Science Officer's log - Michaelmas Term Week 2 (20/10-26/10)

 Week 2 was much less eventful than week 1. 

On Sunday, my day started with a bus ride to J's bar, a sports bar just outside Kassan stadium, home of Oxford United, which I had visited once before. I was there for a taster of the Oxford University Pool and Snooker club. I started playing pool after I moved to Oxford, and I played quite a few games with a couple of people at the bunker of my college's MCR. It's a cool game. It wouldn't challenge a Vulcan child ;) So I thought I might give the club a try, maybe get better at the game, and meet some people who might become new friends. 

 

Walking to J's bar, in horrible weather

 

I actually won my first ever game of American pool

This taster however, was a total bust. There was a cool aspect of it. I learned to play American pool (which, as it turns out, is different from British Pool, and played in a noticeably larger table). I even won my first game. And I played a game of Snooker which is played in a table so large I am convinced it is larger than the room I had growing up. Meeting new people though didn't go so well. The club's regulars looked like very skilled players but they weren't really interested in playing with or socializing with anyone new... So, after I'd have enough of the games, I caught the bus back to Oxford. That night I attended OUSFG's desert planet books, which is a traditional discussion session in which we vote for a list of 10 recommendations of great SFF books we would take with us to a desert island. I am speaker for the Speculative Group now, so I am trying to attend more of their events, especially seeing as I am not at evensong every weekend anymore. 

Snooker tables are huge

I loved the vibe of the bar, but the society event was a bit of a bust...

 

 

I had to cancel most of the stuff I had planned for this week because I caught a could and didn't really feel up to much besides my course load and lab work. I did go to Star Trek on Monday, where we watched The Offspring (TNG 3x16) and The Die is Cast (DS9 3x21), winners of the poll for the theme "episodes where someone disobeys a direct order from a superior". That was a good time. I also went to the MCR Black Tie dinner with a geust from OUSFG. I had mixed feelings about the experience, mostly because I don't usually enjoy the MCR community at Jesus. Whoever organized the dinner placed guests across from their hosts in the hall, which made conversation exceedingly difficult, especially as everything was so loud. My guest and eye retreated to the bunker after dinner, to play a board game, but our peace of mind lasted only for a few minutes before a group of 5 or 6 graduates barged in with drinks and proceeded to chat at a shouting tone over their wine glasses. 

On Friday, the Orchestra rehearsal took place at the Cohen quad, on Walton Street. The conductor didn't make it so it was short, but we made some progress and it even more low pressure than usual, so all was well. And Quidditch, on Saturday, was fine too, even though it was cold and muddy, and they freaked me out a little by saying that next week we'd need mouthguards, because it's supposed to be a full contact sport and we'll start tackling. I'm a little bit burned out by this bioinformatics course I've been taking, extremely exhausted from the cold,  and a little worried about my birthday next week. Hopefully things will start to look up soon. 

 

View from the terrace at Corpus Christi college after a post graduate brunch this Sunday

Science Officer's Log | Michaelmas Term Week 1 (13/10 -20/10)

 Life was so different this time last year...

This Sunday it took me nearly an hour to get home from the Sports centre, because of the race. But I got to watch it for a little bit, which is always fun

 

Week 1 was all about throwing myself into the whirlwind of taster events and activities that engulf Oxford around this time of year. I already had a strong start during week zero, and this week, my Sunday started with a walk to the University's Sports Centre on Iffley Road, where I attended a taster session of pistol shooting, at the Crickets school. Shooting was much harder than I thought, in no small part because the weapon is heavy. I couldn't stop shaking, trying to hold it in an outstretched arm, and despite that, I don't think I did a bad job, hitting 3 of my shots in the target. When it was wall over, I hung around the Sports Centre Track for a while, listening to music and enjoying how empty the place was. This track is where Roger Banister (a doctor, of all things) ran the first sub-4-minute mile ever, in 1954. 

I loved the blue tracks... Sitting here, by myself early in the morning felt amazing

 

Shooting range in the cricket schools

Sometimes I managed to cook something right, and it's always good to have some real, tasty, healthy food :) I wish I got it right more often

The next day (Monday), we had the first Star Trek meeting of term, and the theme was "To Boldly Go where no one has gone before", or the best and most classic episodes of Star Trek. I finally got to watch "The Inner Light" with the society, and what a fantastic episode that was... It carried many bittersweet memories with it, but it was above all, a great story, and on Tuesday, I joined a friend (another DPhil student) for a formal dinner at Christ Church's hall. After dinner, I joined the Oxford ESports society for some time in the gaming computers at my College, and got to play THPS 1+2 for a couple of hours, which was amazing since I've been on a serious withdrawal from videogames (and from that game in particular) 

Dinner at Christ Church. How come my pictures are never leveled?

The e-sports suite. I have to come here more often

THPS. Best. Game. Ever.

On Wednesday, I attended a Tango taster session at Lincoln College's Oakenshot room. I had an amazing time. In fact, I'm seriously considering taking up tango in a permanent basis. It would be cool learning how to dance properly I think, and it is a more physical activity to balance all my nerdy, sciency and writerly pursuits. But I think I need to go back on a regular class day to get a real feel of what the classes are like out of the tasting window. From what I could tell, the instructor allows for people to remain with their "permanent partners" all class, and it would totally suck showing up and not having a gentleman with whom to dance. Still, at the end of the class, the instructor and one of the more experienced students gave us a demonstration of the dance. It was pretty cool... Brought me back to the first time I watched the Nutcracker with my mum, the time I discovered how much I enjoyed watching the dance. There's something so mesmerizing about the control dancers have over their own bodies, and about how their movements respond to one another's when they dance in pairs... It's just beautiful, in a way I don't have the words to describe. 

Tango at the Oakenshot room

One of the things I had decided I wanted do do this term was to attend more scholar's dinners, especially now that I have Thursdays free, since I took a break from choir. Therefore, on Thursday, I attended the dinner. I arrived before anybody else did, and got to have some alone time at the SCR, which was pretty cool. They don't usually allow graduate scholars here unless it is during the fifteen minutes that precede dinner, which means we never have a chance to enjoy the magazines and publications they have. This Thursday however, I could and wouldn't you know, one of the magazines on display was a copy of scientific American, with exactly the kind of piece that I would have wanted to read. Dinner was okay, albeit a bit exhausting. I am not very good at talking with people I do not know well, and I have to try very hard to not be myself entirely, and instead, to be charming and interesting and engaging in a way that normal people can easily understand. It is a kind of exuberance that is enormously taxing, and by the end of the evening I was already regretting my decision to attend one of these dinners each week. 

I signed up for a class on scientific entrepreneurship, at the Physical Chemistry building. Today was the first class, and honestly, it was worth signing up to this thing just to have the experience of having a class in one of these halls, with the sliding black boards and the large wooden table.

 

Senior Common Room at Jesus College. I had it all to myself for a couple of minutes this time

They have a selection of current magazines and newspapers there... I wish they would let scholars in at other times just so I could read these. I miss actually having access to paper magazines as the libraries only have virtual copies now

Can you believe this was one of the magazines today? Perfect or what?

Main course in the scholars' dinner

On Friday night, I had the first termly rehearsal of the Turl Street Orchestra. This was probably the thing I was looking forward to the most the whole week. Well... After Star Trek Society, but it's a different thing. Star Trek is easy most of the time. It's a small group of people, many of whom are bonded by a mutual love of something more powerful than a common language in creating connections between people. Star Trek is something that I love. I look forward to it every Monday, it's the best way to start my week. I was looking forward to the TSO in a different way. During most of September, and the beginning of October, I experienced a re-invigoration of my commitment to learn the cello. Even during my busiest days, when I was taking a course at Harwell that kept me in classes and workshops for 8 hours a day, and spending an additional 2 hours a day on the bus, I would still come home and immediately throw myself into practice. I was going through Rick Mooney's position pieces for cello, trying to teach myself the 4th position, things like that. And I felt like it was going well. So I was looking forward to the orchestra, and I thought perhaps I might do better this term. But I was also a little scared, because the orchestra is scary to me. I mean the first time I attended I was so convinced I sucked beyond belief that I didn't go back for a whole term! And you know what? It's still hard. We're doing Bethoven's sixth this term. Should be challenging. 

Orchestra rehearsal

Finally, on Saturday, I attended my first ever Quadball trainning session at University Parks. Quadball, for the uninitiated, means Quidditch, and I have to say, I had a surprisingly good time. It was exhausting, after the warm ups I was already out of breath, but the group was a pretty amazing group of people. A lot of Oxford societies put out statements about how they are equitable and diverse and all the right buzz words, but very rarely have I felt so welcome in any other group. I trained as a beater, which is kind of like playing dodgeball with a broomstick between your legs, but a lot of the exercises reminded me of some throw and catch games I used to play in the pool, with a water polo ball. I kinda wanna continue this one. It felt good, taking a break in the middle of a Saturday afternoon to do something really active at a park.

Quiditch practice

Keeble College, as I left the park