*Ok, so I don’t actually mention conservatives in this blog post, although they’re lurking implicitly in the background. Nevertheless, I include them in the title for the satisfaction of a soundly evangelical three-points-beginning-with-the-same-letter approach for those of you who’ll appreciate that… My research proposal is getting me down. It’s technical, number-centred, and requires precision and…
I like the second half of the week. It’s when I exchange the classrooms of SOAS for the College of Northwest London where I mentor an Afghan teenager. Just back from there now. I’m internally warm from cycling through the frostiness but my ears are bright red, icy and tingling. Must get one of those…
Crying on public transport is always a bit embarrassing and it had been a while since I’d done it. Nonetheless, as I curled up on the Oxford Tube earlier this evening and watched the snowy surrounds of the M40 whizzing past, I found the tears streaming uncontrollably down my face. It was dark, the coach…
On Tuesday, before I got sick and drifted into a coma-like state for two days, I had a really great evening. It started out at the launch of a report by the Refugee Support Network (RSN), the charity that I’m volunteering with this year, which has researched the barriers facing young asylum seekers and refugees as they seek…
I’m sitting in Senate House library, daunted by the prospect of writing my next essay but geekily enjoying the wooden and booky smell of old-fashioned library and its creaky silence. I smile at the pile of books about multiculturalism that I’m chewing my way through and snuggle up in the solitude. I’m contemplating some very…
Last week I enjoyed one of the perks of studying at SOAS and went along to a random talk about the socio-political involvement and religious behaviour of Western Muslims. It sought to address questions like whether or not Islam’s transcendence of the civic sphere affects the political participation of Muslim people. That all sounds pretty…
… is the title of a film I watched yesterday. It’s a great documentary about young people from India living in London for a couple of years, and it charts their lives, thoughts, experiences and aspirations throughout that time. The title is a quote from one of the young men who, like the others, lives…
We sauntered down Cowley Road, full of Rice Box noodles and spicy spare ribs, to enjoy the milder, lighter evening and see who we’d bump into. I hadn’t realised there were so many Indians in Oxford. At any rate, most of them were out last night, euphorically celebrating their World Cup win. From groups…
emilyintheworld 