I lived here in the main St Hugh’s MCR building for two years while taking my M.Phil. in International Relations.

In the first year I was in a small room on the first floor just off to the left after the first flight of stairs. In the second year I was in the large room overlooking the back garden. Getting two years in this building was a bit of a bonus and may have had something to do with the fact that by the second year I was MCR President. That in itself was the result of some back-room deals after Sarah, the real President, left before the end of her term. Sometimes you can just be in the right place at the right time.

Speaking of which, this MCR building was also where I met Vicky. She was living on the top floor, at the front of the house, in the first year. She’d come back to the kitchen from her lab every day to slice up her tomatoes and toast her cheese on bread. It took an ex-girlfriend who'd come to visit me one day to tell me that Vicky might like me. I eventually asked her out.

It was also while living here that I met Mike and Victor - now two of my oldest friends. Mike is from the US and Victor from Russia, which seemed appropriate given what I was studying. Victor would walk all over Oxford and report back to us where he'd been. We couldn't keep up with him. Mike and I always had plans to visit Victor in St Petersburg, but of course when that would have been easier we never did it.

I remember so many other people from my time in Oxford, both living at the MCR house or on my course. I'll have to write more about it. It was a great couple of years during which I did not do enough studying and eventually decided that the life of academia wasn't for me. Probably the right decision.