¡Hola! Week 8 in England (Week 4 of classes) has come and gone, and my term at Oxford is halfway through. How did that happen?
I am happy to announce that this blog will be entirely more uplifting than last time's–– but we all have off days/weeks/months, and I think it's important to be honest. As much as this is an amazing, life-changing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, it's not sunshine and rainbows 24/7. And it'd be misleading to behave as if it is.
But I've had a pretty good couple of weeks! Last week (not the immediate past week, but the week after I wrote my last blog, I suppose) was a little rough. I had that same isolated feeling that was persistent and all-consuming, exacerbated by the fact that I was simply not taking care of myself. But I'm back in pretty good spirits again, so let me tell you about my week, starting with last Saturday.
A friend is taking a Shakespeare tutorial here at Oxford, and part of her homework was to see a show at the Globe. They closed out their season with Twelfth Night, one of Shakespeare's comedies, and we were able to get tickets to the very last Globe show of the season. They open back up with Hamlet in February. So a few of my friends (and by "a few," I mean a dozen. Literally) and I took a trip back to London to see the show. It was pretty good! I haven't read Twelfth Night, and the plot is confusing by design, so I was lost for the first quarter of the show, but eventually caught on. All of the actors were outstanding, it was really inspiring. But I felt the "magic" of the globe at the very end of the show, during bows. It was the final show of the season. They'd done two hundred-something performances. And it was coming to an end. During curtain call, I saw the actors with pained faces, holding in tears, but absolutely in awe of all that they'd accomplished. As an actor myself, I know too well the feeling of being done with a show, of being upset that it's done but proud of everything you'd put together. That feeling of emotional release, like "I can breathe again," but having your breath catch immediately after that exhale at the thought of what comes next. Catharsis at its best.
Last weekend, aside from the Globe, was made up almost entirely of doing homework. I read Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, highly regarded as one of literature's greatest masterpieces, which is good but also quite possibly the most confusing novel of all time. Everyone has the same name. They literally have 20 Aurelianos running around, and part of the plot is that they all have the same personality. The same goes for the José Arcadios, and the Remedios. Anyway, it's four hundred pages, and I read it in three days. Then I had to read Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo, which is equally confusing and entertaining. I then had to read–– mind you, I read all of these within a matter of four days–– The Only Story by Julian Barnes, which I actually loved. It's heartbreaking and a beautiful testament to what it means to love and be loved. It also plays with literary techniques such as perspective in a way that creates something really profound. I then had two essays and ten pages of my short story to write. All due Wednesday. UGH. But I got it done, and all is well! I even did well on the essays. Now I have Toni Morrison's Beloved and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children to read by next Friday, a short story to read, to write, and another. friggin. essay. We're powering on. It's alright.
In my personal life, I've been exceedingly more social. I've had dinner with friends twice this week, and got lunch with a friend on Thursday. We then spent three hours just talking, which led to some great conversation. Thursday night: a poetry meeting at one of the other Oxford colleges, which consisted mainly of creating "found poetry" (poetry that is created by taking small bits from other poems, newspapers, books, receipts; anything with words on it, essentially). Then conversation on campus about conspiracy theories and weird dreams. Yesterday I had a tutorial on St. John's campus, which meant that I got lost and was fifteen minutes late to class and suffered a near-death experience via bus. Later, I met with friends again to head to the Ashmolean museum for an "after hours" event that served as an extension of a current exhibit on Tokyo. We watched an improvised dance called "Butoh," accompanied by eerie music, then ventured to a small Oxford pub called The Jolly Farmer, Oxford's only gay pub, for cider. The vibes in this place were so warm and inviting. It had LGBTQ+ people from all generations, so it definitely felt like a safe queer space. Later, my college was throwing an "entz," which is essentially a campus-run party at the campus bar with music and costumes and dancing. I hung out there for a bit before heading to bed, and here I am, twelve hours later, writing in an LGBTQ+ café next to friends as they do homework.
So that's all I've done the past weeks, but I want to talk a little bit about a concept that I recently was introduced to: casual magic. This is the idea of small, "mundane" things that seem magical to us, that make life a little bit more wonderful. I experienced some of that this week. Here are some things that I noticed this week that gave me that feeling of casual magic: the first sip of a chai latte after waiting for it to cool, when the seal of the foam is broken by the sweet, warm tea flowing to your lips, gifting you that first taste of your favorite drink; sitting in Waterstone's café reading, when the light from the window hits you straight-on, and you're wearing black jeans so the material further absorbs the heat, warming you; when it's a crisp, chilly fall day and you've been wandering around, cold enough that you feel your cheeks becoming pink and your nose running ever-so-slightly, and you enter into your warm dorm building and feel your body temperature slowly correct itself as you plop onto your bed, satisfied with your day. I've been trying to notice these moments of casual magic more this week, and it's been a great way to romanticize my own life, to allow the mundane to bring happiness. It's a beautiful feeling.
Anyhow, I'll sign off now. I hope you all have a fabulous week. Try to find magic in the mundane. You won't regret it.