Wow - what a few weeks I have had! Last time I properly updated I had just finished my finals and starting to enjoy my freedom. The story continues... (this may be a rather long post... don't say I didn't warn you!)
So the day after I had finished so did Hazel so I got drunk. After I had finished I had one pint and then pretty much went home and went to bed - but Hazel finished at 12.30 and I was much more awake so we had champagne in the MCR! After that, as I mentioned before, I spent a lot of time doing good old admin and form filling. I swear for every form I filled in another three forms appeared...
After about a week suddenly everyone else started finishing, in very quick succession. So suddenly it was Saturday of 8th Week and Lucy was the last of us to finish. My parents came down that weekend which was lovely but I felt quite bad because I had to leave them loads. Firstly on Friday it was Schools Dinner - a great tradition when the third and fourth year mathematicians at Wadham have an amazing 5 course meal with wine and port with all the tutors to kind of say goodbye. We got the tutors presents and the food was fantastic and ended up convincing Steve (our tutor in first and second year) to come out clubbing which was certainly an experience and a half. Then I had to leave them for Lucy's birthday followed by Croquet in the gardens and the Warden's Garden Party. But then we had a lovely dinner on the Saturday night and did lots of packing on the Sunday before they set off back up North.
Then 9th Week was the week of good times and goodbyes. We had some great times like Finalists Fling (ending in Kukui - a Hawaiian themed night club in Oxford) and cycling to Blenheim Palace - but then some of the best were when we just sat around chatting and it really reminded me how many good friend I have at Oxford. I decided to write a letter to everyone in the flats plus a couple of others - just to tell them how grateful I was to have them as friends and how much I want to keep in touch with everyone. I gave them out when people left and some were incredibly difficult to write - I certainly shed a tear or two which isn't all that like me. Other than goodbyes I also had a lot of cleaning to do :( The flat gets inspected at the end of the year and the college fines for anything not clean enough. As I was the alst in the flats I had to do all the last minute stuff and clearing up. Even though the rest of the flat had done loads of work I was still up till 4 cleaning which wasn't my favourite thing to do! I also took James my bike and it was great to catch up with him - it also happened to be Mel's 21st Birthday (Sam's sister) so we had a lovely meal and a great day.
From Oxford I went straight to Henley to work Regatta week. For anybody who doesn't know, Henley Royal Regatta is a massive rowing event held on the Thames at the venue of the last two British Olympic Regattas and every year Remenham Club hire Wadham BC students to work their bar. It's pretty good money and great fun so this was my 3rd year of working there. This year was even more busy/crazy than usual as it was Remenham's centenary year so there was plenty celebrations - culminating in Prince Michael of Kent visiting on the Friday to unveil a new Honours Board and to watch a Spitfire Flypast especially for Remenham. The prices are pretty expensive (£8 for a pint of Pimms!) but it gets bought as if it's going out of fashion - we sold 40 kegs of Pimms and ran out of pretty much everything by the end of the week. A definite highlight was on the Sunday evening after we finished our shift Andy Triggs Hodge (gold medallist at Beijing with the GB M4- and a member of Remenham) came over and started chatting to us, asking how the week had gone etc. It was really nice of him and something he didn't have to do.
Another highlight of the week was definitely getting my results and the associated celebrations... I got a First! I was ridiculously pleased and it still hasn't sunk in. It means I'm definitely off to the States, and has given me the confidence to think maybe I am good enough for a PhD.
After Henley I arrived home at about 8 on the Monday to find an email from Kat at Fulbright asking me to fill in 3 visa forms and email them to the US embassy that night. Needless to say I didn't get too much sleep (I didn't realise how awkward visa forms are!) and then had to get up at 7 to get sorted before heading into London for the Fulbright orientation. But the last three days have been so jam packed they deserve a post to their own so that's the END OF PART ONE...
(I told you it was going to be long...)
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