Gates-Churchill

So, moving right along.  Sunday we had a joint dinner for the Gates students and the Churchill Scholarship students.  This begins what is to be the week of formals.  (Sunday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday!).  The best part, though, was that this event basically brought together all of my friends from Gates and all of my friends from College (b/c I'm in Churchill) and they all got to meet each other!  So it was just all-in-all a really nice event, especially because it got all of the spoiled people who live in the city center to venture out to Churchill and come see what my college is like! We had a nice formal dinner in hall and then went to the MCR to relax. Since pictures are always better than words, here are some of the highlights from the night.  I know that you've seen tons of pictures of the Churchill Hall set up for a formal before, so I'll try and focus on people!

Pre-dinner drinks and hanging out at Lucy's.

Everyone listening to speeches by....

.....(from right to left) Sir David Wallace, headmaster of Churchill, Robert Ethbridge, Provost of the Gates, and the head of the Churchill (I forget his name...).

Getting ready to eat!

Rowing revs up

Or, circuits, rowing, and erging, oh my!

Boats are set for Michelmas term now, which means that not only can't I quit, things are also starting to get intense.  For the first few weeks, it was chill: we rowed two days a week, and that was basically it.  Now we have circuit training on Mondays, rowing Wednesday mornings, erging on Thursday, and rowing again on Sunday.  I love being out on the water, and our boat is starting to get better (I sit at bow, or the back of the boat, so I can see the whole crew rowing, and we are so much more in synch than we used to be!) which is motivation to stick with all the land training, even though I haven't played a sport since freshman year of high school (and if you remember/ever knew what sport that was, we've been friends for a LONG time).  It's good, because I want to get in shape and know I wouldn't do it by myself, and the team is really nice.  All of the girls in  my boat are great, and many of them are undergrads, so it's been a nice way to meet people outside of the MCR (i.e., people who aren't international students or graduate students).  On Tuesday night, the Boat Club went on a pub crawl, which was fun, but I didn't quite enjoy as fully as possible because I had to row the next morning.  It was great to get to see poeple in a more social environment.  As someone put it, watching the girl in front of you move back and forth up the slide is not a great way to meet anyone, so I enjoyed it.  I know many of you still dont believe that I row, so I'll try and take a picture the next time I'm at the boathouse (if it's nice, maybe this Sunday).

Friday Night Highlights

Gosh it's been a long week.  I feel like, the busier I am, the less I write, and then I just get really prolific when I have a free moment, so get ready for lots of posts.

So, going back all the way to last Friday:

As it was the end of the week, I decided to celebrate by rejoining society after my long long illness.  First, we had happy hour at the institute, where you still have to pay for drinks, but they are A LOT cheaper than at a pub, and plus you get to get drunk in your workplace with your colleagues.  What could be better.  It was a lot of fun, particularly when i saw that they have a fooseball table with all of the players' heads replaced with photos of the PIs and model organisms.  When you're goalie is a C. elegans, how can you lose?

Then my friend and I decided to try out the Jewish life on campus by going to Chabad for Shabbat.  Now, I am not a big fan of Chabad in general.  I find all of the Lubavitcher stuff pretty freaky, and I never liked how pushy they were at Amherst.  But, I figured there was no harm in checking it out.  I kind of had mixed feelings about the evening.  It was, admittedly, kind of strange.  Like when the rabbi had his children start reciting facts about the week's parsha.  Or when he talked about meeting the Lubavitcher rebbe when he was 12 as the defining moment of his life. However, the food was good and we met some nice people, so all in all it was a mix of good and strange.  Don't think I'll be going back, but it was nice to try.  I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I totally miss Amherst Hillel!

After Shabbat, we went out with some friends to one of my least favorite pubs.  I dont think it has decided whether to be a pub or a club, because they have pub-like ambiance and seating, but club-like loud annoying music.  It was nice to see everyone, but I went home early.  So that hopefully gives you an idea of a typical Friday night here! I read an article recently that said that students double alcohol consumption when studying abroad.  I think that's fairly accurate.

Matriculation Dinner

So, I spent most of last weekend and the beginning of the week getting over my "fresher's flu."  I think I'm almost there, but not quite yet, which is annoying.  At least life has started to settle down here so I'm not constantly on the go.  I've gotten into the beginnings of a routine, going to work and rowing one morning a week, plus we've starting having house dinners once a week as well, which is nice.

But there are still big fun, formal things going on in college, and this week was one of the biggest: Matriculation Dinner.  This is a dinner for all of the graduate students at the college plus all of the fellows, and is designed to welcome new students, like me, to Cambridge.  It is quite formal, some people even wear gowns, which is quite unusual for a chill place like Churchill.  We also eat by candlelight, to pretend we're in a college like Magdalene or Kings.  Everyone has an assigned seat, and the fellows are also placed  intermingled with the students, which is nice.  I love all of these dinners; the formality and tradition is really fun.  They do the "long graces" in Latin at really special occasions like this, and our Master gave a speech about the great tradition of Churchill scientists (did I mention we have the second largest number of Nobel prize winners after Trinity? well, we do).  The food was not so great (they sometimes have trouble with vegetarian options here) but whatever.  Since this hall was special, wine etc. (and by etc., i really mean it: champagne, plus white, plus red, plus port, plus claret, plus more wine after dinner). 

I also got into somewhat of a, let's say intellectual debate instead of fight, with my dining neighbor.  The nice lady sitting across from me (i think she was a fellow's wife) asked me what I thought of Barack Obama, and I said something along the lines that I really liked him but sometimes wished he was a little less diplomatic and just said what he thought instead of always walking statements back when they might offend people.  And my example of this, probably stupidly, was Park 51 and the planned Islamic cultural center.  The guy next to me started off on how the organizers really should move the mosque and respect the "sensitivities" of 9/11 families.  I happen to strongly disagree (partially because there are a lot of 9/11 families that are in favor of Park 51) and I expressed my opinion forcefully, which I think made him and this lady a little uncomfortable.  oops.  she did ask about American politics....

I was the weird touristy person taking pictures during the dinner, which made me feel stupid, but also means that I have some really nice photos to share with all of you!

The tables set up for Matriculation Dinner.  Seating was assigned so all of the tables were lettered to help you find where to sit.

We had a drinks reception in the Fellows Dining Room before the dinner.

Our table.  Note the candle lighting.

Mood lighting at my place-setting.  Also notice the little glass; that one's for port.

I still don't understand what this is, but I think the fellows put a bean in the jar when they want to come to hall...

Chartwell

Our final freshers event was last Sunday: a trip to Chartwell, Winston Churchill's country home.  Mind you that this was after two nights of heaving "socializing" (read drinking), so getting up at 8 to get on the bus in time was not so much my favorite thing in the world, but it was nice to get to see some of the history that is behind our college.

One cool thing I found out was the Churchill (besides being a prolific writer - won the nobel for literature - and able politician) was an amateur painter.  They have a whole studio of his work there.  I also liked seeing all of the different uniforms and dress regalia he has (Britain has all of this cool formal traditional dress that just doesn't exist in the US).  Other than that, I don't really remember most of the stuff we learned (maybe because I did the kid's quiz tour instead of the one for adults...), but I thought I'd just include some nice pictures of the house and grounds (it was a gorgeous day!):

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I love it here.  But even when you love a place as much as I love it here.  Some days just objectively suck.  That was today.

I've been sick as some of you know (I have what we refer to as the "Fresher's Flu, which I did get every time I went back to Amherst, but seems a lot worse here).  This meant that I did not sleep at all last night, because I kept waking up to cough.  During one of these bouts, I decided to go to the bathroom...and locked myself out of my room, for the second time in the middle of the night.  I had to wake my floormate up (sorry Diana!) to get a pair of shoes and a coat to walk in my pjs to the porters lodge (again).  I think this time they realized that I was not in the mood to be made fun of, so they just gave me the key.  That was unpleasant to say the least.

Then I made what was probably the first of my stupid decisions today.  I woke up at 6 am to go rowing. Yes, in retrospect probably stupid.  But it was actually the only good thing about today.  I am really enjoying rowing, even though it makes me feel old because all the girls on the novice team are undergrad freshers, so they are all 18! but it's still fun, and today was the first real day I felt like I knew even a little bit of what I was doing in the boat!

Stupid thing number two happened as I got to work on my bike.  I wanted to ride my bike straight into the "cycle park" which meant going over the curb.  But I wasn't going fast enough so I wiped out in front of the institute.  A really nice Chinese man asked me if I was alright.  I assured him that I was, but in retrospect, probably not. Yay for helmets.

Anyways, then I attended yet another safety lecture (number 5?).  This one was by the same guy as before, but it was two hours (apparently the University has had some chemical safety accidents in the recent past).  I am all for safety, but I'm totally ADD, especially when I'm sick and keep getting dirty looks for coughing during the presentation, so I just kind of wanted to get out of there.

After that I was basically kicked out of work and told to go home and I decided that it was a good time to get some hardcore meds to get rid of this cold.  But first, I realized my morning wipe-out has made the chain come off my bike, so i wandered around for while trying to find someone who would fix it (preferably for free).  I did find that in the end, but it still was annoying.

Then I arrived at the pharmacy.  I looked for my good ol' standby: delsym, but they dont sell that here.  They also apparently don't sell gel icepacks, acetominaphin, or benadryl.  So then I had a conversation with the pharmacist that ended as it always does in my trying to explain that a cough can be both "chesty" and "dry" at the same time and why dont they just have a med that does both?  They also don't have large packs of cough drops here, so every way I have ever learned to deal with sickness is out of the window.  I did eventually find an icepack though.  After two pharmacies, two sports stores, and a department store.

Then I made what was probably stupid decision number three.  Instead of getting myself home and just passing out, I went out to dinner with friends to a Korean food place.  As I was not quite with it today, I got lost twice on my way there.  When I finally got there, it was great, but Korean food is super spicy.  Heartburn + cough does not = good feelings.  Plus when you're sick everyone is paranoid about eating with you : (

Finally, when I got out of dinner, it was raining.  Now, not a big deal normally, but when you have rowed, been thrown from a bike, spent the entire day trying to find real medicine, and are running on like 4 hours of sleep, the rain just sucks.  So I biked home in a really bad mood and then took a hot shower (but the hot water ran out).  All in all a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I think this is the first time that I've really been truly homesick since I've been here.  Sure I miss Amherst and Boston, but I don't wish I was there instead of here.  Today I kind of just wanted to be back in the States.  It would make like so much easier.  But I guess that's supposed to be part of this experience too.  And tomorrow will hopefully be better...

I want to be an octopus!

So, on Wednesday, I snuck into a lecture at King's (dont tell anyone!) in order to see Sydney Brenner speak.  In general, all I really wanted out of it was just that, to see Sydney Brenner, and I definitely got what I wanted, which was neat.

First though, funny story.  So, in the old uptight colleges you aren't allow to walk on the grass.  They put up scary signs in like, 9 languages, to make sure that you know it is forbidden, and if you do it, you get royally yelled at.

But, there is one exception: fellows of the college can walk on the grass.  And I, luckily enough, was not only with one of my lab mates (a graduate student at King's) but also with her friend, who was a fellow.  So I can say I've had an experience that few others have enjoyed: I walked on the grass at Kings.  The whole time I felt like I was breaking the rules, and many of you will think I'm paranoid.  Except that, immediately after we stepped off the grass, a porter came up ready to yell at us for walking on it.  He was pacified by the fact that we were with a fellow, but it shows you just how seriously they take it!

Anyways, the lecture was fun, but a bit all over the place.  I expected it to be about worm genetics (the work he won the nobel prize for), but I guess once you win the nobel prize, you can kind of do whatever you want, and Dr. Brenner has now moved into studying the evolution of the human genome, which is fine, but not something I understand all that much.  I will say that I was disappointed that the worm was never mentioned!  But he did talk about lampreys and sharks, so i guess it's cool.

He also said something that I found hilarious.  He goes "you know the old story of the hedgehog and the fox?  The hedgehog knows a lot about one thing and the fox knows a little about everything... I'm an octapus, I know a lot about everything."  Here's hopin' that's what happens to you at Cambridge!

Science!

I know I've been posting a lot about all the fun stuff I've been doing, but what I'm really here to do (what Bill Gates is presumably sending me here to do) is to learn stuff about science. As I think I've said before, I love the Institute (not only because the food is amazing) and my lab in general.  Sadly, I haven't really done anything yet.  I go to work, but I spend most of my day in these stupid bureaucratic safety and "induction" meetings that all say the same thing but are each administered by a different branch of the University.  Plus I have basically a mountain of paperwork to do!

But over the last couple of days I've been starting to do some lab work at least. I've been learning how to identify the genetic markers and balancers we commonly use for crosses and I've also learned how to identify flies that are so young that they haven't mated (we call this picking "virgins," let the middle school jokes commence), which is important to make sure crosses are clean.  Today I also learned how to dissect larvae to isolate the brain for stainings or other procedures.  It sounds boring, but it is the only science I've gotten anywhere near since being here, so it is exciting to start laying the groundwork.

Another great thing about being at Cambridge is the huge numbers of lectures that are constantly going on. I can post more about Cambridge science later, but suffice it to say that Cambridge has historically been a center for science (think Isaac Newton, Darwin etc.).  These days, we draw amazing lecturers from all around the world.  I know I already mentioned Sydney Brenner, but today I went with all my lab mates to a talk about microRNAs.  I assumed it would just be some random person, but I walked in and the lecturer turns out to be David Bartel!  He is basically the leader in this field.  Funnily enough though, I know of him mostly because one of his post-docs was on my Rhodes interview panel.  She was kind of scary-amazing and totally intimidated me, so I thought it was kind of funny that his lab would come up in my life again so soon (albeit in much different circumstances)!

Anyways, more science info to come as things start up!

Rowing (and other Extracurriculars)

I think that upon seeing the title for this post, most of you will assume that someone else has stolen my blog password and is now writing my blog.  Rowing involves things that I have been quite against in the past: namely, exercising, getting up early, and watersports.  However, I decided that, since rowing is kind of a Cambridge thing to do, it would be nice to say that I gave it a try while here, if only for a day or two.

So on Saturday morning, I dragged myself out of bed and biked down to the boathouse to try Churchill rowing, and actually found that I enjoyed it significantly more than I thought!  Even the erging was kind of fun.  It really is a great sport because it's safe (and with my knee problems, that is pretty awesome) and really social and it works out your whole body.  It really is a big deal here.  The teams are really social with each other, and everyone I've met on our college team seems great so far.  Plus it is a way to get to know some undergrads, which I'd likely not have the opportunity to do otherwise.  I thought at first that I might want to try and be a cox (the person who doesn't do any of the rowing but sits and yells at people) but I think I'll try rowing first.  Being a cox is complicated and you need to know things, and I would like to try and get into shape for once.  We had a technical session on the erg today and I actually really enjoyed it again.  I've heard that rowing is addictive and I'm starting to see what people mean by that.  So, contrary to just about all expectations I will likely be rowing novice for Churchill this year.  Novice is a nice way to get into the sport but with very little expectations.  They put a lot of time into training you to do it right, and the coaches see quite nice.

So I think that rowing will be one of my main one or two activities here.  A couple of days ago there was a huge Societies fair (I mean huge.  I think at any one time the number of people there exceeded the population of Amherst College).  I signed up for a huge number of things (partly because I over commit, and partly because I'm weak-willed and lured by candy and guilt).  I think things like the "Bobbin Lace Making Club" and the "Bell Ringing Club" wont really make the cut.  There are a bunch of other societies that you dont really have to do anything in, but have great lecture series' (like the science societies) and I may try and contribute now and then to some of the science publications (think "The Element" but much more hardcore).  I also toyed with the idea of doing science tutoring, but that is a really big commitment, and I'd kind of prefer to do other things, so what I think I may do is volunteer much less regularly for these groups that go into schools and do science demonstrations.  Plus, there is a Cambridge Science Festival and part of it is at the Gurdon, so I can volunteer for that.  I also toyed with the idea of singing in a choir, but besides the fact that I can't sing, it is kind of weird to sing in a choir at a college that barely even has a chapel.  I'll just go to Evensong at Kings and Trinity to fulfill that need.

The only other big thing I'll likely be involved in is the Fitzwilliam Art Museum.  I loved so much working at the Mead at Amherst that I think it would be great to be involved in another museum, and give me some time off from all the sciencey stuff.  Their members get great guided tours of the museum by the curators, trips to museums in London and elsewhere, and learn how to give tours of new exhibits, so I'm super happy about that!  It's also right around the corner from the Institute, so it should be really convenient!

Gates Love

So, if I haven't talked about how much I love the Gates community, let me do it now.  It is amazing.  Besides the fact that the people are amazing, the community is incredibly active at Cambridge.  We have student run events just about every week (this weekend, for example, we had a Dance Party in a club in town on friday night and then "golfing" on sunday).  Also, whenever I'm out at a pub, it inevitably becomes a Gates event.  Even when I was on the Churchill Pub Crawl, when we ended up at the Maypole, the group was basically half Gates people from different colleges.

Then, on Sunday night, we went "golfing" around to some rooms of Gates scholars.  I'll admit this did instill in my quite a bit of envy, especially upon seeing the palatial rooms of a girl who lives in Trinity.  She has a separate bedroom and sitting room, with a fire place, and a mural on the ceiling.  But I still really like my country house and having a home a little separate from work.  Regardless, my point is that the Gates is awesome and I'm so lucky to have this opportunity, not just to be here, but to be around such great people!

Super Hall

In my last post, I showed a picture of our dining hall.  It was only set up for a regular dinner, but three times a week we have optional (slightly more expensive but with better food) Formal Halls.  Of these three, friday night's is a "Super Hall," as since this Friday's was the first one of term, it was particularly well attended.

While many other colleges have a "high table" where the Master and the Fellows sit, it was specified that Churchill will have no such thing.  So the table for those important people is at the same level as everyone else, which I quite like.

Basically, for formal hall, you get quite dressed up (although we don't wear robes at Churchill, other colleges do) and have a nice three course dinner with all of your friends.  However, there are some traditions associated with these halls that make them more than just a nice meal.

First, the grace is always given before the meal in Latin.  Some colleges have long ones, but again, because we're chill, ours is quite short.

There's also a "game" associated with formal hall called "pennying."  This is a game whereby you drop a penny in someone's wine glass and they then have to drink the whole glass right there.  It's because the Queen's head is on the penny, and you wouldn't want the Queen to drown in your glass so you have to get rid of the liquid quickly.  Since I had never heard of this game before, I got pennyed quite a few times...

At the end of the meal, a gong rings, and you all stand up, and toast: To the Queen, to the Master, to Lord Winston (maybe in that order, I forget).  And then the meal is over.  This time though, it was also our Master's birthday, so we sang to him before he left!

Formal Hall is quite a lovely tradition and I'm excited to get to see how it is done in other colleges.  The MCRs at each college often organize formal swaps, so on one day all the Churchillians go to another college, and then we host them here some other time.  Plus a lot of my friends are in different colleges, so I'm trying to swing invitations!

1. Churchill College

Hi Everyone,

So I know that this blog hasn't been super active recently.  Ironically, it seems like as activity in  my life goes up, the amount I write about it goes down.  Consequently, this post will likely be quite long, as the past few weeks have been insanely busy.

In honor of my attempt to review all 31 of the Cambridge colleges (remember that?), I thought I'd start out with obviously the best one, my college, Churchill!

Some of you may be saying, "What's the deal with these colleges?"  The deal is that the University of Cambridge is divided into 31 residential colleges.  While the University is the home of your academics, the colleges are basically your social life while you are here (although I feel really lucky to know people at a bunch of different colleges through the Gates community).  Everyone in the same college lives and eats together (mostly) and members of a college have certain privileges there that other students of the University don't (although these are nebulous and kind of hard to figure out).  Each college also has a really distinct personality, in a way that I definitely did not expect when I was planning to come here.  I think a lot of American students don't think a lot about the college system and just pick one haphazardly, but if you are considering studying in Cambridge, I'd urge you to learn a little about the colleges and make an informed choice.

That being said, Churchill College is obviously the best college here, because it's the one that I'm in (your own college is always the best for you).  It is one of the newer colleges (founded in 1960) and was conceived of by Winston Churchill to be the Cambridge equivalent of MIT.  Thus, 70% of the students here at the College are science/technology/engineering/math etc., and about 1/3 are graduate students.  This means that we have quite a strong graduate community here (called the MCR, or middle combination room.  More on this later).  It also means that I spend most of my time around scientists and engineers, which is super different than being at Amherst!

Each of the colleges has it's own seal and it's own colors.  Our are pink and brown, which used to be Winston Churchill's racing colors.  The seal is also pretty cool, and the motto is 'Forward' (appropriate for a college mostly focused on science).  Statistically, we are the college with the largest grounds (really nice ones, where you actually can walk on the grass, as opposed to at other places! And we have trees planted by both Sir Winston and his daughter) and the largest dining hall apparently...

Here's a picture of the dining hall set up for just a normal night's dinner.  For Formal Halls it gets a lot fancier!

Here are the trees planted by Lady Soames (left) and Sir Winston (right).

The college also has some random quirks, history stuff (as does basically every college here).  Since I went on both a tour of the college and did a scavenger hunt last weekend, I've been freshly exposed to all of this fun stuff!

In our archives, we have all of Winston Churchill's papers, plus Margaret Thatcher's as well.  We also have a bunch of letters from Rosalind Franklin (if you don't know who that is, make sure to check out the link! she was really important in the search for the structure of DNA).  We are also slotted to get a new set of prime minister's papers.  We don't know whose they are yet, but it has been rumored that they're Tony Blair's.

While we're on the subject of Rosalind Franklin and the structure of DNA, it's worth mentioning that Francis Crick (of Watson and Crick) was one of the founding fellows of Churchill College.  All colleges here have chapels associated with them, but Crick was appalled at the idea of a religious institution being associated with a college devoted to the sciences.  When some fellows argued that the chapel would simply be there for those who wanted to use it, Crick suggested that they also build a brothel on the college property, for people who wanted to use that.  Needless to say, that idea was shouted down. But, to this day, we do not have a "Churchill College Chapel."  We do have a chapel "at Churchill College," but it is administered by a completely separate organization.

Another strange/cool thing about Churchill is that there is tons of random modern art around.  If you walk through the grounds, you encounter multiple pieces of modern sculpture, including these:

  

But that's about Churchill generally.  What exactly do I do here?

Well, first of all, I live here, in a cute little British house with four housemates.  The graduate housing here is really nice, and we even have internet in our rooms, a rarity I've been told.  I've finally begun to decorate my room so now it feels a little bit more like a home.  We have a cute kitchen and a garden in the back that has pear and apple trees.  While Churchill is kind of far from the center of town, it is sometimes nice to have a home that is separate from work and all the business of tourists etc.  Plus, since I've gotten a bike (best thing to do here!), my commute is now only about 15 minutes door to door.

  

Since "Fresher's Week" just ended, I have tons to say about hanging out in College.  I've gotten to know  a lot of the grad students here through events thrown by the MCR.  Everyone is really nice and we have a particularly active MCR, including a bar called "The Vicious Penguin."  We've had a bunch of events this week, including a Curry and Quiz night, a pub crawl, and many movie and game nights.  We also had two big events, but since this post is getting quite long, I'll split up and talk about them next!

Freakish and Amazing

I know I recently posted a list of things that I don't really like about being here, and it's true that living in a foreign country is weirdly challenging at times.  However, it is also often freakishly amazing, particularly when you are living at Cambridge University.  This can manifest itself in many ways, but one of the key ones is the density of famous people here.  Not only does Cambridge draw some of the most interesting people from all fields to come and lecture (Sydney Brenner is giving a talk this month!) but day to day life here is fraught with celebrities.

For example, the other night, on the way into town to meet friends, I saw Stephen Hawking.  No big deal, he was just being wheeled around on King's Parade.  A man walking next to me said "Good evening Professor Hawking."  I was torn whether or not to a.) take a picture, b.) awkwardly walk up and say something embarrassing like "wow, you're stephen hawking", or c.) just keep following him.  Clearly I chose option c.

That was pretty cool (read awesome), but then the next day something equally awesome happened.  I was reading the Times online and they had an article about Robert Edwards who just won the Nobel in Medicine for pioneering in vitro fertilization.  It was interesting, so I was reading the article, and turns out Dr. Edwards did a lot of his work at Cambridge.  Cool.  But Cambridge is a big place right?  Well, it turns out that Dr. Edwards is in fact a fellow at Churchill College!  Haven't seen him yet, but I'm still hoping!

Punting and Resolutions

So, this weekend we had probably the nicest day we've had since I got here almost two weeks ago.  Saturday was sunny and beautiful and I jumped at the chance to explore some of the older colleges a bit more.  I'm still not sure what the rules are for university students to visit other colleges, so I am taking it as my rule that if no one stops me, I'll go wherever I want and it was fun to just wander through the gothic halls of Kings, Trinity, Clare, St. Johns, and other gorgeous old colleges.

In the afternoon on Saturday, the Churchill college MCR (basically the grad student society) organized a trip to go punting on the Cam.  As I'm sure you all read my link from the last post, you already know that punting is where you go on the river with a really shallow boat and one person uses a huge pole to both propel you forward and steer.  There are guys who give professional punting tours, complete with historical facts about all of the colleges (many of them totally bogus).  However, we did not have that, so we had to punt ourselves.  This turned out to be really great fun, and yield many pictures (some slightly embarrassing).  Here are some of them:

      

      

So these pictures are of me punting, the "Mathematical Bridge" (apparently designed so that it doesn't need to be held together by nails, even though it is...), and two other buildings which I don't remember what they are.  I think the one on the left belongs to Trinity and the bridges on the right are from St. John's.

On the punting outing, listening to the punters pedal their made-up history, I realized that I actually wanted to know stuff about these colleges, my own but also all of the other ones.  When I was in Italy, I really liked that I had all of this information to put on here, about all of the museums and the art.  So I'm going to try and do a post on each of the colleges here.  Hopefully these posts will be accompanied by me actually having done something at each of the colleges, but there are 31 of them, so that might not happen. It is so nice to have friends at a bunch of different colleges through the Gates, so hopefully I'll be able to impose on them to show me the fun things to do at each college.  I bought a little book that has short histories of each college yesterday, so I think that I'm well on my way to making this resolution a reality.  Although, we'll see what happens when work starts up again...

Burned by England

So, I've been super positive about my life here so far.  And it's pretty hard not to be, meeting such amazing people and living in such a beautiful place.  But it isn't all fun and games here.  There are many ways that this country (and life outside the Amherst bubble in general) is designed to screw with a naive American girl like me, and I thought that you might enjoy reading a little bit about it:

1. Sides of the road: Just a refresher, they drive on the left here.  In the US, they drive on the right, and therefore my "survival instinct" to look to the left when crossing the street has almost gotten me killed multiple times since I've been here.  I'm not sure what'll happen when I start riding a bike...

2. Automatic locking doors: Maybe this isn't an England thing, but just a non-Amherst thing, but my door automatically locks behind me.  This was kind of a problem the other night when I went to the bathroom in my PJs and returned to find my door locked.  My next door neighbor was kind enough to lend me shoes and a coat to walk to the porter's lodge to get an extra key.  The porters made quite a bit of fun of me.  They were entitled.

3. Getting wet: Just about every day here involves getting wet.  Sometimes it's expected, like when we went punting, and other times it is a gorgeous sunny day and then it suddenly starts raining.  I hope my shoes dry quickly because right now I don't really know which ones I'll be able to wear tomorrow.

4. Metered everything: Stuff here is "metered."  That means they keep track of how much electricity, heat, and internet you use so they can charge you accordingly.  The free internet limit is 1 GB, which is actually quite a bit unless you, say, try to download an episode of Bones from iTunes.  Then you get back from the bathroom to find it's done downloading and you've been charged 16 quid (pounds, for laymen) for overuse of internet.

5. "Crawling" (and drinking in general): so this is a term I never heard before I got here.  Basically I have learned that "crawling" means walking around to different locations, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol at each of them.  We had a "Hostel Crawl" last night at my college (Churchill), where we stopped at each of the graduate houses and played drinking games.  Each hostel was themed a different country with a different liquor for each (UK = gin and tonics, Australia = beer, Russia = vodka, etc.  My hostel was Mexico = tequila, thank you RC seniors for teaching me how to drink tequila so I didn't make a fool of myself!).  Needless to say this didn't end well for many people, although I stayed relatively fine throughout the night.  Of course, afterwards we went to the pub.  It was raining.  We got wet.

6. Banks: Apparently when you cash a check here, your bank takes 5 business days (which do not include Saturday or Sunday) to process it before you get your money.  This is why I still do not own sheets or a bike.

7. Two tap sinks: This makes no sense to me.  The sink in my room (yes, I have a sink in my room) has two taps: one for freezing cold water, one for scalding hot water.  What if I want in-between-temperature water?  Yes, I know, you're supposed to fill the basin up, but that is a pain and it would make so much more sense to just have one tap.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I've thought of so far.  Funnily, despite all of the difficulties, I still love living here.  I guess when you are around awesome people being wet or broke or locked out of your room in the middle of the night don't bother you so much.

Retreat Number Two: Essex with the Gurdon

So, last night I just got back from my second retreat in one week.  This one was a little closer (in Essex as opposed to the Lake District) but was just as fun.  When asked what would be happening at this overnight retreat I replied that we would likely be talking about a lot of science and doing a lot of drinking.  And I was basically right.  There were science talks all day and a poster presentation in the evening.  Then there was a disco (which I'm starting to think is just the generic British word for party) in the evening.  It was so great to get to know all of my new labmates in such a fun environment.  The party was super fun, except that the DJ was miserable and sometimes I thought I was in a flashback to middle school bat mitzvahs (think, YMCA).   It also helped A LOT to hear all of them talk about their posters and to hear my advisor give her talk.  When I went into work today I really appreciated already knowing everyone, so I'm glad I went even though it left me completely exhausted.

And when I got back to Cambridge on Thursday night, I had to immediately get ready for the welcome dinner being put on by my scholarship.  The Provost of the Trust is changing right now, so the new Provost, who is also the Master of Fitzwilliam College, hosted a formal dinner at his college.  It was one of those experiences that you stereotypically envision when you think of "Cambridge."  Everyone was dressed up and we sat at long tables with assigned seating.  All the napkins had the college crest on them and we each had like 4 forks (this caused me some problems).  We drank wine, ate great food, listened to speeches, toasted the outgoing Provost, and then drank port.  It was quite lovely.  Then we went out to the pub, which I think I've done every night since I got here.  Needless to say tonight is a needed break.

Today was pretty slow, especially as I just think I need some time to recover from the intensity that has been the past couple of days.  I've been in England a little over a week but have slept in my own bed for maybe only two nights, so my room is still pretty bare and disorganized.  I still need to buy sheets and a bike and other necessities, so I think that will need to happen either this weekend or next week (at least I managed to get a phone today!).  "Freshers week," which is the equivalent of orientation here, starts tomorrow, so I'll probably be just as busy for a while, but hopefully the errands will get done in between trips to "punt" on the Cam (look it up) and pub crawls (yes, more pubs. It's a big deal here).  Then work starts and things will hopefully settle down a bit.

I'm still really behind with pictures, particularly because it is always raining here, so I have very little desire to walk around with a camera, but I promise to put some up as soon as there is any nice-ish weather, and hopefully I'll be putting up more Italy pictures soon.