A Return From Blog Delinquency
As some people have been reminding me, I haven’t updated my blog for a long time – it’s quite flattering that people noticed really, I thought it was only me who read it. The rumours (based on my ominous silence since Boston) that I’m still in the US stuck somewhere between Boston and Newhaven are entirely untrue. I will endeavour to relate most of what has happened to me of import between Boston and Christmas, however in the true spirit of blogs being in reverse chronological order, I have written about the remainder of my trip to The States at the bottom of this post and the last term in Oxford directly after this sentence.
The term in Oxford
Shortly after getting back to Oxford I submitted my transfer report, which was necessary for me to transfer status from a Probationary Research Student to a DPhil candidate. I had a ninety-minute viva, which involved some tough questions and a pretty robust discussion, but I passed. Soon thereafter term started. I had agreed to do six hours teaching a week this term which proved to be quite a lot, as it all requires preparation. I have kept doing my Spanish class - I have now gone from beginners’ to the lofty highs of lower intermediate. I also started beginners’ Mandarin, which is actually quite hard in terms of learning all the characters, but also really interesting. Together, the language courses take up about another eight hours a week, which combined with socialising makes me very busy indeed.
A friend from Princeton, Hilary, started an MsT in Oxford in Modern Middle Eastern Studies this term. She and her family exceedingly kindly invited the guys from Oxford to stay with them for thanksgiving when we were in Princeton a few years back. Hilary and I went to the opera (Don Carlos, which was five and a half hours of awesomeness) and have done a lot of other stuff in Oxford together, and met up with Rachel in London. In short, and without further beating around the proverbial bush, we’re dating and I’m very happy.
I think I may have failed to mention that at the start of September I moved from Summertown to New College sports ground. This was a great move not just in terms of location and quality of accommodation but because of my awesome housemates. There’s been a few swappings in and out, but every combination has been fantastic and there have been lots of special dinners and great times. We had a house Christmas dinner after the end of term which somehow catered for sixteen people; there are a bunch of photos from the night on my photos page.
Term being over it was an excellent chance to get some research done. After all, no teaching or language courses meant about an extra twenty working hours in the week and I managed to rattle off some fairly useful experiments and a report. I have been with my Mum and Dad, Ellie and Cosmo for Christmas this year. Unfortunately, Kate, Obi, and Thea are far away in Australia. Thea, incidentally is getting on fine and doing all sorts of cool stuff like rolling over.
The remainder of my trip to the states
On leaving Boston I headed towards New Haven to see Caroline, who started at Yale in October. It was really good to see her and have another look at another one of the Ivy Leagues. I got to see the ‘Skull and Bones’ secret society which both of the last election’s presidential candidates were members of. Of course it’s a little odd when you know where something “secret” is and who belongs to it…. Caroline very kindly drove me to Mystic Seaport where my conference was. The conference was useful, although most of the talks and posters were not directly related to my field of research. Either way it was work, and I was glad to leave sleepy Mystic on a train to the Big Apple.
New York continues to be one of my favourite places. I was able to eat well, be entertained, and shop. It was great to see Tatiana and on the Saturday night there was a party in a bar, attended by a ridiculous number of Princeton ‘04s. I had managed to get Abhinav to come on down, and there were also many others there that I knew. The greatest thing was only a few people knew I was going to be there so I had the pleasure of completely surprising people. Walking in and instantly seeing Dwaine (and his facial expression on seeing me) was almost worth the trip in itself. The whole evening was a little surreal, as I hadn’t seen any of the people there for eighteen months, and it was all so out of context. It was fun though. While in New York I went to see a show for the first time ever. It was “The Producers” and I absolutely loved it. The scale and quality of the sets, the singing, dancing, music and 
atmosphere were all fantastic and it was an experience I definitely want to repeat. I also squeezed in a visit to MOMA, which I had been meaning to do all the times I was in NY when I was at Princeton. It was well worth the wait for the sheer quantity of outstanding works of art – it was particularly exciting seeing things that I had studied or seen in the past.
From New York, I went to Princeton. There were a number of friends I was specifically visiting and I also went to see some of the faculty from the EE department. It was great to see my friends and again it was fantastic watching peoples’ faces while wandering around campus as they went through phases of: “That looks awfully like Ali”. “There’s no one on campus that looks like Ali.” “It can’t be Ali, because he is in the UK.” “Ali?!”. The teaching staff were wonderful to talk to as they are really kind guys, and a number of them gave me really helpful advice about my research and career. I spent a disproportionate amount of time sitting by the Woody Woo fountain chatting to folks, and managed a few meals in Colonial. On my last day in the states I left Princeton exceedingly early in the morning and got the China town bus to Boston. In Boston I gave my presentation to MIT, and flew back to the UK.
For those not initiated in the ways of the China Town Buses, these are incredibly cheap buses that run typically from China Towns in one city to another. For example $15 for New York to Boston. Although I had been in the New York China town before, it was quite surreal going there having spent the summer in China. I got there early in the morning and people were doing Tai Chi, I got some pork and sage dumplings for breakfast (two bucks for six), there were people hacking and spitting everywhere, and I was getting a ridiculously cheap bus with plastic bags tied to the ends of the seats for rubbish – just like China.
The term in Oxford
Shortly after getting back to Oxford I submitted my transfer report, which was necessary for me to transfer status from a Probationary Research Student to a DPhil candidate. I had a ninety-minute viva, which involved some tough questions and a pretty robust discussion, but I passed. Soon thereafter term started. I had agreed to do six hours teaching a week this term which proved to be quite a lot, as it all requires preparation. I have kept doing my Spanish class - I have now gone from beginners’ to the lofty highs of lower intermediate. I also started beginners’ Mandarin, which is actually quite hard in terms of learning all the characters, but also really interesting. Together, the language courses take up about another eight hours a week, which combined with socialising makes me very busy indeed.
A friend from Princeton, Hilary, started an MsT in Oxford in Modern Middle Eastern Studies this term. She and her family exceedingly kindly invited the guys from Oxford to stay with them for thanksgiving when we were in Princeton a few years back. Hilary and I went to the opera (Don Carlos, which was five and a half hours of awesomeness) and have done a lot of other stuff in Oxford together, and met up with Rachel in London. In short, and without further beating around the proverbial bush, we’re dating and I’m very happy.
I think I may have failed to mention that at the start of September I moved from Summertown to New College sports ground. This was a great move not just in terms of location and quality of accommodation but because of my awesome housemates. There’s been a few swappings in and out, but every combination has been fantastic and there have been lots of special dinners and great times. We had a house Christmas dinner after the end of term which somehow catered for sixteen people; there are a bunch of photos from the night on my photos page.
Term being over it was an excellent chance to get some research done. After all, no teaching or language courses meant about an extra twenty working hours in the week and I managed to rattle off some fairly useful experiments and a report. I have been with my Mum and Dad, Ellie and Cosmo for Christmas this year. Unfortunately, Kate, Obi, and Thea are far away in Australia. Thea, incidentally is getting on fine and doing all sorts of cool stuff like rolling over.
The remainder of my trip to the states
On leaving Boston I headed towards New Haven to see Caroline, who started at Yale in October. It was really good to see her and have another look at another one of the Ivy Leagues. I got to see the ‘Skull and Bones’ secret society which both of the last election’s presidential candidates were members of. Of course it’s a little odd when you know where something “secret” is and who belongs to it…. Caroline very kindly drove me to Mystic Seaport where my conference was. The conference was useful, although most of the talks and posters were not directly related to my field of research. Either way it was work, and I was glad to leave sleepy Mystic on a train to the Big Apple.
New York continues to be one of my favourite places. I was able to eat well, be entertained, and shop. It was great to see Tatiana and on the Saturday night there was a party in a bar, attended by a ridiculous number of Princeton ‘04s. I had managed to get Abhinav to come on down, and there were also many others there that I knew. The greatest thing was only a few people knew I was going to be there so I had the pleasure of completely surprising people. Walking in and instantly seeing Dwaine (and his facial expression on seeing me) was almost worth the trip in itself. The whole evening was a little surreal, as I hadn’t seen any of the people there for eighteen months, and it was all so out of context. It was fun though. While in New York I went to see a show for the first time ever. It was “The Producers” and I absolutely loved it. The scale and quality of the sets, the singing, dancing, music and 
atmosphere were all fantastic and it was an experience I definitely want to repeat. I also squeezed in a visit to MOMA, which I had been meaning to do all the times I was in NY when I was at Princeton. It was well worth the wait for the sheer quantity of outstanding works of art – it was particularly exciting seeing things that I had studied or seen in the past.
From New York, I went to Princeton. There were a number of friends I was specifically visiting and I also went to see some of the faculty from the EE department. It was great to see my friends and again it was fantastic watching peoples’ faces while wandering around campus as they went through phases of: “That looks awfully like Ali”. “There’s no one on campus that looks like Ali.” “It can’t be Ali, because he is in the UK.” “Ali?!”. The teaching staff were wonderful to talk to as they are really kind guys, and a number of them gave me really helpful advice about my research and career. I spent a disproportionate amount of time sitting by the Woody Woo fountain chatting to folks, and managed a few meals in Colonial. On my last day in the states I left Princeton exceedingly early in the morning and got the China town bus to Boston. In Boston I gave my presentation to MIT, and flew back to the UK.For those not initiated in the ways of the China Town Buses, these are incredibly cheap buses that run typically from China Towns in one city to another. For example $15 for New York to Boston. Although I had been in the New York China town before, it was quite surreal going there having spent the summer in China. I got there early in the morning and people were doing Tai Chi, I got some pork and sage dumplings for breakfast (two bucks for six), there were people hacking and spitting everywhere, and I was getting a ridiculously cheap bus with plastic bags tied to the ends of the seats for rubbish – just like China.
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