Fifth week jazz

I’ve found the week quite friendly so far, although I cannot deny that the intensity of studying here has been steadily increasing and that the feeling of not having enough time stays with you pretty much perpetually - which is not only because of the volume of tutorial homework, but also thanks to the sheer range of extracurricular entertainment one can engage in here; from playing the ukulele, to wine tasting or even surfing (?).

 
Debates with my tutors have probably been the most enjoyable part for me so far. It takes a while to get used to seeing the leading expert in your field with their feet on the coffee table, debating cognitive capacities of toddlers with you and requiring that if you send in your essay late, you have to bring biscuits to the class. The discussions we have as part of the syllabus are so much fun, though; I’ve never experienced a better way of developing my own ideas and finding the courage to put forward my own suggestions over how psychological research should be carried out.
 
Recently I visited a debate about ‘women and careers’ with a true powerhouse of female success; the main director of BBC sport, a No More Page Three activist, the manager of Royal Shakespeare Company and an Oxford professor of geography talked about balancing work and family life, positive discrimination and the importance of feminism for modern society. This year our college is celebrating the 2000 women who have graduated here by now, so we are definitely not short of various kinds of feminist debates and festivals.

It is also worth mentioning that last week I attended a marvellous Czech and Slovak society event – unveiling the ‘Havel’s place’ - a new artistic bench in Oxford University dedicated to Vaclav Havel. The society has been impressively active in inviting important guests to the university – for example, next week we have a dinner with Lenka Bradáčová scheduled!

 
And when it is raining outside, one’s having an essay crisis or despairs about being unable to fit ukulele-playing, cheese-tasting and volunteering into the student schedule, there’s nothing better than to just have healthy fun doing sports – which for me has been mainly competitive dancesport in ballroom and latin.