Week 2

What? Wasn't this week 4? Of course not! The weeks up to now were: week -2, week -1, week 0, week 1 and week 2. This is very ingrained here, and the week numbering in each term is always used over anything else (nothing like "week 40" anywhere).

So, what did I do this week: Reading up on the basics at the comlab, especially solid mechanics and such. Some lectures, a problem solving squad course in which you have to solve a problem as a team every two weeks, and a full-day course in the use of some supercomputing facilities. Got my first stipend payment for the entire term.

Had another two Bujinkan lessons. One evening spent playing chess. Big party on Friday. Hanging out in the bar regularly. Pub lunch with everyone from the office, etc etc.
Overall: so much to do, so many distractions. :)

Day 24: Matriculation

Saturday was matriculation day, in which we have to wear sub-fusc and officially become a member of the university.

Was required to be in the common room for registration around 9:15, followed by a giant chaos trying to get the group picture taken.
Walked to the Sheldonian, entered, saw some old guys talk in latin-with-a-heavy-British-accent, left.

(the vice chancellor)

Lunch at a pub with a bunch of friends, hung out there for a while and went back to the college.

me in sub-fusc. will see if I can add a clearer one later on.

Found it. :)

From now on, I won't do a daily blog post anymore, but just post infrequently on more specific topics.

Day 23: office space

Today, I finally got my office, which I share with 8 other people in the computational biology group, but there's enough room for that. Computer there is quite good, and decent desk and such.
Had the practical demonstrating seminar, which you need to have done to demonstrate at practicals. Quite boring.
Birthday party at the bar: awesome.

Day 22: pepernoten?

Woke up and everything hurt. Yay for Bujinkan.
Group meeting in the ComLab. Saw some of the research going on, very interesting.
Some actual work (tm) in the afternoon.

Dinner, followed by drinks with the Chess club, few fun games, left early to go to the drinks night of the Dutch society, met a lot of interesting people, and had free drinks, pepernoten, drop & stroopwafels. :D

Day 21: birthday! etc.

Woke up. Opened my packages and cards. 11 books:

Went to the ComLab for the group meeting, followed by a fairly boring tutorial on some piece of software which probably won't be finished for years, dinner, Bujinkan lesson, quick trip to the Bar, blog, and sleep. Much too busy to actually celebrate for long, which I'll do on Friday together with a couple of other guys whose birthday is this week.

Day 20: meetings, lectures, training

Met with my supervisor around 10. Got a huge book on mathematical physiology.
We decided to go with the solid mechanics course, which had a lecture this afternoon, so found the math building and did the lecture. Only took an hour but was quite intense, about the same amount of material as in 2+ hours in Groningen.

Back at college, got a postcard and 6 packages I can't open yet, as well as (finally!) a PIN code for my new debit card from HSBC. HSBC Passport: only takes an hour to open the account, but 19 days(!!) to get it working. :(
Buffet supper, met my  college advisor, cool guy but a bit weird.
Bar training afterwards, which was cool and quite easy.

Day 19: some actual work

Week 1, day 1.

Went to complain about not yet having received my PIN number, then shopping, then off to the library to get a book for my research. Also looked up and emailed around a bit to find out which courses are useful. Read a bit.
At night: Chess match. Played first board (most difficult) in the university's third team. 90 minutes each. Played against an asian guy with a perfect pokerface and lost after 2.5 hours of play, but it was very close and really enjoyed it. Should get a copy of the game soon and I'll see if I can put it up somehow. :)

Day 18: games etc.

Not much today.
- Slept in.
- AMREF charity event: free tea and cake.
- Did some more actual work.
- Dinner
- Reception to promote the ball (12 dec.). Signed up for some variant of assassins / live cluedo while there. Now I have to get someone to pick up a certain item in some place to 'kill' them. :o
- At night: board games. Played scrabble and beat some people at chess. Free drinks, too. :)

Day 17: to the BOP!

Brunch in hall. Pretty good. Some actual work reading papers and such.

At night: a BOP (Big Open Party). Very nice. Theme was to come in a uniform, so I did. :)

Day 16: a job? No thanks, I'll just become a ninja bartender.

Got an email from a startup in California this morning, offering me a job with a starting bonus of $25,000 and an unspecified but large salary (> $100,000/year ?) plus benefits. They probably found me because of the IOIs and open-source software development I did. Politely declined.

Some shopping around for groceries and cutlery, as someone took my only knife :(
Did some actual work in trying to read one of the papers my supervisor gave me, very difficult to understand.
Dinner, followed by a societies fair where all the Wolfson societies were showing off. Signed up for outdoor pursuits (trips around the UK), dinner exchange with other colleges, bujinkan ("ninja") martial arts, board games club, and bar rota (i.e. be a bartender for a day a month).
Pub quiz, third place with my team, the "Rodents of unusual size".

Also trying to brush up on my chess skills as I have a match with the university chess club on monday. Busy, busy, busy and haven't even really started yet. :D

Day 15: intro day 4

Yesterday:
Finally received my debit card from HSBC. No PIN yet.
My new desk chair arrived. Yay, no more crappy little wooden chair.
Email from the chess club: match on monday.

Today:
Intro events: one boring speech after the other.
Met my supervisor,  nice guy, dislikes bureaucracy as much as I do and seems to know ways around parts of it. Gave me some papers to read and a new meeting on tuesday.

Some speeches by the computing lab directors, meh.
Drinks. Dinner. Bar Crawl (Skipped Queens', went to Wadham, St. Hugh's, back to Wolfson). We really do have the best and cheapest bar in Oxford. :D

Day 14: Intro day 3

Today was the OUSU Fresher's fair. All of the societies presented themselves and tried to get you to join.
Signed up for a few (Chess, SciFi/Fantasy, Dutch, Live comedy, ...) and got the flyer for many more. Also got a free mug and a free book (3 musketeers).
Pictures!

Queue:

No comment

Day 13: Intro day 2

Had breakfast with the computational biology group. A few notable absentees, my supervisor being one of them. :( Apparently he's away. Emailed him to check when we could meet, got a reply & meeting on Thursday.
Computer systems intro, which was quite easy as I already know linux. The systems here are Fedora/Gnome.

Dinner
Upper common room
Music at the Bar.

Also, Kostas found a cure for the common cold. A plastic bottle full of suspicious clear liquid which he brews himself. One shot and your cold is gone! For a few hours at least...

day 11&12

Day 11: uneventful...
Day 12:
- Intro computing lab, 9:30-12:00.  Not very interesting, lot of repeated info and forms. Insane amount of students though, like 38 new DPhil students and several times that in Master students.
- Stop by the bank to check where my debit card went. Apparently it was never sent out(?) Should arrive within a few days.
- Lunch in hall for the first time. £1.65 for a burger with chips and beans*. Good stuff.
- Back to computing lab for emergency first aid course.
- Dinner, met my "old hand", who has apparently seen less of the college than me, since she has always lived elsewhere. Still met a bunch of interesting people anyway,
- Upper common room for tea
- Movie night (the history boys)
- Bar (see a pattern here?)

*i.e. white beans in tomato sauce.

Day ten: BBQ, pub crawl

BBQ around 12, well this was actually just a free hamburger.
Saw the new homes in Q block, really nice.
Jed gave us a tour around the city, along with several other freshers: two indian girls, a chinese girl, and an american guy. Had a great time even though I knew a lot of the places already. Saw the bodleian library from the inside (where they aparently filmed some of harry potter).
Pub crawl in the evening, a bit chaotic, ending up in the wrong pub and the wrong time, several different waves, but also a lot of fun.

Day nine:

- Tried to go to the computing lab to see if they had a schedule for the events, but didn't get past reception. Apparently, all will be revealed on Monday.
- Met my other neighbour, who just got back from Malaysia after traveling for 24h. His name is Tee and he's studying Healthcare Innovation.

- Dinner, got invited for someone's birthday party.
- Upper common room conversation
- Walked to the wrong pub. Waited there for half an hour with a bunch of other people before figuring out there were two pubs named "Gardeners arms". Went to the other one, met up with 50+ people and had a great time.


Tomorrow, the introduction week will start.

day eight: subfusc, working pc, neighbour

Today I
- Paid my rent (using a huge stack of £10 notes).

- Visted S&W and got my sub-fusc.
- Went to IT support, who helped me with my internet connection. Finally working now (problem was somewhere in their cables/routers/etc).
 - Met a new Dutch  guy at dinner. Jelle, who is studying anthropology (like quite a few people here).
- Met my new neighbour, Andy from LA who is studying Egyptology. I showed him around a bit and then dragged him down to the bar. :)