Ninth Week-Term 1

Monday:

Today I attended my first official Rotary luncheon (District 1060). Terry Bond, my original contact whilst still overseas, was my acting host for the day. Might I say, a lovely group of people, indeed. We dined on soup, bread, sauce-covered delicacies, and jovial conversations. I had the unique privilege of being the only female at the table. The men, all seemingly long-time friends, threw jibes at one another and gave each a 'good ribbing'. I was well entertained.

The speaker was Paul Carvell, Chair of North Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce. He spoke of infrastructure, job prospects, the uniqueness of N. Warwickshire commerce, and the social aspect of their growth (or lack thereof, depending on your perspective). Very intriguing, I must say.

Mr. Carvell said something particularly interesting toward the end which resonated for days... still is, as a matter of fact. He speculated that if The Tube was a city planning proposal for London today, it would probably fail. A feature of London that is so ingrained in the minds of people, a truly wondrous transportation system, that it is near impossible to imagine the metropolis without. Yet, he speculated that, given the mentality of the people today, counter arguments of a fairly rational nature would kill the project in its infancy. "We already have good roads, plenty of cars, taxis, even a bus system. Why do we need to sink more money into a massive project that will tear up neighbourhoods and put people out?" Food for thought...

There were also plenty of attorneys at the table. This set my mind wondering and I became temporarily lost for pondering the traditional attorney tag, "You don't have to answer that." Why is it so important for an attorney to say such a thing? Perhaps it is because we standard, run of the mill humans have a compulsion to answer direct questioning. If so, why do we have such a compulsion? Is this, yet again, some throwback from our childhood? As children, we're [practically] punished if we don't answer a direct question from an adult. I can certainly pull up a number of instances from my own experience. We are taught it is the polite thing to do, after all. And let's not forget, politeness is the cornerstone of a healthy society... blah, blah, blah.

Tuesday:

I was treated to a movie today with two other lovely postgrads from my course. We saw Captain Phillips. Exposé on the movie. On my own, I had no desire to see this movie. I vividly remember the news coverage of this event. I remember the animalistic excitement of Americans replaying the Navy Seal actions against the Somalian pirates. I did not want to suffer another story of murder-turned-American pride. However, my curiosity was peaked after hearing the excited reviews from others. So I attended.

Tom Hanks was everything Tom Hanks is. We wished nothing, but the best for his character, because we did not see Captain Phillips, we saw Tom Hanks.... and we Americans adore Tom Hanks. Yes, I too, like to watch Tom Hanks on screen. So the hero factor was a certain.

But what about the bad guys? We hate Somalian pirates, right? I mean, we revelled in their deaths, after all, when the news came through the wires. 

Oh contraire, mon frère. The four unknowns cast as the pirates were magnificent on the big screen. The directing was superb on their parts. The close-ups and disquieted, piercing glares were all the more shocking on screen, and we loved them. We fell in love with our nemesis and found ourselves lamenting their deaths. We knew it was coming, but we hoped all the same. Their deaths created a shock that washed over the theatre. As can happen with a well told story, we saw the human in the monster, just before the final stroke.

Wednesday:

What is this? It is beautiful, but what is it?
Musicians' compulsion to play together. To bond over a shared language, but it's more than familiarity. It's an excitement. It's finding someone who also speaks your language, but has improved upon it. The Other wants to express those improvements, put it all out on the table. Then you come with your improvements. Spread them out for listening pleasure or pain. A mystery until experienced. The product of a musical cocktail, equal parts compulsion and desire, stirred with pride, and a twist of fear.

"Your language is different from mine."
                                          "It's called harmony."

I woke up today from a fully orchestrated dream. I composed another song while dreaming. Haven't done that in..... I don't know how many years.

Then I promptly fell asleep in another morning lecture. Such is life.

Thursday:

Footnotes from Postgraduate Land:

• "There's something positive to be said about low investment (education), small return (job)."
• "The guy in front of us has very impressive ear hair."
• "It's always about assumptions."
• "What we now have is a formula for murder."
• "Look at your suffering. Begin there."
• "discovery -> knowledge -> power -> control"
• "Psychology is mostly irrelevant. It's an academic parlour game."
• "If mechanism is rubbish, what about cyborg science?"
• "You ever commit a move so familiar you must take pause to revel in the sweet state of familiarity? You should."
• "I find long-slumbering players privately waking & quietly, insidiously sneaking out. I hope Crazy stays slumbering."

Friday & Saturday:

Decided to give everyone a treat and cook a (semi)traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It was well worth it.

First Week-Term 1

Monday Madness:
GREAT GOBS OF GOOSE SLOO! There were a lot of students on campus Monday. I'm so glad I arrived a week early so I could get acquainted with the campus slowly and in my own time.

My first lecture was with Gordon Brown. No, not THAT Gordon Brown, but wouldn't that be a hoot. Sweet guy, super smart, didn't notice I was falling asleep. The way I see it, it could be that I was really good at covering my appearance, he wasn't as observant with me as he was with his lecture, or I didn't actually fall asleep and entered a new stage of hallucinatory-jet-laggy-crazy-fun-time. I'm OK with any possibility.

Between lectures I found a great tree to have lunch under-inside, and later, a great bench to enjoy the end of this English summer.

Tuesday Trials:
I must have made a unique impression on my professors from Monday, because the one who apologized in advance for not knowing students as quickly as he felt he should, called on me by name at our next meeting. But I couldn't help myself Monday. Professors Loomes & Read began a discussion on transitivity and preference theory. They were singing my song! In a nutshell, Loomes approached the scenario as an Economists, I countered his conclusions by approaching it as a Psychologist. Sweet, sweet music. Thank you Professor Berkich! (p.s. the pictures on this link are from his Advanced Logic course, where we learned these theories)

Also, I confirmed that there are at least 3 pubs on campus. That's right, I said pubs. Wine, beer, ale, Guinness, you name it.

Wednesday Wackout:
Started the day with Neil Stewart introducing us to the new statistics software (R) and programming language we'll be using to run our data. "R" is free software AND free-speech software. What does that mean, you say? It means A.N.Y.O.N.E. can download the software, rewrite it to suite his/her personal statistical software needs, then publish it for anyone else to use. It's also the hot-stuff right now for running large, nay ginormous data sets. I was of the minority that understood the basics behind the language, thanks to Professor Moreno.

After class all the Psychology and Economics MSc/PhD students attended a reception. Typical array of sandwiches, fruit, and muffins. Most of the sandwiches had some mysterious orange dressing on them, so of course I tried them all. The only ingredients I'm certain of are bread and cucumber. I ended up briefly talking with a first year PhD student who is investigating the victimhood of the bully/victim relationship. Her premise right now is that bullies show some sort of beneficial placement in human society, therefore she doesn't see the need to look into the making & role of bullies, just the making & role of victims and how they can cope, etc. I had to walk away before I made an enemy.

The Societies Fair was also today. What's that, you say? All the clubs come out to expose themselves to potential members. Exposures were varied. Check out the video. In fact, you're better off expanding it to full screen.

One of the dancing troupes.

One of the music groups.

Trying to navigate the labyrinthine madhouse that is Societies Fair. This clip begins with a shot of one of the campus pubs. Check out the variety of societies!

Thursday Rain:

This is the long day of the week. Economic lecture first thing in the morning, then 2 hours of hacking through learning a new computer language, followed by open research presentations (multi-discipline), then sharing sessions with psyc professors about ongoing research. In short, lots & lots of listening, lots & lots of note jotting. 

It's been super fun, though, watching the psyc grad students squirm in their seats during the economic lectures. We're supposed to be learning this term how traditional economists think. The upside for me, is that not a single psyc student agrees, so they questions and quarrel in class. I sit in the back. All I'm missing is a bucket of popcorn. Almost better than a Skyfall screening.