Staying busy...

A lot has happened since my last entry…


HALLOWEEN

I spent a few nights of Halloween weekend attending costume parties at various Cambridge colleges.* Since I thought the “Halloween formal” flyer meant that people were dressing in formal wear, I wore a tux. Well I soon learned that I was mistaken. The Halloween formals were full of good old fashioned gory get-ups -- including weapons, fake blood, murderers and the like. It was refreshing to see the true Halloween spirit of ghosts, ghouls and gore, but I must say, the lack of pumpkin beer was a definite disappointment.

*Each of Cambridge’s 31 colleges offers its members a venue and social atmosphere for things such as parties, pub nights, and other social activities.


FORMAL HALLS

I’ve attended a few ‘formal halls’ over the past few weeks. The formal halls offer students an opportunity to get dressed up (complete with their gowns) and enjoy a fine three or four course meal. At Trinity College, I enjoyed pre-dinner sherry, a delicious three-course meal in the quintessential 16th century dining hall, and after-dinner port. At St. John’s College, I enjoyed an equally delicious meal with an equally impressive dining hall (with four story-tall ceilings and huge paintings of revered academics who were St. John’s alumni).


BAR TENDING

As part of my duty as a member of the Cambridge Union’s (CU) House Committee I have taken up bar-tending on Friday nights. Halloween weekend I spent Friday serving drinks at the CU’s friday night ‘bop.’ Despite the fact that the bar was incredibly busy, I found the duty to be quite enjoyable – a great chance to meet and chat with people and of course a great chance to perfect my bar-tending skills.



NO CONFIDENCE IN HER MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT

Last week at the CU I enjoyed a great debate between the UK’s political parties. The CU narrowly voted down the proposition’s argument that “This House has No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.” Surprisingly, despite the strong disillusionment with the Blair government, many students showed their allegiance to the more progressive of the two major political parties.


SICILIY AND ROME

With two days left on our EURail Pass, my European traveling companions from September (Alejandro and Amit), my new favorite roommate who actually lives across the hall (Nathan), and I caught a cheap flight to Sicily last weekend. We arrived on Friday night, wandered the city, ate a delicious, authentic Sicilian meal, and then stayed in a posh looking two-story apartment. Funnily enough a guy at the ristorante at which we were eating, “knew a guy” who had a cheap place for us to stay that night. With no other great prospects, we decided to check it out. After finding the address – a convenient store/pizza joint - we were taken by the owner(?) to an unmarked door that led into a run-down looking apartment building. But our initial aversion vanished when we saw the room -- a two story apartment with two full baths, a beautiful kitchen and two balconies. The guy gave us “an offer we couldn’t refuse” – 25 Euro each for the night.

We spent the next day eating, shopping, wandering the city, seeing a 500 year old basilica or two, and getting ready to take our train to Roma. Our night train actually included a ferry, which ferried our 8-car train across the straights of Messina and was actually a pretty exciting adventure.

In Roma, we arrived on Sunday morning in time to attend mass at the Vatican. St. Peter’s Cathedral was astonishing with its grandiose size, adornments, and statues of former pontiffs. After seeing the Vatican, I couldn't help but question the lavishness of the church, which I thought should be spending its money on more benevolent things. It did become apparent however, that the ‘lavishness’ was probably effective in glorifying and showcasing the awesome power of the Catholic faith. Nevertheless, I still stand by the notion that the church should have a big garage sale and get rid of some of the old pontiff statues.

After the Vatican, we stumbled across what ended up being the most incredible building that we encountered in the city – a memorial to King Emmanuel II. The memorial was actually a building that was about the size of the US Capitol building and with similar architecture. At the top of the building we enjoyed a beautiful panorama of the city. A great complement to the view we had as we wandered through some of the old ruins on the way to the Coliseum.

Our final day in Roma included a visit to the Vatican museum, where we saw some works by Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael. The Sistine Chapel was cool too, but I thought it was not as impressive as some of the many other murals that we saw in the museum.


ACADEMICS

I’ve been enjoying my classes thus far, and have appreciated the flexible time schedule, which has allowed me to engage in so many other enriching activities. Last week however, I did secure an academic supervisor, Dr. Ekin Birol. I am delighted to be working with Ekin because not only is she brilliant, but she is incredibly efficient, and always on the ball. In only our second meeting we were able to hammer out a dissertation title, an outline for my research, and work plan.



THIS COUNTRY HAS NO CONFIDENCE IN DUBYA’S GOVERNMENT

After returning from Italy (at 3:00 am), I geared up for Election Day. Last week I sent 80 individual e-mails to the American Gates Scholars and the 10 or so Marshall Scholars at Cambridge inviting them to an election party. Thus, when I returned to Cambridge on Tuesday morning I had to get a case of champagne (I anticipated there would be lots to celebrate!), food, and get things ready for the big party.

Fortunately, the party went off without a hitch, and even though we didn’t have all of the results by 4:00 am, we were happy celebrating the early victories in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Michigan.


GATES SCHOLAR COUNCIL

The Sunday before Halloween I attended the annual Gates Scholar meeting where I decided to run for Treasurer of the Gates Scholar Council. Having learned how hard the previous Scholar Councils have worked to the make the Gates Scholarship what it is, I decided that I want to give back to a community that has given me so much. Thus, I am up for election this week (winners will be announced Monday, November 14th).