On Making Friends

One day I came back from eating dinner in the dome. I went into the bathroom, slipped off my clothes and got into the warm shower. I played 'You don't miss a thing' and 'Ever be' out loud and sang along as I showered, and toweled off, and got into my pajamas. As usual, I had an inner dialogue, which includes thinking about everyone back home, thinking about my day, and thinking about something strange (I think the question on my mind then was 'What makes a good writer?'). I felt everything so viscerally - the slight shift of weight when my cross chain lifted off my chest as I bent forward to put on my pajama bottoms, the slightly damp hair at the nape of my neck, the space between the wet tiles under my feet. I felt so alive.

I thought back to the conversation I had been having in the dome, and I couldn't even remember what it was about. I couldn't exactly even remember who I was across from.

I felt like George Harvey Bone when he snapped out of one of his 'dead moods' (although of course I wasn't having murderous thoughts regarding any of the girls round the dining table). I felt like I had slipped out of a husk of me into my real self once I had closed the door of my dorm room, like a reverse lizard.

But yesterday was the first time here where I laughed till I was tearing. Funnily enough it was over a conversation about how ridiculous laughter is with Alex. Why do people start to shake and emit short gasps of sound? Is laughter always because of funniness or just because of shock? Is anything actually funny or is it just different degrees of shock? What does funny even mean??? That talk gradually mellowed into an exchange of funny stories - and I found myself laughing, and questioning why I was laughing, and still laughing so much that tears sprung into my eyes and my tummy felt that long - lost ache of joy. Later that night Alex came into my room and we had a really nice long talk, and exchanged music. I didn't realise how much I missed things like that.

I hadn't had such a real time with a person for so long that I was beginning to think perhaps university is supposed to get you used to adult relationships. The kind of relationship that will get you through a day in a society that expects you to have friends, where you have someone to eat with, and say 'see you later' to, and walk with, but when you get back to your room you just move on to the next thing on your list, instead of thinking of how nice just spending time with someone is. The kind of friendship where each person inhabits there own little box. Friendships without any lingering phosphorescence.

But I'm beginning to think maybe it won't be lke that after all.

Tomorrow I am going to get falafel and then go to the Fitzwilliam museum with Alex.

Machines

'Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops - but not on our lies. The Machine proceeds - but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die.' - E.M Forster, The Machine Stops 1909

In a lecture today about 'Machines' in the modern period, Dr S Connor brought up this quote by E.M Forster. I read it. And read it. And read it. I think i lost track of the lecture for a few minutes because I felt so struck by the quote. Its desperation, its truth, its threat.

I thought of the two lines of commuters on MRT trains looking at screens. I thought of the sinking feeling I get when people check their phone during conversation and I ask myself 'Am I not interesting enough?'

Since coming to England, I've come to both love and loathe machines with a greater passion. I use it to keep in touch with family and friends. I know that there is a chance of actually seeing their faces through fibre cable optics and pixels. I can write about how I'm feeling and what I'm doing one day and have them see it on the same day.

But at the same time, since coming here I've spent more time on technology than I want to. It's mostly youtube - I think there's something about living alone that makes you crave sound, noise, music, anything to fill your silence.

A couple of days ago, when I was having a short walking - break during an evening run, I suddenly became intensely aware that I had hands. And two legs that were moving despite me hardly thinking of moving them. They were moving simply because I wasn't thinking of not moving them - How strange! How wonderful! I realised I had skin all over my body and that underneath that skin was a highway of blood vessels rushing around everywhere supplying my cells with oxygen, which travels through a complex tubing system and comes in through my nose and mouth. I am human, I am created, I am complex and I am alive.

Why do my hands spend so much time typing? They could be sculpting clay, they could be picking a leaf out of my bicycle basket, or a ladybird out of my hair, they could be holding someone else's hand. I think we've reached a point where we really need to learn to look up. We need to create a mutual understanding that people don't have to be on their phones all day. That not liking an instagram post or not replying to a whatsapp message or not posting a Facebook 'Happy Birthday' is not tantamount to a statement of dislike.

I imposed a Youtube ban on myself this week, and the next, and forever. I still do go on occasionally, but only when I want to watch something I know is inspiring, or useful. The only video I watched this week was of a man, who, listening to classical music, also realised he had hands. I've realised that since stopping watching so many videos I've started singing a lot more to fill the silence with my own voice.

Little moments this week

1. I saw a woman just staring at the cows in the fields of Kings College. She was so peaceful, so caught in the moment, so in her own space.

2. I realised that somewhere in the last 2 years of my life I have begun touching my hair instead of my earrings when I am nervous

3. 'Hollow in the Ferns' from the Far From the Madding Crowd soundtrack playing in my head as I walked under the dappled golden light through the short cut from Sidgwick to the Market Square.

4. While trying to find a bicycle helmet (I learn from my mistakes!) I asked the shop assistant to help me, and he helped me fit the helmets on and test their size. I realise how rare it is for people to touch our faces - his fingers near my jaw felt so strange. I think the only people who have ever touched my face are my family, and Agnes, who has a thing for chins. I realised how intimate the line 

'And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod/

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,/

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.' 

in the poem 'High Flight ' by John Gillespie Magee, Jr is.

(You should look up the story behind the poem)

5. An old woman along sidgwick avenue scuffed through the leaves just like a little child.

6. I woke up on Wednesday with the word 'Sasquatch' in my mind. I don't know why it was there because I was dreaming about trying to find something in a place with too many doors. But I discovered it is another word for yeti.

7. As I walked to Sidgwick on Tuesday, I looked at the conkers that had fallen from the trees and thought ' I will conker my essay!' And found myself terribly funny and kept smiling to myself all the way to Sidgwick.

8. I found out that J.R.R Tolkien was responsible for defining the first few entries for the letter 'H' in the Oxford English Dictionary, and that a criminal was responsible for defining quite a few others.

9. I have a new obsession with my tiny-shared-kitchen-made granola, which I make every Wednesday to celebrate another essay handed in!

Coco-Nut Granola

Flaked Almonds

Walnuts (which is just crumble in my hands into little dice sized pieces)

Oats

Pumpkin Seeds

Desiccated Coconut

Cinnamon

Agave/other liquid sweetener (pretty sure maple syrup would be AMAZING)

A tiny bit of coconut oil (not necessary though, I regularly make it without when I forget to bring my jar of coconut oil to the kitchen)

Nut butter if you can spare any!

Mix them all together and pop it into the oven. I usually do about 150 degrees or more, sometimes I fiddle with the temperature settings while it's inside, and I don't really mark the time taken, I just open the oven and stir it round occasionally, and when it's all uniformly golden-brown I take it out! I think it takes between 30 to 45 minutes.

10. Toby Wu Zhi if you are reading this you should look at this - BLESS HAIRDRESSERS! It was mentioned in my lecture today and I immediately thought of you!

Tumble

Yesterday I flew. Down a hill I was flying, flying, I stood up on my new bicycle, feet balanced on the pedals - I felt so powerful and free. I was flying.

I was flying.

Off my bicycle.

I wasn't used to the brakes. They were too fast, and so was the road coming up to my face. I went right over.

I used my hands to break my fall.

'oh my god oh my god' the lady walking her dog next to me

I was terrified.

I scraped my hands quite badly and my right shoulder and my right cheekbone landed on the road too but thankfully there wasn't even a scratch, or a bruise.

I was horrified by the idea that there must be pieces of my skin somewhere on the road.

Blood was pooling on my palms, two bright red patches, like Jesus' cross marks.

I was so scared. God's guardian angels were really there, they must have been. I wasn't wearing a helmet. Stupid, stupid stupid.

I thought I was okay but a couple of hours after that I just started sobbing at my computer.

The shock I suppose.

I remember when I veered off my bicycle into the drain right outside our house, and went upstairs bawling and Mum just sat me on her lap even though by then I was too big for that and hugged me and did the 'shh shh shhhh' sound she makes when any of us cry.

Today I bought a bicycle helmet.

Climbing King's College Chapel

After church today, I left the hubbub of students hovering around the pasta-bake they serve post-service, and meandered through the market, picking up a vegan curry and rice box and looking at the bread in the 'The Earth's Crust' shop and the home-made candles in the shop beside it and the fish in the shop beside it which reminded me of the wet market in Ghim Moh. I was very happy - I had my curry, my camera and my copy of Jeanette Winterson's 'Oranges are not the only fruit' which I sat reading on the ledge beside King's college as I had an apple and then my curry and then half an unripe-pear (I felt so terrible throwing it away because I googled 'What happens when you eat unripe pear?' and the effects didn't seem too drastic and I could've eaten the whole thing if I really tried but it tasted so sour.) 

After that, I got directions from a porter to Kings College's North entrance. I realise I've skipped ahead a few chapters and no one knows why I was going to Kings College. Well, during the fresher's societies fair, I signed up to the Cambridge Humanities Review, which gave me a magazine subscription and the chance to enter a lucky draw. The prize of the lucky draw was a tour of the Kings Chapel with Professor Jean Michel Massing, Director of Studies of History of Art for Kings College. Because I have terrible luck with lucky draws, I didn't win.

But, because I have a big, good God who also has a funny sense of humour, I received an email which told me first that

1) Unfortunately, the draw has closed and you haven't been picked

2) However, someone who was picked has dropped out and would Miriam like to come instead?

And, no surprises, she said yes!

We met the professor, a man with lovely smile lines and fluffy white hair, outside the chapel, and he said 'Follow me!' and walked onto the grass lawn so we could have a view of the chapel while he explained it's exterior.

And so the first miracle happened that day, which was that, despite not being a fellow, we got to walk on the FORBIDDEN King's College Grass (with a capital G)!!!

While we were on the lawn, a couple of tourists wandered onto the grass too and were promptly told to please keep off the grass while Dr Massing told us how we could tell from the different colour of stone that the chapel was built over a long period of time - over a century in fact! He also pointed out the metal spikes that had been installed at a much later date to stop students from climbing the chapel exterior (I don't know how anyone would be able to do that!) to get to the chapel roof. One person in the group asked 'Have you ever climbed the chapel?'

And he cheekily replied, 'That is a question I am not going to answer!'

We went inside and he explained that we were going to climb to the cavity between the fan vault and the roof of the chapel. Before we climbed, we had to leave all our bags in an office and then sign our names so that if we slipped and fell and died the chapel wouldn't be responsible.

The stairway was narrow and curling and each step was worn down by years of footsteps 'and water' Dr Massing pointed out. At some points it became pitch dark and it was only by that strange prickly sense that you are near another being that you avoided bumping into the person in front of you.

We reached the vault level - already we were high above the roof tops of the rest of the city, which we could see through grilled windows of the chapel.

Dr Massing explained that the fan vault is largest one in existence, and that the architects who built the wooden roof overhead were the same men who would've built boats, which was why the timber skeleton of the roofs underbelly looked just like the bones of a sailing ship. He also pointed out how men would carve their sign into stones, as a way of marking their effort so that they could later claim payment. He also explained the reason why the chapel could remain standing for so long without cement - due to the position of the rocks and how they worked together and against each other. It was something to do with the physics of the stones, which I didn't quite understand! There was years of graffiti on the walls, which just added to the history of the place. There were little holes in the floor of the vault, and if you peered through them as we all did, you would get a gut-wrenching, swooping view of the cathedral below you. It gave me such a funny feeling to know that there were so many people in the chapel preparing for service, looking around as tourists, maybe gazing up at the magnificent fan vault above them and not guessing that there were 10 people walking in the air above their heads!

I expected we would go down after that, but Dr Massing led us up another flight of stairs and we emerged -  on the roof of the college chapel! The view was breath taking, and just the experience of being on one of the most historical buildings in Cambridge and looking down at the same houses the stones of the chapel had overseen for years was incredibly humbling.

Dr Massing suggested we go over to the other side. The only way there was by going over the roof, which had a ladder stretched up and down each of its sides. Dr Massing told us quite firmly that we had to keep our hands and feet on the ladder and be very very careful - and then walked over the ladder as if it were flat ground. 'I'm old so it's okay if I die,' he quipped.

At the top of the roof, I stopped and just breathed in the moment. I've always liked heights, and I've fallen in love with this city that will be home for the next three years, and to just look at it from above, the same way God or Auntie Sheila watches me daily as I go about in Cambridge was a gift from heaven itself.

On the other side, Dr Massing (who, when I asked him a question ' Professor...?' told me to call him Jean-Michel) told us that he knew every building you could see. I couldn't name more than 5, especially because buildings look so different from the top than they do as you walk into them to buy oats and bananas. I wondered how many times Dr Massing had been on the roof of the chapel (and if he had climbed the exterior to get to it - he's already admitted that he was an alpinist) He also pointed out a sweet little roof garden and, grinning wickedly, said 'That is a private cannabis plantation by a fellow of the college.' He was only joking, of course.

One last wide-eyed look, and then we descended into the warmth and normality of ground level again. As I walked out of the chapel, I kept thinking, I could be walking on the street any day, and I would never know that the person walking beside me has just climbed the Kings College Chapel, or has just heard that his wife is pregnant, or has just watched the best movie she's ever seen. How strange are the relationships between strangers!

After that, I bought a disgusting amount of groceries from the market place and Sainsbury's - so much that I was really struggling to carry it all back in my box. (I bought two cartons of soup, a bag of rice, 2 bunches of bananas, a couple of punnets of berries, and 3 bags of rolled oats, among other things...) Thankfully, as I was balancing my box against the traffic light stand, trying to give my arms a little rest, a kind stranger beside me offered to help carry it for me. I would usually say it's okay, since it's good exercise and I don't like burdening (in this case literally) other people. However, I was so exhausted (shaky arms exhausted) that I gratefully accepted, and we walked up the hill together. (thankfully it was a guy who goes to St Edmunds, so his college was up the hill as well)

I found out that he was from New York, finishing a Phd in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and doesn't know how to cook oatmeal. However, he does know most of the east asian languages and qigong, and a shorter route to Sidgwick site which he showed me on his phone map (which is in japanese) after he delivered me to college. He also offered to show me qigong which apparently stops you from feeling cold or warm and just makes you impervious to changes in temperature I suppose, but when he asked me to stretch out my left hand it was shaking too much from muscle fatigue and so I said the shaking would probably interfere with whatever force they use in qigong.

Back in college, I've just made a big bowl of vegetable stew and rice (enough for three meals, so I save on cooking time!) and a tray of granola which I keep snacking on as I write this post. I've got to go and write an essay on Dickens now, but I feel like my head is still up in the clouds on the Kings college chapel roof...

Blackberrying, a Winter's Tale and Grandma's Birthday

I was running on Wednesday or Thursday last week, trying to escape the looming Bronte essay I had to write, and trying also to find West Cambridge, when Cambridge began to change around me. I was running away from the city center, and gradually, as I ran under yellow and red trees and over the muffled crackle of autumn leafmeal, the houses began to fade, and I could spy a glorious sunset on my left, with a cloud that looked like the rearing torso of a lion sandwiched between two other clouds.

I think that I was running away from more than just the city center and an essay that day. I was feeling confused and inadequate over loneliness - something I think every first year university student, and particularly international student, go through. I was frustrated that I hadn't fallen easy into a social group, that I still hadn't been able to really be me, that I hadn't found that someone whose room I could go to spontaneously, to sit on their bed and talk about how we should explore the botanic gardens together and what to cook for each other that night and whether she could help me read my essay and tell me honestly if I was being too boring. 

After about 20 minutes, I saw a sign saying 'Public footpath' and turned down it.

I ran a short way along a small path, and then over a bridge that stretched over the rush and rumble of cars and trucks on the highway beneath me. And then I got to the other side and...

Blackberries.

Blackberries everywhere.

The foliage got denser as I kept running through it, my shirt or tights occasionally getting snagged by a blackberry bramble. The blackberry bushes grew tall around me, sometimes even forming arches overhead. I felt encased in this safe safe world of soft sounds, leaves and fruit. A small space, a secret place only I knew about. I picked a couple of berries as I slowed my pace to an almost shuffle. Suddenly it didn't matter that I felt inadequate, or that I didn't know how to structure my essay. All that mattered was that God had directed my path into somewhere where finally I could hear myself think, I could see myself breathe, I could think about not myself but my God who provides berries in the wild for the animals and birds, and who cares for me. 

I picked up my pace again and kept going past the blackberry area to the beginning of the highway. I had the strangest sensation that I could, if I wanted to, keep going down that grey asphalt road, striding alongside cars, all the way to London, all the way to Heathrow, all the way home. But I turned around to get to my room before dark.

The next day, I returned - and this time I was prepared. I spent almost an hour in my secret space, blackberrying. I filled a whole container. I caught the before-sunset moments when the sun and the clouds dance together.

This week I made a blackberry and apple crumble with what was left of them, and shared it with my floor mates, who I've been meeting more often as I cook in the kitchen and who all liked it.

The next morning, I took a taxi through the cold fog to the train station. I talked to the taxi river, who's from Lithuania, and said that in the dry-winters of Lithuania you can go outside in a t shirt and not feel cold but in the wet-winters here you'd freeze. I was about 50 minutes too early for my train, so I sat on the platform with my laptop and began working on my essay, with fingers that after a while became so frozen my typing became noticeably slower.

I met Mum, Uncle Rog and Auntie Michelle at the platform. They'd driven all the way there to see me and pick up another car for their road trip down to the Forest of Dean the next day. It's incredible how God works out his timing. How Uncle Rog and Auntie Michelle and Eva could come all the way from New Zealand up here, just at the same time as Mum came with me to start my Cambridge term, so that she, Uncle Rog, Auntie Sarah and Grandma could have a proper family reunion - all on the weekend of Grandma's 85th birthday! 

We watched a Winter's Tale at the Theater Royal, which was built in Victorian times (1819) and is very small and cosy. We watched 'A Winter's Tale' and all the old people around us getting chocolate, stem ginger and strawberry ice cream during the interval.

Back at home, we lit the candles on a lemon cake Eva and Connie had spent the morning making, and Grandma gave a speech.

'I don't think the girl who was born on the 10th of August, 1930, or the 9th of August actually, because Mummy's watch was 40 minutes ahead, could ever think that she'd be celebrating her 85th birthday!'

She blew out the candles, Renny descended on the chocolate cupcakes, Grandma insisted on cutting and serving the cake even though it was her birthday, and Auntie Michelle gave all the adults Lemoncello from Italy, which Grandma gave a tentative sip, screwed up her face and then hastily unscrewed it, ' What is this?'

Happy, happy birthday Grandma. May the good Lord bless you.

What I'd really like to say is

"Each time I’m asked to tell about myself, I find myself starting the same way: ‘My name is Kelsey and I’m nineteen…’ but what I’d really like to say is:
'My name means island of the ships but once
I found a translation that said I’m a burning shipwreck-
not a burning ship but a ship that has caught fire
after the wreckage and well, I’d say that’s more fitting.’
I’ve learned that people don’t have time for about-me’s.
They need two things: a name and an indication you’re someone special.

The doctors, they want facts not details.
'I broke my leg when I was three, it’s a funny story actually-’ The right or the left?
Conversation over.

The teachers, they want interests, hobbies.
You’re sad, yes, but what do you like to do?

The adults are a spew of questions.
What school do you go to? What classes are you taking?
What do you plan on becoming? Got a boyfriend?
No, stop.

People my own age are the worst.
'I’m planning on an English degree with a concentration in creative writing.’ Yeah, aren’t we all. So how many times have you, you know, done it?

I’m pulled apart, my interests traveling highway 2
my goals at a stop light at traffic hour,
my medical history on a billboard for the world to see.
But what about me?

Where’s the chance to say,
'I hang on to fistfuls of poetry like loose change in my pockets,
and I keep waiting for the day that the world turns upside down
so I can swim with the stars.
I’m not afraid of darkness, it’s a loneliness I can empathize with.
It’s the black holes like cigarette burns inside of me that get troublesome.
I walk through graveyards and read the dashes between years,
each a story I’ll never know. Sometimes I create my own.’ No wonder none of us know who we are anymore."

—Kelsey Danielle, I Was Told to Write an About Me and This is What Happened

'Miriam-Medwards-English' are three words I don't really ever want to have to utter again. On a drive with Mum over the weekend, I told her 'Sometimes I worry that I'm really boring.' because in Fresher's week you only actually have three words for people to make a judgement on you. I really do miss the familiarity and the years I had with everyone back in Singapore (I think of you daily).

+65 to +44

Caveat: I have an essay due tomorrow.

On the 30th of September, Mum drove me to the place I'd be spending the next 3 years of my life. We loaded my two huge suitcases into Auntie Sarah's little red car (which they had cleaned specially for the occasion) and drove off from Ixworth, saying goodbye to Grandma and Auntie Sarah (who had spent the morning trying to catch one of their rabbits which had disappeared the previous day).

As we drove, we didn't talk too much about actually starting school. Mum told me instead that she hoped I would fall in love with the seasons - Autumn for it's golden, rich hues, winter for cold, crisp walks and remembering that there's life underground. You can't see it, but it's there.

We pulled into the front of Murray Edwards College. I'd been here once before - in June on a drizzly day with Dad. At the time, I hadn't thought much of it. Everything looked so grey, although I thought the flowers in the front were quite pretty. I'd not ventured in - I didn't want to know everything before I came in September. But this time, it was gorgeous. The dome looked beautifully white, the flowers were so bright, so blooming beautiful, and I was so ready to begun.

Mum and I got my room keys and then drove round the back entrance which was nearer the undergraduates' house. I took a while to get to my room, not simply because I get lost always and didn't find the right building initially, but also because I was taking in the tennis and netball courts with grape vines curling round the fence, and a little 'Free book library', which encouraged you to take out any books you liked, on the condition that you replaced it with another book for someone else to take out!

My room was bigger than I hoped for and - wait for it - HAS A BALCONY! Mum and I couldn't figure out how to open the window to the balcony, but since then I have figured it out and stepping onto the balcony to feel the cool breeze and look into the garden is one of my favourite things when I come back from a run all hot and red.

I set about putting things away in places putting things up and shelving things, before heading for lunch with Mum, in the Dome cafeteria. I know I had potatoes (because I had potatoes almost every day that first week) and I think roasted carrots, some sort of vegetable soup and a crusty roll, and a salad bowl. So far the Dome's food has been pretty decent - I've had sweet potato fries, lots of jacket potatoes, steamed veg, once I had roast veggies and couscous which was really delicious...

Mum and I headed to the market after that, picking up some coconut and shea body soap, some shampoo and nectarines and berries from the market square. On the way back we popped into the health shop that is between my college and the city centre, and although we didn't buy anything at the time, since then I've been back to buy little bits and bobs including coconut oil, coconut yogurt, cacao nibs and rolled oats.

The International students had a pre-fresher's week programme, and although I can't remember much of it, here were some highlights:

1. I got to go punting one sunny sunny day. I had about 5 minutes to try steering and actually punting the punt, which meant our punt had a crazy zigzag path during those 5 minutes.

2. We went for a formal at Churchill college, where I saw first-hand someone penny someone else's drink. Pennying is apparently a Cambridge tradition, begun somewhere in the 13th or 14th century. What happens is that one person slips a penny into someone else's drink while they are touching or holding their glass, and the second person is then obliged to drink it all in one go. I also saw someone penny someone else's dessert, which I didn't even know was a thing!

3. We had a pizza night, but due to a miscommunicaiton, the pizza came much later than all the international freshers. That meant I had plenty of time to talk to people from my college and from other colleges. I had a really interesting conversation about Singlish (it's famous!) with Irene from Italy, and books and space law (it exists!) with Kevin from Australia.

On Saturday, the British girls arrived. I felt slightly overwhelmed as the number of undergraduates expanded suddenly from about 30 to probably more than 200 - and so I went for a long run, and spotted some cows on the way back!

On Sunday morning I tried to do power yoga in my room after I woke up, and fell over backwards whilst attempting a handstand, thereby bruising my shins on my desk. Thankfully the walls are thick and my neighbour, when I asked her, hadn't heard anything.

During the garden party we had later that afternoon, I bought a ticket for a Fitz bop - it was 90s themed and I thought it sounded like there would be cheesy music and board games and quizzes (and possibly a screening of Clueless?)... I also met Kevin again and found out that he runs. He said we should go running together some time but according to his Facebook page he runs actual MARATHONS so I'm pretty sure that isn't happening. I met heaps more people at the garden party but the thing about Fresher's week is that you introduce your namecollegecourse and then talk briefly about something inconsequential, and then move on the someone else, like some sort of social roulette, and the prize is embarrassment when you see the person again and completely cannot remember their name.

Natalia from Poland and I went to St Andrews the Great for their 5pm service, and I really really loved it. It reminded me of the church service I'd been to in St Helen's in London - warm, serious about the Word, and God-and-community-centred.

After the service, I headed back to college for dinner and then got ready for my first 'pub crawl' (although I only planned to go to one pub, since I don't drink) to experience something that seems such a large part of British social culture.

Unfortunately I was turned away from the entrance because I had forgotten to bring my ID.

Have I introduced you to this very familiar friend of mine, bathos?

The next evening I did manage to get to a bar, and I didn't quite like it. First, my arm was grabbed by 'HI-MY-NAME-IS-CHRIS-WHAT'S-YOURS' who then tried to 'LET-ME-INTRODUCE-YOU-TO-MY-FRIENDS' (who were evidently other poor people he had arm-grabbed). After I had tactfully extricated myself from that (I need to use the bathroom) and re-entered, carefully avoiding him, I got talking to a Greek guy who obviously was just as uncomfortable as I was since we both sheepishly admitted to one another we don't drink and have no legitimate reason to be in a bar. He was a nice conversationalist, but unfortunately the bar was very loud and he had to keep leaning in and saying 'Sorry?' and I nodded and smiled to a lot of things I couldn't hear. I left early, with Andrea from Hungary.

The next day was Matriculation, which is probably the most hyped up part of fresher's week, when inall honesty it is just wearing a gown, taking a picture, listening to the history of your college (which I actually really liked - I'll include what I know about it at the end of this post ) and then having a fancy dinner.

So fancy that the dessert literally rose out of the floor in a tower, with flashing lights.

And that, friends, was the end of fresher's week.

Murray Edwards College - a short history by Miriam Yeo

Murray Edwards is one of Cambridge's youngest colleges, and one of two women's-only colleges in the University. It was initially founded as 'New Hall' in 1954 (my Practical Criticism Supervisor went to the college when it was still New Hall, as did Dame Barbara Stocking our President) I used to tell people the college's name changed 'because some rich guy donated lots of money'. which is partly true. It was founded in 1954 by Dame Rosemary Murray, but was named New Hall, because, well, that's what it was at the time. In 2008, an old student, Ros Edwards and her husband, Steve Edwards, decided to donate £30 million pounds to the college, and so the college took the last name of it's founder as well as the last names of it's financial saviours, and became Murray Edwards. Our coat of arms bears a dolphin (which looks to me like a fish with a duck's beak, but then I am not a visual art student) as well as other symbols. The dolphin symbolises 'a youthful spirit of exploration and discovery, and a kindly intelligence' (wikipedia.com) and always reminds me of the dolphin that saved Arion. We have the largest collection of women's art in Europe, and an edible herb garden. Sue Perkins (from the Great British Bake Off), Tilda Swinton (Moonrise Kingdom) and Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell (a famous science person) are all alumni. Our current President, Dame Barbara Stocking, really impressed me. She worked in the NHS and as the CEO of Oxfam, always in fields she was passionate about and which help people, which I think are two big indicators of success.

Scrumping apples 29/09/2015

Today was a golden, golden fall day. The leaves here are just turning from green to the rich yellow-reds of autumn and we still have the lingering summer sun that seems loathe to leave us (and I am loathe for it to go)

I woke up and took a walk down to the butcher's shop in the high street, just to get some oats  because grandma was running out. The morning air was crisp and cold and I had myself alone with my thoughts. I worried for a while about my lost suitcase, which I had left on the national express coach, but then decided to leave my cares behind me and focus on the first few rays of sun warming my face and the quiet, pastel colours of the Ixworth Highstreet.

It's sort of tradition for me to make porridge for grandma whenever I am there - it is the least I can do for the woman who has always prayed for me, called me across continents, and welcomes our family invasion in to her small house - so I cut up an apple from Auntie Sarah' garden (I love how I can take a 2 minute walk across from 106 to 110 highstreet and actually harvest my own food!!!) and swirled the porridge around and somehow or other got breakfast ready for Mum, Grandma and I.

I was still worried about the suitcase - and as I got ready for my shower I prayed hard about it. My prayer began very typically - Dear God, you know everything and see everything, please help me find my suitcase and please return it to me safe and sound I really really need it.

Then I thought about it - as they say in The Chronicles of Narnia, God is 'not a tame lion'. I am always asking God for things and situations in my favour, always asking him to preserve and guard those I love, and make my ways smooth. But really what it means is that I am clinging onto my circumstances and relationships and not onto the only thing (or rather relationship) that really matters - with Jesus Christ my redeemer. 

I thought about that as I showered, and when I towelled off I changed my prayer to, Dear God you know where I am and where my luggage is and I am glad you have sovereignty over all of this. Lord, Thank you for using this to show me just how much emphasis I am placing on a camera and a couple of books. May I look to things above and not things on earth. I give my suitcase into your hands, but more importantly, as I begin university, I deliver my life into your hands. Amen.

We began to get ready to drive to Ely for brunch at the Peacock Tearoom. Auntie Sarah delayed us a little while because a rabbit had gone missing and she was afraid it might stumble into the jaws of a hungry cat. As she was doing that, I received a call from National Express - AND THEY FOUND THE SUITCASE!

God really does have a wicked sense of humour.

Anyway, we discovered that the tea room was closed, and so we decided to go to the Wyken Vineyards instead. Mum and I got out of the car early to walk through the vineyards before getting to the tea house. We picked a couple of grapes (mine was terribly sour), and some wild blackberries from the brambles in the woods (and Mum showed me nightshade berries which are poisonous and which I will be avoiding). We had to walk through some very squelchy mud to get to the tea house, and I was reminded of a childhood book I read 'We're going on a Bear Hunt'

We're going on a bear hunt.

We’re going to catch a big one.

What a beautiful day!

We’re not scared.

Uh-uh! Mud!

Thick oozy mud.

We can't go over it.

We can't go under it.

Oh no!

We’ve got to go through it!

Squelch squelch!

Squelch squelch!

Squelch squelch!

We made it through and walk through our final hurdle - a field of peacefully grazing sheep, before getting to the tearoom. I picked up a little friend on the way who seemed to like blackberries as much as I do!

We got tea (lemon and ginger / Red bush) and coffee and wholemeal scones with gooseberry and raspberry jam and cream. Auntie Sarah charmed the waitresses which was perhaps why they gave us heaping amounts of cream (not that I could eat any but still such a sweet gesture!) and we sat in the sun happily eating our warm scones.

I was still hungry (what a surprise...) and so I asked if anyone else wanted another scone, and Grandma immediately piped up 'Me please!' and so, round 2. The conversation was full of laughter because despite Grandma's Alzheimer's, she certainly hasn't lost her sense of humour, and so every now an again a pithy remark would emerge that would send us all giggling. It's also funny to see how Mum has inherited Grandma's laugh - when they sit beside each other and laugh at the same thing the similarity is striking.

We decided to walk around the gardens after lunch (Wyken vineyard is actually a house with massive gardens and also vineyards - I told Mum that I would have to find out if Wyken had a son I could marry so I could live in what seemed like pure Eden...)  to soak up the most beautiful flowers in the autumn sunshine.

Some places are more beautiful than my limited vocabulary can describe, and so here are some pictures to speak a thousand of them:

The gardens are also home to many many apple trees - 40 varieties of apple in fact. Because we didn't want to steal the apples of my possibly-future-husband-and-father-in-law (or rather the likely very posh and powerful owners of the gardens) or incur the wrath of the gardeners, we picked the ones that had fallen onto the ground, thereby saving rather than stealing the apples. Mum later told me this is called scrumping apples - hence the title.

On the way out, I spotted some free range eggs for sale. Having seen the (monsterous-sized) chickens roaming about in the gardens (probably having a more carefree life than even me) I had no qualms buying a box with grandma.

That evening,we got Chinese take away from the shop down the high street (really not Chinese food at all), from a girl called Cindy, whose chinese name is Mei Chen (which means beautiful morning).

After dinner, while Mum was washing up, Auntie Sarah played the ukelele and Mum sang and grandma and I danced the can-can and the can-not (our coordination was just.) in the kitchen and just collapsed with laughter every 5 minutes. 

Leaving - 25/09/2015

I spent the morning of the 25th packing. Perhaps it was unwise to leave everything to the last day, but when you have a father who backpacked across Europe and China and is therefore a master at making a small cabin bag seem like it has an undetectable extension charm on it, it doesn't seem too foolish. We managed to get everything inside (including the rice cooker!), and even had extra space for me to pack in simon bear, my little store of chia seeds/flax seeds/desiccated coconut, and extra notebooks.

Our packing done, there was little else left in the way of practical-things-to-do, and I think Dad was feeling a little lost. He came into the kitchen as I was rolling a bliss ball mixture to set, and asked, ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’

‘Sure,’ I replied.

I don’t know who began crying first. I didn’t even think to wash my cocoa-covered hands. I just clung to Dad and wept, and he wept too, and I said ‘I’ll miss you so much Dad’ and he said ‘It’s good for you.’

Hannah and I and Dad went for a walk, Hannah and I wearing masks because of the still-hazy Singapore conditions, down the greenway. (eventually a combination of the haze as well as my hip did prevent me from doing my last long run there. Still, it was nice to walk slowly along the path. Sometimes you need that when everything seems to be speeding towards an endless pursuit of continuation)

Hannah and I walked, arms swinging up and down like tin soldiers, and Dad walked a little way behind with the camera. We turned around to wait for Dad at one point, and he came closer, grinning, mimicking our exaggerated arms swinging. Suddenly, his face crumpled, and he began weeping.

Hannah and I gathered around him and we all hugged. I didn’t want to let go.

I remembered reading in my Dad’s diary about Hannah’s fifth birthday party in botanic gardens. He had needed to leave to go somewhere or get something midway, and had been walking to the car when he heard someone singing, and turned round to see me toddling after him doggedly, singing as I walked. I’ve always stuck close by Dad and he’s always stuck close by me, and the imminent state of affairs of far separation was (is still) hurting us with it’s unfamiliarity.

While driving to the airport, Mum suggested we sing a family song. We sang ‘Amazing grace’, my father’s favourite (complete with his ‘yeah yeah yeah yeah yeahhhh’ riffs in between verses). I started off singing, and then partway through I had to hold my face because at that moment they were tectonic plates drifting apart, and an earthquake was happening in my heart.

In the airport, there was a flurry of goodbyes. I thought that an hour would be enough but how can it be enough to plug the three year drought of face-to-face contact with friends? Emily bought me a whole bag of vegan treats (this girl knows me too well), and a book she'd written called 'What I wish for Miriam by Emily', which made me completely dissolve on the aeroplane but it was full of fundamental truths like 'We make a good life team' and 'You are my favourite platonic lover'. Christy wrote me a long long letter which I only read half of on the plane because tears. (there are few people in this world who can really write cards and letters. I am not one of them - I always feel like letters and cards somehow constrain me in their purposefulness and formalness and curtail the real emotion I want to convey in them. Christy, Emily, Hannah, Luk Ching, Sze Hui, are some people who are real card/letter writers.)

Some of the class came to see me off too - I hadn't seen so many of them for such a long time and it was so nice of them to come. I hugged Claire and breathed in her distinctive Claire-smell of hugs and excitement and wide smiles for the last time in a long while, and listened to Priscas excited chatter (I wish I could keep a book of all the funny little things she says)...

Wei xin was already teary-eyed (that makes two of us) when she ran up to me with Ben trailing a couple of steps behind. Ellis arrived next and soon all of the SCGS girls were there. We managed to squeeze in a group prayer - Ellis opened and Weixin closed, before I had to get to the departure gates. I was reminded of how Miss Tan told me that while she was on the Cook Islands, she met a man who said he could see guardian angels - everybody has two apparently. I think I can see guardian angels too because I know where my two are.

There were so many others at the airport who I was so touched at seeing - Toby, Chris, James, Gideon, Wei En, Ben, Alicia, Uncle Paul... All these threads of relationships that are now stretched over continents...

Then came the hardest good byes of all - family. At the departure gate, I hugged Emily (because she basically is family) and I think that's when I began crying, and then Dad, Hannah, Tim, Weixin Ellis, Dad again. 

//Little bird, today you fly

up and up, you're going high

far into our hazy sky

we look until we cannot see you.

...

So when you fly don't turn your head

and look away

But fix your eyes above,

it's all we've wanted anyway.

Although letting you go is painful

There are things I want to say

We will be, together.// (Hannah)

I sat in row 45, on the aisle seat next to Mum, and for the first couple of hours I read a few fragments of the notes people had written me (not all, the tears would come too quickly and I had to stop and turn over to the next one.) Reading the ingredients list on the back of the vegan treat bars Emily had bought me became a strange kind of coping mechanism to calm my aching heart - dates (great), almonds (hooray), chia (this girl knows me too well).

Usually I like watching tear - jerkers on aeroplanes but I had no need (or desire) for that in my state of weepiness, and so I watched 'The second best marigold hotel', a comedy which left me with that half-full feel good glowy-ness, while eating my breakfast and the strawberries and figs I had packed.

We flew through a storm somewhere over Europe I think, the lightning making the clouds go purple grey.

We landed quite smoothly in Heathrow, got through customs, and then I bundled onto the bus while Mum waited in the airport to go to Bath with Auntie Sarah.

I began writing this in the coach, while watching the British sunrise, the blue clouds floating about the gradient of orange like froth.