Some of you asked for a list of songs alluded to and where to find them. All allusions can easily be found on Google or youtube (I checked); if not, a few contextual keywords will do the trick.

I am glad that this blog was enjoyable and allowed some of you to experience Cambridge in some way. Others, I seem to have lost touch with you already, doubtless no one’s fault but my own

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It’s really hard to be concerned about your essay when it takes about six hours to research and write it.  But I tried my best and woke up early and did my bibliography (strugglefest 2008, right).  I thought about writing my conclusion but then I remembered how lazy I am and that it is important to stay true to yourself, so I didn’t.

I started my conclusion (and all but finished it) during History of Math until Piers started telling war stories and I pretty much had a nerdgasm.  Piers traced the history of calculus through Newton and Leibniz (along with how and why they are bamfs), occasionally ranting about Descartes (Leibniz shows up as a spelling error, but Newton and Descartes don’t.  Ouch).

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As I expected, I realized I didn’t have my user/pass to login about halfway to the computing center.  I knew I would forget it today so I forgot to put it in my fagpack the night before.  I thought about walking back (it would have taken less than ten minutes), but I decided I had come too far.  I figured there had to be somebody else printing their paper, so I decided I would just wait for them to finish and mooch, which would work out nicely because I still had to finish up my conclusion.

I got to the computing center and absolutely no one was there (go figure), so I decided I would head back.  At this point, I was a little concerned, not because I didn’t think I would get my essay printed, but because I had bought a really good crossaint (only 85p = O) and I didn’t have any coffee to enjoy it with.  I didn’t have a choice though, so I headed back and, as luck would have it, saw Anastasia on the way (In Soviet Russia, paper writes you).  I got her user info, but it apparently would only work at the Language Center, so I had to find that.  It ended up taking 20 minutes and a disgusting shortcut through stagnant water in an alleyway (as usual, bad directions) to get somewhere five minutes away.  Also, it had been closed for the last four weeks.  To quote Dennis Farina, that slimy Cossack slut.

At this point, I had just enough time to go back to Newnham, get my ID, go back to the computing center, finish my conclusion, print me essay, and hand it in.  Going after class was not an option because I was to take Dorothea to Granchester and if we didn’t leave immediately after class, I would be late for ultimate.  Priorities.

I went back to Plan A (lurking in the lab) and this time saw a Japanese girl I had never met before.  She was wearing a Cambridge sweatshirt and looked confused, so she had to be a summer school student.  She was nice enough to let me use her account after she had finished, so I, in turn, finished my conclusion and printed my essay.  At this point, I had about 30 minutes, which is just enough time to walk leisurely to Pret (better the devil you know; and yes, I am insinuating that Pret coffee is ok at best) and turn in my essay and use the bathroom (this is important).

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Latin Debt to Islam was really interesting until I got bored (I was really restless).  Piers started to wade into dangerous territory (I think it was about political revisionism of the Qu’ran and evidence of its writing/compilation)  Piers was extremely careful, respectful (especially of dumb answers.  He occasionally asks the class why they think something happened and some of the answers are unbelievably daft.  It’s interesting that someone who rips everyone else to shreds doesn’t do it to his students- at least, to their face: he makes fun of his math students every other day) , and honest with his own dispositions and biases.  Shiraz wasn’t very talkative after I absolutely destroyed her at the dot game (which is not even my fault or anything.  She took forever to decide her moves, all of which inexorably sucked as much is possible in the dot game) so I assumed the position (head tilted back, mouth open, unmistakably passed out) and got some sleep.  Class was good.

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Granchester was better.  Thursday was the first day of sunshine after a week or so, and Dorothea convinced Kevin to come along, so the three of us walked down to Granchester.  I got lemonade (not ginger beer) and the other two got Sprite and Coke (why?).  We loafed in the Orchard for a while and ended up talking about religion (this happens really often and usually ends up as a q/a session about Hinduism.  I’m more than happy to explain the little I know, but I wonder why it seems to happen so often at ISS).  We left sooner than I expected, but I wasn’t complaining because I was about to play ultimate for the last time at Jesus Green.

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By the time I got to Jesus Green, I could hardly contain myself.  I skipped onto the field (and got made fun of) and made like Mr Spencer, rubbing my palms raw during warm up (no head itch though).  We did a huck drill (yay) and played sevens (finally, a full game on an almost full field instead of playing fours or whatever).  I guess most people weren’t used to it or just didn’t play hard or something, because it was messy ultimate.  Cambridge plays vert stack exclusively (at least, during summer) and the stack was more like a blob than anything else.  People didn’t didn’t clear out quickly, blocking other cuts, especially continues.  Moreover, people were timing deep cuts way too early for some reason, effectively castrating whoever had the disc, especially if the handler striked.

There were some high points though.  Some kid from Darkside had a sick layout D, so I had to one-up him.  I forget who pulled, but it was a really nice pull, and I got down to the other end right before the first pass.  The first pass is almost always uncontested (the other team typically doesn’t get down in time) and to the best/second best thrower on the field.  In this case, Josh to Tom, and I had Tom.  I saw the play before it happened.  The swing was coming, I could just tell Josh didn’t want to wait for a cutter to get open.  I slowed down to bait the throw and I saw Rabbit making the same play (~14.30; it’s roughly halfway) in my mind right before it happened.  It was sweet.

I’d like to say that I played out of my mind, but I didn’t.  Like I said before, it was a bit messy.  But the sky was blue and the grass was green in the truest sense of the words and I left satisfied (an SB disc from Chris certainly didn’t hurt).  Of all the places I know and frequent at Cambridge – the Newnham gardens, Granchester, Market Square – I will always think fondly of Jesus Green.

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I stopped by Trailer of Life and got hummus salad and quesadillas (I was ravenous and I knew I would be out until about three).  Those quesadillas hit the spot.  They absolutely charred the roof of my mouth but I didn’t care.  They were steaming and the good folks slipped some peppers in.  I ate on the way back and took care of some things before heading to the Selwyn.

The Selwyn was better than usual, probably because I got there really late and didn’t have enough time to get sick of it.  Good God, this post is awful.  I went out clubbing afterwards with like all of Term 2 and it was pretty amazing.  I typically hate dance parties at Purdue, but I’m now completely sure that it is a function of who I go with (who among you would do the shopping cart with me?).  I’ll gloss over all the depravity, even though it’s probably want all of you want to hear about because I don’t want to remember some and I don’t want you to remember others.  We left a little earlier than everyone else, I think; I don’t exactly remember.  The Westcott House people peaced out and Kevin and Misha wanted a burger, so I walked Dorothea back to her room and passed out.

It is interesting to me that I am now in an odd neither-here-nor-there position, in which I would like more time to get to know everyone in Term 2, but at the same time, I want the term to end soon so I can head back.

I’m not really sure how I feel about this essay. It seems like it’s going to be really easy, but I still would like to have one more day. It’s not going to be like my Wittgenstein essay; I was in way over my head about something I didn’t have a clue about. I started that one like two weeks early (thank God, it took almost every afternoon for a week, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the most rewarding essay I’ve ever written. Competition for that isn’t very stiff, though). I chose a topic and got more than enough sources from the library, and I’m now an odd mix of being harried and relieved. I predict massive procrastination in the future, especially because I’m procrastinating right now as I type this 12am on Thursday. Essay’s due at 5pm and it’s not exactly done yet. Whoops.

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Lunch. I had some errands to run, so I stopped by the Buttery first to get some yogurt and fruit (I would stop by Nadia’s for a sandwich). Armando sat down next to me and had me explain how ultimate and cricket worked. While I was doing that, I found that (almost) everyone I wanted to hear from chose today to get in touch with me after several days’ drought. And that I’m being baked an ice cream cake for me birthday. I all but skipped to Market Square. I’m exploding in smiles, my equilibrium spinning.

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Latin Debt to Islam was a bit of a letdown. After paying attention for a while (nothing was really happening), I amused myself and Shiraz by drawing our clique. Initially, I was drawing an elephant from behind (…what), so I made him the ever annoying Max from Bavaria and had him singing Du Hast. Next to the elephant, was of course, Shiraz, far too short, with far too much hair and far too much wine saying ‘I am not drunk,’ Kevin was the only non-stick figure because I could only draw his chest hair in if he had a mostly unbuttoned button-down. He was saying, naturally, ‘it’s cool, it’s cool.’ To the right was Dorothea, wearing a scarf, saying me neither (pronounced me naither as opposed to me neether). I was next up, signified by my hair and saying ‘noises,’ as they seem to get a kick out of the fact that I tend to beatbox when I drift off. My favourite (I totally spelled that with a ‘u’ and I am leaving it that way. I think I need to get out of here) was the two French girls whom Dorothea labeled as the bourgeoisie. I’m not sure how stick figures can embody their attitude so perfectly, but they did. They were both smoking and saying ‘we are not bourgeoisie.’ I love it. Finally was Ozlem, speaking on her celly saying baclava, the only Turkish word I know (I hope the Turks say it).
After that, I got bored and took my heart rate for a while. Back up to 63 bpm = ( I blame Pret. OH also, there is this Argentine dude that has at least three pairs of shoes, one Y-3 (suitably impressed; Y-3 is Adidas’ response to Nike’s Tier 0, or maybe vice-versa), a pair of Asics, and something else. I can only speak for myself, but I have always had a thing for shoes and when I travel, I either buy a pair while I’m there or just rock Sambas. I don’t bring three pairs of shoes with me. Seriously.

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Ultimate. Today was really promising. The weather went from gorgeous to bad to worse to gorgeous just in time, but it turned out to be really windy by the time I got there and there weren’t too many good players there so BAH. Also, Paul left for the US without telling me and now I am sad inside = ( Also also I tried to score an SB disc, but found out that it will cost me 12 bucks and the only chance I have of getting one is if Pedro comes to practice on Thursday.

In other tales of failed scoreage, I called Proper after ultimate to check on the new Adidas x Footpatrol ZX800 collabo they have in [link or you will look stupid]. I don’t typically go in for shoes that look like the ZX’s, but this colorway is absurdly awesome, so I was down so long as they were priced reasonably. They turn out to be way cheaper than everywhere else (like, 40 dollars cheaper) and when I found out they still had 10.5s left (I called almost a week after the release), I went back to bouncing around the room. Until I found out that the git on the other end went to the UK site instead of US and they don’t have my size. ACK.

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I started my essay after all of this nonsense at around 10.30 and worked until I had cramps and couldn’t concentrate at about 15 past midnight (it’s that time of the month again). I read two articles and wrote about 1000 words, so I see a lot of time wastage happening tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed reading this. I didn’t.

I spent most of class thinking about everyone I missed and when I would be able to see them, likely spurred by the postcard I got last night.  I seemed to have, somewhat paradoxically, zoned out with a lot of focus, because I don’t remember long chunks of time and there were a lot of diagrams on the board that I have absolutely no recollection of being drawn.  I noticed Anastasia was drawing an elephant, so I drew some as well, a few of them with ducks riding on top.  I later found out she was actually drawing our professor and a girl committing suicide.

I’m a little concerned about my essay because I haven’t chosen a topic yet and it’s due on Thursday.  I’ll probably write about consensus as a necessary condition for maintaining complex society.  I figure with topic analysis (possibly with some gratuitous use of Lefort) and analyzing three civilizations, I should easily be able to exceed 3000 words.  Debate to the rescue again.

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After class, since I had 30 minutes, I went back to my room and shaved?  I don’t know what it is, but I can’t stand more than two days of stubble anymore.  I guess the upside is that I won’t be hearing how much of a wolverine/bear I look like when I get back home.

Math was a dry and run-of-the-mill history class.  Piers wasn’t too excited and the class was pretty dead.  I’m not sure if it was because today is Monday or what, but it seemed like Piers was in one room and the class another.

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Over lunch, I went to Granchester, mainly because I needed some time to myself and to walk.  I stopped by the Co-op on the way and picked up some penne and chocolate macaroons.  The penne claimed to be in arabiatta, but it was sweeter than it was spicy.  It did, however, have this really cool fold-out fork with a locking mechanism which I promptly broke.  I had been craving macaroons for a few days (don’t ask me why), so I was pretty excited when I found them.  Unfortunately, they tasted mass produced, and when I read the nutrition facts, I could feel my arteries begin to clog and couldn’t eat them anymore.

The walk to Granchester was nice, but kind of weird because I was listening to Outkast.  This is probably because of Mamabird [LINK] videos and because I run to some on occasion.  I would say Stankonia is a solid album (it’s acclaim and distribution would probably tell you that, not to mention the number of stand-out tracks), but I’m not sure I could go coast-to-coast with it.  Thinking about this at the time, as always, got me compiling a mental list of albums I can go coast-to-coast with (prereqs are that it is a full album, not an EP or compilation, which takes out pretty much every classical album; coast-to-coast means that every ith track is good.  Not i – 1, but i).  I was surprised to notice that the list was far longer than I expected and that those were on it were not necessarily my favorites.

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I fell asleep through most of Latin Debt to Islam and tried to work on my essay afterwards.  I made absolutely no headway and found that the internet, and even scholarly journals, are (are/is confusion? Anyone actually good with English know the answer?) a terrible source of information for this topic.  I think I’m going to have to check out the library tomorrow.

Dinner was pretty pathetic, but they had some good pies, which tided me over until I went out to the Trailer of Life.  Thank God for hummus and pita salad.  Dorothea tricked me into going to the Selwyn by telling me it was someone’s birthday (turns out that I can’t stand him).  I hung out with the French again (all of them have some connection with the country).  Since we got there early, we were able to get the couches, and I ended up watching the Olympics and watching/naming groups of people as they formed and dissolved.

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The weather outside was gorgeous (it’s about time), but when I got to Jesus Green, I found that it was unbelievably windy. Like, steady 15-20mph winds with 25mph gusts windy. Wind is pretty much the kiss of death when you’re playing pickup, and I anticipated a lot of floaty garbage from those who don’t know how to compensate/use wind. This is kind of nice because it’s fun to make poachy D’s and it lends itself to sweet catches, but it severely ruins flow and its not fun to get turns every three passes. Like a fool, I didn’t stretch beforehand (too lazy) and now my hamstrings are not happy with me. Lunges are on the menu for tomorrow morning. Happy day.

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Alex showed up at around 3pm and did a really poor job surprising me in the Buttery. We decided to head off to Fitzwilliam Museum, as I haven’t seen it yet (that and Botanical Gardens were the only two things left on my list, at least, that I know of). It immediately became obvious to me that I was museumed out. After seeing the impressionist wing, I was bored. Thankfully, Alex had seen it before (and agreed to go again; too kind. OH she also described me as a ‘nice, not womanizing Hank Moody’ and allowed me to indulge in constantly making Californication references so I was more or less happy to do anything she wanted to =x) and wasn’t unwilling to sprint through the rest. Think four minute Louvre.

On our way out, I stopped by the gift shop to see what they had in the way of notebooks and postcards. They had an excellent selection of the former, but they dutifully changed the dollar to the pound, so didn’t buy anything. The postcard selection made me furious. There was no remotely human element to any of them, no thing or experience I could possibly have shared with another person (except for this sweet one with Babar in a hot air balloon, but it was a birthday card). I don’t understand who the target market is for a picture of a teacup. One swivelly dealy (turnstile?) was full of such wide-angle panoramic hyper-picturesque renditions of King’s College. There is no way there exist sleepy woods carpeted with pink petals along Queens’ Road. Next to it were absurd, overly romanticized postcards of people punting, always with a girl happily sticking her toes in the water whilst her strapping young lover steered the two of them across the health code violation that is the River Cam.

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We left Fitzwilliam and walked towards King’s Parade to get a coffee (lattes; samesies) and a croissant (halfsies). Say what you want, but after spending every waking minute with non-native speakers, it was really nice to talk to an American. We sat in front of King’s College and people watched and talked for about two hours, Alex telling me about Paris, myself about Term 2, and everything in between.

Afterwards, we walked towards Jesus College to eat dinner by the river. I stopped at pretty much every store that sold postcards, complaining about all of them and refusing to buy any. I sensed that Alex was getting a little annoyed after the third or fourth time, so I stopped whining and we found a place along the river. Again, far too kindly, Alex insisted on treating me for holding on to her luggage (I used it as a nightstand of sorts, so it was a welcome addition).

Dinner was long and satisfying (there’s a joke in here somewhere) and we walked back to Newnham. I called a cab, saw her off, and found waiting for me a postcard! Even though the picture of the Tower Bridge was everything I complained about earlier in the day, it was just so right (likely the mark of a seasoned post-er). I found myself turning the postcard over and over in my hands long after I had read it for the second or third time. It’s been almost three months (one week short) since I’ve been home, and I miss everyone that I’ve left and everyone that’s left me. I think I’m ready to go back.

We met up at the train station, where I found out that they were still workin’ on the raaaailroad, so we had to take a bus to Royston and a train into King’s Cross. Thankfully, it only took about 1h10m instead of the 1h40m it took me a week ago. We got in to London around 10.30 and headed off to V&A.

The first thing we saw in V&A before splitting up was Raphael’s cartoons. A cartoon in this context is a preparatory drawing (CHECK THIS, PROBABLY NOT TRUE), but the works were cartoonish in the modern sense (color and shading, nature of subject matter, etc). The poor lighting and glare made it a little difficult to view the cartoons, but I imagine that an art restoration expert found that brighter lights would cause the pigments to deteriorate and make life harder for tourists. The most impressive thing about the cartoons, for me, were that Raphael drew them completely freehand. I can’t even begin to comprehend what a feat that is. It’s beyond me.

The majority of V&A was, for me, boring. Many exhibits didn’t have a superstructure you could use to understand the narrative the individual pieces told together, which meant that I was just looking at stuff. I quickly became saturated and Dorothea and I (we split from the others) ran through the British History section (I think that’s what it was) and went to the Modern section, hoping that it would deliver. Along the way, we stopped by at a very cool section on instruments through the ages. They were by and large string instruments, which added to the appeal. Dorothea and I talked a little bit about the nature of art (art for art’s sake, etc) by which I mean she explained and I asked questions. I have a (very unrefined) feeling that there needs to be some meaningful communication between myself and the work. The word meaningful entails, as I found throughout the day, that I have a hard time liking (distinct from appreciating) extremely philosophical works that I do not relate to (ie, using the canvas for some post-wacksauce purpose).

We finally got to the Modern wing and found it to be more of the same; just stuff. One piece that stuck out in my mind was Danny Lane’s Stacking Chair. The description asserted that it was not only furniture but a freestanding sculpture. I have a hard time buying that one. This is particularly interesting for me because I am pretty down with Consumer Society [LINK, jstor review of Schor/Holt] critiques of materialism. Lane’s philosophy is, presumably, cut from the same cloth, but I found the notion that somehow the chair doubles as ‘freestanding sculpture’ a little ridiculous; audacious, even.

After the Modern wing, we found Kevin in the Painting wing (I think there is a name for this…maybe). It was really cool for him, as he said (“Yeah. It’s cool, it’s cool.”), to see works he had studied the week before in his art history courses. He patiently explained the context behind a number of paintings and why he liked or disliked them. In another recurring them throughout the day, my knowledge about art is really, really unsophisticated. As I expected, though, I appreciated a particular painter’s paintings pof plandscapes after Kevin explained the reasoning behind them. Ordinarily, I would become saturated after like three paintings and start playing hopscotch on the tiles, but I really enjoyed them after knowing their context. I think I am finally old enough to enjoy museums. I only had to legally become recognized as an adult, but I’m there.

Finally, we went to my favorite section: the South Asian wing (yeah, say what you want). My favorite piece in the entire museum is Tippoo’s Tiger (doesn’t the double ‘o’ automatically make any name ridiculous? Except for Korean names…like you, Joowon). It is a life-size tiger on top of a white imperialist. The tiger is mechanized (I totally spelled that with an ‘s’ the first time around), so that when you wind the crank, music starts playing and the tiger absolutely mauls the colonizer. I love it.

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For lunch, we almost went to Patisserie Valerie, of which I have extremely fond memories from four years past when I last/first visited London with my family. No one wanted to wait for a table, however, so we left. Before leaving, I saw a bowl of small chocolate shavings and pilfered a few. I was stunned to find that I recognized the taste of the chocolate and could taste the pastry I liked most from the patisserie (which they still make).

After lunch, we went to Tate Modern. By this time, the weather was awful, and I was grateful that I booked Dorothea’s umbrella the night before. It was cold, windy, and spitting, as they say. The exterior of the Tate Modern was as ugly as the weather. The inside, unsurprisingly, was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I find it hard to explain. There was a huge space that seemed at once functionless but necessary. It was too huge but I didn’t feel small. I wondered, at the time, when I had the same difficulty describing it to myself, if it was because I don’t have the language to express myself which the architect clearly did. This raises the interesting philosophical chestnut of whether or not one cannot (as opposed to can not) understand/appreciate something that they don’t have experience in, because they don’t have the lexicon necessary to access its essence. This is similar to the Wittgensteinian idea that one could never truly understand one of his works (either Tractatus or Philosophical Investigations, I forget; it’s late and I’m drunk and this spoon is too big) because they never had is thoughts or something (again, drunk, spoons). Also interesting, for me, was the sense of anticipation I felt going up the escalator. But, to quote, it has a habit of setting you up for evening disappointment.

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We ended up skipping the second floor because the other four have already seen it. I didn’t know this at the time, but everything cool and what I really wanted to see is on the second floor. We ended up going through all these exhibits of I don’t even know. Somewhat ironically, Dorothea was impressed that I knew Mondrian, but it’s really because Nike recently released a pair of shoes inspired by his later work. Whoops.

I wasn’t particularly appreciative of what I saw because each piece was a specific philosophical response or critique of something else. In order to communicate, they all required an explanation. The explanation aside, which typically read like some post-whatever justification reminiscent of the Bad Writing Competition, it raised, for me, a number of questions. What does it say about the efficacy of the works? And the nature of (modern) art? Is it not supposed to be accessed by the uneducated? Do I have to know the history of something to understand the next thing? Should I? Ought I? Will there be an easily understandable period/return as a response to their esotericism? And paradoxically, will I have to understand the esoteric before I can understand the response?

My reaction to most of these works was ‘oh. That’s cool.’ The best example of this was the Map Not to Indicate (reminded me of that one debate topic. Yeah. I miss debate). I wondered, when I looked at some of these works, if we tried to find patterns that aren’t there (humans tend to try and find, sometimes impose, order to make sense of something complex. Clouds are a good example, especially because we often see faces or animals). Maybe I should try and paint patterns that almost look like faces to raise awareness to the fact that we try to impose order on our surroundings. Then I could dress it up in some philosophical position and someone could become fantastically rich after I die. “This work deconstructs our innate – nay, fundamental – need to reify in its truest sense that which is not there. By, paradoxically, creating chaos, the canvas subversively forces the viewer to become his own interlocutor in a transcendental capitulation of his own pathological paradigm.”

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On a completely unrelated note, Stout’s video is like the best Callahan video ever.

For lunch, at my behest, we went into town for something good (by us, I mean the not-lame folks).  We ended up going to Bella Italia.  I’m not going to pretend like this was nearly as good as last time.  Conversation was alright and any sharing of food was formalized (we ordered an assortimento from the category of the menu titled ‘sharing’).  Worse still was that service was abysmally slow.  We waited over 40 minutes for our main course.

During this time, though, Kevin said one of the loveliest things I’ve ever heard.  Anastasia noted that she first thought that Kevin was extremely cultured because he used his fork with his left hand, but then found out that he is in fact left handed.  Without a hint of arrogance or impishness or anything of the sort, Kevin simply and honestly stated that ‘God made me polite.’

By the time we asked for the bill, it was already 2.05pm, meaning the three of us that had a third course were late.  Shiraz and I weren’t too concerned because Piers wouldn’t be, but I did feel bad for Dorothea.  We speedwalked back, cursing the service, and Shiraz and I walked in to be berated by Piers: ‘we were just gossiping about you for the last 15 minutes.’  Shiraz froze up so I tried to be coy and asked him what he came up with (this turned out to get people riled up, because half the people at the Selwyn asked me why I was late).  It seems like he didn’t expect a response, so he made some comment about and I pointed out we were born without that ability (I’m Indian, Shiraz is a French Tunisian or something).  At this point, Shiraz somehow started to blush which Piers pointed out with glee.  Thankfully, he distracted himself into telling this story about a Jamaican that used to suntan or something idk wtf

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After class, I decided to run a few errands (buy a shirt, top up my phone, try to find a light rain jacket, exchange my sweatshirt).  I almost flirted my way to a discount on my already > 50% off shirt (woop woop), but the cashier muttered something about a manager.  It was worth a shot.  I exchanged by Cambridge hoody for a crewneck sweatshirt and got three pounds back in the process which was like free money as far as I’m concerned.

The rest of the world is so far ahead of the US in terms of cell phone infrastructure and technology it’s ridiculous.  Not only are phones way better (and cheaper), but the clarity is amazing.  International calls to a cell phone back home or to my grandparents in India are clearer than landline to cell phone back in the US.  As far as convenience goes, it can’t get any better.  I forgot my Orange card (a fake credit card which has my ID number on it), so I figured that they would make me jump through hoops to top up my phone, if I would be able to at all.  Not in the least.  I was given a voucher number worth 20 pounds and told that all I had to do was call 450, punch in the 10 digit number, and my phone would be topped up without any additional charge.  Incredible.

I stopped by Dogfish to see if they had any heavier pieces, as they call them.  I looked through some Nike ones (one of them was like the atmos AM1s and another was a red Running Man windbreaker.  Needless to say, they didn’t suit me).  The three Stussy jackets they had on sale (50% off, thank God; anything more would have been unconscionably expensive) didn’t fit well.  Then I saw the jacket I really was looking for.  [LINK].  I am pretty gay for pinstripes on jackets (horizontal on longsleeves and sweaters, in case you were wondering).  It was hoodless and slim fit; classy and understated; all in all, perfect.  Except that it was a size (too) small.  The minute I put it on, my ape-like arms made themselves known (surprisingly, it fit pretty well in the shoulders, although I think part of the sleeve lent itself to the cause).  I could tell that should they have had a medium, the fit would have been perfect and I would be the coolest kid in Cambridge.  Another day, another boutique, I suppose.

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Dinner was awful.  I could only find one thing worth putting on my plate and it was absolutely tasteless.  I walked out, infuriated.  At this point, it was about seven.  I was supposed to meet Shiraz and some of her friends at the Selwyn at nine.  The reasons I didn’t end up there until 10.40 are largely rambling and not very exciting (though they kind of were at the time).  I did, however, have an interesting conversation along the way.

Umit gets on my nerves.  He’s in his 40s, presumably, and dresses too much like he’s trying to fit in with college students.  He wears zip-up Cambridge hoodies and North Face pants that are a wee bit tight.  I sometimes have the displeasure of sitting next to him during Collapse of Civilizations, in which he typically smells bad while he’s expounding on something he learned in one of his classes that he took at some point.  Typically, it’s almost interesting, but boy is that almost the kiss of death.

Umit was ironing shirts when I came in to do my laundry.  He was wearing his Cambridge zip up.  We exchanged pleasantries and I asked if he thought it would be a problem if I took out the clothes in the washer after it had finished (only two minutes left) and put them in a bag so as to not waste time.  He said he thought it was fine and complained in a story that went nowhere (or so I thought) that he had waited over an hour for some girl who never showed up the other day.  Cool story, Umit.  What?  You’re not done?  I’m only hear for two more minutes; knock yourself out.

‘You can tell with some of these girls, you know, that they’re just here to shag.  You can see it in their faces.’
WHAT!?  I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a 40 something dip into this subject matter without provocation, and I am completely sure that I’ve never heard an adult actually say the word ‘shag’ (besides Mike Myers).  I figured there was probably more to this, so I thought I would try to get a little more out of him:
‘And the way they dress.’
‘Yeah…don’t get me wrong though, this is the age to do it.’
At this point, I was stunned speechless.  Is Umit really not only encouraging but espousing promiscuity?  Unfortunately, I would never find out, as a Chinese woman walked in to claim the laundry I was about to remove.

-

I eventually made it to the Selwyn, where the night ended bittersweetly.  Apparently my comment about tonic water being the drink of champions the other night made its way around, because the other bartender asked me about it.  We gave each other a hard time for a while, with David enjoying it far too much, when I decided that since I couldn’t find Marylou anywhere (as in her room, dinner, the Buttery, Saunders Room, the Selwyn, and the Anchor), I would call the other girl that wanted my Hamlet ticket.  I dialed and walked outside to find about 30 people outside the bar.  I have no idea where they came from, because there was no one when I showed up and only about 15 of us in the bar.

Nevertheless, I was excited to make someone really happy (she really, really wanted my ticket; Hamlet is apparently her favorite play and I have one of the best seats.  I might have sold it to her even if I wasn’t going to London because she would have enjoyed it so much more than I would) and so I dialed her number: ‘Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the other buyer, so the ticket is yo- ‘
‘Govind?!’
‘Oh my god. I can’t believe it.’
‘Wait, what is going on.  Can I have the ticket.’
‘I..uh..’
‘So do you have my ticket for me?’
‘I – wait – do you still want it?  Hold on; I’m so sorry, you won’t believe what just happened- ‘
‘What is going on?  Is that other girl there? Does she want the ticket? Tell her I’ll pay extra for it.’
‘I, uh, ok, I’m so sorry, this is like a one in a million coincidence, I am so sorry, I’ll try to convince her not to take it, I looked for her all evening and couldn’t find her and I thought I could call you safely and I’m so sorry.’
‘Tell the other girl too bad.  It’s my ticket. I want it.’

I almost wish that the others didn’t invite me to London and I quietly went to Hamlet.  At least I would have saved the poor girl some heartache.

I can still hear Paul’s raucous laughter hours later. I typically don’t remember my dreams, so I’m not sure how many begin with me exposing my swimsuit area. I’m inclined to say, however, that this was probably the first. The next thing I remember was pulling my shirt down and cupping my giblets (sadly, true to size) in that antechamber between the Porter’s lounge and the Sidwick stairwell. I found a pair of blue mesh Underarmour shorts (tied for second in the athletic shorts world) on the floor and pulled them on. I looked up to see a porter and asked him if he had seen my pants. I’m not sure why, but I was extremely concerned that I was currently commando (not exactly one of my concerns, especially if I just rolled out of bed. Sorry, guys.). All I remember is the porter’s kind laugh and then I woke up in true Californication form. 8am again. I must have slept through alarm one of two. I looked down to make sure I was decent, brushed my teeth, put on a shirt and went down for breakfast.

-

I’m not sure why all the adults (like, people with kids) in my classes are always the biggest sycophants. Do they feel inferior because they’re in a classroom full of kids? For every statement a professor makes, one of them has to murmur in agreement or that they were about to say the same thing. If you already knew it before the class, why are you taking notes on it. They all nod contemptuously or echo the instructor, as if they were being taught something they had already read in the original Greek. I don’t want to presume or anything, but I highly doubt that you are an expert in Pythagorean numerology (sadly, I am not exaggerating but understating). Worst of all, they play teacher. I hate this. Not because it’s annoying or a pet peeve of mine or something, but because it’s extremely disrespectful to everyone in the classroom. I don’t know who you think you are, but keep your mouth shut and let the expert on the subject answer questions and clarify discrepancies. Your pretentious and wholly insufficient explanation doesn’t answer anything and just makes you look like a tool.

-

As always, history of mathematics blew my mind. Today’s meta-lesson (or at least, one of them) for me was basically how cool history is. It’s almost forensic (in either sense of the word) how a historian reads a text and its context to understand something. Yesterday, Piers used changes in a Greek word transliterated to ‘diknume’ in order to provide a linguistic warrant for the development of the proof in Ancient Greece, which in turn told a story by proxy about the development of mathematics. What drove home how clever and creative historians (classicists, in this case) are, for me, is the way they date Aristotle’s first work. Geniuses who are aware of their own brilliance tend to be particularly arrogant and ‘slap-dash’ (to use Piers’s term) in their writing and proofs at the beginning of their career. This attitude manifests itself in spades in a particular work by Aristotle, indicating that it is his first. I suppose this sounds a little obvious; I’m not sure. As far as I’m concerned, I now have a lot more respect and awe for what the Classics’ department does

-

So I pretty much have a mancrush for Sinclair Beecham and Julian Metcalfe, the founders of Pret-a-Manger. I would gladly give manbirth to their babies. Pret is not only delicious and made with out any nasties (none of any sort, I’m told) but it’s reasonably priced which pretty much (see what I did there) makes my pigtails bounce with glee. They are delicate with condiments and don’t slather their sandwiches and wraps in mayo. At the same time, they aren’t stingy with extras, so you don’t have to worry about losing some of your icing to your wrapper or open up your wrap to see if there really are pine nuts in there like they said (there are). The kicker for me, though, is that since there is no added sugar (or asparcancer) and they use 100% fruit juice, I can actually drink carbonated drinks/juice (last time I had knowingly had soda was August 2003). Ginger beer is actually really, really good. Almost as good as lemonade.

Until it began to rain (and forebodingly, lightning), I sat in front of King’s College and enjoyed my lunch. There is something to be said about how good something is and how quickly you eat it. It’s not really conscious realization or the end of a deductive process, like, ‘oh, this is from somewhere good and smells good. Indeed, it tastes good. Welp, I should eat it slowly.’ No, it’s more of a heuristic (I a m totally using that word wrong), an ‘ah, this is good’ and you put your fork down. Not because it’s good and that’s how you eat good things. You just do.

-

At the end of History of Math, I approached (good God, these entries are absolutely ballooning in size. I think I have achieved ‘receptacle for the vomit of [my] thoughts’ status, probably surpassing my muse) Piers and told him about my strugglefest with my Buddhism course. I got the answr I expected: “I have been strictly told by the administrators that no one else is allowed in my class, but I just read out the register and frankly, I don’t give a damn.” So this afternoon I showed up for Latin Debt to Islam and my second does of Piers. This class was difficult for me because Muslims have been terrorizing my people for roughly a millennium (this figure is not exact, but at the same time, sadly not hyperbolic). I have visited temples defaced by Muslim invaders. The tragedy of 9/11 is not to be understated, but it is, unfortunately, a part of a much larger history. This history, accordingly, imbues an bias in me that I have difficulty shaking, one that shamefully impels me to cherry pick the failures of Islam and its followers. As always, though, it was extremely interesting to hear Piers tell the story and explain the social context that drove Mohammed and the beginnings of Islam. I can’t wait for tomorrow

During class, it started to shower outside. With the sun out, it seemed more like a pleasant afterthought than a prelude. In the back of my mind, I was worried that this would mean no ultimate, but the rain broke before class ended, and I was two and a half hours away from getting back to Jesus Green.

-

When I got to Jesus Green, something wasn’t right. I was only five minutes late, and it’s true that typically most everyone is about 10 minutes late, but there always seems to be one or two people on time. Besides what seemed like a scenester (but later turned out to be an ultimate player. That’s right, an ultimate player-come-scenester. Go figure), there was no one there. No matter. The sky was a patchwork of different shades of gray as far as the eye could see, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it. Today was going to be glorious and I was going to claim the fields as my own.

I hadn’t played since last Tuesday, and the 10 day wait proved to be way too long for me. I was itching to play and I. During warm up, I was throwing well, but nothing too fancy. I broke out some hammers and bladey hucks and the like, caught a few between my legs; it was cool, I guess, but they didn’t have that ring of a sick nastiness. During the warm up jog, I found that running distance barefoot had paid off immediately, as running in cleats seemed to be effortless. But there was still a twinge in my shin. To paraphrase Mitch Hedberg, I was trying to force the glory. Something didn’t add up.

After warm up, we joked about rain. I noted that I saw lightning during lunch and David said he saw some not 200 yards away on the way here. We did an end zone drill before scrimmage, and again, nothing too great. I noticed I was already sweating, but I attributed it to the humidity and made a mental note that these were the conditions I liked: everyone who didn’t condition on the other days of the week would lose stamina quickly. But I like it to be hot as well, and it wasn’t. Just cool and humid.

Right as we began to scrimmage, it began to rain. It was sort of like a cold version of the shower earlier in the afternoon, and I was excited to play until Chris started to pick up the cones. I was confused; it was just raining a little bit and we had just gotten started and then it began to pour.

Never in my life have I ever seen so much rain. We sprinted for the trees but it was a fruitless exercise. The leafy canopies that had served me so well during lunch might as well have been a sparse thatchwork of branches; they were powerless against the downpour from above. In mere moments, I was drenched from head to toe. My white shorts turned transparent (thank God for compression shorts) and I was walking on a shifting cushion of water in my cleats. I was so wet that when the rain had subsided, I couldn’t feel it so much as I could hear and see it. The streets of Cambridge were dead; the only people outside were huddled under overhanging roofs in front of shops and restaurants. I walked, by and large, alone through City Centre, obliging bemused onlookers with a grin and dog-like hair flip. For the first time, I truly understood the liberation of being caught in the rain without an umbrella, with but a trashbag to shield my things. Only when we have nothing are we free to do anything.

By the time I got back to Newnham, the rain had more or less stopped. I lurched past the porters and upstairs to a common bathroom, so as to not get mine wet. In what was essentially the inverse of my dream, I peeled off my clothes, mercifully missing the after-dinner crowd, as I went to take my third shower of the day.

Courses like history of mathematics are what make me want to be a perpetual student. The history of mathematics itself makes me wish I was smart enough to be a mathematician. Math truly is God’s own language; it is necessarily true and exists but for itself. Everything about it is so elegant and beautiful. Each mathematician, likewise, has his story to tell, inextricably influenced by the past and the present, always guiding the future. Piers tells the story in such an honestly interested and complete way that, in the same way as Real Analysis last semester, it makes me want to poke around wikipedia and read books clearly over my head. In fact, the course I’m looking forward to this coming semester is group theory/abstract algebra with Uli, of whom I hear nothing but rave reviews. Hopefully grad stat won’t as pedestrian and boring as I’m told it is and we actually do cool biochem/molbio in my biomed courses. School starts in 18 days. Wow.

-
During lunch, I picked up a sandwich (tomato, mozzarella, pesto, and basil: a lifesaver in any country) and ran off to find a white dress shirt, as my mother left mine in India (more miscommunication than her fault, I guess). My blue oxford needs to be dry cleaned (both expensive and unnecessary at the moment), and since I need a new white dress shirt anyway for the next few months, it makes more sense to buy one. To say I was pleasantly surprised to find that everything was on sale and it will cost me about 20 – 25 pounds is an understatement. I think there will be more than one button-down bought in the near future, hopefully one windowpane and the other a replacement for my blue pinstripe shirt which is now sporting an ink stain = ( On the way back, I came across the Disney Store, and walked in to try and find the adorable elephant I was instructed to. It could have used some hair, but I’m not going to lie, I considered buying it for a minute. ACK, I forgot to mention: on the way in to town, I noticed something very peculiar. Something I knew was, to quote, commonplace and different/intimate and distant/fresher than an infant. I speedwalked to catch up to the Japanese kid sporting what turned out to be the Three Bears SB Dunk Low. If you can even find these, the going price is at least $230, so needless to say, I gawked a bit, complemented him (they are actually not nearly as ugly in person). I think he was surprised that someone knew what he was wearing because he nervously laughed and spluttered a sort of stunned ‘thank you.’

-

For the first time in recent history, I really thought I was dreaming.  There’s only one person in this world that has that hairstyle.  I stopped and did a double-take in the middle of the parking lot: is it really Emma Jayne?  Why would she be back here, at the Sidgwick site, no less?  I started to walk towards the other end of the parking lot, and she saw me and smiled.  It really is her; but why on earth is she here?  My peripheral vision blurred as everything became a little hazy and I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming (I wasn’t; it hurt).  Emma Jayne Fischer, complete with y’s, c’s, and Phelanesque sort of’s.  It turns out that she is considering transferring to, frankly, anywhere that isn’t LSE, and came to see a Cambridge admissions officer.  I asked her why she was here a few more times and told her that we would being going punting this afternoon and she should meet me in the Porter’s Lodge at 4am.

We parted ways and by this time I was late for the ironically titled Treasure in the Ground: the Foundations of Buddhism.  We had switched classrooms to something more personal (read: painful) and I walked in to find everyone arranged in three sides of a rectangle, with his desk occupying the space of the remaining side (if you can imagine, a rectilinear half-moon with the desk in the center of the open side).  There were three seats available: each in one of the corners I was not standing at.  I made a bee-line towards the one furthest from the front, but he was too quick.  “Why don’t you sit up here, in the front.”  Great.  90 minutes, three feet away from him, sitting next to a really, really sweaty and smelly dude.  This was supposed to be me at Old Trafford, not in Lecture Room 8.

I suppose the only saving grace of Treasure in the Ground: the Foundations of Suicidal Tendencies is that it prepared me for the equally vapid evening lecture.  This woman threw on her best frock and read Medieval English to us, complete with the accent for the first 24 minutes straight.  She just read.  As in, ‘here is an excerpt of a story I will read to you.  You can find it in your handout.’  When she finished, some girl sang, and then she read something short.  And then the girl sang again (she was really good, though).  And then she read something short.  And then the girl sang.  And then she enthralled us with nine endless minutes from Canterbury Tales, and then the girl sang to round out the hour.  55 minutes of my life that I will never get back.’  Although, I did think it was hilarious that both Geoffrey Chaucer and Sean Carter both say ‘axe’ instead of ‘ask.’  So 54m40s of my life that I will never get back

-

Rewind back to 4pm.  As expected, only Victoria and I were on time in the Porter’s Lodge, with Emma about 10 minutes late.  After waiting around for a few more minutes, we decided that perhaps they were already at the river, so we headed out.  Along the way, we saw the entire group.  Talk about sheep.  I mean they all followed each other and couldn’t be more clueless about anything.  Marylou insisted that I told her to meet us all at Lady Mitchell Hall.  I find this highly unlikely because she told me to meet her in the Porter’s Lodge and I said something like ‘yeah, I know.  It was my idea.’  If ever I want to describe airhead in the future, I will probably call Marylou and have her try to put two sentences together.  Marylou is such an imbecile that she is going to Oxford TO SHOP BECAUSE SHE HEARD THERE IS A SALE THERE.  NOT LONDON.  OXFORD.  Sometimes I used to wonder where ‘yo momma’ jokes came from.  Chances are that it was some poor child’s Marylou of a mother.

Be that as it may, we met up with them around the back of Queens’ College.  (Interesting sidebar: two queens founded Queens’ College, hence the apostrophe placement).  Now, from where they were standing, all they had to do was look to their right, and they would see the river and where we would ultimately end up punting.  THEY (the eleven of them in the herd) CROSSED THE STREET AND STARTED WALKING TOWARDS THE BACKS AT TRINITY.  WHY!?  Emma and I ultimately became infuriated (I actually thought it was amusing but Emma’s vitriol rubbed off on me and it seems like it’s manifesting itself now in full force) and just left.  Like the sheep they are, they followed faithfully to the Cam where we got a deal on punting (7 quid, one hourish).   Punting itself is very relaxing, but quite nerve racking when you are sharing the boat with eleven chickens with their heads cut off, all of them yelling at each other and other boats.  I was hoping that they would fall over taking pictures of themselves, but no dice.  It’s sort of like being a camp counselor except all the campers are all older than you and you are trapped on a boat with a far, far too nice punter.  Emma spent the entire trip in state of palpable tenseness, so I tried to placate her with ice cream and Granchester and other things (but, as I found out, she can’t have dairy because she’s getting a nasal.  Hilarious.).  After punting, Emma and I walked around Cambridge and talked about how we had spent our time after Term I and how this current groups absolutely pales in comparison to the Term I crew.  She left back for London right before dinner, and we exchanged a satisfying hug and plans to meet up on Sunday with Alex.  Hooray.

-

After dinner and the evening lecture, I was persuaded by Kevin and Dorothea to go to the Selwyn pub with them.  Ordinarily, I hate the Selwyn.  It’s absolutely crawling and makes me cringe.  Thankfully, this evening was not the case.  Kevin kept disappearing to smoke a cigarette, or so it seemed, but I hung around with Misha (who really wanted to get high.  I mean, the kid was fiending.  Kevin has been arrested in two countries for smoking the devil’s weed, which is probably why he kept disappearing: to get away from Misha.  In Kevin’s defense, he got screwed over both times, but still.  Greece and Israel?  Quite the character.) and others that I don’t have a story for.  Turned out to be a pretty good night for my ego.  The segue from ‘how old are you’ to ‘how old do you think I am’ seems to be pretty win for me, because not only do I consistently get 22-24, but everyone refuses to believe that I am one month from 19 and typically says a lot of nice things about me.  Kevin tried to convince me and others to go to a club with him, but I was ready to turn in.  He squeezed a promise out of me that I will go with him in the next week, which I foolishly did.  I don’t think that’s going to end very well for me.  On the way back, I scored some major brownie points with Dorothea by absolutely lampooning the rube that insists on talking to her incessantly by making fun of him, his German, and singing what little I know of Du hast.  I got back at around 11.30 and the night ended with yours truly watching some more of Scarface and filing my nails like a real man.

Afterwards, I went out with Kevin and Dorothea and met a bunch of Italians (one of the Brazilian?). Of the lot of them that didn’t disappear, one insisted on speaking in Italian the whole time and another was way too drunk and way too into me so they were both duly ignored; the others were two of the more interesting people I have met so far. Misha has a huge head of curly hair (I’m reasonably sure it’s a jewfro, as he is Jewish and moving near Tel Aviv in a year), rolls his own cigarettes, and studies philo. It was really cool to actually have a discussion (watered-down as it might be) about different philosophers, in a pub, no less. Armando is Brazilian, but has lived in Canada and moved to Italy two years ago. He speaks, I am told by Misha, fluent Italian and knows an unbelievable amount about American, Canadian, British, and Italian politics. Not to mention, both of them are two of the nicest and most respectful people I have ever met. I don’t know what it is about being international/not-American but you somehow become far more sensible and your perspective is intelligent and worthwhile. Must be the water/not-McDonalds.

On the way back, Kevin found a place that actually shaves old school style. Life goal number 39 waiting in the wings…

-

History messes with my head. Collapse of civilization reminded me of that Zizek quote about how history is constantly re-written. The lack of any objective perspective really makes you wonder if anything you were ever taught is true. That is, Piers from history of math (who, admittedly, is a bit extreme in most of his characterizations) constantly points out that other historians are lazy and don’t check their source texts. Are there really only a handful of legitimate Assyriologists? How about other civilizations? And the authors of my highschool textbooks? Did they actually do their research? (Probably not, considering how many lawsuits there have been about errors.)

The discussion also drove me up the wall. Everyone had an unsubstantiated opinion about the true nature of things, which historians apparently were too stupid to consider (…but are they really experts? I smell MacIntyre). The professor is nothing if not a gentleman, and politely listened to everyone pontificate and beat their hist-penis. I tried to practice my ducks in the meantime, but they all started wearing tuxedos and drinking martinis and I didn’t know what to do. OH and the kid next to me had a Wu-Tang bag. Bad. Ass. I found out that he saw ATCQ and everyone else at Rock the Bells and my jaw was pretty much on the floor. Life goal number 1j53…one of these days.

-

History of mathematical ideas was far and away the best lecture thus far. Piers gave a complete (I’m not sure where I get off saying it was complete; I don’t know what a complete one would entail) and thorough (whoops) history of how Ancient Greek mathematics came about. They were lazy farmers, if you were wondering.

The same problems reared their own ugly head in the class, though. When Piersss indicts other historians, to use debate lingo, why doesn’t he bite his own harms? Are there some objective criteria? I suppose checking source texts and so on may qualify, but you still interpret them at some level. Does the final analysis outweigh? I suppose it does, but that’s predicated on its own justifications being legit, so to have a “correct” final analysis doesn’t save you from a non sequitor and I just don’t know anymore.

-

During lunch, I stopped by at Pret (<3) and ran off to the Wren library. I sort of expected something along the lines of the University Library, so I was a little disappointed to find it was about the size of the Buttery. But then I looked in the display cases. There were eight total, four on each side. I’ll start with the last one, which had Newton’s letters to some other baller (= o), his original copy of Principia Mathematica (= O), and a lock of his hair (wtf). As if that wasn’t enough, the first one I saw had Wittgenstein’s original notebooks and I quaked in me rainboots so much I thought I would have to sit down. Even though the entire thing was in German, you knew you were reading, to borrow from Hardy, genius of the first order. Right next to it was Bertrand Russell’s original manuscript for his speech about the a-bomb. I couldn’t have been giddier. Next to that was an original description of what it was like to see the bomb explode. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve read anything so enthralling in a long time. The writing wasn’t especially great, per say. The imagery was vivid but nothing that would win a Pullitzer. Maybe it was the subject matter – like most things, I don’t know – but something about it captured my attention. It made me wonder if good writing is sort of an internal consistency or a stylistic cogency. Maybe a great writer doesn’t do great things so much as s/he writes within themselves? I wish I had taken a real writing class. And that I learned how to spell Connecticut.

-

I’m not sure why I switched into the Buddhism class; it’s awful. I mean awful. And by awful, I mean AWFUL. Not only is this teacher insufferably boring, but he says things that are straight up not true. He’s supposed to be a Buddhist, but with my rudimentary knowledge of Hinduism and Sanskrit knowledge, a few minutes of questioning after class revealed he knew next to nothing. This might be nitpicky, but if you truly care about something, if it is what you study and what you live, one would think you would take the effort to pronounce the words properly. Nope. I worry for the Hinduism course because it must be an endless drone of partial truths and untruths, considering the guy isn’t Hindu. We’re going to switch in to a smaller classroom tomorrow because he doesn’t like to lecture so far away from us. Joy.

-

A word about MAn U. I have always wanted to go to a proper football match. Not like a friendly between Galaxy and some other lame MLS team where no one from the top eleven plays and everyone makes fun of Freddy’s last name. I mean a real match. Since I’m in England (it’s true, I am) I wanted to see Man U or Arsenal or Chelsea duke it out for 90 minutes. So when I found out that Man U was playing in Old Trafford in a proper pre-season match (against Juventus, no less), I pretty much pooped my pants. And when I couldn’t do that anymore, I pooped someone else’s. I’m kidding…but seriously. I did. I spent all of today canvassing, trying to find someone that would come along. The itinerary was as follows:

3.04pm: peace out of Cambridge (skip Buddhism; hooray) and reach Manchester at 7pm

8pm: ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod

8.24pm: GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

10.30pmish: FInd a hostel, crash for a few hours

3.42am: peace out of Manchester (sleep on the train; hooray) and reach Cambridge at 8.04am

9am: Twitch excitedly during class and relive the night before

No one bought it. Something about the 4am train ride, I don’t know. I moped around for a while, only to find out that like everyone from the lame crew (eight girls or whatever and Fernando) wanted to go. I was bouncing off the walls.  My excitement doubled when I found that Piers was lecturing about Florentine architecture (specifically about the Duomo.  Brunelleschi is genius.).  The lecture delivered until about halfway, when I found out, having poked around a bit more in the way of tickets, that there was no way I could do see Man U for less than 150 quid. = (. There goes that.

I also found out later that I couldn’t get a shave for less than 14 quid. = (. There goes that.

But during lunch, I went to the Wren library, and no, Mr. Porter, I am not a member of Trinity College, but I am of the University. I can’t complain.