oxford stories

Being around Oxford these past few days I've tried to imagine myself here, and I don't know what I see. On one hand I don't really see myself here but I also feel like I might actually adapt really well. It's a quiet little town heavy with history and, albeit seemingly boring, I feel like I could just melt myself a little bit, become malleable like warm wax, find a little nook where I can set and it'll imprint itself onto me.

Yesterday to pass the time whilst sitting alone at lunch and to avoid looking lost I looked at my phone. I quickly ran out of interesting things to look at so I just went onto the New Yorker, and the first article I clicked on happened to be a really nice and interesting one by my favorite White Man In China, Peter Hessler. Then I remembered Hessler did graduate studies at Oxford (I had semi-jokingly asked him to write me a recommendation letter when I first emailed him... clearly I didn't know how UCAS worked because how do you even include a recommendation letter as an undergraduate going through the UK system?) so I found his article, Identity Parade, about his time there. (Going through the article it seems like that letter of recommendation probably wouldn't've helped much anyway.) I really love this article and I can almost see a twentysomething Hessler wandering through High Street looking mildly bored and a tad contemptuous in the nineties. I think these days the weather has been a little bleak so I really feel that hazy atmosphere he conveys... sleepy, grey, overcast, everything just passing by, the order of things, peaceful. Today when walking to class in the morning I thought about how, once I've settled down here, maybe in my second year, I could write a series of surrealist, magical realist short stories where the only common point was that there were set in Oxford. This was inspired definitely by this one other New Yorker article I skimmed through, about an Abu Dhabi-set short story collection. I think it would be nice.

There should be a drinking game where you take a shot each time Peter Hessler mentions China in a non-China-related article.

By the way, this is a trick I've been using for years, but if websites like the New Yorker, the Boston Globe etc. say you've run out of your 5 free articles for the month or whatever, just clear your cookies and reload and they'll forget you were ever here. *hacker voice* I'm in. I mean, obviously we should respect the paywall because it's so difficult to support quality journalism these days, but like... I mean, I'll subscribe to the New Yorker when I'm 27 and have my own income, you know?

Anyway, this is partly for my mom's benefit, hi mom, but obviously I need a 6 in math to study here so I should get back to my questions.