My humble abode

While at Oxford, this is what I call home:

25 Alma Place, if you want to stalk and/or write to me.

The house is owned by my College, St-Hilda`s (more on the College system another time) and shared by myself and 5 fellow Hilda graduate students. We`re 4 girls and 2 guys, 3 master and 3 doctorate candidates, all in different fields. (We think that we'd make a pretty kick-ass pub quiz team!) We all get along very well, especially the three new Oxonians: J, an Englishman who's doing a D.Phil in Organic Chemistry; A, a German-who-studied-in-France vying for a master's in history; and myself, well...you know. The house is fairly cosy and sadly lacks a living room, but our kitchen is decent and we have a backyard! Now if only we could have more than ONE shower and ONE fridge for all six of us, I'd be even happier...

Our backyard, complete with half-rotten apple tree and neglected greenery.

Our yard is actually connected to our neighbour 25A's: also fellow graduate Hildabeasts. We hang out a lot and had a BBQ in their part of the yard last Sunday; t'was great fun!

As for my room...well, I actually have two rooms. Which is probably a blessing in disguise, but let me tell you that I was NOT happy to only find out about the split-room arrangement once I got here. I have a teeny tiny bedroom on one end of the 2nd floor, and a considerably larger study on the other side. (I think I'm meant to get my priorities straight this way?) I keep going back and forth, but Lordie, the floor creaks like you wouldn`t believe. I feel

My bedroom. It is TINY.

My study, which has considerably more space and...furniture, huh.

 Most of my furniture is quite old and my walls are in bad need of a fresh coat of paint (too many generations of student putting up posters), but it`s functional and clean. I guess it's charming in a slightly decrepit and shabby-chic-with-leftover-curtains-from-the-70s kind of way?

I quite like the area where we are living too. St-Hilda is known as being relatively "far" from the center of the city, being on the other side of Madgalen Bridge. (By "far", I mean that it takes me less than 20 minutes to walk to the Rad Cam.)  It's also relatively "new" for an Oxford college, being "only" 118 years young and doesn`t have extremely large grounds. The consequence of all this is that almost all the graduate students live in houses like mine, dotted around Cowley and Iffley Roads and owned by the College. This part of the city is less historical and more residential, so it actually feels like we`re living in the actual city of Oxford, as opposed to to its museum-like center. There`s also roughly 5 cafés, 10 pubs and 50 eateries within 5 minutes of where I live, so hey, I'm pretty happy.