The Oxford interview.

My analogy that compared "From the underground stain of a decayed Viking." to an unwanted stain of tea made them smile.
But did it impress them?


I enjoyed both of my interviews.
That's what I tell everyone and it's exactly how I feel.
I also enjoyed the waiting around that consisted of meeting and talking to complete strangers, eating biscuits, and attaining phone numbers of attractive academics who, in any other situation I feel wouldn't have looked at me twice.
But I was one of them.
I felt like I was one of them and I still feel that I am, one of them.


When I decided to apply to Wadham College. I had no intention of allowing my imagination to indulge into "Harry Potter world" and make the entire place seem magical.
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week; I did.
I quickly made friends out of anxiety and when a third year undergraduate shouted, "Applicants, follow me." My baggy school hoodie turned into an overgrown black cloak and my sonic screwdriver that I'd shoved into my bag for luck turned into a brand new wand, bought from Ollivanders of course.
My heart didn't sink when Dumbledore wasn't sat at the head table and I spilt gravy down my top. instead, it lifted itself into the realisation that this situation was real.
I'd done it. I'd fucking well done it!
Despite certain teachers telling me that I wasn't good enough and tears of post-summer self confusion, I had had made it to the interview stage for Oxford University and I was spilling gravy, talking with a thick northern accent, and feeling totally at home in a setting that many would see as only for the privileged.


There were no wankers and no polished off public school boys. Just people like me, who wanted to do well.
Everyone was so different and yet in so many ways the same.
The interviews siv out the tasty soup of possible students that is cooked up in the Okinaga room.
I still can't say it.


I didn't get drunk, which is a disappointment compared to the Oxbridge College trip, but hey ho I ate Ice Cream outside Christ Church in December and referred to the choir boys as "Orange people."


Everyone seemed to like me, I seemed to like everyone.
Let's just hope the letter I receive in two weeks time isn't a rejection.
If it is, I shall train myself to doublethink (newspeak term) and lose all memory of this wonderful experience.


It never existed.