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!