Going for the Gold

Greetings one and all. I know it has been almost three weeks since my last post, but I must confess that - by my crazy standards - much less has been going on of interest. With the sparse amounts of MCR business, I have taken advantage of the quietness in Keble to put my nose to the grindstone and plow ahead towards my Transfer of Status. If you recall, my Transfer requires two written components - a conference-style paper and a literature review - I have been slowly plodding along. Finally, I made it through the first draft of my conference paper (7300 words!) about a week ago, so since then I have been making edits and turning my attention to the lit review. Yesterday was actually quite exciting because I received notification that I was actually accepted to present my paper at a conference in Los Angeles in February! Hooray for travel, although I immediately experienced a brief shock: I will soon be giving a 30 minute presentation of my (inexperienced?) research to a conference of established researchers! Talk about intimidation! On the bright side, it will be an incredible experience AND I will get to pay a visit to a close friend of mine... but I'm just going to leave you in suspense as to who that is for now ;-)

Of course, this post is not called 'Going for the Gold' for nothing. As one can imagine, the Olympic hype has been quite impressive around here, so here's a bit of a play by play!

On Thursday before the start of the Olympics, one of the visiting students and I went to the Sheldonian Theatre to hear the Oxford Philharmusica play a concert of British-related pieces. I had not been in the famous theatre since Matriculation last October, but all year I had been longing to take in any of the almost weekly concerts. This was certainly not a let down. The chamber ensemble played a selection of Handel arias (even though he was German-born, he spent much of his career in the English court), an excellent concerto by Bottesini (known as the Bassist Paganini), Handel's Water Music, and -of course- Rule Brittania, sing along style. Have you ever heard the lyrics for Rule Brittania? I hadn't, but now I am enlightened:

Rule Brittania! Brittania, rule the waves.

Britons never will be slaves! 

Nothing like a little imperialism before the start of the Olympics, eh? Dan's Medal of Approval: Gold

Anyway, the day after the concert was the opening ceremony. We began the night with a birthday barbecue before relocating to the MCR to watch on TV. The room was packed, but people were having a great time. I think by and large, everyone really liked the beginning - the pastoral start, followed by the impressive stadium-bound industrial revolution. Most people scoffed at the portion sponsored by the NHS (they don't exactly appreciate shameless advertising nor the NHS) and were perplexed by the music through the decades montage. By far, however, everyone loved Rowan Atkinson playing the synthesizer during Chariots of Fire. Dan's Medal of Approval: Gold

Now because of my impending Germany/Switzerland trip, I have been trying to save money here and there, and that meant that tickets for Olympic events were pretty much out of my price range. I did look however; no tickets were being sold at individual venues, but they were all distributed online. The cheapest tickets were 20 GBP, which really weren't bad, but some cost upwards of 1500 GBP, which was miles out of my range. I had seen tickets for the women's football (soccer) final some time ago and I blew over them. I really wish I hadn't however - the US women ended up beating Japan for gold. To think I could have gone to a US match at Wembley! *sigh* Anyway, regarding the confusing and expensive tickets: Dan's Medal of Approval: Silver.

So what do you do when you don't have tickets? Turn on the BBC! Yes, to my poor American friends stuck watching limited prime time replays of the events on NBC, I wish you had been here (among the throngs of people from across the world). On the BBC network, one could select any live sport to watch, complete with interactive tools and live news ticker. Online, one can also view any heat from any round from any sport throughout the Olympics. You want to see athletics qualifiers? They're up there, book marked for your viewing convenience. You want to see that poor German guy back-flop in diving? It's there! Or maybe you want to rewatch the stunning conclusion of the women's triathlon, as I did: it's also there! Every heat of every sport was filmed and streamed online for our convenience. How could this be improved? Live online medal counts and automatically updating results? Also online. Needless to say, when we hooked up a projector in the lab, we had nonstop enjoyment (distraction) of the Olympics. Let me see if I can list all of the sports I've watched online: Men's road cycling, men's cycling time trials, rowing (of many varieties), swimming (though not tons), hockey (field), table tennis, archery, men's 100m/200m sprints, hammer throw, women's pole vaulting, a tiny bit of beach volleyball and women's boxing, men's triple jump, handball, some canoe/kayak sprint, some sprint cycling, a touch of diving, rhythmic gymnastics (so cool!), the end of the sailing, and tennis (go Murray!). It has really been amazing; there are so many events! Dan's Medal of Approval: (huge) Gold.

While I complain about the ticket system, it was nice that the Olympics consisted of a few free events. Long events such as the road races, cycling, and triathlons were held in downtown London and open to the public. Thus, I took last Saturday to head into town with my lab partner, the swimmer from Arizona. We made it into Hyde Park early enough to catch the cycling and running legs of the women's triathlon. It seemed really intense with the crowds, and the staff, and the athletes, and the media. Kind of crazy, but quite awesome. It was also nice to know that we watched a particularly exciting event: there were several accidents during the cycling portion, and after 2 hours of competition it still came down to a photo finish! Leaving Hyde park in the masses, we headed to Olympic Park via the Tube. Unfortunately, though, you could not enter the Park unless you had a general Park ticket, also to be purchased online. I was not so lucky, but Justine - who was seeing an event in the Park that evening - was. Well, we stuck together for a while by grabbing lunch at the massive new shopping mall just outside Olympic Park. After having some ethnic food at the world food court, we meandered around the mall and stopped in a couple of the Olympic/Team GB shops. Well, after a while, Justine headed into the Park, so I hopped back onto the Tube and disembarked on the south bank of the Thames by London Bridge. I walked up to Tower Bridge so I could snap some photos of the impressive Olympic rings hanging from its towers. After passing a public Olympic video screen and stopping at an information booth (which were everywhere, along with Olympic staff who were incredibly helpful), I found out that the 20km race walk was about to start at Buckingham Palace! With the knowledge that the 20km walk would take about 90 minutes, I meandered from Tower Bridge along the river all the way up to Westminster, where I cut across to Buckingham, just in time for the last 10 minutes of the race! And dang, those guys were FAST. Given my DPhil research, I would say they were practically running. I've never been so excited to have taken speed walking class at NC State! Well, China won, so as the sun set behind Buckingham on such an incredibly perfect weather day, I took my time traversing Hyde Park once again (passing a gold medalist with her boyfriend! aww!), back to Paddington to catch my train to Oxford. And now for Dan's Medals of Approval...

Crowd control: Gold

Access to Olympic sites: Bronze

Food/shopping: Silver (because I question the post-Olympic sustainability of the new massive shopping mall)

Tourist services and information: Gold

Security: Gold (SO many police officers/military personnel!)

The experience these past couple of weeks has been fantastic. There was so much cultural pride and exchange when I was in London - security officers taking photos with Chinese tourists/athletes... athletes interacting with fans and each other... flags and languages from everywhere (I watched the race walk across from an avid group of Columbians)... but best of all, there was huge support for the British team, perhaps more national pride than during the Queen's Jubilee weekend! For the athletes like Wiggins, Murray, and Ennis, it must be huge to perform in front of the home crowd. Perhaps this fervor is even showing in the medal table - China and the US fight for 1-2, but Team GB will achieve a solid 3rd place. I know I'm not British, but I am so excited to be here for this, to cheer for Great Britain, and - admittedly - to be in an international city so close to the quintessential international gathering. Congratulations GB! Dan's Medal of Approval for Overall Olympic Experience: Gold

Well, in spite of the Olympics, I have had a bunch of extra time. Probably should have started packing for the move across town next week, but instead I finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book Six). Still one to go, but I reached the conclusion that yes, Oxford = Harry Potter. Now for my next book....

CULTURE CORNER

Watching the English by Kate Fox. I just started it tonight, but I think she may end up helping me with the Culture Corner in the near future. Only 30 pages in, but I can already tell it is going to be a fascinating and hilariously truthful read, so I highly recommend you read it with me! Don't worry, you won't have to read very fast to keep up. Oh, and the first 20 pages are a bit slow - the obligatory (important) scientific disclaimers - so don't be disillusioned. Perhaps when I'm done I'll even write a book review!

Word of the Day

Ok, so I'm not actually going to define a specific word of the day today because the British language has recently been a bit taxing. You see, I chose to change my spell check to British English for my conference paper and lit review, so now it's full of words like 'modelling,' 'colours,' 'analyse,' and 'sceptical.' After I finish my transfer, however, I plan to write about pitta and lemonade... so stay tuned!