Sarah Kate Lane-Reticker

My spring at M-CMRS flew by. What stands out as I sort through the hundreds of photos that my friends and I took around the city and on weekend excursions in the UK and Europe: the friends I made on the Keble College rowing team and in CMRS, the celebratory champagne we opened after our race on the Thames, a sunset lighting up the spires of the colleges, churches, and libraries. The enormous cups of coffee that I never used to drink before Oxford. Lying in the Botanic Gardens reading Brideshead Revisited. Playing card games in The King’s Arms. Hours of free museums.

And then there are the backstories and the things that passed unphotographed: the vast number of pages of modern British novels and 18^th century women’s travel writing that I read and wrote about. Weekly one-on-one discussions with some truly brilliant tutors. The chaos of the city sidewalks. Eating chips (aka French fries) in the JCR, arguing about politics, and watching movies.



Looking back, it’s not what I expected, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.