Blog Archives: November, 2003
Silly weather
It’s always nice to put your laundry out to dry in the morning in the sun and have it come back in colder and wetter than it started it out. Grrr… it rains too much in this silly country.
View comments (3) or Post a comment
Christ Church Regatta
We didn’t capsize. That’s almost the best I can say about my team’s participation in the annual Christ Church regatta this past Thursday. Well, that’s not entirely true: we had fun too.
Arthur, launching off This picture shows a calm “Arthur” boat launching off from the landing strip in front of the Pembroke boat house. Not quite what you would have seen at the start of our race, mind you. Incidentally, I was seated in the “stroke” position (in the picture, the first rower from the right), responsible for setting the rhythm.
We probably set some records during our two “races”. We collided with Jesus, our opponents, 10 strokes out of the start on our first race, so the marshals restarted the race. A bit psyched out (it was only our second time rowing together as an eight), we didn’t keep up and lost. Our second race was just half an hour later, not even giving us time to get out of the boat. It started off much better; we had a great start, were in good rhythm, and were in the lead for the first 200 metres or so, and then one of our best rowers caught a crab, meaning his paddle got stuck in the water and he couldn’t row. This set us off course and we again came in far behind the other boat.
A disappointing performance in the race, especially knowing that we could do better. This leaves me quite inspired to row again next term, if just to demonstrate to myself that I actually can do it.
View comments (0) or Post a comment
Bush’s Depressing 21st Century
I generally avoid politics on this weblog, but I feel particularly inclined to write briefly about a quote from an article in this morning’s Globe and Mail. Like most international news in the past few days, the article is about Bush’s visit to the United Kingdom. The last day of Bush’s tour centred around a visit to Tony Blair’s constituency in northern England.
From the article:
Talking to reporters at a school, Mr. Bush heaped praise on Mr. Blair, saying that Britain is “fortunate to have a Prime Minister who’s clear-sighted about the threat of the 21st century.”
I’m disheartened to see that the so-called leader of the free world views the 21st century not as an opportunity for humanity to excel but as a threat, presumably to America and its ‘coalition of the willing’. I’m sure Mr Bush and I agree that we ought to try and make our future the best it can be, but I don’t believe that painting it as a threat to resist will inspire greatness.
The article goes on:
“Terrorists are trying to intimidate the world,” he continued, “and this man [Mr. Blair] will not be intimated [sic] and neither will I.”
One definition of intimidate reads: “To coerce or inhibit by or as if by threats.” If one feels threatened, as Mr Bush does, by the future, I fail to see how one is anything but intimidated.
View comments (5) or Post a comment
Chris Patten Dinner
Friday evening my housemate Caroline and I attended a special formal hall at Pembroke, in honour of a Pembroke Visitor and the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Chris Patten. He is also a Commissioner for External Relations at the European Union, a former senior cabinet minister from the Thatcher government, and, perhaps most famously, the last governor of Hong Kong before the handover to China on July 1, 1997.
Patten gave a brief speech after dinner in hall. This was, to my knowledge, only Patten’s second address to his students, the first being just a few hours earlier. He explored the role of Chancellor of the University and of Visitor at Pembroke. One of his predecessors had described the role of Chancellor thusly: “The Vice-Chancellor runs the University; without a Chancellor, there could be no Vice-Chancellor.” (Connections to Waterloo administration , anybody?) He also described the role of Visitor at Pembroke as follows: “The Visitor… visits [pause], dines, and leaves hopefully not too hammered.”
He did speak more seriously about some of his international experiences. In particular, he talked about touring a Sudanese refugee camp in Ethiopia and hope its inhabitants had during his visit. He used that as an example of how we should strive to put more into our communities than we take out of them. A common theme in speeches, perhaps, but brought to life with the example of his efforts to do so in his own career.
View comments (0) or Post a comment
Speed demon
Boo-yeah! At tonight’s erg session, I rowed 793m (the length of our race next week is 800m) in 3:00, giving me a 500m time of 1:54, which is faster than my peak time the entire summer in California. Mind you, it’s not quite enough to qualify me for the Canadian National team, but I’m getting there.
View comments (1) or Post a comment
High Table Hijinks
Though this evening may find me retiring early (due to another early morning rowing session tomorrow), yesterday was night of adventure and excitement, for I dined on high table in college.
Allow me to explain a little. Every college in Oxford has a hall for meals. Some (most) meals in hall are informal: serve yourself cafeteria-style meals, like North American university residences. Three nights a week at Pembroke are reserved for formal halls, where all members of college must wear academic gowns, grace is said in Latin, and a three-course meal is served. Formal halls are also guest nights on high table. High table is where the fellows and governors of the college (and their guests) sit. (In Harry Potter, this would be where Dumbledore and the professors sit during meals.) And once or twice a year, college advisors are supposed to invite their graduate students to high table, and last night was my night!
First, we met in the SCR (Senior Common Room) in Broadgates Hall, the oldest part of the college, for drinks (wine/orange juice) and mingling. At 7:10 sharp, we followed the presiding fellow to hall and stood at high table, at which point a crisp Latin grace was said. The meal started with soup (carrot soup), served with a white wine, followed by an appetizer (salmon). The main course was wild boar with vegetables, served with a Bordeaux wine. Pudding (the course after the main meal is called pudding, not dessert) was a crème brulé with exotic fruits. Over dinner I chatted with my college supervisor, an optimization researcher from Carnegie Mellon, and a retired visiting professor from Japan (who incidentally had kind things to say about the university system in Canada).
We then retired to a different part of the SCR for dessert in a quite intimate setting: an oak-panelled room with hanging portraits, lit only by a pair of candelabras. Dessert consisted of three rounds of wine (Port, Medera, and some white dessert wine), fruit, chocolate, walnuts, ginger balls (pungent!) and snuff. Ahem. After dessert, we returned to our starting point in the SCR for coffee and hot chocolate, after which we called it an evening.
And quite an evening it was. I’m convinced that high table, and in particular the dessert in the SCR afterwards, is just an excuse for the fellows to get… toasted… in a manner “befitting an Oxford gentleman”. Needless to say, arriving home 3 hours after starting the evening, having enjoyed 5 rounds of wine, I didn’t get much done on my applied probability assignment. But hey, it’s only statistics.
View comments (3) or Post a comment
Chocolate Chip Muffins
I made chocolate chip muffins tonight and, if I may say so myself, they turned out wonderfully. For those looking for an easy muffin recipe, it follows, courtesy of my housemate Jane.
Chocolate Chip Muffins
Ingredients:
- 9 oz plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp cocoa
- 5 oz granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 8 oz milk
- 3 oz oil or 3 oz melted margarine
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- chocolate chips
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 375-400°F (190-200°C)
- Sift together flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, and cocoa. Stir in sugar.
- In another bowl, beat egg with a fork. Stir in milk, oil, and vanilla.
- Pour all wet ingredients into dry. Mix. Stir in chocolate chips.
- Fill muffin cups ¾ full.
- Bake 20 minutes, or until tops spring back when touched.
Makes 12 muffins.
View comments (1) or Post a comment
Meal with Meredith
Before coming to England, I spent a day in Toronto and had lunch with Meredith Noble, a friend that I met while working at Sun Labs this past summer. She finally posted the picture we took at lunch, and I thought I’d share it here. I definitely look oranger than her.
View comments (1) or Post a comment
