Notes From The Shire

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Due to my solid week-long chocolate binge during first-year exams week and my necessary habit of not actually wearing shoes anymore, I'm beginning to look more and more like a hobbit. I'm not quite sure what I'm questing for, but the past two weeks have been undeniably epic. It started with a escapist trip to Rosie's house in Stratford; the timing of the whole thing was fantastic really, because all I wanted to do after finishing my English exam two Fridays ago was get myself and my cramped-from-two-hours-of-pretentiously-yet-effectively-analysing-poetry right hand off campus as fast as possible. Also, when we got there (to Stratford, as in STRATFORD-UPON-AVON...) it happened to be Shakespeare's birthday, which of course is no big deal to Rosie but which naturally brought out my latent American Tourist gene. It was quite surreal, sitting in the sunny garden of the house where Shakespeare died watching people perform in period costume for hours on Shakespeare's 444th birthday, even more so when it's juxtaposed with my jittery week of exams starting 48 hours later. Shakespeare was obviously English, so we decided it would just be disrespectful to study Spanish on his birthday you see, or even on his birthday weekend. I knew I would regret it even then, but hobbits are not actually renowned for their careful planning and forethought, are they? After writing three hundred desperately repetitive words on how Panama gives me many opportunities as a female student, how being a female student in Panama has given me many opportunities, and how many opportunities will be given to a female student in Panama (I had all the verb tenses down cold, but came up a bit short on vocabulary), I was expecting a "learning experience" sort of a grade in my Spanish exam. Luckily, my Spanish teacher fell for my use of preterito indefinido AND futuro tenses, and gave me two marks off a perfect score! It was perhaps because I was expecting an entire week of disappointed heavy sighing at my results that I was so proud of them;in Music and English I got one mark less than full points, in Politics I got a perfect score (he loved my cheesy 'individuality must be allowed to grow in the rich garden of freedom instead of being dismissed as a subversive weed' plant metaphors), and in Maths and Chemistry? Well, I got scores twice as high as I expected. I didn't actually know that Chemistry teachers appreciated creativity, but Geoff apparently does; not only did he give me full points on a late lab because I wrote a poem on the front rhyming 'chemistry' with 'dentistry', but he gave me one point for my now-legendary fat mole drawing! Imagine sitting in the stiflingly hot Bradenstoke Hall, faced with an entirely blank last page and an entirely blank, sleep-deprived mind, obviously trembling due to the fact that there is more caffeine than blood running through your veins, with one minute to go, facing question 3b "Determine the molar mass of the alkali metal in this reaction". What do you do? If you are me, you skip the traditional meticulous chemical formula and draw a very pudgy mole waving with one little paw with a speech bubble saying "As a mole, I don't really appreciate comments about my mass."Luckily that was the only problem for which expressing myself artistically was the only option. I got one point for that; so go, go alternative education! I was again offered a blissful escape from the anxiety-attack-inducing (one boy actually did pass out during his higher maths exam after his calculator broke, and had to be carried to the medical centre on a stretcher. Tolkien couldn't have predicted that one) Bradenstoke Hall by taking the bus to Gareth's house in Port Talbot literally an hour after my maths exam finished. It was all fried chicken and the Top 100 Eighties Music Videos on channel 32 (The Weather Girls' 'it's Raining Men' is actually terrifying) until we emerged the next day to take the bus back to campus...the bus which didn't exist, since it was May Day weekend (a bank holiday, here in the good ol' UK). We were rushing round calling anyone who might have a car until we realised that getting back late might allow us to conveniently miss the August Project talk, and until we realised that we had an entire pack of extra burgers, garlic bread, and two frozen pizzas. According to everyone who went, the three-and-a-half-hour talk allowed everybody to catch up on all the sleep they'd denied themselves over the past week. I love May Day. Since then, my shoes have begun gathering dust, and strangely enough I'm actually acquiring a tan, or at least the illusion of a tan due to my reidiculous amounts of freckles sort of appearing to blend together from far away. I've got to admit that that's the reason why this blog has taken me so long; I have not been studying hard and I have not been searching for the One Ring To Rule Them All, I have been spending every possible moment basking in the sun. The scent of the jasmine which twines around the big stone columns in the Blue Garden entices me from my stifling dorm room, and the refreshing newly-cut grass is softer and more forgiving than my bed (even with my two stolen duvets on top of the mattress). After a 'laundry day' which lasted more than a week of countless 'Hey (insert name), I borrowed your (insert item of clothing), don't worry it still looks better on you, thanks!' notes, all my clothes smell like sunshine now. I'm about to go ceremoniously fold all my jumpers up and put them away, except possibly my big orange men's one which is quite dear to my heart. The others I will throw into the fires of Mordor, with my now-bare, slightly red arms. Don't worry, I'll put on shoes again tomorrow so that the kitchen ladies will serve me breakfast.

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