Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

One week of break remains

Spencer Keys in Wadham

Anyone who has ever been amused to see the photo of a terrified looking Prince Charles pouring a pint, found in the King’s Arms Pub within Wadham College, might be disappointed to learn that they have the same exact print over at the Angel and Greyhound. I don’t know if either pub was actually the place where the photo was taken, but it certainly diminishes how amusing it is to see it in a second place. It’s like when you’re in Venice and you realize that all the cheap table glass in Murano is identical in each shop and comes from China.

Touring Oxford

This afternoon, I met Spencer and his partner for the World Debating Championships and gave them a walking tour of Oxford. Before carrying on, I should note that Michael Kotrly and his partner won the tournament, a very impressive feat. I know Michael through UBC debate, where I believe I was treasurer during his presidency. My congratulations go out to him for an extremely impressive performance.

The walk, which I recommend to anyone inclined to play tour guide in Oxford, began at Cornmarket and High Street, from which we walked up St. Aldate’s towards the Folly Bridge. Glancing into the Christ Church main quad, we passed The Head of the River and walked along the Isis until the paths diverge northward again along the eastern canal. We followed that up past Magdalen, where I would recommend having a look at the gardens and greenhouses, before turning left and heading back up the high street towards Carfax.

We ducked into University College, through Logic Lane, and passed through two of their quads to see the Shelley Memorial. We then passed St. Mary’s Church and briefly entered the Codrington Library from Radcliffe Square. Leaving the square from the north, we went down Hollywell Street to New College, where I showed them the plague mound and the cloisters (as featured, somewhat incongruously as far as architecture goes, in the most recent Harry Potter film). Leaving New, we walked back up Hollywell Street, had a look through Wadham, the gardens, and library court, before going up Parks Road to Rhodes House and the Natural History Museum.

After looking at the displays there and in the Pitt Rivers museum, we doubled back. One thing I had never noticed before: the Natural History Museum has a stuffed kakapo, of all animals. Those who don’t know what I am talking about are strongly encouraged to read Douglas Adams’ excellent book Last Chance to See.

The last stop of the four-hour tour was The Turf, where we had a pint before the debaters caught their train back to London. It was good to see Spencer. He doesn’t seem to have been too badly grizzled by the extreme responsibilities of his post as President of the UBC Alma Mater Society.

What made today particularly special was seeing a trio of people I have missed a lot over the break. Bilyana is back from her winter break trip home, as are Margaret and Roham. I ran into Bilyana outside Rhodes House while giving the tour and Roham outside the Natural History Museum. We simply must organize a study group for the statistics exam next Friday. Margaret I met after I noticed her light on while walking back from the train station. Though she is mired in work, she still brings a friendly feeling back into the city, as seeing all three friends did. I now believe that term is starting again in a practical, rather than a theoretical, way. It scarcely seemed possible during the days when I wandered an abandoned Oxford from and abandoned Wadham with only excellent conversations with Louise to break the solitude.

Evening in Oxford with Wadham graduates

As part of a general effort to get to know people in my college better, I followed Kelly and her sister Bonnie to the King’s Arms tonight to meet a whole crew of Wadham graduates tonight. Shifting between there and The Mitre, people had a few drinks and conversed. I owe David Patrikarakos for the pint of Guinness he kindly bought me.

Among the graduates who I did not know previously, I was particularly glad to meet a particle physicist working on dark matter and a fellow Vancouverite. In the latter case, the similarities are legion. We both lived near Trout Lake, we both have some connection to North Vancouver high schools (Handsworth and Carson Graham, respectively), and we both did judo with Hiroshi Nishi as an instructor. We both went to UBC and took courses with Dennis Danielson. Given that he did an honours English degree, I am sure we know a lot of the same people.

Incidentally, and before I go on too long about this, there have been a lot of headaches with regards to Wadham people and getting mentioned on the blog. There are those who tremble at the prospect and, when I know who they are, I generally avoid mentioning them at all and certainly avoid saying anything personal. Then there are those who are neutral, those I simply don’t know the position of, and those who are positively irked not to be mentioned. It’s a lot to remember, so my apologies if I slip up from time to time. A few ugly experiences are teaching me to err on the side of caution. If I don’t mention you by name, it’s probably because I barely know you and met you in a context that someone could possibly, maybe find objectionable (like… a pub… gasp!).

Anyhow, the number of Wadham graduate students who I had rarely if ever seen before demonstrates the extent to which a bit more concentration on the social side of college may be warranted. I shouldn’t let my general aversion to loud music and strong aversion to cigarette smoke be too much of a restricting factor. Thankfully, The Mitre is significantly less smoky than the King’s Arms, which is becoming infamous in my mind for an exceptionally high carcinogen count.

The election

Frustrated by scandal and a general sense of dissatisfaction, Canadians want a political party that they can really believe in, rather than support as the least bad option. As the campaign carries on, it is increasingly clear that the Tories are not that party. From mandatory sentencing to militarizing the Arctic, their policies run the gamut from retrograde to foolish. Much as I would love to have an opposition party with a credible chance at serving as a good government, these are simply not them.

The Liberal party deserves some punishment for sleaze and an uninspired agenda under Paul Martin, but the people who would suffer under a Tory government (poor people, people outside Alberta and Ontario) don’t deserve it.

One last note: people should beware direct interpretation of Canadian electoral polls. As I explained to Margaret, the absolute share of the vote has no direct bearing in a Parliamentary system like Canada’s. Since each riding elects an MP and the party with the most MPs is called upon to form a government, all you need in theory is a single-vote win in a plurality of ridings. While that is very unlikely, the same property means that parties with broad national support have an advantage against those with concentrated support. Every extra Tory vote in a solidly blue (Canadian Tories use blue, Liberals use red) riding in Alberta, beyond the winning vote, is effectively wasted. That said, it’s not encouraging to see support for the Conservatives as high as it is, given how their campaign has been unfolding.

  • According the the Royal Mail registered mail tracking service, my Chevening Scholarship application “has been passed to the overseas postal service for delivery.” Fingers tightly crossed.
  • Here’s an entry about electoral security being done right in Wisconsin.
  • Corporate social responsibility, being done wrong by Microsoft.
  • It’s amusing to note just how frequently some people seem to be Googling themselves and following the links to my blog. Either people Googling themselves or someone at a particular IP address Googling someone else on a near-daily basis.
  • Tomorrow morning, I am meeting Louise to do some pre-term reading. I shall be extremely glad for her company.

The reading continues

Ceiling at Freud's

Last night was excellent, though it involved rather less reading than might have been expected, given the determination I expressed yesterday. All the same, it was a better use of time. There will be plenty of time for reading during the remainder of the break. (Exam in seven days, first presentations in eleven.)

I got a Christmas gift from Tristan today: a copy of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind up Bird Chronicle. I look forward to reading it, and writing about it here. Translated from Japanese, Tristan apparently found his copy in Toronto somewhere and has enjoyed it a great deal.

Taking a break from reading tonight, I played a game of Trivial Pursuit with Claire, Josiah Kaplan, and two more of her friends. I also had the chance to introduce her to The Daily Show: North American political staple that it has become.

Tomorrow, it’s back to reading. Claire lent me Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics, after saying that it’s extremely dull. After the thrill ride of the Keohane book, it might be just the thing to calm me down.

  • Apparently, in England a ‘gyro’ is a welfare payment, not a delicious combination of pita bread, some kind of meat, and vegetables served at take-away Middle Eastern restaurants and 99 cent Vancouver pizza places. This led to a brief but amusing misunderstanding between Louise and I.
  • Sainsbury’s Soup of the Month: Bloody Mary not nearly so good as the Tomato Basil, though it is half the price. Like most tomato soup, it is best scaldingly hot.
  • The “Making Globalization Work for Developing Countries” series continues on January 20th, with a seminar on the politics of the global energy regime. It will take place at 2pm in the Goodhart Seminar Room, University College.
  • As most of you will know, Israeli leader Ariel Sharon is in very serious condition, following a serious stroke and operations. We may never get the chance to find out how genuine his late-found support for a two-state solution in the region was. I hope his death or political loss of power doesn’t introduce further difficulties and violence into this fraught process.
  • Here is a cool list of ten elegant and impressive experiments.

Working, once again, to increase the number of facts known per cubic centimetre of brain

Upper Camera

Today was based around several rotations of the great term-time wheel of reading positions that I have established. Cornmarket Street Starbucks to Nuffield Library, to High Street Starbucks, to Upper Camera, to Codrington, to Wadham Library, to Wadham JCR (when quiet), to Wadham MCR (when quiet), to Blackwell’s on Broad Street and around and around again: reading a chapter or two in each position. The strategy keeps my brain from just skipping over long sections of text, while also helping me resist the desire to do something more complex than reading.

I was assisted today by the subject matter. I finished the second half of Richard Overy’s excellent Why the Allies Won: possibly the most engaging book I’ve read since arriving in the U.K. It is well written, convincing, and authoritative. Even though it covers the very familiar terrain of the second world war, it still conveys a great deal of new information and a deepened sense of understanding. Recommended to anyone with an interest in military history.

Dramatically less engaging was my continued slog through Keohane’s Neorealism and its Critics. While it has demonstrated that my conception of neorealism is, in some ways, a bit of a parody, it still isn’t the kind of book you wake up early or stay up late for the enjoyment of reading. Tomorrow morning, I will try to do one of my circuits with it as the sole book in my possession. Despite my best efforts to train myself otherwise, I will almost always read books in order from most to least interesting. This means that I neglect books that are important but very boring, but it does maximize the overall amount of reading I do. Related personal tendencies: eating food I buy in order from least to most preparation time, until I only have food that requires extensive preparation, and wearing clothes in order from most to least comfortable, until I have no clean ones left.

Tomorrow afternoon, good things are planned. For now, I am going to bo back to at least another four hours’ reading, even though most of the nodes on my circuit have already closed.

  • I was pleased to receive a barrage of comments from Meghan today. A surprising number of people seem to find it difficult to post comments. For their benefit, here are some brief instructions.Instructions for commenting:
    First, you need to get to the page specific to the post you want to comment about, rather than one of the archive pages that lists a whole month worth. To do that, just go to the bottom of any post and click on either the blue underlined time at which is was posted, or on the blue underlined bit where it lists the number of comments. For instance: “9 comment(s).”

    Once you are on a single post page, like this one you will be able to see existing comments. Click the “Post a Comment” link to leave one. Clicking the “Home” link will take you back to the front page of the blog.

    Once you have clicked “Post Comment” a new page will open. Then, in the page that comes up, just type your comment. You can enter Blogger login information, if you have it. If you do, it will put your default picture beside your comment, as well as allowing you to delete it later. You can also use ‘Other’ to leave a comment under your own name or alias or ‘Anonymous’ to leave a comment marked as such. Such comments, only I can remove. You will need to copy the squiggly letters that appear below the comment box into the text box below them. This is to keep spam robots from leaving hundreds of comments about their various sordid wares.

    Clicking the blue underlined “Milan” at the bottom of every post opens a window for sending a message to me, if you have configured your email client to do so. Using the “Contact Me” link in the sidebar does the same thing. Finally, the little white envelope lets you email a post to someone else. Please don’t send them to me, I already have them.

  • At some point, I will produce an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions list) for the blog, but I have resolved to do no more structural modification until I’ve dealt with the stats exam and next term’s pre-reading.
  • On a related note, please stop going to the old address (sindark.blogspot.com). The continued existence of that page is causing problems for search engines. The new address, sindark.com, is what everyone should use.
  • The iBook is increasingly grinding and heaving its way through collections of tasks it formerly had no trouble with. I’ve taken to using my iPod to listen to music while on it, just to free up some RAM and CPU time from iTunes. Given my extremely hesitant attitude towards installing new software or keeping programs I do not use, I don’t know what’s going wrong.
  • The comment about a relative dearth of environmental politics related stuff here is spot on. It’s partly a question of what the course and life in general brings to my doorstep. That said, I will make more of an effort to read and talk about my alleged intended speciality.
  • This is my 1050th post made through Blogger. That obviously doesn’t include the hundreds of OpenDiary posts in the pre-Blogger era.

Another productive day

Ceiling in the Bodleian Library

This was an exceptionally productive morning, both before and after meeting Claire for coffee. Into the post, the scholarship application has gone. Likewise, my absentee ballot request: out into the ether of the international telephone system. As always, Joanna Coryndon in the Tutorial Office was very helpful with all the bureaucratic hassles of university life. I was disappointed to learn that she didn’t win the college staff member of the year designation. As I’ve said before, the human face she contributed to the admissions process did much to skew my thinking towards Oxford.

During the afternoon, I finished the Atwood book, reviewed briefly below, and made decent progress on the Hume and Keohane books. By the end of the inter-term break, I will have finished the reading assigned by Dr. Hurell and hopefully made a more general start on the material for next term. I may well need to present for fifteen minutes in the first seminar with Jennifer Welsh and David Williams, after all. All of this reading was done in the Upper Radcliffe Camera, which also reminded me of the increasingly pressing need to find a summer job. The two seem unrelated, but places that are fairly rarely visited have a way of making your mind jump back to what was being thought about when last there.

Thanks to Claire, I even got a copy of the information sheet on the upcoming statistics exam. Part A is a multiple choice and short answer component, centred around general principles in statistics, as elaborated in Dr. Tilley’s lectures. For that, I will definitely want to read the relevant chapters from a good statistics textbook. Part B is interpretation of statistical tables, such as are output by STATA and found in many American international relations journal articles. Having looked over the description, I am not terribly worried. Still, it’s something I will need to devote a couple of days to, at least, during the next ten days or so.

Ever More Banking Frustrations

After months of trying, I finally got access to NatWest Online Banking. As I have come to expect, it includes a powerfully counterproductive security feature. Instead of entering a PIN or password, it forces you to put, say, the 3rd, 5th, and 12th characters of the password into little boxes. This basically means that you need to write your password down, number off the letters, enter the numbers they want, and destroy it. It is completely contrary to convenience and introduces a whole new security failure of visible passwords all over the place or the need to securely destroy them. As punishment for such idiocy, I shall simply not use their credit card unless absolutely necessary. Based on what I’ve seen, I can’t begin to comprehend why Britain is a financial services hub. Banking here is a tragicomic business.

  • First Oxford exam in ten days…
  • photo.sindark.com now automatically links to my Photo.net page.
  • More family members that I thought are apparently reading the blog. My greetings to you all. I shall have to be on my best behaviour, henceforth.
  • Arthur: “What happens if I push this red button?”
    [noise]
    Ford: “What happened?”
    Arthur: “A light came on and said ‘Please do not push this button again.'”
    Related concept: the self-referential warning sign
  • As far as Google is concerned, the blog is still a real mess. The old URL still has hundreds of links to it, now all broken. Hopefully, a few crawls over the next few months will fix things. Until then, I will try to stop moving things around.

Abbreviated day

Turtle

I completed a lengthy scholarship application today, as well as my absentee voter registration. I think I can feel justly proud about both, even though past form indicates that only one of the two will bring back a positive response. I also read a good chunk of the Atwood book and the introduction to Hume. Significant progress so far, reading about neorealism: virtually none. Likewise for statistics.

Of course, after printing and signing all the forms, I learned that today was a bank holiday and I could not send them. One more task for tomorrow, I suppose. Given that I am meant to meet Claire at ten in the morning, I should have ample time for it.

Tonight was really very interesting, but I’m not particularly in the mood to talk about it. As such, I shall have to leave you all in suspense. Life’s cruel, isn’t it?

People should understand that this is a good sign, insofar as my well being goes. The more interesting things I have to do, the less I blog.

The year ahead

Garden door

On the first day of the year, it seems wise to look ahead. There are two terms left during this year at Oxford: Hilary Term, which begins on January 15th and ends on March 11th, and Trinity Term, which begins on April 23rd and ends on June 17th. There will also be exams: one on statistics on the 13th of this month and then three more in April, before Trinity Term begins. Passing the qualifying exams is necessary for passing the M.Phil.

From June 17th until early October, I will have a summer break. While I am fairly certain it has to involve a good amount of work on my thesis, it will probably be necessary for me to work for money as well. One ideal job would be a research position in Oxford. I could live here, use the libraries, and hopefully get a good amount of research done for my thesis as well. Another appealing option is to work at something fairly remunerative in London. That would help me reduce student debt, as well as giving me the chance to live in a fascinating and dynamic city. All this is just fantasy at the moment, however, since I have no real leads on summer jobs. Yet another thing that needs to be done in the near future.

With the first inter-term break coming to a close, I note with dismay that I haven’t done much of what I hoped to. I did do some cooking and improve my diet a lot. I also read a few books and travelled. I got no exercise to speak of and took no photos on film (though I took many digital ones). I also got a whole slew of things related to the blog done. It should be able to happily maintain its present state for some time.

Now seems a good time to buckle down and complete some more items from that list, carry out some long-delayed paper correspondence, and generally get on top of things before Hilary Term begins.

Having just finished another issue of The Economist (I have read hundreds and will read hundreds more), I note with dismay that my vision seems to be worsening. While I can do well enough with books, magazines, and computer screens, signs across the road require squinting and, sometimes, greater proximity in order to parse. Better to be increasingly nearsighted than farsighted, I suppose, for someone for whom life is likely to involve a really massive amount of reading. All the same, it’s with some regret that I consider bringing the glasses which I first acquired before my first batch of university exams due to these kinds of difficulties back into the regular rotation.

  • I need to dispatch the last documents for the Chevening application, immediately.
  • The same goes for my absentee ballot request.
  • Does anyone from the IR M.Phil program have the sheet that was apparently distributed about the contents of the quantitative methods exam? If so, I would very much appreciate if I could borrow it in order to make a copy.
  • Talking with Neal, Drew, and Astrid over MSN this morning was very enjoyable. I am grateful again and again for the extent to which modern communication technology lets me keep in touch with friends across the world.
  • Trying to update my personal financial projections for the new year, I saw the more difficult side of all of that. Six accounts in two currencies at three different banks and linked to two credit cards from differnt banks in different currencies do not make for easy bookkeeping.

First post of ’06

First photo from Claire's partyWell, what a party. Cricket, port, and Moroccan food. My thanks to Claire for bringing it all together. More comprehensive reporting later.

I was under-dressed for the occasion, taking ‘black tie’ to mean ‘the most formal clothes that you own.’ I hope I wasn’t judged too harshly for showing up in a business suit. The atmosphere seemed fairly laid-back, despite the constant pitter-patter of flash capacitors. Quite possibly, the now-ubiquitous digital camera is the attainment of Bentham’s concept of the panopticon.

This party was definitely smaller than the first party I attended amidst the university offices. There was a lot of good conversation, particularly about strategic studies stuff with a young man who I hope I will meet again. He looks particularly quizzical in this photo.

In any case, I hope everyone enjoyed themselves as much as I did. It was amusing to arrive back at Wadham, three hours into the first day of the new year, and chat with the night porter for a few minutes. My best wishes to all those in Wadham, to my family, and to friends around the world. May this next orbit be a better one than the one which preceded it.

Nightpiece, by James Joyce

Gaunt in gloom,
The pale stars their torches,
Enshrouded, wave.
Ghostfires from heaven’s far verges faint illume,
Arches on soaring arches,
Night’s sindark nave.

Seraphim,
The lost hosts awaken
To service till
In moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim,
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thurible.

And long and loud,
To night’s nave upsoaring,
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls.

The poem above, from which the name of my old blog was taken, was first given to me by Sarah Johnson (now Webster) when she was visiting the University of British Columbia in 2001.

I have always appreciated it more for the sound than for the meaning; a trend that is shared between the music and the poetry I enjoy. I almost never engage with trying to find a meaning. I prefer to just let them suggest themselves to me, though the sound and structure of their language.

Final post for 2005

Culinary attempt

I made an attempt at an omelette today, using a new non-stick frypan I bought at Boswells at half price. While it never quite entered the world as an omelette – the word ‘scramble’ comes to mind – it was nonetheless quite tasty. It had peppers, sharp cheddar, garlic, ginger, tofu, and potato. That is to say, every kind of vegetable matter I had at the time of production. Tofu is enormously better when cooked in a frying pan – it loses the squishy mud texture. As a culinary experiment, I rate this a low pass. It didn’t quite end up an omelette, but was still enjoyable to eat. I really need to get a cutting board: it’s absurd to be using my Swisstool and pieces of paper towel to chop up all my cheese and veggies.

The book which I’ve previously mentioned being in the process of reading and enjoying is Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad: the Myth of Penelope and Odysseus: a retelling of The Odyssey from Penelope’s perspective. The best thing about it is definitely the skilled narrative style: delivered from Hades with an impressive emotive range. If I were to teach The Odyssey, I would assign this as a companion work. It’s also good to see some of the dodgy aspects of a piece of literature addressed in a way that is creative, as well as cutting. I will post a full review here once I finish it.

Now, I need to don my suit and head out in search of both dessert – I am thinking pie and ice cream – and beer for tonight’s New Year’s party. Judging by the high quality of Claire’s last party, which I remember partly for the lengthy argument I got into about superstring theory, it should be a good one. There look to be rather fewer people this time round, which will doubtless alter the character of the gathering considerably. In any case, I am glad to be going. I shall write something about it tomorrow.

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope people have fun tonight. There’s really no point in me specifically listing resolutions. It has all be said here before.

Oxford: starting to resume a term-time pitch

Toxic environment

Today went well. I got a good amount of reading done during the morning, afternoon, and early evening. Then, I had dinner with Kelly and her two sisters visiting from Alabama. Having some good, pan-fried potatoes was extremely welcome, and a reminder of so many excellent Greek restaurants left behind.

A while after dinner, our hextet (which gained two other Wadhamite members) made its way to the King’s Arms for a couple of pints and a few hours of conversation. I always find it interesting to introduce people to the Oxford environment, though I am still a neophyte myself. It’s the difference between being some shade of green and being absolutely, glowingly, fluorescently green. One inescapable downside: after a few hours in an English pub, my whole universe smells of tobacco smoke. Oh, the toxins.

For tomorrow night, I am invited to a party that Claire is throwing. I am taking ‘black tie’ to mean ‘the only business suit you own.’ Also, I am meant to bring some kind of dessert, as my contribution to the dinner. While suggestions are always welcome, I think I will end up scouring the myriad shops of Oxford in search of something both delicious and quite mutually acceptable.

  • There’s been another great big hubbub about torture, all through the blogging universe. If you are familiar with this region of social space, you will already know what I mean. I would re-post the ambassadorial documents in question, but I think they are already widely dispersed enough as to not be in danger of suppression. If not, here is a page full of links to them. This really is something that people should care about. Torture, in any circumstance and for any reason, is basically the classic definition of a crime against humanity. This is not something we can tolerate, as citizens.
  • Anyone considering firing a gun into the air to celebrate the new year, please don’t. It really kills people. Also, it reaffirms stereotypes.
  • There has been at least one really superb SG photoset in the past 24 hours. Thanks a lot, Tristan and Christina.