Day ?

Velvet Underground + Heineken + sunrise = Sweet Nuthin'

Day 50

I got sunburned today.

You weren't expecting that, were you?

Day 49

We had football last night, and with a pang, I realized it would be the last time I'd play with these crazy people. Sir Andy made it into an "Egypt against The Rest of the World" match, and the echoing chant of "ROW! ROW! ROW!" still rings in my ears.

I already miss this.

My final exam for philosophy was today, and now I'm just working on my supervision paper.

Day 48: Many Meetings

Today was my last day of classes, and I can't say I'm particularly sorry about that. As much as I appreciate discussing thick ethical concepts and the ethical implications of cultural devastation, I've decided I much prefer, you know, the hard science of psychology.

But that's not to say I didn't enjoy the class.

This is Ray.

I met Ray when we were in kindergarten. I don't remember a time when we weren't both friends and fierce competitors, both academically and athletically. We were so close that he was the only boy I'd invited to my tenth (or twelfth or something) birthday party.

He came over, played the piano at fortississississimo (I thought it would snap in two), and grandly presented me with MCR's The Black Parade, which had me thinking on my feet so I could pass it off to my parents as an album of love ballads. He was Romeo and I was Prince Escalus, and that's the way our relationship went until he moved away after elementary school. 

Over the years, I'd seen him at the odd MUN conference, blasting people away with his booming voice and motorboat laughter, but we really fell out of contact once we hit college.

And then I came to Cambridge and there he was.

And we had a class together.

And we had seminar for that class together.

It was just like old times, honestly, even if, for the first few seminars, I couldn't look at him straight without laughing at how ridiculous this was.

Plus you have a weird face, Ray.

Anyhow, I was unsurprised to see that he'd brought his longboard over with him (His longboard. In Cambridge.) but was rather surprised at how easily we fell back into making faces at each other behind the professor's back. Granted, we thankfully have matured beyond the point of casting spitballs from the back row (I think), but being around him just reminded me of how crazy we were as kids.

And so, on the last day of class when our typically impeccably-dressed philosophy professor showed up looking like he'd wandered in from the beach, we seized the opportunity.

I think he hates the both of us now.

So here's to you, Freddie. You've made me seem conventional.

Let's not have it be another ten years or whatever before we talk again.

Day 47: This Is A Strange Place

I went for a short run this morning with you-know-who down to you-know-where and came back to do a bit of work on my final supervision paper. Today was also the Fitzwilliam Museum's 200th anniversary, so I went down in the afternoon to have a look around.

Despite the fact that I walk past the Fitzwilliam Museum every day to get to class, I'd never been inside. It was surprisingly grand.

There was also a fair variety of work there, from gaudy golden Italian stuff to realist landscapes and van Gogh, though I did skip the Egyptian exhibit because I don't think I've quite recovered from the mummies at the British Museum.

And then I went out to watch the Morris dancers.

I'm still not entirely sure my memories of the following half-hour aren't the result of some elaborate hallucination.

"This is a piece of British culture," Sir Andy had said earlier, "You must see it."

I don't know what was the most bewildering--seeing old dudes with flowers in their hats and Santa's sleigh bells strapped to their legs wheezing and jumping around looking like I'd have to call 999 any second, or the other old dude going around and alternately whacking people on the backside and tickling them with this weird stick-thingie (I got tickled with the weird stick-thingie. The LA in me had a fist cocked before I realized that maybe slugging a sixty-year-old dude might lead to trouble), or the one dancing dude who tripped over a pram and fell on a baby, or the simple fact that there were two accordion players, or the stick-whacking, or the handkerchief-waving--

What the heck did I just watch?

Somewhat dazed, I staggered back to King's to get a bit more work done (it didn't happen).

Since this is the last week in Cambridge for one of my friends, I decided to go to formal at Pembroke just as kind of a good-bye dinner. I complain a lot about his disgustingly cerebral jokes, but I really did appreciate getting to know him, and having a partner-in-crime with whom to suffer through interminable philosophy lectures was an added bonus.

He's also a a (fantastic) singer.

(Of human trees.)

But I won't embarrass him on here by posting that amazing video I have of him at open mic. Man, that was glorious.

Instead, have three misfits.

(Chairs are for standing.)

Day 45

Laundry days are always busy days.

You may notice that I'm once again typing this up at some ungodly hour of the morning. In response: well, yes. It's about half-four here, and I've been up for over two hours. Why?

Because, well, Cambridge.

After yesterday's (Sunday) debacle of a very unintentionally literal pub crawl, I took things a little easier Monday morning, pottering around on creaky knees with tasks for my supervision (and being surprised by the open possibility of beginning a collaboration between UCLA and faculty here). I tore over to the Engineering Department for a quick lecture on graduate school at Cambridge, which is, unsurprisingly, freakishly expensive (upwards of 40,000 GBP/year for a Ph.D in the sciences, which exchanges to a little over 50,000 USD).

Because, well, Cambridge.

We had our inter-house football cup tournament tonight on the little AstroTurf arena down at the Sports Grounds. Though the original plan was for a seven-a-side bout, we ended up just mixing houses and tallying house points by goals and fouls. It was much more interesting that way.

The sun is rising. Time for a run.

Day 44: The Way of the Wimpy Pole

After a day of banging my head against my laptop as part of the writing process for my supervision paper, I decided yesterday on a last-minute trip out to the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival to see Henry V.

I nipped over to St. John's to find all the chair chairs in the garden taken, so I had a seat on the grass, glad I'd brought my towel.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend 

The brightest heaven of invention, 

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act 

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

I love Shakespeare almost as much as I love Arthur Conan Doyle, which is to say--quite a lot.

It was a bare-bones cast, probably as it had been in Shakespeare's day, with a company of fifteen or so.

At the intermission, I had a quick tour around St. John's, which is (according to King's) the least-favored (and second-richest) college of Cambridge. Someone told me that St. John's is like the Slytherin of Cambridge.

I didn't mind.

The Bridge of Sighs.

Bare bones indeed.

Bum aching, I returned to King's fully satisfied.


This morning, I went on a hike (more of a very long walk than a hike, actually) to Wimpole.

It was glorious.

THEY GROW BEANS HERE.

We came in through the north entry gate thing at around a quarter past one via Wimpole Way to see some fake ruins.

Wimpole's Folly, a bunch of fake ruins apparently built on the order of some rich lady.

And sheep. Because, you know. Sheep.

And cows.

From Wimpole Hall itself, the view was magnificent.

We had a bit of lunch at the on-site restaurant, after which Sir Andy looked rather beat, so we went out and had a kip in the shade.

Yep.

The National Trust: Nationally-Protected Napping Grass.

It'd been a hot (as you can tell by the freakishly blue skies), windy 12 miles out to Wimpole, and Sir Andy looked at me as if I was deranged when I announced my intention to run back to Cambridge.

Nothing new there.

He took the kids back to Pembroke via taxi, and I headed out back across the fields.

It was so. freaking. hot.

(But beautiful.)

I became hopelessly lost at one point near Hardwick Forest, completely overshooting Wimpole Way on the public footpath and ending up at an abandoned farmhouse from Creepy Creepsterville, complete with the groaning corrugated steel roofing and the rusted, rusty car.

But honestly, when you see signs like these, I think the mistake can be forgiven.

Somehow, I wandered back onto Wimpole Way, and off in very far-off distance, I could see King's College Chapel and the prison tower of the UL.

Trees are human.

At mile around mile eight, I fell into a ditch.

I ended up crawling into a pub on the outskirts of Coton for the most massive, expensive bottle of water I have ever encountered in this short life.

I am so very, very tired.