Hilary-arious!

It's a new year, a new term, but - big shock - the same old Oxford :-)

I don't really know what I'm going to write about in this blog post, so prepare yourselves for some generic rambling as I recount my first week back at school.

It all started last Sunday as I sleepily got off the bus in Oxford at 9:30 am. After unpacking, I went to Green's Cafe with a couple others for a cheeky bite to eat (see below) and then nearly fell asleep during the conversation. Immediately, I knew I was in for a disastrous re-acclamation to GMT. That night I slept amazingly, but over the next few days, I confess I had a bit of trouble falling asleep. Thus, I made up for it by taking naps during lunch time.

In the lab, my new years resolution was to spend more time reading journal articles and a bit less time pouring over models. I chose this because I realized that while the models are good practice, it's only through reading journals that I'll actually be able to formulate my own research subject. In truth, though, I think I'm getting along quite well. Sure, I work the same amount as the other freshers in my lab, but I'm of the opinion that the 4 of us exceed the average graduate fresher work week by 25-50%. It's not uncommon that freshers put in 4-7 hour days whereas I try to do 7-8. Don't worry, I don't plan to slack off any time soon :-)

This past weekend was a lot of fun. On Saturday we had our first practice hall of term. Even though it was -6 C when I embarked on the 30 minute walk to the gym, it felt great to be going to dancing again. Jenna is doing quite well and - in spite of spending the 2 hours trying to recall our routines - we're very optimistic about our dancing. Thankfully, my back seemed to heal just in time, as I am finally feeling comfortable with higher impact motions.

After dancing, I walked back to Keble with one of the other grads, Peter. Believe it or not, Peter has held internships with both Google and Facebook in the past two years, and as it turns out, he played a key role in coding Facebook's new "Timeline" layout. He was even mentioned by name in an article by Facebook for his instrumental role. Consider that one of the other grads I know is doing his DPhil with CERN's Large Hadron Collider (and will be taking his 2nd year there starting next fall), and you start to get a sense of the caliber of students here at Oxford.

Anyway, when we got back to Keble, I quickly made a change of clothes and then met a group to go see the Pitt Rivers Museum. Typical of European museums, it was jam-packed with specimens with relatively little background information. We did find the world's only extant dodo skeleton and we did find the peculiar collection of shrunken heads. I was particularly enamored, however, by the large collection of musical instruments. 90 minutes flew by and although I could have spent half again as much time looking at the area we covered, we didn't even make it off the ground floor. Looks like I'll have to go back some time!

On Sunday morning, I got up at 8:30, prepared for a little hike. My mission was to hike out to Botley, which is 2.5 miles from my dorm to the west. My purpose was to acquire a cello from a "business" (i.e. home) called Roger Claridge Violins. Mr. Claridge welcomed me into his home - the first English home I have been inside - and showed me into the back where his collection of instruments was scattered about. An hour later and a good deal of hemming and hawing later, and I walked out with a beginners cello. Yes, it's a little lacking in tone quality and it doesn't stay in tune very well, but I figured that hiring a cello for 3 months for 160 GBP was a better deal than shelling out 1500 GBP to buy outright a cello of my desired quality. Sadly (kind of), it's unsustainable to be renting a beginners cello every three months, so I'm pondering if I should just suck up the cost to buy the cello. According to Mr. Claridge, I should be able to sell back the cello with relatively little depreciation after three years. The reason I might not be able to afford that price is..... (hold that thought)

So after buying my beginners cello, I walked back into Oxford, stopping at the train station to procure a student railcard for cheap tickets! Once back in my room, I took my new instrument for a test drive with a sufficient amount of satisfaction (sort of like driving a used Honda when you should be driving a new Mazda 3.... but at least it's driving!). After the obligatory Sunday tea and cakes and the obligatory Sunday afternoon Tesco run, I headed into college for the first Sunday dinner of term. In spite of the potatoes, which were massively over-cooked, it was nice being back in Hall among friends. I do really enjoy this place a lot. That's why I finished the weekend by making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to share! It was a good weekend.

Still holding that thought? Great! So the reason why I might not be able to afford a cello is that I've started to think about some epic travel plans. Already one term down and the only three European cities I've been to have been Oxford, London, and Paris. Crisis! Picking up the slack, I booked tickets to go to Dublin, Ireland for St. Patrick's Day (a decision that was not half as spontaneous as I just made it sound) and I'm debating the merits of a multi-week trans-Europe train trip this summer. Imagine taking a few weeks to see Porto, Barcelona, Marsailles, Geneva, Florence, Rome, Athens, and Istanbul by train. Yes, it sounds intense... but that's how I like it: work hard, play hard. Alternatively/additionally, if all goes well, I'll also be able to make a couple quick day/weekend trips around England between now and the summertime. Perhaps Bath, York, Cardiff, Cornwall, the Lake District, or Edinburgh... the possibilities are seemingly endless, but the funding is definitely not... so we'll see about the cello :-/

Finally, here's a quick shout out to my Belize co-leader, Liz, who I believe is leaving the US today or tomorrow en route to Ecuador. She is beginning a two year Peace Corps stint to teach English in Ecuadorian secondary schools. Take care, Liz!

CULTURE CORNER
Today's culture corner is about exchanges! With 38 colleges in Oxford, there is a lot to see and do! Unfortunately, many colleges close their doors to outsiders, so the only way to see what other colleges are like is through exchanges. There are several types of exchanges: bar exchanges, dinner exchanges, 1-on-1 exchanges, so here's a quick synopsis.

Each term, Keble MCR host (side comment - note the plural verb after the ambiguously numbered group. This is always the case in British language... the BBC are... the dance team have.. etc) two exchange dinners. For each exchange dinner, there is a home half and an away half - you eat dinner (usually with pre- and post-dinner drinks) at the other college, and then the other college has dinner with you the next week. While the drinks can be good, one must be flexible enough to join on the preset dates and there are a lot of people to meet and interact with. I have yet to be able to attend one of these. (last term was Linacre and Nuffield, this term will be Merton and Hertford).

Bar Exchanges are similar to dinner exchanges, except the venue is at each college's bar instead of dining hall. This weekend, Keble MCR will be attending the away portion of a bar exchange with Magdalen College, and I believe the home half is next week. Since one of my lab mates is in Magdalen MCR, I will probably end up attending.

1-on-1 exchanges (name given by me) are the best. These informal exchanges occur when individuals from different colleges simply invite one another to lunch or dinner with them in college. Last week, I went to a lunch at St. John's College with another civil engineer and really enjoyed the opportunity to compare their Hall atmosphere and food with my own. It's also nice because one gets to know the other person a bit better than by just sitting in the same lab all day. I'll be inviting someone to Keble dinner on Sunday, and hopefully going to a dinner at Worcester sometime soon.

WORDS OF THE DAY
Believe it or not, I've picked two words which I am still working on inserting into my regular vocabulary. Rather challenging to define, I have chosen to focus more on the examples than the definitions.
Cheeky: adj. 1. a bit of something good 2. something positive ex: 1. After dinner, we should go out for some cheeky pudding. 2. I ran into Ellie earlier. She seems quite cheeky today.
Keen: adj. to have a desire for, or to really enjoy ex: Yes, I'm (quite) keen for a bit of cheeky pudding with Ellie at 8!