1: My bus pass expires one week tomorrow
2: I am poor
This is something I should get used to seeing printed onto my receipts, as my impending 3 year London art degree is not set to be an inexpensive affair.
Unfortunately, I am left with the dilemma: do I buy a £72 4-week-South-East-all-zones bus ticket for my last bit of time here?
About this time last year I spent £528 on an annual student saver ticket, which sounds a lot, but considering the 80 minute return journey from Thame to Oxford is now £5.50, it paid itself off in fewer than 100 journeys. College took up three days of the week and work an additional two (both in Oxford) and I would occasionally make 4 journeys on the 280 in one day if I wanted to go back in for the evening. (Funnily enough everybody will tell you that living in London is a big commute, but I live a 13 minute walk from one of University buildings and 20 minutes on the underground from the other. It’ll be bliss.)
When college finished I was tutoring in Oxford for 5 days a week, but for the last 2 weeks I have found myself missing the 280 somewhat. I have still travelled in to work and shop, or just to get away from Thame, and the idea of having to start paying in cash whenever I want to get out of the sticks is incredibly disheartening.
But am I really going to go in that much? Let’s face it, the bus is shit. It’s always late, it’s never clean, it leaks when it rains (and this is England, it rains a lot.) It’s full of loud teenagers or smelly old people, and recently I had to inform the bus driver that the floor of the top deck was incrusted with somebody’s vomit. Charming.
Things I like doing in Oxford, or would like to do before September the 8th (moving away date)
- People watching in Starbucks
- Spending money I don’t actually have anymore
- Jenny Saville exhibition at Modern Art Oxford needs revisiting
- There are plenty of bars and pubs I’ve not visited enough…
- Charity shop shopping in Headington
- Noticing and being noticed by people who I know and that awkward thing where neither of you wave or say hi cos you don’t know how close you actually are and no one wants to make really idle chit chat cos everyone has somewhere to be
- Going into work when I’m not working to make the people who are working really miserable
- Open mic nights
You know what fuck it I don’t like Oxford and I don’t like Thame and I just want to move already.
Listen to this if you have functioning ear drums which need a treat. It’s about a city and so is this entry, kind of.
City called me so I came - it isn't mine to question what it said. I sleep until the point when I'm awake, I walk until there's nothing left to tread. And everyone was looking for an answer and everyone was waiting for a break. I came and I was bored of it soon after but I had nowhere to go and so I stayed; I dreamed a lifetime of this place, it seemed an awful thing to waste.
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