Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

Now the work has actually begun to get going, I think I’ve settled in a bit better here. Routine is always good, and while freshers week was undoubtedly fun I don’t think I could have survived if every week was like that!

I’ve found that certain skills in which I lack, ahm, experience, such as washing, cleaning, ironing, etc are actually not too difficult when you’re put in a situation where you have to do it yourself. You get in a routine with those too, and everything just trundles along. Is this what life is like? Hmm.

Still, I’ve been missing home a fair bit this week, especially Cosmo. Just look at him, he’s the most handsome-est dog ever.

Obviously I miss family and friends too and all that crap.

Lectures are going fine, mainly introduction courses this week so it wasn’t too bad. Apart from the calculus ones. Now, at A Level I found calculus to be one area in which I thought “hey, I understand this. There are rules. You follow the rules. Even the integration for which you have to work out what substitution to make is kind of fun, like a puzzle.” Even on the bridging course I thought the integration was fun and puzzling. But now, whether it’s the style, the pace, or the crappiness of the lecturer, I don’t understand it at all. Struggled through a problem sheet on it, and my tutorial tutor was supportive. Everyone thought the same, so that was fine in a sense. Just need to put a bit more time into it next week and see if it gets any better.

I’ve actually managed to make dinner a couple of times! You need to book into the hall for dinner before 3pm each day, otherwise they won’t make you any food and you won’t be allowed in. Figured out how to hack the online booking system to allow you to book after 3 o’clock, but they patched that up soon after realising that at 4.13pm new dinner orders really weren’t supposed to be coming in.

Matriculation was this Saturday, and that was interesting. So many people in formal wear walking around the main quad of Keble is really a sight to behold. (Boys were in suits and bow ties, girls wearing what can only be described as shirt, skirt and some silly ribbon thing. Sorry, but the guys’ outfits were obviously better suited to this occasion.) Pictures are on Facebook, might put some up in this post at a later date, but if you’re reading this in a couple of weeks’ time then it’s probably never going to happen. There was a formal ceremony in the Oxford exam halls where there was a reading in Latin and then we were released to the town to try out whichever one of the numerous traditional pubs took our fancy for matriculation day.

Next week sees the end of the introduction lectures, and the focus switches to the actual course – fast paced and difficult, but (probably) interesting. So I’ll leave it here, and I’m sure there will be a lot to talk about next week.

- David