10.13.06 release

Friday was another 2 class day, and this was a doozie: back to back decision science (stats) and finance. There are a lot of concepts to this stuff, and the pace is very fast. The work is also fairly math-y. These two courses will kick my ass, but I will do my best. During the lunch break, I had a quick salad (thanks Reba) in the lunchroom with Brandon, who incidentally has his own web site at www.asskicking.com. He loves this photo, so I just had to post it…

 

“Brandon Stache”: Canadian Porn Star

 

Josh will be glad to know that I managed to spill my drink all over Brandon, something that seems to happen to people I spent time with during meals. As spilling goes, it could certainly have been much worse: I opened my bottle of carbonated water and it exploded all over Brandon, fortunately it was just water, and being the good outdoorsy type that he is, he was actually wearing a raincoat! Then I rushed across town to Merton to drop off a form applying for Reba’s associate membership to the MCR (Middle Common Room, i.e. grad student hangout) which gets her a key to Merton, dining privilege, into all the events, etc. Then, I rushed back to the business school and just made it to class as it began. Due to the relative humidity and relative out-of-shape-ity of my lazy ass, I was totally covered in sweat by the time I got there. After class, everybody went to the “common room” at the business school for a drink. “Common room” is really a fancy way of saying BAR. In the school. Seriously. The MBA folks had all just completed their first week of long classes, massive reading, and required bickering sessions (deceptively referred to by the school establishment as “case study groups”), and they were all ready to let off some steam. And boy, did they! The school sells mixed drinks, beers, and glasses (pronounced glosses) of wine at 1 pound each, which is unheard of in this town. We drank all the liquor, all the beer, and a lot of the wine before leaving to go out for more drinking. The place was a mad house: people getting loaded, hitting on one another, playing drinking games, standing on tables, and generally making a huge racket. You could feel the previous week’s stress level in the tone of the room, both by the level of debauch that people were treating themselves to and by the psycho-atmospheric tension humidity. We all went out to the Jericho Tavern, a pretty cool joint with continental beers and the honour of being the site of Radiohead and Supergrass’ first shows.

Naturally, we finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 12AM.

Sasha and Patrcik playing drinking games (aka stupid human tricks)

Ryan gets in on the action

Sally Webb and Reba. Nice.

Jean and Renee and some dude

Koome and Jean

Eugiene, Etongi, Emma: drinky girls. Yahoo!

John Stanton stars in: Drunk Guy Eye

10.12.06 work work work

Things are off to a roaring start this week!

Classes are 3.5 hours long.  Seminars are 3.5 hours long.  We had two classes Monday, one seminar and one class Tuesday, one class and a 4.5 hour study group meeting Wednesday, and finally have today off.  Friday is another 2 class day.  Each lunchtime, I read while I eat, and then when the day is done, I eat dinner and then study until 1AM.  I slept in today to catch up on sleep a bit, that felt very very nice.  Reba is being great, really supportive, she’s taking care of all the domestic stuff while I’m in this cram mode.  It’s pretty hard to get time to run to the store or make a healthy meal when you’re so busy, so I’m extra grateful.  Of course, she just got a job so this will all cease shortly!  She went on just one interview and immediately got an offer.  This simply adds further credence to my theory that “everybody likes Reba”.  She got a research and lab management job with the Oxford University Radiation Oncology and Biology department.  These folks are working on experimental breast cancer cures, but once again, I really don’t actually understand what it is that Reba does.   

 

Electronic Note Taking

Despite the fact that Josh continues to gleefully point out to me that “in addition to reading and homework, note taking is also optional in grad school. Just ask your profs”, I plan to rely heavily on  my note taking method in the learning process this year. 

I use a fairly integrated system consisting of Microsoft Onenote, Microsoft Outlook Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Tasks to manage time-lines, course-work, notes and general information.  Most people are very familiar with Calendar and Tasks, but if you haven't yet used Onenote, it is worth a moment's description.

Onenote allows quick, autosaving note taking.  It provides collapsible hierarchical bullet trees and a customisable flagging feature that makes it easy to group and locate important note taking elements such as questions, important points, assignments, and "to do" items.  This is very helpful when reviewing for tests, referring to something from the reading, searching for things you flagged as unclear during the reading, pulling up past class notes, or simply capturing something important the instructor said on the spot.  Onenote provides simple drawing features, which can be helpful with diagramming.  Onenote also automatically creates Outlook tasks, and plugs directly into Microsoft Sharepoint, which we also use at the school.  Onenote's search functions are particularly useful when combing through an entire term's worth of notes.  And, Onenote is a great way to bring together disparate electronic data... articles, power point presentations, cases, etc.  If you hadn’t guessed, we have plenty of these.

It's nothing earthshaking, but the system I use is as follows:

• When reading in preparation for classes, I take notes using Onenote, flagging any concerns or questions I might have for the instructor.
• During class, I am then easily able to refer to and update the notes from my preparation with lecture points and clarifications, and also have any questions or concerns ready at my fingertips.
• After class, I am able to share notes with fellow students, study groups etc.
• Finally, before a test, I am able to quickly and easily pull important review points from one place.  This part is really cool.

The electronic note-taking issue relative to my professors is not as bad as I thought it would be based on class #1.  Out of 4 instructors, their responses have been:

#1 – “No way, no how, uh-uh.  Nope.”

#2 – “I don’t care, but my boss said I can’t.  I’ll check with him again.”

#3 – “I’d prefer not, but if you must, then OK.”

#4 – “That’s very polite of you to ask first.  Yes of course you may.”

Hehe.  I think that I may have learned a bit of an object lesson here… you may notice how they are being cooler about electronic note taking each time I ask a different guy.  My method has been changing, I think that may have a lot to do with it. 

With Prof #1, I just started taking notes in class with my computer.  He stopped the class, told me to close my laptop, and told me to take notes on the handouts with a pencil.  That was embarrassing, especially since it was class one day one hour one!  I guess that I attract attention everywhere I go.    I spoke to him at the break, and told him something stupid like “I take lots of notes with my computer”…  but by this time, I would have had to be quite a salesman (or liar) to convince him to change his mind, especially after he showed his cards in front of the whole class.  No dice.  I’ll be printing notes and retyping in for the rest of the term.

With Prof #2, I kept the laptop in my bag until the break, very politely introduced myself, and mentioned that note taking was a big part of my study habits.

With Prof #3, I kept the laptop in my bag until the break, very politely introduced myself, and briefly explained my process above.  I also promised that I would never surf the web, look at email, or check an IM ever in his class. 

With Prof #4, I kept the laptop in my bag until the break, very politely introduced myself, and briefly explained my process above.  I also promised that I would never surf the web, look at email, or check an IM ever in his class.  I also explicitly asked him if I may have “his permission” to take notes in class on my laptop.

Maybe #4 was an anomaly, but I seemed to strike a nerve with the permission bit, because it hit pay-dirt… of course, I still have #5 and 6 to contend with.  We’ll see.

 

The I Always Wondered How That Works Factor

I have to say that so far, every single course and every single reading so far has been interesting, and has brought me some degree of what I call the “I Always Wondered How That Works Factor”.  I.A.W.H.T.W.F. for me is when I’m reading, learning, listening, whatever, and find myself saying, “wow, that’s cool, I always wondered about that”.  That makes me feel really good, for whatever reason.  Another cool aspect of this course-work is there’s a lot of class discussion.  While this seems to get easily sidetracked, it also is a neat opportunity to share your ideas and get some ideas from others.  The biggest bummer from all of this so far is the crystal clear indication that I will never be able to spend all the time learning each subject that I would like to spend.  I’m going to have to dig deep within myself to be a successful student, but that will still only give me a skimming of the material.  That’s what I get for doing a 1 year MBA.  Honestly, I would have gone to Oxford if it had been a 1, 2 or 3 year MBA, just because I’m into this place.  But, 1 year is the only option currently so I’ll just have to deal.

 

Matriculation Rising

Saturday is Matriculation.  This is where all the new entrants to the University put on their subfusc, sit in the Sheldonian Theatre, and get read a bunch of medieval “welcome to the university” stuff in Latin.  I’m super totally down, but it’s a 7:30 AM Saturday type of deal, and that part will suck.

 

Rowing?

Anybody who’s heard more about Oxford than the preceding 6 letter word (that’s o-x-f-o-r-d Josh) knows about the rowing fetish.  There is probably a big long story about how this came about, but I don’t know what it is, and if I’m going to be researching anything this morning, it’s going to be Financial Reporting!  The upshot is that it’s a big deal, and there are a zillion levels of Oxford crews available so that you can get your row on at Oxford.  I am attempting to join something called a 2nd and 3rd Novice Crew, which is for bottom feeders like me who’ve never even sat in a crew boat (probably the wrong word for this type of boat, they’re probably “slingers” or “stickey-horses” or “queens-heads” or whatever else medieval goofball name these people came up with for them).  This should be entertaining.

 

Special to Frank and Josh: any comments posted about my ass sinking, punching through, or capsizing the crew boat are such cheap shots that you will get negative points for wasting cyberspace by even taking the time to type them in.  Fair warning.

 

 

10.09.06 day 1

It’s 8:29 AM and I’m sitting in the classroom before my first class at Oxford. I did a bunch of reading yesterday and the day before, and I’m more or less ready for day 1. Idon’t know exactly what to expect, but I had a fun time reading about economics (for the first time) and strategy (also for the first time) over the last few days. People are filing in slowly, but class doesn’t start for another 16 minutes. Gerard, the south african accountant from my study group and I are just realizing that the economics professor both reccomended a £40 book and provided the relevant chapters in a course photocopy book.

– – – – – More Later! – – – – – –

Ok, it’s 17:11 now, and two classes later, the day is done. It turns out that the first professor doesn’t like it when people use their computers for note taking, which really SUCKS, because that’s how I take notes. The second prof doesn’t care, but apparently the Dean (?) has mandated that students not use laptops for note taking during class, because of the tendency to surf the internet, IM people, and etc.

<deleted rant></deleted rant>

However, I accept that I’m here on Oxford’s terms, not mine, so I will have to adapt. For now, I’ll be printing out my reading notes before the lecture, taking written notes during lecture, and then typing them in later.

aaarrrrrgghhhhh.

10.07.06 naught week almost over

First things first.  There are officially 8 weeks of each term, and the terms have crazy old fashioned names: Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity.  Of course, just like everything else at Oxford, the official version is not actually accurate and has a bunch of odd caveats.  For example, last week was -1th week (two week before Michaelmas begins).  This week is naught week (zero week) also sometimes called zeroth week, and believe me there was plenty going at the university, school and college during this time.  Monday is the first week of term, which theoretically ends in 8 weeks.  But it doesn’t there’s a 9th week and a 10th week for exams too.  Ok, hopefully that’s clear.

Also, I should apologise for the lack of photos, Reba has gone off to Greece with her buddies and took the camera with her, so it’s just my boring writing until tomorrow evening when she returns.

The busy factor is starting to blow my mind, and school hasn’t even begun yet.  You often hear University staff remark, or read in whatever official mailings that “you can’t do it all” while you’re here.  What an understatement.  This past week (naught) included the following events, unless otherwise noted, they all run back to back.

 

Saturday Sept 30

(note: since I have to deal with the stupid 24 hour time system here, YOU have to as well, enjoy it)

11:00 tour of my college, Merton.  We learned all about the history, famous guests and scholars, got a tour of the library (the oldest still in use in the English speaking world), halls, etc.  Damn cool.

14:30 The Oxford Pursuit scavenger hunt.  Sort of a high faluting way of getting to know the town and some history while trying to bond with and wrestle for control with other type-A MBA people.  In the pouring rain.

19:30 Dinner with Reba, she was leaving for Greece later in the evening.  I picked up some fairly passable Chinese take out.

Had to skip the 15:30 graduate parenting tea in the Merton MCR.  “Parents” are students that have been at Merton for at least a year and can give you the lowdown on stuff, which is good because no one else will even attempt to.  The MCR is the Middle Common Room.  This is the graduate student only social hall, a really old room with a TV, stereo and… you guessed it!  A BAR!!!!  There is also a JCR (Junior Common Room) for undergrads, and some sort of Senior room for the fellows and whatever.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

 

Merton MCR

 

Sunday Oct 1

13:30 stomped across Christ Church Meadow in the pour-assing rain to get to Merton for what was going to be a rain drenched tour of the city.  Turns out they cancelled it due to rain.  Figures.  I looked like I had waded through a bathtub.  Was also generally hung over and did jack shit, for various reasons.

Monday Oct 2

8:30 induction information lectures at the business school.  Lasted all day until 17:00.  Got to listen to a bunch of official types talk about the curriculum, online assignment submission system, career center, etc.  1/2 of the incoming class of 214 gave 1 minute each bios on stage.  That was painful.

17:00 ran across town to Merton where I had to sit in my suit in the Saville room (not as nice as it sounds) and wait for my name to be called, along with all the other “freshers” so I could walk up, shake hands with the warden, and sign my name in her big book of people’s signatures.  She was very smiley about it and said “welcome to the college”.  Neato!

19:00 ran back across town to the school for a welcome reception.  This is where they turn the normal studious and serious lobby area into a big frigging party room.  These people like to drink, and the wine was very free flowing.  I can’t say how much we went through, but it was cases and cases.  Some of last year’s MBA class were there, and the staff hung around guzzling as well.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

Tuesday Oct 3

8:30 induction day 2 at the school.  A marathon 12 hours in the same room, and the second half of the 214 got their 1 minute.  This was murderously painful.  Can you say, “I am ____ from India, I work in IT, and I like Cricket and Football” 45 times in a row with a straight face?  I can now say that I’ve seen it done, but by 45 different people.  Met my study group, and we had our first meeting.  Interesting folks all around: a South African accountant, a marketer from Hong Kong, a couple of IT guys from India, a Canadian project manager, and me.

Had to skip the 10:00 meeting with Merton Tutors, 16:00 meeting with the Merton welfare team, and 20:00 Merton bar crawl (going to all the bars at the different colleges) because of schedule conflicts with the biz school and sheer exhaustion.  I was really annoyed by the end of this day.

Wednesday Oct 4

9:40 health presentation at Merton.  This was funny.  I basically sat in the big dining hall at Merton, with 100 or so other graduate and undergraduate freshers and got lectured about not getting beat up by the townies, contraception, drug use, etc.  I had a brief meeting after with the Merton nurse, who weighed me and said that I am 15.5 stone.  Whatever that is.  It probably sounds worse in pounds, anyway.  Also, I was informed that I could not get my mumps and meningitis shots at the college and would have to go to the doctor’s office for my shots.  Apparently I am too old, and if I had a reaction to the shots, the nurse wouldn’t have the right “gear” to take care of me.  Whatev.

11:00 started putting my calendar and task list together for the term.  I now have 168 separate tasks in my todo list, mostly reading.  The assignments haven’t been given out yet, so I’ll add those as well.  Keep in mind: I only have 8 weeks to do all 168 readings.

15:00 had a pint and a chat about web projects with an alumus, Tom M.  Tom is starting a company and wanted to get an idea of what it would cost to do some web work.  I can’t go into the details, because I am under super-double-secret-sbs-handshake-lockdown oath to not reveal the details of our conversation or his company idea.  This is a bit funny, because this is probably the 3rd time I’ve had this double secret style conversation with people at SBS this week.  The ideas are all generally pretty good too, by the way.

16:00 meeting with the college officers at Merton.  This was a lot of fire safety, behaviour requirements, info about fines you can be given, etc.  The Bursar rambled on at length about different subjects in a super dry humour sarcastic sort of way.  He made everyone feel a bit weird by telling us how he’d been “given the sack” and would be leaving soon, and was planning on spending the rest of his days sitting in a dark room staring at his computer.  Seriously.  And then he told us how he has attended Merton as an undergrad in the 60’s, and how our experience as grad students would in no way be as “orgasmic” as it would have been as undergrads.  Seriously.  He may be crazy, or just weird, or just bitter, or some of all of those things.  He went on about fire safety as well.  These Brits are really worked up about fire safety.

20:00 champagne reception in Merton chapel’s antechapel.  Everyone from the MCR got dressed up and guzzled champagne in the chapel at Merton.  This is a huge church, apparently at one point it was going to be the general church for Oxford, but it didn’t for whatever reason and now it’s just for the college.  Pretty cool place to have a party.  Talked to tons of smartypants grad students, but they make me feel A) old and B) degenerate.  They’re all 21 or 22, and many are pooped out at 11pm, right when I get ready to go meet up with the MBAs for some more drinking.  The clean cut physiology grad students and etc. often just go to bed after this kind of affair, but as noted, on most nights, the MBAs go out drinking til 2AM.  However, tonight was an exception: we all went disco dancing, and it wasn’t too totally sausage fest lame, there were actually a few cute gradstudent-girls with us.  We went to a “hiphop” club, and everybody did the creepy bump and grind dance that is so popular these days.  I just can’t bring myself to do this… I prefer doing the retro rock and roll dance, if not doing some outright pogo-ing.  The sexy bootie grind dance just weirds me out, and I can’t really move that way anyway.  This also makes me feel old, but not quite as degenerate.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

Thursday Oct 5

9:30 Freshers’ Fair at the Examination School.  The Exam School is the place where you go to take tests wearing your subfusc, but today there was no dress code and it was filled with booths recruiting for every student group at Oxford.  Ethnic, political, language, hobby, sport, gaming, food and wine, military, literary, music, dance, and just about any other type of group you could imagine were represented there.  I joined groups for dinghy racing, fencing, wine, hunting, entrepreneurship, and indie/alternative music, not that I’ll have any time for them.    A bit about the hunting group: fox hunting is now illegal here.  So instead of “fox hunting” per se, these guys go out in the woods and follow packs of trained beagles around and see what they scare up, I don’t know what happens if anything does get scared up.  Funny.  Even better though: they don’t have horses.  So, this group of dudes have to follow the beagles on foot, there were even pictures in the booth of the club in all of their fox hunting horse riding gear, with no horses around.  I can’t help but think of Monty Python’s “The Holy Grail” where the knights all gallop along on foot because they don’t have horses… How can I not join this club?

18:30 drinks with Dr Alan Morrison and Dr Kate Blackmon, fellows (I think) at Merton.  Basically, myself and a bunch of grad and undergrad freshers got suits on, and went to Dr Kate’s private study at Merton, where we chit chatted politely while Kate and Alan tried to get us loaded on sherry.  Alan’s English, but Kate’s from Chapel Hill, and reminds me of Maryanne Garland, for those who know her.  By the way, she’s also one of the officers who was lecturing us the previous day about rules, regs, and NOT over-imbibing at Merton.  This was fun.

19:00 pre-dinner drinks in MCR.  More sherry and grad students in fancy dress.

19:30 Matriculation dinner in Merton Hall.  Harry Potter eat your heart out!  We all filed into the ancient dining hall and sat at assigned seats at long tables with benchs underneath scowly painting of famous Mertonians in wigs.  The grad/undergrad-students were all busy talking when the Fellows (including Kate and Alan) came marching in.  Everybody hushed and stood up for this, kind of like when the judge enters a courtroom.  Then we all sat down.  Then we stood up and the Vicar (?) said a prayer in Latin, and then they served us a 3 course dinner, which was actually pretty good.  There was a brief speech at the end by the Warden, who is sort of Professor McGonagall-ish in a way.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

Friday Oct 6

11:00 totally stupid “tour” of the careers center at SBS.  This consisted of filing into the careers center, some semi bitchy presentations by career center staff on what not to do with your 2 allotted 1/2 hour sessions of career advice per term, and direction to the various leaflets and pamphlets laying around.  I’m not sure, but I’m getting the feeling that the careers folks may not be my favorite Oxonians before too long.  I’m reserving judgement for now, however.

Afternoon – got the study group’s sharepoint site up and running, finished typing in the tasks and calendar items for the term, uploaded the tasks/items to the sharepoint for the rest of the folks in my section to download and import, set up the shared google calendar for the study group.

18:00 dinner with Sasha, Orly and their visiting pal whose name I forget.  Their son Nir was also there.  This dinner was great, and we had a really excellent time, and Nir is a very cute little guy.  The best thing about this night is that it was the first time I’ve had dinner with 3 Israelis and had PORK CHOPS!  I found out that Hedgehogs and Porcupines aren’t kosher either, but I don’t think Sasha will be serving these anytime soon.  Apparently the Arabs in Israel eat a lot of Porcupines, Sasha says they’re pretty good!

20:00 went to the Wadham College Bop.  A Bop is a school dance, and the theme of this was “school uniforms” …basically it was the sexy catholic schoolgirl look for the girls and whatever the dudes could work out.  This place was gigantic, filled with 1000s of undergrads, totally drunk.  The funny thing about colleges here is that they not only don’t restrict alcohol use among the students, they actually encourage it by having a bar in the college!  Sometimes more than one!  This was was giant drunk undergrad dance party sexy dance fiasco, and honestly, Sasha and I were a bit out of place.  We each had a Guiness and split.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

Saturday Oct 7

Actually read something for my Monday classes.  Crazy, I know.  Pretty neat article about vision, core ideology and envisioned future at businesses by the guys who wrote “Built to Last”.  It’s great to read stuff firsthand that I’m typically exposed to when it’s being thrown around (usually incorrectly) by corporate types. 

Tonight there are a bunch of options (again)… the “start of term” cocktail party at the MCR, the JCR have a bop, and Andrew wants to go to the Turf to check out the beer festival.  I also need to quit writing blogs and finish my reading.

 

09.29.06 Merton

Today was very full. I started out by taking some clothes to the tailor for alterations. I will write a piece on Primark, smart casual, and semi-gay euro clothes soon, but the short version is that I had to pay £35 ($64.75) to get the sleeve length adjusted on a suit jacket that cost me £26 ($48). Weird weird weird. After this, I went to a presentation at the Oxford Union. This is a 19th century debating society that still exists today, but has become most famous for being a venue for top speaking guests from around the world. Wikipedia claims that the following have spoken at the Oxford Union: Dalai Lama, Gerry Adams, Hans Blix, Jimmy Carter, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Fry, Robert Kennedy, Ewan McGregor, Malcolm X, Winston Churchill, Jenna Jameson, Diego Maradona, Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Ronald Reagan, Jon Bon Jovi, OJ Simpson, David Blaine, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Ron Jeremy, Michael Jackson, Jerry Springer, Mother Teresa, and Barry White.

outside the debating chamber

inside the debating chamber

The speaker today was Pervez Musharraf, President (dictator) of Pakistan. Mr Musharraf looked a bit tired, and has a very thick accent, but still managed to speak well, spin well, and knock out a few funny jokes and comebacks. He sounded like a CEO addressing the stockholders’ meeting, talking about X% improvement in this area, Y% in that area, challenges, opportunities, etc. He even took questions from the audience. Seriously: a 20 year old smart assed Oxford University kid sitting two seats down from me asked a world leader a question about the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden. This is the kind of place that Oxford is: totally unique in the world, where normal dipshits like me and this kid are exposed to intellectual and political leaders of the world. It’s pretty freaking amazing. I has a question for him about Madrassas, but I was frankly too nervous to say a damn thing. Next time I will. By the way, many of the other questions were more subtle and deeper, given by people who clearly knew alot about Pakistan, but the Osama question was the one that came from right next to me, so that sticks in my head.

After the Musharraf speech, I went to a bunch of events put on for Graduate Freshers at my college, Merton. This was very very very interesting. A Graduate is a grad student just like we have back in the States, simple enough. A Fresher is someone who is entering the college (and possibly the university?) for the first time. Whereas my fellow MBA students (spread across the 39 colleges) are loud, gregarious, pretty smart, hard partying 26–44 years olds, the other grad students at my college are generally 21–25 year olds, quiet, hyper intelligent, nervous, and true academics. These folks are studying for D Phils (UK PhDs) in things like Middle Eastern Studies, Classics, Astrophysics, Theoretical Mathematics, Music Composition, Philosophy, etc. I met a 25 year old name Chauncy who speaks 10 languages and wears a tie every day. He owns 250 ties, but brought 115 to school with him. Seriously. He also happens to be the spitting image of Sid Spencer, however oddly or not oddly that might strike you. Some of these kids were so soft spoken and shy that I seriously couldn’t hear what they were saying! The really mind blowing aspect of meeting these people was the level of conversation I was getting from 21, 22, and 23 year olds: they were clearly experienced, educated, well read and well considered in their opinions, something I don’t find in a lot of 36 year olds, much less expect from people 15 years younger than me. We had coffee and cookies at the graduate residence in Jowett Walk, which is about 7 minutes walk from Merton. After this, there was a dinner in the big dining hall. Holy crap. This is so frigging Harry Potter, I couldn’t believe it. I was in Ean-heaven.

a semi-crappy image of the hall

After dinner, we all went to the Middle Common Room, which is a sort of partyroom/livingroom for grad students. There was a big free drinks party with all 100–ish Merton grad students. The whole quiet routine dropped right off once the gang got some beers in them, and when Reba and I left at 11pm, it was loud, drunk and sweaty in the MCR. By the way, the sweaty thing is no exaggeration. For whatever reason, it is a lot more humid here than in Seattle, and there is almost nowhere that has AC, so it’s been a pretty goopy summer. From here, we went to the Living Room, the stupid bar that I was barred entry to because of smart casual issues, and partied with the MBAs. This time, I got in!

mba blogs

I'm cleaning up my blog homepage, so I'm archiving all the other mba blogs I link to.

andrew b, oxford mba
andrew m, oxford mba
angie, esade mba
ashton, oxford mba
gaurav, oxford mba
juergen, oxford mba
madhu, oxford mba
mihkel, oxford mba
nagendra, oxford mba
renee, oxford mba
sam, oxford mba
sampath, oxford mba

09.25.06 ready, set...

Reba got into town last Monday, mom went home last Wednesday.  We’ve spent the last week and a half buying stuff for the apartment, locating books for school, getting things set up, meeting other outgoing and incoming MBAs, and etc.  And by etc., I mean drinking.    If there is one thing that the city of Oxford and it’s inhabitants are well primed for, it is the partying.  There are a ton of pubs, bars, clubs and discos here, all kinds of different beer to sample, and a seemingly endless supply of people who want to be out whooping it up any night of the week.  I should point out that I still have not really met anybody who takes their drinking and partying quite as seriously as the old WSU/Ballard crowd back home, but then it alway has been somewhat unfair to lump amateurs in with professionals. 

I have met quite a few of the new MBAs, all of whom are predictably accomplished, interesting, and diverse.  Some of the more colourful cast members…

• Sasha – Russian Jew whose parents left Minsk for Israel when he was 15.  Sasha ended up in some sort of elite paratrooper corps, I think that he’s seen some very scary shit.  Sasha’s an industrial engineer in his professional life.
• Gabe – Indie rocker from Austin Texas, ran his own resume writing business. Also a fellow Mbox and guitar enthusiast, he’s probably 10 years younger than me, but is way into old Sonic Youth!  We will probably make some weirdrock this year if we get the time.
• Daniel and Jurgen – collectively known as “The Germans” these two are the lady killers in the group… good hair, skinny, good looking, stylish clothes, etc.  They’re also totally hilarious and posses a semi-serious partying ethic.  Jurgen is into fencing, which is apparently pretty big in Germany, where they still do this weird type of duel called student fencing.  He’s done it, and from what I hear, it’s a very bloody experience.
• Shelby – Shelby is the first person I met here, and we’ve become quite chummy.  She’s from the bay area and comes from a techie project management background.  She has the ability to walk up and unflinchingly say anything to anyone, as evidenced by the following tapa/topless incident: she and I were trying to find something to do, and on a whim, Shelby walked up to the menacing door guys at the local tapas restaurant and deadpan asked them where she could find “either a tapas bar or a topless bar”, watching them squirm was priceless.
• Barry – Management consultant from Detroit.  Foodie, beer connoisseur, and disco dancing king.  In possession of a patented dance “move” that will be revealed to me at some future date.
• Takashi – 44 year old Japanese dude from Yokohama, left his wife and daughter back home while he jams out the 1 year MBA at Oxford.  Another IT management guy like me, he comes from a DB2 background and is really into taking photos.
• Major – I’ve only met this guy once, but he’s apparently a Major in the US Marines, doesn’t drink, grew up in the UK and was stationed in San Diego.  This dude is very big and very tough looking.  Our main conversation was about how he was trying to find a good gym in town.

I have yet to meet a single Briton in the MBA program, whatever that indicates. 

Today I have to go to the IT clinic at the business school, which apparently is where they install a bunch of useless crap on your computer.  This will be mostly pointless, because I don’t have my login and password yet, due to some bureaucratic nonesense between SBS, Merton, and the Examination School.  After that, it’s back to reading chapters for classes next week and working on the accounting review assignment.  By the way, I am SO TOTALLY FRIGGING HAPPY that I took that accounting class last winter.  The rampup would have murdered me, because while it’s not hard, Accounting is weird and takes a while to get used to.  I now wish that I had not taken that way-too-easy stats course, but instead taken the Economics intro, because I know dick about Econ and am going to get slaughtered there. 

09.15.06 inishmore

Hosteling fiascos aside, we really are having an excellent time here. Here, by the way, is the town of Kilronan on the island of Inis Mor, in the Aran Islands. The Aran are a pretty neat place: essentially they are huge granite slabs lying out in Galway bay, to the west of the main island of Ireland. Fortunately, the west sides of these islands are ~300 foot high cliffs sloping down gently over fields and farms to the beaches on the east sides. This provides for reasonable protection from the offshore breezes and fairly massive wave action of the Atlantic. By the way, when I say massive, I’m not shitting you. We were standing at the top of one of the more impressive cliffs looking out over the ocean, and not only could we hear the roar of the surf pounding the cliffs below, but we could also feel the granite cliffs shuddering under the impact. Rarrrrhhhrrr! The island is covered with little green plots of land separated by stone fences. Fence building here seems to consist primarily of stacking shards of the local granite on top of each other, sans mortar. It’s pretty primitive looking, or old-school at he very least: the locals have been building stone enclosures in this way for over 2000 years. There are a number of hill forts and 1500+ year old graveyards, tons of old ruined stone houses, gorgeous ocean views, etc. Travelouge crapola aside, mom my has had a thing for coming here since I can remember, and making this journey was a very big deal to her.

We caught a ferry out here from Rossaveal, which isn’t much more than a tiny port with some hyper-seaworthy looking ferries parked at the pier. The reason for these became clear as we took off in some pretty choppy seas: the boat was maybe 150 feet long, and was shooting up off the the waves and crashing back down into the troughs between the waves. Neat! I though I might get seasick, but didn’t for whatever reason. After landing, enduring the hosteling fiasco, and spending the night at the Pier House, we got up and caught a tour (mini) bus around the island to see the sights. There was lots of info about saints, ruined churches, still inhabited thatch roofed cottages, fishing techniques, etc. But, the real attraction was Dun Anghosa, pronounced “duhn Angus”, which is an iron age stone ring fort built on the edge of one of the islands more imposing cliffs. Stone ring forts are pretty common in Ireland and Europe in general, and usually consist of two walls of stacked stones, a burly inner one within which people lived, and a less burly outer one where they kept livestock. The inner walls of forts I have seen are usually 15 to 20 feet high, and 5 to 10 feet thick. While Dun Anghosa technically is a ring fort, it should really be called a half ring fort, because it’s actually just a semi circle built up against the cliff edge. The view off of D.A. is pretty freaky, and of course mom wanted to get right up to the edge. Her balance is pretty goofy these days, so I was nervous about her going too close and kept bugging her to keep back from the edge. Funny how roles reverse as time goes by! This place is pretty damn cool, fairly moving in the same way that Stonehenge was, but more so from a natural wonder kind of perspective… those cliffs were totally amazing.

 

 

on the way up, see D.A. in the background

 

closer still

 

mom sitting on the D.A. altar

 

view from D.A.

09.14.06 hostels

I admit that I have never stayed in a hostel. I had to think for a bit to determine exactly why, but it probably has to do with a) the relative distance of hosteling type places from Seattle, and b) the fact that my prime lowbudget travelling (and therefore potentially hosteling) years were spent not bumming around Europe, but instead touring with the band. For those who don’t know, touring is essentially the same thing as bumming around: you have funny hair, don’t shower often, get loaded all the time, hang out with other temporary societal dropouts, espouse semi socialist dropout-ish ethical B.S. in an attempt to get laid, etc. etc. Except with touring, you have to drag musical instruments with you and stay in dirty punk rock dude houses instead of dirty hostels.

At any rate, I booked my 36 year old self and my 63 year old mother into a hostel called the Mainistir House (sounded fancy) on Inishmore Island, having no idea what staying in a hostel entailed, however excusable my ignorance may have been. Indication #1 that I had made a booking error was when the hike to the hostel turned out to be 1 mile. For me and a backpack, this is no biggie; but for me, mom, and our wheel-able suitcases, this was a bit ridiculous. Especially considering the quality and width of Inishmore roads, which seem to force tour bus drivers to zoom past pedestrians with very little clearance. After about half a mile uphill, I was dragging both the suitcases, and mom was grumpily walking about 40 feet behind me. Ominously, a sign pointing the way to our hostel rather ambiguously indicated that there was either a vegetarian restaurant in the same direction, or simply a vegetarian restaurant in the hostel. Since most of Inishmore consists of ruined stone houses and neolithic looking stone livestock enclosures, it was hard to imagine how there could be much living up that road, let alone a hostel and a separate vegetarian restaurant, let’s call that indication #2.

mainister

After about 30 minutes of dodging tour buses, etc., we arrived at Mainistir, and checked in. Mainistir is some sort of old house that has apparently been taped back together by hippies and turned into a low budget travelling (bumming) hippie twentysomething facility. There was a semi crusty punk chick checking email on the communal computers in the entry-way, handmade signage advertising the qualities of “Joel’s stew” available in the lunchroom, and the reception desk dude. The dude was black, effete and lispy to the point of being probably gay, wore only high tech hiker type longjohn tops and bottoms, and spoke with a thick Irish accent. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that, but for a provincial like me: he was pretty far out. For simplicity’s sake, I’d like to roll all of that up into indication #3. The dude was totally nice to us, got our money up front (#4), and let us pick our room (#5) from a couple that were open. I dragged our bags up the tiny rickety staircase to the 2nd floor, we picked the small and moderately sketchy room 9, and began checking out the joint. In all fairness to Mainistir, the views of the beach, old stone houses, and Galway bay were fabulous. The communal bathroom (#6) however, with the toilet seat ripped out (#7) and sitting on the floor (#8) did not impress mom too much, while the potato bug crawling across the floor of room 9 (coincidentally also indication #9) was a bit of a turnoff for me. Returning downstairs, I asked the dude for a key, to which I was informed that there were no keys (#10), at which point I realized that I would be hauling my laptop all around the island (#11). Sigh. Things had clearly been going way too right up to this point in the trip, I was due for some torture. While we walked back to town, mom tried to make me feel better about the hostel by looking on the bright side, saying that we didn’t come to Aran to hang out in the ho(s)tel, we came to see the sights, etc., etc. This, just like the breaking of the seventh seal, is an absolute and unquestionably clear indication that things have gone straight to hell, so I decided to find some new accommodations. I suppose that makes #12.

Eating dinner at a hotel right across from the ferry dock, called The Pier House, (or Teach na Céibhe in Irish… by the way, people are really into speaking Irish here, and you hear it all the time, although everyone seems to speak English as well) I slipped away from the table to check out and then reserve a room. In the end, we had a very nice seafood dinner, stayed in a lovely room at the Pier House, got fully reimbursed by the dude, and I got to walk our roller suitcases a mile back from Mainistir by myself, since I didn’t want to put mom through that walk again. I also learned that I will probably never stay (on purpose) in a hostel.

a nice place to stay on Inishmore

09.12.06 swinford

Mom and I got to Swinford, County Mayo, Ireland two days ago.  It’s amazing how long it takes to get anywhere in the UK.  We left my apartment at 11:45 because the cab didn’t show up, and walked across Oxford to Gloucester Green, the bus station.  We barely made it, and caught the 12:15 bus to Gatwick airport.  Then, we rode 2 hours to the airport and were actually 45 minutes early for check in.  After waiting a bit, we checked in and “queued up” to go through security for about an hour.  I got patted down.  By a dude.  Bummer.  Then, it was a walk across the airport to the Ryanair terminal, and then right onto the plane for a 1.5 hour flight to Knock, and then a 20 minute drive to Swinford. 

 

main street in Swinford

Swinford is small, it’s basically a tiny town that cropped up where three roads come together.  It’s given me a picture of modern day small town life in Ireland, and while the absence of rock shows and hipster clubs might bum me out after a while, I still really enjoy the tone of the place.  Why Swinford?  My mom’s great grandmother Mary O’Donnell left Lagcurragh, a townland of Swinford, for Boston when she was 20 years old, in 1887.  Basically, a townland is sort of a farm country suburb of a small town like Swinford.  In the case of Lagcurragh, it’s a lot of fields with a few little clusters of old houses and a bunch of new fancy country homes built for rich foreigners, all connected by really old winding narrow roads.  Passing other cars out here essentially requires that one party move over to the side of the road.

 

mom on a Lagcurragh road

 

a small car makes country driving feasible

 

We found an 1832 Ordnance Survey of Ireland map of Swinford and Lagcurragh, and were actually able to sort of follow it around.  The funny thing is that this was the only internet map we could find with the tiny Lagcurragh roads actually shown.  I got some ok photos of old buildings, but mom got better ones.  I’ll post those when I get a chance, for now these will have to suffice…

 

 

 

 

We also went to the Swinford graveyard to look for relatives, which was pretty spooky since it had decayed significantly over the years…

 

this one could make it onto tales from the crypt

 

mom in the boneyard

 

We found a headstone that may have been from one of mom’s great grandmothers’ brothers, although it’s pretty hard to say for sure, given that his birth-date isn’t shown, and given that his name was Michael O’ Donnell, a fairly common Irish name. 

 

   

 

way out in Lagcurragh: pretty

 

more of the same, with better lighting

09.09.06 smart casual

The Ramp Up

Today we were supposed to go down to London for tea, that did not work out, but several other things did, so I suppose it was a good day, all told. We got up at 9ish, went up to town to get a hairdryer and curling iron for mom (and ultimately Reba), and I sent mom walking home by herself so I could visit HSBC. Sigh. You can read all about my previous exploits regarding HSBC Offshore in another posting, but to sum up my prior HSBC dealings: in trying to obtain a UK bank account from the US, I ended up getting a weird semi-UK bank account through the offshore branch of HSBC, a major UK bank. This has worked pretty well so far because I didn’t have to travel to the UK to fund it, I got checks, funny euro debit cards, a credit card, etc., all when I was still in the US, and so I was ready to rock when I got here. Almost.

It turns out that certain debit card based transactions require a card tied to an onshore UK bank. These include “top up” features for pay-as-you-go phones, probably some other things I don’t know about yet, and most notoriously this week: BT Broadband payments. British Telecom is the phone service provider, and for phone service, they can take payment via a check, cash, visa, mastercard, debit card or probably in pints if you ask nicely. They are also the only broadband provider for my building, but will not take payment for broadband via any mechanism other than a UK bank debit card. That’s it, there are no other options. Believe me, I’ve tried to find them, and there are none. So, today, after probably 4 hours of phone calls over the last week to BT bitching, pleading, sounding annoyed, etc., I actually went in and opened an onshore account just so I could pay BT Broadband with it. I had assumed that this would be impossible, as I had been instructed by someone over the last year, I forget exactly who, that in order to open an onshore account, I would have to have proof of residence in the form of 3 months worth of utility bills. Actually, this is totally and categorically NOT true. I walked in with a receipt from Finders Keepers, my rental agency, my acceptance letter to Oxford, and my passport, and 2 hours later (seriously) I had a bank account. I rather comically had to write myself a check from my HSBC offshore account to my HSBC onshore account, but it worked, and now I have a UK bank account, or more importantly: a UK bank account number and sort code, which is basically what a debit card has written on it. I called the BT billing guy with this new info and voila! I had direct debit set up and would be receiving broadband on sept 12th. Yay!

After this HSBC nonsense, I spent some time getting maps together for the trip to Ireland this Sunday, and by the time I was done, it was way too late to get down to London, and I had to cancel the reservations for afternoon tea. To make up for this, mom and I went to Gee’s, an actually good English restaurant in town. I have to say that the dish I had was totally awesome, combining the heartiness and simplicity of English cooking with the ingredient and preparation quality that I expect in a continental (or even northwest?) setting. They rock, I’m going back. We dressed up, caught a cab there, and then walked back. Nice.

Next, I hooked up with Michael, my mentor at business school. We all get assigned someone from last year’s program to help guide us through, answer questions, etc., and Michael is my dude. He was out with his folks, buddies, and wife because tomorrow is graduation day for the 2005–2006 class. He’s a really swell guy, and even during our semi-drunken conversation surrounded by distractions, I picked up some really good info. We’re going to hook up for questions/pints when I get back from Ireland next week. Plus, his wife offered to email with Reba about any questions she had, so that will be really useful as well. She had lots of good advice about how Reba can meet folks, be involved with other “partners” (wives, etc.), and even be involved with college/school events and stuff. I feel a lot better about that after talking to her, I want Reebs to have a good experience and have lots of fun, not feel like school is coming between us or isolating her or whatever.

The S.C. Smackdown

Ok, here’s the smart casual part. I split from the pub that I was at with Michael and company when it closed at midnight, and called Shelby and her man Pawi to see if they wanted to hook up for a drink. Shelby’s in the program, and Pawi is going to architecture school here in town as well. They were down, so we all met at “the castle” which is pretty much Oxford Castle, which I think is pretty much hilarious.

Oxford Castle, a one act play by Ean Hernandez

[curtain]

“Hey dude, wanna get a beer?”

“Yah, sure. Where do you wanna meet?”

“Meet me in front of the castle.”

“Oh, OK.”

“Don’t forget to take a left turn at the enchanted wood and watch out for the dragon…”

“Oh yeah… right on. … Dragon.”

[curtain]

So we met at the OxC, and headed out for a drink. This is where I learned some more Brit-culture knowledge the hard way. Dig it:

Pub: this is a sort of drinky British surrogate living room where they serve beer, wine and liquor; it’s open all day, closes at midnight, and you can dress like whatever (i.e. like I do). Usually decorated in late medieval decor and named the “something and something else”. Like maybe “the george and dragon”, “the eagle and child”, or “the cock and camel” (seriously), etc. People hang out here watching TV, chatting with pals, or whatever. Seriously, it’s like a community living room.

Bar: this is sort of a “fancy” euro-style joint where they serve beer, wine and liquor; it’s open all day, closes at 2 or 3am, and you have to wear smart casual (see below). Usually decorated in “club” decor or maybe even “strip mall club” decor, and named something arty/gayish/ambiguous like “montage” or “icon” or “super” or whatever. People hanging out here feeling slightly more classy/modern than they do in pubs.

Smart Casual: apparently this is when you wear jeans or other long pants and some sort of black “I’m going out tonight” type of shirt with your running shoes.

After going out to a pub (with Michael and co.) wearing shorts and running shoes, I tried to get into a bar wearing the same. The tough dude at the door in the all black suit, shirt and tie ensemble wagged his finger at me with this sort of asshole kungfu finger wagging gesture… kind of like when Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris are about to fight in Enter the Dragon, and Bruce wags his index finger at Chuck while making that high pitched yowling sound? Yep, that same gesture, but more exasperated. Then, the blackity-black dude stopped exasper-waving his finger at me and pointed at my legs, saying something about “smart casual”, and looking at me like I simply had to be FUCK-ing kidding thinking that I could get into his high class modern strip mall ambiguously named bar without long pants. The fuckhead even had a secret service style ear piece radio stuck in his ear. I guess some things are the same wherever you go.

Pawi filled me in on the definitions above, and now I know.

Pawi and Shelby are really nice and walked me home anyway, even though I called them out for a drinking excursion that died on the table due to my bare, pale, hairy legs.

Special to AJ… you have been duly warned: If you wanna drink after midnight in Blighty, get some pants, yo.

not smart casual

09.08.06 tourists

We spent the last couple of days alternating between shopping and seeing the sights.  The shopping has been for boring stuff like soap, a suit, and groceries.  It’s funny how much LESS stuff you buy at the store when you know that you have to carry it home!  Here’s another armchair economic theory-guess: I bet that the US consumer driven economy depends on the ease with which US consumers can transport and then store goods.  In and environment where everyone drives a big car and has a big apartment/house to live in, you’re more likely to buy a bunch of stuff because it won’t be a pain in the ass to get it home, and you’ll have somewhere to put it when you get there!  I’ve notice that I have skipped a TON of purchases since I’ve been here because I didn’t want to deal with dragging whatever it was home, let alone trying to find somewhere to put it.  Whatev.

Mom and I went down to london yesterday to catch the bus out to Stonehenge.  We took a quick look at Westminster Abbey and Parliament square while we waited for the “astral tours” bus out to Salisbury and the stones.

 

 

mom at Westminster and at big ben

 

We got some chinese to go food, got on the tour bus, and started our journey.  They picked us up at 1pm, and brought us back at 9:30, so it was a very very long day.  But, the trip was well worth the trouble.  We saw the west kennet long barrow; the silbury hill, which is basically a giant neolithic pile of dirt that no one really know the purpose of; the avebury stone circle, which is a sort of a way bigger but shittier version of Stonehenge where hippies and druids and weirdos and whatever congregate; and then finally, Stonehenge itself.  Stonehenge is totally, utterly, super cool.  It’s gigantic, beautiful, filled with neat history and frankly, moving.  We got a special tour that goes after normal business hours, and lets you actually go up to and touch the stones.  Most tourists have to look at it from a distance.  The pictures pretty much say it all…

 

  one of the bigger stones

 

 this part is still pretty complete, but a lot of it has fallen down

 

 

 I like this one of mom

 

09.04.06 mom in town

Mom showed up today. I went down to Heathrow to pick her up and we rode back together on the bus. She had a reasonable flight, and seemed to be in good health and spirits. I had an “all clear” mail to the rest of the family queued up and ready to send to via my new blackberry and after a quick inspection, I sent it off. That was kind of cool, dorky as it may sound, because I know that everyone was maybe just a tiny bit worried that she’d have trouble on the plane or whatever, and it was nice to be able to kick one off from the airport and get the info to everybody asap. Ok, that IS really dorky, but I’m into that intergalactic space radio communication frequency stuff. It went something like this:

subject: Mom

message:

Got her, she’s doing fine. We’re en route to Oxford.

e

We walked through the crowds down St Aldate’s Way and got her stuff stowed at the apt. The we went down to the Head of the River pub for some basic English fare at the edge of the Thames. This place is pretty, and has a really cool feel to it with swans and the Thames/Isis, old buildings, punts, etc. She had the steak and ale pie, and I had the fish and chips with a pint of something or other. Oh yeah, and my meal came with “mushy peas” which is basically what it sounds like, but really lumpy and sort of dry. While I mostly like English food, this mushypea stuff is for the birds. Even a hungry E is not down with this.

nice, eh?

After dinner, we went on a walk along the Thames by Christ Church Meadow, which is this big (you guessed it) meadow behind Christ Church college. There are some cows there, there’s probably some big deal royal story or something behind them, but I don’t know what it is. Then we went up the path along the Cherwell river, and back through town. We saw lots of neat stuff, like the old MG motorworks building, the bridge of sighs, the Radcliffe Camera, Merton college, the Said Business School, and even stopped at the Kings Arms for a 1/2 pint (don’t ask for a schooner, they don’t know what the hell you’re talking about) of cider.

 

the old Morris Garage (MG) plant

 

fancy a pint, gov?

09.03.06 the tour

Previously, I posted a couple of photos of the outside of the apartment, here is the rest of the inside…

view from the deck (actually quite nice)

dining room side of the main room (messy)

living room side of the main room (with mom)

tiny euro-kitchen

bathroom

my bedroom (menswear pile-up depot)

…and the room that you’ve all been waiting to see, the room that all the future visiting Americans will grow to love and adore, the room that will be your little sanctuary far from the madding crowd, dig it: the Travelling Americans Memorial Extra Bedroom. At this point, it’s more like Travelling American Extra Bedroom, because there’s only one single-sized bed, but we’re working on fixing that. For this week, mom is the only one staying there, so it’s no problem, but we’ll need to get a bigger bed setup for when couples come to stay.

The T.A.M.E.B.