Days of Hiking on Park Street -- Bristol

Time:2014-05-26 09:37:34 Clicks:

By Xin LI from 2007 International Business (2)

The memories are so clear and they come up together in my mind, I can tell every detail from the start of the year in Bristol. Wills Memorial Building is the icon of Bristol city, it’s the highest building in Bristol, and It’s the building of law school of Bristol University as well. I lived for a year under the slope of Wills, and everyday I need to hike on Park Street to go to the class.

The Emirates fight landed at London Heathrow Airport on Aug. 7, 2011. Afternoon, slightly raining, we are tired but refreshing. Welcome to England, I said to myself. This is the very beginning of the year. We booked two cars to pick us at the airport. On the road heading to Bristol, nearly no one talks in the car, and everyone looks out of window. Outside are large grasslands, one after another, with some sheet eating on it. Rain makes the air pure, seems like no dust at all. Looking at the old buildings along the road, I can’t help thinking: this is England, the building seems so old and colour drab, unlike the architectural styles in Europe which are multiple and colourful. This may reflect the boring year I will spend here. But I’m wrong.

The fun life begins from the language course. I live with other four students in a flat. All of us are in the language course, but from different classes. The flat is non-en suite; at first I thought it would be very inconvenient to share a bathroom. Afterwards, it turns out that instead of inconvenience, sharing a bathroom brings us more chances to communicate. We become very good friends shortly. Every day, we go to class together, and after class we go shopping together in Sainsbury on our way back home. We cook together, and we even have a schedule for each person to make meals for everyone. After dinner is chat time, we talk about everything, and we play card games. And quickly, the language course ended, we need to move into another flat for the rest of the year.

Chantry Court is the building where I live during the postgraduate program. My flat consists of four rooms, and we have our own bathroom and a shared kitchen. Maybe because the separate bathroom or different class schedule, the communication is much less than that in language flat. Since then, I began to feel a little bit lonely. Luckily, soon after I’ve met many new friends, some classmates, some people from the same hometown. The party time began. Cooking together, hanging out to some local bars and clubs, chats, games and so on.

The classes in UK are different from that in China. The class form consists of lecture, seminar, discussion and tutorial, while in China most classes are in form of lectures. The major class form of my postgraduate study is seminar, which consists of 12 students from all over the world. Each class has a subject which we need to read relevant material before class. During the class, we will discuss several topic under the subject that provided by tutor. Each person has a opportunity to do a presentation in front of class for one week topic. She/he needs to prepare very well before the class, because she/he need to summarize the subject, and pose some questions for class discussion. I thought it is very easy to give a presentation because I have done many in my undergraduate time. But I quickly realized that my presentation was so unprofessional. In academic presentation, there is little words, nearly no pictures, no animations at all. In contrast, some charts and table need to be shown. In addition, the language we use in a presentation also has some rules. It would be better if we use the oral English or some words that easily understood. It’s a bad idea to read or just recite in a presentation. If we can communicate well with the audience, the presentation will be much better…

There are some NGOs in Bristol city, for example, Oxfam, a charity organization in Britain. It contains different kinds of second hands shops. I applied to work as a volunteer in one of its shops --- Oxfam book shop in Bristol. The shop is alongside the Park Street, just opposite to the Bristol Memorial Building. I work twice a week, to sell the books to people and collect money for poverty places in different areas of the world. I’ve met many friends when I worked in Oxfam, they are students from different countries, and all of us appreciate the way Oxfam runs. It saves the books and papers, and it also helps to reduce poverty in some districts.

This one-year life seems so long when I am in Bristol, but now I really realize how precious it is to my life. What it brings to me is not only a certificate, but experiences of living in afar, learning to mature.