Chapter 50: English Summer

 Chapter 50: English Summer:

Tutorials were the only classes we had that were taught by Oxford Professors. I simultaneously looked forward to the class and felt disappointed to have less time to study Japanese. We chose our tutorials individually, and so every class would be one on one.  I chose a music theme and studied Brahms. Brahms was a composer at the beginning of the Romantic period. He was a favorite of mine whom I thought had been generally underappreciated; I wanted to learn more. For my first essay I chose to write about “Variations on a Theme by Haydn” because it represented many of my favorite qualities of Brahms’ music. He had an excellent grasp of music theory and the classical era before and was able to use these to craft music with the intensity, swelling emotion, and complex timbre of the Romantic era. It was initially very difficult to write about these pieces. Scanning the scores and trying to find patterns and uniquely Brahms-like features, as well as outside inspirations was slow-going, even with my excessively musical upbringing. I hoped it would be quicker in the future—it was days before I could even start writing the first essay and the weekend was busy. I don’t remember all the other tutorials. I do remember that Micah’s seemed excessively difficult—He would be in the library for hours on end. Some days we didn’t even see him. With the days getting nicer, most of us chose the mornings and evenings to do our work, leaving the lovely afternoons open. We went on a couple punting trips. Punting is a way to travel the canals with a flat-bottomed boat and a long stick to push off the muddy riverbed from the back of the boat. Being the good college students we were, we brought a little bit of food and a large amount of alcohol. Everyone was terrified to take the first punting shift. We were told that people sometimes forgot to let go of the stick and fell into the canal. Furthermore, the canal water was very dirty, and we were advised to go get an immediate doctor’s appointment should we ever fall in. Micah and Marc were the first to take the punting stick, and being the tallest, looked majestic standing on the back of the boat with the English canal and trees behind. While they steer the vessel, the rest of us try to lighten the weight burden by drinking much of the alcohol that was brought. And then the less intelligent among us—primarily me—realized we forgot to put on sunscreen. Even the canal water was looking enticing. I took the last shift to punt. It was much easier than I had anticipated. Using the stick as an oar to steer the boat came naturally. From then on, I tried to be the punter in all our canal boating sessions. The first session punting was a success with no accidents or falls.

We begin to spend more late afternoons and evenings in Port Meadow, bringing all sort of things like frisbees and soccer balls, etcetera. We befriended the wild horses with carrot bribes and spent most of our unspent money at the Perch, with its lovely outdoor seating and indoor hearths for cold evenings.

Rowing ramped up in the summer and Molly was coxswain for one of the boats. In early summer there is a race on the Themes as it flows through oxford. It’s dreadfully fun to watch, although looking around, appears to be a great excuse to drink excessively early in the day in which we felt obligated to join for (obviously) the secular culture learning experience. One thing that surprised me, was how the rowing looked worse than the University of Washington team. I had thought that with rowing being so popular in England compared to the US that Oxford would be far better. I would later read “Boys in the Boat,” and learn about how phenomenal the UW rowing team really was.

We attended a soccer game. Again, it was an excuse to day drink. Honestly, The English leisure activities had a common theme that was relatively easy to pick up. Summer was also the time we had visitors from back home. My parents were obviously displeased when they came to visit, and I was initially out of the house. I would see them a few hours later, after they had plenty of time to stew. Perhaps I picked up a little too much English hospitality.

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              Around mid-summer I received an enormous honor—an invitation to sit at the High Table with the professors. This was in thanks for my continued volunteering as a pianist at the chapel. The high table is the dining table at the front of the hall (think where professors sit in Harry Potter). The only functional difference is that high table gets free wine. Members of the high table promenade into the dining hall after everyone is seated, and everyone must stand as we walk. I made sure to elbow Marc a bit as I walked just to make him jealous. I take an open seat between two professors: one is a theologian and the other a historian, I think. I had never seen so many people with highly advanced education drink so much. It was a treat for me because they started sharing their real opinions without filters. The theologian was surprisingly nihilistic. He shared that the world was already so doomed and that so many people in power had failed for decades to do anything that it didn’t seem like there was any reason to protect or fix the planet anyway. I asked him if that weren’t disgraceful to creation from a religious standpoint. He told my that the creation mythos wasn’t real anyway and that maybe this was how it was going to be all along—a small spark in the universe before going to the next life. The historian on the other side of me chimed in briefly, stating that nothing would ever change for the better until historical injustices received reparations, such as those born of racism or sexism. At the end of dinner, I meet with the rest of my program and tell them about high table, maybe a little too excitedly due to the free wine. Micah largely agreed with the second professor.

              That mindset resonated with me. How could a person continue accepting the benefits that had befallen them due to racism or sexism or other historical injustices without acknowledging the need for reparations. Those benefits, such as elevated socioeconomic standing, stable housing and familial wealth come only at the expense of those currently and previously marginalized, and it will not change until there are some reparations given and benefits forsaken.