Hello, welcome back to the podcast. I hope everyone's doing well. Today's a special day for me because I just finished all three of my exams.

I feel so relieved. The past week has been really difficult and stressful for me. I think I averaged around five and a half hours of sleep.

It's just that I had to wake up around seven or eight for my exams at 9.30am but then I couldn't really get into sleep before 2am so it was just very difficult. I was revising every day, just worrying about my progress and I feel like I wasn't really prepared and the content was really difficult but I'm just glad that it's done and over. Today after we finished our last exams we all went to the pub to celebrate.

The weather has been so nice this week. I think the fact that I'm still feeling okay and feeling like I can keep going is due to the weather being so nice. Otherwise after being heavily sleep deprived plus not doing well in exams would make me feel really bad but I'm just happy that it is summer around the corner.

You can really feel it, temperatures rising and I think we're getting blue skies, sunny days every day of this following week as well so I'm just looking forward to it. Anyways, I want to record this podcast because I'm now approaching the end of my first year here in Oxford. I've got one more year left.

I'm just so happy and so grateful that my degree is two years. It would be so sad if I'm finishing my one year masters so this episode is just going to be the things that I like and the things that I don't like throughout this year in Oxford. So let's get straight into it.

The first thing I've got on my like list is it's a very peaceful life in here especially comparing to the past three years I've spent in London. If you don't know I did my undergrad in LSE which is located in central London. I lived within walking distance to campus so I lived like literally in the most central place you can imagine in London.

I think I've always been a city girl, I just enjoy the convenience and the number of things to do, the possibilities in cities but it's just nice to have a switch up. Oxford is quite small in terms of the central area. Oxford is actually not small but the university is pretty much located in the central area so it's pretty walkable which is you don't really get in in other cities like London for example.

A lot of people have a bike, I don't even think I need a bike. I personally quite like walking so any anywhere within 30 minutes I'm up for a walk you know and also I think the fact that I don't have a bike pushes me to walk more otherwise like I wouldn't get in any forms of exercise. Also Oxford is very quiet and peaceful, it's just this specific vibes of historical and cultural and academic.

It's a pretty unique and quintessential English town that I'd imagine so I think I'll forever cherish these two years in Oxford just because it's so different. It's definitely one of a live experience. Yeah I really enjoy being in a smaller town compared to a city.

I know that I probably won't prefer a lifestyle like this wherever but two years in my life I think I can take it. The second thing I've got is Oxford has an exceptional music scene. So if you don't know I am a singer, I'm currently a choral scholar in my college choir.

Oxford and Cambridge are known to be very good in their choral scenes so most of the colleges have their chapels and most of the chapels have their own residential choir which is the college chapel choir. The best choirs in Oxford and Cambridge operate at a semi-professional standard. For example the choir that I am in is known to be quite prestigious in Oxford.

It's one of the best mixed voices choirs in Oxford. We have three services every week, we rehearse a lot and we also have like ad hoc concerts and recordings. So for example literally the start of this next term, Trinity term, we are having concerts and recording schedules non-stop.

On Saturday we're giving three performances with the Scottish Ensemble and then we're having more rehearsals and Sunday is the St Mark's Day which is also the 150th anniversary of the college chapel so it's quite big and they invited the Chancellor of Oxford to speak, to preach. And then on Monday and Tuesday we're doing a BBC recorded Evensong. This is all upon the schedule of the normal three services a week so it's a lot but this is also the best choir I've ever sung with.

The level of sight singing, the level of abilities in this choir is really high. They're all really good singers. I think I've always been one of the strongest singers in my past choirs and now I'm kind of like on the weaker end.

My section has a really really strong singer and I really like singing with her. Being in this challenging singing environment is what makes you improve quicker and also the fact that we get to go on choir tour abroad. As mentioned in my last episode we went to America for 10 days and it's all paid for.

That American trip is definitely the highlight of this year. On that note the third thing I have is I love my college. I think picking what college you are at is like probably makes up 50% of your experience in Oxford in general and this percentage will only go up in undergrad.

I think in masters it matters less especially a lot of postgrad students they don't live on site or like their college doesn't provide the accommodation so they don't actually have a close relationship with the college but for me college is a very big part of my life in Oxford. Apart from singing in the college choir I also live in college accommodations. Our college is not really rich but it's quite decent.

I think it's like comfortable in the middle somewhere and it's not super old, it's not super new, it's like one of the oldest in the newest. As I said celebrating 150 years. The postgrad accommodation, the accommodation that I'm living in right now is very nice, it's very newly built, all the equipment and the facilities are very good.

We have a common room that I spend time playing board games in every Saturday till 4am, that makes up a big part of my entertainment. We have a very nice hall that we get to have formal and informal meals in, it's just such a bliss to eat in a beautiful hall. The MCR which is the kind of committee that arranges everything of our activities, they're very active and they plan a lot and sometimes I participate in their activities and they're quite nice.