Transferylvania

Today I successfully transferred status from Probationer Research Student to DPhil student. A bit anticlimactic, but it's another box ticked on the way to finishing my degree.

Et alia

I was reminded yesterday (my first evening back since England jumped from GMT to BST) of how lovely Oxford is in the Summertime (this being the eve of my third Oxonian Summer). It was light out until after 7:30, and it's only late March! The weather since I've been back hasn't been as unseasonably warm as it was in Madison (temps in the high twenties are rare even in July) but it's a pleasant Spring-like atmosphere and the magnoliae are blooming.

Since this is a decidedly girly entry I'll conclude by saying that I hope Ireland whip England's arse in the upcoming Cricket World Cup game which Ireland somehow miraculously qualified for.

Instructor

This week I'm in Cambridge, UK, teaching on a one week course on genetic association studies. Technically I'm on the campus of the Sanger Centre, which is located in Hinxton, a tiny village quite proximate to Cambridge. The facilities here are pretty awesome — set on the grounds of an old country manor, and blending new fancy buildings with the original manor house. The course is being principally organised by three colleagues of mine, who asked me to do one lecture's worth, along with a bunch of pracitcal sessions.

I've enjoyed the experience so far, but I'm especially keen to get the paycheck at the end of the week. Already we've been rewarded with special open bar privileges on campus, which is actually quite dangerous. I mean, honestly, who thought it was a good idea to let the instructors have free drinks every night before having to teach at 8:30? So far we've managed to close out the bar and be the only ones left after all the diligent students went off to bed.

Hinxton's a very typical (and pretty) English country village and I'm hoping to get a chance to nip into Cambridge (10 miles away) at some point tomorrow or Saturday. I've heard it's much like Oxford, but it would seem to be an awful waste to get so close and not at least take a look around.

Alumni Relations

I drew the short straw amongst members of the HCR committee (the graduate student government at Brasenose College) and was thus the graduate representative at the Brasenose Society Dinner last night. The event is a black-tie alumni dinner hosted at the college each year, with the principal (if unstated) aim of fleecing wealthy old codgers to line the college coffers. Universities in the UK are much less successful than their American counterparts at encouraging alumni giving. As times grow tighter, however, there are more and more events like this happening at places like Oxford. Brasenose in particular is looking to leverage its upcoming cinquecentennial in 2009 in a major fundraising effort.

As a guest of the society, I was seated at high table, along with the most important (and hence oldest) alumni. Promptly upon taking my seat the gent to my left informed me that he was totally deaf in his right ear, so I should not take offense if he ignored me throughout dinner. To my right was a man from the class of 1949 with the most spectacular comb-over I'd seen in a long time. There was one wisp of it that had fallen backwards down his neck, that looked like the string they dangle out of wrapped packages that you pull to rip them neatly open. He was a fairly nice fellow (took his degree in chemistry, ran a few companies in that industry and finished his career in textiles) but when he actually asked me what graduate activities they should support, I was thrown off. The President of the HCR had told me to try to needle them for money, but I thought she was joking. So I bluffed and talked a bit about housing (which is a serious concern among the graduates). We'll see if his goodwill manifests itself in a big fat cheque.

I do have to admit that despite the aged company, it's hard to beat a black-tie dinner in the BNC hall. They bring out the best silver (instead of endowing scholarships and buildings, the alumni have been donating pitchers and candlesticks for 500 years), the lights are dimmed so that it seems like the candles are the only source, but without actually having to eat in the dark and the food has all been prepared by the first chef (even the beef wasn't overdone!). The only thing this particular event was missing was the elegance of many women in ball gowns (since the college didn't even admit women until 1973).

After dinner we had a brief break outdoors while the staff cleared the tables of the dinner dishes and set them for dessert. It was actually a lovely, clear night at that point (of course it had started absolutely pissing when I was cycling from my house to the college) and before going back in the Secretary of the society introduced herself and said I needn't sit at the high table for dessert if I didn't want. I gratefully sat in the back with the JCR president (the only other person in the room who was younger than 70, it seemed) and promptly threw back a few glasses of dessert wine as a reward for having dutifully made it through dinner. Our new table companions were an even more interesting bunch: one member of the class of 61 who was outrageously drunk, and a man from the class of 46 who we actually thought might expire during the after-dinner speech. Speaking of which, I'm not sure if it is a peculiarly English tradition, but after dinner speeches seem to be required to consist entirely of re-used, sexist jokes. Last evening's was particularly bland, so I escaped soon afterwards.

Lawyers

Steele is in Oxford for a couple of weeks doing a course here affiliated with his law school (something about corporate governance — funny how opaque the specifics of a law education are to me, just like how my day to day research is pretty uninteresting to other people). We met up on Sunday, after he arrived and I showed him a few sights around Oxford before getting some lunch with Blanca and Matt. After that we played a little pick-up football and hit the Angel & Greyhound for a pint before I dropped him off at Teddy Hall, where his course was.

Today I offered to take him and some of his compatriots out punting. It's not easy to try to organise a group requiring two punts (there were nine of us in total) if only one person has any experience. I did my best to explain to the guys in the other punt how to go about it, but it really is best taught by somebody standing with you in the boat, not by shouting mildly helpful tips from upriver. Unfortunately one of the girls in my boat had a serious phobia of birds, which doesn't really go well with the punting experience, since flocks of tame ducks and geese swim right up to the boats, expecting food. This girl evidently grew up in a Manhattan apartment and as such had no particular appreciation for the outdoors.

I did my best to put on a happy face, though, and she should at least have been grateful that she was in the boat with a competent punter, since the other craft spent their first half hour or so spinning in circles. We made a miscalculation in divvying up the passengers, though, because two people in my boat did a commendable job of trying their hand at punting, whereas the other boat seemed to have a bit more trouble. Of course, people always get the hang of it after a little while and eventually we did make it upriver a short way. I saw two herons, which was a new experience and very cool (except for the girl who's afraid of birds — she predictably freaked out). Afterwards we walked through the University Parks and I left them at the Turf for a pint and headed back home.

Viva Voce

My friend Matt had his Viva (oral thesis defense) on Wednesday. He was in there from 9:30 until 12:30, which isn't too bad (sometimes they go on for five hours). After passing with minor revisions (about as good a result as one can get) we had some champagne in the office, including accidentally firing the cork into the ceiling, and then went to the Butchers' Arms for lunch. After that a few of us headed down to the river for a punt (it was a gorgeous day). Matt's pictured at left, maneuvering us through some trees.

We gave Matt a t-shirt with some funny quotations he's said on the back and a doctored movie poster on the front (see left). Not perfect, but I think my photoshop skills (The GIMP actually) did pretty well. After the punting Matt's advisor took him and the other people in his group out to what I hear was a very nice dinner. We met up later on at some random Canadian Society drinks night (I'm willing to tolerate some Canadians in exchange for £1 drinks).

After all that a few people decided to go dancing at Jongleurs, one of the scuzzy Oxford clubs. We were all dressed like scrubs so when we got there I asked if they had a dress code.

"No, it's a student night," said the bouncer. Which was good news and bad news. We could go in but if was even more packed than usual with 18 year olds. It was also insanely hot inside since the English have yet to discover air conditioning. Still, we had a pretty big crew of about 10 people, which made for a quality time. Matt certainly relaxed by the end of the night (see left). The music was really weird, though.;  at first it was standard hip-hop dance tunes, but then they started playing lots of bizarre choices. They first deviated with a little old school House of Pain and then swung into utterly inappropriate music for a club, including "Sweet Home Alabama", which I backed and "Mmm Bop", which I did not.

Ale Verses

On Shrove Tuesday Brasenose traditionally holds an evening meal called "Ale Verses" where college members set satirical words to popular songs and sing them while passing around big jugs of warmed, spiced ale. I missed out on the opportunity to sign up because tickets go fast and I was in Hong Kong when they were released. Luckily I managed to find an inside source to get me into my latest experience with old school Oxford.

My friend Sarah (doing a DPhil in law) is the Assistant Dean of the college. Essentially she gets free residence and food in college along with a modest stipend in exchange for helping the Dean keep the punk undergrads in line. Crucially she also gets an honorary membership in the Senior Common Room (SCR) with the rest of the fellows. This means she can invite people to dine at high table, even on Ale Verses night.

So I not only got to go, but got to sit at high table to boot. This means we gathered in the SCR parlour before dinner for a beverage. Then we process down to the hall and take our seats at the high table. The dinner was fairly standard (high table food is very nice, though) followed by pancakes for pudding (in England the sweet course right after the main is "pudding", which is followed by cheese, fruit or chocolate and called "dessert"). Pancakes on shrove Tuesday is a British tradition evidently arising from the practice of using up eggs and milk before lent, but now the heathens in Britain just call this day "Pancake Day" with no concept of its ecclesiastical connection.

After dinner huge silver tankards filled with warm, spiced ale are passed out to all the tables. To drink you first bow to the person on your right, then recieve the tankard from him. Then you bow to the person on your left, take a drink and pass. While this is going on everyone is standing on the benches in the hall and singing the songs that have been submitted this year. The verses are submitted anonymously, but a fine bottle of champagne from the college cellars is given to the authors of the best verse. Tunes included "The Star Spangled Banner" (after which I yelled, "Play ball!" but nobody got it), "Money, money, money" (with lyrics by the Chaplain about the college's newly opened "Development Office" in charge of soliciting donations from alums) and the winner, a rousing Brasenose fight song set to "The Men of Harlech", which is some Welsh battle song I'd never heard of (although I expect at least one member of the Williams family to drop some obscure historical knowledge in the comments).

After dinner I got to go to dessert in the SCR dining room. The fellows all sit in the candle- and fire-lit room and pass port, claret and sweet white wine (always to the left). There's cheese and biscuits, fruit and chocolate too. We also sang a few of the verses which there wasn't time for in the main gathering. Finally, the most junior fellow present must bring round the silver snuff box and offer some to everyone in the room. I think I took too big a pinch, because I almost blew my nostril off. Hopefully I'll do better next time.

We finished the evening down the college bar where I finagled a free round from first the chaplain and then the tutor for graduates. Given that every stage in the evening involved drinking, you can see why this country is full of alcohol abusers. Given that the fellows do this rigmarole every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday you can see why they're rotund.

veep

This evening I was unanimously elected vice president of the Brasenose graduate council. And by that I mean I ran unopposed. cmo,is.

Dinacre

A few weeks ago a small group of us went to dinner at Linacre, Valdar's college. Linacre is one of the newer colleges and thus lacks the imposing gravitas of Brasenose or Balliol, but it's a nice place nonetheless. The food is definitely a notch above some of the older colleges. After dinner we had a couple of cocktails at Cafe Merton, down the street. A pretty nice evening, all told.

A couple of snapshots of the evening below the fold.

Valdar tries to get up close and personal with Blanca, but she's having none of it.

Birgit and I chilling out at a more polite distance on the opposite couch.

Black Tie

Here I am at the Grad Dinner at BNC last week. I broke a port glass on my hand after dinner, so I accented my tuxedo with a bright blue bandaid and a little dried blood smeared on my thumb. I also decided to smile like a doofus. The food was really nice, as expected, and it was a good chance to talk with people at college one more time before we disperse for Christmas.

I'm still busy at work (desperately trying to submit this paper before I go back home) but I've managed to do social things almost every night. Monday night we played Scrabble here at the house (I won even though David was cheating). Tuesday we went to the Turf for the Pub Quiz. We had come in the money (top 3 places) for two weeks running. This time we finished 5th, but we won the bonus question prize, which is a gallon of beer. Last night I went for whisky, cigars and Cranium with some BNC peeps. Tonight I may have to say in and do laundry and work on the paper, though.

Blurbs/London/Grad Dinner

It's been a busy week here amongst the dreaming spires. I've been busy at work preparing for the latest of our fortnightly WTCCC Analysis Group meetings at the Wellcome Trust Building in Euston Square, London. Last night I took a break from my frenzied preparations for the meeting to go to Blurbs at BNC. Blurbs is the very silly name for one of my favourite college activities. One of the fellows and one of the graduate students each gives a 30 minute presentation on his field of study, followed by dinner and 2nd desserts. There's copious wine available from start to finish, and the dinner is high-table quality, which is actually really excellent (especially compared to the crap they serve in hall to the students).

I love Blurbs both because it offers a high quality meal and lots of wine for only a couple of quid and because it's one of my only opportunities to hear about people studying topics far afield from my own. Usually the two presenters are from vaguely similar areas of study, although never exactly the same (mostly due to the finite number of Fellows in the college). Previous nights have included Economics, Gender and Place in Medieval Romance, Contemporary Character Analysis in Macbeth, Suicide and Self-harm in the British Prison System, Eliminating Legal Fictions, and the Future of Renewable Energy in the UK. Last night was a little closer to home, with Branwen Hide presenting on protein folding and the Principal, Roger Cashmore, presenting on Dark Matter and the origins of the universe.

The talks were good and dinner was of the usual high quality (the first course was this fabulous dish of quails-eggs on some kind of mushroom stuffing) and I got to catch up with some BNC folks I don't see that often. At 2nd desserts (basically port & chocolates in the common room) the principal broke into his private stock and shared an '83 Warre's vintage which was definitely the best port I've ever tasted. I couldn't stay for more than one glass, though, because I had work to do before my presentation at 9:30 AM today in London.

Back home I was up until about 2 putting last minute tables together and trying to keep my voice down while I cursed at my computer so that I wouldn't wake my housemates up. I actually enjoy getting up at 6:45 and cycling down to the rail station while it's still dark out (as long as I only have to do it once every two weeks). Jonathan (from the Stats department here) and I rode first class again (Lon had gone on an even earlier train to meet with other people in London at 8:30). It feels a bit weird to be surrounded by high-flying business types, but the cushy seats and tables meant I could use the hour productively instead of being crammed in the back with the plebs.

The meeting went well (I'm 3 for 3 now on not embarrassing myself in front of any of the important people who attend these meetings). The only down side of such success is that it always means more work for me to do for the next one (which thankfully isn't until after New Year's). Lots more work to do in the next two weeks before I head home for the holidays, but for today at least, I deserve a break.

Luckily tonight is the end-of-term graduate dinner at BNC, where there will be more free wine and post-prandial port. It's a black tie affair, so expect to see photos of me in my DJ and gown soon.

Finally, props to my man Gayaume for blasting across the NaNoWriMo finish line.

Bar's over there

The college secretary sent an email to Brasenose students this morning with the subject, "Information about a career at the Bar". Although the first thing in the message was an invitation to a drinks reception, it's unfortunately about studying Law.

Old Headington

Whoa, little did I know that my local, the White Hart, dates from the 17th century and used to house  Joan of Headington's infamous brothel. St. Andrew's, the little church across the way from the Hart, has bits that are over 700 years old!

Forecast

That is a sweet forecast.

Hot

It's been really hot this weekend. I've made the most of it by working in the yard. After David turfed I cleaned out the shed, and installed the bbq, the pond and our first 6 fish. So far they're all still alive. I've also put some pictures of the house up for your viewing pleasure. The first few are from a month ago when Dale visited and we had a big fire in the back yard. They give you some sense (although without any panoramic views, alas) of what the yard used to look like. After that are some shots of the inside of the house and the yard as it looks today.

Matriculation et al.

I've had a busy day today.

David is installing turf in our back yard (it's really starting to look awesome) and it needs to be heavily watered for the first week or so or else it just turns yellow. Since our landlord graciously agreed to buy the turf, we figure we'd better not spend his money and be left with nothing to show for it. I was tasked last night with getting a hose so that we could execute the requisite watering. I achieved this goal, but was frustrated by the extremely crappy Hozelock brand adapter to attach the hose to our kitchen faucet (there's no external tap). Hozelock makes some nifty fittings, including a whole set of quick disconnect style adapters.

Unfortunately, their design team must be a bunch of boobs, because the adapter has asymmetric openings, allowing the faucet in one end, but not out the other. The expectation is that your faucet isn't of the particular shape and size which would require it to poke through the adapter, but of course my faucet is of exactly that shape and size. I modified my Hozelock 2274 MultiTap connector like so. The annoying thing is that it would've worked exactly as well if they had molded the plastic in this fashion to begin with.

After "fixing" the hose, I raced off to work to go to a group meeting (which was delayed from 10:30 until 10:45, further crunching my available time to get to Brasenose by 12:10 for Matriculation). I snuck out of the meeting at 11:35, biked home, quickly changed into subfusc (doing a fairly good job on my first ever bowtie knot, if I do say so) and ran out to catch the bus into town.

I met up with the Brasenose Dean of Degrees and the one other student, Verena, who arrived this term and thus needed to matriculate at this odd time of year. We proceeded to the Convocation House (frequently used in films as an 18th century parliament room) where we, along with about 20 or 30 other students and the Deans of Degrees from their colleges sat and waited. The Provost carried in the big gold mace, followed by the Chancellor who formally accepted us into the University (in Latin) and then gave a short speech about how this marked a rite of passage and so forth. I really wish I could've got pictures inside, 'cause the room is really cool and everybody (especially the Chancellor) wears fancy duds. I did get a couple of photos back at Brasenose, though, including this one, which nicely shows the Radcliffe Camera in the background.

Cuppers

Every year in Trinity term there are University-wide competitions in all kinds of different sports called "Cuppers". All the colleges are encouraged to enter teams in all the events for which they have interested members. One of my co-workers and fellow BNC grad student, Denise, is involved in the UK Champion Oxford Dancesport team. She and a couple of other Brasenose girls who are on the beginners' team wanted to organize a college entry for the Dancesport Cuppers event.

I was roped into this adventure when Denise suggested at Pub Quiz on Tuesday that I could learn a few steps to partner with one of the girls. They could find some random dude to partner with them, but then they wouldn't score any points for Brasenose. I said I might be convinced, but wasn't particularly excited about the affair.

I made it through nearly all of Wednesday without hearing it mentioned so I thought I was off the hook. Then Denise called me Wednesday night to ask if I'd actually do it. I came this close to begging off, but for some reason some advice from Claire about moving to a new place flashed through my mind: "Never turn down an opportunity to meet people."

"Yeah, I'll do it."

"Terrific! First practice tomorrow morning at 10."

The competition was Sunday, so I had three days to prepare. I met up with the crew on Thursday morning during the OUDC practice. Mairi and Vicky were the two girls who had been dancing with each other on the OUDC beginners' team. Cuppers couples (say that 5 times fast) are only allowed to have at most one member of the team, so they couldn't enter the competition together (although there were loads of female-female pairs involved; evidently competitive partner dance is a good place to meet women, guys). The good thing was that for each dance, one of them knew the man's part. A BNC undergrad named Ewan had been recruited to be the second fall guy, so we started off with Vicky teaching me the man's part of the cha-cha and Mairi teaching him the man's part of jive.

I met to practice again on Friday night and Saturday morning, eventually trading partners with Ewan so we could actually do the dances as a pair. By the end of Saturday I mostly had the steps down and Denise and Mairi were offering more technical advice and descriptions of the proper (i.e. arrogant) latin dance style. I figured this wasn't bad for a few days practice, so I spent a little time at home on Saturday cha-cha'ing in front of the mirror and being mocked by my housemates.

Our team consisted of me and Mairi for the cha, Ewan and Vicky for jive, Denise and her partner named Mark for ballroom and another couple I hadn't met yet who were doing quickstep. These four events comprised the contest, with the best cumulative scoring college taking home the trophy. I arrived at St. Antony's College hall (the location for the event) at
3PM on Sunday to take advantage of a final hour's practice before the
deal started at 4. Immediately upon showing up I found out that Ewan had punted at the last minute to go to a rowing practice, and the quickstep couple had cancelled too. This was a bit of a bummer since I had actually shown up for the thing, despite being petrified. We now had only half of a team and thus no real chance of winning (not that we ever had much chance).

We were all decked out in Brasenose black and gold and I got in my final hour of practice. The contest works in a series of rounds with a smaller and smaller number of couples promoted to the next round each time. Mairi and I managed to make it to the second round, which I thought was OK given that I'd only been dancing for 3 days. Denise and her partner (our only other entry) did rather better, taking the 1st place crown for the ballroom event!

After the competition ended the OUDC team did a demo, which was pretty neat, but I was a bit tired of watching dancing by this point, having been there for four hours. I wisely decided to exit before the "social dancing". This probably marks the end of my career as a competitive dancer, but at least now I know how to cha-cha.