And finally the last Cambridge Christmas dinner, Nick and I were lucky enough to be invited by Kayla to come to the St. Catherine's (Catz) Christmas dinner, and it was a blast, definitely the best of the Christmas dinners I went to I think. And at least their dj played some music that was danceable unlike the guy who always ends up playing at the Jesus bops.

Christmas Cambridge Style

Time sure flies, and amazingly my first term in Cambridge is finished as of last Wednesday, but with only 8 weeks to the term I suppose thats no real surprise. However in the space of a week and a half I'll have gone to three Christmas dinners, two of which were black tie. It's funny, there's so much going on here, that if you go out any night there's almost always a group of students dressed up going somewhere. I know I've dressed up more this term than I have at any point in the last 4 years - dress mess and full dress not counting. Last week was the Christmas exchange dinner at King's College, and a group of 15 of us from Jesus got to go to that. Not the most impressive dinner, but it was fun to see another college, and after finding out that they don't have a seperate grad hall each week, kind of made me appreciate being in Jesus a little more. Wednesday this week was our Jesus Christmas dinner, and it was a blast. I don't think I've ever had a formal dinner quite so fun, the stories people were telling had everyone laughing starting as we sat down and I don't think we stopped til after dinner was over.
Of course we had all the traditional accoutrements for an English Christmas Dinner, with mulled wine beforehand, and everyone had a cracker at their place when we sat down. The crackers make a loud noise when you pull them (they're a round tube with fancy paper wrapped on them, and look a bit like a very large tootsie-roll), and inside is a paper hat, some of the lamest jokes you've ever seen, and some sort of toy). Dinner was turkey and stuffing, but with an English twist since apparently sausages wrapped in bacon is another tradition, but I'm not quite sure its something I'll be wanting to bring home with me. Dinner was a Christmas pudding, and I think I'm finally coming around to the point where I understand what the British mean by a pudding, because it is definitely not the pudding that we think of as pudding in the states. Pudding here seems to be some sort of soft, cakey-type dessert that is usually served with custard or cream, and Christmas pudding is incredibly rich with a whole lot of fruit thrown in, so its a bit like a fruit cake only more cakey and softer. It was interesting because we sand Christmas carols before hand, and it was obvious that some of the students had never heard them before. I guess thats one of the best parts of being here and surrounded by such a diverse group of people is that we've all learned and picked up bits and pieces of things.

Okay, a bit too much of a closeup I'll admit, but here's me with Alex at the Christmas dinner at Jesus. You gotta love the English tradition of the silly paper hats in the Christmas crackers, where else would you get a bunch of people wearing something like this, but hey at least this one actually fit my head ;-)

Exiled From My Own Room

Okay, so I have to spend my day today floating between the Jesus College Library, the Judge Institute and the Gates Room (free wireless access) because they kicked me out of my room for the day. The college apparently just renovated these rooms about two years ago, and the builders are in doing the 2 year inspection and making repairs, and there are a couple huge cracks in the walls and ceilings in my room, so they told me I have to let the guy in there today to make all the repairs. It's nice to know that the lack of control over myself and my room did not end when I graduated. Oh well, at least I have a laptop now so I'm not completely cut off.

Happy Thanksgiving

So it seems strange not to have been home for Thanksgiving this year... and also not to head back for the Army-Navy briefing on Sunday, but I suppose that's just another reminder that thankfully, I've actually graduated. :-) Thanksgiving of course, isn't really celebrated over here in merry olde england since it's an American holiday, but I still managed to have turkey and the works. I went over to a friend of a friends house for Thanksgiving, and our small group of Americans were able to celebrate. I have to say though, the best part about celebrating a holiday that isn't really a holiday where you're celebrating it is that everything is open the day of! That meant no special planning ahead because all the stores were obviously open. However, attending the dinner meant that I skipped my first lecture here, but I was assured by all my classmates that that particular lecture was one that they wish they cuold have also missed, so I don't feel too guilty about that at all. And now, unbelievably, its the last three days of term coming up...

The Unexpected Price of Being Here

When I set about applying for the various scholarships last year, the initial focus was simply on how much of an honor it was to compete, with no real expectation of actually ending up over here. Now that I am here, I'm usually caught up in the whirlwind experience that doing an MPhil in 9 months at Cambridge is, with new things and lots to be doing.
But its when I read the newstories in the New York Times or on the BBC site about casualties in Iraq, or when I get sent a link to one of the myriad tribute sites that populate the internet, or when I hear of my classmates preparing to deploy, that I realize the price of being over here, and I feel unprepared for the onslaught of emotion. I suppose it must be something like survivor's guilt or something like that, but I've been struck by waves of feeling so wrong for being here immersed in the insulated student world while the people I have lived with and shared so much over the past 4 years, are facing the reality of being in an Army at war.
Now, objectively I can tell myself that being here allows me the opportunity to make a contribution later, and I know that I couldn't have passed up the opportunity to be here, but it still hurts and I never really expected this.

Definitely Not the Thayer Method

So, looking through this, I haven't actually addressed much of the academic side of being at Cambridge.... okay, so I'm here to get a graduate degree, so I suppose the academic side does deserve some mention. I guess the first, most obvious thing that springs to mind is that this is definitely not the Thayer Method I grew to know and love (okay, detest) at West Point. I found that out at my first lecture in October when I showed up having tried to read for the lecture of that day and found out that reading was assigned after the lecture to help clarify any questions the lecturer didn't answer. So there really isn't any compulsory prep work for class. The time schedule is extremely compressed compared to the West Point calendar also; we didn't start work until the first week in October for the Michaelmas term, and we finish up in a week and a half with the last lectures on the 1st of December. And while it has been fairly easy to make it through term time, with only 2 presentations to prepare for (one was 20% of the course it was for and the other was worth 25%, so there was quite a bit of pressure on those however), the reality of how the Cambridge system works is beginning to set in as the term questions are being handed out now, with a due date of the second week in January. Yep, January. So that means I'm working over the Christmas holiday. So even though I have over a month between the end of classes this term and the start of Lent term in mid-January, I've got to do a whole lot of work to prove how much I actually learned this term.
Things are pretty much the same for Lent term, though we'll finish with the Research Methodology Course this term, and I'll only have to take 2 courses next term, but that's also because there's a significant amount of my time that will need to be dedicated to my thesis. Between now and the first week in June, I have to produce a dissertation that contributes to my field, and the thought is a bit daunting. I suppose this is especially true because the majority of the people in my course have work experience of at least a few years, and they've come with a clear idea of what they want to do. When term started, I think I was still trying not to blink because I couldn't believe that I was actually headed to Cambridge instead of Ft. Leonard Wood for OBC. Still, if there's one thing that seems reassuring, it's the realization that the notion of putting all the course work until the end of term is more or less a reinforcement of the cadet mentality that everything's better put off til the last minute, with no pesky tests, exams, quizzes, papers, etc due during term, and everything gets turned in at the end.
However, having finished two of the sub-questions for one of the papers this weekend, I realized that I have done something that I don't think I ever did in my cadet career - I've started on something a month and a half before its due rather than a day and a half or an hour and a half. Well, my goal is to have 3 out of 4 papers finished before I head home for Christmas on the 15th, so now I get to rely on my West Point time management skills and actually start kicking it into gear and getting work done, the vacation is over.

Let it snow!!! Okay, not the best picture I'll admit, but it's snowing in Cambridge!! And huge fat flakes, just look at the size of them! It was absolutely gorgeous, and they say it never snows here, so we were really really lucky!!

On My Own Again

So last night I got to see Mom drive off to towards Heathrow after visiting here for a week. Aside from the additions to my academic schedule that caused some disruption it was a great week, and should tide me over what with not getting to go home for Thanksgiving (and having lectures on that day besides!). We went to Dover and Canterbury over the weekend, and got to see the cliffs at Dover, Dover Castle, the Secret Wartime Tunnels, and Canterbury Cathedral. And of course there was the trip to RAF Lakenheath that lead to the stocking up of my American necessities.
We went to Grad Hall last night, but I got confused about what time things started so we missed out on the pre-dinner drinks and the soup course, but luckily we got off with a stern reminder from the head server that we were supposed to arrive by "half-seven" and thatwe should not expect to make a habit of late arrival. The food was less than stellar, and below what I have come to expect from the Jesus kitchen, but that can probably be chalked up to the Mexican-international theme of the meal. Although I must say, that none of the Mexican food we had resembled any Mexican food that I've eaten before, but hey, at least they tried.
After dinner I was able to introduce Mom to a few of my college friends, and then the Dean of the Chapel started talking to us, and before we knew it, Mom and I were on a private tour of the Chapel, which considering that the Jesus Chapel is the oldest chapel in Cambridge was really quite interesting and informative. Unforunately, this meant that it was almost 11 before Mom made it on the road towards London, but hopefully she made it there alright, I stayed up til after 1 am in case she called, but finally succumbed to the need for sleep.
After having a visitor for a week it seems strange to go back to just having the normal academic routine and not trying to coordinate where to meet up for lunch or what not.

My little bookcase of Americana... went to the commissary at RAF Lakenheath and got the little things I've been missing here. Root beer, pretzels, microwave popcorn, real peanut butter... gotta love it!

A Long Week

Okay, feels like I've done a lot this week, without really having accomplished a lot of things. I finally got my ATM card from HSBC, and ended the nightmare of not having access to the funding from Gates. It turns out that they've had my card at the Cambridge office for over two weeks, but the letter letting me know it was there somehow never made it to me. So at long last, it is home safe in my wallet, and provides access to the money, which was obviously important.
I went to see "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" at the ADC theatre in Cambridge tonight. It was absolutely hilarious, and quite impressive that it was student amateurs putting on the production. Minimal props, but the two actors playing the leading roles were really quite good at delivering the lines and all in all it was quite an enjoyable experience.
The final shipment of my stuff from home made it here on Thursday. Unfortunately, everything seemed to have developed a severe case of musty smelliness, so I am faced with a multitude of laundry to wash this weekend, and I'm really not happy about that since I spent the time back in May making sure everything was washed to be shipped over. I suppose I should be grateful that everything made it here intact since the boxes were not in good shape and there were holes and tears in the cardboard, but everything else seems to have made it safe and sound. In putting all my stuff away, I got swept up in the moment, and realized that I was putting all the books in height order on my shelf, and that I was folding everything according to BAG, and realized that there are certain West Pointisms that will probably stick with me for a very long while. Still, I was left with quite a feeling of accomplishment when everything was neatly put away in its place and I vacuumed and cleaned my sink and mirrors and everything. Well I guess you really can't argue with cleaniliness.
On Wednesday we had the Graduate and Fellows Dinner, which was a fancy schmancy 5 course meal served in the Main Hall at College, complete with black academic gowns, and a different type of wine with each course. Let's just say that too much of a good thing is not a good thing. Especially tossed in with the conversations following the conclusion of the American election with Kerry's concession speech coming right before the pre-dinner reception. Everyone survived the evening though, so all's well that ends well.

Don't Make Fun of My Pitchfork! I got this picture from one of the guys at college. They were making fun of my pitchfork because it was a bit droopy and apparently wasn't very impressive, but I staunchly defended it against their criticism, and here's the picture to prove I refused to hand it over! ;-)

Halloween Party

Well, we didn't go trick or treating, but the Jesus GradSoc put on a special Halloween hall and bop (Cambridge speak for party) on Saturday night. We had the privilege of dining on Vampires Cauldron (cream of pumpkin and orange soup), Devil in the Forest (roast sirloin with mushrooms), Baked Apple with Dragon Droppings (baked apple with winter berries), a ghoulish platter (cheese and crackers) and Bulls Blood (port). The food was what I've come to expect from Halls - which is to say good on the simple things, but sometimes they stretch it too much in trying to be fancy. Since the dress for the evening was fancy dress (costume) or black tie, most of us went the middle road by finding a few costume accessories and pairing this with a black tie type outfit. As you can see from the picture, two of us had the same set, a Tesco bargain for 3 quid. It was fun, but 2 1/2 inch heels seemed like a good idea at the beginning of the evening, but after after being on the dance floor for over an hour, my tootsies were definitely killing me this morning. Still, the evening was quite fun. Now it's a matter of waiting to see what comes of Thanksgiving.. rumor has it that there will be some attempt at a classic American thanksgiving dinner, but I'm waiting to see what happens. And it just won't seem the same with having class on Thanksgiving Day, and no day after shopping marathons and waking up in the wee, wee hours of the morning to try and get the good bargains. In truth though, I suspect that my bank account will be much better off for the lack.



Me and Gloria, with matching Tesco devil sets, at the Halloween party

To Beer or Not to Beer

Okay, so most of the time there are little nuances of American vs British culture that can catch me off-guard. For example, learning that pants is not the appropriate word to use for trousers or jeans, because the British connotation of pants refer to underwear. So an innocuous statement about getting the leg of my pants caught in the gears of my bike definitely caused some raised eyebrows.
Anyways... on Saturday night I went to join the Cambridge Union (think debating club with a parlimentary debate chamber that a bunch of old, dead, rich, white guys would feel very at home in, but not exclusive nowadays). The membership gets access to everything that happens there over the course of the coming year... debates, ents (entertainments), bobs (parties), a fairly cheap bar, etc. Well Saturday's ent just happened to be Ben & Jerry's night. Talk about a way to bring people in, gallons of ice cream. And, the precursor to one of the funniest cultural misunderstandings I've seen thus far in my time here. So there was a group of 4 of us grad students sitting eating our ice cream in one of the side rooms. Two of us were Americans, one guy was from Singapore and one was from Australia. So the other American had decided that he was done with eating ice cream for the evening and had moved onto a pint of beer. When he came back with the beer, the Australian asked if he wanted any more ice cream. Ugh, you're probably thinking, not a good combination. Well that's what the American told him, that it didn't sound very good. So the Aussie says, "But I thought that was an American treat, like apple pie, putting ice cream in beer. I swear I've heard of that being big over there." Just imagining this concoction turned my stomach. As he kept describing this supposed American tradition, it finally dawned on me, that he was talking about a root beer float. Not ice cream in beer.
Apparently, root beer is not prevalent at all in the UK (haven't found it anyplace in the month I've been here), nor is it found in Australia. So reading about root beer floats, this guy just decided that was a particular type of beer, like a lager or pilsner or something. So at least, there is now one less Aussie out there who now knows what a root beer float is.

Grad Hall

So after 4 years of having mandatory dinner on Thursdays, I now have mandatory dinner on Wednesdays. Okay, so its not really mandatory, but Grad Hall is quite a good time. For a fiver (£5), okay, £5.93 or something like that, on Wednesday night the graduate students at Jesus College get to all get together, and have a three course meal. For me, it's a great break from having microwave meals almost every night, and the best part is catching up with everyone you haven't seen for the past week since the last grad hall. It's really nice and informal, not like formal hall where you have to wear the gowns (see the matriculation photo below - yeah, try eating in one of those).
So take tonight, we had a chicken/pasta salad for appetizer, then pork with broccoli, carrots and mashed potatoes, with a burnt honey and star anise cream for dessert (um, think kind of nasty licorice tasting custard- not the best dessert I've had). And to top it all of, there's cheese and crackers and port along with tea and coffee. There is no way I could cook for myself like this. The one thing though, is I have never seen people go through so much wine, its BYO, and half the people literally bring their own 75cl bottle of wine and go through the thing all by themself. And of course once this is over we all head to the college bar, which, regretabably closes by 11:30 (reminscent of the firstie club I suppose - or it would be if I had spent more time there). Tonight unfortunately, there was some sort of drinking, um, dining society that a bunch of the undergrads had gone out with, and so we were greated at the entrance to the bar by a guy half passed out, with his pants down, throwing up in the doorway. I almost lost it then, and of course someone else threw up inside later. It's definitely strange knowing that there are 18 year olds in there throwing up legally, again, still not used to this lower drinking age. But aside from this unpleasantness, it was a great way to spend Wednesday night, especially since I have no lectures tomorrow to look forward to!

Going Native

Okay, so I'm starting to get the whole swing of things being over here. So besides the fact that I'm going to absolutely die at OBC next year, I can really get to like this Cambridge lifestyle. I don't usually wake up until 9ish, and so far haven't had any lectures earlier than 10, a far cry from 6:50 breakfast formations and 7:35 A hour classes. I'm even getting the hang of riding my bike on the left side of the road, and haven't had any more scary encounters with playing chicken.
But, the best thing I have discovered, and will sorely miss when I go back at the end of the year... is crumpets! Yes, tea and crumpets have found their way almost daily onto my plate. They're like english muffins, but oh so much better. I always laughed when people said I'd be eating tea and crumpets, but as I sit here with a plate and mug before me as I'm typing this, I'm definitely eating my words, err crumpets!

My New Set of Wheels

Well, now that my car is on blocks in my parents' garage, I find myself without a car for the first time in over a year. Its a bit of a shock, and I'm going to be so happy to be able to drive - no matter how much gas costs - when I'm home next year. I've been walking everywhere for the past two weeks, which while an easy way to get around, sure takes up a lot of time. And since my department is about a twenty minute walk away from where I live, gets to be very inconvenient if I have more than one lecture a day. Luckily I shipped over a bicycle with my stuff... but its been sitting in my room for the past week. Riding in traffic is a bit daunting, especially on the left side of the road with unfamiliar traffic signs and rules.

However, today I decided that I had had enough, and the bike was going to make its first appearance on the Cambridge streets. And so, with my heart firmly lodged in my throat, I made my first cross-Cambridge bike trip. I had to go a different route than the one I normally walk because its a pedestrian only area from 10-4, and I was headed to a 2 o'clock lecture. Everything seemed like a piece of cake until I was detouring around some construction, only to find myself in a game of chicken... with a double-decker bus! This was particularly alarming because I had a wall on my left, and the bus had already cut off any escape to the right. I think I managed to squeak through with about 3 inches of spare room on either side, but didn't even have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief because there was a second bus right behind the first. This time I think there ended up being about two inches to spare, but miraculously I emerged unscathed, although a bit trembly.

Suffice it to say that I made it successfully to my department building (and back!) but I think its definitely going to take a bit of time for me to get used to being in the flow of traffic on a bike.

It's the little things

Okay, so I figured this would happen sooner or later, but it seems that I've gotten a touch of homesickness. Nothing major, I'm not ready to buy a ticket or anything, but just sitting in my room feeling just the littlest bit sorry for myself. So what set this off, you might ask? Well, it's all the silly little things... like going to the grocery store and looking for the baby carrots I like, only to find that they're super expensive because they're in the special "international" section, and so I come home with a bag of full-sized carrots. I can't remember the last time I ate actual real size carrots (except when they've been cooked in something), but I felt very much like a rabbit as I sat here and munched on a real carrot. So that was one of the little things. Next, again at the grocery store, was looking to buy hot chocolate mix with the mini-marshmallows. Again, no luck. So getting past the grocery store, is the whole time difference thing, and feeling so far away from pretty much everyone I know, and the phone's been goofy (and again, expensive) so calling home is a bit more of an ordeal. And I tried to order print cartridges for my printer, but couldnt because my credit card billing address is overseas, and there just isn't an Office Max or Best Buy to run out to an get things. I suppose thats the crux of it, is I'm just missing the hustle and bustle and immediate convenience that is America (to include my car). Cambridge is lovely, but its definitely a different world.

Now that I've got that aired out, I think its time to get back thinking about how lovely things are here and how much more relaxed life in general is. But first, I'm going to listen to my Patriotic Country CD, get my little dose of Americana, and then celebrate that I'm here and not there.

Safari Night

Okay, the first time I saw Safari Night on the list of activities for Freshers Week, I had no idea what to even begin to expect. But it really turned out to be a lot of fun. Essentially, returning grad students volunteered to cook dinner (with starter, main course and dessert), and each round of the meal they would host a different group of 2-3 freshers. Of course ,this means that each fresher got to go to a different house for each course. It was a nice opportunity to see what the other graduate accomodations owned by the college were like, but also provided an opportunity to interact with some new people. And not to mention, that there were about 30 freshers wandering around between different houses with half-filled bottles of wine (since we carried our wine to each course) - I swear it must have looked like we were all a bunch of drunks or somethign wandering through the streets since it was rather difficult to see most of the house numbers once it got dark outside.

Once the actual Safari Night activities were over, it was the grand opening of the new Jesus College Bar, which had just undergone extensive remodeling and been moved from the first floor (2nd to us Americans), to the ground floor (again, for Americans the first floor). It seemed pretty nice, but I'm still not used to walking into bars and seeing 18 year olds, but of course, the drinking age isn't 21 over here, but I'm still not quite used to that. The Jesus Bar is nicer that the town bars/pubs, because it stays open til 11:30 rather than just 11 - yeah things really seem to close super early around here and open rather late. So after the bar closed, a group of us went back to one of the guys houses and over a bottle of cheap Sainsburys port, spent time comparing the merits of various American and Australian musicians.

To me, though, the best part of the evening was coming home at 2 in the morning to find out that Army had actually managed to win a football game!! Go Black Knights, no more 19 game losing streaks!

Buying Wine

So being here seems to be just chock full of new things. So tonight we're having "Safari Night" where a bunch of the returning grad students are preparing dinner for the freshers, who get to poke our noses into 3 different houses for appetizers, dinner and dessert to see how everyone else lives. However, we're all expected to bring our own bottle of wine. So like the good little fresher I'm trying to be, I headed off down to Sainsburys, and headed into the wine section. Holy Cow! I had no idea there were so many different varieties of wine to choose from, it took me almost 20 minutes to get out with a bottle of Shiraz Grenache, not that I have any real clue what that is, but it came at the recommendation of one of the other people browsing the shelves. I guess we'll see how it turns out, but I can see the next wine purchasing event will require a bit of background research just to figure out what I should get.

Vicci, Mariel, Frances and Me at The Bun Shop (one of the pubs on our pub crawl)

Pub Crawling, and the Van of Life

What better way to get familiarized with Cambridge than a tour de force of the local pubs? So on Thursday night (with many, if not most of us having Friday lectures), a group of Jesus freshers headed out to 4 different pubs to experience the best of Cambridge. 45 minutes per pub sounds like an awful long time, but the nature of bringing a group of upwards of twenty students into a pub at one time means that queuing takes up a majority of the time you are actually in the pub. So it very much becomes a matter of waiting in line with other members of the college - which does provide an opportunity for conversation - and then downing your drink in relatively rapid fashion to move onto the next pub. By the end of the evening, it was nice to finally end up someplace where we could actually grab a table and sit down for a period of time. And once the pubbing was over, a portion of the group headed to a club, but the faint of heart among us (myself included) decided to head home and get a bit of sleep to awake in the morning to the mounds of reading yet to be done in preparation for lectures.

But apparently a night out in Cambridge is not complete with a stop at "The Van of Life." What might this be? Well, it must not be, on pain of stomach distress, be confused with "The Van of Death," as both of these are vans marketing a delightfully greasy late night snack of chips (french fries), snacks and crisps (chips), to the inebriated student population. Initially I laughed, but there is something about chips fresh from the fryer that tops off a night at the pubs. So the next time I go out, I know where my final stop before home will be, and a small chips is just about perfect to keep my hands warm while I walk, errr, stumble, my way back to my house. The important things in life!

Trying to simplify things...

Okay, I decided that rather than try to email everyone all the time with the info on what's happening with me during my year at Cambridge that I would just create an online journal. I'll try to post periodically with anything exciting thats happening, and if nothing exciting has happened, it'll be filled with the mundania of being an American in London.

So I've been in England for a whole whopping 10 days now, and things are finally getting settled in. We started lectures today, and it was kind of a shock dealing with a classroom with over 50 people in it... until the guy sitting next to me commented on how surprised he was by how small it was. Everyone comes from so many different backgrounds, and things constantly remind me of that. I'm one of 2 Americans in the program, so no worries about being able to fall into the trap of only talking to Americans... that wouldn't leave many options. I have to come up with a concrete research question by December, so now I'm "supervisor shopping" to find a member of the faculty to supervise me.

Cambridge itself has been lovely, although I'm beginning to realize that my umbrella needs to be a constant companion, even if I just pop out for a quick run to the grocery store, because sun can disappear into rain clouds in about two seconds. My rooms slopes and tilts at weird angles, because the house was built sometime in the 1700's I believe, but I suppose that just gives it character. Of course that seems young in comparison to the college chapel that dates from a 12th century Benedictine nunnery... makes me realize how young America is in comparison as a country since the college has a library opened in 1996 to celebrate its quincentennary... after all, only another 272 years and America can celebrate its quincentennary.

I'm still amazed by the opportunity that I have to be over here, and even sitting in lecture today it seemed rather surreal, but the past week has definitely hit home that I'm not in the US. From staring at rows of different laundry detergents that didn't include Tide or anything I was remotely familiar with, to being almost run over by a double decker bus after looking left, right, left to cross the street, to realizing that my money goes about half as far here thanks to the awful exchange rate (almost 2 to 1), to all the different accents I hear every conversation.... Luckily everyone seems very friendly. Well, more to follow....

Alex, Nick and I after the matriculation photo