Exeter Students' Guild General Meeting

Today, I went to a General Meeting of the Exeter Students' Guild, which featured a great debate about the meaning of equality. Of the numerous motions/resolutions which were discussed, here are the highlights:

• Statement of Opposition to Tuition, Fees, and Student Debt: passed overwhelmingly, in spite of some opposition from a few Guild officers who felt it compromised the current fight against tuition and fee increases.
• Removal of Bibles from University Accomodation: failed 96-112 (with four abstentions), on the grounds that the Gideons can continue to place whatever book they like, whereever they like.
• Amendment to the Equal Opportunity Policy: failed overwhelmingly (about 50-650); presented to allow religious groups to restrict membership (especially of their leadership) on the basis of belief.
• Creation of a "No Platform" List: failed (about 320-400); sought to establish a list of groups whose members were not welcome to speak on campus because of their views. The follow-on resolution would have added the British National Party to the list; however, due to the failure of this resolution, it was moot.
• Opposition to Bottled Water, Except for FairTrade Water: passed overwhelmingly, with the proviso that the Guild Shop be allowed to sell water that gives its profits to digging wells in Africa.

Overall, the meeting lasted three hours, and only accomplished about half of its agenda. It was interesting to see a British meeting at work; however, there were probably better uses for the three hours.

It's Hailing

Right now, I am sitting on my bed watch BB-sized pieces of ice bounce off my balcony. (Will, on the other hand, is getting an up-close-and-personal look at it as he walks home from class!) This is the second time it has hailed since I've been here, which is strange for me since I've only experienced hail three or four times in my entire life before moving here. So far, it's made a habit of catching me completely off-guard be occurring on days when the temperature outside is well above freezing. I tend to associate "ice" with "freezing temperatures outside," but apparently, one is not a prerequisite for the other!

Photo Shoot

Today, I took part in a photo shoot for a photographer out in Marsh Barton. He takes "stock" photos for use by universities and businesses in their recruiting propoganda. In essence, said universities/businesses buy pictures from him, insert them in their recruitment materials, and *poof,* they have happy, smiling students/employees. This is particularly useful for anyone lacking happy (or for that matter, any) students/employees.

I was one of the models for a "student" session. It took about an hour and a half, and paid £8 per hour, which was pretty good, I thought, for basically just sitting there. Granted, it cost about £2.5o to get out to Marsh Barton, but that's still a pretty good profit margin. It's not like I was going to be doing anything else that paid anything during those ninety minutes (for anyone who was trying to compute economic costs).

In other employment news, Amanda will be starting next week as a Bear Builder at Build-A-Bear Workshop in Exeter (located on the High Street for your shopping convenience), and I will (pending background check) be starting at EDF Energy as a customer service rep later this week. It will be nice to have some cash flowing in rather than out, for a change!

Lunchtime Mint

On every Sunday in October, Mint Methodist has had a lunch for its college students. Every Sunday except today, that is. Today, there was a lunch at the home of a couple of Mint's members. We, along with about seventy others, were invited to attend. About fifty of those invited showed up, judging from the number of plates used at lunch. Reportedly, thirty-eight were set out, and had to be supplemented with more.

The menu consisted of rice (lots of Koreans were there), a vegetarian curry of some sort, ham, cheese, biscuts [crackers in American English], nuts, crisps [chips in American English], fruit salad, and a wide selection of desserts, including cake, chocolate pie, brownies, a raspberry cobbler-type dish (Amanda says it was really good), and lots more that I can't remember. Amazingly, despite the number of people there, the food did hold out, and there were some (small) leftovers. Perhaps if all seventy of the invited guests had come, all the food would have been consumed!

The gathering was quite international, with those in attendance including people from the UK, the US, South Africa, Lesotho, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea! Conveniently, the lunch doubled as a baptism party for a little boy from South Africa who was baptized this morning. Most of his family lives too far away to attend the baptism, so the church made an extra-special effort to make this a special day for him and his parents.

In other news, we've been invited to another lunch next week, this one at the pastor's house. At least I guess that's what you call him . . . when one of the Koreans asked him what to call him, he said that just about everyone calls him "Andrew," he is addressed on letters as "Reverend," his position is "minister" (not priest, which was the question that started all this), and that in formal situations, he is referred to (though rarely addressed as) "Mr. Sails." Somehow, I suspect that "Brother Andrew" or "Pastor Andrew" or even "Reverend Andrew" would probably elicit recognition.

Build-A-Bear Workshop

This afternoon, I was hired for a Christmas temp position at my favorite store in the whole world, Build-a-Bear workshop. I start on November 4, and I am really pleased to have a job and excited about working at such a fun, upbeat place. The only downside is that it will be difficult not to spend a large portion of my earning on buying things there! I've been a customer of the Build-A-Bear Workshops in Alabama since they opened, and I have acquired a nice collection of bears and bunnies from them over the years.

Church in England

In England, church is an intellectual exercise. Thinking is actually encouraged in sermons, with frequent admissions that the preacher does not know all the answers, and thus encourages everyone to ponder the issue at hand. Logic lessons (most recently, on false dichotomies) are also frequent features. This stands in very nice contrast to frequent sermons in the US (especially in Baptist churches) which are frequently just lectures on the way things "are," not why (and certainly not admissions that the preacher doesn't know the answer on a given subject).

I find I prefer it this way. Perhaps it's my being intellectual; perhaps it's my sincere desire to believe that Richard Dawkins is flat wrong (he says "Thinking is anethema to religion"), but it's nice to be able to think about religious issues without being smacked down by those you try to discuss with. And it's not confined to churches, either; the Exeter (University) Evangelical Christian Union frequently discusses philosophical issues in an intellectual way, which is also quite nice. I can't say that this is a European thing, because I went to a very American church in Germany (because my German wasn't good enough to go to a German one), but it's something that I approve of!

Mailbag

We've been getting quite an assortment of interesting mail lately. Here is a sampling of some of our favorites:

Voter Registration Letter
We got a letter which explains that the occupants of the house need to verify their voting details. The previous two tenants were both eligible to vote; however, being non-EU and non-Commonwealth citizens, we are not. Thus, we had to complete the part of the form that says that we can't vote, and send it back in to the Council. As an aside, we were legally required to complete this form.

Council Tax Form
We had a nice form waiting for us when we moved in requesting our information for Council Tax purposes. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of a council tax, think about the most regressive form of occupancy tax possible, and you'll be about there. We are still trying to establish our exemptions from Council Tax as students, which requires far more paperwork than it should, not least because the University says that I should be on the list of exempt students that the Council has. We were legally required to complete this one, too.

TV Licencing Form
To be able to watch, record, or otherwise utilize television, you have to buy a TV licence. We got a lovely letter from the responsible government agency, informing us that they knew that there had been a change of occupancy at this address, and that they also knew that we had not purchased a TV licence. They then offered us several methods by which to do so, or face fines if we failed to purchase a licence. We were legally required to provide the requested information, which we did with a phone call saying that we did not own, nor did we intend to own, a television or recording equiptment for use at this address. They assure us that an inspector will be coming by to verify this as soon as is convenient for an inspector.

Other People's Mail
We frequently get mail addressed to the last three tenants, and to the landlord. We also get things addressed to a mysterious person who goes by the lone name of "Occupier." If anyone wants to come by to collect their mail, we have a nice pile accumulating. The offerings range from sales catalogs to university grade reports to political propoganda to coupons to run-of-the-mill advertising. Some of them, for reasons not fully understood, do not have an address, but were just deposited in our mail slot. Frequently, mail without an apartment number is simply left on the table in the lobby, but apparently sometimes the mail guys feel like handing it out at random.

All that said, Deutsche Post was quite more efficient! Royal Mail means to leave you a slip when you have a package waiting at the post office, but Deutsche Post always did leave one. We had to go hunting for our package on our own this time. We're glad we found it when we did, because it had our absentee ballots in them. Thus, we've now voted, and can ignore the rest of the campaign season! It's a great feeling!

Rotary in Preston

Tonight, Amanda and I went down to Paington, to visit the Preston-Torbay Rotary Club. We rode down with Peter Lowless, a local Rotarian at the Exeter Southernhay club. Also riding down with us were Julia (whose last name I dare not try to spell) and Sangmi Li (no promises that I transliterated that correctly) and her husband, Choi. Anne-Katrin Luther, the fourth Rotary scholar in the district, met us there. Anne has her own car, and was able to drive the roughly 25 minutes from Dartington herself. At the meeting, we had a lovely dinner (regular price £13.50 per plate) and heard the District Governor speak. Also, we saw the induction of three new members, including the club's first female member. After dinner, the Sergeant-at-Arms issued numerous "fines" to club members and visitors for "infractions" of various types. In similar fashion, the Exeter Southernhay club has a "Good News Box" which members put money into to celebrate good news. Speaking of which, my host counsellor's husband recently got a promotion. Admiral Stanhope will be taking over as First Sea Lord next year, which means he will be the overall commander of the Royal Navy. The position of First Sea Lord can be traced back to 1795 (then known as Admiral of the Fleet, which later became a rank), and was called "First Naval Lord" for a number of years before being renamed First Sea Lord in 1904. Interestingly, the holder of the office need not be a lord, despite the title. I suppose that's enough of a history lesson for one night . . . also, it's very late, and I have a busy day tomorrow!

FIRE's Spotlight

One thing about the United States which I greatly value is free speech. That might seems trivial, but in Europe, speech is typically far more restricted than it is in the U.S. For example, in Germany, it is illegal to sing the first verse of the German national anthem or to deny that the Holocaust occurred. In France, it is illegal to make statements which "incite racial hatred." While these rules may seem reasonable at face value, they and others like them are often used to stifle independent thinking and can cause more harm than good.

I am proud that America puts very few restrictions on speech, even though I disagree with many things that people use this right to proclaim. Thus, it concerns my greatly that my university persists in enacting unconstitutional speech codes. For several years now, as a member of the Campus Freedom Network of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, I have closely watched the administration's efforts to make our campus more "accepting" by restricting unpopular speech, including its creation of tiny "free speech zones." In addition to being unnecessarily Draconian, these measures undermine the very purpose of a university- to promote learning through the free exchange of ideas.

If this issue concerns you as much as it concerns me, then I urge you to consider joining the Campus Freedom Network at '>http://www.blogger.com/. The CFN provides students with information on currently threats to campus freedom, suggestions for combating it, and assistance it fighting it when necessary.

Date Night

Earlier this week, Will and I decided that this afternoon/ evening we should go on a date together. Originally, we had planned to go on the "Forgotten Exeter" tour and then to a restaurant, but we decided to forgo the tour in favor of taking the longer "Forgotten Exeter and Tucker's Hall" tour next week.

Instead, we spent the afternoon shopping. Although I made it to England with plenty of skirts and trousers, I needed a few more shirts. We also needed a few household items, which we intended to buy from Woolworths. Unfortunately, though, Woolworths had a fire yesterday and has yet to re-open, so we will just have to wait. I am not clear on exactly how major of a fire it was, but it apparently caused the emergency sprinkler system to activate and thus required a massive cleanup effort.

Over the course of the afternoon, we wandered in and out of several shops around town before eventually ending up and the Oxfam store, one of several charity shops in Exeter. (The British Heart Association and Cancer Research UK are among the other organizations which operate charity shops in town.) Like the others, the Oxfam store is part thrift store, but it also sells Christmas cards, lapel pins, and a number of fair trade items to raise money to fight poverty. We bought several things we'd been needing- a sugar canister, a shirt for me, and a tray in which to put to coins that we want to keep. We might have bought a few more items of clothing, but the store was trying to close and needed us to hurry and check-out. They were quite nice about it, simply stating, "It's time for us to close, but we're happy to take you're money."

After finishing at Oxfam, we proceeded to the Cathedral Yard where a nice store, the Edinburgh Woolen Mill, was having a sale. I managed to buy two very cute shirts for a total of 8 pounds. Then, we headed over to the Ship Inn for dinner.

We chose the Ship Inn because it is our Lonely Planet Guidebook's most highly recommended pub in Exeter. It has a very nice atmosphere and claims to have been the favorite pub of Sir Francis Drake- though of course that is impossible to prove our disprove at this point. Nevertheless, the food there is quite tasty. Will and I both had three bean chili which, oddly enough, was served with Spanish rice. Afterwards, we stopped by Tesco and bought tiny strawberry cheesecakes for dessert.

All in all, it was a very nice day.

Good Stuff

Good day today. I got some studying done, applied for a few jobs, and worked on grad school applications. Tonight, I went to Tae Kwon Do and the International Hour (actually two hours). It was "good stuff" (more on that in a bit).

I'm currently reading Blenheim Preparation, an account of the events in the post-1688 wars (King William's and Queen Anne's) leading up to Marlborough's victory at Blenheim. There are another ten books waiting in line behind it, so I've got to finish it soon if I'm going to be ready on time!

Tae Kwon Do was a lot of fun; I'd forgotten how much I missed it! Even better was the International Hour, a meeting of (male) foreign students in Exeter. Tonight, it was me, a Chinese guy, and a French guy. We discussed British manners (none of us had a clue!), and talked a little bit about the financial crisis (we all have some background in economics). We also discussed the differences in British and American English (and barely scratched the surface). Perhaps the funniest part was when the Chinese guy asked the English host why he said "good stuff" so much (hence the title), to which the host had no good reply. Eventually, the best that could be come up with as an explanation was that it was intended to demarcate different topics in conversation.

I also learned the proper way to buy drinks at a pub, including the dynamics of the "hidden queue" that operates at the bar. In short, you are supposed to approach the bar, make a mental note of who is standing there already, and catch the eye of the bartender when, and only when, it is your turn. You do not hold your money in the air, call to the bartender, or knock on the bar, all of which are considered to be extremely rude, and might well manage to start a fight (not a good thing!), much like showing up in the wrong colours on the night of a football (soccer) match. Additionally, one person out of a group orders drinks for everyone, and the group members rotate who places the order for the round. In theory, this means that everyone will actually pay for their own drinks, but it, of course, doesn't always work out evenly in practice.

We also found some lovely Laughing Cow cheese (if you're not familiar with it, go to your local Tesco, Sam's, or Wal-Mart and buy some; it's delightful!) to go with our "cream crackers" (essentially baked, unsalted crackers). We first discovered this brand of cheese at Sam's one day last year, and have been in love with it ever since. We had previously eaten it with pretzels; however, since the object of cream crackers is to put cheese on them, we decided that there couldn't be a better topping.

You'll notice that Amanda finally made a post; it's a great story. Enjoy!

Job Search and Global Gathering

The first few weeks here in Exeter have been quite interesting for me. Unlike Will, I am simply a "tag-along," with no reason for being here other than to accompany him. This feels rather awkward at times, but I'm glad that I was able to come.

While Will busies himself with academic and athletic pursuits, my main diversion has been looking for jobs. I'm hoping to find a temporary position as a statistician or data analyst, or perhaps a job working with children. The search has not gone as quickly as I would have liked, but I am optimistic that I will have a position within a couple of weeks.

Beyond searching for a job, I've begun getting to know a few people. I recently began participating in a group for wives of international students in Exeter called the Global Gathering (http://globalgatheringexeter.blogspot.com/). The group is run by several British ladies and held at the home of one of them. About ten women make it to the two-hour meeting each week, and many of them bring their toddlers along. Today was my second Global Gathering meeting, and I had a very good time. We learned how to make delicious strawberry and raspberry tarts, and we got to eat them after we finished cooking.

Here are a few pictures of the preparation process:

Unfortunately, the group will not be meeting again until November 6 because Biddy Walton, the lady who hosts the gathering, will be spending the next two weeks in Morocco improving her Arabic. I hope I can continue participating at least occasionally; however, it is on Thursday mornings, so it is highly likely that when I get a job, I will have to stop attending the gathering.

A Fat, Grouchy Archer

My archery instructor, Rob, referred to himself last week as "the fat, grouchy one." That said, he was very pleased with his group's progress tonight and is hoping to get us graduated off ahead of schedule. I also got some nice pictures of myself doing things wrong, as you'll see below. Prior to archery, my day didn't exactly go as I had planned.

I went to the Exeter Southernhay Rotary Club meeting this morning, as is becoming my usual for Tuesdays, and was called upon to give a brief introduction of myself. I was able to come up with something that apparently did the job, and several of the members talked to me afterward about their historical interests. I enjoyed that and got invited to visit the Topsham Museum with one of them.

After that, I had a lovely time in class (especially in the pre- and post-class discussions with my classmates), and then returned home to eat lunch and change clothes, as I was still in my dress clothes from the Rotary meeting this morning. I found, to my horror, that two of my three pairs of trousers had gotten holes worn into them, which forced me to go on a shopping spree. After much trying (and discovering that I'm quite fatter in European sizes than in American ones, because European sizes use bigger numbers), I was a bit grouchy, but I had managed to find four pairs of trousers that fit. Total cost for them: a little under £35! I found them at Marks & Spencer, of all places, which is a higher-end department store (they were on clearance). After that adventure, I went home for dinner, and then on to archery, thus making me a fat, grouchy archer, just like Rob. He'd be so proud!

By the way, I'm not just trying to sound British my using the word "trousers." There is an important distinction between "trousers" and "pants" in British English. In essence, trousers are an outer garment, and pants are an undergarment. I'm sure you can sort the details out.

Happy Birthday, Paddington!

The Paddington Bear books are a highly popular children's series about the adventures of a bear from Peru who is adopted by a family that finds him at London's Paddington railway station. Today is the 50th anniversary of the release of the first book. Both Google and Wikipedia may note of the anniversary on their front pages, and numerous shops have special edition Paddington products for sale. I think I am going to buy a little stuffed Paddington bear as a souvenir, either for me or for one of my cousins.

In the Library . . .

After church this morning, I headed off to the library. I've been here for about four hours now, and I'm planning to put in about another hour, with another several hours (potentially up to eight) tomorrow. There is a whole lot of reading involved in my MA program, which means that I'll be spending a lot of time in the library. I know my fellow (post)grads feel my pain, but just to give everyone else an idea, here's an excerpt from my diary for Tuesday:

9-11: Library
11-13: Class
13-14: Lunch
14-20: Library
20-22: Archery

Incidentally, a "diary" is an appointment book in British English, not to be confused with something that teenage girls write in about boys they like (which it would be in American English).

Hopefully, I'll improve at both history and archery!

The Merchant's Tale

For anyone looking for a discussion of Chaucer, you can stop reading now. "The Merchant's Tale" is actually the title of one of the Exeter tours, about, appropriately, wool merchants. Amanda and I went on it this afternoon. Amanda loved it; I thought it was okay, but not great.

The tour began, as so many do, at the Cathedral Square. From there we wandered slowly across town to the quay, which is where our tour ended. After the tour ended, we spent about two hours exploring around the quay, and eating a late lunch at the Riverside Cafe, a lovely place by the River Exe. We also got some great pictures of some swans, ducks, and other birds, who live along the quay.

Before we went on our tour, we went to Curry's Digital to purchase a replacement for my dearly departed Cloudbook. I now have an Advent Netbook, which is similar to the Cloudbook, but is slightly larger (but the same weight) and has better specs. This is my first blog entry to be typed on my new netbook, so if there are any typos, I blame it!

The pastor from South Street Baptist Church came by this evening; we talked with him for about an hour. We got a lot of good information from him, and discovered that British Baptist churches tend to be a lot more liberal than their Southern Baptist counterparts. Ordination of women? The British have been doing it for over 70 years. Women as decons? No problem. We approved.

Overall, it was a fairly quiet day. In good news, I've finally found a discount brand of cola that I can live with. Tesco's store brand (44p) is actually quite good, plus it definitely beats paying £1.49 for Coke or Pepsi. I haven't tried the sugar free store brand (18p), but I expect that it will be more bitter than I'd like because of the artificial sweetener. Also, Tesco's store brand of apple juice is better than that at Sainsbury. Overall, Tesco seems to have very good store brands; I've liked everything of theirs that I've tried, although I wasn't a great fan of their orange juice.

Archers, Ho!

Today was a day full of firsts. It was also a very full day in general.

My first event began at 7:20 this morning, when I attended my first meeting of the Exeter Southernhay Rotary Club. We had a nice breakfast, with a talk from the head of the Exeter Planning Commission. I now see where Northport (AL) got their philosophy on urban development.

As the saying goes, getting there was half the fun: It poured down rain on me the whole way to the meeting, and again from the meeting to the university. I was thoroughly soaked when I got to the meeting, and even more waterlogged when I reached the university. Ultimately, I reached the conclusion that my shirt was drenched to the point that I had to change. Luckily, I had another shirt in my backpack, wrapped in plastic. No, this wasn't excellent forethought on my part (that would have been using a raincoat and pack cover), it was just the rugby shirt that I bought yesterday.

At 11, my first postgraduate class began. Although not my favorite period, British Naval Power in the Era of Sail looks to be very promising. The reading list is a bit daunting, but should be manageable once I am able to lay hands on all the books.

Much of the afternoon was spend studying and running errands. However, my favorite part of the day did not come until 8 pm, when I went to my first meeting of the University of Exeter Archery Club. I hadn't used a bow in about ten years, so I was badly out of practice, but that didn't matter, as most of my fellow archers were complete beginners. I was assigned to "Fat Grouchy Rob" for training. Rob, to my mind, is neither fat nor grouchy, but I suppose he is both by British standards. Also in my group were Mark, John, Dave, and Holly, making us a group of widely varied experience. We had one aspiring stuntman (currently a drama undergrad), an aspiring competitive archer (who has his own bow and shoots for hours on end when he needs to think about something), and several of us who couldn't seem to get our grips right (although I think I've finally got it). The Archery Club is a very international group, with students from Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, the US, China, and Japan, just to name a few.

I'm very glad to be getting settled into an academic, and for the first time in years athletic, routine. I am signed up for a Rifle Club taster session tomorrow night, which I think will be fun. I'd like to do Rifle Club as well as Archery, but the two conflict, and there is no way that I'm giving up Archery, not least because I've already paid the membership fee! I also can't wait to get the Archery Club attire. What's not to love about a polo with the University crest, "University of Exeter," and "Archery Club 2008-2009" stictched on it?

The Squash

Today marked the Main Event of Welcome Week: The Freshers Squash. It's a concept that I'm familiar with from my days at UA, but it was called "Get on Board Day" there, and was held outdoors. The Squash is, if anything, a bigger, more disorganized, indoor version of Get on Board Day.

For those not familiar with the concept, pretty much every organization on campus sets up a table in a designated area, and the new students walk around and each group tries to woo them into joining. Several organizations caught my eye as being unusual, such as the Socialist Student Society and the Wild Society (an animal rights group). Also present were several banks, the Officer Traning Corps from the British Army, and Dominos and Pizza Hut, which were giving away free pizza (which was much appreciated). I ended up joining the Evangelical Christian Union (ECU), History Society, Archery Club, and Tae Kwon Do Club. Apparently, anything athletics-related is called "club," and everything else is a "society." I'll be getting the obligatory t-shirts, hoodies, and polo/rugby shirts for each group, but that will come later in the year.

I also stopped by the Student Guild's shop, where I purchased a rugby shirt. Unfortunately, the one I bought is too small, so I'm going to have to return it tomorrow and get the next bigger size. It's kind of depressing that even though I've lost weight since I got here, I've moved from being a Large to an Extra Large. Oh well, I guess it could be worse; the sizes could be in metric.

Exeter Old & New

Today, we took our first Red Coat Guided Tour. By Red Coat, we are not discussing the 18th century British Army, but rather the Exeter tour guides, who wear red jackets to make them easy to spot when you're walking in a crowded area. The Exeter Old & New Tour follows the history of Exeter from Roman times to today, a bit over 2,000 years of history.

The Romans first came to Exeter shortly before the birth of Christ. They established a fort, which was encircled by a city wall by the second century AD. Much of this wall (over 70%) still stands today. Around 1070, the Norman Conquest came to Exeter (home of the late King Harold Godwinson's mother), and a number of castles were built in the area to guard against invasion and rebellion. The ruins of some of these remain.

The cathedral was built around 1150. More precisely, the second cathedral was built on the site of the old Saxon cathedral, which had been built around 1050. The third Bishop of Exeter was not satisfied with this, and in 1250 he had the cathedral reduced to its foundations and rebuilt in the then-modern Gothic style, which allowed much larger windows, and larger roof spans. The two Norman towers remained untouched, giving the cathedral a distinctive appearance. (What is it about towns we've lived in having odd cathedrals? Worms has a Romanesque-Gothic cathedral, and Exeter has a Norman-Gothic cathedral. What's next?)

From the cathedral square, we walked through a good bit of town, including the Northernhay Gardens (a lovely area with lots of flowers that runs along part of the city wall) and the Princesshay Shopping Center. Princesshay was originally opened in the 1950s, but was recently completely redeveloped, a common theme in modern Exeter. "Hay," incidentally, is an old Saxon word that loosely translates as "field," and is used frequently in this area as a suffix on places' names.

For more details about this tour, and lots of pictures, visit our Picasa album of the tour.

Day One

Today was my school's (Humanities and Social Sciences) "Postgraduate School Day," the occasion in which all the new postgraduate students are welcomed to their departments and the school. All of the new postgrads in the history department (around 40 of us) were welcomed by the department's postgraduate adviser this morning. Intrestingly, there are no new MPhil or PhD students in the group; all of us are either MA or MRes students, which I thought was interesting. Our programs range from "Straight History" (the instutitional nickname given to the MA in History to distinguish it from the specialized ones) to Medical History to Maritime History to History of War & Society to Naval History (my personal favorite).

After our welcome to our department, we were welcome by the dean of the school. Fast forwarding past his speech, which wasn't particulary memorable, I met one of Amanda's fellow Fulbright TAs from Germany. She's now in Islamic studies (I believe her research interest has something to do with German Turks). It's quite a small world!

After that, we had a departmental buffet, with more of the interesting sandwiches that I first encountered back at Link Weekend. During the course of this lunch, I found out who my personal tutor is. I'm acquainted with his work from Dr. Selesky's Military History class that I toook senior year, in which we read Why the Allies Won. His name is Richard Overy, and his research interests are air power, World War II, and Germany. Needless to say, while we don't completely overlap there, we do have a good bit in common to discuss.

Having this behind me, I feel much more ready to begin my classes on Tuesday. Hopefully, I'll still feel this ready on Tuesday night!