Tuesday, February 22, 2011

What’s the Big Deal with Bridge?

I was told before coming to Oxford that it can be very difficult to avoid the trap of just being friends with the other Americans and not meeting British students. The biggest suggestion people offered to avoid doing so was joining a club or group in Oxford, to get involved, meet people, find something you’re interested in. I tried playing cricket (briefly) and then decided to join bridge club—one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

It’s difficult in life to answer those tricky “what if?”s, but I genuinely do wonder what my life here would be like if I hadn’t joined bridge club. The answer makes me quite sad—but luckily it is merely a “what if.”

I suppose I should start from the fateful beginning. I visited a friend at her school in Oklahoma the week before I left to come to England. Incidentally, her friend taught a group of us how to play bridge, which he had become addicted to when he studied abroad in China (funny, right? It came full circle). I played a few times with my family in my last week at home, and then a friend at Oxford mentioned that she thought there might be a University bridge club here.

Hmmmm, I remember thinking. Would the club be patient with a complete novice like me? Would there be only two or three awkward members looking for more people to join? Or would it be a fun group of eclectic people? I figured I had nothing to lose. If I was intrigued by a game typically thought of as being played by senior-citizens, other relatively normal people might be too, right?

I walked into the group shy, a bit self-conscious, but very pleasantly surprised: the club was composed of thirty-fortyish students, ninety percent guys, most of whom are math and science majors it seems like. Everyone was pretty welcoming, and though I was very, very bad at the game itself, I decided to come back for another week, and another, and another.

I’ll admit the first term of bridge was somewhat overwhelming, a bit uncomfortable in learning so much new information, making so many mistakes, feeling like the worst player ever. At club night every week, people have their regular partners and through playing together often, partners develop a nuanced bidding language, understanding one another’s hands at more advanced levels, making the best contract, playing the game better, winning more tricks, earning more points. Of course, if one or both of the partners is experienced at bridge, that’s a huge help. As a newcomer, I lacked both experience and a regular partner and jumped around to different available people each week.

Gradually I began to understand the game better. I’m still terrible but much more comfortable, learning more week by week. The bridge club members have been incredibly patient in giving me advice, encouraging me to stick with it, making me feel welcome. I feel that bridge overall is undervalued in society: it’s strategic, challenging, very complex so that each game is a learning experience. Luck and skill each play a part, and the game can be very social. We usually play for about three hours, rotating around from table to table to play with different pairs, snacking on biscuits (English lingo for cookies), catching up on one another’s lives, laughing and joking.

I have met some of my very favorite people in my time abroad at bridge club. We usually follow up bridge with going to the college bar and a nearby pub. People admittedly discuss their bridge hands in great detail, making bridge jokes that go over my head; but they also hassle me for being American, put up with my incessant questions about English culture and attempts at an English accent, ask me about my week, make me laugh, and have provided me with some of my best nights in Oxford.

When I go home, finally somewhat acceptable at playing bridge, realistically I probably won’t find another bridge club, my newly-acquired skills will rust, and I’ll lose my much-beloved new hobby. But it really doesn’t matter. I’ll be missing the people I play bridge with much more than the game itself.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Fifth-Week Blues—or the Lack Thereof

Students at Oxford have an expression, “fifth-week blues,” that describes the feeling of being somewhat burnt-out and discouraged that there is still a good deal of term to go. I almost laughed when I was first asked if I was experiencing this feeling: just the opposite in fact. I feel as though I just flew back from Christmas break and suddenly, snap of the fingers, term only has a few weeks left. I realized on Sunday that half of my academic time at Oxford is over (of three terms, I’ve just passed the 1.5 term mark).

Do I still feel somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of work I have left this term? Absolutely. It’s funny too because just when I feel like I’m reaching the peak of my work load, suddenly there are tons of cool events that I’m dying to go to, even more so than usual. My schedule is becoming a bit more stressful, especially with having two weeks in a row of two tutorials, due to my food poisoning.

It’s hard to express what I’m feeling at this point in my study-abroad life. I suppose there’s nothing terribly monumental going on this week (then again, can anything in my life be described as "monumental"?), and it does feel as though I’ve been building up this portrayal of my life here at Oxford piece by piece, blog post by post: have I said all there is to be said? Hopefully not. I have this wonderful feeling I have a great deal to experience still in my time here, even if it does feel like I’ll wake up tomorrow and pack to go home with how fast it’s all going.

I’m reaching this really great point in my study abroad experience—and I feel as though you may laugh when you read this—where I’ve made friends. In fact, I may be blushing a bit at the thought that those friends could be reading this. I don’t mean to say I’ve had a lacking social life since I’ve been here, by any means; it’s just that it feels like more of my friends are becoming close friends, more of my acquaintances friends, and more familiar faces are becoming acquaintances. It really is a lovely feeling to walk around Oxford any given day of the week and see someone I know across the street, in the library, at a restaurant. Mansfield feels like...well home in a way: I’m starting to feel like more than just my little pigeon hole belongs to me at college, that I can lay claim to the library, the JCR, like the portraits lining the halls secretly smile as I walk past, as though the little hobbit cave that is our bar has a seat waiting for me.

My bike naturally traverses the same streets, the same path from college to my dorm, from my dorm to the Bodleian, from my dorm to my tutorials. My feet tread with assuredness on that walk down to Tescos, the gravel path up to the entrance to college, the block to my favorite panini shop from college, from my dorm to Magdalen for evensong, from the library to get tea. My hand grips the rail casually, with familiarity, as I descend the stairs at my dorm, the stairs at the Radcliffe Camera, the stairs at college, the stairs at the English and History Faculty Libraries. Everything, all of my favorite haunts are becoming familiar in a really beautiful—certainly not mundane—way.

I’m trying to hold onto my awe nonetheless, of the Camera edging into my peripheral vision as I emerge from Catte Street, of the fountain at Christ Church, the exhilaration I feel when crossing over Magdalen Bridge into the energy of the centre of town, the beautiful accents I’m noticing less, the sensation of drinking a pint of cider which we don’t have back home.

I want it all to go on forever—well, okay, not really but at least longer than the time I’ve been allotted here, probably precisely because it’s the time I’ve been allotted. There is that feeling that just as I’m settling in, really feeling like this is my city, this is my university, these are my people, it’s all slipping away already. Have I tried to tell myself, just enjoy it while it lasts, relax, you have months left? Yep. Multiple times. It doesn’t matter. I’m somewhat pessimistic or cynical or unnecessarily worrisome or something; I just can’t seem to forget the transience of this experience, the end date caging in this year, the decisions that await me when I return to Georgetown as a senior and have to (gross) figure out my life, future, all that fun stuff.

So while yes, I have escaped the fifth-week blues, I’m not quite Ms. Sunshine. I’m very happy but perhaps too aware of that happiness, which is only compounded by the fact that I don’t have enough time left in this term to get everything done. Oh, well. This is like when I tell someone I feel so old and the person laughs because of my youth. I’m complaining about the experience being over when I suppose one could say it has just begun.

Friday, February 11, 2011

The Formal Hall that Poisoned Us All

I had never personally experienced food poisoning prior to this past weekend. This is going to be shocking, but I did not find it exactly enjoyable. Where and how did it happen?, you might ask.

My entire floor decided we would all attend a formal hall together at college Friday night and hurried to book our spots in time, put on our dresses, grabbed our formal gowns, and headed to dinner—rather excited, might I add. We walked in, bought some wine, and spread out at the table, anticipating dinner. The menu included shrimp cocktail, steak, twice-baked potatoes, carrots, snap peas, rolls, and chocolate cherry cake to finish it all off. We took pictures, toasted the end of third week, and had a wonderful dinner.


Flash forward to Sunday morning, 6:00 a.m. I wake up suddenly, overwhelmingly nauseous. After being in a denial for a minute—“No, I can’t be sick, can I?”—I leaped out of bed and ran to the trash can to throw up for the first time. Surprised, and dismayed, I brushed my teeth and got back into bed. A half an hour later, an hour later, 8:00, 8:30, 9:20, 10:00, 10:40, 12:00, the vomiting continued. In and out of a miserable sleep, I leapt up, threw up, cleaned up—repeat. The dreadful, exhausting cycle continued, and I finally gave in and called my mom at work. No matter how grown-up I’m beginning to feel, she’s the one person I call when sick.

I told her I couldn’t even keep water down, and I was concerned I would never stop throwing up with this stomach flu reigning over my body. She told me the dreaded advice I saw coming: I needed to go to the ER. Having a digestive disease—diabetes—never meshes well with a digestive illness like the stomach flu. If my blood sugar went low, I wouldn’t be able to treat myself since I couldn’t keep anything down, which could lead to me passing out. With all the doctors’ offices being closed on a Sunday, my only option was to go to the hospital. I’ll be honest—I started crying. I was so fatigued, achy, feverish, I had so much work to do, I didn’t want to have to ask any of my friends for help—this was the last thing I needed.

Okay, I conceded. Okay, you’re right, Mom. I asked my good friend Nichola to help me figure out how to get to the nearest ER and she volunteered to call a cab and take me. I hated to potentially give her the flu as well, to take up her whole Sunday afternoon; luckily God has blessed me with some truly, truly awesome friends. We got to the ER and I simply gave them my name and they pulled up all my information—England has National Healthcare, of course, so the whole trip cost me nothing. The estimated wait was only 4 hours or so: lovely.

I became intimately acquainted with the restroom in the waiting room and looked around, taking in the sick babies, large number of women with injured arms and men with injured legs (not sure why it split so evenly between the sexes), soaking in the general misery and pain and impatience of the ER waiting room. They called my name after an hour for the preliminary check-up, taking my blood pressure, pulse, and blood. The nurse just took my blood while I was in a waiting room chair, throwing the needle back on the tray (didn’t seem quite hygienic…). Then I had to wait a few more hours and curled up on two chairs, exhausted.

Finally, the doctor called my name and had me follow him into some supply-room-like office near the bathroom, asked me a few questions, and wrote me a prescription for some anti-nausea medicine. He told me I couldn’t fill it at the hospital, though: of course. Businesses close early on Sundays in England, and most of the pharmacies had just closed. So I had to wander over to some random small pharmacy that was still open: but of course, they didn’t have my prescription. The greatest irony? They just gave me an over-the-counter medicine I could have gotten without a prescription or going to the ER. Wonderful. Nichola and I headed home, where I proceeded to sleep for the next 12 hours or so, gradually drinking some water and keeping it down.

The nausea had passed but then the sad news came that everyone on my floor had begun to feel ill. Not only them, but everyone who had gone to formal hall and eaten the shrimp began to feel ill: we all had food poisoning, potentially norovirus. Fabulous. I feel as though norovirus follows me around: it was at diabetes camp a few years ago (disastrous!), at Georgetown last year, and now at Oxford. Guess the third time’s the charm for me. People experienced the food poisoning/noro in various levels of intensity, and all of us felt better within about 24 hours. Monday morning when I emerged from my room, the floor had this feeling of having survived a battle; we all stumbled around looking a bit shell-shocked, the kitchen felt evacuated and abandoned. We clustered around groaning and clutching our stomachs, relieved to be feeling slightly better.

Unfortunately, most of had to rearrange our tutorial schedule for the week. I now have two stressful weeks of work in a row with having had to postpone one of my tutorials. I’m walking away from my first food poisoning experience feeling first and foremost grateful for my health: we always seem to take it for granted until we get ill. Gradually, I’ve been eating more and more like my normal self this week, and I think my stomach is losing its bitterness towards, and is starting to forgive, food. I’ve even ventured back to campus, despite them poisoning me. When will I next attend a formal hall at Mansfield? We’ll have to see about that one…

Saturday, February 5, 2011

I've Got Mail: Thank Goodness

I think I collect conversations. For every important historical fact I should remember but don’t, I can produce some totally random detail of a conversation with a friend, some pointless wisecrack made to me three years ago, some inside joke that was created fleetingly (so that when I try to reference it, apparently it’s become so ‘inside’ that only I remember it). I’ve always had a fascination with communication, in all its various forms. I applied to study epistolary novels at Oxford, I love to write letters, postcards bring me endless joy, the evolving modern forms of communication fascinate me (i.e. email etiquette or the language of texting). Phone calls and skyping are wonderful, in being able to hear that friend’s voice bridging thousands of miles; and even chatting/instant messaging are growing on me. This is one aspect of my study-abroad lifestyle I thought it might be fun to share with you: a typical day of communication, my myriad of modes of communication with my friends and loved ones.

After I stumble out of bed in the morning, I usually check my phone for texts from friends here in Oxford and run into one of my floormates as I venture to the kitchen. Then I make a bee-line for the infinite joy that is my new laptop: I open several tabs—facebook, email, other email account, etc. May I say, facebook while studying abroad is twice the fun with the time difference: I get to see all my Oxford friends on my facebook schedule, and then in the morning I can catch up on the flurry of nighttime facebook updates from my American friends. Between the pokes, wall posts, pictures, messages, and tagged posts, I feel like I’m reminded on a daily basis of my strong group of friends back home.

Enter the world of email, though, and suddenly the messages feel more grown-up, more important, more personal in a way. There are the hassles of academic emails and bills and responsibilities, and then there are those online-letters composed with love. Email will first and foremost make me think of my best friend, Jessica. As almost twelve-year-old long-distance friends, we utilize each and every form of communication I’m mentioning. But our daily, longer email messages are something I always anticipate; she’s the person I can pour it all out to, the person who gives me a new perspective on my own life, and the person who allows me to be a part of her life taking place thousands of miles across the ocean. She encourages me, advises me, laughs with me, makes fun of me, commiserates with me: anything and everything I could need. Lately I’ve been sending more emails to my other good friends and family too, which I love.

When I’m trying to distract myself from those mountains of reading and that demanding, blinking cursor on the blank page of my latest essay, I love to be distracted with chatting with friends via facebook, gmail, skype. Every week I usually have a few skype dates too, and what could be better than that? I get to “see” my best friends, sorely missed, and at the end of the conversation—where I am blessed with seeing their hand gestures, witnessing their laughs, each of us leaning into the screen, seeing their rooms, admiring their new haircuts, making faces at one another—I feel like I’ve just gotten to hang out with my friend, my brother, my mom.

As I mentioned previously, I love postcards and letters. There’s something about writing my thoughts, seeing them on the page, knowing the recipient will be holding my words; it’s tangible, I’ve been able to shape it, make it my own with the stamp of my handwriting. I really think there’s something powerful in that feeling, something reassuring, not as fleeting as every other form of communication. Jessica and I have been sending each other a packet of communications, with postcards, quotes, verses, pictures, letters, little notes all packed in (which is more economical but also more fun, I think). I love the idea that she’ll open it up and see my two weeks tucked into that envelope: quotes from the reading for school I’ve been trudging through, a verse that touched me deeply, a postcard from a place I visited, a letter about something deeper I’ve been mulling over. It’s all there, a little taste of my life, sealed, stamped, and sent off via airmail. I do the same for my little brother, whom I feel so close to when home but so distant from when I’m here. I hope he knows each time I stick something else in the envelope I’m missing him profoundly.

Finally, I have really, really wonderful conversations in Oxford. I know, right? I actually talk to people in person occasionally too. The pub culture has won me over, and I’ve enjoyed meeting people at Mansfield, laughing with friends around the table at the bustling King’s Arms, talking while walking through the alleyways to the library, over a cup of tea, while cooking dinner together, whispering in church, laughing as we ride our bikes side-by-side. There’s something to be said for this most fundamental form of communication; I think it’s one of the best ways to learn about someone’s personality. My neighbor sits across from me in my room and just radiates calm, brings me peace; my friend from Georgetown studying here as well gets me thinking powerfully, deeply into the night with those intense conversations we somehow slip into; another good friend sparks my sarcasm in record time as she listens to me whine and gives me wonderful advice.

What would I be, what would this study-abroad life be, without all these forms of communication? How would I feel connected to, when I’m so physically disconnected from, all those loved ones across the sea? How would I live three lives, in my three homes, if I were completely cut off from any of them? What a gruesome, depressing thought. Ah, I’m blessed.