Hilary Term 2005 Summary
It was an interesting term to say the least. I ended up doing Political Theory and Political Sociology as my two papers. I only took up the latter one after receiving an email from my tutor on the first day of term informing me that he was unable to find a tutor to teach me International Relations in the Era of the Two World Wars, which was what I had been planning on doing. This was rather annoying to say the least. I greatly enjoyed Political Theory, as it involved exploring concepts like Democracy, Justice, Equality and Liberalism, concepts which are common in our everyday usage but of which we do not have as clear a conception of as we assume we do. Doing Political Theory greatly aided me in clarifying my understanding of these concepts and also allowed a great deal of room for debate and discussion in tutorials which I greatly enjoyed. Political Sociology, on the other hand, I found a great deal more dull. I didnot particularly enjoy the course which I found rather dry and insubstantial.
One of the interesting things that I started doing this term was Ballroom Dancing. I had decided to pick it up socially, but after attending one free introductory class I was shoe-horned (albeit rather voluntarily) into going for some beginner's team practice sessions due an enormous shortage of male dancers. Low and behold I soon found myself on the team, with one term less experience than everyone else. I was extremely lucky to find a wonderful partner in Juliet from St Hughes for the whole term. I realize I was 'lucky' in several ways - firstly, I am not the tallest person in the world (to put it rather mildly), even by Singaporean standards and English girls tend to be taller than the average Singaporean girl, so it was rather nice to find a partner that was shorter than me even when she was wearing two inch heels! Besides that, we got along smashingly, although we both share the character traits of being rather disorganized and clueless, besides having terrible short term memories, which was of no help in terms of being able to learn our routines. Still, Ballroom dancing was a very interesting experience, with the highlight that of dancing at two different competitions - at Sheffield and more importantly, at the Winter Gardens at Blackpool, one of the most famous dance venues in the world.
I also did some more singing this term, albeit not much with the Trinity choir. I was in a performance of Stainer's Cruxifiction with the Keble choir, which was quite fun to do, the only disappointment being the fact that only about 15 people turned up to watch it. A more interesting endeavour on my part was that in a fit of craziness, I decided to put up a performance as part of Trinity Arts Week, where I was to do a lunchtime recital of duets. I roped in Laurel and Juliet to sing them with me and performed The Prayer, Something Stupid, Sun and Moon from Miss Saigon, Come What May from Moulin Rouge and A Little Fall of Rain from Les Miserables. Juliet also did On My Own from Les Miserables and Laurel did All the Love in the World from A Beautiful Mind. It was my first time performing more or less solo in front of an audience, and it was a rather frightening experience, and it did involve quite a bit of preperation, but I really enjoyed the experience and in my opinion it was thoroughly worth it.
In line with my interest in Quizzes and my heavy involvement in quizzing in Oxford, I captained my college Quiz team to the quarter-finals of the inter-college quiz tournament where we lost to eventual champions St John's, not being aided by the fact that two of our team members could not make it for that match. I also completed the application form for a place on University Challenge, a famous television quiz programme, and received word that we have been scheduled for an interview next term and thus have a fair chance of making it on the show.
The term also had its fair share of nice dinners. Among them, I had guest night in college with Laurel and Janet, my fellow Jardine scholar. I also had a guest night dinner at St Catz which was wonderful as many of my Catz friends as well as my MUN friends attended - Holger, Laura, Natascha, Marc, Matthew, Leo, Anjli, Laurel, Krizia, Saul - it was reunion of sorts, which was definitely fun. Besides this, I also had hall at Merton with Krizia and Jia who is a friend of Laurel's as well as at Christ Church at the invitation of Leo, this being part of the grand plan to dine in as many Oxford halls as possible. Another big dinner was the Dancesport club's annual dinner and dance, which was definitely good fun, I especially had a great time free dancing with Kathrin Kortschak after the dinner.
Febuary being when chinese new year occured this year, I had the usual Jardine chinese new year's dinner which was very nice as usual. I also organized a chinese new year dinner for the Asians in college at Liason which was good fun, though only four people showed up for it. The highlight for the term though must definitely be the dinner I had with Laurel at Gee's restaurant just before Valentine's Day - Gee's is definitely one of the nicest restaurants in the city, and is located in a former conservatory, with glass windows, and candle tables. The service was impeccable and the food was good, though being such a nice restaurant, the bill was suitably daunting as well, though for me it was definitely worth it.
Other events of note for the term: I went down to London as usual for LIMUN 2005 which was a bit of a disappoint organization wise, but was good fun as usual. I was representing DPRK for the second year in a row, and Chris Kyriacou made a huge pile of hilarious stickers again stating such things as "don't annoy us or we will go ballistic" and "DPRK baby!", which proved a real hitl. Me and Laurel threw an end of term Wine, Cheese and Chocolate party on Wednesday of 8th week which was really good fun until it got shut down by the junior dean. College rules being really nonsensical in that respect - apparently if you have more than 10 people in your room it is considered a party which is not allowed, but if you have less ten then it is not. I am glad he was quite patient with me so I managed to reduce the number to the point when it was no longer a party - I jokingly told him it was now a 'study group'.
One of the interesting things that I started doing this term was Ballroom Dancing. I had decided to pick it up socially, but after attending one free introductory class I was shoe-horned (albeit rather voluntarily) into going for some beginner's team practice sessions due an enormous shortage of male dancers. Low and behold I soon found myself on the team, with one term less experience than everyone else. I was extremely lucky to find a wonderful partner in Juliet from St Hughes for the whole term. I realize I was 'lucky' in several ways - firstly, I am not the tallest person in the world (to put it rather mildly), even by Singaporean standards and English girls tend to be taller than the average Singaporean girl, so it was rather nice to find a partner that was shorter than me even when she was wearing two inch heels! Besides that, we got along smashingly, although we both share the character traits of being rather disorganized and clueless, besides having terrible short term memories, which was of no help in terms of being able to learn our routines. Still, Ballroom dancing was a very interesting experience, with the highlight that of dancing at two different competitions - at Sheffield and more importantly, at the Winter Gardens at Blackpool, one of the most famous dance venues in the world.
I also did some more singing this term, albeit not much with the Trinity choir. I was in a performance of Stainer's Cruxifiction with the Keble choir, which was quite fun to do, the only disappointment being the fact that only about 15 people turned up to watch it. A more interesting endeavour on my part was that in a fit of craziness, I decided to put up a performance as part of Trinity Arts Week, where I was to do a lunchtime recital of duets. I roped in Laurel and Juliet to sing them with me and performed The Prayer, Something Stupid, Sun and Moon from Miss Saigon, Come What May from Moulin Rouge and A Little Fall of Rain from Les Miserables. Juliet also did On My Own from Les Miserables and Laurel did All the Love in the World from A Beautiful Mind. It was my first time performing more or less solo in front of an audience, and it was a rather frightening experience, and it did involve quite a bit of preperation, but I really enjoyed the experience and in my opinion it was thoroughly worth it.
In line with my interest in Quizzes and my heavy involvement in quizzing in Oxford, I captained my college Quiz team to the quarter-finals of the inter-college quiz tournament where we lost to eventual champions St John's, not being aided by the fact that two of our team members could not make it for that match. I also completed the application form for a place on University Challenge, a famous television quiz programme, and received word that we have been scheduled for an interview next term and thus have a fair chance of making it on the show.
The term also had its fair share of nice dinners. Among them, I had guest night in college with Laurel and Janet, my fellow Jardine scholar. I also had a guest night dinner at St Catz which was wonderful as many of my Catz friends as well as my MUN friends attended - Holger, Laura, Natascha, Marc, Matthew, Leo, Anjli, Laurel, Krizia, Saul - it was reunion of sorts, which was definitely fun. Besides this, I also had hall at Merton with Krizia and Jia who is a friend of Laurel's as well as at Christ Church at the invitation of Leo, this being part of the grand plan to dine in as many Oxford halls as possible. Another big dinner was the Dancesport club's annual dinner and dance, which was definitely good fun, I especially had a great time free dancing with Kathrin Kortschak after the dinner.
Febuary being when chinese new year occured this year, I had the usual Jardine chinese new year's dinner which was very nice as usual. I also organized a chinese new year dinner for the Asians in college at Liason which was good fun, though only four people showed up for it. The highlight for the term though must definitely be the dinner I had with Laurel at Gee's restaurant just before Valentine's Day - Gee's is definitely one of the nicest restaurants in the city, and is located in a former conservatory, with glass windows, and candle tables. The service was impeccable and the food was good, though being such a nice restaurant, the bill was suitably daunting as well, though for me it was definitely worth it.
Other events of note for the term: I went down to London as usual for LIMUN 2005 which was a bit of a disappoint organization wise, but was good fun as usual. I was representing DPRK for the second year in a row, and Chris Kyriacou made a huge pile of hilarious stickers again stating such things as "don't annoy us or we will go ballistic" and "DPRK baby!", which proved a real hitl. Me and Laurel threw an end of term Wine, Cheese and Chocolate party on Wednesday of 8th week which was really good fun until it got shut down by the junior dean. College rules being really nonsensical in that respect - apparently if you have more than 10 people in your room it is considered a party which is not allowed, but if you have less ten then it is not. I am glad he was quite patient with me so I managed to reduce the number to the point when it was no longer a party - I jokingly told him it was now a 'study group'.
posted by Caleb Liu | 11:05 PM
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