Such a grim day, have some tea

There are some rumours going around that the only reason why the University of Oxford was established in this particular place is that it has a very specific micro-climate. It's usually quite grim here, raining all day long, wind blowing from all of the directions (most often in the direction opposite to the one you try to cycle in) and the sky is gray almost all the time. In such a wonderfully terrible weather, what else would you like to do than ensconce yourself in the far corner of the library and dive straight into your textbook reading? Why would you like to meet your friends, go for a walk in the park or do something equally pleasurable? The weather simply removes the choice.

I honestly think there is some truth in this story. This was literally my today. I've successfully reduced the number of occasions when I had to leave my 'hole' (i.e. my room, but it is so dark and small that a 'hole' seems like a more appropriate term) to an absolute minimum: lunch-tutorial-meeting in the evening. In this way I managed to get through the remainder of my reading list- surely this would not have happened had it been nicer outside. I would have probably drifted off to a cafe, then made a move to the Chaplaincy to mess around there for a bit, then I would have decided that I might wanted to go for a walk around Christ Church Meadow...

Yes, it was a grim day. And when a day is so grim as today, you need tea. This is one of the things you learn quite quickly here. Tea makes everything better. Even yet another Trusts case.

Log out into life

I spend most of my working days in front of a laptop screen. Case reports are online, reading list is in an electronic version and essays need to be typed up and send via email. And I spend so much time checking the inbox, sending out and replying to the emails.

It is terrifying that people tend to spend more time online than offline. Life has somehow transferred into the virtual world and I don't like it at all. To the point that I don't even owe a Facebook account anymore. I've realised that Fb is a terrible waste of time. What is strange for me is that people spend hours scrolling down the page, looking at updates and pictures from people they don't care about at all. Why would you spend your precious time like this? Why don't you go out with your friends and find out what is happening in their life? It is also a brilliant test of who your real friends are. Honestly, if they are not bothered enough to send an email/text or give you a call, then there are serious reasons to reconsider whether they should really be called 'friends'. Even sadder is when I see groups of friends sitting together in a cafe or somewhere, each of them staring at his mobile's screen, not taking any notice of the others. This is like a plague now- as if we've lost all the social skills.

Last year I logged out into life and am rather happy about this. Less time online means more time to do things that are truly enjoyable and important. And all of a sudden I can even get my work done without staying up until early morning hours! And have time for leisure reading even though everyone had said that I would need to forget about it for the duration of my degree. It's really annoying when people say "Oh, dear, you don't have Facebook! How do you manage without it?!" as if it was at least as essential for living as water.

Well, I'm managing quite fine. Believe it or not, real life have so much more to offer than online world.

A secretary! a secretary! my kingdom for a secretary!

I've always somehow thought that people who need secretaries are disorganised and cannot cope with their own schedules.

Until I've realised that I would have done with one.

About a week before the full term starts, my inbox becomes flooded with emails. Societies kindly inform me of their activities in the coming two months. Law Faculty try to tempt me to write a piece to yet another student law journal. Tutors try to sort out our tutorial times, but as we all have schedules packed to the extremes it takes quite a few emails to actually come to any meaningful conclusion. Some people are even kind enough to mark their email with 'high importance'.

And then it comes, a lecture list with peculiarly oxfordish, and overly complicated, system of scheduling. Some lectures are in week 1 on Monday at 1 pm, but in week 2-5 on Thursday at 11 am, but it would be too easy if it just stayed this way, in the course of the term I will receive (yet another) email saying that 'we are really sorry, but the lecture in xxx will not take place this week and has be reschedule for week 7, wednesday at 9 am'. Well, great, but how am I supposed to keep up with all these changes to the lecture timetable, deadlines for applications, essay submissions, social events and hall opening hours changes? How?

I used to be a great fan of paper calendars. After being told off by one of my friends for not using mobile apps for this, I've actually made friends with the calendar on my phone. Fantastic, I can put detailed times there, everything is colour-coded and I can even set an alarm to avoid missing a very important appointment.

But this does not solve my problem. I'm still left with ridiculous amounts of emails. As far as I'm aware there is no app that would deal with them in a human-like way, sort out which 'high importance' messages are actually that important and how to prioritise all the task so that I can also have LIFE.

There is only one solution. Well, actually two. I could just stop checking my emails. But this is not a feasible solution. The way forward is to have a secretary. This amazing person who would go through my emails, put everything into my diary and remind me about little bits and bobs that are annoyingly small, but I have to do them anyway. In this way I will actually have time to do things that I'm supposed to do.

Enough of dreaming. Student budget does not provide for a secretary's salary. Unless there are any volunteers?

New Year - new project

New Year is a good time to work on a new project. I'm quite an experience blogger now, but my blogs (well, my blog rather, because only one gets updated these days) are all in Polish so I can only reach a limited number of readers.

As much as I love my native language, writing in English has not only the benefit of reaching more people, but also is a good practice for me. I use English on a daily basis, but most of the time I write in a rather academic way so writing something more 'casual' will be an adventure really.

Being a Pole in the UK is a rather interesting experience and across almost 4 year I've been away from Poland I've learnt a lot and changed my perspective on quite a few things. Why not share it then and bring something different to the blogosphere?

So sit back and enjoy! More to come soon as I have hours of train journey ahead of me- plenty of time to think and write.