More than a Muggle...
Oxford. Week three. General chaos, and huge feelings of
what-the-actual-fuck-am-I-doing, alongside generally drowning in the mile-long
reading list. So far, I’ve learned a few key things about myself.
1- Looking after one person is decidedly difficult
when you’ve spent your entire life to date looking out for everyone else.
Juggling a thousand jobs with pinpoint precision? No bother. Batch cooking
dinners and figuring out childcare spreadsheets of destiny? A walk in the park.
Ish. Food shopping at Tesco for one without automatically picking up the
industrial sized everything? Major challenge.
2- I have Unrealistic Expectation Syndrome. I’m not
sure if it’s an actual thing, but if it isn’t it should be. I have been blessed
(or cursed, depending how you look at it) with the ability to retain
information fairly quickly and with decent understanding. After my first
philosophy of educational research (yes, it’s a thing) lecture, I came out
wanting to cry. Despite having spent the entire previous day reading the whole
essential and recommended reading list, I still felt like I was treading water
on the comprehension front. Because obviously completely novel material delivered
by the most prolific two-phd-strong academic in her field should be fully
understood after one lecture. Obviously.
Unrealistic Expectation Syndrome. An unfortunate affliction of mine.
3- I come at things from a realist ontological
position and a positivist epistemology (maybe I did learn something after all….).
This is posh speak for I’m a science girl. I do not like philosophy and woolly
imaginings. I like objective facts. And measurable data. And solid answers. I’m
slowly learning the value of philosophy, but fuck me that’s one hell of a steep
learning curve…
5- I am more than comfortable in my skin in any
given circumstance, despite rarely being culturally familiar. This is something
I couldn’t have said even a couple of years ago. Case in point: High Table.
This was the epitome of theatre, pomp and circumstance. It was utterly surreal,
like stepping into a parallel (distinctly Harry Potter-esque) dystopian
universe for the evening. There was milling about, and champagne, and incredible
canapes shoved under your nose every five seconds by the incredibly attentive
wait-staff. I felt obliged to keep apologetically thanking them, hoping they
picked up on my desperately conveyed undertones of discomfort at the implied
hierarchy bullshit. We then processed from the milling-about room across
Magdalen College roof (wtaf?) and entered the dinner hall through this awesome
Hogwartian door. Another ‘try not to die’ scenario. I had learned from my (comparatively
very informal) formal dinner at Kellogg College that you don’t sit down
pre-grace, something I smugly remembered on this occasion. More Latin shouting,
and we took our seats at the physically higher High Table. Up until that point
I thought it was metaphorical. I watched everyone else attentively for cutlery
cues, and managed to pull the whole thing off without major incident.
All of this was completely paradoxical.
On the one hand, the slightly stale magic of history and tradition was somewhat
captivating, and simultaneously I felt abhorrent disdain towards the explicit
elitism of it all. Brilliant, sparkling minds, all gathered together and
fuelling great conversation with a view to world-change. But the lavish ivory
tower they’re immersed in is, from my perspective, a sanitised, Insta-filtered
impression of reality; the spread of people round the table a demographically disproportionate
reflection of the world beyond the college walls.
My take-home point none-the-less- I connected with all the people I
talked to, and I enjoyed it. I contributed to conversation where I could, I
mingled, I listened, I learned, and I was honest about not having a fucking
clue what they were on about when I couldn’t access the high-brow. And guess
what? Everyone in that room was human, and everyone there had a story beyond
their academia. It felt good knowing my inherent worth as a human with my fellow
humans in the room, and finally realising the genuine contributory value of my
experiences, rather than seeing them as shameful constraints.
6- I do actually love my kids after all. Much as I
enjoyed being a stay-at-home parent for so long, having so many kids meant I
did it for a really long time. I didn’t
have a degree or career before children, so it wasn’t financially viable for me
to go back to work or education until much later. If I’m brutally honest, I
felt kinda trapped. Kids were hard. Especially four, all so close in age, with one
of them being the B-boy (think Taz on crack plus a million appointments all the
time). I spent my twenties breastfeeding or pregnant, with zero sleep (I shit
you not, I had a demon child that did.not.sleep), minimal support and little
outside contact. Thanks to my penchant for Unrealistic Expectation Syndrome, my
standards were high and I kept myself accountable to them, even when it meant
losing myself a little (a lot?) in the process. More honesty; I thought Oxford
would be a chance to just be me, and leave the clutter of kids behind for a
while each week. Turns out I think they’re awesome and tell everyone about them
at the first opportunity! On the flipside, they also seem to be coping OK
without me. Apparently Daddy dinners (all things beige and processed) are the
best. Swings and roundabouts right?!
So yeah. Week three. Cheers to getting this far.
I’m having to work my arse off and will continue to do so but, I’m treading
water. Here’s hoping at some point I learn to swim.
*Sub fusc: a strict academic dress code of exciting
monochrome proportions. Black skirt, black tights, black shoes, white shirt, weird
black shoelace thing, mortarboard (tassley square hat) and gown. Woe betide if
you get any of these elements even slightly wrong; you WILL be sent away and
made to come back another day. Because Oxford dah-ling.
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