Afterwards, we all walked back to the college for champagne, followed by a group photo of the college and then a late luncheon. After the luncheon, I headed back to my room for a nap and woke up in time to get ready for the "Sexy Subfusc" party (to grandma, other relatives or adults reading this... sorry). Subfusc is the official attire that you wear with your gown for matriculation, exams, and graduation. It consists of black pants or a black skirt with black tights, black shoes, a white shirt, a tie, bowtie, or ribbon, a graduation style cap, and a black graduation style gown. Every year after matriculation, 2 of the colleges (Linacre and St. Cross) throw sexy subfusc parties for graduate students only where the entire point is to make the subfusc a little more fun.
I got ready and met up with a whole group of people from my department. We met at Keble College at then headed over to Linacre around 7:20 to queue for the party. A large part of the fun is the queueing... everyone brings drinks and it's like a pregame or tailgate. The longer we waited, the longer the line got... but it also seemed to widen as people stepped in with friends. People looked great- the guys actually go much further than the girls (who stick to shorter black skirts, heels, and white tops). This year it was mostly guys in black pants and bowties with no shirts or anything else. When the doors FINALLY opened, my feet (in heels) were killing me and it was close to being in a stampede. We got carried along and when our group reached the front, they had ALMOST reached capacity... 1/2 our group (including me) got in, but the other 1/2 wasn't allowed in. After a few minutes of deliberation (and security yelling at us), we decided if we couldn't go in as a group, we weren't going in at all... this was our NSEP night out! (NSEP stands for our program name... Nature, Society, and Environmental Policy).
We headed out to go across campus to the other sexy subfusc party... but by this time, so was a lot of the queue. We raced over and I rode part of the way on the back of a bike with my legs held up... the whole thing was goofy and fun and also felt very Oxfordian/European. We got to St. Cross and sweet talked our way in. Once in, it was just dancing, dancing, dancing. It was such a fun group and I think the ridiculousness and fun of the night was a great bonding experience and just a fantastic night out. We danced until a little after 1 (when the party shut down) and then hung out and milled around for a bit before heading home. One of the guys from my program was really nice and walked me home so that I wasn't wandering Oxford alone at 2AM.
The next day I was up relatively early (around 9AM, but I didn't get to bed until 2:30 or 3ish) and started reading immediately. That's how I spent the whole day and then I cook for my roommates (simple pasta and salad) and then met up with an assigned discussion group for class today (Monday) and then met up with a friend in the reading room to do some more work. Finally, I called it a night and hit the hay for today.
Today was pretty uneventful... class, I got lunch with a classmate/friend who is really fun and will also be here 2 years (and we ate at this awesome cafe and I ate a delicious "jacket potato" which is really just a baked potato with toppings... I got hummus, roasted veggies and cheese) and then had more class, a class meeting, and then off to the store and then a quick dinner (veggie sandwich and salad and some fruit), skyped with Mom, and have been doing reading since. I got assigned my electives for the year today and I'm really pleased because I got my first choice for both terms.
For those curious, my schedule now looks like this (this includes non-academic things as well):
Monday:
9-11: International Environmental Law
11-1: Governance, Policy and Politics
2-4: Research Design
4-5: required class meeting
Tuesday:
11-1: Nature and Society
Wednesday:
11-1: Decision Theory
2-4: Environmental Economics
7-8:30: Ashtanga yoga
Thursday:
11-12: Reading group
4-5 (on occasional weeks)- bibliographic skills class with librarian
Friday:
Seminars (this week from 9:30-3:30) or riding lessons as scheduled.
All that free time it LOOKS like I have, is filled with lectures, reading, research, club meetings, debates, and trying to have some semblance of a social life.
For those of you curious, things can be mailed to me at:
Sarah Vaughn
St. Antony's College
62 Woodstock Road
Oxford, OX2 6JF
UK
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