A Day In The Life Of

“I guess I could go and buy a towel. They’re not hard to find. Generally, I’ve been drying myself with my shirt.”~Roommate

Preface: I thought it may be interesting to give you a little glimpse into a typical day in Oxford. The quote above comes from my roommate (not Alex) who was talking with his mother the other day and gave away the fact that he has been drying himself with a t-shirt since he arrived in England—the things guys will put up with because of laziness. If you are not aware, I have three roommates. One I’ve lived with before and the other two were complete strangers upon arriving in Oxford. Also, I realize I haven’t been posting that often, but I have been writing blogs. I just haven’t had time to publish them, and sometimes I have to wait till I get pictures of specific things, so you guys have something to look at, which is much more entertaining than me blabbering on and on…and on.

Around 6:30 the alarm goes off. The ear-piercing sound reminds me much of a siren back in high school fire drills, obnoxiously loud almost to the point of pain. Of course, this is not my alarm clock. My roommate (neither Alex, nor the no-towel guy) has decided to set his alarm to get up really early in the morning. Now this could be understandable if he had to get up early to get started on work, or head to the library, or do anything worthwhile, but he seems to set his alarm early and then proceed to hit snooze every fifteen minutes for the next hour and a half. Unfortunately for myself, I am jolted awake and unable to get back to sleep, and thus I decide to get up for an alarm I never set. Below you’ll see the alarm. It’s actually not even a clock, it’s just an alarm. It doesn’t tell you the time, but you set it for how many hours you want to sleep. I find the whole gadget horribly inconvenient.


It’s then off to the bathroom which, as you can see, isn’t something to boast about. But it’ll do for the term. The Brits have developed a very inefficient faucet system for their sinks. The two faucets, hot and cold, have no temperature control. When you turn on the cold, it is freezing. When you turn on the hot, it is scalding. Every time you need to use the faucet, say to wash your hands after using the facilities, you must choose between possible frostbite, or the skin melting off your hands. It seems I will have to institute my old habit of not washing my hands, at all.That's my pink loofa hanging near the shower-head.


After a shower, I proceed to go upstairs and make breakfast. I am very fond of breakfast. Usually this early in the morning, no one is awake and I have the whole first floor to myself. Breakfast, on most days, consists of eggs (fried or scrambled), toast, and a piece of fruit (sometimes bananas to fend off the dreaded twitch). I just bought some Quaker instant Oatmeal, so I may shake things up a bit.


Breakfast is followed by some reading until I have to head downtown to Examination Schools for lectures. Examination Schools is an enormous structure full of lecture halls, classrooms, and pseudo-intellectual conversations. If your lecture is not in one of giant lecture halls, you will probably be in a smaller classroom setting. Each classroom is painted a different color. For Normative Ethics, I’m in a decently sized classroom surrounded by really ugly neon green walls. By the way, that lecture is extremely boring. I sit for an hour and apply number values to people’s happiness and come to the conclusion that it is better to save your own child drowning (10), then saving another child who is not your own (10), because there is some added benefit (+n) to saving your own child. I was really glad they applied all those helpful numerical values to saving lives, because I was in a real quandary about what appears to be a very real-life scenario. Thankfully, Normative Ethics is followed by Kant’s Ethics which is much more interesting. But lectures are only held once a week, so everyday is different and some days I don’t attend lectures at all.



Sometimes after lectures in Examination Schools, I go to the Philosophy Faculty Library on Merton Street. Merton Street is the oldest street in Oxford, still paved with old cobblestones. I don’t spend too much time in that library because its boring and the chairs are uncomfortable.



It’s about time for lunch. If I’m not at home for lunch, I go to several different places for food. There are lots of little sandwich dealers around the city that sell sandwiches, paninis, and the like at reasonable prices. If I want to splurge a little more, I’ll find a pub and get a cooked meal and a pint for about 8 pounds.


The library system here is a debacle. The Bodleian is the big library for the University of Oxford, but you aren’t allowed to check out books. You reserve books and then have to read them in a room you specify when reserving said books. I hate libraries in general, but the system here is almost impossible. Unfortunately, sometimes I am forced to read books in the Bodleian, and I try to make the most of it.



Afternoons and early evenings are spent doing a bit more reading, sometimes writing. Dinner is never at a specified time, but whenever I feel like making it. We’ve developed a food group system which allows for other people to make you food a couple nights a week, provided you do it once a week. So far it’s been okay.

More reading is usually done in the evening, followed by social interactions with anyone who doesn’t want to read anymore. I find that is usually I who gets sick of reading before most people, and I annoyingly run around the house seeing if anyone can come out and play. My good looks and charming personality usually bring most people out of their study nooks, and then I proceed to be really awesome and entertaining…except the exact opposite.


I go to bed around midnight. The last thought going through my mind probably being my hatred for my roommate’s alarm clock.