deal/an issue- so that's on the list for tomorrow (Monday as I write this).

After my meeting with Gordon, I headed to Greens for food (it was around 3:30 and I hadn't had lunch) and Louis met me there. It was nice to catch up and have a bit of time together. From there, we headed to GTC to work, work, work and read, read, read for several hours. I normally have latin dance lessons on Wednesday night, but I was feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things I needed to do and by life/my future/directions/decisions so I stayed and did work and some journaling.

Thursday was another crazy day. I had my elective that morning from 9-11 and we had a guest lecturer, James Jones from the University of Florida's department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering. The lecture was largely on crop modeling and was super interesting. It was so, so weird to hear a southern accent in the classroom here at Oxford and it actually made me quite homesick. When I asked a question in class my friend Tom turned and asked, "Woah! Where did that strong southern accent come from, Sarah?" I apparently don't use it much, but talking to a "fellow southerner" it just sort of slipped out :) After my elective I had the first Economy and Development lecture of the week from 11-1 on water issues (access to and flooding) in India. From 1-2 I grabbed lunch (a sandwich from a great little take away sandwich shop, the Alternative Tuck Shop) and then back to class from 2-3. Unfortunately, I chose not to do the reading for that class since we normally don't draw from them much and I've been so overwhelmed with work. I thought it was a strategic decision... unfortunately, so did everyone else and the PhD leading the class decided to discuss the article this time... it was note pretty and we got fussed at quite a lot.

From class I went home to do some cleaning, and then to the store to pick up a few things so that Andreas and I could cook dinner together. On my way home a homeless man I see all the time asked me for money and while I make it a point to never hand out cash, I offered to buy him a coffee. He gladly accepted... and then requested a latte instead, which I found a little amusing. On the one hand, I felt like asking me to buy a 3 pound ($5) latte is a bit presumptuous... on the other, just b/c he's homeless doesn't mean he doesn't have preferences/things he craves (who hasn't craved a latte or a brownie or any other of life's little indulgences?!) so I didn't really mind. Besides, it's a good feeling to bring a smile to someone's face and to genuinely tell them that you hope they have a good evening.

When I got home, I cleaned a bit more, and then Andreas arrived for our dinner adventure. We decided to make homemade gnocchi, homemade tomato sauce, and salad. It took much longer than I anticipated, but the end result was AMAZING if I do say so myself and while it was a bit time consuming, the end result is worth it. I highly recommend giving it a try. It was so nice to have an evening to catch up with Andreas and also to just cooking. Cooking is a huge stress reliever for me, but I find at Oxford that I haven't made time to really cook... sure, I make some yummy food from time to time, but it's normally minimal prep time... like I roast veggies and toss them over rice with a bit of balsamic glaze, or I'll make a soup where I can just toss everything in a pot. While that is often great, it's just not the same as really putting time and effort into a dish or meal just to savor it later.

I don't normally have class on Fridays but this week we had an extra Economy and Development lecture, this one on Economic Geography. It was a great lecture, but I think we were all a bit spent from the week so we didn't engage in as much discussion as we normally do as a class. After class, Katherine and I were schedule to go for another run so I hurried home to change and meet her back at the park. When I went in my building, it was misting but not bad weather for a run. I literally just threw down my bag and swapped into running gear but by the time I got back outside it was POURING and the wind was blowing so hard that it felt like sleet pelting my face. Katherine called and said she was not up for running in that weather and asked if I wanted to meet her and Cato for lunch instead. I felt a bit guilty, but I was also feeling like a drowned rat, so I agreed- to make myself feel better, I sprinted the .3 miles to the cafe.

We ate at a place I have passed everyday but never been in and I'm SO glad Katherine suggested it. My lunch was 4.50 pounds ($7.50) but that is quite reasonable for Oxford and for the amount and quality of food (I got a bit plate of stew/curry, 2 different giant salads- lentil/beet and a tomato/arugula/parsley one and a slice of cake!) and the food was amazing. I definitely felt guilty for eating all that (and I do me ALL that) rather than taking a run buuuut... oh well.

The rest of Friday I spent doing work for the coming week since I knew the rest of the weekend was going to be nuts. Saturday I got up and spent the morning doing work before heading to meet a Penn alum who is a friend of a friend (Ted) who just arrived to Oxford for a few weeks for do some research for his MD/PhD. I took him to walk through Christ Church, including "hall" which is the dining hall that they used as the Great Hall in the Harry Potter movies. For some reason there was a group there dressed up as lego men. I can't explain it, but it was pretty great.

From Christ Church we headed to get Ted a phone, and then to get him shampoo/body wash/essentials and then to get tea before I had to run to session one of the B2E conference. I'm really glad Patrick put me in touch with Ted because if our outing on Saturday is any indication, we're going to have a blast while he's here for the next 5-6 weeks.

From tea, I headed to Business 2 the Environment, B2E, an entrepreneurial/start-up weekend hosted by the Said Business School MBA kids. The first session was Saturday from 5-7 and basically people just pitched start-up ideas that were environmentally geared. I didn't pitch anything, but Cato, one of the other NSEPers there, did! Brittany and Katherine were also there and they, like me, were too shy to make pitches. That said, the energy in the room was so interesting/dynamic. People were willing to pitch anything and everything- huge ideas, small ones, ones well thought out and spur of the moment things that popped into their head. It was a great pitching session and once we have around 25 ideas from roughly 40-45 people, we voted on the top 8 ideas (each person got 3 stickers to place under their 3 favorite ideas which were written/posted around the) and then we formed teams.

When I signed up with the other 3 NSEPers, I kind of assumed I would end up on a team with at least one of them, but amazingly enough, we all ended up on totally different teams. I joined a team with the tag line "1 Billion Trees" (the business plan is to plant 1bn trees!) and we had such an interesting mix- a NASA scientist at Oxford for a PhD, 2 MBA students (with very different backgrounds/interest), a DPhil Geography student (and NSEP alumna!) who has from forestry experience, an environmental policy/intl development guy, and me, with the interesting mix of policy/finance/somewhat ag background. Shortly after forming teams, we all (the entire conference, not just my team) headed to the Jam Factory for drinks/mingling. I mingled a bit, but mostly hung out with Brittany and Katherine and we were all way more interested in eating dinner than mingling/wine so we grabbed Cato and the 4 of us headed to a Korean place around the corner. None of us had ever been there but the food was really, really good and we were all able to find something we could eat/liked. The price also wasn't bad (about $10) and I got an appetizer, soup, and entree.

After dinner we decided to head to Jesus College to meet up with Lizzie, Andreas, Louis, and Cody who were playing bananagrams and having a quiet night. I am bikeless at the moment (my brakes are shot and something funky is going on with my chain- I'm having it fixed by a mobile bike guy tomorrow) but since everyone else has bikes, Brittany (who is tiny- albeit, strong and in great shape) offered to give me a backie on her bike so we could all get there faster. After a bit of convincing, I agreed. A backie is when a person sits on the bike seat and holds their feet up/out while the other person pedals/stands the whole time. It's pretty hard work and we had to go up hill for a lot of the way. We were semi blocking traffic and the whole scenario just seemed absurd so we could NOT stop laughing. It was a silly memory, but one of those things that is just happy/fun/feel good that makes you smile when you think back on it.

Anyway, once at Jesus we ensured the Porter hates us (we had to sweet talk him into letting us in since we couldn't reach Lizzie and technically we aren't supposed to enter Jesus College grounds without a resident and once he let us in we saw Lizzie coming and decide to hide and scare her... he was not amused by our antics). Once we apologized, we headed to the common room to play bananagrams and a bit of steal scrabble. We were all exhausted so after a few rounds of each we called it a night, though we briefly met up with Juliana as were were leaving to say hello. Andreas and I walked back together (we live very close to each other) and I called it a night.

Today has perhaps been the busiest day yet. The second day of the B2E conference kicked off at 9:15 with a workshop on how to pitch our ideas to the judges. From there, we got tea and split into our teams and headed off to work on our ideas. I'm not really sure how much I should post about our team idea on an open blog (not y'all but literally anyone is the world could technically see this), but the general idea is to create a quad-copter that would fire seed projectiles into land to reforest it more efficiently. The target markets would be lumber companies, surface mining companies trying to meet regulations, and NGOS/Governments after natural disasters. It is such a fun and innovative idea and we had a great time developing it. There was a break for lunch (we chatted as a team while we ate) and then we kept on working. Throughout the day there were guest mentors floating in and out to give advice and ask questions to help us think through things. At 4pm we all presented to the judges to compete for a 1,000 pound prize to help invest in R&D to see if it might be a viable business.

We didn't win, unfortunately, a smart-water meter/app group did, but we were complimented for having a really original idea (I wish I could take credit for it, but alas, not mine) and our group is actually going to pursue some other grants/start-up competitions to see if we can make this happen. I didn't really expect to leave the weekend having joined a start up team, but I'm excited about the potential and these are those moments which could fall flat or could be incredible turning points, so I'm going to continue down the path and see where it leads.

We finished the conference around 5:45 and I was a solid 20 minute walk from home and had to rush to get home, drop off my things, throw on a nicer outfit and heels (the conference was super casual) and then head to a formal dinner exchange that St. Antony's was having with Keble. My roommate, Adam, was also there, and my friend Lisa from NSEP (who is in Keble and was able to show me around!) so it was nice to have familiar faces. The evening opened in their common room with champagne or apple juice and then we all migrated to their hall, which is gorgeous... I should have remembered to snap a photo. The dinner opened with a small Keble Choir singing from a balcony in the giant hall and it was just one of those moments where I looked around and saw people in academic robes, and the singing (I think in latin), and the gorgeous, huge old hall, and it really hits that I'm here, in Oxford, a place with traditions and history dating back 1,000 years at a University so rich in knowledge in history. I am blown away by how lucky I am to have this experience.




Dinner was okay- I find food at formal dinners is good, but never exceptional. I had the vegetarian menu which was a salad of arugula/tomatoes/mozzarella with a basil/olive oil dressing for the appetizer, a vegetarian chili stuffed tomato with roasted potatoes and steamed root veggies as the main, and a very weird meringue/white chocolate mouse/berry jelly thing that was kind of terrible. Dinner was followed by port and cheese but I only grabbed a cheese straw and then I was off again to a group meeting for the forest presentation. We talked about all the reading we've done on the topic (over 20 articles among the group) and decided on the main areas we wanted our presentation to cover and who is coving what. Thankfully, I got the history of the act, which is pretty straight forward and one of my readings covered really well.

Now, I am home in bed. Once I post this I need to do some more reading for tomorrow (never mind that it is 1AM already and I have 5 hours of class, another meeting about our presentation, and an appointment to get my bike fixed tomorrow... who needs sleep?).

Despite being super busy and a bit stressed, I don't want anyone to think I'm not loving my Oxford experience... I'm just trying to make the most of the time I have here- it's a truly special place and a dream come true to be here.

I know those of you back home have had ice, snow, earthquakes, and now some beautiful weather on the way this week. It's terrible flooding here and there were some terrifying gusts of wind late last week- let's hope everything settles out soon (and if you're not reading this from the SE U.S., I hope the weather is as wonderful as possible for mid-February.)

Miss y'all! (and apologies if this post is even more full than usual of typos and mistake... I'm really exhausted and wrote this as quickly as possible!)

Week 3 of Hilary: A slower (?) week

Another week gone at Oxford- time here makes no sense.... it seems like I wrote the last blog post ages ago... and yet I can hardly believe that the term is already nearing the halfway point (after this coming week I'll be halfway through my last term of real classes... crazy!)

I wrote last Monday I think, which was a day packed full of classes.  I was supposed to go as an ally to an LGBT event that night, but instead I crawled in my bed, watched a bit of tv, and went to sleep super early, which was probably the best decision I've made in a long time since I was starting to feel like maybe I was coming down with the cold that's going around.

Tuesday I got up early to do some work and then went to class, from there I had lunch with my group for an Economy and Development project and then hung out with Tom for a bit before heading to a lecture on global financial security that turned out to be a lot more about the IMF and a lot less about financial regulations... still a good lecture but not really what I expected.  It seems like maybe I did something else that day but my mind is blank at the moment and perhaps I just went home and tried to get ahead on reading and work.

Wednesday I had lunch with my college advisor and then had class.  I was feeling really crummy and felt like the cold was catching up with me, but there is no time to be sick at Oxford and I really wanted to finish my day so I pushed through classes and then headed to my final UPenn alumni interview with a really nice kid.  After the interview I cooked some dinner and then headed to dance class where we learned the tango.  Normally the ratio of guys to girls is almost even, but this week there were SO MANY girls and so it wasnt as much fun.  That said, the tango is a really fun dance.  I never realized that it doesn't really have a set count (like how the waltz is 3 and the fox trot is 4, etc).  Instead, the tango is really about feeling and tension and following the music.  It makes it more fun in my opinion b/c you are able to interpret a bit more and get creative.

Unlike other weeks, I went straight home after dance since I was still feeling under the weather and I had my first elective class (Food Security and Global Environmental Change) the next morning at 9AM.  Class was amazing- I really enjoyed the professor and he has a unique take on food security compared to many experts in the field (it shouldn't be unique, but is).  He really believes in studying food security by considering the entire food system... not just "are we producing/can we continue to produce enough food per capita to feed the global population?", which is the normal focus, but to consider the entire change, producing, processing, packaging, transporting, consuming, and reducing food waste.  The lecture was great and I'm looking forward to the class even if it does seem like it's going to be significantly more work than my elective last term was.

After class I went with the 2 other NSEP kids in my elective (Sophie and Tom) to get lunch in the covered market.  We had fresh pasta (yum) and Tom left to take a nap while Sophie and I sat around and got caught up.  I haven't seen much of her since before break and it was really nice to have a chance to catch up on each other's lives.  From there I came home to prepare for a meeting with Kersty (one of my professors who also in the head of NSEP) and then headed to my meeting.

I met with Kersty because I've been having some second thoughts about my future and I wanted to sit down and have a chat about the direction I've been going.  For quite some time I've thought that I wanted to do academia.  I love the idea of getting to research things I love, write papers, have somewhat flexible hours, great benefits, live in a college town (which generally have great restaurants, arts/culture), and just constantly be surrounded by interesting people.  To some extent, how happy I am at Oxford has reinforced that academia might be a great fit for me.  That said, I'm actually much less sure these days.  I had a long talk with several PhD students who expressed frustration and depression at the guilt they feel every second they are not working on their dissertation, the dismal job market in academia (which while I knew was a real issue, people like the receptionist in our department has a PhD from Oxford.... not promising), and just the idea that no one will really care about your research... you just continue to crank it out so the university thinks you are worth giving tenure to.

The whole thing just sounds really depressing.  Lately I've been absolutely loving my corporate environmental management class, so I'd consider working on environmental regulations, and the girl I mentioned in last week's blog post who works at DEFRA has what I would consider a dream job- she does policy research on animal movement and containment to help with things like animal importation and exportation, whether or not England should cull badgers to potentially limit the spread of tuberculosis, pet passports, etc.  She graduated from NSEP and did her dissertation on animals and basically I want to be her.  I've also been really excited by the idea of working on an environmental start up (even being one of the people to START the start up) and I'm attending a business/entrepreneurship conference next weekend that I'm pretty excited about.

I spoke with Kersty bout all this and I haven't ruled out academia, but I'm also no longer sold on it.  I am setting up a meeting with my CEM professor to see if I could possibly change supervisors so that my thesis (same topic) is more economic/regulatory and less theoretical.  He's a really, really busy guy though so I am not sure he's taking on masters students.  Regardless, Kersty reassured me that my concerns and developments are normal and I feel a little more okay exploring other avenues... after all, isn't that what a place like Oxford is for?

After my meeting with Kersty I headed to Greens Cafe for a tea and a slice of apple cake and girl time with Lisa.  It was good to chat and she needed to get out of the house since she'd been taking care of our friend Rob/cleaning/doing work and just needed out of her apartment. (Our friend Rob drank flood water on what was essentially a dare- technically called a NEKnomination, and got very, very, very ill from it... he is now on medication and doing better... part of me feels bad for him and the other part of my wants to quote Dad/Donny Wyatt/John Wayne/whoever originally said "If you're gonna be stupid, you gotta be tough.")  Anyway, Lisa and I had a nice catch up and then I headed home to get some work done before a date.  The date itself went well- I don't think I'm really in a place to get involved with anyone very seriously, but he was very nice and cute and I'm pushing myself to get back out there even if it's hard.

Friday I got up and went to a class (to which I was late after my bike chain came off its track and I wrecked into a parked car... thankfully I am fine but not the way to start the morning :( ) and then from there cycled over to a conference that some NSEPers had planned with the Public Policy kids.  I led a short discussion group on financial reporting as a way to improve environmental standards and while I didn't feel it went very smoothly, other people said they enjoyed it.   I also sat in on a discussion group about digital governance which was quite interesting.  From there, I grabbed a late lunch with Lisa, Gabrielle, and Anna and we headed back to the geography department for a presentation on risk management during our fieldwork.

The department had some outside guy come in to give the talk and the presentation was a disaster... the geography department prides itself on being very open and respecting a variety of sources of knowledge... so imagine the irritation of the faculty when the guy giving the talk first asked for a female volunteer to write on the board (because guys have bad handwriting)... they said something like "we don't allow gender stereotyping in the department."  That wasn't such a big deal.... but then he told a story involving a girl in Africa who had a miscommunication and thought she was agreeing to go to a hospital and actually agreed to be treated by the local shaman... only, he told the story in a way that basically called the shaman a mud covered savage... not really appropriate, but nearly explosive in the geography department.

When we were finally done there, I took my bike by Andreas' to oil the chain (thanks, Andreas!) and then went home to get a bit of work done before Brittany came over to make dinner.  We decided to make soup from a mix that Dad got me awhile back and some apple sauce b/c we both had a few mealy apples.  The applesauce was good, but the soup was amazing.  It was split pea curry and even though it came from a mix, I think we can easily replicate it and we both agreed we wanted to make it again.  After dinner, people started arriving to hang out for a bit and meet up so we could all head to a concert/party/music fest opening later.

Before long, me, Brittany, Andreas, Alex, Anna, Dennis, Astrid, Lisa F, Lisa L., Sophie, Selcuk and Louis were all at my place getting ready for a night out.  With the boys terribly out numbered, the pre-party devolved into putting on makeup and getting ready.  We finally headed to Freuds (where the event was) around 11ish and the event was sold out... yet when we got there, the place was completely empty.  Thankfully, it seems like most people had the same thought process we did and it didn't take long for the place to fill up.  We hit the dance floor and had a great time dancing and being silly.  People from NSEP started trickling out about 2ish, but a few of us (me, Selcuk, Louis, Alex, and Brittany) stayed until just about the end (around 3).  On our way home, we stopped at our favorite food truck, and Louis even found his hat that had been lost earlier in the evening (though it unfortunately looked a lot like road kill).

This is adorable even with Brittany's eyes closed

Dancing- before things filled up

Dancing!  And Louis with demon eyes

 Why does everyone I take a photo with have their eyes closed? But so glad Lisa F. came out with us!

Selcuk

Louis with his found hat!

After the party I really haven't done much.  I seem to have finally fallen pray to the bug going around because all I've wanted to do yesterday and today is sleep and I've been running a low grade fever.  I have managed to do a bit of cleaning and reading so that's something I suppose.

The coming 2 weeks (weeks 4 and 5 of Hilary term) are going to be crazy busy but I'll try hard to stick with my weekly updates!

Week 2 of Hilary Term

It's been another very busy week here in Oxford, but I'm feeling much more on top of things than I was last week and finally am feeling like I am doing readings and able to understand lectures... that said, I’m also exhausted and need a night that involves nothing but a few episode of Girls followed by 10 hours of sleep.  It took me all of first week just to readjust to the workload and how quickly everything moves here and last week it was full steam ahead.  I feel like I need a breather.

Last Sunday was a work day for me.  I spent the day reading and attended a short study group/reading group Sunday evening.  It was a helpful review session for my favorite class (CEM) and afterwards I walked home, had a warm dinner, and called it a night. 

Last Monday the whirlwind began again.  I had class from 11-5 and then went to Greens (a favorite café) for tea and lemon drizzle cake in the pouring rain with friends to do more reading.  I read all evening, made soup for dinner, and had a quiet night.  Tuesday I only had one lecture and then I spent the day running errands- I needed new batteries for my bike lights, to get money out to pay rent, to go to the grocery store,  then do more reading, and buy a ticket to Keble’s Ball in May (which I thankfully snagged one and now the tickets are sold out!)  

Wednesday is when my week really started to pick up.  I had 3 hours of class, both a reading group and a lecture with a cool debate about GM foods/crops in India and then rushed over to interview another student for Penn.  The interview went really well and it’s actually just nice to get a coffee/tea and have a chat with someone at such an exciting life juncture.  From there, I hurried home to cook dinner, ate quickly and then rushed off to latin dance lessons where we were learning the bachata.  Even more NSEPers showed up this time and we are starting to take over the class- I think there were 9 or 10 of us with more planning to join next week.  Whenever we would change partners the guy would ask my name/what I’m studying and when I’d say my NSEP they’d say, “Oh, another one.” 

After the lessons we stayed for the open dance and then decided that we all still really wanted to dance, so we headed to Freuds.  We were the only people there and they have a huge amount of space so we hung out and danced a bit until they closed.  It still wasn’t enough for us so we headed to Angels, which was small and about to close and so we headed on to Thirst for more dancing.  After that we headed to one more place, but couldn’t get in, so we walked back, stopping for food along the way and eating together at GTC before all getting home to bed around 4 or 4:30 in the morning… much too late a night but so much latin dancing and good music and fun with friends.

Thankfully I didn’t have class until 2 on Thursday so I went to that and then joined the other 2 year MPhil students in the department (only about 7-10 of us) in meeting with the head of the department for tea and cupcakes and a chat.  It was a nice afternoon and I met a few other interesting professors which is nice.  Afterwards I was still pretty worn out so I had a quiet evening doing some reading before Andreas came over to cook dinner and we chatted until about midnight when he headed home and I headed to bed.

Friday I stayed in my room all morning and was very productive in preparing for the coming week.  Then at 2 we had an alumni workshop where we met with NSEP alum and heard all about the jobs they have now and how they got them… everything from environmental economic consultants to working for U.N. Climate Change organizations to working at DEFRA (similar to USDA in England), and all sorts of other cool things.  We stayed until roughly 6:30 doing some networking and then a group of current NSEPers went out for Japanese food. 

From there I went home for a bit and discovered that there had been a barn fire in Bishop that day and 18 horses had died, including a horse I used to compete against (still owned by the girl I grew up showing with).  It’s the first time a huge horse related disaster like this has touched me/someone I know and it’s hit me harder than I expected.  These animals are our friends, our partners, our teammates.  We tell them our secrets, we invest in them emotionally and financially and temporally and it costs us so much (on each of those levels).  To have that taken away and to lose that connection in such a terrible way is just heart breaking.  The past few days I’ve just wanted to be home to give my ponies a hug, a carrot, and a good grooming.

Despite feeling pretty shocked and sad, I had plans to meet my friends around 10:30, so I headed out and biked over to Freuds for an electro swing night.  They had themed cocktails from the 30s and 40s, electro swing music, lots of people had dressed in era pieces, it was really, really fun.  I spent the entire night on the dance floor and had so much fun.  It was also a fun night because so many NSEPers were there, and not just the ones I normally hang out with but a whole group that I don’t see super often, so it was a fun night with classmates.  When the night was over we were all so wound up that we decided to head back to my place to play some music and wind down.  After a few hours we finally were all exhausted so people all headed out and I went to bed. 

Saturday I slept in and then went to get brunch with Andreas and then headed home to get some work done.  Even though I was exhausted, there was a 90s bop at a college near me that night and I’m a sucker for 90s music.  I dressed the part, Saved by the Bell style, and met Louis and Andreas to head over.  Soon, others had joined and we hit the dance floor to show off our lame dancing and boy band moves.  I had so much fun- I really believe that nothing is better to dance and sing along with than Spice Girls, Hansen and the likes, so for me it was just about the perfect night. Also, the BOP was named MmmBOP which is the best name for a 90s themed BOP ever. When the BOP ended the group was really indecisive about where to head next and I was exhausted so I cycled home and called it a night.  

 Katherine and Andreas

Lisa, Louis and Denise

Louis and me

Sunday I slept in and then got up and did some work before trying to do laundry (fail. No open machines) and then meeting up with Katherine and Louis to answer some of their finance questions.  From there we went to the store to stock up on super bowl snacks and we bumped into Andreas so the 4 of us headed to dinner.  I then headed home for a bit before meeting Brittany, Katherine, Cato, Ben, Rob and others (not in our program) to watch the Super Bowl.

I was cheering for the seahawks so while happy with the out come, the game was pretty disappointing.  The Broncos didnt really show up to play and while I was rooting for the seahawks, I'm also a fan of good football.  Still, it was a fun time filled with lots of skittles and snacks and friends.  Since we are 5 hours ahead over here, the game started at 11:30pm and ended shortly after 3am.  I biked home as soon as it was over but I was too wired from all the sugar and the game to sleep so it was 4am before I was in bed. 

Today I've been exhausted and was in class most of the day and I (of course) have another busy week ahead including a lecture on global financial security, another Penn interview, lunch with my college advisor, latin dancing, a meeting with our course director about my dissertation, starting my elective (global environmental change and food security), helping lead a mini conference session on corporate environmental management/financial reporting and regulation, hopefully yoga (I haven't made it to any of the classes yet which is bad... but I sure do go dance a lot), and of course, more social events.  

Hope things are good wherever you are reading this!