the modern world of confusion

I WILL NOT BE TAKING SLEEPING PILLS AGAIN ANYTIME SOON. After many tumultuos nights without any sleep, I gave in and took some sleeping pills. And well, they worked. Too well, even. I was supposed to be up at 7.30 and I woke up at... 12. BUGGER. I'm glad that I finally got some sleep, I just wish it hadn't been in the time allocated for German translation class, two hours of linguistics and Spanish prose.
I have a lot of explaining to do. Aaaahhhh. Bollocks.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Exams. On Monday.
Eight 3-hour exams. Welcome to Oxford.
I no longer have blood running through my veins, it's all just pure caffeine. Which is ok, because after exams it will all be Pimm's and Champagne.

AAAA. Panic. Wish me good luck.
How do I learn Spanish by Monday?

Accents are a strange thing. Especially if you come to England as a foreigner, and are suddenly faced with the whole range of them and all of their implications.

In Poland, you can pretty much speak with one accent- Polish. You would never really be able to tell what region of the country people come from, judging just by their accent.
The onle exception might be Warsaw but then that's just because most of the 'capital people' consider themselves to be better and try to sound posher and cooler than the rest of us. An attempt which generally fails and gives pathetic results, to be honest.

But in England (or Britain in general) it seems to be completely different. I was astonished to find out that you can pretty much tell everything about your speaker- the region of the country they come from, their social backrground, their education, their job and social position- judging just by their accent. It's incredible. And sad and in many ways.

You're one of the few countries where 'classes' are still very much present. One of the few countries where one is forced to establish a connection to one of the classes and consider himself to be a member of it. Obviously this comes in the full package with hating/looking down on other classes.
You are the only country where people have invented words like 'chav', a phenomenon which I was rather shocked about.

But then it's not just about using the word 'chav' it's also about the way you pronounce it. Careful, or you might end up being assigned to some group yet again, even against your will.

We've had countless discussions and arguments about this in Oxford. Sitting at the table you suddenly hear people arguing:
'No it's not 'France' (with the short 'a'), it's Fraaaaaaaance'
'Don't be ridiculous. It's hilarious how you say 'graaaaaass' when it's obviously 'grass'.
'Marika, you learnt English as a foreign language, how would you pronounce it'
'Ehm... graass? And Fraance?' I try to balance out between the two thus causing general confusion in the hall.
'She said it in the southern accent!' starts one of my speakers.
'No you plonker, it was quite definitely northern' the other one replies.
And so on.

Next time Im just going to put on some ridiculously strong Polish accent.

But then I already do realise where it's going. I have to admit, as much as I wanted to, I've not managed to escape being assigned to something. I've not managed to avoid going one way or another. I've picked up an accent which I cannot supress anymore. My foreigner's neutrality is thus gone Im afraid.

'Your accent has become so posh' says my ex (who came from Stoke-on-Trent) with strong disgust in his voice. 'I absolutely hate your vowels. How can you say 'graaass'? Revolting.'

Having been told for the past two years that the Southern and posh accent is an evil thing (my ex came from Stoke and thus genuinely detested it), I have to admit I feel ashamed.

Ha! This is so amusing I just felt I had to share it with the world. A passage from one of my translations (English to Spanish):

'Slowly, the drab encrustations of work began to drop from her. Her limbs began to stiffen and shine.'

But that still doesn't beat the other text which Im meant to translate from English to German:

'I intended to write to you about it all at once, but was prevented from so doing during weeks of long illness which denied me the quiet hour I needed for my reply. (...) It presents the war as seen within the small compass of the frontline soldier, pieced together out of many separate situations, out of minutes and hours, out of struggle, fear, dirt and bravery, into one whole mosaic, from which the word Patriotism is seemingly absent because the simple soldier never spoke of it. His patriotism lay in the deed (not in the word).'

Amusing. At least for now I still get to use a dictionary. But in my exams I won't be allowed to. Very funny.
Why did I apply to study at Oxford??? I am SO going to fail everything.
Aaaaaah. Somebody please kill me now.

Only eight more days to go!!! Eight days till I return to my beloved Oxford, all of my friends and my, somewhat unusual, idea of 'real life'. In the meantime, I watched 'Harry Potter' in desperate search for 'normality'. Yep, that's what Oxford does to you. You start considering flying brooms, magical tournaments and talking creatures more normal than every day life.
Suffice to day, throughout the entire film I kept on shouting out: 'I've been there!'; 'I've seen it!'; 'that's where I go to library!' etc.
And Dean Thomas is played by my friend and tute partner. It was quite amusing, seeing him on the screen rather than struggling through Spanish poetry.
Speaking of which- I am The Official Queen of Procrastination. I am completely snowed under work but instead of doing it Im online blogging, yet again. Now let's have a look at things I have to do in the next week:

For German: Re-read Kafka. Write a commentary. Re-write the translation from Thomas Mann trying to actually make it sound like English this time. Translate another chapter from some novel I've not even looked at yet.
As for new authors- read and summarize the dramas by:
Frank Wedekind- 'Fruhlings Erwachen'- the drama is survivable if weird- it is mainly concerned with a bunch of sexually frustrated 14 year-olds.

Bertolt Brecht- 'Die Massnahme'- interesting but not really understandable. So far I've managed to understand that it's about Russian and Chinese communists. Which won't suffice for my essay Im afraid.

Georg Kaiser- 'von morgen bis mitternachts'- absolutely crap. I will not bother with further comments.

Elsa Bernstein 'Die Dammerung'- one of the two books Im definitely getting in prelims and sadly also one of the two books I cannot get hold of since it's not been published for 50 years now or so. I even looked for it in the biggest book shop in Berlin but it's not available anywhere. So my tutor is going to strangle me before chopping of my limbs, yay.

As for Spanish- Romaces historicos, Romaces, El romacero viejo, Romanvero gitano and a hell load of poetry. The mentioned books are nothing to do with romance (sadly), they are mainly old ballads which I do not understand.

Exactly what made me think that it would be a good idea to study at Oxford? And that I should apply to study in three foreign languages? Clearly this was a BAD, BAD idea. I can barely speak Polish now that my brain has fully switched onto the holiday mode, let alone any foreign languages.

It gets amusing when I get drunk or when Im very tired anyway because I start speaking in a very unusual mixture of 4 languages and thus create a language which is only understandable to me. Which is probably good since it might stop people from understanding some of the rambling shit I tend to say when I get drunk (one of my last brilliant sentences- 'I have two FEETS!' followed by 'my shoes have lots of sex')
Which is ok because as well know, things that happen while drunk are not actually real.

Im missing Oxf and people I could have random conversations with. My parents don't really care about anything. I spent half an hour today telling them about all the protests that Irving and Griffin coming to a debate at Oxf Union have caused. I explained about them. And about the idea of freedom of speech and whether it can be limited etc. And my mum's only reply was: 'aha. Can you go and get us some more water?'

No comments.

I had a huge row with my mum's husband who genuinely hates me anyway. So now neither of them is talking to me anymore.

Anyway, I know that this post is incredibly random and chaotic so I should probably go and get on with my work and return once I have regained (or should I just say gained?) the ability to say something funny and witty which probably won't occur until I return to Oxford. Sadly for now my brain seems to have turned into cream cheese.

After a very, very long time I'm back... have just returned home for Christmas holidays and am longing for England and for Oxford already... I can't believe I've only spent two months there, it feels like I'd been living in Oxford forever. So many things have changed, you could fill up a whole year with all those events. When I was leaving on a plane, on the 30th of September I would have never expected that my life would change so much...
Most of all, I've split up with my boyfriend. A very painful experience, especially after we'd not seen each other for 3 months and I was dying to see him again. Ad a result I spent the whole Fresher's Week crying while everyone else was clubbig and drinking away. We've managed to stay friends though, which is good. We meet occasionaly, still give each other Birthday presents etc. Im really glad about that because I still think he is an incredible person who will always be very important in my life and I would hate to lose him completely.
To make up for that, I've fallen in love with Oxford and with Queen's in particular. Honestly, it is the best college ever I managed to get a grant from my college because they don't want me to drop out because of my financial difficulties. I've found friends who go out and buy me chips and cheese at 3am when Im having an essay crisis. People who sit in my room at 5am and listen to me moaning about my love life. People who've seen me happy and sad, who've brouht be to bed while I was drunk and with whom I have 5-hours long political debates while drinking red wine and listening to classical music. Real friends. And it's so great. It's like Im having a new relationship with all the Queen's people
Work is hard but I generally really enjoy it. Our library is open 24/7 (and that's for a reason) and obviously I can think of better places to be at 3am than the college library, Modern Languages section, but then it is such a joy to get my essay back with a comment from my tutor: "This is very good indeed. A very well-argued essay." Oxford now feels like home and Im already pining for it although I've only been away for 2 days. 6 weeks is so long, don't know how to manage. Why do we have to get such ridiculously long holidays? (and yes, I do realize that moaning about long holidays is not what people usually do and that it might sound just slightly strange.)
I feel like everything is going well, like Im developing both intellectually and socially. Oxford is a magical place even though it's really expensive (it has now been officially proved that studying there is more expensive than studying in London) and I know Im going to struggle with money especially since I've already overspent massively in the first term. But Im strong and I will find a way.
After the 3rd term I have 8 exams, the so-called "prelims". Most subjects get 4 papers but since Im doing a joint degree (German&Spanish) i get double the amount. It's going to be fun, especially with Spanish that I still really struggle with. Translations (in my case from one foreign language to another) are really hard but then my Spanish tutor says that my Spanish has really improved. So Im trying to work hard and not panick. Have about 10 books to read over Christmas, most of them being 16th century Spanish poetry (in original of course).
But Im actually really happy. In fact, I don't think I've ever been so happy before, despite all the difficulties and having a broken heart and missing my now ex-boyfriend. But well, life goes on, and as I've been proved, we can never know what the next day will bring.

I have always known deep inside that there must be a good reason for my unusually strong dislike of dentists and generally doctors. Today I was proved right- I decided to have my teeth checked, "just in case", two days before leacing to Oxford. No tooth hurt me, everything was perfectly fine but people still warned me that if I go the dentist will surely find something. And so she did- a tooth which I thought was perfectly fine, and which apparently requires a root canal. I won't be able to have it done until December when I come back to Poland (and the insurance doesn't cover any dental treatment in the UK) so for now she just put some poison inside the tooth that is meant to kill the nerves, so that she can pull them out later. Yay, sounds terrific.
It hurts like hell, I've already taken 3 pain killers and they don't help. I just hope it won't be like that till December or I will literally take a pair of combination pliers and remove the bastard myself.
To say that I'm freaking out about that root canal is an understatement. I know it may seem like Im just panicking but seriously, I am incredibly bad at taking pain. I fainted when I had a blood test and today, when she was just examining the tooth, I got so pale, that she had to put down the whole torture chair. This is how my body reacts to pain or (Gog vorbid) blood- it shuts down and I black out.
So yeah, I was wondering if anyone could tell me just how badly the root canal actually hurts? I asked one person who had it done, and she said she'd rather give birth to another child than have this done to her again. Not very encouraging.
My mum said it was all my fault for not going earlier. But how was I ever meant to know that anything was wrong? She also said that if I'm so bad at taking pain than I should never have children. Great.
I just wish they could put me out for any medical treatments, really.

As for Oxford- I'm flying on Sunday, with my 15 kilos suitcase. Still haven't found the lacking money, will just have to look for a job there and hope for the best. I just hope I'm not making the biggest mistake of my life.

As expected, it turns out that getting in at Oxford was actually the easiest part of the whole process. The real problem is- surprise, surprise- the money. The Queen's College was finally kind enough to send me information on the accomodation and other living costs and cheerfully informed me that in the first year I'm absolutely not allowed to live out. I therefore have to accept their fantastic offer of getting a barely furnished room in an old building that looks like a prison and only has one shower for the whole corridor- and all that for only 16 quid a day! Now that's what I call a great deal.
I would like to add that 16 quid is 2 days salary in Poland if you have a good job.
Most of all, how can they force people into their crap unreasonably expensive accomodation? Doesn't that break some law? Maybe I'm just foreign and ignorant of the English habits but it doesn't seem fair to me. Despite studying at their college I'm actually a free human and should be allowed to live wherever I want. They just ban any competition and they impose this unfair deal onto people.
I'm not allowed to do self catering in the building either so I have to go for the college meals too. Why doesn't it surprise me?
Oh, and did I mention that for 16 quid a day they won't even provide me with bedclothes and that I have to take them with me halfway across Europe on a bloddy Ryanair plane where I have the luggage allowance of 15 kilos and have to pay 6 quid for every extra kilo (which should be a crime, frankly)?
I'm not even there yet and there are already so many problems. I just feel disappointed by Oxford and by people's attitude. They're just not willing to help at all. I'm arriving two days before the term start because I couldn't book my plane for a different day and they won't even let me move into that accommodation.
Whenever I talk to them I just get the feeling that they could do so much more if the secreatary was at least kind enough to move her bottom from the chair and check things for me. Oh well.
I still love Oxford and still desperately want to study there but at least now I know what my bf meant when he said that 'you can love and hate Oxford at the same time'. I suppose that's what you get if you establish an institution in the Middle Ages and refuse to change anything about it ever since.
I can't even afford my studies there to be frank. I'm getting 4000 a year from my parents and I need at least 6000 to survive. That leaves me 2000 to earn and I just hope it's doable. I realise that my studies will be extremely hard especially since I have to catch up on one of the subjects. I'm meant to be doing advanced Spanish and I'm only intermediate by now. Can't even manage some of the books from my reading list... but instead of studying all the time I'll have to work as well. Yay, great.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm putting myself through all this. I never really went for S&M. I got in at every single university I applied to so I could just stay in Poland and have a nice happy life here. But for some reason I'm determined to chase that Oxford dream, to fight for it, no matter what the obstacles are... am I mad? I just get the feeling that I shouldn't give up my dream, that I shouldn't resign from something I had dreamt of for so long... maybe I'm just young and naive and way too idealistic... I know that it won't be 'the promised land', that it won't be paradise, that it will be bloody hard... and yet I'm hoping to manage by shere determination.
Please send me the address of the nearest madhouse. Or tell me I'll be fine.

I bloody got in at Oxford!!! Got my results on Friday and they are as follows:
Polish- 88%
German- 94%
English- 93%
Politics- 88%
Now I just have to find the money somehow and after that I can have a great time at Queen's College and then go and have an exciting life- become the new Prime Minister or Queen, make lots of money and generally safe the whole world