05.05.2021

just oxford looking lovely 🤎

i went down on wednesday night as i had to be there thursday - saturday. i didn't actually have any interviews of thursday so i had a free day to explore the city and met lots of lovely new friends. on friday, however i had both my spanish and my linguistics interview.

i honestly can't tell how they went, but they weren't horrific which is probably a good thing !

in spanish i was given pre-reading of a poem (which tirned out to be 'rima lii' by bécquer) and i was pleasantly surprised because i found it fairly easy to talk about - there was a lot of natural imagery and fatalism, it was quite interesting. they asked me about why i wanted to study spanish and my brain a bit blank but i managed to say something, then we spoke about the poem and then about 'de barro estamos hechos' which i wrote about in my personal statement, and to be honest it's all a bit of a blur but i think i said something fairly intelligent. one of the interviewers challenged everything i was saying which is their job but was a bit off-putting and scary. after that, they gave me a sheet with english phrases to translate on the spot which is more of my wheelhouse than literature , i made a couple of mistakes in grammar but when i did they suggested where i needed to make a change and i was able to correct myself pretty much straight away thankfully.

then in the afternoon, i had my linguistics interview which i did feel a lot more confident for because i think i can express my ideas a lot more and give more evidence. i was asked how my interest in linguistics came about and then about trilingual language acquisition which i spoke about on my personal statement and was challenged a lot about my preference of input theory over nativism - once again, a bit scary. they then gave me a sheet with sierra-leonne krio phrases and their english translations to speak about which was a god-send because i've been learning about world english in english lessons so i could talk about english influence from colonialism, grammar and phonetics.

overall it was a really fun time, i met loads of new people and made good friends and i really really like brasenose its so pretty !

One might presume that having spent all of last weekend bashing out blog after blog in a mad dash of diminishing returns to catch up with the latest broadcast that I wouldn’t leave it until the day of the new episode to do this weeks, especially given all the promises I made in those blogs that I would stay on schedule henceforth. 

But one would also presume that an entire parliament might not leave it until three days before a deadline to admit that they are no closer to solving the biggest issue their country has faced in half a century than they were three years ago, especially given all of the promises they had made about no longer erring from designated timelines... (little bit of Brexit for you there, in case you weren’t already full up).

However, unless the bout of the sniffles (whose sneeze velocity caused me to scare no fewer than two old ladies on the bus home) strikes me down any more than it already has (note as well that I am on the Lemsips as we speak) then I should get this done just in time for tonight’s final first round match.

The penultimate first rounder saw Imperial College London face off against Brasenose College, Oxford. Imperial have won The Challenge twice, both under Paxman, most recently in 2001, losing to Somerville Oxford as they tried to defend their crown the following year. Brasenose has the kind of old-timey name that makes it sound like it should be a classic Oxford college on the show, but in fact they’ve never made it past the second round since 1995 (and even then they went through as a high scoring loser, so they are yet to win a match under Paxo)

There are three Americans in the field tonight, and its Haugh, one of two on the Brasenose team, who takes the first starter, winning the buzzer race on an easy starter thats about speed more than knowledge. HIs skipper Hanson comes in on the first clue of the next Ten pointer, and it would have been pretty impressive had he known the nationality of the women’s triple jump winner at Rio 2016, but he doesn’t, and Imperial can steal in for their first points of the night. Imperial took two more in a row to open up a healthy 40-point lead.

A neg knocked five off of that, but Brasenose failed to capitalise, only managing a scoff from Paxman instead (Scott Joplin is not Cole Porter). That missed opportunity would prove costly. Brandon (both his surname and his chosen moniker, unless his full name is Brandon Brandon), wearing a jumper emblazoned with the Pokemon Gengar, cleans up a dropped buzz from Mullan and Imperial march (dun dun dun dun dudun dun dudun) out to a triple figure lead.

And all that before Brandon really got started. He would claim seven Starters over the course of the match, but when not buzzing he looks almost asleep, his face resting on his hand until he hears a cue word and startles himself into action. Seven could have been more too, and he looked quite annoyed with skipper Rich on several occasions when beaten to the punch. And despite his drowsy demeanour he moves his head like a dog at a doorbell when Paxman mentions botany - apparently his buddy Brooks is a big botany boy.

Brasenose don’t seem like a bad side, but they are steamrolled by Imperial, who posted the highest score of the first round so far (with only one match left for someone to beat them).

Final Score: Imperial 255 - 70 Brasenose