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. :)

Days six and seven: other activities.

Day six:
Went to register with the college doctor, really very easy.  Explored a bit more.

Programme for nought week (i.e. the week before term starts*) is up, which is absolutely packed with activities.

Then went to have dinner, tea & conversation in the upper common room after that, bar in the college basement after that. Really easy way to spend all the time from 18:30-24:00+ and a lot of fun.
Know now who my "old hand" is thanks to a fellow CS student who knows the system a bit. Apparently it's someone who is not very active. :(

* Yes this means this week is "-1"st week. And they do indeed refer to it as such.

Day seven:
Went to the introduction for new international students. Which had some interesting parts but mostly repeated info I already knew. Still met a couple of interesting people, exchanged email adresses and such, so was still useful.

Days 5-7: some assembly required

PC arrived on monday morning, borrowed a trolley to take the packages to my room, and left them there to attend the library introduction. Then started building my PC around 11:00.


Boxes

Installing the processor (Intel Core i5 750)

 Installing the RAM (4GB DDR3 Corsair) and installing the motherboard in the case

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTS 250






Done!

Overall, several runs to the computer room to look things up.
Booting up for the first time: beeeeeepbipbip. Which is apparently motherboard-speak for GRAPHICS CARD FAIL.
To the computer room to chat with tech support who told me:

[16:37:17] Ahh if you have two 6 pin sockets then both must be utilised ... many high-end/quality PSUs have dedicated 6 pins - one or two.

Great, that's why there were two connectors but only one cable. Ordered a new and much better PSU which arrived on wednesday.

Wednesday: installed the new PSU, which worked perfectly.

Booting up:

Yay successful boot!
Screen is an Acer P223W 22". Really nice, and quite reflective. ;)



PC also came with a voucher for a free world of warcraft download. Sell or burn?

Day four: I learned something today..

Visited the natural history museum today. Really good, lots of interesting exhibits.

There are also little info signs for the kids, all titled "YUCK!"

Also found a multi-plug socket: on amazon. Free shipping too (on anything >£5), so I guess I'll be ordering there more often.

One more pic of the college: this is part of the "marble hall", which connects to the main hall and common room.

Also, the camera in my phone just seems to be getting worse, unable to focus on anything. Sorry for the awful quality. :(

Third day: the quest for the unfindable multiplug socket

My PC will arrive on monday and I don't have enough sockets, so went looking for a short (1m) multi-plug socket today which complies with the electrical appliances regulations here. Biked all over town to find it, but they all started at 2m. Still useful though as I now know of a lot more shops. :) Will try to ask the accomodation office or something about whether or not that's okay, and if not where to find one instead.
Then bought a book (with the 20% discount for all students on all books at borders), still a few pence cheaper here though.



Also made dinner myself for the first time here. Some pics of the large kitchen which is shared between about 12 people:

My specialty: frozen stuff heated until edible ;)

Second day: less walking, more biking. Now with extra pictures!

Got up around the same time, put an "FMF" sticker on my bike so it's easier to recognize, and biked to the city centre. Tried to go to some museums but those were all closed. Explored the city a bit more, lot of construction works going on.


Bought some new clothes for next to nothing. Less than 7 pound for these:

Walked to Summertown (nearer to my college, in the north of Oxford) and explored there for a bit before going to the supermarket and bought some extra pans as I don't think the single wok in the welcome pack will be enough.
Also found out that apparently my debit card only works twice per day or so, as it kept failing after that.

Just been here for two days, but after all the exploring it seems like weeks.

First day: lots of forms, lots of walking

Got up around 8:15, showered, went to the general office to pick up my university and college card. There I got some booklets, info sheets and a huge 1100 page book "Examination regulations". :o
Registered the card to let me have access to computer rooms, library, laundry room etc. No computer yet as the one I ordered still hasn't shipped as theyre waiting for one of the parts.
After that walked to the HSBC bank in Summertown with my acceptance letter. Took well over an hour to get everything set up.

Got back around 11:30, then walked to the city center, explored a bit. Some nice buildings and incredibly huge book stores. Had lunch in a tourist trap, of which there are lots.Then walked to botley road which is a bit outside the city center. There I bought a bike at warland's, which came recommended in the google maps reviews.  £100 for a second hand bike, and they changed the rather huge handlebars to smaller ones for free.

Got back around 14:00, parked my bike, dropped off some stuff and walked(!) back to the city center to find an electric shaver and look around some more. Found a lot of shops which will be useful, bought some fruit and breakfast for tomorrow at Sainsbury's. Could not find a shaver at first but the Sony shop suggested I try Argos. Argos is a very strange store which just has rows and rows of the same huge catalog. After finding a shaver (philips 7360 at £49 including free travel kit with nail clippers and such), I had to write down the catalog number and go to customer service, where they took my ticket. I then had to pick up and pay for the item, which was delivered from their underground storage within a few minutes. Very strange, but quite efficient way of having a store with a huge number of items.

Walked back again, wrote down the shaver in the electric equipment form, and handed in the whole stack of forms (emergency contact, fire notice, tenancy agreement, etc) at the accommodation office. Then went to the computer room to write this, obviously. :)

 ... to be continued

Arrival

Arrived safely, and the trip to Oxford was nicely uneventful. Room seems fine, in the Annexe building.
Dinner and tea afterwards were slightly problematic, since I don't have a university/college card yet with which I can pay, though all worked out thanks to some nice students and staff here.
Tired though...

ETA: pictures.
Packing:

Travel:

 Room:

The Time Traveler's Accountant

Just got my first bill a few days ago. Advance rent for the 8 days in September. All quite reasonable, except for:

• The due date: four days from receiving it (10 days from the statement being sent).
• The ways I can pay: cheque by snail mail.

These two are obviously incompatible, unless they expect me to invent time travel in the next few days. Sent an email to see if I can handle this by internet banking, and got the reply: no problem, here are the bank details, and don't worry about the due date as long as we know that it's on its way. This seems to be a common theme: very strictly worded standard letters, sent by people who turn out to be quite reasonable and nice.

Of course this also means I finally know how much the rent actually is: a little over a hundred pounds per week. Still don't know which type of room, though this is consistent with both my first preference, as well as standard main building accomodation.

Paperwork part 4: oh the bureaucracy!

A lot happened in the last few months. I finished my Master's thesis around June 30. Apparently the date on my exam has nothing to do with receiving student benefits, as I can still be registered as a student. This means I could request my diploma. Also asked for a proof of having completed everything, and apparently lacking any official procedure for this, they wrote up a rather jumbled short letter on the spot. Luckily, this was sufficient proof, received the contract and returned it.

Also received several emails with a bunch of attachments, and some snail mail from my college. Information, notes, health warnings, various forms to be signed or places to register on arrival. Quite a few events for information or introduction, some mandatory, starting with
- September 30: Induction Sessions for new postgraduate international students.
and ending with
- October 17: Matriculation
With a whole bunch of events in between.

The sheer amount of documents suggests a huge bureaucracy, much more than I'm used to. Looking at the page for the MSc in CS (as I have to pick at least 4 courses) suggests the same. Just looking at the procedures outlined in the 'exam conventions': anonymized grading, regulators rescaling course results, meticulously outlined averaging procedures. Not claiming that this is a bad thing, but just struck by the huge disparity with my current university. The one thing that does seem strange is the 'no more than 32 units' clause: why should there be a limit to the amount of courses you follow? Oh well, not really relevant for me anyway.

Also looked for a bank account, some of my UK friends advised me to go with HSBC or NatWest, and after some google searches I decided to go with HSBC Passport for the first year.

Paperwork: part 3

May 13: Mailed the financial guarantee form for my college, with some passport sized photos and copy of DPhil position offer.
June 18: Emailed to ask if everything arrived, got a reply saying everything arrived and is fine.

June 26: Received the formal offer for accommodation, along with a welcome letter and welcome pack order form.

I'm getting a room in the main building, from September 23 on, but they can't tell me which type of room yet which means rent is still quite uncertain: anywhere in the previously mentioned range of 90-130 pounds per week. Knew about the prices of course, but not too happy with not being told my actual rent until I arrive. This is probably because they aren't sure yet who will accept. Then again, most of the rents are at the low end of this range, and they also said to keep preferences in mind.

The welcome pack contains various kitchen utensils, towels, tea/coffee etc. Doesn't look like it's quite worth the 44 pounds they ask for it, but the convenience of it probably is.