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!)
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
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.
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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!)
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