For you, Jo.

What generally happens to me the first week(s) of a new year--and especially when I feel the need to prove myself to someone (which is most of the time, as it stands)--is this. I work ridiculously hard, freak out a lot, and convince myself I am utterly incompetent, my new professor will think I am a moron, and I'll be ripped to shreds. This is my mindset for the days leading up to when my first essay is due. This past week, triple that anxiety. Keep in mind, none of us have written anything remotely academic for a good five months. I was about ready to tear out my hair or burst into tears. I bang out, over the course of an excruciating two and a half days, what I think amounts to eight pages of babble. This morning is my first literature tutorial. As I sit down, and he begins to read my essay to me, stopping now and again to make a comment, I experience something entirely unexpected--a sense of relief. It's nowhere near as bad as I thought. It's certainly not indicative of my best work, but it's passable. There are some good points. I'm doing fine. As Rachele and I headed out the door (I have a double tutorial with her), he told both of us, "you're off to an excellent start." Thank god--and Rachel Cohen, and Julie Abraham, and even Paula Loscocco. I have been groomed well at Sarah Lawrence. I can do this after all. I'm sure every week will be much of the same hair-tearing-out-oh-god-my-brain-is-exploding, but I can do it. For next week: reading Portrait of a Lady, and writing on the topic of "alliances"--cultural, social, why women make the choices they do, etc. After that, just in type for All Hallows Eve here, it's Dracula.

My fiction tutorial also went well, though I rambled on like an idiot, stumbling over myself every time I actually paused to listen to the words coming out of my mouth. I also, thanks to a miscommunication, didn't have the ten pages of fiction I was supposed to, and focused on the wrong literary aspect for my creative reading, but she was fine about that. She even liked two of the Oxford descriptions I wrote, ironically, the ones I thought were my worst. My task today is to find another 4 places to write about, and do so. Later on, the girls in my flat are having some of the Wadham people who live in Merifield as well over for tea, and tonight I'm thinking about heading over to Wadham's open mic. Definitely to listen, perhaps to read some of my own poetry as well. We'll see. Tomorrow is my fiction day, where hopefully I can bang out ten pages, though I have absolutely no idea what I want to write about. Which, you know, is a problem. Then the rest of the week will be devoted to Portrait of a Lady. I'm trying to find a schedule that works, and still allows me enough free time to feel sane.

What else? I'm sick, which sucks. Amy is convinced it's because of stress. I'm convinced it's because of all the germy undergrads passing things around. In any case, I am on day four of a sore throat that won't quit. My uncle passed away unexpectedly last week, which led to me having a major emotional crisis thinking about the ages of my own parents, and a tearful middle of the night phone call home to Eunice. I signed up for a million different clubs at Fresher's Fair--the Isis, etcetera, and Call & Response, which are all literary magazines; a salsa dancing club, Oxford's feminist society, various left-leaning political groups, and the Law Society, among other things. The Law Society, shamefully because they are known for throwing the classiest events, and having the cutest men. And well, I need to get laid. Not right now--I can't even think about sex right now--but eventually. The pub crawl presented one such opportunity, thanks to a pair of blond & drunken jocks hitting on me & Alex, but that was just not going to happen. At all. Coincidentally, I have been spending more money on drinks than I even want to think about. I hit four of the pubs on the pub crawl before deciding I was having trouble staying upright, and it was time to quit. Though I was with it enough to turn to Alex, who was starting to express concern over me, and say "don't worry, I'm lucid enough to know the exchange rate is not in my favor." Indeed. But it is getting better, bit by bit.

Sat in Blackwell's for an hour yesterday before my tutorial, and met three freshers, one of which was quite attractive, and they quizzed me about America. "It's a big place," I kept telling them. "It's not like I've seen most of it." I did, however, know more about Oxford than they did, ironically, telling them about the book tunnels under the Bodleian and various other such things.

Essentially we read, write, wander the streets, stress to each other, sleep a little and drink a lot. I'm trying to be a little less shy. I'm better in small gatherings, not so good in bars. I sit there with my drink, smile prettily, wait for people to smile back. Oxford will be good to me, I think.

That is all.