Autumnsong: Science Officer's Personal Log

Sunday, May 7

I have been having some trouble getting back to working on my novel since the new year. Overcoming this is one of my goals for this term. This Sunday, I decided to make it a number one priority and start the day with some writing. Instead of heading to a library, I went to Gulp Fiction, a bookshop/cafe at the covered market. They had barely opened when I got there, so the place was nice and quiet, and there's something nice about having a cup of hot chocolate in a room full of bookshelves. It became awfully noisy within less than an hour - a group of girls in a nearby table was particularly loud - but I managed to make some progress nevertheless. I worked on outlining rather than writing, but it was good work.

Gulp Fiction. Early morning.

This Sunday set the tone for what turned out to be an extremely busy week, both at work and elsewhere. After my morning of writing I had choir practice and evensong, during which we sand the grandiose "Zadok the priest", because of King Charles' coronation just one day earlier. It was a fun song to sing, full of trumpets and excitement.

Monday, May 8

My corner at the Oxford Union Bar. In the photographs, the debate chamber packed to listen to Ronald Reagan.

On Monday, I worked from the Oxford Union. I started working in the bar, blissfully empty so early in the morning and proceeded to the Old Library where I remained until the middle of the afternoon, when I left for a late lunch. Later in the day I headed to John's for Trek Soc. Episodes focused on Star Trek doctors. This time we watched to "The Elysian Kingdom", "Author, Author" and "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges". As usual, there were only three of us by the time the last episode started, and we had a nice relaxing time eating snacks and talking Trek.

Tuesday, May 9

View from the window outside Jesus' music room

At 11AM on Tuesday I took a break from my bioinformatics work and headed to the College Music Room for a singing lesson, my first this term. The singing teacher is a sweet guy. On my first lesson, back in Michaelmas I remember him telling me all I needed was "some technique, and a little encouragement". He was very right, about the second part at least, and the words were so heartwarming they will make an appearance in my novel sooner or later. This time we did mostly scales. But he thinks I am ready to start practicing solo pieces, and at the end of the lesson he gave me a small list of suggestions. First on that list was "Voi che sapete", from Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro". Can you believe it? This is an aria! This time last year I would never imagine that merely a few months later I would be practicing opera. Life is funny like that... In any case, after the lesson I stopped by Sasi's, the Thai restaurant in the covered market to get some lunch. I like the atmosphere of Sasi's (which feels very authentic, and reminds me a bit of life in a big city), but I don't enjoy eating at restaurants by myself, so I ordered take away and at the the MCR, watching a masterclass about my next singing challenge.

Lunch Break

After lunch I walked to the Vere Hamsworth library to renew a couple of books and worked from there the rest of the afternoon, from one of the individual desks at the top floor. The Vere Hamsworth is usually a good place to work, but it was a bit crowded, probably because of exams. I left in time to have a meeting with another Clarendon Scholar at Jesus' Northgate cafe, where he showed me the scripts he uses to extract and annotate variants. I'm new to networking and I'm only beginning to reap the benefits of being part of such a broad network of scholars, but our meeting was lovely and I learned a great deal. By the time it was over, it was raining and I had dinner at college - hot dog with onions and vegetables on the side. All in all, a pretty good day.

College Dinner last Tuesday S2

Wednesday, May 10

View from the entrance of Vere Hamsworth. Stopped by again to borrow a book on bioinformatics before heading to the English library to return some items.

On Wednesday I spent most of the morning working from my study-bedroom. Then in the afternoon I had a class on "improving your presentation" at the department of continuing education I was glad to have something to look forward to at the end of the day: a non-English poetry night at St Anthony's college. I even signed up to read a poem by Augusto dos Anjos, my favourite poet. The only hiccup was that I thought the event would take place at St Peters, much closer to where I live and because St Anthony's is so far up north, I was a few minutes late getting there. The evening was okay. It was different from what I expected. Some people for instance read their own poems. It wasn't bad, but I would have prefer to hear more established poets. It was also very political, which perhaps I should have expected, but didn't and felt a bit stale to my taste. One fun thing was the sheer variety of languages on display, from Spanish, French and Russian to Galician and Assyrian.

International Poetry Night at St. Anthony's College. I read "O Coveiro" by Augusto dos Anjos.

I hung around at the bar after everything was over, talked to a couple of people, but we didn't exchange phone numbers or said we would meet again for a chat. Eventually I walked home...

Thursday, May 11

Bridge of Sighs during my evening walk, last Thursday

Thursday I was at the lab. I cycled there, had three meetings and one catch up, making for a rather tiresome work day. By the time I cycled back however, I had a plan. It would be my first visit to the Music Faculty library, at st Aldate's, where I hoped to borrow the vocal scores for "Voi che sapete", the song my vocal teacher recommended earlier this week. The library was awesome. Small, but full of cool books to discover and the librarian was a lovely guy, who kind of seemed more like the owner of a record shop than a librarian. He was very eager to help, and he urged me to explore their stacks, though I didn't really need that much encouragement to do that. It was so nice I ended up staying late and had to rush back home to drop my books and take a quick shower before dinner at college and choir practice.

After choir, I went for a walk. It's amazing to me to be out at 8:30 at night and still have a clear blue sky.

The Rad Cam, during my evening walk

Friday, May 12

On Friday, the waves started to break on the shore. All week long I made efforts not only to keep a high standard of productivity with my work but also to put myself out there socially, meet new people and be open for the possibilities that may encounter me. Perhaps the angels that tie people together in friendship are like a muse that must find the artist working, and in that case, it is on me to put myself out there as much as possible, creating opportunisties from which personal connections may sprout. This explains the poetry night, the sci fi fantasy discussions, the in promptu walks around the city centre and even that movie session with horror soc last week.

Be that as it may, the reality is that, if there was a desire in my heart to make a friend - and the desire exists, regardless of my attempts at restraining it - this desire went unfulfilled. I try so hard, it seems, but in the end, I always walk home alone. And although I know I must not be discouraged - after all, it was a nothing-conversation that started what turned out to be a great few weeks over Easter break - by the time Friday rolled around my little heart had grown weary from so many large rooms full of strangers. After a busy work day, that included a supervisor meeting, I skipped the visit to an Oscar Wilde Collection in the evening and remained in my room, listening to music and playing with a karaoke app. Then in the evening Sophia and I got together for McDonalds and Rebels (we are up to episode 2x03 now). An evening binge watching cartoons with a friend. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Saturday, May 13

The music department, in whose practice rooms I started my Saturday, struggling to find the fourth position on the A string :) Struggling, but lucky to have someone to help me out.

Saturday went well. I was a little sad because I had been looking forward to the Oxford Union's Eurovision watch party, but none of the people I invited accepted my invitation and I wasn't sure I would enjoy going to such an event alone. It sucked - like not having a date to the ball - but this kind of thing is part of what it means to be me. Trying not to think too much about it, I headed to the practice rooms in the Music department for cello practice with a boy from my board games group and in the afternoon I meet a group of students at Sommerville for my first game of D&D ever.

The game was a lot of fun. There was a lot more action than I expected, with battle after battle, and as the least experienced member of the party, I found myself unsurprisingly unprepared. Still, the people were nice and the game was fun. I hope we find some time to meet this coming week, and I will consider getting my own set of dice for next time.

After the game I went shopping for groceries, and ended my evening eating homemade burgers and watching The Vampire Diaries. All in all, not a bad night.