Hilary Term (the second term of the year at Oxford) has just begun and I thought I would take you through my week 1. Terms at Oxford last 8 weeks and we all refer to dates by what week we are in eg 'Let's go to the pub on Friday of week 3' or I have a tute on 'Monday of 4'. This is great for us, yet very annoying for everyone who is not part of the Oxford bubble but does keep my life organised. Anyway, here is HT week1:
Sunday:
Oxford weeks start on a Sunday. It took me until my third term at Oxford to figure this one out, I assumed they started on a Monday which I think would make more sense. Anyway, I thought would stick with that and start this off my my Sunday, 16th Jan.
Today was a pretty chill day. Having handed my mapping project in on Friday (big yay, I'm so glad it's over) I have just been working on making sure all my notes from last term are up to date so I can start the new term with that all sorted.
I didn't get myself up and into the library until 1pm today (oops) after having a banging lunch of smoked salmon (from the reduced section of tesco) and avocado bagels with the girls in my accom. I headed to the Bod to work for about 1.5 hours before getting bored and going home. I then decided to go on a 5km run. I greatly dislike running but one of my new years resolutions is to get better at it (and hopefully learn to love it more) so I did just that and really impressed myself by managing 5km because that is a very long way for me.
After my run I was throughly exhausted so went home, showered, and pretty much just watched tiktok until it was time for dinner. After a nice dinner my freinds I made a cup of tea and headed back to my college library where I stayed from about 8-10pm and did actually get a decent amount of work done.
Today may not have been the most productive day ever but it is a realistic representation of what I get up to on the weekend and I don't actually have that much work before term has started.
Monday:
A picture of the University church taken from outside the RadCam after my study session today.
Today is officially the start of term (first day of lectures) although the way the options I've chosen for this year have worked out I don't actually have any lectures today. In the 3rd year of our degree we get to pick 6 out of 10 offered modules. I went for three modules each term, last term's being plate tectonics, natural resources, and climate dynamics. This term I'm taking volcanology, oceanography, and paleobiology which is a combo I'm very excited about. The first lecture for all three of those courses happen tomorrow so today I'm just continuing to get notes sorted from last term.
In the morning I got up and got myself to the library for 10am (a nice chill start). I went to the gladstone (or glink) link which is the underground library that connects the Bod and the RadCam . The glink gets a lot of hate but it is always very warm and today was a very cold day, also I could not be bothered to cycle to the any of the libraries that are further away because I'm in the process of finging a new bike as my current one sucks!
After finishing up my work for the morning I went to lunch in college with my friends. The menu for this term was released today and looks banging so I'm excited because college food can really be quite hit and miss. Post lunch my friend and I headed to the social science library to do some work for the afternoon. The social science library is one of my favourites to work in because it's so open and light. I spent a couple hours doing some reading for my extended essay and applying to an internship (ahh!) before it was time to head home to get ready for cheer.
From 4-6pm I had my first cheer session of the new year. With out first competition being only 3 weeks away it was straight into work. Surprisingly, our stunts all hit pretty well and it was so nice to be back doing cheer and seeing all my teammates after a 6 week break.
After cheer I had some dinner and popped over to my boyfriend's to spend the evening with him, a lovely end to the first day of term!
Tuesday
My view out of the department window at lunch today featuring the geological society whiteboard which this week involved us voting for our favourite mountain range
Today was officially the start of lectures for me. I actually began my morning at 9am in my college library doing a bit of reading for my essay before having an appointment with the college doctor to talk about my ankle (which I have completely torn two ligaments in but that's a whole different story!). Every Tuesday the college doctors does clinic out of the college nurses office so that was nice and easy and I was able to make it to department for my 11am lecture.
I had a 11am volcanology lecture directly followed by a 12pm oceanography lecture. They were actually both super interesting and I'm very excited for the topics I have chosen to take this term, which is always a good sign!
By 1pm I was STARVING and grabbed myself a sainsbury's meal deal (unpopular opinion sainsbury's does better meal deals than tesco) to eat in department. I "worked" (mostly chatted) in depatment over lunch until my termly welfare meeting with my tutor.
Having achieved very little so far this afternoon in terms of studying I decided to achieve even less and went to the gym. It's only day 2 of term and I'm already done with being in the library so that's a promising start but hopefully I'll get over it. It was upper body day in the gym which, unsurprisingly given it was only 3.30pm, was totally empty so I had a great time. I then came home and proceeded to go on tiktok for far longer than I care to admit, had dinner and a very long gossip with the girls I live with and headed back to the sports centre for a gymnastics strength and flexibility session. This week there was a lot less strength than flexibility which I am always grateful for so we basically had a nice catch up to and did some splits. Great end to the day!
Wednesday
Wednesday morning 7am BeReal that went off during my cheer session, featuring me and my teammates looking far too awake for that time in the morning
Wednesday means 6:30am cheer training. It was freezing when I got up this morning and no warmer in the sports hall once I got there so trackies and jumpers were very much on until we were throughly warmed up. The stunts this morning also hit very well (hoping it's a good omen for comps) and BeReal even went off during training so all around big wins.
Post training I cycled over to department to rapidly munch my meal prepped avocado breakfast sandwich in the 10 minutes I had before my 9am oceanography lecture. Fuelled by 2 cups of coffee before 10am I then headed across the road from the department to one of the libraries to get some more essay reading done before lunch.
After lunch at Leon (which does the best freshly baked cookies in the world I highly recommend) with my boyfriend we headed to the glink to grind out a few more hours of work. I got bored rather quickly (oops) so went home around 3:30pm to get a quick run in before it got dark. Ngl, it was freezing but the run was pretty enjoyable, its so nice to go and exercise after being in the library all day, just to get a break from staring at a screen.
Post run and a hefty bowl of pasta I took my bike over to my boyfriend's which he then fixed for me (thank you) and then made a return to the college library for an hour or two of work before bed. I ended up staying just over two hours and got home at 10:30pm where I proceeded to go straight to sleep. Not a bad day of work, I am really enjoying the reading I'm doing for my essay which I think makes me a lot more motivated to actually do it so thats a big bonus and i'll enjoy it while it lasts!
Thursday
Pic of me about to get on the bars at training (all the photos of me actually on the bars are tragic and I do not wish to put them on the internet today)
Today I didn't have any contact hours until 12pm so decided to treat myself with a lie in! By 10:30am I had actually made it to the department library and did a solid hour and a bit of admin (couldn't bring myself to do work yet) before an oceanography lecture at midday.
Post lecture I popped to sainsbury's for a meal deal which I came back to department to eat with some of the other earth scientists in my year. It's nice only have a small year group (there is currently only 35 of us), and going on lots of field trips together means we all know each other pretty well so it end sup there is pretty much always someone in department you can sit and have lunch with/chat to between lectures.
In the afternoon I had a 2 hour paleobiology class. The module is actually called 'quantitative paleobiology' and to my disappointment the emphasis was on the 'quantitative' and not the 'paleobiology' so I spent 2 hours being confused by algebra I thought I had left behind in first year. Once the class was over I spent another hour or so in the library finishing off the problem set before meeting my boyfriend for dinner at wasabi in town. By that point I was starving and also freezing so it was a very welcome treat.
At 7:30pm it was time to go to gymnastics. We train at a gymnastics club in a nearby village that is about a 20 minute drive away. Most people get the bus but this year I'm lucky enough to have my car in Oxford so I drive various people to each session which is so much less hassle than getting the bus! Training went well, I've been doing a lot of work on bars at the moment (since my ankle is not really up to anything else) and finally this session felt like I'm making some progress!
Friday
A behind the scenes picture of the hydrogen panel event that took place this evening
My first thing this morning was a 2 hour volcanology class at 10am. I did, however, surprise myself by waking up before my alarm and made it into department for 9:15am to get a little bit of work done before the class.
The class itself turned out to be an hours lecture followed by an hours problem set. The questions were way easier than the paleobiology class yesterday which was a very welcome surprise and I (well we, problem classes are a collaborative effort to understand and complete the questions) got them done within the hour.
For lunch I went to college with some of the Earth Science girls who are also at Teddy Hall. Friday 'ming' (which is what we for some reason we all call food in hall at Teddy) is my favourite because it's fish and chips day! I met some other friends there and after a solid hours chat and munch I headed with one of them to the VH library for a study sesh. I managed to plough my way through 4 papers for my extended essay so left felling pretty proud of myself to head home for a quick dinner before I had to be back at the geography department for an event that evening.
The event was a panel discussion on the use of hydrogen as an energy source focused on hydrogen as a fuel in commercial aviation and the emerging industry of geologic hydrogen. This is an event that me and a friend have been organising on behalf of The Oxford Scientist student magazine in collaboration with The Oxford Climate Society for some time now and I'm super pleased with how smoothly it all went. The panelists were amazing and the whole event was super interesting, I definitely learnt a lot.
After that I headed back to spend the rest if the evening watching TV with my boyfriend and celebrating that tomorrow is finally the weekend!
Saturday
A really poor quality x0.5 selfie of my friends and I at the pub this evening which I'm sure they are super pleased with me sharing!
Today is officially the last day of week 1. If I'm being honest it feels like the week has dragged on forever and I can't believe I've only been back in Oxford for 10 days. That being said, a lot has happened and I feel like I'm full back in the swing of things in terms of work and uni life.
After a lazy morning in which I did nothing but watch some youtube and a quick tesco shop, I headed to the Earth Science department to get some work done before the gymnastics session this afternoon. I really like working in the Earth Science department at the weekend as it's really quiet so you can sit in the atrium rather than the library. It also means I have access to all the earth sci books I might need.
Later in the afternoon I was joined in department by some of my friends for some more studying/chatting before I popped home for some food and picked people up to head to the gym.
I got home from training at around 8:30pm and headed straight to the pub with my friends. The pub is literally less than a 2 minute walk from my accommodation which is so ideal so we just went for an hour or two before ending the night chatting in the kitchen.
Every week at Oxford looks a little different, this week was not filled with any exciting social endeavours or events but it has been a pretty good representation of what goes on in my day to day life. A lot of my time is spent in the library but this is kind of expected with an Oxford degree. That being said, there definitely is still enough time to hang out with my friends, exercise, and have some down time when it's needed!
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