Day One (and a half)

I hardly know where to begin. I've picked myself up from the depths of depression and mental anguish once more by sheer force of will and repetition of helpful phrases such as "I will not cry, I'm fine, I will not cry..." It's all in the details, I've decided. So many times in the past twenty-four hours I've been on the complete verge of unspooling only to be dealt a small piece of kindness or inspiration that has allowed my continuing relative mental health. Surrounded by chaos in my tiny hole of a room, clothes everywhere, pads flying, dust in the drawers and no vaccuum, I simply took a breath and went to buy a newspaper to line the drawers. Then I could proceed with my tidying and tucking things away. Completely without furniture in my little room, I emptied my duffle of all its inyards, propped it up against the wall and made it my bedside table. Now my clock and box of tissues (two essentials purchase today) sit on it and my trash can is beside it. It's been moments like these that have gotten me through so far.

For the dinner barbeque, I turned on my happy face, put on a clean shirt and was quite sociable. Not as social as Lauren, of course, but more on her to come. Lauren talks incessantly. She is one of those people who just continually lets out a long spurt of words that only require an occasional "Yeah," "Hmm" or "I see" from her hapless listener. Contrary to how she sounds, it isn't very unpleasant or annoying. I'm sure if I were in a better state myself, I would quickly grow peeved about it but I rather like knowing there's someone else in the suite. She slept the entire afternoon and I was left to my own devices. This ended in a tearful phone call back across the pond and I truly wished I were back home. I still miss you both like the dickens and would love to be by the pool with you, but I'm not. I'm sucking it up and dealing with the horrible truth that I am in Oxford, England. There are many worse places I could be.

But back to Lauren. She doesn't stop talking, not in the bathroom, not in her room, not when I'm in the bathroom, never. Then only time she seemed to control herself was when I was reading my law books. She rather astutely noticed I was doing homework and busied herself unpacking and talking to herself. I went to the bathroom earlier and I heard her moaning in her room. Come to find she was making Chewbacca noises to amuse herself upon waking up from a long nap. She's once of those people who can go up to anyone and say, "What's your name?" get it and then hold out a hand with the self-assured words, "I'm Lauren." I'm sure she met almost all our program and half of the people from Georgetown and Georgia at the barbeque tonight. She dressed up in this slinky burgandy dress that made just about everyone else look under-dressed. She said she did it for as a personal boost for herself. She said she likes to dress up and look cute when she's feeling low, it makes her feel better.

To make myself feel better, I spent the afternoon listening to classical music on my new, shiny clock radio while unpacking various things and tidying my room to my satisfaction. As I said, there's no furniture aside from the bed itself and a large box-like closet in one corner so there isn't really anywhere to put my luggage. So the duffle became my bedside table and my other bags lounge discontentedly around the room. I'll try and find a place for them. We have some almost medieval pieces of furniture in the main room, I'm sure I could put things in them. We have those two hulking pieces and then a desk each, a fireplace, a fainting couch (red and very stiff), a chair (also red and also stiff), a large wooden coffee table and the fridge. It's a very nice fridge, about the size of mine but newer and much nicer. I'm currently making ice since no one else in this country seems to know how.

I still have reading to do for tomorrow. According to the Assistant Director of the program, both the classes I've chosen are heavy on the work. Just my luck. I am increasingly unenthused about the law class but I can't drop it. I spoke to a girl from Georgetown this morning named Diana who says you can drop anything except your major class which I think is perfectly rotten. She's in the law class, too, and agreed completely. I might have to ditch the seminar to keep up with the other two. Who knows how it'll all play out and how much my brain will fry.

Oxford is beautiful and as old as the hills. Trinity is like walking into Hampton Court, especially early in the morning when no one else is about. It's like it's just you and the ghosts of the Tudor court. There is a mammoth garden with mostly grass but some lovely flowers and a gravel walk through it directly across from our stairwell. It stretches on forever until a black, enormous iron gate rises up in between the stone walls and blocks us Trinity students out from another college. The Georgetown and Georgian people are staying over there. They all came in a long processional across the gardens for the barbeque tonight. Our windows are perfectly situated to see across the garden and anything going on in the Garden Quadrangle. It makes for good people watching although, being on the first floor, the person you're watching is equally likely to catch sight of you through the glass panes. This happened this morning when Courtney, Lauren and I were oggling a boy in a red shirt reading in the Garden Quad. He looked up, saw us, got the most puzzled look on his face and then went away. It left us in our usual girlish, Smithie giggles.

I have many worries about being here, as well you know, but my growing fear is for my social life. Everyone here seems hell-bent on going out and getting horrificially smashed every night. I have absolutely no interest in going out and getting even a little bit smashed but this seems to be the main social agenda provided. One of the Assistant Directors was arranging for everyone to go down to this "horrible dive" for cheap drinks tonight. Everyone seemed quite pleased at the prospect of being stared at by creepy old men who somehow managed to sneak their way into a students-only bar. I'm Bookish Tippy and, while I'm getting mildly sick of always being the bookish one, there isn't anything else to do. Additionally, I don't know these people. If I were going to go out and get drunk, I would do it with Katie or Emily. Of course, neither is here but things would probably be better if they were.

Lauren, upon waking this afternoon, magically fixed my laptop woes by proclaiming that my very own laptop has a power converter built right in for just this sort of situation. So I find myself the only girl in the whole program still on campus with my beloved little laptop tying away to you. I miss you both and I can't wait to see you in six weeks! I have both my classes tomorrow, just so I can ease in (not). I am most sincerely hoping that the jet lag doesn't hit me full throttle tomorrow. Not that I suppose it would matter, I'm getting really good at the happy face thing. I'm even charming at moments. (Not that anyone other than Michael noticed.)

So I should probably go off and finish the readings so I can go to bed. The sooner the better. My eyes swim as I try to read the dryest international law textbooks in all the land. As I said, not very enthused. I should have taken something easy like the architecture one. Too late now, I suppose. So I'm off to read. There's so much more I could tell you but I don't have the time really. All these memories I want to get down so I don't forget. I missed my chance at writing down first impressions but now I'm feeling fairly stable and I hopefully won't have to cry for an hour everyday to feel this way. I wish I had had room for Tramp and that I hadn't forgotten so many things, but that's life, I guess.

To the books!

-Corey