In those days, the two universities still set their own joint entrance exams. Applying to study Oriental Studies, Arabic (a culture and language) with preparation in science subjects (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry) was somewhat unusual. For someone to apply whose academics were more in the nature of ‘gaming the system’ than truly solid was even more unusual. If one believes that an Oxford education was what I needed A Village Girl Takes an Unusual Path to Oxford at the time (debatable), then I truly was lucky with the way it (Or, How the Impact of Luck Can Match that of Privilege)turned out. In preparation for the Oxbridge Physics entrance exam, I decided to learn the basics and wing it from there. In the exam room, I spent an hour calculating the pressure of a gas from first principles (molecules bouncing off walls-type-thing) and became short of time. For subsequent questions, I explained what calculations I would perform and why, laying out the various principles and equations I would use, without doing the arithmetic. Thus, the examiners saw my strengths (foreseeing and solving the traps in their tricky questions), but not my ANNE RESCUES A RUNAWAY KYAK weaknesses (making stupid arithmetic mistakes). For the chemistry exam, I memorized the periodic table and – some were nice, sweet, and gentle; others were dishonest or winged it from there. For the maths exam, I learned calculus unkind, etc. I concluded that people who used their intelligence inside-out and back-to-front (good for four questions – for the good of others were OK; those who built themselves applicants were asked to answer any five out of about twenty- up at others’ expense were less admirable. five questions). Depth was better than breadth, it appears. But perhaps the most important lesson of all for me, having Later, when the acceptance telegram arrived from Oxford studied Middle Eastern Literature in some depth, was that University, it was addressed to SHAW, at our home address, so the great literature of other times and places spoke to me Gill and I did not know until we opened it which of the twins as cogently as the great literature of my own world. Perhaps had got lucky. ‘Place offered read Oriental Studies,’ it said. they explored the humanities differently, perhaps their culture Fortunately, Gill got hers from Cambridge a few days later. solved societal challenges differently, but I thought Middle ‘Place offered read Physics.’ Eastern authors wrestled with the same human themes as we Upon arrival at Oxford, I was told I had failed the two language do, and with similar sophistication. exams, but had done extremely well in Physics and Maths. Over Today, I am glad that I did not spend an academic life the next three years, in our respective academic programmes searching for the roots of consciousness within the human at our respective Universities, my sister excelled; I scraped by. brain, as I had planned before my summer away, via studies But I learned a great deal in terms of my own worldview. For in Philosophy, Physiology, and Psychology. I no longer believe example, at the University of Oxford, smart people were a dime that consciousness resides in the physical brain. Or if by any a dozen. You could not avoid them, however much you might chance it does, what would be the point of discovering it? As have wanted to. Yet, apart from their braininess, they were a a spiritual master might say, ‘Such discoveries are not wrong; community with the full gamut of human blessings and foibles merely trivial…’ ANNE CARRYING KAYAK TO RIVER ANNE IN KAYAK, WITH SWANS 27