Walking with Margaret

Arriving home, just now, I realized that the entrance passcode for Library Court has become a reflexive series of movements for me, rather than a piece of information which I transform into them. Wadham is beginning to seep into me.

Aside from a very solid stretch of reading this morning, today was largely spent in eight hours of consecutive conversation with Margaret: the young economist who I met at the international orientation. We met in the afternoon at Blackwell’s, the truly impressive bookstore just around the corner from the college, where I was previously tempted by signed hardback editions of Paradise Lost. (Signed by the editor, obviously, not Milton.) As well as three above-ground floors packed with fiction and non-fiction, there is also a basement that contains literally miles of shelving devoted to textbooks and other research oriented materials. While my efforts at thrift restrict me from converting my enthusiasm into patronage, I can still unambiguously applaud the sheer existence of such a place.

Margaret is a clever young South African who, quite crucially, maintains a fine sense of humour. When it comes to people seemingly well versed in matters of African development, it seems like a toss-up between a sense of irony or an all-consuming cynicism. When it comes to those you hope will actually make a difference in the matter over the course of their lives, the former wins out – coupled with a certain driving determination. She is also at the ideal stage between having developed an appreciation for Monty Python and having developed an extensive knowledge of the same. Such people are the ideal companions for Monty Python viewing.

Heading south from Blackwell’s, we reached the familiar landmark of the Folly Bridge before heading eastward along the Isis. Unlike previous occasions, where the walk took me along the north bank and past the Christ Church Meadows, this walk followed the unexplored south bank well past them. Before long, the terrain became quite pastoral, with pastures off to the side and horses grazing. We carried along for about a kilometre before taking the first other bridge we saw back across the river and then following paths and roads parallel to it back west to Oxford proper.

Armed with sandwiches and soup from Sainsbury’s, this evening brought me, for the first time, into an area of one of the other colleges apart from the main quad. (Now that I know that Sainsbury’s halves the price of their sandwiches from about two quid to one after six, I may start eating nothing else.) Nuffield is one of the newer colleges, with an extended quad which I appreciated in the darkness. I had to take it on faith that the rectangular pool in the centre contains koi.

Margaret’s room is even larger than Kelly’s, and rather better furnished. Rather than looking out over the long courtyard at the centre of Nuffield College (located beside the Oxford Castle and home to many social scientists), it looks out over the street. While Margaret seems to have been able to bring rather more books from South Africa than I brought from Canada, she shares my sorrow with regards to having to abandon so many. A place feels naked and temporary without a few dozen well-read volumes. That said, the best thing for now will be to keep the collection I have boxed up in Vancouver as it is, while finding some used volumes and buying a few course related items to fill in my shelves.

While I don’t want to get into specifics of conversation, it seems appropriate to stress how much I enjoyed Margaret’s company. It was characterized, over-archingly, by the same phenomena that made my later conversations with Sasha Wiley so captivating: a sense, quite unusual for me, of comfort and belonging.

Margaret’s cell phone, which she purchased in London on account of its small size, was a source of amusement. On the basis of a small number of rather open ended questions, with four to six options for each, it informed me of the correct fragrance for someone of my character. It likewise dispensed knowledge about the number of calories which one burns during eight hours of sailing, research, and love-making respectively. Clearly designed more for pre-adolescent women than economists, it did feature a currency converter which, alas, is based on unchanging exchange rates, perhaps based on those in effect on the day it was manufactured.

Both Margaret’s view and the walk home demonstrated to me just how yobbish and degenerate Oxford can be on a Saturday night. On the high street, I passed clutch after clutch of adolescents alternatively dressed like actors in music videos and individuals stumbling around with nothing but a certain hazy determination to drive them forward. It made me glad that Library Court is a good fifty metres back from a less-than-very busy street, with several solid stone walls to break up noise.

Tomorrow, the proper part of the college orientation begins. We have high tea with the MCR Committee in the afternoon, followed by our first dinner in college. That will take place in the refectory, rather than the hall. Our first dinner in hall seems to be taking place on October 4th.