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| Sunday, 3 October 2004 |
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The Oxford Bubble by Jeevani Mantotta
What most people call Autumn, Spring and Summer Terms are called Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinty. College bills for rent, heating etc. are called 'battles'. Start of term exams are 'Collections' (or, if you're flagging, the altogether more ominous 'penal collections'). First year exams are 'Mods' or 'Prelims' depending on your subject. Mealtimes are 'hall'. The black and white formal outfit you have to wear for official events (even exams!) is 'Sub fusc'. Cuppers, bulldogs, bops, eights, the other place (inter-collegiate events, proctors, discos, a type of boat race and Cambridge respectively)... confused yet? I was. Then there are the dress codes - smart/casual, formal, black tie, white tie, subfusc; each mean something different. The Fresher's welcome pack helpfully lists translations alongside a template for the correct way to decline an invitation to the Master's garden party (Turn down free food? Why?). Day two saw us Fresher's in full sub fusc - caps, gowns and all, being herded along to Matriculation, a ceremony in which you are formally sworn into the University. Once matriculated, you are a member of your college forever, even if you are sent down (expelled) or rusticated (temporarily exiled). The Matriculation ceremony is conducted almost entirely in Latin, so I have no idea what I agreed to. Something about not defacing books or kindling flame in the library, apparently. The University has its own calendar where each term is divided into numbered weeks. Fresher's week, which is before the start of official term, is nought-th week of Michaelmas, followed by weeks 1 to 8. Tutorials are arranged for Monday of 2nd week, for example. There is so much packed into these 8-week terms that you forget where one day ends and the next begins. All real world dates fade away, including bank holidays, which are business as usual in the university, much to the annoyance of the lecturers. The only dates that creep in (apart from birthdays) are Bonfire night (party!), Halloween (costume party!), Burn's night (party with Haggis and Scottish dancing), May Day (all night party), Valentine's day (single people party and the couples go out for dinner) and Mother's day (sadly, no party). All this oddness leads to endless confusion when speaking to friends and family - saying things like 'I'm in eights in fifth week' just makes them fear for your sanity. At the end of term, you emerge, blinking, into the big bad world and find that your taste in music is outdated, your school friends think you're speaking a foreign language and the US had started bombing yet another country. The shock is enough to make you go bury your head back in your studies... well, almost anyway. |
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Undergrad life in Oxford exists in a weird bubble. Everything is ever
so slightly unreal. At first you think it's just the stress and sleep
deprivation, but then you realise that there are other subtle things that
help keep you bewildered. First there's the vocabulary.
