As an official employee of the US Play Coalition, I take my duty to play very seriously. I know play builds a happy, healthy brain, thus I endeavor to play as much as possible including while participating in an international conference, something others might consider a rather formal event. For my part, during the 2nd Global Making Sense of: Play Conference (okay, so it wasn’t like I was playing during a gathering of nuclear physicists) I seized a great opportunity to engage in imaginative play and pretend I was an Oxford University student. If for only a few days, I could live out my Rhodes Scholar dream, which is what they most certainly were in looking back, but that’s another matter.
Here is the pictorial version of my life as an Oxford student, and who knows, maybe my dream will come true one day.
If I was an Oxford student, I might be a member of Mansfield College, the Nonconformist college – seems like it would be a good fit.
If I was, I would most certainly drink Mansfield College wine.And I would eat in this grandiose dining hall.With a selection of not just one Heinz condiment in a packet, but SIX! And to think, if you mixed and matched: there are 64 possible combinations, BUT if the order of the mixing mattered, you could have 720 combinations!! Take that for non-conforming. (Note: math may not be entirely correct, been a while since I was in math class.)I might sit with my friends and discuss what we had learned that day.Between bites, I could admire the stained glass windows around me.Maybe on Friday night, we would go out to eat.Then have a drink at the pub.This kind of drink, perhaps.Then come home late, ready to sleep.On Saturday morning, I might wake up and go for a run and see these flowers.I would admire the other colleges behind their impressive gates.Yes, lots of gates.Gates standing guard in front of architecture that is centuries old.I might come home from my run to my quiet room.And while catching my breath, answer a few emails before heading for the hall shower.Clean, I would make my way to the Bodleian.To visit some magical books!I doubt I would ever grow tired of seeing the Unicorn.After connecting with the past in the library, I might be reminded to connect with the present by guerrilla knitters – a playful sort. Maybe more nonconformists.Maybe I would stop in the church next door to the library, a good quiet place for thinking and dreaming.I might even look up at the starry ceiling and make a wish.If the skies looked clear, I might climb up the tower, noting the creative window solutions on my way.And laugh at the grotesques so carefully crafted.The view from the top would be worth the climb.Appreciating the scope and age of the structures before me would be a challenge to confront another time.After climbing down, I might make my way to a bend in the river, and watch the punting tourists hold up traffic on the waterway. A little light entertainment.Surely after a run and wandering all over town, I would have earned my ice cream.Maybe later I would indulge in Pimm’s – the long island’s UK cousin – while catching up with friends on their morning and afternoon.And at the true close to the day, I would return home. I would ask Erasmus, the Mansfield feline, how his day was, and I imagine he would respond with his usual nonchalance. Content, I would sleep and return to my studies first thing Sunday.
