Hello hello!
I am in quite a good mood. So much has been happening! I love how much free time I have in Oxford because of how few contact hours (another way of saying class, lectures, etc.–basically, contact with your professors) I have.
Also current songs I love:
Traum by CRO (it’s in German)
You know how I started teaching myself German back in February because I made German friends in Thailand and then got accepted to Oxford where I was told I’d have a 6-week spring break and thus resolved to visit Germany in 2016 having acquire fluency in the language? Yes, well. Just wanted to let you know that’s going well. 🙂 And I’ve met so many Brits who speak German! Is this normal?? Do all Europeans just learn each other’s languages? I was talking to my friend Matthew, a fresher at Christ Church, last night and he speaks MANDARIN. I’m sorry………WHAT??!?!! And then we proceeded to converse in Chinese, all whilst my mind was continuing to be blown. Oh and he speaks French and Hindi, too. Casually.
But yes the point of all this is that my German is improving incrementally but surely. 😀 I also recently started reading The Book Thief (which I purchased at Blackwell’s!) and it has bits and pieces of German in it! WHICH I CAN UNDERSTAND. It makes me so proud.
Moving on though….I want to tell you about the absolutely poppin’ social life that I’ve somehow developed overnight. In the span of four days I went to three clubs; three of the first clubs I’ve ever been to in my life, I might note.
Oh wait, now that I think about it, there was one club in Shanghai I went to when I met up with high school friends in China the summer after senior year…
But ASIDE from that, the first three clubs I’ve ever been to. 😀 Saturday night (also Halloween) was Wahoo. Monday was Plush. Tuesday (yesterday) was Freud. Such fun! I also never imagined I’d be going out on Mondays or Tuesdays. Or any weekday for that matter other than Friday. But c’est la vie.
I also learned how to play croquet! Who would’ve thought? I’m becoming more and more British every day. When I return to Wellesley I’m going to start demanding milk with my tea. It’ll be outrageous.
I’m also going to North Wales this weekend! Such, such fun! So excited. It’ll be a three day trip in which I pay only £30 for transportation, accommodation, and one or two meals. (!!!) Thank goodness I brought my sleeping bag and sleeping mat to the UK! (It was funny because when I was packing in CA, I was cutting back on literally EVERYTHING–only brought 5 shirts, two pairs of jeans, etc.–except climbing/outdoor stuff. Haha. Brought ALL of my outdoor stuff.) We are all sleeping in a hut somewhere in North Wales for Friday and Saturday night this week. SO EXCITED!
Also tonight I’m going to a Mansfield Crewdate–crewdates are usually between two societies or groups, like the crew team and lacrosse or something, but in our case it’ll just be fellow Mansfield members tonight. 🙂 It’s basically where you play a British version of Never Have I Ever with a lot of drinking involved.
This would also be a good time to post my weekly barrage of photos I always end my blog posts with except…I didn’t actually go climbing this weekend. I know, the horror. Well, I did, but indoors. Which doesn’t count in my mind. Well actually, more like I don’t take as many photos whilst indoor climbing. 😛
ANYWAY. I digress. The point of bringing up photos was…that I took quite a few lovely photos whilst out these past few nights…of my friends Tom…and Michelle…and Matt….But alas, I shall not post them. 😉 In fact, haha, Tom even explicitly joked, “I don’t want to see this photo with hashtag emily goes to England on Facebook tomorrow.” 😉 (This is because I’ve been chronicling my adventures on IG and FB with #emilygoestoengland.)
I also realize that I’m coming across as slightly smitten with the whole concept of clubbing–but I must admit that it is only after years of I’m-still-under-21 depravation. Seriously! All my friends here are shocked that I’ve never drank at a bar or been to a club before. Shocked.
But anyway. Time to continue writing my essay so I’m not completely destroyed by spending the entire weekend in North Wales. 😀
auf Wiedersehen!
Yours ever,
Em