Last week was about getting used to a new routine. I had my second to last tutorial which went better than expected and I found that outside of archery and role playing society, I had nothing more that I needed to do. This is probably for the best, as both keep me rather busy. The Friday to Wednesday business is very much limited to this span of time and there is no way to work ahead, leaving my Wednesday afternoon to Friday at noon very very free.
For role playing society I write between 15000-20000 words of creative writing outlining and explaining how successful characters are. We normally have from Friday evening (when we meet to discuss the outcome of all the actions and assign particular actions to particular GMs) to around Tuesday afternoon. I really enjoy doing it and I don't mind the excessive amount of writing. Not to mention, it provides me with a creative outlet that I have clearly been lacking for most of the year. I can't prepare in advance for this level of commitment either, as I can't write anything until the action has been discussed and the outcome predetermined. So it is not like I can ever get ahead and instead am forced to concentrate my efforts during this time.
For archery, the weekend is the prime time for tournaments. I either have one or two tournaments a weekend and in either case, the tournament is a whole day affair. So when this overlaps with the period of time I have for role playing society, there just isn't time to think about or do anything else. But I must stress I enjoy being busy and there is something fulfilling about having so much to do. Also, I have found it a bit therapeutic.
Another thing happened last week that really brought my mood to a low. The head advisor to the study abroad program that I am in from my home institution of William Jewell College was in Oxford for a visit last week. I had contacted him in advance regarding recommendations and through our discussions, had arranged to meet up, along with the fellow William Jewell students during his time in Oxford. As we sat in Greene's cafe, a cafe just outside of Regent's Park, and began discussing our year at Oxford, I was struck by the finality of it all. He informed us of the upcoming changes to the program and the initiatives that they were starting. He spoke of next year and the types of comprehensive exams we would be facing. We spoke as though this chapter in our life was already done. As I left to go to archery, I was overcome by the finality of everything. It wouldn't help that over the course of that week I was struggling with another sense of identity.
If I were to describe my time here at Oxford, there is a surreal element that is hard to place. It is as though my mind created a divide between my life in the states and my life here. My life here was completely my own. I was dropped in a new situation and I adapted. I learned to navigate and I made decisions that altered the experience I had, tailored it to my needs and desires of the time. As a result, this experience feels like it is my own. I have an overwhelming sense of ownership to this life and when I think back to my life in the states, I feel a surprising lack of ownership. I chose many aspects of my life back home, but there was always the sense that it was some kind of expected chain of events, its was normalized, it was not mine, but ours? I could be speaking nonsense here, but it made it really difficult to imagine what life would be like back in the states, as if my life before didn't exist, or that life was not true existence. I have felt more fulfilled in my time here at Oxford, and I don't think it is because it is foreign or the UK is in some way objectively better, but because the life I have chosen here has been unabashedly my own. I had no assumptions about how life in Oxford was supposed to work. Any advice I had received before hand was not useful because I couldn't conceive of how to incorporate it because I had not conception of how life here was going to work. Instead...this was a life I had to figure out and stumble through. I have felt and still feel that my time here in Oxford has been more living and thriving than I have allowed myself in the States. So what I have been struggling with in the last week, is upon realizing this...how do I make a change? How do I adapt to this new jarring experience of going back. Will I let this fade into a memory and return to not-living? Or will I try to incorporate this into myself and continue to Live? How much of this is my choice and how much of this is determined? So as you can see, a very tumultuous and thoughtful week.
On the less esoteric side, I shot the Diana competition this past weekend. It was an Albion which was a distance level up from the type of shoots I did the weekend prior. this meant that I shot at 80 yds (My longest distance yet), 60 yds, and 50 yds. No female Novice has ever shot an Albion in competition at Oxford thus far and as a result, I got to break a record, just by attending the shoot. I was still, however, endeavouring to make that record a hard one to break by shooting an impressively high score. Unfortunately, whether it was the full day of shooting the day before or my own tendency to develop bad habits, but I didn't shoot particularly well that day. It was a beautiful day and it actually got what I would consider to be hot. 80 yds wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I did the worst at 60 yds that I have ever done. I was certainly disappointed in myself, I would be a fool not to admit it, but that is another thing about archery that I like. Archery is as much a mental challenge as a physical one. You can be strong and you can know what you are doing, but if your mind isn't in the game or if you let yourself be affected by the bad shots, then you aren't going to shoot well. To be good at Archery, you need to be able to respond to stress and failure in a positive way, you need to be able to move on with the bad shots and learn from them. It is ok to make mistakes, because no one is perfect, as long as you can learn from them. It is frustrating, yes, and it is easy to make excuses, the weather was bad, or my body wasn't in peak physical conditions, but in engaging with struggle and remaining competitive with yourself, you develop a mindset of improvement. It makes you want to be resilient, strong and wilful. To improve in archery is to improve yourself. The next big competition is BUCS outdoors and it is a two day national tournament. From showings in the competition thus far, I have the potential to win or at least place very highly. In order to do that, I can't let competition get to me, and I have to practice, practice, practice. So that is what I plan to do.
I'm sorry that this blog post has been a bit scattered. I will admit to being a bit scattered this morning. The last week of my life has been a re-examining of the inner consciousness. Each opportunity to evaluate and re-evaluate allows me to learn about myself. Sometimes I feel the need to use this blog to set those thoughts into writing and to force myself to string together those thoughts that are hovering right above the surface. Until Next Time.
Adventures Await!
KH
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