Merry Christmas, Part II

"No man is a failure who has friends." -It's a Wonderful Life

Another year is behind us. I would have to say that 2011 ended as quick as it started, whatever that is supposed to mean. It has been a truly incredible year, however, so some reflection on the events that have transpired will allow me to look back from the future with fondness upon this time of transition.

January - It's hard to believe a year has passed, but I ushered in 2011 in Epcot at Disney World with my dear friend Kalli. The trip was utterly amazing. We had road tripped from North Carolina to see the Wolfpack beat West VA in the Champs Sports Bowl. Shortly after our return, I was notified of my interview for Oxford, at which my future supervisor recommended that I change my application from Masters to DPhil for funding purposes. The month was not entirely rosy, however, as mom experienced complications following her surgery and prepared to begin chemotherapy.

February - Looking back, February was practically non-existant, but at the time it seemed to crawl. Mom started chemo and started having side effects. In Raleigh, I spent hours upon hours working with the amazing Liz S. to prepare a team to travel to Belize for spring break. I also started spending a good deal of time at the Constructed Facilities Laboratory (CFL) working on Steven's steel bents, Chad's concrete columns, and my own (sort of..) pipe buckling models. I also learned that I was officially accepted to Oxford! Woo!

March - At last, spring break arrived! Liz, Dr. Jones, and I traveled with 14 other NC State students to Belize. With the exception of one hitch, the trip was essentially perfect. We had a fantastic time meeting the contractor, our hosts from TCGA, and of course the wonderful Bol family (in whose hotel we resided). The climate and weather were beautiful, we bonded as a team, and we completed an important project for the families of Silver Creek. We even got in some snorkeling, spelunking, swimming, and hiking. For most people, returning to the US was rather unexciting, but when I turned on my smartphone on the Newark Int'l Airport tarmac, I found out that I had been offered full funding to Oxford through the Clarendon Scholarship. My group flipped out and I was giddy going through customs. Believe it or not, the next week I took a beach trip to Corolla, NC with the Franklin Scholars, as my final spring retreat. It was a great trip, but hard to imagine it would barely make the excitement list for March!

April - By now, things were beginning to wrap up for the year. I had my last concert with the Raleigh Civic Symphony. My parents came down from Herndon even though mom was struggling mightily with chemo. Director Dr. Foy did recognize me for my five years of service to the orchestra, saying that I would be missed greatly. Honestly, I miss the orchestra quite a lot as well. As the year drew to a close, final banquets also took place - I gave my long awaited words of wisdom to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, playing the NCSU and Meredith Alma Maters on my cello for the first time. The next day - the day of the British Royal Wedding - I hosted my last event as President of the Franklins, the Spring Feast & Banter cookout. Oh yeah, and I ran a 10k. That was fun.

May - At the beginning of the month, I was still working hard at CFL while wrapping up things on campus. The Franklin Scholars hosted the annual senior awards reception, at which I received my Franklin key and the elusive Porter award. I was extremely happy to have my friends Tyler and Rachael there as guests, since they were such an important part of my life at NC State. In addition to the Franklin reception, I also went to the Caldwell senior send-off, where I was recognized along with the class of 2011 for graduating! That brings me to... GRADUATION! My parents and aunt came into Raleigh for the weekend of festivities, including two graduation ceremonies and an excellent brunch by the aforementioned Tyler and Rachael. I left everything in Raleigh and headed on a ten day Hawaii vacation with my parents, visiting the Big Island, Kauai, and Oahu. Aside from the scenery, beaches, canyons, volcanoes, food, and Pearl Harbor, the wildlife was the most amazing thing I saw. When I returned home, I stripped my room, repainted, and ordered new carpeting!

June - Mom's final chemo treatment was on my birthday, a truly great gift! After a week at home visiting with friends, I headed back to Raleigh to take up full time work at CFL. Outdoor work was hot, but computer modeling was monotonous. Thankfully, I was able to break it up by taking a long weekend to New York City with the aforementioned Tyler and Rachael, along with another good Franklin friend, Zack. We saw Billy Elliot the musical, ate in Chinatown and Little Italy, visited Ground Zero and Battery Park, walked Times Square numerous times, went up Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler building, ate lunch in Central Park, checked out the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of History, and went to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I even ate some food cart gyros... and paid for it the next day.

July - For July fourth, I was fortunate to have the whole gang up from Raleigh to visit Herndon. Naturally, they included the aforementioned Tyler and Rachael, the aforementioned Zack, and also the aforementioned Kalli! We went to Harpers Ferry on a ridiculously hot day and attempted to go see the Capitol Fourth concert in DC the next day, but that ended up being (massively) rained out. On the fourth itself, however, we joined in the annual block party festivities, as mom and dad contributed some eight dishes including gluten free options for Kalli. It was massive. As July continued, I wrapped up a project for our partners in Belize which involved transferring twelve pages of hand sketches to AutoCAD, a computer drafting software. Work at CFL continued as usual while my roommate, Chris, and I packed up the apartment. At the end of the month, we said our goodbyes and parted ways.

August - Finally moved home, I procrastinated on packing for England to spend time reading and visiting with friends. I worked around the house a bit, but mostly just enjoyed my time. I also moved most of my stuff back into my bedroom, nearly finishing the process that began in May. I also took two weeks to travel to New England with mom. It was wonderful seeing my grandparents, the aforementioned Aunt Carolyn, and my Uncle David. Hiking Mount Katahdin and Pemetic Mountain was were among the best highlights of the summer. I also enjoyed seeing the Red Sox's last good baseball game of the year (against the Yankees) and spending 2 days in the dark as Hurricane Irene blew through. Sadly, I missed the great DC earthquake, but dad (and the entire Herndon/Raleigh facebook community) kept me informed.

September - At last, packing ensued in full force. Final preparations completed, mom, dad, and I boarded a plane on 23 Sep for a week and a half in London. The sightseeing was incredible, as noted in an earlier blog post. Looking back, I think my favorite places were the British Library and the London Eye, and my favorite activity was seeing Les Miserables. It was yet another incredible week, leading up to....

October - Oxford! The last three months have really been a blur, but I will nonetheless endeavor to discriminate between them. October was challenging for me from an academic standpoint. The research was slow, and I had trouble finding value in my work. Thankfully, it was outside the lab that made October great. I picked up ballroom dancing, and totally had a great time with it. I met several new friends, in particular a girl from Poland, named Ania, and my eventual dance partner, Jenna. I was also introduced to the British language (to which I particularly owe thanks to my 'coaches' Ellie and Radhika), tea and biscuit culture (cheers to Dave, Sarah, and Rebecca), and bop culture (thanks Sam, Frank, Abe, and Shaun).

November - November was a really interesting month. I finally started to mesh with those in the lab, even though I know that I'm the only one working in my topic. In particular, I've become good friends with a New Zealander, Chris, and a French girl, Christelle. Chris and I are thinking of building a model railroad around the lab, but we'll have to invoke eminent domain to make it work. Outside the lab, Jenna and I danced in our first two competitions with great success! Competitions are a lot of fun, and I easily see myself becoming addicted to ballroom. Sigh... oh well. I also had the benefit of having the aforementioned Kalli come to visit all the way from Cincinnati. On her birthday, we went into London, had some gluten free fish & chips, rode the London Eye, and walked all over the place. We also went to Paris for three days and had a wonderful time. Indeed, the theme of her trip might have been photography because we now have over 1000 decent pictures to show. She enjoyed meeting the Keebleites, especially a fellow Wolfpacker, Glenn.

December - Even into this final month, the weather in Oxford has been wonderful. I anticipated unending rain, but in truth, the skies have been mostly clear during the day, only changing to drizzle at night. Undergrads left after the first week of the month and Oxford has since become quieter and quieter. Ice skating and squash with Kebleites contributed to a quiet lifestyle for me, bringing on a few pesky injuries. Such is life. Thankfully, there have not really been any activities to miss out on, so I have spent plenty of time in the lab chugging away on models. In six short hours, I leave Oxford, bound for the US. I'm really excited to be home, visiting the aforementioned parents and spending Christmas relaxing. On the 27th, I'll be heading to Raleigh to visit the aforementioned Tyler and Rachael, the aforementioned Kalli, and whoever else is available to catch up.

Now, surely, you can see that I've had a remarkably unique and unbelievable year. While the many journeys have been incredible, hopefully you can also see that none of this would be possible without my family and friends. To those of you reading, thank you for the profound influence you have had on my life! Keep in touch and see you in 2012!

Merry Christmas, Part I

And a Happy New Year. But that's all.

Christmas. I know I've discussed it a lot over the past month, but I've had a somewhat surprising realization and a confirmation of my thoughts. I was in the kitchen last week talking with a Jewish girl from California, who is taking a year long study abroad from Johns Hopkins. We were broadly discussing religion in England and I was commenting how being a Christian in England feels much different than being a Christian in the United States. It was then that I realized that a particular phrase has been completely absent from my day-to-day life this winter:

Happy Holidays.

To me, as an American, it's hardly Christmas without having to interpret "Happy Holidays" to suit my personal tastes. Where did it go? England isn't so different than the US. How could it then be that English pop culture seems to only celebrate Christmas? What about Hanukkah (which started last night, by the way), Kwanza, etc etc?

I asked the girl about what it was like to be Jewish in England and the response was really interesting. I'll skip the details here, erring to confidentiality, but after comparing experiences, we came to the conclusion that it is generally harder to be openly religious here than in the US. Sure, there's a spattering of churches and presumably a reasonably sized population of people practicing many different faiths, but when religion arises as a topic of conversation among friends, it is almost exclusively from an objective academic or historical context. One could say that discourse observes religion under a microscope, from the outside looking in, as a scientist or social researcher would do; never from a (subjective) personal standpoint, where much of the value of religion lies.

Consequently, what happens at this time of year for a culture seemingly lacking openly religious people? All that remains is a secular holiday called Christmas. To some extent, "Merry Christmas" is like "Happy Holidays" in England. If you happen to be a Christian, then it's convenient that the secular holiday is the same, but if you practice another faith, then you extract what little meaning you can from the phrase and move on.

I'm not sure where the best answer lies in this complicated question: is it better to have a culture in which everyone whines and complains if their beliefs are not represented adequately, or rather a culture in which one faith's greeting has been chewed up in a secular forum and regurgitated as a generic holiday greeting? It's merely complicated by the fact that Christmas itself was originally a pagan holiday to celebrate the lengthening of days and the coming of spring, only to be adopted later by Christians as their second most important day of the liturgical year.


 Who knows, but I do know my laundry is done and I need to pack so I can fly home for Christmas tomorrow. Look for a second, less philosophical blog later today as I recap a year of incredible experiences, new friendships, and unbelievable moments.

Odds and Ends

In the first 9 hours I was awake yesterday, the following weather pattern ensued:

Showers
Total sunshine
Overcast
Rain showers
Snow Flurries
Rain showers
Total sunshine
Overcast
Hail
Rain showers
English drizzle....

Where am I? This weather is so weird. 

Today, I woke up and it was bright, sunny, and 3 degrees C. A beautiful day, really. Naturally, however, it was overcast by 13:00 and raining by 15:00. The rain continues, even now... and it's still 3 degrees.

In other temperature-related news, I realized over the weekend that my room was colder than the corridor, apparently because the radiator wasn't working. I like sleeping in cool temperatures, but when I finally started freezing, I decided it would be good to fill in a maintenance request. Now I have a working radiator! It's amazing how good a little warmth feels in the winter time. Undoubtedly, it will be amazing come January when it is cold and rainy every day.

In the category of fixing things, by the end of this past weekend, I decided that my arm and knee felt great, and that I should play some light squash with some friends to loosen up. Well... the good news is that my arm and knee felt great, but the bad news is that I wrecked my back. How? I don't know. I called a doctor on Monday, but he (over the phone) said that 'back pain is common' and I should just take loads of ibuprofen and reassess later in the week. So here it is Thursday and - while I don't need the ibuprofen any more - I am still experiencing a fair bit of localized discomfort in my lower back and right hip. Words cannot express how not thrilled I am. I'll see how tonight goes and maybe I'll call the doctor back tomorrow.

What else is new? Last night I made stir fry, which was quite tasty. I borrowed a rice cooker with an aluminum bowl, but the lack of a non-stick surface meant that cooked rice became glued to the bottom. Some overnight soaking did the trick.

That wasn't really a particularly culturally-relevant story, but I figured I'd throw it in to show that life is still fairly normal in a lot of ways. It was also the first anecdote I could think of.

Well, tonight I figured out who I'm going to vote for in the Republican Primary in a few months (which is for me to know and you to guess). Yes, I still follow American news, but I have to admit, it's thrown into the mix of UK, EU, and world headlines. On that note, if you are not familiar with Google Reader, you should really check it out! It makes it extremely easy to pull in headlines from many different news sources, including - I assume - this blog! I am subscribed to BBC news, ESPN, Popular Science, an academic database (for my research!), and xkcd.com (a fantastic web comic). Check it out!

That's all for now. Can't wait to be home for Christmas next week, but until then, here I remain, soaking up Oxford (literally!)

Happy December!

It's 9th week of Michaelmas term and pretty much all I'm thinking about is Christmas time!

Here's a quick post owing to the fact that I'm going to a housewarming party for one of my lab partners tonight and I only have 10 minutes to bust out the highlights of the week!

1. Christmas time is definitely here in Oxford. In fact, hints of Christmas started back in November because they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here. Now I understand why people in the US occasionally "peak early." We just want to throw an extra holiday in there. Anyway, last Friday, Oxford officially kicked off the season with a Christmas market and festival! There was lots of food, including sausage rolls (think pigs in a blanket), mulled cider, European foods (German, French, Spanish), and sweets. There were also rides, handicraft stands, a stage, and festive lighting. In fact, Roger Bannister was in attendance to officially light the city's decorations! That was quite nice.

5 minutes to go...

2. UK news. If you haven't been following European news, now might be a good time to do so. Economic tensions are high, and they're spilling into the political landscape. Prime Minister David Cameron just went to a summit of Eurozone leaders and - with pressure from all sides in England- blocked EU-wide economic reforms in hopes of gaining financial protection for the city of London. Naturally, the rest of the EU wouldn't stand for London to get a security blanket, so now they are more or less teaming up against Britain.The next coming months will be crucial not just for the Euro, but for the political unity of the EU as a whole. Time will tell...

2 minutes to go...

3. Activities! With the undergraduates gone (term ended last weekend), things have really settled down. That means that as an MCR, we've had lots of free time. So what do most English people do in the evenings? Hit up a pub! There's nothing like a glass of hot mulled wine and some pistachios in the Eagle and Child on a chilly December evening. Admittedly, the weather has only dipped below freezing twice this term (tonight will be the third), but the wind has been rather brutal. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when the sunshine goes away next month in favor of rain. Blech.

Finally, we did actually go ice skating on Tuesday. I had a really good time... until I skated too fast, tripped on the teeth of my right figure skate (no hockey skates... booo) and went horizontal. Bobby Orr would have been proud, except at least he had pads! Now, three days later, I'm still wondering if I need to go get medical attention for my elbow and knee. Sigh... guess I'll see what happens to them this weekend.

Negative 4 minutes... oops! I'm off to eat chocolate mousse and tartiflette (the host is French :-D )!!

Speedy Passing of Time

Just like that, the weeks have flown by. I anticipated that this might happen, but it was definitely not my intention to go a month without writing. Nonetheless, I will do my best to catch everyone up on the events of the past month.

Research has settled into a fairly standard routine. Now in the 8^th week of term, I have been spending my time in the continuous quest of successful MATLAB models. Since my research will seek to assess the effect of pedestrian loads on bridge motion, it is relevant to begin by modeling two main systems. First, I worked on developing a model of the displacement of a “single degree of freedom” structure. Basically, an ‘SDOF’ structure is one that can only displace in one shape, such as a spring. If you think of a vibrating string, the first degree of freedom has only two nodes, which looks like a bent archery bow. Like a vibrating string, structures also displace in harmonics.  The first harmonic is the simplest shape of deformation. At any rate, this displacement of a structure can be modeled by a differential equation with inertial, damping, and stiffness terms.

Having modeled the motion of a structure, I also started to model the lateral motion of a pedestrian. Existing research shows that the lateral movement of a person’s center of mass can be modeled as an inverted pendulum (like a mechanical metronome), in terms of the person’s foot placement and the horizontal displacement of the ground. Thus, since a person really has an inverted pendulum for each footstep, I have been trying to develop a numerical solver (i.e. an estimator) to predict such motion.

Well enough about research. Last week was Thanksgiving and I spent all day in the lab, hard at work… dreaming of turkey, cranberry sauce, American football, friends, and family. Indeed, I did reflect during the day, as I have so much to be thankful for. Let me count some of the ways:

-New friendships in the UK. I’m extremely thankful to have met so many great people in Keble, the lab, and ballroom dancing. They have made my first term an easy adjustment to international living, so I am really grateful for them. Something that I’ve taken to doing in my spare time (“spare time?” I hardly know the meaning of the words) is cooking for lots of the people in my dorm. The first time I did it, I cooked American fried chicken and homemade biscuits for 15. It was a huge hit, so I have since added a Mediterranean-style pizza night with homemade crust for 25, and a fajita night for 15. It is a great way to bring everyone together to catch up and enjoy conversation. This weekend – to up the ante a bit – a fellow American and I are going to host a grand Thanksgiving dinner and gag gift exchange for 20+. The menu is quite extensive, but for whatever reason, I’m not particularly worried about it. Clearly I am my parents’ son. More to the point, however, the fresher grad students here in Keble have really bonded well this term, and I am really excited to have them as friends.

While I won’t go into too much detail on this here, I am also really fortunate to have a great group of colleagues in the lab. With students from across the world, we seem to have a strange mix of uniqueness (due to background, lifestyles, culture, etc) and commonness (civil engineering, Oxford, traveling, sports, etc). They are a fun group to be with, and incredibly smart to boot. I’ll certainly be learning a lot from them!

-Ballroom dancing. Dance has been an amazing addition to my life! I have been very fortunate to be paired with a fantastic partner, whose name is Jenna. She’s finishing up her undergrad degree at UCLA in psychology next fall, but she is taking a year of study here in Oxford. Lucky for me, she has done a variety of dance in the past. We’re both committed to success on the dance floor, so it has been and will continue to be excellent to work with her throughout the year. For the beginners’ team as a whole, a good deal of camaraderie has developed among the 30 couples already, which makes the rehearsals and competitions much more fun. Two weekends ago, we had our first competition at Nottingham University. The competition began at 10 am and did not conclude until 11 pm! Even though it was a long day of dancing, Jenna and I enjoyed the competition atmosphere. On top of the thrill of the event, we actually placed quite well too. In quickstep (which we thought was our worst dance, haha), we placed third among all beginners. In waltz, we placed second, and we won the jive outright! Unfortunately, we didn’t even make the finals in cha cha, which we thought was our best dance... but we are quite happy with the results all the same! The second event was this past weekend at in Birmingham (hosted by Warwick University) where the competition was much fiercer. Our rivals, Cambridge, went toe to toe with us, but we were surprised that Cardiff and Imperial universities placed even better than we. Nonetheless, Jenna and I were still fortunate to dance quite well – we finished 3^rd in jive and 5^th in cha cha among all beginners, but we did not crack the finals in either quickstep or waltz. We are both optimistic about our chances in the spring, but we also know that we have a lot of practicing to do. So far, the plan is for each of us to do 50 spin turns per day until Christmas as practice. Hopefully that will whip us into proper shape!

-Old friends. On 11 November, Kalli made the jump across the pond to visit and do some sightseeing with me. She was amazing for putting up with my dance and lab schedule, and we really enjoyed Oxford and London a lot. I would have to say that the highlight of her visit was taking a three-day adventure to Paris. Last Monday morning, we left Oxford at sunrise and took the Eurostar train across the English Channel. Actually, due to the long dance competition the day before, we were so tired that we slept for the whole ride. Once we checked into the hotel, we walked to the Trocadero and La Tour Eiffel, where we admired the sunset and took a ton of artsy pictures. I had a delicious crepe filled with chocolate, banana slices, and Chantilly (whipped cream). From Eiffel, we headed north, stopped at a grocery store for some cheese, bread, and wine, and found a beautiful bridge looking over the Seine to have our dinner. It was really an epic dinner! The last thing we did that night was walk the Champs Elysees, where they had a fantastic Christmas market set up. Little booths were filled with food, crafts, toys, clothes, and other Christmasy items, and it really helped me get into the holiday spirit.

On our second day, we started in the Latin Quarter, which is south of Notre Dame. There is one particularly narrow, cobble-stone filled street which is lined with some great stores. Kalli picked up some chicken and roasted potatoes in a sachet (British and French for ‘bag’), and I grabbed two yummy baguettes. We ate our delicious lunch next to the Pantheon looking down over Notre Dame in the distance. Of course, having stared at it from a distance, it was then obligatory to walk to the cathedral and take more excellent, artistic pictures. On a side note, I really like Kalli’s Canon Rebel SLR camera… I think I may need to ask for one for Christmas ;-) Anyway, we grabbed some gelato, listened to a really good street violinist, and walked around, admiring the area. Finally, we returned to Notre Dame for a choral concert! Half the concert consisted of Bach works for organ – which were stunning in the grand cathedral – and the other half was comprised of chorales from the Romantic period.

For our last day, we spent most of the day in the Louvre. We saw the Mona Lisa, and we wandered around looking at the various paintings and artifacts from the Italian Renaissance and ancient Rome/Egypt respectively. For a change of scenery, we also went and took a quick tour of the National Opera House, upon which Phantom of the Opera is based. As you can tell, it was a fun trip to Paris, full of walking and sightseeing.

Well, this post is bordering on epic novel, so I’m going to move to the big finish now, even though I have so much more to be thankful for….

CULTURE CORNER

As anticipated, the arts in Oxford are quite prevalent. One can attend a concert, dramatic performance, or see some art almost any day of the week. Last week, I was able to see Mozart’s Don Giovanni and hear the Handel Messiah Oratorio. This week – amongst my choice of concerts – I am considering going to see A Man for All Seasons, which is about Sir Thomas More’s dissent of King Henry VIII’s move to initiate the Church of England.

On top of those performances, a motion has been put forward to campaign for Oxford to be recognized by UNESCO as the “book capital of the world.” If you were to step into any of Oxfords dozens of libraries or bookstores, you would understand why. The wealth of knowledge is incredible here and it is amazing to be in such an academic atmosphere.

WORDS OF THE DAY:

Because I’ve faltered as of late, there are multiple words of the day today. Enjoy!

Aubergine: n. a vegetable with purple skin and fleshy interior. Syn: Eggplant.

Croquette: n. a vegetable with green or yellow skin and a cucumber-like interior. Syn: Zucchini.

Literally (pronounced: lit-tral-lee): adv. when something means exactly as the person says it does. e.g. Believe it or not, there were literally only five people attending that amazing performance!

Quid: n. slang for an amount of money. Syn: Bucks. e.g. How much did you pay for those trousers? Oh, they were a great bargain, only 8 quid at Primark!

Rubbish: n. 1. Items that are of no further use and are discarded. Syn. Trash, garbage. 2. Something that is completely and totally ridiculous. e.g. I can’t believe they served those terrible carrots for dinner again. They were completely rubbish!

A Day in the Life

Today, since it seems like a reasonably average day, I'm going to "Tweet" throughout the day!

7:15
Phone alarm goes off. Don't want to get out of bed, so I hit snooze for 10 more minutes.

8:10
Breakfast in kitchen consisting of a maple pecan croissant thing, some Tropicana Orange + Raspberry juice, and a yogurt.

8:20
Leave my dorm. It's the first proper dank, drizzly morning since I've been in England.

8:24
Arrive at my desk, in the building across the street. I'm the first one in. After checking e-mail, I turn to MATLAB, a mathematical programming software, where I continue my attempts to model a pedestrian's shifting center of mass:

y= u+(yo-u+A*sin(wb*(to-tau)))*cosh(OMp*(t-to)) + (vo/OMp + (wb/OMp)*A*cos(wb*(to-tau)))*sinh(OMp*(t-to)) - A*sin(wb*(t-tau))

where A=P/(1+(OMp/wb)^2)  (MacDonald, 2008)

...it's going to be a long day.

8:50
The second person arrives, and we discuss the overcast skies. 

10:00
Bathroom break! This is mainly to blow the massive amounts of snot out of my nose. Today is the first day that I can definitively say I'm not sick any more, thank goodness. Eight days was quite enough. Now I'm just in that awkward period where I experience diminishing (but annoying) residual drainage and the occasional cough.

10:30
Tea time!

11:30
Discuss research topics (and life in New Zealand) with a couple other students

12:00
Lunch time at Taylor's Deli & Sandwich Co with the Houston girl who just finished her DPhil in structural dynamics.

13:00
Presentation by the Laing O'Rourke construction firm about the Leadenhall building (i.e. the Cheesegrater) soon to be built in London.

14:10
Return to lab, only to realize that my wireless network VPN software has corrupted. Time to reinstall...

14:35
Success! Now back to MATLAB!

15:45
....still working on MATLAB.... convincing myself to stay focused... anyone know how to find vo??

16:15
Taking a lap around the inside of the lab to clear my head. Talking to other students about the infamous cello problem.

16:35
Only 25 minutes until freedom, but I'm getting back to work for the moment. Kind of skeptical that inspiration will strike in time.

17:00
Sure enough, it never came to me. In fact, I realized that my time steps are wrong too. Looks like vo and to will have to wait for tomorrow.

17:05
Back in my dorm.

17:30
Laundry in; debating dinner

18:05
Laundry moved; dinner (salad w/ hard boiled egg, feta, etc) underway

18:30
Leaving dorm, in the drizzling rain, for Latin dance practice.

18:55
Arrive at dance practice (yes, it's a really long way away, esp. by foot.)

19:00
Dance practice! 2 hours of cha cha, an hour of jive, and some exercises!

22:15
Dance lets out, I walk back towards the MCR.

22:40
Arrive at the MCR for a mojito. Most of the grads had been there for over an hour and were on the way out to a pub or somewhere. I chose to head back to the dorm with a small group.

23:00
Tea and biscuits in the dorm kitchen after taking my laundry out of the dryer!

00:00
Back to my room to fold laundry and catch the latest news online.

1:00
In bed, going to sleep. (Usually I go to bed between 23:30 and 00:30, but laundry didn't help)

Well, that was fun! Time to rest up so I can do it all again tomorrow.

WORD OF THE DAY: mate n. Someone's close friend of either gender. e.g. The other day I went out to grab a sandwich with my best mate, Joe. It was really great seeing him again after we went to (upper) school together.

On the 9th day of Michaelmas, my true love gave to me...

Wednesday, 2nd Week of Michaelmas Term
Current conditions: 2 degrees C, lightly overcast, moderate wind

I've recently come to find out that there is a strange condition that hovers around Oxford every year known as 'Freshers Flu.' As you can guess, freshers flu is the strange sickness (not necessarily an actual flu) that is a result of gathering people from around the world while the climate heads south for the winter. Thankfully, I have avoided said terrible beast as it scuttled from one person to the next... until today. Sure enough, I woke up this morning with the tell-tale stuffy nose. I'm hoping it's not going to be very bad, but nonetheless, I need to take an early bed time. I happen to also be long overdue for a blog post, so here I am responding to duty. I think I'll "try" to keep it short, but we'll see what happens.

I suppose the question everyone most wants to hear about is research. After all, that is supposedly what I came to Oxford to do. Having met with my supervisors a couple times, I am now heading down the road en route to defining my research topic. Broadly speaking, my research will concern the study of pedestrian footbridges and understanding the cause and effects of significant, synchronized crowd movement. Essentially, that means I will be seeking to (1) understand why crowds of people seem to lock step with each other, (2) determine if such behavior affects bridge displacement, and (3) learn about how bridges can be constructed to minimize such effects. As my preliminary study progresses, I will certainly be limiting the scope of this project, but it seems to be a very interesting and exciting structural dynamics problem. The topic came about largely as a result of the London Millennium Bridge (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAXVa__XWZ8), though such behavior has been observed on other footbridges as well.

Ok moving along here... The past week has been full of many enjoyable social events as well. Our MCR evidently has a reputation as being great for social interaction, and I definitely understand why. On most nights, some event has been available for everyone to come socialize and hear about each others research. From movie nights to wine & cheese with the Warden to gathering around a chocolate fountain, the events have been varied and fun. On Saturday, we all dressed up in our fancy 'sub fusc' (gown, black suit, white bow tie) for matriculation. This university-wide ceremony was our official induction into Oxford. The Vice Chancellor read a script in Latin which essentially boiled down to, "The academic dean has asked that you [the students] be accepted into Oxford by your meeting the entry level qualifications of the university. I now hereby admit you as a student of Oxford University." We then paraded out of the Sheldonian Theatre (more on the theatre in a later post) and headed back to Keble for lots of pictures and lunch. It was a bright, beautiful day, and we were quite happy to be officially inducted.

Another particularly notable event has transpired since my last post. At the freshers fair (where all the university clubs and societies vie for innocent students' time), I found the Keble rowing club. Excited, I inquired... dejected, I learned that practice was essentially every evening and every weekend day. Not wishing to lose my entire social life, I moved on from rowing to dancesport. What's that? Basically, it's Oxford's ballroom/latin dance team. Since the freshers fair, I attended a couple free sessions and decided that it would be fantastic to try out for the beginners team... which was the best overall team in the UK last year. Typically, they accept about 100 new beginners each year since many drop out. Optimistic of my chances, I showed up at the trials and got on the team! Ok... so they actually admitted every male who tried out (40) in a feeble attempt to offset the many ladies who showed up (70 admitted, many others rejected). So what does that mean? For 150 pounds for the year, I get 10 hours of dance training per week(!), the chance to compete in six competitions, I meet lots of people, I learn a great skill, and I get my weekly exercise in! First team practice is tomorrow and I'm psyched!

So the last major topic for today is food related! Having been formally educated on English biscuits (what we would call sandwich cookies) and tea (I'm a huge fan), I decided to treat 15 of my many new MCR friends to American cooking tonight.... a southern fried chicken dinner! I found recipes online for fried chicken and homemade (American) biscuits and executed them to perfection. Everyone was quite thrilled. The most interesting I found, however, is that buttermilk and shortening are foreign concepts here! As I ran from store to store today, desperately trying to find ingredients, I found exactly one brand of lard, which I had to substitute for the Crisco, and no buttermilk at all. Thankfully, it all worked out well using the lard and regular milk, and everyone was quite happy. Thus, I think I might start cooking on a weekly or fortnightly basis... woo hoo!

CULTURAL CORNER:
Since I need to get to bed, the cultural corner is going to be limited to the word of the day.  Next time, it will be better...

WORD OF THE DAY:  dodgy. adj. Something that is of questionable quality or origin. Also, an area or place that may not be safe or clean. Syn: Sketchy (US), Scuzzy. Example: "The common kitchen is due to be cleaned out. After weeks of use, it has become a bit dodgy looking."

London 2, Oxford 1

How do you like your orange juice? Smooth, with "juicy bits" or with "extra juicy bits?"

Pulp aside, getting acclimated to England has been extremely exciting. Over my remaining time in London (through this past Saturday), we had the chance to see so much. Museums... the Churchill War Rooms... Greenwich... Buckingham... Picadilly Circus... They were all amazing testaments to the age and style of British culture. I have to say, my favorite stops were the British Library and the Queen's Theatre for Les Miserables. We had a wonderful time in the beautiful, record-setting heat as we saw the sights and soaked up the city.

But alas, all good vacations must come to an end. On Sunday, I parted ways with my parents, heading up to Oxford to set up and settle in. After some brief organization in my room, I meandered from my remote housing building over to the main college. The college is surrounded by the brick walls of the exterior buildings, so one cannot comprehend the amazement of the college's interior without entering through the main gate. The gate itself is a large, dense wooden door, resembling the front of a castle. Upon stepping inside, I was in a dark, arched entryway, again similar to a medieval gate. On the left is the Porter's Lodge, where everyone's "pidgeon holes" are located and from where the porter manages the comings and goings of visitors, faculty, and students. Proceeding ahead, the dark entryway opens up into a quad with a sunken, square, perfectly manicured lawn, bordered on all four sides by a tall, continuous neo-gothic brick building. The building's brick facades are mainly red with many ornate white and black brick patterns. Looking around, my eyes land on the quad's focal point: a brick chapel (cathedral) twice as high as the surrounding building, also elaborately decorated in brick patterns. Upon seeing such a sight on a bright and sunny day, I was completely blown away... and I remain so.

Within the college, I belong to the MCR, or "Middle Common Room," which refers to both a physical room and the entire body of graduate students. Thus, in future posts I may refer to "spending time in the MCR," referring to the room itself, or "attending events hosted by the MCR," referring to the group of people. The physical MCR room is a lounge on an adjoining quad within the college. The central part of the lounge consists of a wooden paneled, wood floored room with mahogany vinyl sofas and a bay window. The room also adjoins with two side rooms which act as game rooms/kitchen. My first event was a Tea and Cakes social which takes place every Sunday at 16:00. Many other freshers were there, so I had the chance to meet many of my Keble compatriots.

I quickly feel that I am going to fit in quite well in this college. The other freshers are very kind and sociable, coming from all over the UK (~60-70%) and the world. Among international students, the most are from Canada and the United States (5-8 freshers each... even one from NC State!), with others coming from Austrailia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Armenia, Slovakia, and elsewhere. Many are in MPLS - Maths, Physics, & Life Sciences - but there are also a lot of people in economics, languages, literature, and other humanities. I should also note here that the MCR consists of a balance of both masters and doctoral students. It's a really a unique and engaging atmosphere to live around.

After Tea & Cakes and a short break, the MCR reconvened for Prosecco before dinner. At any rate, we all enjoyed a glass of Prosecco and headed upstairs to dinner in the Hall. The Hall is a fantastically wonderful dining room. Entering the long room at one end, one is immediately struck by the formality of the room itself. Three long wooden tables with wooden benches stretch the length of the hall. On either side, large oil portraits of grey-haired academics look down from their massive golden frames. Then, one notices that the walls of the Hall are quite tall, stretching perhaps 30 feet high, evolving into an arched ceiling. Even here, the tile ceiling is elaborately decorated, this time with two (or three?) toned floral pattern. Returning one's gaze to eye level, the portraits extend all the way to the end of the Hall, where on the opposite wall, the distinguished portraits have individual lamps illuminating their foreheads. These distinguished figures look down over the head table, apparently reserved for the academic dons who will join us for formal dinner each night beginning next week.

Since that first afternoon, my daily schedule has been somewhat routine. Wake up around 9:00, spend the morning wandering around city center failing to purchase a mobile phone, procure some odds and ends at Boswell's department store, return to Acland (my residence - a remote building for almost all the grad students), pretend to work on organizing my room, and then proceed with dinner time activities. On Monday was MCR port & cheese hour followed by "The Legendary Keble MCR Quiz," in which we divided into teams of six and attempted to answer 61 questions. My claim to fame was correctly counting that only two letters in Scrabble have point values of two - D and G. One question was "In which conflict was the German Luftwaffe first involved following WWII?" A True/False round included the statement, "13 men have landed on the moon," which I believed to be false, but was actually true. It was a fun night of trivia as we continued to meet and interact with each other.

CULTURE CORNER
In this section of the blog, I will provide some extra juicy bits (or should I say extra pulp?) of information that I have discovered about British culture and provide a British vocabulary word-of-the-day.

-Mobile phones. In the UK, phone plans are rather confusing. There are 3 main types: Pay as you go, SIM only, and contract. Pay as you go plans mean you buy a phone and a set package of minutes/text messages/data. If you run out of those before 30 days, you "top up" for usually 10 Pounds (henceforth GBP). In a SIM only plan, you buy a phone and receive a SIM card with a nominal monthly allotment of minutes/texts/data. In a contract plan, you pay a monthly fee and receive a free phone (depending on the phone you want) and a monthly allotment of minutes/texts/data, but you are required to keep the contract for 18 months or 2 years (whereas a SIM only plan is month by month).

In the long run, a contract is cheapest, but evidently you cannot sign a phone contract unless you have British credit history... therefore, I have to make greater than 5 transactions on my spiffy new UK bank account before my first quarterly statement to get a contract plan. Until then, I am debating whether I should obtain a SIM only plan or just hold out with my room's landline phone.

Word of the Day: tariff. n. a contract or payment plan, esp. for a mobile phone. Ex. "My tariff includes 100 minutes, 3,000 text messages, and 250 MB data each month for only 15.50 GBP."

-Weather. While my parents were here, it was sunny and in the 70s-80s F almost every day. The day they left, a breeze came in. Since then, each day has been mostly cloudy and breezy with temps in the 50s. I hear that the overnight lows at the end of the week will be in the mid-high 30s. Hello real British weather.

Arrival, First Few Days!

England!! Here I am in London and I can't believe it! Lucky for me, this place has been a blast so far. We've already seen so much, but rather than drone on endlessly (though I'm going to do so anyway), I've decided to take a different route....

The Top Ten Exciting/Interesting Things About My First Few Days in England (in no particular order)

10. English Breakfast... Baked beans are a must! Here, they're served more savory than at home. That is, there is more ketchup in them than sugar/molasses. Also, I love the breakfast bacon, which is more like a slice of ham rather than a strip of fat. (Vocab word of the day: a "rasher" of bacon = 1 slice)

9. Fashion... There is definitely a dress standard here that is much different than in the US. Almost no one wears tennis shoes or sweats, but everyone seems to be wearing a nice jacket, nice /or artistic shoes, styled hair, nice jeans, etc etc. Looks like I have some adapting to do!

8. Tower Bridge/London Eye... Thankfully the weather has been beautiful for us - in the 60s and 70s with few clouds - so the iconic bridge of London was simply stunning. Its dominating towers were connected by bright blue steel chains and that unique pair of beams high in the air. In pictures, it looks nice, but it is larger than life in person. Above the choppy Thames, pedestrians and motorists travel from bank to bank by the score (on the left side... see #3 below). I have to say, it's quite amazing. Also amazing was the London Eye, a giant ferris wheel resembling a bicycle wheel. The wheel almost never stops turning, which is good since one round takes 30 minutes. In the mean time, one can see the bridge way off in the distance and Parliament/Big Ben immediately below. We chose to ride at night when the wheel and cabins were lit deep blue, which was very nice.

7. Museums... We've been to two so far: The Natural History Museum and the British Museum. The former contained three floors of engaging exhibits on geology, jewels, rocks, fossils, and biology. After looking around for four exciting hours, we had to call it quits even though we had only seen half of the museum. In particular, I enjoyed seeing the excellent dinosaur exhibits - lots of skeletons with fascinating commentary and even some animatronics to boot. The British Museum was also somewhat overwhelming because of the number of excellent ("stolen?") artifacts. To me, the most exciting artifacts were Cleopatra's mummy, half of the Athenian Parthenon's frieze, and the Rosetta Stone. I'm glad I can now say I've seen the Rosetta Stone and the Hammurabi Code, which is at the Louvre in Paris (see my last 2008 blog).

6. Tower of London... Going in, I was expecting this to resemble Alcatraz - a medieval high security prison. While it has served as a prison for extensive periods of its 1000 year history, the Tower complex has also served as home for the royal family, a mint, a guest house, barracks, and home for the crown jewels. So when we went to actually see the crown jewels, I was thoroughly excited. I promise I am not a female, but WOW were those ornaments sparkly! Offsetting the fancy jewelry, we also got to see some jousting equipment, armor, and torture devices :-)

5. Churches... I've already been to St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. St. Paul's was very much a "normal" church with vast tile floors, huge vaulted ceiling, domed center, and huge windows. Don't get me wrong, it was quite impressive, but it was nothing compared to Westminster. Westminster was enormous. The vaulted ceilings were extremely ornate, with elaborate stone arches gracefully flowing down as columns to the floor. The architecture of the chapel behind the alter was every bit as exciting: a fancy pattern was carved into the ceiling above and grand wooden seats for knights adorned the sides of the room. The most peculiar aspect to the Abbey was the quantity of memorials and tombs. Being over 1000 years old, there is no underground crypt, but many important figures have been laid to rest there: Kings and queens, poets, scientists, writers, scholars, and other figures. Believe it or not, GF Handel (composer), Charles Darwin, and Isaac Newton are laid there. Darwin's resting place doesn't really make sense to me... but fair enough. In addition to those laid to rest, markers and placards commemorate other important figures who are buried elsewhere, like Shakespeare, Benjamin Britten (composer), and countless people I did not recognize.

4. Languages... This is perhaps the most diverse city I have ever been. I have overheard more German this week than I have since traveling to Austria three years ago. I've also heard plenty of Italian, Spanish, French, and Chinese... almost more of those languages than English! It will be interesting to see how Oxford similar or different from London.

3. Transportation... As is already well understood, the trains are amazing. National Rail is great, as is the Tube (subway). We've taken those everywhere so far. Today, we decided to ride on a double decker bus, which was also fantastic! Apparently the city did away with the double deckers in 2005, but massive backlash has led the city to reintroduce them. The fleet is new this year, and they are more than plentiful! It's not hard to see 4-6 buses at a time in downtown, which is great for getting from place to place. I loved the ride and being able to see over all the happenings of Picadilly Circus and Oxford Circus (huge traffic circles/shopping areas). Our other favorite mode of transportation has been walking. I swear I'm going to get hit by a car or bus, but I feel much better about that reality today: apparently Winston Churchill spent 8 days in a New York hospital after failing to look the correct direction on 5th Avenue in NYC! What an inspirational leader!

2. Churchill War Rooms... Located in a basement a few blocks from Parliament/Big Ben are the Churchill War Rooms. This is where Churchill's staff coordinated Britain's entire WWII effort. Like a ship, the quarters were tight with few amenities, but it was sufficient for Britain's leader to conduct his crucial business. Perhaps the centerpiece of the historic site was the Churchill museum, a large room with tons of exciting interactive exhibits portraying every aspect of Churchill's life. Naturally, the focal point was on his role on WWII, so it was extraordinary to see such a wealth of knowledge on such a fine political/military leader.

1. British Library... I only saw one large room of the British Library, but trust me, it was more than sufficient! In an area about the size of three master bedrooms, the following artifacts are on display:
-The original Jane Eyre
-The original Canterbury Tales (illustrated text!)
-2 Septuagint bibles from the 4th Cen (in Greek!)
-The Magna Carta (1215)
-A Gutenberg Bible
-Da Vinci's Notebook
-Handel's Messiah score
-Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" (For Midsummer Night's Dream)
-a Beethoven sketchbook of Sonata in G Major (Opus 30)
-Mozart's marriage contract to Constanze Weber
-Shakespeare's First Folio (1623)
-Handwritten lyrics to "Yesterday" and "Help!" (which really pale in comparison to these other amazing works)

Having traveled in Europe before, I wasn't as blown away by these old literary artifacts as I would have been three years ago, but the concentration of all these texts in one room was really unbelievable.

With this all in mind, I have been extremely blessed to prepare to live an hour away from this amazing city. I am thrilled to be in England, and I can only hope that Oxford will be half as amazing as London.

Cheers!

Beyond Infinity?

"This is a test of the Oxford Blogcast System. This is only a test."

Ok, this is not a drill. I'm only 3 days away from heading to England on what promises to be the academic experience of a lifetime. For anyone who has not heard, I am about to embark on a 3-year doctorate program at Oxford University. Yes, the Oxford University. While I have had six months to digest the fact that I am soon to be an Oxford student, it is still quite unreal to me. What will it be like studying in Oxford... for 3 years? There are so many things unknown about this coming experience, maybe it would be better to focus on how I got here.

Five years ago, I never would have dreamed about traveling internationally. One thing lead to another (thanks to the Caldwells, Franklins, RCSO, et al.) and I traveled to Ecuador for service and Austria for study abroad in 2008. Not having had enough, I went to China in 2009. In my mind, that cemented me as an international traveler. Between those trips, I conquered fears of language barriers, being alone in a foreign country, making connections, rolling with the punches, and coping with inadequate circumstances. This spring, I took the next step, learning how to be a leader on an international trip - a service-learning trip to Belize. With the proper training and help from my amazing co-leader, I found that I was quite able to handle such a leadership challenge. We built a team of students that could trust and interact with each other so readily. Undoubtedly, I will need the collective experience from all of these travels to reach my potential at Oxford. That said, I am very blessed to have the family, friends, education, and opportunities to prepare me for this experience.

So without further ado, here's some of the logistics with my Oxford blog. As you can imagine, spending 3 years in a foreign country is akin to running a marathon, especially in relation to a mere 6-week study abroad. Thus, I can't promise I'll blog every week, but what I will do is blog whenever I am able: I'll try to blog when I notice cultural similarities or differences; I'll blog when I travel to the European mainland; and I'll try to blog every couple of weeks or upon request. As with my past blogs, this will be the best place for you to learn about my adventures. If you have questions, feel free to ask! I would love to know someone is reading my blog, and I will be happy to answer!

Let the adventures begin!

Cheers