Oxford is a strange place. Each term is eight weeks. That’s twenty-four weeks of university a year. That means for twenty-eight weeks of the academic year you are not at university. That means that each academic year you are not at university for longer than you are at university. Everyone acts like that’s normal but it really is not. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s completely nuts. Tell literally anyone from a different university or walk of life about this and I promise you that they too will think it is completely nuts.
“Ok”, a rational person may think, “That’s weird that your terms are so short but at least that means you have less work. Right?” Wrong. A typical humanity student at UCL, a highly reputable institution, can expect four or five essays a term. At Oxford you can expect at least twelve. Sometimes sixteen, depending on how your course is structured. That’s a workload multiple times heavier than a normal university’s in a term that’s two weeks shorter. Again, this is absolutely nuts. Maybe this system worked in medieval times, when the colleges were basically monastic communities and there wasn’t much else to do besides read and write anyway. Perhaps each term was viewed as a form of penance back then.
Anyway. I’m getting side-tracked moaning about the system, a pursuit which is bound to be about as fruitful as arguing with a brick wall. The point is, this system wisely engineered by our betters, the all-knowing and unquestionable university bureaucrats (by the way, who is actually in charge of this place? Is anyone? What is a Proctor? Why do they carry those staffs? Probably to strike us peasants if we dare to get in their way), makes for a very intense term. When you add on the plethora of extra circulars and social engagements that every over-achieving Oxford student is bound to have, each term is so intense that you barely have time to step back and process what on earth is going on.
There are times when things get so busy that you feel like you are drowning, and the only thing keeping you going is the light at the end of the tunnel, the end of term in sight; “only two more weeks”, you think to yourself, “I can do two more weeks. Everything will be fine in two weeks”. In these times it’s hard to conceive of a worse situation. But then something worse does happen. It ends. Unceremoniously and abruptly, like a car crashing into a tree, the term just ends. You suddenly go from having constant deadlines weighing down on you like Sisyphus’ stone to having none. You go from constantly being surrounded by friends (and maybe foes) to being surrounded by what feels like no one.
Oxford is a place of extremes. I’m convinced that the human being isn’t built for these extremes. The human being likes some degree of constancy and predictability. When you go from a highly pressured and structured period of time to 6 weeks (which is too long for a vacation by the way) of the exact opposite, there are bound to be consequences. These consequences manifest themselves in a feeling that I call vacation limbo; a feeling of aimlessness and loss of purpose where you just do not know what to do with yourself once term has ended. It is a feeling that I have documented well in myself and countless others that I have spoken to. Its symptoms have a remarkable similarity and its cause has reliably been described in the way that I have discussed in this article. We must, then come up with some ways to combat this feeling, this illness. We must overcome the antagonist of this story, Oxford University, which has, in the way described, set itself up directly against the human being and its nature.
I will end this article by briefly offering a few tips that I have found useful in this battle. I do not offer these in a haughty manner as someone who has it all figured out, but meekly and humbly, as much for my benefit as yours, as I constantly need to remind myself to do these things to stay fighting fit.
Firstly, I would really recommend doing regular exercise. Even if you really do not feel like exercising or you just don’t think of yourself as a sporty person I promise that you will feel better for having done it. There is so much choice when it comes to exercise, there’s bound to be at least one type that you at least don’t hate. Regular exercise can add much needed structure to the vacation and the boost of endorphins can help make that limbo feeling a thing of the past.
Secondly, I would try to meet with friends whenever you can. It can be as simple as getting coffee with home friends every couple of days; some sort of forced social interaction to make you feel human again so that you are not just stewing at home for weeks on end seeing no one except maybe your family, which feels incredibly unnatural when you have been at university for a while.
Lastly, I would suggest trying to organise the holiday in some way. I am quite a tactile person so I print out a calendar, mark out when the vacation starts and ends, and when I am doing fun things. This helps to get a hold on the vast expanse of time which can otherwise turn into a leviathan which you can hardly think about. I would also mark out when you are going to be working and when you are going to be relaxing; allocating specific periods of time to relax is essential, as you can finally let loose in the knowledge that you have assigned specific periods to work. As a serial procrastinator, trying to start work early on can be incredibly helpful, as this helps to avoid the feeling that you can never relax because you have so much to do.
And so, my friends, I will stop writing as I have already probably said more that I am qualified to. It’s funny how this article just kind of ends.
