Oldspeak Ministry

As is obvious from the timestamps of previous posts, I have been more or less out of commission for over a month. This was largely due to a sudden rush of activities/deadlines in the last couple of weeks of term. In order of decreasing time required, they were as follows:

• Literature Report: This was the only real assignment we had all term, and boy did it gobble up time. For about three weeks, my life, day in, day out, was spent reading papers about protein dynamics and mathematical models, summarizing key points, and then stringing them together in a semi-coherent fashion. Luckily, much of it will be reusable in writing up my eventual thesis, so I should have an easier time when it comes to that 80-page behemoth.
• Dance: While I have so far managed to keep myself from becoming over-involved in too many extracurriculars, what I lack in raw numbers I’ve certainly made up for in time per activity. Somehow, in addition to taking the beginner tap, advanced tap, beginner ballet, and contemporary classes, I managed to make it onto the beginner ballet, beginner tap, and jazz competition teams! And as absolutely bloody amazing as it’s all been and certainly will be, rehearsals have taken up a significant chunk of my evenings. I must say though, that I’m now more physically in shape than I’ve been since captaining the varsity boys swim team back in high school!
• Choir: Any weekday evenings in the last couple of weeks of term that weren’t used up by dance were probably spent singing. Not only did we have the regular concerts for both main choir and chamber choir, but there always has to be carolling during Christmas season too ^_^. Besides, since we almost always go out for drinks afterwards, the actual amount of time spent nearly doubles. On a sidenote, one Thursday evening after carolling, I came to the shocking realization that I was the oldest of a group of four of us (but by only two days); I’m pretty certain this has never happened to me, ever.
• Dinners: not the ordinary kind of course, but the celebratory or formal ones. Goodenough had a faculty dinner for the sciences, which was my first black tie event (i.e. “tuxedo” in American), and I also went to several Christmas meals. Additionally, the American Thanksgiving also came around, and almost all of my fellow Marshalls and I traveled to Oxford for a nice potluck supper, complete with turkey. Between all of these meals, I’m sort of surprised I haven’t gained any weight!

And there you have it: my whirlwind of a life in the final couple of weeks before term’s end. On a slower note, the past week or so has been considerably less exciting, involving mostly me sitting in my room reading mathematics, but it’s been a nice break from the frenetic energy of the recent past. The New Year’s coming up, which should be exciting, and I’ve managed to have a major epiphany about my future ambitions, just in time for the new decade ^_^. More on that later though.

Anyways, hope everyone’s had a Happy Christmas and will be having a Merry New Year!

~William~

Remember, remember the fifth of November / gunpowder, treason, and plot / I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

The British tradition of Guy Fawkes Night is definitely a sight to see, if ever anyone is in the United Kingdom in early November. I unfortunately missed the celebrations on the fifth of November due to a choir rehearsal, but luckily, there were a number of events for the following Saturday.

For those of us unfamiliar with English history, Guy Fawkes was a Catholic conspirator who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605, but was stopped on the 5th of November, leading to the aforementioned celebration. (If anyone saw V for Vendetta, the film makes quite a few references to Guy Fawkes, not the least of which is V wearing a Guy Fawkes mask everywhere). The celebration thus begins with the “burning of the Guy”, which quickly becomes a roaring bonfire.

Bonfire at Battersea Park

Afterwards, a fireworks display normally ensues. As it happened, Battersea Park put on a half-hour synchronized fireworks/music show, which was really quite amazing. I’m not entirely sure exactly why this tradition started, as there don’t seem to be quite as direct a connection to the gunpowder treason plot–maybe the fireworks symbolize the gunpowder that didn’t go off? However, I was more than willing to partake of the performance, and take my fair share of photos and videos (unfortunately, the sound overwhelmed my phone’s microphone, so the videos didn’t turn out that well).

Battersea Fireworks

Finally, once all was said and done, my compatriots and I dispersed along with the rest of the crowd, but left along a different route than we followed coming, happening across the Albert Bridge, quite a sight at night. We ended up going for crepes in South Kensington before calling it a (thoroughly enjoyable and tiring) night.

Albert Bridge

Academic classes (finally) begin tomorrow, so I thought in my last hurrah I’d list out a couple of random notes, which may or may not later be turned into full fledged blog entries:

• Academic pedigree. I’ve always loved Google, and if it weren’t for the fact that my career interests don’t mesh, I would’ve loved one day to work for them. When I mentioned this this other day, one of my friends mentioned that I now have the “pedigree” to go work for them, referring both to Imperial, which is significantly higher ranked than IU in most publications, and to the Marshall Scholarship. Of course, people from IU do go work for companies like Google, as evinced by internships friends of mine have received, but at the same time, it’s also true that Google and a number of other companies selectively recruit and target graduates of name-brand institutions and recipients of particular awards (I was recently invited to “spend a day with Google in London”).

  Names of other people and places with whom I’m now associated are opening doors, and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about that. For some nebulous reason, the whole idea of being pedigree’d just doesn’t sit well with me. Perhaps it’s just a subconscious manifestation of the very American obsession with the “underdog”, or maybe Hoosier pride showing through for my alma mater, but it’ll definitely take some time for me to get used to the fact that I’m now at a “prestigious” institution. I suppose there’s nothing to do for now but take up Google on their offer of lunch.

• Anonymity. On the other hand, whatever pixie dust that may have been sprinkled upon me by the powers that be seems to go unseen here, for which I am incredibly grateful. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy some of the attention I received at IU last year, but it’s really nice to be returning to near complete obscurity. I’m now just another postgraduate student, with coursework, research, and the odd extracurricular. In some ways, I’m even less noticeable than when I started at IU, as most postgraduates are supported by studentships, so the only two distinguishing factors I now possess are my age and citizenship. Should be a fun year !
• Greater London. The London tube (underground/subway) system is divided into zones, based on proximity to the city centre. Goodenough College (where I’m living) and Imperial (where I’m studying) are both in zone 1, as well as pretty much every major historical and tourist attraction. In the few times I’ve ventured out of zone 1, I’ve been struck by how essentially different the bulk of Greater London is from my usual stomping grounds. I suppose it’s probably this way for many large cities, but when I got out of the tube station at Fulham Broadway, I could’ve sworn I was in some other city centre. Where I come from, a small town in southern Indiana, everyone who lived there basically lived in the same place. I really do wonder how alike the lives of any two “Londoners” can be assumed to be when the surroundings vary so drastically over the distance of but a few miles.
• Dance classes. Earlier today, I went to the ICU dance company call-out, where I attended the beginning tap (I’ll probably actually be trying out advanced tap next week), beginning ballet, and contemporary sessions. As is often times the case in dance classes, girls greatly outnumbered guys; this I had expected. However, I had also thought that due to the uneven guy-girl ratio of almost 2:1 at Imperial College, it wouldn’t be quite as uneven as I’m used to. Was that an inaccurate assumption! There were only 2 guys (including me) in the contemp class of at least ~50, and the tap and ballet classes were just the slightest bit more even. In the various dance courses I took at IU, the ratios were never more unbalanced than 10 to 1, and in my summer ballet class it was actually even 2:1, with four girls and two guys. I sort of wonder whether this anomaly is due to the culture of Imperial as a math/science school, whereas IU had strong humanities and performing arts departments, or if there’s some other reason.

  As an aside, I should also mention that this problem seems also to be the case (source: Michelle) in the ballroom dance club, where it’s more of an issue. Gender imbalance, while an interesting anomaly in tap/ballet/modern, is naturally of greater importance in partner dances.

• Musical theatre. One of the advantages (for me) of attending a geek school is that the competition in the performance arts is not nearly as intimidating. This of course isn’t to say that Imperial doesn’t have strong performers, but in general, the calibre isn’t quite as high, simply because nearly everyone who attends is focusing on “Science, Technology, and Medicine” (or business, recently). As such, I decided to join the Musical Theatre Society, and’ll probably be playing a chorus part in their Fresher’s Revue, which is pretty much open to anyone. I did audition earlier today for a solo, but I don’t expect much, since I’m an absolutely terrible solo singer. It was good practice though, and besides, rejection in moderate quantities is in my mind one of the most important things that can happen to a person. Not only does it very obviously point out areas of potential improvement, but it also helps immensely in keeping one humble. I’d be delighted if I get a solo, but really, I’m just happy to be singing anything.

Well, that’s it for this rather random and unstructured blog entry. Wish me luck for classes!

~William~

Sincere apologies for the incoherent, rambling nature of this blog post, which I fully recognize. However, if I were to take the time to fully revise it, I’d get severely behind on blogging, and probably wouldn’t catch up for weeks, so here it is, in all it’s gory unintelligibility. Please do not read if you would like to maintain any respect at all for my command of the English language.

Wow! These last several two weeks have just blurred past, and it defies me meagre capabilities as a writer to fully express the whirlwind that’s been the Marshall Scholars orientation and then settling in to Goodenough College in London. But as is the case with all good bloggers, here’s my ultimately futile attempt:

I arrived in Washington D.C. on Sunday, September 13 for an orientation program put on by the British Council for. For the next three days, the lot of us were whisked around from meetings to minglings, and everything in between. Following, we took a group flight on Virgin Atlantic (with a couple of minor luggage debacles) to London, and had another two days of the same. Unfortunately, despite the many interesting speakers, due to the Chatham House Rule, I am unable to really say much beyond that about them.

However, what I can comment on are my fellow Scholars, without whom the entire experience wouldn’t have been nearly so enjoyable. Naturally, everyone was uniformly “intellectually distinguished” in their respective fields, but much more importantly than that, it appears the selection committee was quite good at picking out really interesting and affable people. Though their biographies on the website were in most cases rather intimidating, in person they were, well, personable. Of course, the five days of forced interaction certainly helped in getting to know people

In any event, for about a week now I’ve now been living at Goodenough College, a charitable trust postgraduate residence hall in London. Classes don’t start at Imperial for another 1.5 weeks, and I’m not allowed into the labs without safety training (also in 1.5 weeks), so that means I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, which I’ve mostly spent exploring London. My feet aren’t particularly happy about it, but walking probably close to 50km since Monday has really helped me get a sense of the city (check out my facebook photos), though I expect that even after spending the year here, they’ll still be places I won’t have ventured. It’s definitely a change from good ol’ Southern Indiana. Well, that’s about it for now; wish me luck!

~William~