On living in Oxford

Here's a sequel to my previous post :D

Oh, Julie, it definitely is possible to lose weight while in England. For one thing the food is pretty expensive. Also, it's not very good. If you want yummy food, you have to eat out which brings us to point number 1 :D I've lost 20 kg in a matter of months :) Then again, I'm on Atkins-lite (which really means I cheat too much to say I'm really trying >_< ) so that helps.

I'm going with a different color scheme this time around.

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Hi Chantal,

I really can't thank you enough for that reply! It really helped me! I've also been looking through your blog and its really nice to read what you have done in your classes. I have spoken to someone from UCL and Stirling too and I think the Brookes course sounds much better and flexible, the others are too rigid! I'm hoping I get in, my applications go in next week or so. The maths bit scares me a little as it was my worst subject :(
Are you an international student? How is the accommodation at the uni? And I've been to Oxford when I was on holiday once, and I loved the place, but what is it like to live there?

Thank you :)

Yeah, I'm an international student. I'm staying in Cheney Student Village which offers a 50 week contract. The other halls are 30 weeks.
Cheney is also ensuite which means I have my own bathroom (which also means I have to clean it myself *sigh*).

The rooms are quite nice, airy and bright and quite spacious for university accommodations. They're fairly new too, the ikea furniture still nice :D There's 6 people in our flat and we share a kitchen. It's not as nice as an actual house but it's enough for now. The postgraduate blocks (P,R,S,T and U) are fairly quiet. I had to sent the Residence officer quiet down the people upstairs only once (hey, they were playing really bad techno, screaming and jumping around at 3 am on a weekday!)

I've been inside Crescent as well which is the cheapest of the halls and it's quite nice too. Very cramped but it had a nice atmosphere. They also have shared kitchens but they're a lot smaller. Also, it's quite far from the Headington campus.

The university also owns some houses in the area and if you apply for a shared house, you could end up in an actual house to share with other Brookes students. My boyfriend is in one of these and they're ok. His house is a bit worn down and the heating doesn't work well but they have a kitchen and a little living room and their own washer and drier which is great because going up and down the stairs and out in the cold to do laundry (and pay a whole 3 pounds for one load!) sucks. They also have a garden.

Personally, I like living in Oxford. It's not a big city which sometimes annoys me but I got used to having a ridiculous amount of possibilities (even though, in all fairness, I only ever did the same things over and over again anyway). It's cheerful and small and I can go everywhere on foot. There are paths along the rivers and before long, it feels like you're outside of town, walking through the countryside.

The supermarkets are fairly limited and the choice is small for my international tastes but they have the staples and some places have decent prices and decent quality (oh, Peru! How I miss thee!). The weather is much nicer than I expected. I've never experienced such a mild winter. Maybe it was a fluke this year but it's been pleasant. There are a lot of students but it doesn't get too crazy expect on some streets during the night. There are a lot of student nights in the local clubs that attract either more Oxford students or Brookes students. There's a strong sense of partying at night, every night. I'm not much of a club goer myself but I've heard good reviews of places like Lava, The Purple Turtle, Clem's and The Carling Academy.

There are lots of restaurants offering different cuisines. Jamie Oliver has an Italian restaurant on St. George street that is wonderful apparently. I'm saving it for a special occasion because it's also pricey. Quod is good, also elegant and one of my friends met Emma Watson there and got an autograph! There are several Indian restaurants that are very good. I lived 4 years in India and sometimes, I need some good Indian food. I'm pleased with the offerings generally although I wish there was more than curries, Indian food is so varied and interesting it's a shame they don't offer more different dishes.
My favorite places to eat are Nando's (mmmh, spicy chicken!), Gourmet Burger Kitchen ('nuff said) and the Brittania pub up in Headington (it's close, cheap and the food is very good).

Well, it's getting pretty long so I'll sumarise, I like it very much here. I wouldn't mind staying on after I finish the M.A. except the local publishers don't really do trade publishing and I'm not interested in Academic or Educational publishing. London is conveniently close but still, 2 hours commutes one-way is a bit much for me.

Rare species: a Brookes related post!

I still haven't gotten word about where I'm going to be living. We've talked about it on the 2008 Publishing M.A facebook group. I was relieved to find out I'm not the only one who hasn't heard back about halls. There are also several who will be house hunting in September so if it comes to that, I might be able to move in with my future classmates.

By the way, I don't know if I mentioned it before but everyone in the program I've friended on facebook is very nice and friendly and most of us like the same things. Some of us are planning on meeting up during the first week of September, get to know each other in advance... Pretty cool.

Those who have gotten rooms in the halls are mostly in Cheney Student Village in the post-grad block. It'd be awesome if we could all end up in the same place! We could rewatch Firefly every night! Yay!

Hit me like a moving truck

I got my final, unconditional offer letter yesterday (finally!) as well as my booklet, "International Pre-arrival Guide" (which I had already read online). That's when it really hit me: I'm a student again (crap!)! My stomach's all in a knot now and that less than palatable chicken my dad cooked up is not helping.

Then, of course, I realized that I'm leaving for France in a matter of weeks so now it's time to pack up and decide what I need to have on hand both for France AND England. Let the stress race begin.

I think I'll pack the smallest suitcase I have (small enough to be allowed in the cabin of the plane) with the stuff I'll need immediately after arriving at Oxford. I'll also pack a big suitcase with stuff I'll need to survive longer than that (I can't afford to buy everything over there) and leave it at my aunt's in Normandy where I can either come pick it up over the winter holidays or she could send them to me or I could just take two extra train rides under the Channel. The downside to leaving it at her place is that she'll insist I spend the holidays with her and I don't like her much (yes, I can write this because she doesn't understand a word of English).

I made the mistake when I moved into my former university's residences of bringing too much stuff with me. It was easy then because I was already living in town (ten minutes away actually) but getting everything ready to move back out was hard. I had to leave a lot of stuff I would rather have kept because I just couldn't handle the trip to Peru with so much stuff. Also, my room at the residences was a pig-sty! I don't want to live like that anymore.

I asked for a room in Cheney Student Village as first choice because the contract is the longest. It's a little more expensive than some of the others but still, I don't want to have to worry about finding some other place to live in too soon. I dream of my own bathroom, even though I'll have to clean it myself. I considered a catered hall for a short while but I need to keep a close eye on what I eat because I put on weight very easily and lose it very slowly. Also, the catered halls are, for the most part, farther away than I want to be from the main campus.

I even looked into homesharing. That could be fun and free (heheheh), I wouldn't mind helping out an old person or someone with a disability in exchange for a room at their place. You can find information on homesharing at these websites:

Oxfordshire County Council

NAAPS

It sounds like a neat idea to me. We'll see.