Category: Travel

My actual travels, those I aspire to, and those of others

Devon photos I

For those who were confused, the photos appearing while I was in Devon were not, in fact, taken while I was there. I had set them up to appear at regular intervals in my absence, so as to have some kind of new content appearing on the site. These are the first images from Devon that I have posted on this page:

Barn in Devon

This is the main area of the converted barn in which we were staying. I was the only group member to sleep in the smaller, quieter, and much colder ‘annex.’ We visited the main house once, for dinner.

Branscombe, Devon

This OS map shows the countryside surrounding the Edge Barton estate, where we were staying. On our first full day in Devon, we walked down the valley to the coastline.

Muddy walk

The path down to Branscombe was a muddy one.

South coast of England

Here is the south coast of England. If this picture had been taken in the opposite direction, a large grounded ship could be seen.

Pheasant

Pheasants are pretty fearless animals. The camera was about a foot away when I took this.

Back in the loop

Sweet, precious connectivity. She has returned to me. In short, the week in Devon was about as productive as could reasonably have been expected. A solid amount of reading and writing was completed. Now, the thesis project is down to filling in some blanks, followed by retooling and editing.

The next few weeks will be busy.

PS. It looks like Mica won another contest while I was gone. You can watch the winning video online, though many long-time readers will have seen it before.

[Update: 8:00pm] The spam robots have certainly been busy. I have just finished removing their comments from the blog. The wiki will need to wait, since my internet connection at home is taking thirty minutes to load a basic page and I don’t want to spend all night in the Wadham Library.

[Update: 8:45pm] A few photos from Devon are now available on Facebook. As you can see, we were living in comfortable and attractive surroundings. Nicer versions of these images will show up on this site during the next few days, and perhaps on Photo.net as well.

Off in Devon (7/8)

Happy Easter

When doing academic reading, you sometimes run into the equivalent of a slow moving recreational vehicle on a winding, mountainous, two-lane road. The thing has such bulk and you cannot hope to push it forward, and yet it would be perilous to circumvent entirely. As such, you get stuck behind it. I carried around Keohane’s Neorealism and its Critics for more than six months, in three countries, before finally deciding that my studies could proceed without actually reading the conclusion in anything but the most cursory of ways. A few bits of thesis reading have been similar, though I am not going to name names.

Off in Devon (6/8)

Magdalen sundial

By now, I have doubtless crafted a groundbreaking and compelling document, in which every footnote jumps off the page with ecstatic energy. As such, I am probably strolling along the coastline now, looking southwards in the evening light.

Alternatively, six days of reading may have left me so utterly lacking in the ability to focus my eyes and perceive depth that I need to walk with arms outstretched in front of me, so as to avoid walking into walls.

Off in Devon (5/8)

Cool Cowley graffiti

Five days without web access has been the longest stretch I have experienced in about two years. It is amazing how utterly useless a computer now seems when it isn’t connected to the internet. First came the abandonment of gaming, in favour of blogging and chatting with friends by instant messenger. Then came the general abandonment of print media for online news sources (though I have hung onto my print subscription to The Economist). Finally, there was the selection of a research area where sources are virtually always available online. My transition to the web-embedded side was complete.

Hopefully, I have managed to keep my sanity. Quite possibly, doing so will involve painting an image resembling Slashdot onto a volleyball with a little painted Skype window in the corner. The other members of the retreat will probably be wondering who I am speaking to.

Off in Devon (4/8)

Thesis files

I wonder how different thesis writing was back in the days of typewriters. On one hand, many operations would be extremely frustrating. You would need to redo an entire page to correct a single error, for instance. On the other hand, people were probably less susceptible to being overwhelmed by the amount of information at hand. Furthermore, there is little danger of your typewriter getting toasted by a malicious script picked up on a dodgy website.

When only the high-carbon option works

After an agonizing two hours of trying1 to book Eurostar tickets, I gave up and got a flight to Paris from EasyJet. I am not sure if the bookings problems were Eurostar’s or NatWest’s fault. If my bank is to blame, they have sunk even deeper in my estimation. If it was the train company, they lost two customers because their web interface is unreliable. It failed at every possible stage: listing train times, entering payment information, and processing my credit card.

I am leaving on the afternoon of April 26th (three days after my thesis submission) and returning on April 30th (a few weeks before exams). It would be nice to go for longer, but the middle of an Oxford term is not the time for an extended foreign jaunt.

[1] Over and over and over again, without success.