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!

Is it Christmas yet?

This week has been pretty up and down.  I think it was inevitable, what with being sandwiched between retreat and the arrival of my family, this was bound to be a drop and change week.

Some highlight include...

1. getting a free (FREE!) pastry from Patisserie Valerie on my way to work the other day
2. learning to knit
3. some pretty nice in situ stainings
4. and the fact that it is currently snowing.

Lowlights include...

1. getting sick after retreat (that was fairly predictable)
2. everyone I know having already gone home for the holidays, causing my to spend a lot of quality time with my computer-turned-television
3. my overexpression constructs not digesting into the right size fragments (i.e., stuff not working)
4. having to stay at work until 2 am to clean up after our institute christmas party.  I thought I was done yelling at and cleaning up after drunk people when I left college. Go figure.

Ye Olde Vicarage of Herefordshire (i.e., Brand Lab Retreat 2010)

So, anyone who's tried to e-mail me in the last week knows that I've basically been MIA.  And that's because I spent the past week (well, Mon to Fri) in the middle of nowhere in England on retreat with my lab. Basically, we all lived in a big house together with, well, questionable, heating, and spent all day talking about science and all night playing games and enjoying "adult" beverages.

In terms of the science, it was a great opportunity to both put my work in a larger context and and learn what other people are doing in the lab.  It was also a great way to get to know the people I work with better.  After you've played multiple games of charades and done multiple tequila shots with someone, you basically are by definition friends.

The weekend wasn't all fun and fuzzy science fellowship.  As I alluded to, the house was in less than perfect working order.  It was a beautiful and huge house, but the heat was a challenge and we ended up huddling around fireplaces trying to stay warm!

Also, one of the new PhD students and I were sharing a room in the attic.  No big deal, it was a nice room. The problem was that the attic toilet had a macerator, which apparently broke the first night we were there. That meant that every 10 minutes there would be this sound that I can only describe as what I imagine it would sound like to put your tennis shoes in the dryer.  It was so bad that we ended up sleeping on a couch on the first floor for the night.  The next day, we learned that the macerator was the culprit.  To see if flushing the toilet would help, we did, and.... well, ended up with sewage on the floor.  In the end, the guy who takes care of the house came and cleaned it up, but it was, let's say, an experience.

We also experienced internet detox while in the middle of nowhere.  Some took it as an opportunity to reconnect with the non-virtual world.  Others went into tech withdrawal.  There was a dragon statue next to the window that we dubbed the "reception dragon" because it was the only place in the house were the holy iphone would get a signal.  Our boss also had something she really needed to get done requiring the internet, so she ended up spending quite a lot of time at the local pub using their wireless (which they were not super happy about!).

All in all though, the challenges just made it an even more hilarious and fun week, and I'm kind of sad that it's over.

Here are some pictures (credit to Kat Gold, who takes amazing ones!):

Making fires to stay warm!

The "reception dragon"

Lab Christmas lunch

Lab photo!

The Fairbairn Cup

Remember when I said the river was frozen and it was too cold to race?  Turns out Jesus Boat Club (which runs the Fairbairn Cup) got a barge to go up and down the river and break up all of the ice so that the novice crews could race today.  However, they did have to shorten the race, which in my opinion is all to the good since this is a really long race (it was 2700 m and I think we actually did something like 2k).  The morning was gorgeous and snowy and the ambiance was really fun, even though it was super super super cold!

The way the race works is different from Clare Regatta that I wrote about last week (and actually a lot less stressful!).  This race you only have to do once, and it isn't a head-to-head (because of how narrow the river is).  Boats start with 30 seconds in between, and you aren't allowed to overtake (well, you are once you reach the open bit, but the race today stopped before then).  If you're really keen and think that you'll overtake, you are supposed to say so in advance and get moved to a different slot.  But I'm getting away from the point.

Basically, this race is an opportunity to show what you've been doing in practice all term and just row against the clock, which is much more relaxed than rowing against another boat.  I was pretty nervous, since our last race was kind of a disaster, but I think we got that out of our system and rowed really well today.

There was one hiccup though.  As we came around a corner I could hear our coach yelling at us "easy there" which basically means stop, which is weird because we were in the middle of a race.  Once we did stop (it took a while to sink in because of the adrenaline. I was sitting there thinking, he said stop but we're still rowing, what do I do!?). It turned out that the two boats in front of us had collided and were just sitting in the middle of the river.  When they moved a little away, we just started up again, but it was quite strange and made the race harder (since it take more energy to get the boat moving from a stop) so we lost some time.  I think that the Marshals will subtract some from our time because of it, hopefully.  Kudos to our cox who was super calm and just had us start up again.  She's very relaxed in the boat, which helps you not panic or quit when you get really exhausted at the end!

All in all, it's been a great term of rowing.  I've loved being a part of something here at Churchill, because I feel like without it I just wouldn't spend any time here.  It's been fun getting to know the girls in my boat, many of whom are undergrads, and actually experience what it's like to be a British student here (most of the MCR, again, are from the US).  I think I'll definitely keep it up next term.  I can't wait for May term when it's warm and lovely on the river!

Here's our boat after we got back to the boathouse, decked out in Churchill pink!!!

Christmas is on the way....

....but Chanukah is already here!

Happy December everyone!  Tonight is the fist night of Chanukah and I hope that everyone has a wonderful beginning to the holiday.  Ironically, I "celebrated" today by going to church.  Well, sort of.  Today a friend and I went to the sing-along carol service at King's.  I sometimes regret being in one of the more modern colleges, and today was one of those times.  King's College chapel is a wonder of gothic architecture (actually, it's fan-like ceiling is a unique style unto itself).  I, despite being jewish, as many of you know, am absolutely crazy about Christmas, and this was a great way to start off the holiday season.  Christmas celebrations start super early here, because the Cambridge term ends this week so everyone wants to celebrate here before going back home.  Each college has a Christmas formal (ours is tomorrow!) and even the Porter's Lodge is decorated with tinsel!  I dont know if things will be different after the students have left, but for now I'm loving the holiday spirit. (PS, I got yelled at by the priest for taking these pictures, so you'd better enjoy them!):

The downside of its being December, of course, is that it is FREEZING (literally, below freezing).  This is problematic as we have a race tomorrow.  The river has been frozen all week, so it is unlikely that we'll be able to race.  It's kind of sad because we've been working up to this the whole term and it would be anti-climactic to not do it.  I'll keep you posted on what happens!