Soon after sending off the forms I received a letter inviting me
to interview. Around this time I remember a group of us persuading
our personal tutor that we should be allowed to read our references, which
for me was a wonderful thing - I thrive on praise, and on seeing that other
people have confidence in me - knowing that my interviewers would have seen that
was self esteem boosting in its own way.
I remember trying to navigate to Oxford in the dark that Tuesday evening and
actually succeeding - which is amazing given my inability to map read. I can't
remember who met me - I do remember that I stayed in Rose Lane 1 room 4. Apart
from the lawyer who would in a year's time cause my first ever hangover: Hannah,
the lawyer who became my College Dad, Ant, and a couple of people who ended up
on the course with me: Kathryn and Helen, I don't remember many people. Oh, that is except for
an engineer, John, who took a group of us off to the Turf and tried to encourage us to drink.
At that time I was a complete innocent with alcohol and wouldn't have touched
it with a barge pole, but I still remember that evening very clearly - especially my
inability to remember where we were going and thought that I'd never find my way home again!
I also remember in what would become a feature of my time in Oxford, that I had far
more common sense than many others: I made use of my free time for Christmas shopping,
and found the time to buy a map of the city - it wasn't until I'd been at uni for a couple of terms
that I ever left my room without it. I was also one of the few that had brought 'A' level work with them:
I was taking four 'A' levels and had rather a lot of work to do at the time.
As for the interviews themselves, there isn't
a great deal I remember - I do remember being very grateful that I'd had one
interview before anyone had the chance to tell me that a particular tutor was nasty.
In the other one, I remember being very confused by the deep green sofa that seemed
to invite you to sink into it - which surely wasn't appropriate during an interview.
Much later - at some social event in the next three years some of us commented on this
and the tutor in question was really surprised. My exploration of the city made me
realise that I felt safe there and I also realised that I liked the College a great deal: the
grounds are beautiful, and I'd met some really interesting people. This
was sealed over lunch one day when we had some sort of really gorgeous dessert.
I got the letter telling me I had a place about a week later; indeed one of the tutors
had tried to call me at home, but I'd been out at work that evening. I was slightly
disappointed that I couldn't go in and tell everyone, because it was the last day of term
and I just had to go in to hand in an essay. Moreover, I felt incredibly guilty
at being the one to have got an offer - a friend, who to this day, I'd say is far more
intelligent than me didn't get an offer, even though he got better A level results in the end.
Obviously A level results aren't the only indication of potential ability, but I still felt
extremely guilty about it all.
Michalemas 1999 - A baptism of fire, part one
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