Christmas where I live is a snowy affair, with holiday hi-jinks ranging from romping around outside with my dogs to curling up by the fire and doing a puzzle.
After a term full of trying new things and thrusting myself into unfamiliar situations, it was just so nice to come home to the known and the understood and all these family traditions to find them just the way I'd left them.
Still, as the New Year grows close and people all over the world are gearing up to declare they're going to more or less arbitrarily start doing things differently one day and then epically fail when the gravitas fades away, I can't help but feel pensive about Michaelmas term. To avoid merely transcribing my meandering mental dialogue at the moment, here's a neat, numbered list of superlatives (what else?) to help summarize my first term at Oxford.
1. Thing I Most Wish I'd Done Before Arriving: Distinguished between a spoonful of sugar and real medicine
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| Can you tell which one will actually cure your cough, and which ones are useless? Neither could I. |
I did a number of things to prepare for my time abroad. I did a freakish amount of packing and re-packing; I read a book of British history to get my bearings; I watched to British news shows and listened to British comedy podcasts to catch up with current events; and I of course brushed up on my academic subject by doing some summer reading. If you're about to embark on study abroad and are twiddling your thumbs looking for more prep work, I would recommend doing stuff like this, as I found all of it very helpful.
But as academically and culturally prepared as I felt when I arrived, when I got sick (and I don't know if you noticed, but study abroad students tend to get sick a lot), I had no idea what medicine to buy when I finally managed to drag myself to the drugstore.
Now, many people have smartphones these days, so for them it may just be a matter of having to stand in the aisle for a minute looking up what's best for what. But I have no such magical device, and so my first fruitless trip to the store required me to walk back to St. A's, look up some stuff, message my parents for advice, and then return with more of an idea of what I needed. Even then, I wasted some money buying a couple kinds of medicine which ended up being almost useless in helping me get better.
To avoid having to think about it once you're already ill and feeling miserable, I'd suggest making a list of some common medicine you might need (stuff for headaches, head colds, persistent coughs, upset stomach, etc.) and looking up the active ingredient in each one. This will help circumvent some of the problems I ran into, like everyone recommending paracetamol to cure my head cold when really, paracetamol is primarily a light painkiller and doesn't really do that much for nasal congestion per se. I also imagine that going off of active ingredient might help you get around a language barrier if you're trying to pick out meds in a foreign language.
2. Thing I Most Wish I'd Done After I Arrived: Set up a local bank account (in a timely fashion)
I'll preface this one with two caveats. One, you can absolutely get by without a British bank account, especially if you're a semester student and not there for a full year. Just be prepared to use your debit/credit card a lot, and rack up some international transaction fees in the process, which (especially if you're a full year student) will probably start to add up. You're also at the mercy of the market when it comes to currency exchange - when you use an American card abroad, the bank chooses when to process the charge, and whatever the exchange rate is that day is what you end up paying. As a result, your spending can be a little harder to predict precisely, which might complicate sticking to a budget.
Personally, I didn't make a huge effort to get a bank account set up until quite late in the term. I only really thought to do it then because I had some trouble trying to buy British things like bus tickets over the internet with an American credit card. I was also thinking ahead to when I might be doing some travelling in Europe, when having a card which operated on a chip system rather than a swipe strip would come in handy. At least in my little corner of Europe, setting up a bank account wasn't a particularly complicated process, but there were a few steps which had waiting periods built in that I wasn't expecting, so it's best to get started early even if you don't think you need it right away. Based on my experience, the process looks something like this:
- Research which bank is best. There are usually a few to choose from, and some offer more perks and flexibility for students than others.
- Get an appointment. When I tried to walk in off the street and set up an account, I instead walked out with an appointment for the week following.
- Get the proper documentation. For British students, this seems to be a letter stamped/notarized by your university confirming that you are in fact a student. And don't forget your passport!
- Set up an account at a local branch. Usually you'll get a nice clerk who types all your info into a computer, then prints out a bunch of forms for you to sign/read and voila! you have an account.
- Wait for your card and account details to arrive. I waited for about a week for my card and banking credentials to get mailed to me.
- Deposit money in your account. I did it by check, since it was free to deposit an international check under my bank plan. But beware - international checks can take a week or more to clear. You can also do it by wire transfer, which is much faster but apparently costs a lot more.
- Activate your card. Don't go gallivanting off to Europe without using your card at a local business or ATM first - you don't want to have to go through activation procedures in a foreign language if you can help it.
3. Biggest Lesson from Michaelmas Term: Do or do not, there is no try
Time, especially (but not exclusively!) in a cram-packed Oxford term, is really too precious to waste. That's not to say you can't have fun and kick back - in fact, it's never been clearer to me that relaxation and recreation are absolutely key to staying productive at school and not going nuts. But I find a lot of the time, at my home institution, I'd find myself succumbing to the 'sleepytime limbo' as described in this brilliant Chuck & Beans comic:
Since I've been at Oxford, I've learned to break out of the sleepytime limbo (which I call 'homework limbo' when it doesn't necessarily happen late at night). When I catch myself refreshing Facebook for the zillionth time in ten seconds, I actually take a break for 15 or 30 minutes. The logic here is simple: is refreshing Facebook and following internet links when you have something else to do really fun? Personally, about 90% of the time, I do it to kill time when I don't want to do what I'm supposed to be doing, and when I suddenly discover I've wasted two hours doing this stuff, despite having "taken a break" from work, I don't feel refreshed. If anything, I just feel more stressed and guilty for procrastinating - and not only procrastinating, but procrastinating in a way that didn't make me feel better.
Instead, when I really feel like I've hit a productivity wall, I take a short break in which I fully commit to doing something fun. If I can really only afford a short break (ten, twenty, thirty minutes), that's okay. Some of my standbys are watching an episode of a comedy show (usually only twenty minutes or so), working on a blog entry, answering personal emails or letters, writing something very silly or very personal that I'd never pass in for class, trying to learn the dance moves or lyrics to the chorus of a KPOP song, practicing a new language, listening to BBC4's radio comedy, or even just crocheting. If I have a little more time to spare, sometimes I go for a walk in the University Parks, or visit one of the many free museums around town.
It doesn't have to be something that other people would see as "worthy" - in fact, it's vitally important that you don't feel like you're doing more work, or doing something which someone else wants you to do. If Candy Crush Saga is really what helps you unwind for a bit, do it! Just make sure to decide on how long the break will be ahead of time, keep the length appropriate to your availability, and be sure to get back to work when time's up. It sounds touchy-feely, I know, but seriously, just try it. (Here's looking at you, Pamplemousse Society.)
4. Biggest Goal for Next Term: Get more involved in student activities
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| Action shot! |
To be fair, I did do/try a number of activities in Michaelmas term - my biggest and most consistent time commitment was the archery club, from whose beginner class I just graduated (huzzah! Now I officially have license to judge people's technique in movies like The Hobbit and The Hunger Games!) Right at the end of term, I also started running the Facebook page for the International Students Campaign (which if you're an Oxford student you should totally go join here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/OUSU-International-Students-Campaign/500246223365615?fref=ts).
However, I had a lot of good reasons not to get too involved. I was adjusting to a new environment, a new academic system, and a new social scene. I had so many new things to try and was still not quite sure how to balance my time. So next term, I'm going to try to pick up some new activities, with Science Fiction Society, aikido, and perhaps a student publication top on my list. With any luck, it'll help me continue to meet new and awesome people, and give me one more reason to get my work done in a timely manner.
5. Thing I'm Most Looking Forward To: Spring Break (wherever it may take me)
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| Blue is where I've been, and green is where I wish I could go if I had all the time in the world. |
I've had the opportunity to do so many things in my first eight-week term I never thought I'd do in a lifetime. I survived an Oxford fresher's week, gallivanted around London and its Houses of Parliament, combated Fifth Week Blues with an old-school Oxford formal hall, celebrated both Oxgiving and Oxmas with my new friends, went to see a Korean pop group's first UK concert and talk at the Oxford Union, and even got to spend a weekend in Paris (Saturday and Sunday) with a friend from home.
But, looking at all my Oxford comrades' winter break photos, I have so many boxes left to tick on my study abroad bucket list, and I'm just now realizing that I probably won't have the time or means to do them all. So I've been engaging in the nastiness that is prioritization, and boy, it's difficult to narrow down where to aim for when you feel that, from where you're standing, not only do you have the whole world at your feet, but you will never be in that position again.
So far, I have Italy and Spain at the top of my list for places to visit. But who knows where I'll end up? I've heard Austria is nice that time of year...
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Well, all that's left for me to do is to hope you all had a lovely Christmas and wish you a wonderful New Year, wherever in the world you may be. I myself still have a couple of weeks until I return to the UK, so I'm going to go wring every drop of vacation and time with my family I can out of what I have left. And whether you've just popped your head in the door for a post or two or you've been following religiously since I started, thanks so much for taking the time to read about my adventures! I hope to be able to entertain you all with bigger, better, and more outrageous stories in the months to come.
