Conversation starters

Earlier this year we escaped the UK during the coldest part of winter and spent five weeks in Australia. It was wonderfully manic as we caught up on 18 months' with friends and family. One question, or at least a similar version, arose in virtually every exchange I had. How is life in Oxford?

Oddly enough, when we arrived back here this came up in conversation with several of our Australian friends who had also headed home for the break, and faced the same question. It's such a simple query, but none of us knew where to start. I realise it was not intended to be probing and in most cases the asker was hoping for a short succinct answer. Which is hardly my forte. I like using as many words as possible. So if they were wanting short, they'd asked the wrong person.

My answers varied wildly depending on the person asking and the time available to fill. As time went on I didn't get any better at responding. I didn't know how to articulate my take on life here. Five months on, having devoted many many minutes of thought to the topic, I'm just about ready to conquer it.

Because I've now got such a lovely captive audience I might as well share my conclusions. Especially because you are likely to be someone who asked, and got a jumbled answer of mush in response. Given my inclination to use lots and lots of words, I'm going to spread this topic over a few posts.

Eighty per cent of the time, life here is very similar to life anywhere else I've lived. Food needs to be bought and cooked, bills need to be paid, personal administrative tasks need ignoring attention, clothes washed, friends caught up with, houses tidied, babies fed, television watched, emails read. The list goes on. It's just life.

But. There is something about living here that's quite different.

I'm aware the following sentence sounds highly pretentious and conceited. The irony is, it's the absence of those exact traits which makes this observation all the more remarkable. There is something extraordinary about the people here. There. I said it. It sounds terrible but hear me out.

I had concerns prior to moving here about the arrogance and intellectual snobbery that could breed in a place like this. It is a prestigious university and I wondered whether that would intoxicate the students. I have absolutely encountered individuals who confirmed those fears but their obscurity makes them all the more comical when encountered.

The overwhelming majority of students I've met here are humble, interesting and understated. It's rarely overt but scratch the surface and you will find a very clever, passionate person. No one falls into Oxford. You don't wake up one morning to discover you've been enrolled in a masters course in international relations. Or worse, a masters in Russian philosophy.

Anyone studying here has inevitably travelled an interesting path. They're driven and they're engaged. And that makes for pretty good company. If all my small talk fails, I ask why they came here. I have spent many lunches, drinks and dinners transfixed by the company of various students. Often people I'd be unlikely to strike up lifelong friendships with. But they're interesting. Not in a pretentious sense, but in the sense that they can tell me about things I didn't even know existed. It's a rare occasion here when I don't come home feeling a little bit inspired by someone I've met.

For me, that's the defining feature of life in Oxford. Other highlights – which I'll write about in later posts - include the joy of existing in a university bubble, the eccentricities of the English undergraduates and meeting some truly truly accomplished individuals. One of whom I will devote an entire post to soon.