A typical Oxford day

I don’t think I’ve ever had as much of a love/hate relationship with a place than I do at Oxford. The days are grey, as most of us are transient our friendships are fleeting, and life as a student here is a perpetual game of Catch-22—nobody tells you what you need to know, only when you fuck up. Oh, and by the way, never tell your advisor that you don’t feel like you have enough work, especially when you are barely passing your statistics course. I knew selling my company to a lonely man for a passing grade would come back to haunt me.

But then there are days like yesterday that remind me why I came here in the first place, and why I haven’t indulged my inner-adolescent and dropped out in protest of the frustrating classes, the lack of communication, and my obvious cash-cow status--Oxford is notorious for admitting foreign students for the benjamins, much like how a whore markets her only worthwhile asset. But then there are days like yesterday that are so typical Oxford that you cannot help but be swept up in the fantasy coming to life and embrace your status as a cliché, even more so than when the Japanese tourists try to snap your picture when you are in subfusc.

If I had to pick one inanimate object that typifies Oxford it is the bicycle. Walk past any academic building and you see herds of them parked, standing upright, crammed together waiting patiently for the student to finish class and cycle home. The bike serve as a preferred mode of transportation for perpetually time crunched students, you know because we hate to be torn away from our work and not because we couldn’t get out of the bathroom because of the post-drinking…let’s say gastro-intestinal problems. It shuttles the broke grad students who live a few miles out in Cowley quickly into the city center, helps you get your groceries home in a timely and non-arm strenuous fashion, and it acts as a means of self-expression. The bohemian English (the subject not the people) students riding old fashioned ones with skirts billowing in the breeze, sans helmet (I swear this is true) and the power hungry MBA students all cycling their tricked out mountain bikes, complete with shiny headgear to protect the brains that will be earning them millions of dollars.

And of course, I refuse to get one when I arrive.

First of all, I am a rollerblader. The last time, since yesterday, I’d been on a bike was when I went backpacking through Europe my first time and decided to see the Dutch countryside in Gouda. And, in Gouda, much like my youth and the way I operate a motor vehicle, I was a renegade. I had complete disregard for hand signals, almost ran over little old ladies on the side walk, and nearly crashed it when I tried to simultaneously bike uphill and scarf a herring sandwich. Europeans treat cycling much like how they view recycling, way too fucking seriously.

If you walk around the city center of Oxford you see cyclists obeying traffic signs, signaling to cars, passing each other on the left, and sharing the road with cars. It is a pretty harmonious relationship with the exception that there are no bike lanes and every year a few people get run over.

I’ve had a license since 2003 and I still don’t understand the rules of the road—I only drive on highways. I still have difficulty crossing the street here—it takes me ages to cross the street since I make sure that traffic isn’t coming from either direction. And, I can’t even properly maintain my heels and other clothes—why would I invest in a bike—an accessory nobody would see me look cute in! And anyway, I’m a walker. With NYC as my playground for the last few years, I’ve developed this attachment to walking, the pace allows me to keep my head in the clouds and practice my speech for when I address my alma mater when I am a NY Times bestselling author. Or at the very least fantasize about sex—which I have been doing quite a lot of by the way.

But yesterday, in a very Oxfordian twist to my day’s plans of studying and completing the ego shattering statistics assignment, my friend invited me to go pick up free bikes. Evidently, there were so many unclaimed bikes at this one college that they cut off the chains and were allowing students to take them, for free! Now, I never wanted a bicycle. Hell, I think they are completely annoying. But when something is given out for free, especially when you have to eat cabbage because you’ve been priced out of buying Broccoli, you jump at the free shit. Plus, I thought joining the Oxford bike riding cult would lift my spirits—think Full Metal Jacket where the Marines say, “This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle I am useless.” But replace rifle with the word bicycle, and you have the Oxford cult.

My friend and I walk the few miles to pick up the bicycles and when we get there, I realize why the college wanted to get rid of the bikes, giving them free to the students. . The bikes were “condemned”. Aka that there was something seriously wrong with each of them. Either cut break lines (someone must have pissed someone off), rusted chains, structural defects that made riding them completely unsafe, or slashed tired (again, someone must have pissed someone off—is there an Italian mafia I don’t know about here?). But the girl who was showing us the bikes was a member of the bike cult.

“You know, it just needs a tune up.” She says, blatantly ignoring the cancerous rust that engulfs the bike.

Uhm, I don’t want to have to get a tetanus shot each time I take my bike for a spin, thank you very much.

“What’s wrong with this one?” She asks, after taking out her bike kit, and getting her hands dirty with grease and spider web gunk, trying to salvage one of the least condemned looking.

Oh, you mean the mold that is embedded in the handle bars?

But how do you tell someone that you don’t love her hobby as much as she, and the thought of having to repair a bike yourself actually repulses you. Nevermind that you’ve seen girls get gouged in the eyes and ligaments torn on the rugby pitch. Because, you know, that shit is cool. But anyway, I would never ask a non-rugger to play rugby. So why are they trying to convert me to the cult?

After about an hour, I settle on this white bike. A bit rusty, a tad wobbly, but the best of the bunch, and you know, it’s free! The only draw back with this bike? The chain needs to be oiled, and it was stuck on the hardest gear.

My friend and I take our bikes and begin the trek home. Trying to get into the True Oxford spirit, and not wanting to be the obvious American, I try to obey traffic signals and act like the other cyclists—except, I don’t know what is healthy rule breaking, and what is unacceptable. We cycle down the road, towards home, and we aren’t even a hundred yards away and we are confronted with our first obstacle getting home—crossing the street with a bike. Crossing the street is an intuitive thing, it’s something we’ve been socialized into since we were young. Look left, then right. When we are going at fast speeds, either via car, rollerblades, or bike, we rely upon our instincts to take over. Except my instincts can cause me to DIE since they drive on the wrong side of the road here! So, my friend and I, too scared to cross try to avoid it by staying on the same road, but then give up ten minutes later when we realize we have no idea where it is taking us.

So, we dismount, and wait for traffic to clear—on both sides of this very busy road.

Once the road is clear, we peddle, and merge with traffic and begin to try to acclimate ourselves into the cult—sharing the road side by side with the cars. Now, I want to let you in on a little secret. The reason why I am such a terrible driver is because I am petrified of sharing the road with people. I have this sick idea someone is going to sideswipe me off the road, or that I’ll lose control and side swipe them. Like seriously, ask anyone who’s driven with me, and I drive with complete concentration because I think I may be called up to battle with the wheel for my life at any moment.

Except yesterday, I didn’t have the protection of steal and plastic safeguarding my journey. Hell, I didn’t even have a bike helmet!

I’d be cycling down the street then suddenly I’d feel the breeze of exhaust and see that a double decker bus was about three feeet away from me. This caused me to cycle slowly. So slow, that an old man passed me and gave me a dirty look, thinking that I was making fun of him. Like, I don’t think you understand, cycling in this city, especially not knowing traffic laws and which way to look when crossing the street made cycling home the most harrowing experience of my life. Especially when the bike lane disappeared and turned into the bus lane, which the buses expected to share with you.

I rode as close to the sidewalk as possible, and shut my eyes each time I heard a bus pull behind me. And prayed.

So, my friend and I returned unscathed with our newly saved no longer-condemned bikes. As we are walking our bikes into college, we hear the fire alarm go off. Evidently, they were testing the fire alarms in the dorm and we were expected to vacate—or be forced to listen to the shrill pitch. By happenstance, a few of us returned home roughly the same time and decided to head out to a café. Double espressos drank, cigarettes smoked and the merits of Borat versus Brasseye debated. I need to do that more often, hang out with people outside my normal social circle, because each time I do, I am pleasantly surprised.

Afterwards my friends and I met at college for the carol services—the first time I’ve been inside a church, with the exception of weddings, as a practicing Jew. I stood silent when they recited the Lord’s prayer, yet I knew the words to Oh Come All Ye Faithful by heart, oh the joys of growing up a product of mixed marriage.

But it was so Oxford yesterday especially by ending the day by going to chapel with your friends. I felt somehow better connected to my predecessors who were forced to go to compulsory chapel and study Latin. Except I’m a Jewish woman who’s only flirtation with Lain was with two years of Italian in high school. But, let me imagine that something ties me to those who’ve come before me, besides my American check book paying nearly twice as much since I am non-EU. Dinner in Hall last night followed the Carol service, with the Master reciting Latin to us before we are permitted to sit.

It’s frustrating here. On one hand I try to balence my youthful romanticism alongside my NYC cynicism with the place. But then there are days where it lives up to every one of my expectations, once again raising the bar higher, while simultaneously making the drop to reality harder.

Oh, in other news, go fuck yourself to those who think I couldn’t stop drinking. Day 3 is creeping up and my only interaction with alcohol has been a sip of wine to try. I am going until Dec 28 sober. Especially because my waistline is on the line. Come on, you really thought I was doing it trying to be healthy? HA HA.