End of the USA, Oxford, Glasgow, Oxford.
Dear All,
As Ollie said to me earlier today he thought I was in America as he has just checked my blog, I thought I should probably update things. I'm not sure why I was so slack in writing whilst in the USA as I frequently had an internet connection. Anyway, I'm downloading some pictures right now, so once they are done, I can start filling in the gaps.
The conference, was really, really useful. Almost every clinician I have ever cited was there, so I had some useful chats with them. I also helped to run a stand for the spin-out company I work for, which was very interesting in itself as I was able to talk directly to people who could potentially use the end product of my research. On one of the evenings they took us to a baseball game, which was good fun as I've never seen one before. As with a lot of US sport I have watched, there were many breaks in play and lots of entertainment surrounding the game - t-shirt guns, mascots, etc. I drank plenty of beer and ate lots of junk food, so I can hardly complain - and the end was pretty exciting.
I flew from Pittsburgh to New York City and then spent the weekend staying with Tatiana (thank you T!). There are plenty of people from Princeton that I know are based in New York, and I was expecting to meet them, but (like last time) I ended up meeting with many more people than I expected to. One instance of this was the night before I went to NY, I was talking to Nahal on IM for the first time in nearly a year and said 'you must be in Melbourne', but it turned out she was in New York so we met up on the Saturday and watched England lose to Portugal and Brazil lose to France, in a sports' bar.
That evening I went to a birthday party with Tatiana, and aside of the many people I was expecting to see there, I met the TA (Teaching Assistant) from the Artificial Intelligence class I took in Princeton, and Dusan - the guy who came to New College in my place whilst I was at Princeton - all very, very, bizarre. After the party we went to a samba club which was also an awesome experience - they started with a reasonably conventional band, but then after about half an hour a group of twenty or so drummers took over and played samba for the rest of the night - picture carnival, but in a night club! On the Sunday I sadly had to return to the UK.
The next week I was in Oxford and managed to do some research and it was Tim's stag do on the Saturday - my first stag do, and very memorable. I have been managing to make the most of the summer in Oxford with plenty of punting, tennis and sailing. Two weeks after I got back from the US I had an engineering conference in Glasgow. The conference wasn't quite as useful as I hoped, but I still met plenty of interesting people and our banquet on the last night was aboard a tallship (we were 'piped' on board).
After the conference I returned to Oxford and have been engaged in yet more punting and sailing, which is all very fun. This afternoon I set my personal best for the most capsizes in one session (four, and I'm talking about sailing rather than punting) - it was rather windy and I had a crew who hadn't done any dinghy sailing before, but we both learn as lot which was cool (and I managed to 'dry capsize' each time, so at least I came away unscathed - albeit rather bruised). Oh, and we manage to dine al fresco most nights at the moment which is a definite bonus when you live by a big field.
OK well, I think I've brought this up to date. I'm currently expecting to be in Oxford for the rest of the summer, except when Kate, Obi and Thea come over from Australia in September - then I'll be hanging out with them in Ipswich and Brighton.
Cheers,
Ali
As Ollie said to me earlier today he thought I was in America as he has just checked my blog, I thought I should probably update things. I'm not sure why I was so slack in writing whilst in the USA as I frequently had an internet connection. Anyway, I'm downloading some pictures right now, so once they are done, I can start filling in the gaps.
The conference, was really, really useful. Almost every clinician I have ever cited was there, so I had some useful chats with them. I also helped to run a stand for the spin-out company I work for, which was very interesting in itself as I was able to talk directly to people who could potentially use the end product of my research. On one of the evenings they took us to a baseball game, which was good fun as I've never seen one before. As with a lot of US sport I have watched, there were many breaks in play and lots of entertainment surrounding the game - t-shirt guns, mascots, etc. I drank plenty of beer and ate lots of junk food, so I can hardly complain - and the end was pretty exciting.
I flew from Pittsburgh to New York City and then spent the weekend staying with Tatiana (thank you T!). There are plenty of people from Princeton that I know are based in New York, and I was expecting to meet them, but (like last time) I ended up meeting with many more people than I expected to. One instance of this was the night before I went to NY, I was talking to Nahal on IM for the first time in nearly a year and said 'you must be in Melbourne', but it turned out she was in New York so we met up on the Saturday and watched England lose to Portugal and Brazil lose to France, in a sports' bar.
That evening I went to a birthday party with Tatiana, and aside of the many people I was expecting to see there, I met the TA (Teaching Assistant) from the Artificial Intelligence class I took in Princeton, and Dusan - the guy who came to New College in my place whilst I was at Princeton - all very, very, bizarre. After the party we went to a samba club which was also an awesome experience - they started with a reasonably conventional band, but then after about half an hour a group of twenty or so drummers took over and played samba for the rest of the night - picture carnival, but in a night club! On the Sunday I sadly had to return to the UK.
The next week I was in Oxford and managed to do some research and it was Tim's stag do on the Saturday - my first stag do, and very memorable. I have been managing to make the most of the summer in Oxford with plenty of punting, tennis and sailing. Two weeks after I got back from the US I had an engineering conference in Glasgow. The conference wasn't quite as useful as I hoped, but I still met plenty of interesting people and our banquet on the last night was aboard a tallship (we were 'piped' on board).
After the conference I returned to Oxford and have been engaged in yet more punting and sailing, which is all very fun. This afternoon I set my personal best for the most capsizes in one session (four, and I'm talking about sailing rather than punting) - it was rather windy and I had a crew who hadn't done any dinghy sailing before, but we both learn as lot which was cool (and I managed to 'dry capsize' each time, so at least I came away unscathed - albeit rather bruised). Oh, and we manage to dine al fresco most nights at the moment which is a definite bonus when you live by a big field.
OK well, I think I've brought this up to date. I'm currently expecting to be in Oxford for the rest of the summer, except when Kate, Obi and Thea come over from Australia in September - then I'll be hanging out with them in Ipswich and Brighton.Cheers,
Ali
