The training, however, didn’t last the whole day – in fact, the most I trained in a single day was two hours – leaving us to our own devices for the rest of the day. This afforded us a chance to engage in some other activities throughout the week. Generally this involved sitting in the kitchen reading/discussing a number of issues, including a particularly memorable evening trying to find an answer and logical proof to a mathematical problem that, it soon transpired, didn’t seem to be able to be solved. Nevertheless, having evenings of that kind was definitely to my taste and hopefully many more similar evenings will follow. We also spent some time playing football and basketball, which was entertaining as a result of the different abilities on show. Today was particularly memorable; the group went raft-building down by the river. This was extremely pleasant for the majority of the session, until the ‘sabotage’ stage, which involved trying to unseat as many of the opposing raft-building team as possible. Suffice to say that everyone spent some time in the river, including myself, despite my frantic efforts to remain on the raft. However, quite frankly, if some good-natured ducking is the worst of the OUAC’s ‘banter’, then I profess myself to be relieved. On the whole, it was a lovely week and I am very much looking forward to coming up now. It transpired that one of the girls with whom I spent the week – the Women’s President of the OUAC – was taking the same train as I was, so I also got to hear some amusing stories about the antics of the OUAC on their Easter training camp in Portugal. The trip to the Algarve is one that I definitely intend to go on, even if the cost is rather beyond my means right now.
The inherent pleasantness of the week really has helped to alleviate the nerves I had regarding Freshers and coming up; namely, whether I’d be a social recluse or not. It appeared as though I was fairly well accepted by the group despite being one of only two Freshers there, and I was very relieved by that. One of the guys there is doing a PhD and another is in the middle of a Masters; one is in the fourth year of a Maths course, so generally people were older than me. That I didn’t feel particularly out of place would appear to augur well.
With regards to work, it surprised me – though many of you would say that it should not have done so – how readily I was allowed to get on with some preparatory reading. That was to an extent a new experience; generally, the consensus I’ve been used to is that free time is not for reading and/or working – and this included free periods at school and the bus or coach to football matches. The wholly different reaction here was yet another reassurance that Oxford is definitely a place that I can identify with.
However, my battle with Bleak House still continues; I have just over 280 pages left. I do hope that finishing it by Sunday morning is possible, giving me time to read one more book prior to coming up. It’s not as much as I would have ideally liked to have done, but such is life.
That is essentially the recap of the last week. Tomorrow I meet Cambridge Reapplicant and Cambridge In Abeyance – two friends of mine. The former got rejected by Cambridge the first time around, but got four A*s at A-Level and so reapplied; she’s now going to do Law. The latter is an unfortunate case; one of the cleverest people I know who got into Cambridge first time around. Unfortunately she didn’t go last year due to a severely ill mother. Her mother has sadly passed away, but this did mean that we all expected her to go this fall. However, she has deferred her place for yet another year due to illnesses of her own, and it seems as though it is becoming ever more unlikely that she will take up a place she wholly deserves. Hopefully her illnesses and pains will abate soon enough for her to go up this year, but it looks like a remote possibility. On a final note, being home from the camp means that I can finally start packing for my imminent departure. It’s nearly here.
Regards,
Jack
jacknmoran 