ISABELA MIRANDA GOMES

What a joy to be writing to you. Whilst we reflect on the amazing term we had – January blues had nothing compared to Clarendon’s will to have fun and spend time together – we look forward to the times ahead of us (brace yourselves for our Clarendon Ball!).

This was the first full term under the new Clarendon Council leadership and this time we have 22 (!) scholars committed to bringing interesting, engaging and diverse activities and events to the Clarendon community. We kicked off the first couple of weeks of Hilary Term with a Games Night (and pizza, of course) and a relaxing yoga session with our lovely instructor and ‘22 Council member, Kasia. Let's also not forget our amazing Chinese and Lunar New Year event where we shared traditions and great cuisine to welcome in the Year of Rabbit.

In weeks three and four, to celebrate our diverse community, we had a Cultural Potluck Dinner at LMH with dishes that tasted like home and stories that brought us closer to each other’s cultures! Later on, Clarendon Book Club met at Keble College to discuss 'The Trees' by Percival Everett – a bold and provocative book that questions racism and police violence. We also launched four tours with Uncomfortable Oxford, learning all about the hidden histories of the British empire, and the racial, class-based, and gendered discrimination that surround us, highlighting how these legacies have an enduring impact on our lives today.

Valentine’s Day fell on week five and seemed like a great excuse to go and share the love at Disco Ice Skating! We also went to a magic (yes, magic) brunch at Christ Church. In week seven, we ventured (just) a little bit further from Oxford and checked out TEDx Manchester. March also meant it was time to celebrate the powerful and brilliant women in our community. Obviously, one day isn’t enough to celebrate our amazing Clarendon women, so we celebrated for three! At our International Women’s Day High Tea event, we had the chance to discuss the timeline of women’s scholarship here in Oxford and the significant gap between the founding of the university and the admission of women.

Phew! This has been a busy term full of celebration. But fear not, this is not the end of the fun. Many events filled with joy and celebration await us in Trinity Term! Get ready to don your gowns and/or dinner jackets and let’s party the evening away at our May Day Ball!

Well, if ever there was a time for Clarendon’s customary clutch of events, it’s Hilary Term. Formal dinners, board game nights, ice skating, the book club, and brunch at Christ Church have done a fantastic job of tempering those soggy days and chilly evenings and, if not quite lessening our collective postgraduate workload, brightening it up somewhat.

Hilary Term is normally the term of the biggest transition, I think — beginning as it does in the very middle of winter and ending with daffodils and those first don’t-need-acoat days, the promise of sunny Trinity Term just around the corner: endless days of punting and picnics, watching nervous crowds of undergraduates hare around the city in their subfusc, the return of the Clarendon Ball..!

To all our Scholars, I hope you have a very pleasant and/or productive Easter vacation (delete as applicable!), and enjoy reminiscing about Hilary Term 2023.

We’ve kept ourselves busy this term with our regular events getting literary with the Book Club, getting chill with yoga classes as well as a variety of exciting one-off events, both in Oxford and further afield. We celebrated our remarkable diversity (and remarkable appetites) at our Cultural Potluck dinner; headed up to Manchester to soak up some big ideas at the TEDx conference; and celebrated International Women’s Day with High Tea at the Ashmolean Museum. St Edmund Hall hosted us and the WHT Scholars for an indulgent Ninth Week dinner, and we rounded off the term with a pottery class!

While the second term is informally known as “Hell ary”, with its strenuous academic workload and unpredictable weather, I found it to be rather pleasant. From a course trip to UNESCO headquarters in Paris, to a range of improv comedy nights every Monday, to rejoicing at the colours of Holi, Hilary was a breeze!

Faryal Ashfaq, Diversity Officer, MSc Comparative and International Education