Mumps, Ice Hockey and Other Oddities

A little over a week before my scheduled departure, my younger brother fell ill with mumps. Despite vaccination, such an illness is a scare for the British, and when, after consulting Czech doctors, I informed my college about this unlucky situation as a responsible and honest student, their reaction was rather severe. I was very strongly ‘recommended’ not to show up in Oxford for the first two weeks out of an eight-week term, although local epidemiologists ensured me, that if I had been infected, I would have shown symptoms of the illness at most five days after my flight was scheduled.

I was hoping that during those first two weeks, I would be able to do most of the work from home and not miss too much of the teaching but fate would not allow. There was some luck amidst of all the misfortune, as my illness has revealed itself as predicted by the Czech doctors after about four days and I managed to get better soon enough to jump straight into the third week of Hilary Term, the second of the three Oxford terms. And also vote in the second round of the presidential elections at my local polling station. Although missing a quarter of the term is not great, my tutors were very understanding and I somewhat managed to catch up. While it’s nice to have such support at the college, if I were to choose, I’d rather avoid that experience.

Coming into the new term, I have, after getting back into the work routine properly, found a new hobby. Before I came to Oxford, I was doing synchronised skating for quite a long time but sadly it is not enough of a well-known and wide-spread sport to have a team which I could join in Oxford. Since I was missing the ice and the skates, I let my friends persuade me after initial hesitation to start playing ice hockey. Well, alternative ice hockey – I would not dare to play the real thing, as much as I love the sport as a spectator, I’m not particularly used to giving ice hockey hits and after twelve years on figure skating skates, ice hockey skates are a bit of a nightmare for me.

Alternative ice hockey, which is unexpectedly quite popular here in Oxford, is somewhat of a milder version of ice hockey that is played without paddings, with a softer puck and during which contact with your opponent is essentially forbidden. As a figure skater, I have an advantage over most other players in my skating skills. However, I am very successfully balancing out this advantage with my non-existent skills on the puck – the peak of my effort is coordinating the stick in such a way that it not only hits the puck but also sends it in the more or less intended direction, and this does not happen very often. Most of the time, I work as the main ‘annoyer’, whose job is to follow the other team’s players around, trying to make it harder for them to cross the field and pass the puck, ideally even pushing the puck away from their sticks, and if possible away from our own goal. ALTS, as this form of ice hockey is known, then provides a welcome distraction and spicing up of Oxford experience.

Although the second term has not started in such a way I’d like and there were occasional hiccups along the way, it is great to be back in Oxford. While I may have missed a lot of experiences from its beginning, like the collections – college exams which take place during the nought week of each term with the intention to check how the students managed the material from the previous term and to prepare them for the exam atmosphere, I have still quite enjoyed Hillary Term. Well, I have not missed the collections fully – my college sent me the exam questions and I worked on them in the comfort of home, wrapped in a blanket with a cup of hot tea, which was very nice but has not quite brought the exam atmosphere. Missed collections aside, hopefully I will now be able to successfully finish the second term as well and I’ll hope to be able to begin the third term in April properly from the start.