Tuesday, 9 August 2011

Cambridge pt. 3 - Odd stuff happening around Cambridge

Whoa look at that a new post so soon? Finals just finished not too long ago and this week has been a lot slower once since new classes have begun and there isn’t too much work to do yet (at least for me) In any event, there have been almost 4 weeks separating today and the Scotland trip so here are some odd tidbits of happenings here and there throughout all those week

Harry Potter: The premier of Harry Potter was in London during our weekend in London so unfortunately none of us were able to go there and be with the crowd and see the cast and whatnot, but I did catch some of it on tv and it’s probably a good thing that none of us went. The premier was held in this big square (Trafalgar Square to be precise) right in front of the National Gallery, and while it is of sizeable dimension it can’t fit that many people. After adding in a fat red carpet and leaving room for cameras and whatnot there didn’t seem to be much space for the public to actually stand, and thus the only people who actually managed to get decent “spots” were there days before. Interestingly enough, the actual movie didn’t come out in general theaters until a week later (7/25). It was a pretty big deal even in Cambridge and a ton of people in the program did the whole let’s-get-midnight-tickets-because-i-can’t-possibly-wait-for-another-day-to-watch-it and given that there are only 2 local cinemas in Cambridge I know that some people actually took a train to London to see it. Personally I did want to see it but was in no hurry so I bought tickets to see it Tuesday the next week. Prior to my own screening I was hearing mixed reviews across the board: some people loved it and some people despised it. All I have to say is that the book was much better, and that there was so much potential for the movie to be amazing but it fell short in almost every single opportunity.

Richard III: Kevin Spacey has been the artistic director of the Old Victoria (“Old Vic”) theater in London for a number of years, and I got the chance to see him perform in Shakespeare’s Richard III a few weeks back (it’s the one that starts with “Now is the winter of our discontent…”. I think he does a performance in London every year, but in any event our program secured I think 20 tickets and so a group of us went to London one random Thursday night. It was a really cool experience because I’ve never seen a Shakespeare play live and it was a good production with good acting, but it was a little strange because they took the original play and put it in a modernized setting (so Richard III wore a modern military uniform and most of the characters wore suits. The language was unaltered though). We got the cheapest tickets so they had us sitting up in the balcony (it’s u-shaped, and our seats were on the opposite tips of the U if you can imagine that…) in any event it meant that my head was permanently shifted to the left for the entire performance so it felt a little weird after 2.5 hours. Honestly though I didn’t understand all of the language because Shakespeare is still hard for me to deduce sometimes so perhaps I’ll go read the actual play (although I highly doubt that that will happen in the near future)

Chinese Tourists: When I came to England I figured there’d be plenty of Europeans walking all over the place, probably a good population of Indian people, and given that it’s summertime, probably a decent mix of other people. What I did not expect in Cambridge however was a massive influx of Asian, particularly Chinese tourists. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing, I was just extremely surprised to see as many Asians here as there are. On most days, it’s like walking through Cupertino or perhaps Chinatown because there will be hundreds of Chinese people mixed in with the locals and other tourists, mainly on large tour groups, walking all over the city. And it’s not just adults and families; there are a ton of groups of young students (middle school age) and even older ones (high school and college) and they are just everywhere. It’s actually kinda funny watching them walk around sometimes because in every tour group, the tour guide will hold their respective token that helps identify to the group where they are. I think most of you know what I mean: they’ll hold up random, usually brightly colored items, that purposely stick out, and these objects will range from assorted umbrellas, posters, and the funniest one I saw was at a museum in London where the dude had one of those cheap, multi-colored “lightsabers” that they sell at amusement parks where it’s just a regular flashlight on the bottom and a series of plastic pieces that fold together.

What I found out was that there was once a very famous Chinese poet named Xu Zhimo who attended Cambridge (King’s College to be precise) back in the day and he wrote quite a few pieces about Cambridge and his work effectively put the school and the town on the map for Chinese people. It’s pretty cool – to commemorate his work the school petitioned the carving of one of his poems located beside the main bridge that spans the river into King’s College and it’s still there now (the name of the poem is Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again). Regardless, each day the rivers will be packed with punts containing dozens and dozens of Chinese tourists and they only all seem to disappear after 6pm.

This past month there’s been a group of Japanese students who I think are doing a special program also at Pembroke College. I think there are about 80 students and I’m not entirely certain of what they’re doing here, but they’re sharing some of the school accommodations with us. Sidenote: other than our program (PKP-Pembroke King’s Program) there have been other study-abroad programs from the states: in July there was a group mainly from UC Irvine that was here for 4-weeks, and for these first 2 weeks in Irvine there’s another group of students from the states who will spend 2-weeks here in Cambridge then their next 2 weeks I think in Sweden.

High Tea: So as popular stereotypes would be enforced, our program has organized weekly sessions of high tea where tea, coffee, and assorted snacks are provided in one of the rooms in Pembroke College. I realize that tea time is highly iconic of British Culture, and I must say it’s a very nice change of pace and I’m very glad that we have the opportunity to partake in the tradition while we’re here. What happens is pretty much you get together with people and dine lightly on: a variety of teas (to be taken with milk and sugar lumps), coffee, scones (laden with clotted cream and strawberry jam), cakes (dark chocolate, coffee, and berry), and random sandwiches (salmon, beef, ham, egg; these all kinda suck honestly). All the while you are expected to make nice conversation, and it actually is cool because sometimes professors and other important college people will stop by and chat with us (there will usually be about 30 people, but people sneak in all the time) We have one roughly once a week (there’ve been 4 so far I think and there will be 3 more) and we need to sign up because there is limited space (the room itself isn’t very big, but it’s nice: it’s one of those traditional spaces with decorated wood paneling, nice antique tables, some padded chairs etc.)

Golf: It turns out that just 15 minutes walk south of my place is a community golf course (community as in there’s no country club or whatnot; it’s meant for people to just walk in and play a game) so I went a few Fridays ago to play my first game of legitimate golf. I’ve held very particular reserves about golf. Personally I think the idea of maintaining golf courses is an extremely stupid undertaking that wastes a ton of water (seriously what sense is there in maintaining a green golf course in the middle of a desert aka Nevada?), it’s kind of elitist with the rich members of society buying into some expensive country club and spending odd afternoons putting their thousand-dollar set of clubs to actual use. It’s really boring to watch too. In all honesty, playing once hasn’t really changed my thoughts much, and perhaps it’s hypocritical of me to even play, but I must say I’ve always been curious to see what the big deal is about this sport so I figured this is a good opportunity to try. The course in Cambridge is pretty small: 9-holes, all 3-par, and a few odd lakes and sand traps; it’s compact, but it was nice because I still got the whole experience of trying to avoid ponds and whatnot. Needless to say I did not do terribly (finished with 42 strokes to a par 27), had quite a bit of fun, but still don’t particularly like the sport’s practices and customs

Plenary Lectures: In addition to our regular class lectures, the program has organized a series of plenary lectures to be given pretty much weekly by an assortment of smart and respectable people. It’s a cool idea because they have invited a very odd cast of people to come and speak with us, but in reality some of these talks have been kinda boring. All talks are given in the debating chamber of the Cambridge Union Society which is designed to look like British Parliament (so in the middle of the room is an open space, and chairs on both sides of this open space face one another). We started with a talk about “Why Cambridge is Unique” given by a professor who alternates teaching positions between Cambridge and UPenn (this one was pretty good, but the last half hour was terrible because when he opened the floor to questions it just got kinda lame). Next guy who came to speak with us was the ex-head of MI6 who spoke to us on the future of national security. Pretty good premise right? Too bad it was somewhat disappointing because he was really general about his predictions. There’ve been lectures by expert linguists, esteemed history professors, and other highly qualified individuals and their lectures make for a good change of pace, but attendance to these lectures have steadily declined…

Finals: Our first half of the program wrapped up in the last week of July. As a reminder: there are 3 modules – two 4-week sessions, and one 8-week session. We are allowed to mix and match depending on what classes you want to take and how your schedule works out. For July I was taking 2 classes: one 4-week and one 8-week so I’m done with my first 4-week class and a new one just started last week. Finals are 2-hours each and all occurred on Friday. It went alright but it’s a little strange: for finals they obviously spread us out, but the PA’s proctor us and wear their black gowns, and you’re not allowed to leave for the entire time even if you finish early. The test itself was alright…meh it’s done at least and that’s all that matters. In any event, I’m done with Behavioral Ecology and for this last month I still have my British culture class and I’ve started a new class on the history of the city from 1890-1990.

Doesn’t that all sound grand? 

No comments:

Post a Comment