Work hard, play hard.

That's basically the slogan of the University of Oxford as a whole. Your tutorials, lectures, and problem sets will probably kill you, so you need to have killer fun to make up for it.

Tonight I had a family dinner at the Big Bang. I realize that sentence needs a lot of explaining... there are things called 'families' here at New College. You have two parents; one of them is your JCR (junior common room, like the executive body) parent, and one is your subject parent. I have a subject mom, but I only met her in passing, so my dinner tonight was with James, my JCR dad (who is head of the LGBTQA association). And the Big Bang is a place which specializes in bangers and mash... again, bangers is a British term for sausages, and mash is just short for mashed potatoes.

And let me tell you, the food was divine. Our table of nine ordered the Whole Hog, which was a sampler of each of their 18 varieties of sausage, one generous scoop of six varieties of mash, and enough peas and cabbage to go around. I don't know exactly what varieties of sausage I got, but they were delicious, as were my (I think they were?) garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes.

It was also BYOB tonight since we were dining in the basement, which led to some interesting drinking games. The first one I learned about was pennies. Everyone has a one-pence coin that they are allowed to slip into someone else's already-sipped-from drink while the other person is holding it. The person who then has the penny in their drink has to finish their drink to 'save the queen' and retrieve the penny, at which point the game starts all over. Oh, and apparently, if someone double-pennies someone else, that original someone has to finish their drink out of a shoe. (Tonight my right heel was one of the unfortunate shoes!) That way, everyone gets drunk rather fast.

Another drinking game is sconces. It's like 'never have I ever,' except it begins with someone saying "I sconce anyone who has/has never X" and whoever fits that category has to stand up and take a sip from their drink. It gets rather embarrassing rather fast, and again, if you've done enough things everyone gets drunk really fast. Some other games we were exposed to were Shark Attack/Nuclear Bomb (get on top of your chairs, get under the table), X Masters (somewhat like Nose Goes, except you announce it and the last person to touch their whatever to whatever, like Girl Masters you have to touch a girl, loses), and Good Pants Bad Pants (not gonna go there). Thank God I didn't drink tonight.

Also, thankfully I finished my essay due Wednesday on Sunday, so for the rest of this week I only really have to worry about my Logic and Language tutorial. Tomorrow I'm making a trip to Sainsbury's, Blackwell, and possibly the University of Oxford Shop before returning my books to the New College library and making a trip to the Philosophy Library on Merton Street. Busy busy busy... like I was explaining to someone tonight, there's always something to do here. Much different from home.

- Jen -