It's getting dark at 4:30pm

Oh no. The cold is finally starting to set in, but worse than that, daylight is vanishing more quickly than I thought was possible of regions outside the Arctic Circle. I am typing this at 4:29pm and the sun has almost completely set and the sky is darkening. Unbelievable. Supposedly it'll be getting dark by 3:30pm in mid-December. I don't doubt it.

Time is also flying by, with all the formal halls, lectures, seminars, rowing practices and days full of reading. I seem to be developing a tea habit as well. I used to only need one cup a day, early in the morning, to jumpstart my system but now I need tea infusion throughout the day to ward off sleep. I have some Red Bull stowed away, but I'm saving them for a real emergency... like the two essays I have due this Friday.

Classes are all going well. We're well into the seminars, which are 90 minute sessions in 'small groups' where we discuss a specific topic in detail, with everyone in the room participating. For example, in the Middle East and North African Politics class our three seminars so far have covered the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, Egypt's role in the Arab world and the Gulf Cooperation Council. In History of Thought, we've been talking about Hobbes, Thucydides and the Spanish Scholastics; this week's seminar will focus on Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace and Idea of a Cosmopolitan Commonwealth. Fascinating stuff, but because we're all supposed to participate it means we have to do lots of additional reading beyond the normal prep for lectures.

The War and Society class is unique, though, because we're only assigned one book for each week's seminar, though we're expected to have read it cover to cover and analyzed it thoroughly. Last week's was "Ambivalent Conquest: Maya and Spaniard 1517-1570." The book examined the Spanish military and religious conquests in the Yucatan during the 16th century, attempting to provide a view from both the Spanish and Mayan sides. It was pretty easy to tell the Spanish were bad guys, but Inga Clindennen, the author, may have romanticized the Mayans a bit much... our professor commented that he thought, "Inga wouldn't have minded having her heart cut out." There's not much time to reminisce about the book, though, because we're expected to have already starting reading the book for next Monday: "Elementary Aspects of the Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India." I kid you not. Should be a good read!

Let's see, what else can I cram in the next 7 minutes before I start reading up on Woodrow Wilson for tomorrow's US Foreign Policy seminar...

• Rowing - Going well, this week is the first week that the first men's boat starts practicing on our own. We have a 7:30am Wednesday erg session in the gym, Friday morning practice on the water and Sunday afternoon practice on the water. It's been great exercise and I've really enjoyed it so far. That said, rowing on the water is far more difficult than practicing on the erg machines. On the water there are all sorts of tricky issues involved in balancing the boat, making sure your arms are at the correct height, keeping in time with the rest of the guys... it can make for some pretty frustrating moments when you're just a bit off and your oar goes into the water at the wrong angle, making a huge splash and totally throwing off your rhythm. Not that that happens to me... Also, rowing makes me hungry ALL THE TIME. If I try to snack, my stomach just gets angry. Like tonight's after-school snack: I've had nearly a third of a delicious Camembert-like cheese (of course, it's French; English cheeses so far have been terrible), lots of Ritz crackers (thanks Mom!), two yogurts, two cups of tea and a banana. And I'm still starving. Argh.
  
  
• Travel - Looking at traveling to Edinburgh at the end of term, followed up with a trip to Barcelona, Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen? Overly ambitious right now, so I think I might have to just pick two of the four and save the others for next term.
  
  
• Electronics - I've had terrible luck so far. First a friend dropped my phone into the River Cam while we were punting. Then my laptop hard drive died and I had to have a new one shipped from America. And now my camera is dead after suffering a fatal drop Saturday night! Terrible! After 2.5 glorious years, countless expeditions throughout France and Europe, it's bitten the dust. Rest in peace DSC W-7. You will be missed. Though your replacement has already been ordered... I've been forced to do away with my Lexmark inkjet printer, too, because it guzzles ink faster than Sean Sean drinks Pepsi. Ink cartridges are like $25 and last, at most, 230 pages or so. A cheap HP laser printer arrived today, so I'm eagerly looking forward to vastly more efficient printing.
  
  
• Cycling - A bike is a critical element of life in Cambridge. It makes practically every point in the entire city no more than 10 minutes away from any other point, except for perhaps the train station which is probably more like 16 minutes away.("Equidistant" is a fancy way of saying the same thing.) Lights are essential at night. As I mentioned, it gets dark really early, so you need to be able to see other cyclists barreling down at you. Also, the police will fine you if you don't have lights (assuming they can catch you, muahaha). I have a helmet, but I don't wear it as often as I should (though I do always remember to don it after a night out). I've become quite a fearless cyclist; normal cars don't faze me, though my heart still sinks when I glimpse a double-decker on my heels. But taxis are the worst. I think the cabbies all play some sort of twisted game where they attempt to get as close to a cyclist as possible without touching them.

And lastly, a few pictures!



Two weeks ago we had an exchange formal at Corpus Christi, the college across Trumpington Street from St Catharine's. It had quite a pretty dining hall, much more 'old-fashioned' than ours.



Sat next to Joanna; oddly enough we weren't intermixed with the regular Corpus Christi kids, which I thought would've been more interesting. Odd.



That Friday the Catz girls' drinking society invited me to the 'Bombay Brasserie,' an Indian restaurant more commonly known as the 'Mahal.' I was entirely unprepared for the Mahal experience and I must regretfully admit that the Mahal won. I conceded around 10pm and was home by 11pm. I never knew what hit me, but I suspect that much of my defeat owes to the terrifying practice of "pennying."



A glimpse of the Mahal chaos... it may appear relatively calm, but I assure you, bedlam reigns. What you don't see: food being tossed around, people standing on chairs declaring "General Fines" (for instance, 'General Fine for all persons with facial hair' or 'General Fine for all Americans') and overall ridiculous behavior.




A much calmer evening a few nights later with some people from my course -- here's Norwegian Bendik and American Kate.

And here, just so you can all laugh at my ridiculous facial expressions, a few pictures from our Halloween party on Saturday. (The theme -- "your worst fear." I dressed up as a creepy old man.)







That's it for now!