"Teddy" "Hall" "Teddy" "Hall" "TEDDY TEDDY" "HALL HALL"

Here's a bit about where I am physically and mentally.

St Edmund Hall is one of the oldest colleges at Oxford. They think it was formed sometime around 1152 (which makes it older than the oldest known pub in Ireland, The Brazen Head). About fifty years or so later, the first written documents of proof of teaching were found.

St Edmund Hall is also known as Teddy Hall. It is also one of the smallest colleges, having around 400 students both under- and post-graduates. Our colours are like Gryffindor's, gold and maroon, yet our mascot has a bird akin to a raven on it.

 

However, from what I've understood through our inductions and the formal dinner last night, Teddy Hall is for the best of the best, and it sounds more like Ravenclaw to me, beg my Harry Potter.

I have noticed that Teddy Hall's inductions have mainly concerned two things (apart, of course from safety and security, as well), and those are namely, to maintain being the best academically and in as many other facets of our lives cultivated through the college, and also to be mentally sound. The Dean's welcome today echoed these two concepts for forty five minutes, and,  just now, I have realized, as I am sitting down to begin my first essay, that Teddy Hall is a place where students are pushed. Here, the pressure to be the best of the best exists, and it has a very tangible presence. Like Dr King (my Philosophy tutor) said last night, "I'm only kind the first session, then I expect nothing but your best, of course, but, not the best in general, as that is simply unobtainable in a single term."  Chortle, chortle, chortle.

Here, I, and we, will be challenged unlike anything we have ever experienced before. No amount of parental pressure, peer pressure, academic pressure, personal pressure has ever amounted to the feeling of pressure I feel now. This is a physical pressure, that you can feel in your knees and stomach that comes via the eyes of all of the other students around you. They're the best, are you? This is the kind of mental pressure that evokes physical pressure and incites anxiety, euphoria and immense discomfort. This is a testing kind of pressure.

But yes, I think this is the kind of pressure that fuels great minds. The kind of pressure that motivates from within and burns with a desire to catch you aflame and transform you.

And I am ready.