Punting and Sunflower Seeds

Since everyone else was going exciting places over the bank holidays, I decided to have a really fun and relaxing weekend here in the UK.  

On Saturday, a bunch of Gates people took punts out from Trinity and went punting on the Cam. This is the third time I've been punting, the first when the weather was really nice, and that totally make the experience (although it also means the river is ridiculously busy). Afterwards, we had a picnic on the green along the Trinity backs.  It was lovely to just hang out with people, enjoy the weather, and sip Pimms along the backs!

Today, I went in to London to catch the last day of an exhibit at the Tate Modern that I've been wanting to see for a while.  Before that though, I met up with a friend and went to lunch near the Spitalfield's market.  On Sunday there are a ridiculous number of stalls set up selling any kind of food you can imagine (literally from every country).  And it's all ridiculously cheap.  I had amazing ethiopian food for lunch, yum!  Then we went to get bagels, which was a huge highlight as you basically can't find real bagels in Cambridge! double yum!

Then I went to the museum.  The Tate used to be a factory, and there is still a big open space in it called the "Turbine Hall."  Every year, they get an artist to design an installation to go in the hall, and this year that artist was Ai Weiwei.  He made an installation that is composed of millions of "sunflower seeds."  They're not actually seeds, but oblongs of porcelain, shaped and painted to look like sunflower seeds.  It really is an amazing piece.  The seeds were not industrially manufactured, but they were individually painted by artisans.  It's a really breathtaking work, and really thought-provoking as well.  

It used to be that you could go in and interact with the piece, walk around and play in the seeds.  But then the museum got worried about the dust being thrown up by everyone walking on it, so they roped it off.  I was really sad about this and was just thinking out it, when a few people jumped the barrier and started running around in the exhibit!  A minute later, half the people there had been enticed to break the rules and enter the big square of seeds.  It was hilarious.  It literally felt like a jail-break!  Eventually, though, the guards came over and asked everyone to get off.  I also decided that there is something to be said for keeping it free of people.  I found it a lot more tranquil and meditative without all the people in it.

On a serious note, Ai Weiwei, the artist, was recently arrested in China and his whereabouts remain unknown.  A lot of the museums, both in here in the UK and the US, are calling for his release.  If you want to sign a petition to push for him to be freed, one is available here.

11. Clare College

So I was pretty excited about this one, for obvious, and perhaps silly, reasons.  Besides the fact that it has an awesome name (spelled the correct way!), Clare is one of my favorite colleges.  It has beautiful gardens in the back, and the college is very chill and the people there really friendly.  I'd never been in the hall until Friday night though, so I was super happy that this was the first Gates swap of the term!

Clare's the second oldest college, founded in 1338, by the Lady Elizabeth de Clare.  She was the granddaughter of Edward I and, says my book, a "wealthy woman with modern ideas."  One of these "modern ideas" apparently was to provide free housing and education for 10 poor boys (in addition to the Master and 19 Fellows).  The Clare crest has a black band around the outside with little gold tear drops.  This is a mourning band, as Lady Elizabeth had three husband and each of them died before she was 28 (on punting tours they suggest she had something to do with it and call her the "black widow" but I think that's kind of mean).

Another cool thing about Clare is that it has the oldest bridge over the Cam (not the first one built, although the first one built in the classical style, but the oldest one that survives).  Apparently, the designer, Thomas Grumbold, was paid 3 shillings (i.e., not much) for the drawings.  The bridge has 14 stone balls, and part of one of them is missing - Grumbold's revenge for poor payment.

Some famous Clare men:

Hugh Latimer (there's a portrait of him in hall): Protestant reformer burned at the stake by Mary Tudor
Charles Townshend: Chancellor of the Exchequer who imposed the taxes that sparked the American Revolution
General Lord Cornwallis: lost the battle of Yorktown, surrendering to the Americans and giving us our own country!

Some photos from Clare:

Congrats to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

So, in case you didn't hear, on Friday Prince William married his long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton.  Upon their wedding, they were also named Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, which means that they may even come visit! (if you're interested about Cambridge and it's ties to the royal family, here's a great article from the Guardian!)

The preparations for the wedding though, have been going on for months.  Not only has the speculation been non-stop since December about who would make the dress and what kind of wine they'd serve, but we also did a Royal Wedding themed happy hour a lab a few weeks ago.  To be honest, I was kind of ready for everything to be over.

I debated going to London for the wedding, but then decided not to, mostly because I knew I wanted to go into London again this weekend, and I thought it would be silly to go twice, also a little because it was supposed to rain.  But I did watch the wedding on TV!

Kate Middleton barbie dress cake with cut out Wills (at our happy hour!)

10. Corpus Christi College

The formal hall circuit is usually pretty intense, but it does quiet down a little when the undergrads are gone.  However, that doesn't stop the grads from having their own "Grad Halls" which are usually a lot more fun because there are no wasted undergrads wandering around.

I went to such a Grad Hall at Corpus Christi a few weeks ago.  Corpus, despite being really near where I work, is one of the colleges that I had never been to until hall.  Interestingly, it was founded by the townspeople (not by some wealthy individual) which makes it unique among the Oxbridge colleges.  It was founded by members of the guilds of Corpus Christi and of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was granted it's license in 1352.  It's also one of the oldest colleges and was the first one to have a "court" (a quad basically).

Corpus has a very well-endowed library, owing mostly to Matthew Parker, the master from 1544-53 (later Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I), who donated many of the books.  He saved books and documents during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and bequeathed them to the college.  These books were very precious (among them is a sixth century Gospel believed to have been given to St. Augustine by Pope Gregory), and were kept under lock and key (three keys were held by the Master, two by the Fellows).  They were inspected each year by the Masters of Gonville and Caius and Trinity Hall.  If any of the manuscripts were missing, the whole college would move to Caius.  If any books went missing from Caius, the collection would move to Trinity Hall, and if they lost anything, it would all go back to Corpus and start the cycle over again.  Apparently this process has been discontinued.

Corpus also has the best collection of pre-Reformation silver in Cambridge, mostly because instead of giving it all back tot he King or Parliament during the Civil War, it distributed the loot among the fellos, who hid it until the Restoration.

Some Corpus men include:

Thomas Cavendish: the second man to sail around the world

Christopher Marlowe: English dramatist and rival of Shakespeare

The hall at Corpus is quite unique.  I love all of the colors.  The food was also amazing, as this was a special hall and there were therefore five courses.  All in all a great night at a fun hall!

Spring has Sprung

So, I've fallen so behind on the updates that I think it's probably not worth it at this point to go back and recap all of the events in the last few months.  Some highlights have included going to formal at King's College (a pretty hard ticket to come by!), some great lectures (even one by an Amherst alum!), advising British school children on careers in science (despite knowing basically nothing about the British education system), a visit by a lovely Amherst friend, trips to London for museums and the Cambridge-Oxford boat race (we lost), the Cambridge science festival, and running around Queen's green with friends throwing colored powder around (Holi is my new favorite holiday).  The end of last term was, as you can likely imagine, pretty eventful, and everything is made all the more fun by the fact that the weather is starting to get nice and warm and all of the flowers are starting to bloom.  The daffodils along the backs are already starting to fade, but the tulips are in full bloom.  A few weekends ago, Trinity opened up their private gardens, which gave me even more of an excuse to frolic in the flowers!  Here are some pictures:

      

     

9. Christ's College

More formals!  Last week I was invited by a friend to a special formal at Christ's for Mardi Gras (or, as it's called here: Pancake Day).  I was already in a good mood, since our cafeteria at work made pancakes for Pancake Day, and this was like the cherry on top.

Christ's is another college that I'd never been to before I went to formal there.  It is in the busy center of town, which I realized when I found myself taking off my cycling pants (which I was wearing under my dress to stay warm on the cycle ride from Churchill) on a busy street corner!

I think I've mentioned Christ's before, as it was founded by the same person as John's: Lady Margaret Beaufort.  However, the college existed as the small college of God's-house since 1437, before it was given a royal charter.  It was originally designed as a teacher training college to replace the teachers killed in the black death.  When King's was established, God's-house was forced to move.  At this point, Bishop Fisher (chaplain to Lady Margaret), who was friends with the head of God's-house, persuaded her to establish it as a proper college, and it was granted a charter in 1505 on May 1.  The college flag continues to always be flown on that day.  The gatehouse has Lady Margaret's statue, holding a bible.  The symbols of the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis are also everywhere, as are her coat of arms supported by the mythological yales (like at John's).

The hall at Christ's was restored in 1876.  It is lined with portraits, including one of John Milton, who came up in 1628, and Charles Darwin.  Apparently, Milton was a "pale an delicate young man," so other students nicknamed him "the lady of Christ's."

It was fun to visit Christ's.  It's a gorgeous college, and I'd like to go back during the day time!  The hall is quite small, which gives it a very intimate feel, and it was neat to be there during a themed hall.  There were Mardi Gras beads on all of the tables and people were dressed up for Carnival in masks and some times more elaborate costumes!

Here are some pictures of Christ's:

The yales above the gate.  The motto is the same as John's: souvent me souvient (remember me often)

Again with my crest-on-china obsession.  This time, the tutor rose...

And the Beaufort portcullis.

Best part of the dinner.  They had a separate chocolate plate after the desserts! Yum! Downside, there was only coffee, no tea

More yales!

Wales (Cardiff Castle)

I'm pretty much a home-body.  I've barely been anywhere since I've gotten to Cambridge (I actually haven't even been to London!), so when the opportunity arose to go on a Gates trip to Wales, I jumped on it!

Here's a great video to remind yourself of what the deal is with Wales:

Wales is pretty far away from Cambridge, so the trip entailed getting up at 5 am, leaving by 6, and getting there around 11.    The bus ride didn't bother me so much (maybe that 20 hour trip to France has conditioned me not to mind long bus rides) but the waking up that early definitely was not the best!

It was still fun to go though.  One of the neat things about Wales is that all of the signs are both in English and Welsh.  We visited Cardiff Castle (Castell Caerdydd in Welsh), a medieval castle with a Victorian gothic revival house.  The buildings are adapted from what was originally a Normal keep overlooking a Roman fort.  It was neat to see all of the different layers of the history of the site.  Plus, the Victorian mansion was pretty amazing.  I was also quite excited to see that the landscaping in the 18th Century was done by Capability Brown!


After visiting the Castle, we were all starving!  So we just went into the first place we found for lunch.  Unfortunately, this turned out to be a restaurant called "Old Orleans," which was the most ridiculously tacky take on American Cajun/Louisiana food (the menu used words like "hankerin'", but then spelled flavours with an "ours").  It did provide some amusement, but mostly the food was not so great.


We then walked down to the bay to see some of the rest of Cardiff.  The Welsh national assembly is there, as is the Millenium center and a couple of neat churches.  Apparently, Roald Dahl was born in Cardiff, since there is a "Roald Dahl Pass" there as well!


All in all, it was a nice excursion from Cambridge. I'm looking forward to more of them in the future!

8. Jesus College

As always, I'm behind again, so I'm going to try and play catch-up really fast and let you all know some of the things that have been going on recently (life is pretty busy right now, but should slow down soon as term ends this week).

A little bit more than a week ago, I went on another Gates formal swap, this time to Jesus College.  The fun was all the more increased by the endless jokes: "I'm going to Jesus tonight!"

Jesus is a gorgeous college, and is actually the college where my adviser is a fellow!  Despite this to recommend it, I'd never actually been to Jesus until I went to hall there, so it was really exciting for me to get to see it for the first time.

Jesus was founded in the late fifteenth century by the Bishop of Ely (a town quite close to Cambridge).  When he first visited it in 1496, it was an impoverished Benedictine nunnery dating back to the 12th century.  As there were only two nuns left, he got a grant from Henry VII to suppress the nunnery and establish a college with the longest name I have every seen: "The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. John the Evangelist and the Glorious Virgin St. Radegund."  Since that's way too long to say, it was always called Jesus College.

Since Alcock's (the Bishop) symbol was the cockerel, that's what's on Jesus' shield and on a lot of the buildings and decorations around the college.  A statue of Alcock stands in the center of the gate house with a cockerel above him, standing on a globe.

The buildings of the old nunnery were adapted for use in the college, and therefore a few of the buildings at Jesus are some of the oldest in Cambridge.  The hall above the kitchens, which was the nuns' refectory, has been continuously used for dining for over 800 years.  The nuns' church became the college chapel, and is the oldest building at any of the Cambridge colleges.  Throughout the years, the chapel was updated, and in the 19th century William Morris designed the nave and the tower ceilings.  The south transept has a memorial to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who was burned at the stake by Mary Tudor and who had been a Jesus undergraduate.  Other famous Jesus students include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who came up in 1791 (but left before obtaining his degree).

One more fun fact: the Old Library at Jesus has an autographed copy of the first edition of the first bible printed in America.  It was printing in the other Cambridge (Cambridge MA) in 1663 in Algonquin and was translated by a Jesus man, John Eliot.

My experience of Jesus was quite nice.  It is a nice hall and the food was quite good.  It wasn't super formal, although Jesus students do wear gowns.  All in all it was a nice way to catch up with some Gates scholars I hadn't seen recently and enjoy yet another college hall!

Sadly this was the point where my camera ran out of batteries, so I don't have any pictures except for a couple:

Lent Bumps

Before you get too excited, I didn't actually row in Lent Bumps.  While upper boats are guaranteed a spot based on their performance in previous years, lower boats have to race in order to "Get On," with only the top seven boats getting slots.  This year there were 21 boats competing for those seven places, so it was quite competitive.  We came in 10th, which I think was quite respectable, but it was disappointing to not get to race (although my knees are basically falling apart, so it's probably better for me that we didn't).

However, it was still really fun to experience bumps as a spectator (virtual spectator that is; I didn't actually go to any of the races).  For those who aren't familiar with bumps, here's a rundown:

Basically, the reason we have bumps races is that the Cam is really narrow.  This means that it is hard to do head-to-head regattas (with two or more boats racing side by side) and the ones that there are are quite short since they are limited to the widest part of the river.  We do a lot of time-trial races, but those aren't very exciting, so the other type of racing we do are bumps.

Bumps entails exactly what it seem like it would.  Boats start in a staggered order and the goal is to literally bump into the boat in front of you before the boat behind you bumps into you.  The starting order is determined by the results from the previous year, so clubs that are historically strong (like First at Third, Caius, LMBC etc.) are near the top.  If you bump someone, the next day the two boats switch places, and you move up one.  If you're bumped, you move down one.  If you "row over" (i.e., are neither bumped nor bump anyone) you stay in the same place.  There are also such things as "over bumps." This is when the boat in front of you gets a bump and then they and the boat in front of them are taken out of the race.  Then you have a chance to bump a boat three places in front of you, so you move up three places.  This year, there was actually a double overbump in one of the divisions, where a boat moved up five places!

Bumps are four days long.  Basically, this means that the only people who would realistically end up "head of the river" (i.e., the number one boat) are those that are in the top five spots to begin with.  However, this doesn't mean that there's no point racing lower down in the division.  If you bump up four places (either bumping every day, or over bumping and bumping again or whatever combination) then you are awarded "blades" (those big oars that hang in the boathouse or the pub and have the names of the crew and of the boats you bumped on them).  If the opposite happens, and you fall four places, you get "spoons."

As should be pretty obvious, bumps are endemically unfair races.  If you happen to have an unusually good boat but are not normally a strong club, you can get blades easier than if boats were just ranked by a time trail to determine the starting order.  But that's kind of just the way it works.  This year, the big news was whether First and Third would keep the headship in the two women's and men's divisions.  They actually lost both to Downing early in the week, and then Caius bumped Downing to take Headship for the men, so it was pretty exciting.  Churchill didn't do phenomenally.  Our top men's boat was bumped and then rowed over for the rest of the time, and our women were bumped twice and then rowed over.  However, our second men's boat was bumped once, rowed over once, but then bumped on both of the last days, which was nice for them.  Some clubs had an even more embarrassing week (watch for the LMBC boat at about 27 seconds in this video of M1 division):

Now everyone is calling them Lady Margaret Beached Crew

7. St. John's College

Would you rather be at Oxford or St. John's?

Being at school, you kind of have to have a rival.  At South it was North (although they were always better than us at most sports, so it was mostly depressing).  At Amherst it was Williams (kind of ditto, a lot of the time).  Churchill College doesn't really have a rival, but at Cambridge, many find that rivalry with St. John's College.  I don't know about their other teams, but their boat club (Lady Margaret Boat Club, more on this later) is pretty good, plus, the College has a little bit of a reputation for elitism (and the college is pretty wealthy): prime rival territory.  And as with any rivalry, there is a lot of trash talking. There's even a song: "I'd rather be at Oxford than St. John's."  To reference another famous rivalry, John's is often cast as the Slytherin of Cambridge.

At the same time, I have a lot of friends in John's, so I was torn when I decided to go on a formal swap there.  Would I be offended by the stuffiness and wish I was dining at another institution some 60 miles away?  Or would all the stories turn out to be apocrypha and John's just be another charming Cambridge college underneath it all?

I think a little bit of both were true, but first a few facts about St. John's:

The founder of the College was Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry VII), who is also responsible for the founding of another Cambridge college (Christ's) and a college at Oxford.  Although she died before work on the college could commence, she left a provision in her will to make sure that her intent to found it was fulfilled.  Her symbol (the portcullis) adorns the gatehouse (as it does many other buildings in Cambridge), as does the Tudor rose.  The Gatehouse is also decorated with daisies (for "Margaret") and forget-me-nots in honor of her motto: souvent me souvient (remember me often).

The college is designed as a sequence of multiple courts that lead to the "backs" and the river Cam.  A gorgeous bridge links the courts on either side of the river.  The "Bridge of Sighs," as it's called, is covered like it's Venetian namesake (though there is where the similarities end).

Like all colleges, John's has some strange traditions.  Apparently fellows of John's are the only people outside of the Royal Family who are allowed to eat unmarked swans.  Traditionally, the Queen owns all of the unmarked swans in the UK, so this is a pretty big privilege.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, LMBC (Lady Margaret Boat Club) is what John's calls their boat club.  The story goes that both Trinity (which is currently called "First and Third") and John's used to use the college name in the boat club.  However, after an accident where a St. John's crew killed the cox of Trinity's second boat, both clubs were renamed.  According to Wikipedia, this story is "entirely fabricated."

Contemporarily, St. John's is well known for it's May Ball.  Last year it was named seventh best party in the world by Time Magazine.  Since this is the 500th Anniversary, this year's ball is likely to be a blow-out.

As is likely obvious, John's is pretty traditional.  This extended to dinner as well.  Every plate, cup, and piece of silverware is crested, and each person is given an individually printed menu.  If you don't fancy the dessert, you can request the cheese course, and both port and sherry are available before and after dinner.  But to be honest, that isn't too much more intense than a lot of the older colleges.  On the whole, I had a great time at John's.  When we went to the bar afterwards (which, unlike the measly Churchill MCR bar, is staffed by professionals, not students), I made a brief note of the sign announcing that "Each Johnian is allowed up to two guests, who must be accompanied at all times."  But even though it is a little stuffy, you've just got to smile, because that's just how John's is.

And when it comes down to it, if it's a choice between Cambridge and Oxford, I'd choose St. John's.

Some pictures:

6. Trinity College

Again, I'm getting pretty bad with the updates.  Sorry!  Things have been quite busy here, what with it being half term, but hopefully I'll be better in the future!

The first half of the term wasn't super heavy with the formals, but things seem to have picked up because I've had two in the last two weeks, and one on the horizon.  I love formal halls, especially when I get to go to other colleges.  Formal at Churchill is not quite as exciting any more, particularly because it is one of the more relaxed halls, but it's still a thrill to get to eat in halls that are hundreds of years old!

At the same time, that's life here!  Often, it's freakishly easy to forget the fact that most of the world does not dine in medieval halls and then spent the evening drinking port on a regular basis.  But, when you think about it, with 31 colleges, if each only had one formal a week, then there would still be tons going on, and some colleges have them every day!  I guess that's my rationalization for the fact that the lifestyle here is kind of ridiculously great.

Anyways, the other night I got to go to formal at one of the colleges that you think of when you think of Cambridge: Trinity.  For those who don't know, my dad was actually a student at Trinity back in the 70s after he left Amherst (yes, we are basically the same person), so I was even more excited to get to see the hall.

But, as always, first some fun facts about Trinity:

As I said, it's one of the biggies: the largest of the Oxbridge colleges and the leader in Nobel prizes at Cambridge (guess who's second? It's Churchill!)  It was founded by Henry VIII (the one on "The Tudors" who killed all his wives) in 1546 only five weeks before he died.  It was actually formed as a conglomeration of two already existing colleges and was given a pretty sizable endowment (which it still enjoys today).

In honor of it's founder, there is a statue of Henry at the Great Gate to the college.  You'd think he'd be holding a scepter, but in his right hand he actually holds a chair leg (a 19th century student's joke)!  Nearby the Gate, there is a "statue" of a different sort: a descendent of the apple tree that was said to have inspired Isaac Newton (a Trinity man) to explore the laws of gravity.  Other famous Trinity men (whose statues adorn the chapel) were Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Francis Bacon.

The Great Court wasn't designed until the reign of Elizabeth I, but it is the largest court in Oxford or Cambridge.  Two key hallmarks of the Court are the central fountain and the clock tower.  The clock strikes the hours twice, once with a low tone, once with a high one (the clock 'with a male and female voice' of Wordsworth's Prelude).  There is a tradition whereby undergrads try and run around the Great Court as the clock is striking twelve (a challenge featured in the movie "Chariots of Fire").  There are a lot of other odd traditions at Trinity (as at many of the older colleges), like the fact that the undergrads where blue, not black robes, and the porters wear bowler hats.

The hall, where we had formal, is absolutely gorgeous.  It's Elizabethan, and meant to model London's Middle Temple.  The walls are hung with portraits of Trinity men (Byron, Dryden, and Lord Rutherford) and a painting of Henry VIII hangs at the head of the hall.

(The last famous Trinity building, which I have yet to go to, is the Wren Library.  More on that later once I've made it there).

Phew!  As you can probably tell, Trinity is a college with a great history.  However, being one of the largest colleges, it still has a pretty large sway on contemporary Cambridge life.  A lot of my friends, both on the Gate and not, are at Trinity, and a couple of my friends from lab invited me to the annual Valentines Day Hall (although I'm not sure what was so Valentines-y about it, as it was almost a week later and there weren't any decorations up, but whatever).  The food was quite good, and we were given wine, which probably made it one of the most valuable (bang for your buck) formals that I've been to here.  But probably the most exciting thing is eating in a hall lit by candlelight!

This was the first time that I went to someone else's hall as a guest but not on a Gates swap, and it was a fun experience to not just hang out with people I already new but to get to meet "friends of friends."  The people I know in lab have been at Cambridge for a long time (some were even here as undergrads) and it is neat to see how at home they are here (for most of my friends everything is new but for them it's old hat!).  It definitely made me wish I was staying longer, but for now I guess I'm just trying to get everything out of it that I can!

Some pictures from my night at Trinity!

We cut the desserts into heart shapes in honor of Valentine's Day!

Continuing my fascination with marked china, all the Trinity plates had the seal printed on them!

Churchill Spring Ball

My first Ball at Cambridge!  Churchill Spring Ball was last night.  Whatever made you put a ball in February, let alone call it a "spring" ball, escapes me, but since the more traditional "May Balls" are actually in June, I'm not exactly surprised.

Spring and May Balls are a big deal here.  Some of the more coveted ones (Trinity, Clare etc.) are almost impossible to get tickets to, and some of the richer colleges spend ridiculous amount of money on their balls.  Churchill's is a little less over-the-top, but since it's my college, and a lot of people I knew were going to be there, I decided to go.

The theme this year was "Seven Deadly Sins."  Yes, I did fell a little bit like I was going to prom again, but it was really the people there that made it fun.  There was a lot of food and drink (AMAZING lemon gnocchi and waffles!), many musical performers, henna, massages, and a variety of bouncy-houses and ballpits (not so great for someone wearing a dress that I just bought last week and really didn't want to ruin!).   After the experience, I'm looking forward to the May Balls (in June) even more now!

Here are some pictures from the night:

Chinese New Year X 3

Hi Everyone!

Gosh, it's been a long time! I've got some blog catch-up to do, so bear with me if some of these are old.

Happy Chinese New Year! To be honest, I've never really celebrated Chinese New Year before.  I always knew that it was happening, and sometimes I got red envelopes from teachers, but it was never as big a deal at it was in Cambridge!  I'm not quite sure why this is, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that there are more Chinese students at the University than American students, so it is a large community.  It may also have something to do with the fact that it is a really fun holiday to celebrate!

Let's brush up on the facts of Chinese New Year.  It's a holiday based around the lunar calendar, so it falls at a different time every year, but if always towards the end of January or in February.  Each year is associated with an animal zodiac, of which there are 12.  This is important, because, like the other zodiac, the animal whose year in which you are born say something about you, and when that year recurs, it's supposed to be lucky.  This was actually very important for me when I was a child.  Being young for my year, I was so jealous because all of my friends were born in the year of the dragon whereas I was born in the next year, the year of the snake.  But, remember the rules?  It's according to the lunar calendar, which doesn't change over until Feb, so I'm still a dragon! Yay!  According to the Chinese students in my lab, it's a very good sign!

This year is year of the Rabbit, which was exciting for my lab because one of the Chinese students was born in the year of the Rabbit.  Considering the fact that our student from Taiwan just completed his PhD, we decided to have a celebration for both of them!  This was my second chinese-new-year-associated event (we had a Gates Chinese New Year Party too), so I was excited for my second helping of chinese food in a week!  To celebrate, our lab went bowling, and then we went to an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant in Cambridge, which was absolutely amazing!

For my third and final Chinese New Year celebration, there was a special hall at Churchill to celebrate the holiday.  To be honest, the food was not that great, but they did have a fantastic troupe of lion dancers!

Burns Night

Today I went to my first hall since the beginning of term.  Being a space cadet, I forgot to sign up for it in advance, so I had to go and abase myself before the wonderful catering staff to get a space (it actually wasn't that difficult.  They were super nice about it!).

Tonight's hall was a special one for Burns Night, a sort of holiday honoring the Scottish poet and lyricist, Robert Burns. Burns was a proto-romantic poet, whose work influenced the styles of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, among others.  His work also inspired multiple American writers.  Steinbeck took the title of his book "Of Mice and Men" directly from a Burns poem, and J. D. Salinger referred to another of his poems in the title of "Catcher in the Rye."  Burns was also most recently named by the STV television audience as the Greatest Scot of All Time (beating out William Wallace).  But in the US, he might be most famous for writing Auld Lang Syne.

Needless to say, Burns Night is a pretty big deal, particularly in Scotland, but here in Cambridge as well.  The dinner follows a familiar form every year, and every year you eat the same thing: Haggis.  For those of you who dont know what haggis is, I'm not going to elaborate, but suffice it to say that it is banned in the US.  Google it.

Before you eat the haggis though, everyone stands while someone reads "Address to a Haggis," a Scottish poem about the dinner's main star.  Thankfully, I am a vegetarian, and therefore didn't end up eating the real haggis.  What I did eat was pretty good, and I'm told the haggis was good too, though I don't think I'll be trying it any time soon.  We also had my least favorite hall dessert: syllabub.  Basically, it's alcohol flavored whipped cream, although this one (whiskey and raspberry) was better than the last time I had it (vodka and lemon).

After the meal, there are traditional toasts: to Robert Burns, to the Lassies (Burns was a bit of a womanizer), and to the Laddies.  Then we had a ceildh, or basically a Scottish version of square dancing or line dancing, where the steps are called out to the partners.

All in all, it was a good time, and I'm glad that I made the effort to go.  As a last tribute to Robert Burns, I'm writing this in the new tartan PJs that I got for Christmas (thanks grandma!).

But before me and my PJs go to bed, I'll leave you with this poem by Robert Burns (I thought it was appropriate considering the amount of whiskey that was consumed at hall tonight):

A Bottle and Friend

There's nane that's blest of human kind, 

But the cheerful and the gay, man, 

Fal, la, la, &c. 

Here's a bottle and an honest friend! 

What wad ye wish for mair, man? 

Wha kens, before his life may end, 

What his share may be o' care, man? 

Then catch the moments as they fly, 

And use them as ye ought, man: 

Believe me, happiness is shy, 

And comes not aye when sought, man.

Is it still a ski vacation if you can't really ski? (Les Arc 2011)

Hi Everyone,

I've been away from the computer for a while again.  First it was because my family was here and then it was because I left a week after them for a ski vacation in the French Alps.  It was the first time I'd done any serious skiing since my knee surgery and I was nervous, but excited to get to go France, speak French, and most importantly ski in the ALPS!

Unfortunately, all did not go as planned.  While the weather was gorgeous and the snow pristine, my knees gave me a lot of problems, so I ended up not skiing nearly as much as I had wanted and therefore spent a lot of the trip reading and basically killing time, since there is not much to do in a ski resort other than ski.  Maybe looking at the trip by the numbers will give you a better idea of the full experience.

Round trip travel time: 40 hours by bus and ferry

Boy movies watched on the bus.... (6 total, I wont include Brokeback Mountain, although that is about cowboys)
  - about Nazis: 1
  - about aliens: 1
  - about smoking weed: 2
  - about fraternities: 1
  - about superheroes: 1

18-year old boys I shared a room with: 3 (plus my wonderful housemate from Germany)

Days I actually skiied: 3 (half days, charitably) out of 6

Books read: 3

Crossword puzzles completed: 62

French doctors visited: 1

French "physical therapists" visited: 1, who was kind of strange and whom I'm convinced was a kind of hybrid between a physical therapist and a chiropractor...

Pictures taken: 132, because I had a lot of time to kill.

Here are some samples:

I'd like to be, well, optimistic is not the right word, but I'd like to say that even though it was frustrating, it was still a great experience, but that just isn't true.  It was difficult to be on a vacation that I couldn't really fully enjoy and which was frankly more stressful than anything else.  So I'm really glad right now to be back in Cambridge and to get back into a little bit more of a normal schedule.  Everyone is starting to come back from vacation and I'm excited to see some familiar faces, get back into work and rowing, and start off my second term at Cambridge!

5. Christmas at King's

Happy Christmas everyone! (way belated, but when I wrote this it actually was Christmas...)

Here in Cambridge, the whole town is basically shut down for the holiday.  My parents finally got here, despite the 5 inches of snow that completely shut down one of the world's largest international hubs (Heathrow airport) and I am really enjoying some quality family time. It's been great just wandering around the town, and taking my family to some of my favorite places here in Cambridge.

Yesterday (barely 24 hours after my parents had arrived) we got up at 6 am in order to partake in a timeless Cambridge tradition: attending the King's College Christmas service.  The service is famous around the world, and is broadcast by the BBC on the radio.  Only 650 people can actually get into the chapel to hear the service, so we had to get to King's early in the morning to wait in line to be admitted.  And the first 160 actually get to sit in front of the screen, in the chapel with the choir.  It was also freezing yesterday, so it was a test of endurance to stand outside for 6 hours, and we didn't even make it into the chapel!  However, there was a coffee shop at the college where we could spell each other, and it was totally worth it in the end, since the service was beyond amazing.

The service was held in King's College chapel, which, as I think I've mentioned before, is a gorgeous work of gothic architecture.  King's itself was founded in 1441 by Henry VI as a place where boys from the school he founded (Eton) could go to be educated at Cambridge.  Around this time, work on the chapel began, but was interrupted by the War of the Roses and the deposition of Henry.  The exterior was not finished until the early 16th century under Henry VII, and the interior wasn't completed until 1544 under Henry VIII.  Both the exterior and the interior of the Chapel are meant to reinforce the royal patronage that helped to build it.  Symbols of the Tudors abound, such as the tudor rose and portcullis and the crown for the king.  There are also a lot of carvings of the greyhound, which was the symbol of Lady Margaret Beaufort (Henry VII's mother and the founder of two other Cambridge colleges, St. John's and Christ's, more on this later).  Finally, on the wooden screen that shields the ante chapel from the chapel proper are the symbols of Henry VIII (the tudor rose) and his wife Anne Boleyn (the falcon).  There are also gorgeous stained glass windows telling stories from the life of Jesus.

The service is a little special for Christmas.  It consists of both "lessons" (i.e., readings from the Bible) and carols.  The college has it's own choir consisting of boys and young men that lead all of the carols and do some of the readings.  The first carol is always "Once in Royal David's City" and the first verse is always a solo.  All of the choir boys learn the solo, and it is only right before the performance that the choir master lets the boy know who is singing.  There are also carols that are commissioned specifically for this service.

As I said, it was pretty amazing (it's actually the reason I decided to stay in town for the holiday) and I'm so glad we did it!  Looking back now (a week later!) it was probably the best thing we did over the break!