Today I skipped ALL my lectures (three of them) because I was totally unmotivated.
I was kind of grumpy and gloomy during the morning and wasn't able to bring myself to do some actual work.

Then I got a text from Mari, who told me that she was feeling totally unmotivated today, skipped all her lectures and asked me if I wanted to go for lunch. ^^
So we met at the Noodlebar (again) for some shared ranting about how stressed we are from essay writing, research work and all those social events that keep jumping on us on short notice during the week. We managed to stay nearly two hours in the bar and it was so good to talk with someone in a similar situation about how one notices the strangest things when doing work in a different university system.

After that Mari returned (reluctantly) to the library and I went back to college. On the way I came across a street seller who sold shawls, the ones you drape around your shoulder, making you look really fancy and stylish. She sold them 3 for 10 pounds, and now I'm the proud owner of one brown, one grey-blue and one red shawl. ^^
In the afternoon I wanted to do some work but ended up reading my friends list over and over. I was still unmotivated but not grumpy any more.

Then I went to the Thanksgiving Dinner my college organised. It started with a glass of mulled wine in the Rector's Lodgings and then we went over to the Hall for the actual dinner.
It was quite funny because I was sitting between Michael (the goalkeeper in my floorball team), a very giddy medicine student named Gam (I have seen him before in college but only in passing), and opposite from me were the parents of one of the Williams students. We had a very entertaining dinner. ^^

The food was delicious. I feel like a stuffed turkey myself at the moment. Throw in the glass of mulled wine, a glass of white wine for entrance, red whine for the main course, dessert wine for dessert and fruits (duh) and a glass of college port for the concluding toast, and now you can start wondering why I'm still upright and typing.
But I slump into bed soon enough.


On Wednesday I trudged into my first lecture and more or less wrote everything down what Stephen told us on autopilot (it's funny to have a lecturer who is at the same time a fellow student in a different seminar ^^). I was still asleep in that lecture and only discovered it was about Hagen in the Nibelungenlied when I read over my notes later. Then I shlepped myself to the graduate seminar on medieval German which was about death in medieval songs this time. Quite fitting.

After that I read some articles for my essay and came across a peculiar confusing one. The author of that article seems to analyse a different text than the one I've read, although she claims it to be the same one. There were so many things just off the track I was actually double-checking the article was about the book I've read. Various times. Oh well, have to make a comment about that in my essay.

In the evening I went to Rector's Seminar. This time it was about physics and music, I think it would have been just the right thing for exilkobold. A third-year physcist from Exeter College has made an entry for the national physics competition and will represent Oxford University there, and in Rector's Seminar he had a dry-run for his presentation.
It was really interesting, he analysed questions such as why are dischords unpleasant but harmony harmonious, why do piano tuners hit the strings one-seventh of the way along, why are there three strings for each high note, why are there thirteen notes in an octave. He explained it very well and I'll have fingers crossed for him in the competition on Sunday. Go Tom! :D

After that I tried to be productive again but failed with my essay, so I went down to the laundry place and did some ironing. Yes, at half past ten in the evening. Yes, sometimes I have to do something monotonous when I have to think. ^^'

On Tuesday I slept in a bit (nothing one can do too often here...), read for my essay and went to a lecture. It was about gender and post-colonialism, which is an interesting topic in principle but this was so general and non-informative that it was truly a wasted hour. The first time in my time here actually. So I was a bit grumpy when the lecure was over.

Then we had a subject family time starting in the afternoon.
Everyone who studies something related to literature in any fashion was invited. First three post-graduate students, all working on their PhDs, gave a small presentation of their current work and their results. It was really interesting and we had some lively discussions which were very helpful to the three for including more material or different approaches into their work.

This went on for two hours, then we had some drinks in the Rector's Lodgings and a splendid dinner afterwards in the Hall. I was sitting with two girls who study German and we had a lot of fun practicing codeswitching. ^^
Later, after dessert, we were joined by my supervisor Helen, with whom I had a tutorial last week. At first I felt awkward, it's so not common in Germany that the teachers change tables to sit and chat with their students (if there is such an occasion as a dinner...), and at first I was a bit "incommunicative", but it got better after a while.
We also had an after-dinner talk by a British poet and tutor at St. Anne's College, Patrick McGuinness, and that was really funny. He philosophised (not really seriously) about stupidity and laziness, referring to Flaubert and Joyce a lot, basically saying that one has to be lazy from time to time with indulgence to preserve one's creativity. No disagreement by my side. ^^

After the dinner I was a bit depressed just because I felt a bit out of place and stupid. Most people here who are my age are already working on their PhD, meaning they have already two degrees and very soon will have the ticket to free academic research. And I'm sitting here and don't even have my first one. Because the German education system is different and takes more time.
Not really a world-moving complain but it irks me that a lot of my time already has been spent on studies at an undergraduate level, whereas I could have done serious research if I had gone to England the first place (and not starting a study in Germany). Oh well.

On Monday the first thing I did was... wanting to stay in bed. But, floorball was calling, and so I dragged myself down High Street and into the sports centre. Again, only five people had shown up for training, and Didier was a little bit ticked off (understatement of the month).
Of course that didn't stop us from training, which in fact grew only more intense, and the last half hour was spent playing two against two with Michael in goal.

After training (and when I had recovered again, collapsing into bed when I was out of the shower) I buried myself under books and articles for my last essay. And stayed there until dinner. And returned there after dinner, although not for very long because I was nearly falling asleep anyway, so I just went to bed very early (and with a throbbing back).


Anyways, it has been a long and eventful week, and now "only" thing is left for me is writing my last essay. Then I'll be free to enjoy my last week before Christmas vacation.

It's so late already! Where have the two months gone?!