idefex.net

I’m getting things across to WordPress okay. I’ve still got the auctions to move across (not sure how to do that cleanly – I might just leave them in their own table of the database), and I’ve got a couple of ideas for new pages that I’ve had for a while. By my estimation, one will be liked by six specific people, and the other might be liked by a few more. I’ve got to have something to tinker with, though.

Today at work, I built two things out of LEGO, and did a brief experiment into the flammability of Sellotape. Working in a lab is fun.

I’m moving my site from an engine of my own (poor) design to WordPress. I’m keeping the same theme and everything though, but it might take a while for me to port everything across. A mostly-working copy of the old site is at http://area.hostingposts.com/oldsite/ on the slim chance that anyone cares.

So nearly six months since an entry…. that’s pretty poor in anyone’s book. The truth is, I was constructing a gigantic, International Camp based post, but then due to the sheer gargantuan nature of the entry, I never finished it and University snuck up on me quite comprehensively. However, it’s now the end of term, I’m back home, and I’ve got time to kill, so this seems like an apt time to strive to put right what once went wrong, hoping each time that my next post will be the post home… or something to that effect…

I raved about how sensationally fantastic International Camp was last year. Going this year, it didn’t cross my mind that last year could be beaten – but it most comprehensively was. This was almost single handedly down to the expedition. Last year, I’ll admit, that while I got to know a lot of people through the computer room as they got bored waiting for websites to load, much of my village remained a stranger to me. This year, the expedition changed that. By taking each village to an individual location, people couldn’t go talk to their friends in other villages, which forced them to get to know people within their village. This made a huge amount of difference to the atmosphere within each one right from the start.

The workers arrived from 2 on Sunday. After sorting out tents, we had a big meeting in the main hall to tell us all about international camp, what we should expect and what was expected of us. The earliest internationals started arriving shortly thereafter, and quickly we had the independent Polish contingent – left by their dads who Ben quickly reasoned were here either for an affair or a fishing trip – as well as the Dutch group with us. We were graced by Ewein’s presence in the village, who had a broken leg and thus garnered a real bed, with a mattress, and everything. He and his two friends were a bit of a handful, but were (mostly) good natured, if reluctant to do what they were told.

The next day was devoted to international arrivals – Israelis, the French, Spanish, the Koreans and Germans all pitched up, raring to go. Unfortunately the Estonians weren’t to arrive until the following day. Nevertheless, camp was filling up nicely and was more than ready for the Welcome Disco in the evening. Pav at Cambridge is the cheesiest event in the universe, but even a year of preparation left me mildly stunned at how fast the disco descended into the core of quintessential cheese – we’re talking the Macarena and 5678 in quick succession. I didn’t think that anyone had the gall to come up with such a playlist, but Ginge Dave (actual trade name) proved me wrong. Gloriously, deliriously wrong. Everyone enjoyed themselves and got to know each other a little better, as was the aim. After looking after someone who was erring towards worse-for-wear, I went to bed, looking forward to the rest of camp.

Teambuilding the next day was both short of Estonians and enthusiasm from most people. Fruit salad was grudgingly partaken in and we then played the dueling game whose name escapes me. Fruit salad is where everyone sits on a chair in a circle around one person, who says something – such as ‘I have a sister’. Everyone who that applies to has to run to another chair. Whoever doesn’t make it get to a chair makes the next statement – the idea being that you get to know each other better. Of course, it degenerates into ‘Everyone wearing jeans’ which is less interesting, and gets boring quite quickly. One game that was surprisingly enjoyable was ‘Ha-Ha’, where you lie on the next person’s belly, and then the group has to pass a chain of “Ha’s” without anyone actually laughing. It’s more difficult than it sounds, and very entertaining.

The afternoon consisted of ‘It’s a knockout’ which was based around a medley of inflatable and water-based activities. I didn’t get to do the one I wanted to do the most – the gladiators – but everyone going around with a small group of people from the village helped everyone get to know each other far better than the teambuilding in the morning. It was here that the inter-village rivalries kicked off, with the Barmy Army quickly becoming most people’s least favourite village – if only because of jealously directed towards their chant (which, I have to admit, was the best – though quickly became overused).

The evening consisted of village parties – again, to help bond the villages together. Ours was a pajama pudding party (I seem, ironically, to go to more pudding parties than most) which was excellent fun, with Twister and limbo sticks both putting in appearances. My personal best for the evening was handcuffing Ted and Ness together while they were playing Twister but, alas, the handcuffs were only made of plastic and so readily succumbed to their tugging. It’s the thought that counts! The evening also gave rise to the immortal line of ‘but that’s nine-tenths of the fun’, courtesy of TPJ and the sex-education talk.

One thing that struck me about camp this year was the amount of chess being played (certainly in our village – the Firefighters had a taste for Poker) and I rediscovered how much I enjoyed playing it. I recall one particularly excellent game with Patrick towards the end of camp, which we ended up calling a draw with a rook, three pawns and a king on the board each, in almost identical positions. Katya, one of the Polish girls, turned out to be awesome at chess. I played her several times, and never really came close to troubling her. She even stepped into a game that I was playing against Deepak when he had to leave; I was winning quite convincingly, I thought, and she just inexorably turned the situation around. She would have been a joy to watch, had I not been on the receiving end so consistently!

The following day we left for the expedition – raft building and kart racing were waiting for us and I think they were enjoyed – to some extent, at least – by everyone. TPJ and I made sure to enjoy ourselves a lot as, with no computer room, we were without the vast majority of our responsibilities. Arguably more enjoyable than the activities were the spontaneous ball games that we played, which gave the Polish girls another chance to show off their borderline-inhuman reactions. I brought out the glow-poi and had a toi (sorry) with those for a while. I also taught Elly some Poi on the expedition, who was just plain inhumanly good at it. She got a three beat weave sorted in mere minutes, which was alarmingly quick.

I make it sound like the Y chromosome was given a thorough kicking, but there was that most masculine of activities on offer: burning stuff. The campfire in the evening provided a focal point for the village at night, and it was fueled with wood collected during the day by villagers, which provided a nice outlet for the French boys, who appeared to have limitless reserves of energy. Of course, perhaps the biggest boost to the Y chromosome total was Deepak as village leader. He did a fantastic job of the daunting task that was being responsible for everyone and came out of it the other side unscathed. Jo did a great job too as village co-leader, but her contribution doesn’t add to the Y-chromosome score!

After the expedition, the rest of camp was just as much fun. We had a whole bunch of activities laid on for us as would be expected, ranging from the serious (like Rounders and the Swimming Gala) to the not so serious (like Silly Sports) and then, of course, the parties. Of particular note was the Masquerade Ball – tuxedoes all around, which greatly added to the occasion. My bow-tie spent the night in the rain, unfortunately, and I managed to dent my camera by dropping it onto a brick floor, but neither of these unfortunate events managed to dull my enjoyment of the event even slightly.

This year I was there for the end of camp (last year I was on my way to V – alas, no tickets were won this year. I blame Glastonbury), and it was surprisingly sad saying goodbye to everyone. However, thanks to the wonders of technology, people seem to be doing a reasonably good job of keeping in touch (both my sister and I are speaking to people, so I assume most others are too, based on my sample space of two). I’m looking forward to Camp next year, but whether I can do it depends really on the dates and what I’m doing over the summer. Alana’s successfully applied for Planning Committee, but I know that Ted hasn’t got on, which is a shame.

When camp finished, I still had a huge expanse of time until I needed to head back to Cambridge but, alas, about half of it was filled with revising work that I would need in the year to come. Materials was joyfully discarded with great gusto and it was nice to be able to not worry about Chemistry any more, even though I quite enjoyed it. Maths and Double Physics was my poison of choice, resulting in the revision of IA Maths and Physics. I was excessively glad that I did this, as it was almost alarming how much I had forgotten. It came back relatively quickly, but it was a hairy week or so at the start of the process where I was a little bit concerned.

Indeed, the case could be made that I should have started earlier. Returning to Cambridge we, the physicists, were hit with more work than ever before. We dealt with this in a novel manner. Bequeathing the bar as a work area to the new freshers, we moved into the infinitely more comfortable reading room and never looked back. It even has a blackboard in it which, once Chris bought chalk, was usually covered with some fairly gnarly physics. The room wasn’t just used for physics – both Scrabble and Chess made regular showings throughout term and the term as a whole further re-enforced my rediscovery of enjoying chess that I made at camp. We looked so much at home in the room – and the physics on the board was so scary to the layman, perhaps – that on many occasions people opened the door, took a couple of steps in, looked around, and left again. I do hope that we keep up inhabiting the room next term, as it quite awesome having a comfortable place where everyone can go to work and ask questions about any troubles that they’re having with work set.

Cambridge was, as always, brilliant. In spite of all the work (don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it; it would just be nice to have a few less questions every week), I managed to enjoy myself immensely. I got to a Fire Troupe burn, which is now being enthusiastically organized through weekly-ish emails from Aran, an Engineering fresher at Churchill. He ran the Canterbury Fire Troupe before he came to University, and things seem to be ticking over more steadily than last year. Towards the end of term I also started teaching Sarah poi; like Elly, she’s suspiciously good at it. She got a three beat weave sorted within half an hour, and then did a butterfly first time, much to my amazement. I expect great things in the future! There was a small sprinkling of Random Sports in there too, when it wasn’t rainy or the aforementioned work was creeping up uncomfortably close. The last week of term was a bit of a rush (thanks, Physics Lab Report and Computing Practicals), but made the eventual release all the sweeter. I achieved a sorely needed level of decadence the day after I handed in the last piece of work by seeing The Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time (which was being shown just once at the Arts Picturehouse), and Casino Royale for the second time, the bookends to an afternoon/evening that also involved the Rainbow Cafe and just general pottering in town (Borders, we salute you) with Sarah.

I stayed in Cambridge until the Thursday after term ended so that I could attend a “Demonstrators’ Training Session” for the IoP outreach event that I was to be helping at on the Sunday. I could have stayed in Cambridge until the Sunday, but I fancied a few extra days at home. I was a little nervous about what the talk would consist of; I thought it was going to be a terribly formal talk about safety, which end of the scissors we should use, that sort of thing. I turned out to be very wrong. The entire session consisted of generally having quite a good time making pan-pipes out of card, as well as straw trumpets, which are the singularly most annoying instrument ever crafted by the hands of man. We also put marshmallows in a vacuum dessicator with predictable yet not any less entertaining results. I managed to put a name to a face in Anne, who I’d seen during the second half of my Thursday pacticals but never spoken to. She really enjoyed the whole kids aspect on the Sunday, and had helped the day before at a similar event at the Geology department (which sounded like Alana would have loved it – making jewellery) for that very reason. Lisa Jardine-Wright was demonstrating at the event, which I am happy to say she did much better than lecturing (though I shouldn’t be too harsh – she was thrown in to lecture the course at short notice). She was making comets with Soy Sauce using liquid nitrogen, which was actually quite interesting; the resulting balls of dirty ice did rather look like comets (or certainly, how I’ve pictured them) too.

I took a week off doing no work, and then started into the grind. I have 53 questions (including Computing Practicals) to do and, as of this writing, I have 26 done. I’m not keeping a pie chart of death at home (partially because it would sully the pie chart of death at college, which keeps track of the supervision work we have to do, and partially because at under 7 degrees a question, it would just depress me), but just crossing questions off of a big list, which is satisfying enough to keep me going. Half way through the questions, and not even half way through the holiday (where I’m allowed to work, so the first week doesn’t count) is where I want to be for Christmas (though I might try a Computing Practical or two on Christmas Eve, so I could be over half way…).

The holidays are going well; work is progressing and parties are being attended (much love for the Durin’s Day Party, Ben and Elly). The nerve wracking Evans Challenge match was also attended today (5-5 at full time, 6-6 a.e.t. and 6-7 to us on penalties, after 13 kicks) which was seriously awesome, in spite of my twisted ankle which I picked up through entirely my own fault 30 minutes in (I didn’t think it was too bad – I was able to keep playing after hobbling around for five minutes or so – but it’s getting sorer this evening). I fully intend to be massively relaxed by the time I get back to Cambridge, but I have this nagging feeling that the one subject that hasn’t set work will do via the wonder of e-mail and I’ll end up finishing it the day before my first supervision next term. It’s the Cambridge way!

If you’ve made it this far, then I salute you. Have a very Merry Christmas if I have not wished you so so far, and a Happy New Year!

You have to love Limited Editions:

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They’re always so lovely.

It’s commonly known that time flies when you’re having fun. Less well known is the apparent fact that time also flies when you’re working yourself into the ground; the term just gone was, of course, exam term. I returned to college a week earlier than most to get in some revision in before term kicked off proper. The mathematics students didn’t have any (compulsory) lectures this term but pretty much everyone else had four weeks of lectures where they were generally expected to squeeze in at least some revision in addition to getting told lots of new things by lecturers. I managed to get a little independent revision done during those four weeks, but not a great deal – I convinced myself that the past paper questions that I was doing for supervisions counted as revision so I didn’t feel too guilty. In all honesty, they did – but I still felt like I should have been doing more at the time.

When lectures finished, we got two weeks and two days before our exams started. In a way, my choices benefited my exam timetable – I got this large gap; those taking Cells had under two weeks before their exams started. Physics, however, is timetabled for Saturday afternoons each year, which was slightly demoralizing to discover, and Monday contained the joys of both Maths and Chemistry. Overall, I think the exams went okay – Materials wasn’t as bad as I thought it could have been; Physics was great – but it’s being down-marked because everyone did too well. Maths 1 was universally considered to be god-awful, and Chemistry was a good paper, but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t do myself justice on it. Maths 2 – my last exam – was better than Maths 1, but still not great.

Of course, after all the work this term – indeed, through the whole year – the eventual release was all the sweeter. May Week was more than welcome by the time that it arrived, and was seriously awesome. With Maths 2 going so much better than Maths 1 – and with exams being over – I felt like I was on a roll, so I went to the Virtua Tennis machine that I’ve basically paid for myself this term, intending to put another £1 in – but there was a free credit. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I took it – and ended up placing on the high-score board for the first time ever. Embarrassingly, it did manage to add to my day even after finishing exams. I then poied a bit with Martin and Sam before making a flying visit to the Compsci barbecue at Churchill. There was then a Physics Strawberry Tea, which was very nice – and where I spoke to a Nobel Prize winner for the first time – Antony Hewish. He was very interesting to speak to, actually, though Chris had much more in common with him having done nearly the same gap year as him. A couple of hours of football and then carefully avoiding drunk people furiously spinning poi at each other rounded off a most excellent day (assuming that only time after noon is considered).

I’m not really sure what happened on Thursday. There was probably ReBoot involved. Whatever happened, I probably enjoyed it and it was very relaxing, which was much required. Friday, however, was tragedy after tragedy. The first tragedy was the removal of the Virtua Tennis machine from the games room. I liked this machine even more than the Virtua Striker machine – which Will and I forged a strong relationship with – and as mentioned, had only got on the high score table a couple of days before in what was a glorious run. To my knowledge, there is no replacement yet, but the ideal situation would be a Soul Calibur machine or a Street Fighter machine. Something better replace it – I’m not a fan of the Crazy Taxi arcade machine (I’ve learnt my Crazy Taxi trade on the far easier Dreamcast version with a controller – not the harder Arcade version with a wheel and pedals) or Point Blank. I could learn to love Time Crisis II, I think, but light-gun games have never grabbed me as much as others have. The second tragedy of the day was the last Pav – only a tragedy of course, because it now means that I have to go without Pav for a whole four months. It was brilliant though; it started late, because it was the Master’s Farewell Dinner, but once it started, it was all the cheesiest best tunes that we’ve come to love Pav for. This was much appreciated after the Pav black-out during the Quiet Period through the whole of term. A room party rounded off the night rather well.

I spent a lot of Saturday moving half of my stuff out of my room – my parents came down, realising that it took us two trips at the start of the year to bring everything down, that it would take us at least two to bring it all back. Essentially, everything work related disappeared, as did anything that wasn’t shorts or T-shirt. This turned out to be a good move as the weather was exceptionally pleasant – not as glorious as the weather had been while I was revising for two weeks, annoyingly, but close enough. There was a brief punt during the day, then a frustrating shopping trip where nowhere had any food that I wanted. Suicide Sunday started much better with strawberries for breakfast (though no Pimms for me) and kept going; Felix, Lauren, Simona, Steve and myself all went punting in the morning and then my tutor (Barry Kingston) in conjunction with two other tutors took us on a riverboat cruise – the arguable highlight being when the Captain started smoking a large cigar, and then crashed into the bank. He was an excessively amiable chap, however, so no-one really cared – and it gave everyone a good laugh. In the evening, I went to the Rainbow Café and then caught up with everyone else to go to some Jazz at a random bar.

The highlight of Monday was the stalking that occurred. Myself, Chris, Phil hair, Ruth and Sarah all went for a walk in the early evening with the broad aim of going to Sainsbury’s. We walked past the Trinity Ball queue looking at all the dressed up people, when Sarah caught sight of a man in a cape and a top hat (though no cane with a silver head). She suggested stalking him – and so we did. He went quite a long way, and doubled back at one point – though that was in a crowded place, so it wasn’t too obvious that we were stalking him and we managed to avoid detection quite magnificently. He ended up walking across a couple of meadows, before he disappeared behind a cordoned off area in a meadow; we think he was heading to an outdoor party next to the river – there was certainly someone who he could have been present, but he had neither his cape or his top hat on (and we couldn’t remember his face, even though he’d double-backed past us), so we weren’t sure. There was then the first Linux install party that I’ve ever been to, which consisted of Gen and Tomski trying to install Linux on Donnie’s computer (who wasn’t even sure that he wanted it), while everyone else sat around, chatted, and drank. No-one even fell out of the window looking at the Trinity Fireworks.

Tuesday was the Churchill Garden Party – free (if you ignore all the money that I’ve put into pool and Virtua Tennis/Strike) and brilliant. Plenty of inflatables to keep the troops entertained – the strap-a-bungee-cord-to-yourself-and-run-away machine is one of the greatest inventions known to mankind. The Churchill female acapella group were excellent and were a nice surprise for me to see – I had missed their performance on Friday (through my own decision). The owner of the bouncy castle chastised us for trying to run up the side (which was much harder than I recalled it being at Chrissy’s Bouncy Parties), which was a bit off, we though. It was hardly as if we were going to hurt ourselves throwing ourselves at the side of a large inflatable. As an added bonus, I also managed to not get dunked in either of the paddling pools present and so stayed dry. The evening called for an early night (well, early for May Week, so midnight-ish) because I was going to get very little sleep the next day.

For, of course, the next day was the Fire Troupe’s performance at Kings’ Affair. After Girton cancelled on us at the end of Lent Term, I was itching for an actual performance. We met at Ed’s room at 2, got our brand spanking new hoodies and proceeded to Kings with lots of equipment, looking like a band of thugs dressed in black from head to toe. We set up everything, and were then told that we had to move because we were too close to where the audience would be. We were then informed that we would be behind a fence for the safety of the audience – frankly, if they’re stupid enough to get too close to spinning flames, then it’s their own fault. Still, it was only a half-height fence at the front, so their view wasn’t too impeded. Our performances were, frankly, glorious. Though I might be biased, I would say that we were the best thing there. To be honest, if I had paid £50 or so for a ticket, I would have been quite disappointed. After another performance at 3AM, we started packing up, and we were done by 5. Carrying everything back to Ed’s room was a bit of a chore, and by the time I had walked back to Churchill it had gone 6 in the morning. I managed to stagger into bed at 6:30, after a shower, and was up ready to face the day at 11. This, it has to be said, was a lie. I was in bed having another kip by 2 in the afternoon. The evening was originally anticipated to be spent with a pub quiz, but upon arrival it was discovered to be off. The visit was not an entire waste, however – they had a Virtua Tennis 2 machine! I didn’t win at it, which was a shame – though this was perhaps because I failed to read the instructions. You’d have thought that I’d have learnt by now. But no. Still, the evening was spent discussing subjects of varying savouriness.

College were less than helpful in how they arranged the end of term – the last day that we could stay up without permission was the Friday, and so I complied with their obvious eagerness to get rid of me. My parents arrived at four – after most other people – Georgina, Dan, Kat, Chris, to name but a few – had departed so I had a pretty lonely few hours. My parents arrived soon enough and we didn’t have too much packing left to do – things like the rug and so on I couldn’t really have done earlier, as I didn’t have the necessary bags. It was quite hot work carrying everything out to the car, but we managed it in the end. We rounded off the year at Cambridge by going up the Muller Centre tower – and it was perfect weather for doing so. I took a series of photos and I have constructed a panorama from them – which came out surprisingly well. It’s big though (over 9 meg) so be prepared to wait a little while! Also note that the watermarks are due to me using an unregistered version of the appropriate program.

Results were under a week away, so I enjoyed my ignorance. Due out on the first Thursday that I was back at home, I spent quite a lot of the day pushing ‘refresh’ – Natural Sciences were released late on in the day. Still, I was greeted at around 5 by a ‘Class I’ in my results box, which needless to say made me rather happy. My breakdown which arrived a few days later merely added to this. Curiously, I have two slightly different breakdowns – one from the Tutorial Administrator, and one from my Director of Studies; the latter having slightly better marks. The accompanying letter says that these are scaled marks, which could be the difference – but the Physics mark stayed the same, and Dave was of the opinion that they were going to scale Physics down as it was too easy. Going with the slightly better results (of course), I got a first in each subject, with my worst being Materials and my best being Physics – which is exactly what I wanted.

Two weeks of the holiday have breezed past – but have been much fun. Boating (twice), bowling, gaming, beaching and pokerage have all been had and I fully intend to keep doing so. There are photos of many of the events described above, but my Flickr account has expired. I’m having difficulty convincing myself that I should renew it out of principle – I didn’t pay for it originally, so I’m going to try and find a method that doesn’t require me to pay directly – last time, of course, I won it. I’ll see if I can do something similar this time! Lastly, everyone go read Xkcd. It may have just become my favourite webcomic. It is probably not a coincidence that the guy that writes it is a Physics graduate. So sue me.

So Florence and I went to see Nizlopi yesterday at Cargo in London. They were fantastic. We got there, it transpired, far too early; the relevant emails claimed that we’d be done by three, and should arrive at 1:30 and no later. We got there at one, and the show didn’t even start until three. Nonetheless, we had a sit in the – surprisingly – pleasant bar until we were told that we could go in.

We had perched ourselves right next to the door in the bar, so we got in almost first, and stood front-center. There was a row of photographers in front of us to begin with but they disappeared after a couple of songs, leaving us with only two people in front of us – Nizlopi. And boy, were they good. I’ve been a fan of the JCB song since I first heard it, and the rest of their album is excellent. But they didn’t limit themselves; they got someone in the audience on stage to sing whatever they wanted and get the crowd to parrot it back to them. They even played an absolutely beautiful (musically – surprisingly rude, lyrically) song called ‘Extraordinary’ in the crowd (which was brilliantly small) at the end, which is coming out as an EP in the summer, apparantly.

They went off at the end, and I ended up with their set-list that they had on stage. Unfortunately, I didn’t get it signed – apparantly they hung around afterwards to sign things, but Flo and I had a train to catch. I took some photos, which are up, as always, at Flickr. Some of them came out shockingly well. Eventually, (some) of the session is going to be up at the tiscali web site, so I’m going to be keeping an eye on that.

Yes, three months since an entry (I wasn’t bored enough). Yes, another new layout (I was bored enough). I can’t claim any responsibility for the layout – it’s yet another one taken from Open Source Web Design, but it has been tinkered with a little (most notably, the picture at the top, which is a result of one of my long-exposure photos and then some messing in the GIMP). I do so enjoy tinkering with things – which is my excuse for the existence of this video. I needed a reason to play with iMovie, and that’s the explanation that I’m sticking to. Though I am slightly alarmed by the related tags that have appeared on the video (poi, fire, spinning, juggling, peto, sex, hitting, abuse, roger and guns). I mean, fire poi is cool and exciting, but I wouldn’t have said that cool and exciting. My tinkering urge was also sated with a nice little (PHP) script to take a last.fm stream, split the files into separate mp3 files and tag them correctly which I only really made because I was bored.

Another (great) term at Cambridge has gone by after a slightly rocky start – apart from anything I made the elementary mistake of not reading the instructions. This is a mistake that I have had drilled into me at every point of my life that I shouldn’t make, and yet I made it on the progress test. Still, I’ll not make it again (touch wood). Pav is as good as ever (only two next term though) and ‘great’ ideas run free. Parkour over New Hall was narrowly avoided, but so was Gen falling off a high wall onto a jeep. I do, however, fail to see any problems with our plan to buy 1003 rare-earth-metal magnets for our personal pleasure. I joined the Cambridge Fire Troupe, where I fire poied for the first time. We were going to perform at Girton Ball, but circumstance conspired against us and it fell through at (almost literally) the last minute. Hopefully we’ll get to perform next term though, which will be great fun. We’ve got a fantastic routine. Someone hire us!

Next term is exam term which is not going to be enjoyable. Everyone seems perfectly happy about how well I’m doing (both my Supervisors and my DoS, Dave Green), so as long as I keep working I should be okay. I can still see myself gradually increasing how panicked I am until the exams though. I just don’t seem to be able to stop myself.

I’ve also acquired two tickets to a ‘Tiscali Secret Session’ to see Nizlopi. I’ll tell you this much: I had a heck of a time giving away the second ticket. Florence has ended up as the second ticket, and she is passing through London that day anyway, so it’s quite convenient. There seems to be a bit of a debate as to what’s actually happening on the day, though. Everyone (i.e. websites) seems to think that four acts are playing, each to 300 people. I, personally, don’t see how they’re going to enforce that if some people are only allowed to see some bands unless they drive everyone out and then re-admit people. I’ll be trying to hang around afterwards / get in early to see A-Ha, though I’m not really bothered about the other people who I’ve never heard of. Whatever happens, it should be a bit of a laugh, and very civilised too, as it looks like I’ll even be home for tea.

How ironic. On a day that’s supposed to be about celebrating the birth of a baby, it looks as if part of my inner child has died. Each previous Christmas that I have had the fortune to partake in has been preceded by a bad – no, downright rotten – night’s sleep. This year, however, I woke up 15 minutes after the earliest time mutually agreed with parents for opening stockings (I feel lucky to still get stockings – Mum keeps complaining they’re getting harder and harder to do. The fact that I’m legally an adult seems to count against other people getting stockings, too). Admittedly, maybe it wasn’t a fair test because I deliberately didn’t sleep as much as I usually do on the 23rd, but it’s still a definite Despite her protests, mum did an excellent job this year. Notable inclusions in the stocking were Schott’s Almanack, a set of Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy badges and a blacklight on a keyring which scores points just for being so damn cool.

As usual, after a swift breakfast we proceeded into the lounge for main presents where, it turns out, I was greeted by more DVDs than I know what to do with. Lord of the Rings Extended Trilogy Boxed set alone runs into more hours than I’ve seen in a single box before. Combine with that the whole of Futurama, the whole of Yes, Minister, Firefly and West Wing Season 3 and I’ve got a lot of TV to keep me going – an annoying amount, given how much time I don’t have at the moment what with work both for and in Cambridge. Nonetheless, it looks like I’m set until next Christmas!

As usual, we then went to church for what we thought was going to be a nice Christmas service for the kids – half an hour, or just over, and packed with carols. It turned out to be a full communion service lasting considerably longer than an hour that just had Christmas tacked onto it. This didn’t particularly make for an enjoyable lunch as mum picked apart the service listing the bits that she didn’t approve of in detail. It did not, however detract from the day. I enjoyed some Futurama and Firefly (a series that is quickly growing in my estimation) and then in the evening the family settled down to enjoy the Doctor Who Christmas Special (which I am now glad to see came second in the ratings for the whole of Christmas Day, the BBC getting seven out of the top ten).

Boxing day was much of the same, with Florence’s Party in the evening, which was an enjoyable event though naturally it left me feeling slightly drained. I didn’t feel up to much today, therefore, so I settled down to read the second book by Jasper Fforde in the Thursday Next series. I’ve mentioned the first book in the series before and I finally got hold of the second book in the series for Christmas. I finished it merely hours – 370 pages – later, and enjoyed it immensely – if possible, more than the first one. I’m seriously glad I’m getting the next book so soon (on my birthday) because this book resolves even less than the first and I desperately need to know what happens next.

I hope that the holiday season is treating everyone as well as it is treating me and I wish you all a happy new year.

I can’t believe how quickly term has gone; I had been intending to make little notes as I went through the term to try and help me construct a gigantic entry, but it just didn’t happen. I’ll do my best though! For the moment, I’m back home in Colchester, and the holidays have started. It’s good to be home, but I think that I’m in some sort of limbo – I’ve left all my new friends behind, who I’m missing greatly, and I’ve not seen any of my old non-Cambridge friends (with the pleasant exceptions of Phil and Flo) for nine weeks. I’m not going to be seeing any of my new friends for five or six, which is just as depressing to think of at this point. Once I catch up with everyone again, I think I’ll be okay.

Still, the Christmas holidays should be a blast. There are numerous parties lined up already and while I do technically have to work over the holidays (when I return, Churchill are setting everyone a mock just to scare them into doing more work) I’m sure I’ll be able to fit everything in.

As an aside, I have to recommend “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” as a movie that people should go and see. Dan, Georgina and I headed into town to see Harry Potter the first weekend it was released but, naturally, there were no tickets going so we had to improvise. We settled on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in the end and were extremely glad that we did. It was far better than we expected and was consistently good from start to finish. Val Kilmer almost single handedly makes the film as a tough-guy called “Gay Perry” who corrects people’s grammar through the film, though both main characters have great one-liners (“This isn’t good cop, bad cop. This is fag and New Yorker.”). Of course, maybe I’m wrong, and it’s a terrible film, and we were just in the right state of mind to appreciate it having walked across town twice in an hour.

Cambridge has been fantastic. There were some days better than others – notably, most days were better than Mondays, where I had five hours of materials sandwiched by a physics lecture and a maths supervision, but I’ve survived okay. Of course, there were then some days that just didn’t seem to go to plan; one Tuesday I thought was going to be brilliant, because my Chemistry supervision had been rearranged, so I finished at 11 rather than 5:30. The day did go to plan until 8:20 (AM, of course), when I dropped my keys down a drain. Depending on the version of the story that you listen to, I then either stood by while Maintenance fished them out, or cruelly forced an elderly man to, on a cold autumn’s morning get on his hands and knees and submerge himself in freezing water while I stood by and cackled. Pick whichever version you want to believe!

I’ve not really heard the end of the keys saga since it happened, though this is perhaps because of the following evening, when Dan and Georgina played a fantastic game of let’s hide Alex’s keys. To be sure, it was fun. But then, I apparently crossed some metaphorical line when I took Georgina’s keys when the opportunity presented itself. Again, there are two versions of what happened next – the first is that I kept them for 20 minutes and then gave them back when asked (though admittedly not for the first time). The second is that I harrowingly forced Georgina to be introduced to ‘Knifey’ by Dan which has traumatized her for life. Still, everyone is still alive with no disfiguring scars and, at the end of the day, isn’t that what really matters?

My life has slowly been taken over by Physics. Sure, that’s what I want to do eventually (though I have to say that Chemistry is tempting at the moment), but Dave has been working me and Dan like dogs. We had a couple of supervisions where everything went really well, so he started setting us more questions. Last week he set us thirteen questions – but we thought that was okay, because it was for our last two supervisions. We thought. Turns out we were wrong, and at the end of the penultimate supervision, he set us seven more, with our last supervision three days away. We got it all done, but by the skin of our teeth (and even then we fudged a couple of answers – elliptical integrals? Good luck with getting us to actually do that!) I knew that Cambridge was going to be hard work, but towards the end there it was getting a bit too close for comfort! As mentioned, with the progress tests to aim at, I should be able to keep myself ticking over until next term, so hopefully the start of term will be slightly more relaxed. Who am I kidding?

The end of term has been brilliant. The Saturday before term ended, Deepak, Flo, Ceri, Bella and myself all went to see Blondie. Needless to say, it was seven shades of awesome. We all thoroughly enjoyed it and it even stopped me from going to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose with the rest of the Churchill Gang which, to be honest, I didn’t lose any sleep over – the trailer was disturbing enough for me!

Lectures finished on the Wednesday, and in the afternoon, Dan, Irish Phil, Georgina and myself took a trip to Ely, which is only about 15 minutes away from Cambridge by train. Our intention was a visit to the Cathedral there, but it was dark by the time that we got there – we still visited the Cathedral though, and sat just inside the outer door looking at it and eating various items that had been purchased from Spar. We then proceeded to a fantastic pub with exceptionally comfy seats where we killed time for two and a bit hours. Leaving, we passed both through Tescos and chased some ducks; the brightest minds in the country and we chase ducks in the dark for fun.

On the Friday, Georgina and Original Phil organized a pudding party for everyone to attend, which had a marvelous turnout. Amusingly, there was some sort of conference happening at the same time, and the attendees were all eating in the bar at the same time that we were. We had a large proportion of the available seating, were eating nicer food and towards the end broke into badly-rendered Christmas carols. It was fantastic. The sugar low that everyone experience afterwards, however, was especially so. There were a few of us sat in the reading room, staring at the wall opposite which has a large number of books on; it was agreed that some of the books could be interesting, but no-one could be bothered to actually stand up and go and look to see if they were for a quite staggering amount of time afterwards. Everyone did, eventually, recover, but it took far longer than anyone cared to admit.

That evening, Life of Brian was watched and slept through, to varying extents (I was in the latter camp, it has to be said) and then there was a brief toy with sleeping in the Library which sort of fell apart around 3AM when people realized that they weren’t, in fact, getting to sleep. The next day – the Saturday – I had my last supervision, so I was free after 4, which was fantastic. The only downside was that I was leaving the next day, so I didn’t have long to enjoy it. That evening was again spent watching a movie (Transformers, though I again admit to falling asleep while watching it). I finally got to bed at 4am for varying reasons, and was then up at 7, as per usual. I’m really going to have to teach my body to lie in – though the drive to get up has been useful on numerous mornings after late nights (who’s great idea was it for a Science college to have a free Friday night ent that finishes at 1 when NatScis have lectures at 9 the next day?) To be honest though, I wouldn’t change any of it. I can’t emphasise how much I’m enjoying it and I’m really looking forward to going back next term, once I get past my progress tests and then the assessed materials practical, which is the first materials practical that I have next term.

A rather nifty tool that I’ve found is the iTunes signature creator. Found here it goes through your iTunes library, and takes little snippets from your most played songs and combines them all into a mish-mash that is a few seconds long. The idea is then supposedly that you send this to people and they get an idea of your musical tastes very quickly; I’m not entirely sure how useful it is for this intended function, but it’s a pretty cool idea. I’ve made my signature available for anyone who is interested – both of you.

I feel as if there should be more that I am able to write; so much has happened at Cambridge and yet I can’t really think of much more that I can a) be bothered to write and b) see anyone else be bothered to read. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to harass me. I’m an open-minded chap.

Wow. Cambridge is, without a doubt, brilliant. I was phenomenally nervous coming up – for several reasons. Firstly, I haven’t really, properly, had to make new friends for seven years; people I haven’t known for that long have been friends of friends that I have known that long and were subsequently introduced to me – they were forced to give me the benefit of the doubt until they actually knew me. Here, I knew there was going to be no such thing. Secondly, I was going to be looking after myself and be away from home for the first time, which was going to be a first – I’m cooking at Cambridge too, so that was an extra layer of complexity.

And yet, as soon as I walked in the door, almost, it all went away. I ran into ‘mum’ almost immediately, who was extremely welcoming and made time to talk to me despite the fact that she was heavily preoccupied as the Women’s Welfare Officer and thus could be considered as ‘mum’ for everyone in college. After collecting lots of (allegedly) important envelopes and getting Dad to write a shockingly large cheque or two, I received my room key and was shown to my room. It’s a fairly large room, made smaller by the presence of, for reasons that escaped me, two desks. I did later find out why from someone else on my staircase, but it’s a dull story and doesn’t bear repeating. It involves lots of work.

Then the moving in began. We had a small trolley with us, and it was just as well; the trolleys that we were supposed to be using had been stolen earlier that morning by another college to help people move it. Not being involved in the sharing of six trolleys between around 120 families was a blessing and eased the strain. Dad diligently took all the electrical products to the maintenance department so that they could get the all-clear and reassure both them and me that I wasn’t going to burn the staircase down (and with the fire alarm in the staircase flashing ‘Serious error’, it was definitely required). It took us a few hours to move in, but when we finished I was shocked at how easily everything tidied away. Mum almost had a coronary when she saw the state of the hire fridge, but she cleaned it to her satisfaction and is now happy with it.

Mum and dad left shortly after that, leaving me to kill time by filling in forms; I got a couple delivered to the correct places, but one woman who appears to want more forms than she can know what to do with proved elusive and so they remained in my possession. I then proceeded down to the “JCR Welcome” which consisted of 120 students milling around in a small space, introducing themselves and having the same conversation again and again – What subject they were doing, where they were from, and how their unpacking was going – and then forgetting the name of whoever they just talked to. I certainly was guilty of the latter and while I probably talked to about eighty people or so in the two and a half hours, I could maybe remember five names. Still, everyone else was the same. I even met a second year who is allergic to pepper who cooks for herself all the time, and it was reassuring to see that there are people who cook their way through Cambridge and seem very happy with it. She revealed all the benefits – most notably, it’s cheaper and healthier, given that you know exactly what you are cooking. Still, it was hard not to feel disappointed when everyone else went to hall to eat and I went back to my room to cook. But I had no choice – I had to be ready for the “Family Tour of Town”. This was as much a tour of town as the Chemistry Dinner was a meal, but was great fun. We went to three or four pubs down the hill and got told that we couldn’t go into Wetherspoons by the bouncers there. Tom (a CompSci student that I’ve talked to on MSN) and I somehow managed to get whisked up into a group of hard drinking second years, which wasn’t quite to our taste so we wandered forlornly until we spotted a group of Churchillian Freshers (who’s names I amazingly remembered from the crush that was the JCR welcome) led by two lovely third year linguists and so we latched onto them for the majority of the night and were glad for it.

We ran into TPJ in one of the Pubs who’s college was doing a similar thing, and TPJ briefly introduced Tom, Lauren (a linguist fresher) and Gen (a NatSci fresher) to the concept of Einstein and left me to explain it. They certainly seemed to appreciate it but it certainly wasn’t something that I was necessarily expecting to do once I had moved Einstein from the car to my room with no questions about him.

Walking – staggering in at least once case – back to college was great fun and we walked past the mathematics department which was stunning. Claire then told us the ‘in-jokes’ that the mathematics department has in its building – just one example is that the curve of one roof is the profile standard distribution curve. Another is that the lifts panels are laid out like a calculator and to get to the basement you have to push ‘-‘ and then ‘1′. I’m unsure if the plus button works in the same way, but where else other than Cambridge would you get both that, and a group of people that appreciate it?

After a quick game of table football (7-6 in my favour against Tom) and a sit in the bar, I went to bed. I got up a touch late for me the next day and collected extra food that was ferried up by mum and dad. They had also brought with them trays at the request of the head maintenance manager, who doesn’t want fridges and freezers leaking all over his maple floor (donated by Canada in memory of Churchill) in the event of a power cut. However, there was an unforeseen problem – when placed in the trays, the door to either wouldn’t open. By chance, I was looking in the overhead locker-cupboard in my room and found four inch-thick pieces of wood. Unfortunately, the fridge and freezer have four legs each. As a result, I needed a saw. I went to the porter’s lodge and asked for one, and their immediate response was “don’t do it, son!” before directing me to the maintenance room to get one. I went in and the head of maintenance wasn’t there but a supremely helpful older man was. He informed me that while he didn’t have any wood saws, he had an old hacksaw that I could borrow – if I promised not to tell his boss and to bring it straight back. Of course, I agreed, and I did. I was, however, supremely impressed with the ability to go out at 9AM on a Sunday morning and come back in ten minutes with a saw. Four cuts later, we were sorted – we thought. The legs on the freezer weren’t quite as long as the legs on the fridge, so while these blocks of wood solved the problem we had with the fridge, the freezer still wouldn’t quite open. Back to the helpful old maintenance guy, who offered me four half-inch pieces of wood – exactly what I was looking for. I thanked him profusely and went on my way; I hope that helpful members of staff solve all of the issues that I encounter so easily!

I then went to the JCR introduction where the Junior Common Room Committee introduced themselves to us and told us what they all did and how, essentially, we could talk to them at any time and that no matter what our problem was, there was someone who had been elected to help us. On exiting, we got handed another packet of stuff (which I still haven’t opened) which isn’t as important as what we got on the first day; it describes itself as a Cambridge Survival Pack with guides and things in it.

After lunch, it was then time for the icebreaker; we were divided into groups of ten or so and then we all had to play teambuilding games – throwing a ball to each other, at first saying our name, and then changed to saying the name of the person that we’re throwing it to. We got to know each other’s names pretty well, but then we were split up into pairs and allowed to talk for five minutes, at which point we had to introduce our partner to the rest of the group; while mildly entertaining, no-one was particularly good at it! We then got introduced to the main task of the icebreaker; we were handed a bag of material – balloons, pens, paper, sellotape, elastic bands and so on and were told to make a boat out of it. We quickly decided to go with a very traditional looking boat made out of the materials supplied – including the plastic, airtight and waterproof bag. We filled the bottom of the bag with balloons filled to different sizes to get the elongated almond shape that most boats are and then decorated like we had never decorated before. It was a sensational creation – it had two masts, a wheel that really turned, a pirate and a crow’s nest. It even had a quarterdeck and a barrier around the edge to stop our pirate falling overboard. Early on, however, we realised that with such a tall creation, it would fall over sideways quite easily if there was a gust of wind; inspiration struck and a Yorkie was purchased from a vending machine. This was attached to the underside of the boat to stop it tipping over and was, stunningly, eaten by Carl and then Katherine even though it didn’t appear to have remained airtight. Nonetheless, it was a thoroughly entertaining session.

The evening was devoted to our entertainment – firstly a pub quiz and then a Casino night. The latter was particularly entertaining; the poker table was not kind to me at the start, losing £370, but I worked my fortune back from £130 to £1300 and lost it all on three spins of the roulette wheel. Only in Cambridge though would you hear the Croupier say “Fibonacci numbers give triple payout this round only!” or “If it’s a prime number, everyone wins!” – and everyone appreciating it.

The Monday was our Matriculation Dinner, after meeting the Master who, despite any sci-fi related connotations given to the name seemed like a really nice chap. Of course, this was the first time that I had eaten in hall, and they didn’t kill me! I had a savoury salad to begin, then chicken, courgettes and carrots and then a fruit salad for desert. I was even opposite to a fresher called Ginnie who it turns out is intolerant to milk, and so she had the same as me which was nice – I wasn’t the only one different compared to everyone else! I was sat next to my DoS for the dinner, and he is a sensationally nice guy (at least in a social setting – for all we know, he could be a total slave-driver when it comes to work). The speech given by the Master was thoroughly entertaining, and the toast was appreciated by everyone who hadn’t heard it before (myself included): “To the Queen” “The Queen!” “To Winston!” “Winston!”

It was then time for our first taste of Pav – our free entertainment on every Friday night. It was great fun – there are two rooms, one for cheese and one smaller one for ‘better’ music. Cheese was thoroughly appreciated by me, but after a while I ended up in the second room where I ended up doing my (much appreciated) Russian Squat Dancing. Finishing at midnight, I went to bed, though in the morning it transpired that I had missed a staircase party, annoyingly. Tuesday was a day full of administration on my part, at least. The Freshers’ Fair was on, and all Chemists had to go to the Chemistry department to purchase a calculator, a lab coat and collect some information that we’ll need before our first practical. Greggor, Felix (both physical NatScis) and myself headed down to the Chemistry department before moving onto the Freshers’ fair; the queue was an hour and a half long, but just by chance Sophie (who’s surname I can’t remember but has a twin) turned up directly behind us in the queue, so we were able to kill time without too much effort, especially with the inflatable bouncers outside who’s job it was to entertain us (which they did). Inside was as packed as the queue but I signed up for a few things – notably the assassin’s guild, the dentist, and a psychology experiment that will pay the princely sum of six pounds if I decide to go through with it. That night was a big event at Fitz – Schnipple’s college. It wasn’t that great, to be honest, and I was tired, so I came back to college early and played some pool.

The next day – the Wednesday for those keeping track – was hectic. I had to go up to the Cavendish labs for information about the physics practicals that we’re going to be doing and then trek over to the other side of town to listen to an introductory lecture on Natural Sciences. I did do one useful thing though – I purchased a bike. £100 from Halfords for the bike, lights, and a D-Lock, which isn’t too bad, I didn’t think. Coming back to college, I cooked and then went to the bar area. I impressed people by unlocking hidden teams in Virtua Striker, and then just sat around chatting to people – which was sensationally enjoyable. Myself, another brit (an engineer), an American (linguist), a Lithuanian (linguist), an Arab (engineer) and a German (physical NatSci) sat around dicussing topics from politics to space travel to religion to Sesame Street and I loved it. I can’t quite put my finger on what was so great about it but something struck me that that, somehow, is what university should be about. I hope I have many more moments like that, but the fact that I’ve only been here a short time and have already had one suggests that that could be quite likely.

The Thursday lectures began. ‘Fortunately’ I am an even week guy for chemistry practicals, so week one means that I don’t have one, meaning I call it a day at 12, which was nice. The lectures were interesting. Both were fairly administrative, but regarding maths I think that those of us that had Mrs. Fish at CRGS were spoilt; admittedly, it was the first time that she had lectured the course, but it wasn’t particularly engaging. I may well switch to the B course (harder, only recommended if you have taken further maths) if it continues in the same vein for much longer. The fact that the lecture consisted of basic vectors didn’t help her much, I feel. Chemistry was more interesting and benefited greatly from a good lecturer (who, interestingly, wrote one of the books on the reading list – which I have actually read). That evening was the games evening in bar. First off, we played a giant version of twister that wasn’t that good until we invented the rule that when a column or row became completely free, it was removed from the game. Then it became a fantastic game. We then made the unwise decision, encouraged by Georgina, to play Dingbats. Essentially, it’s snakes and ladders, but every so often, you have to answer a Rebus question. For example:

would be the phrase “More Haste Less Speed”. It sells itself as ‘the game that will drive you crazy’ and it isn’t wrong. Every so often, we came across a phrase that none of us had heard of (“Little Doc and Doris”) but mostly we just kicked ourselves whenever we got one wrong. “WILL”, for example, had the answer ‘A Dead Giveaway’. Eventually, my team won, but not before we had invested two and a half hours into it. We then unwound before bed with a final game of the twister rip-off, which ended in a draw when Carl and I had to get all of our hands and feet onto one square. We managed it (linking arms, biting each other’s T-shirt), but then sort of toppled over onto the floor. Everyone else found it hilarious though, to be sure!

The emails that I have received from people seem to be encouraging, and everyone is enjoying whatever university that they’re at. I hope that I can catch up with you all soon (at the very least, see you at Ali’s at New Year), but for those in Cambridge, I’m very much up for a CRGS punt. See you all soon!