Despite the heat of Tuesday, the Laidlaw program has begun rather cooly and steadily. To summarise this week: we had a research workshop, met with Ruby-Anne to discuss general details concerning our research question – engaging university students – and met as a group to complete our research outline for the upcoming 5 weeks. Aside from Tuesday, neither the heat nor workload has been immense, and I find myself with a lot of time to do as I wish – an appreciated break from the hustle that is Oxford. However, before I divulge what I have indulged in, I shall reflect upon the session with Ruby-Anne and then my group (my thoughts on the research workshop are terse and sweaty and so I omit).

I found the session with Ruby-Anne helpful for demystification. I suppose that until that moment, our project’s research ambitions had seemed somewhat nebulous to me and I was still unable to grasp the tangible effects that I would have. This session “fixed” that – and I left feeling a renewed sense of excitement towards what I would be doing.

 Even better, the meeting with my team at St Hugh’s proved incredibly productive, but also quite fun – courtesy of a whiteboard, free lunch and enjoyable company. I find myself liking these people, and though the somewhat arbitrary (this is an oversimplification) group making scheme that collated us together does remind me a bit of school, I am nevertheless increasingly fond of it.

By this point of reading, given that I have reflected on the things I said I would, you might be excited (probably not) or at least be anticipating to learn about what I’ve done in my spare time this week. However, it is also at this point of writing that I have realised that this is somewhat off topic and shall therefore exercise restraint and only add a brief list of activities to an appendix to this blog.

 Instead, I want to fixate on what I think about the future (of this program – I’m no fortune teller). I am quite excited for the Leys festival; I have been really keen to engage with broader Oxfordshire and by all metrics I have assessed this looks like a tremendous opportunity for just that. I suppose coming from Australia, it feels remiss to just soak up Oxford’s resources without explicitly engaging with the wider community itself. I am also excited for things to get moving with the program – for our group to start sending emails, conducting interviews etc. Everything feels at a dramatic standstill so far, and a growing itch the ‘do something’ has emerged – I do hope and indeed expect it gets scratched.

 Reflecting on where I am right now, I feel quite adventurous and don’t really know how to satisfy that hunger. I’ve found myself discussing various strange topics with various not-so-strange but still fascinating people. I’ve found myself debating what to spend the rest of my summer on – overseas programs, external research, technical work or simply to rest.

This randomness – for it is precisely that, in an unmathematical sense – seems to haven taken a rather comforting lead role for me this summer – and I welcome it, for eventually (although likely impermanent) I’ll have a sole or major objective again and randomness shall be relegated to the backseat. I suppose that even in writing this I’ve been a bit frivolous with prose and a bit intentionally peculiar with expression – but that’s all part of the fun.

A non-exhaustive appendix of this week’s recreational (strictly non-academic) activities:

• Swimming
• Cooking
• Getting others to make me food
• Movie nights
• Half-daytrips
• Culinary Judge for live cooking from other students
• Basketball
• Hiking
• Tea-tasting (in the fashion of wine tasting)
• Prints and arts
• Open day exploitation
• Birthday parties
• Punting