Sworn in

Today was the first meeting of Somerville's Governing Body, which included the swearing in of the three new members (including me). Actually, the younger SCR members (which includes the three of us) have been sticking together (sitting together at things like the Governing Body meetings and so on), which is a very good thing. I know the least about the Oxford system, so I'm pretty sure that I'm the most clueless person among us. In any event, I think I've talked to most of the young people in SCR at some point, and the ones I've talked to are all really nice. I should find out if they like board games. Once my games arrive, I'll bring some to one of the Monday night dinners and see if I can convince people to play. (Alternatively, once my UK finances are in order --- I have a bank account now, but it has no money in it --- I can get a copy of the British Isles edition of Apples to Apples that I saw at the local Border's. Like just about everything else around here, it's expensive (25 pounds), but I really want to get it so I'll buy it anyway after I no longer need to preserve cash for immediate use.)

At the Governing Body meetings, one has to wear one flavor of academic robes (I'll need to wear another flavor when I serve as the Examiner for a doctoral student in December), but one can put it over whatever one is wearing. I don't own my own set yet, so I borrowed one that was way too big for me (not that I would know how large these things should be). I had to jump through a couple of hoops to get it (I think the Porters don't all yet realize that I'm faculty rather than an undergrad), but I was able to get help to get one in time for the meeting. My regular clothes were visible underneath the robes, so I looked absolutely stunning taking my oath in my 'magic missles kill people' t-shirt. I thought that was classy --- the perfect mix of formality and casualness --- and provides just the ingredient that Oxford has always needed! Today's meeting was an absolutely mind-numbing 2.5 hours, though several people told me that most of the meetings take far less time. My fellow new Fellows were about as lost as I was. We're all trying to learn things as we go and catch up with the people who have been here a while. I don't think it will be bad, but it takes to get up to speed when one is new.

I already mentioned that I'll need to buy some fancy clothes for the Examination in December. I signed up today for a dinner (which is, of course, free) on November 7th in London with the Baroness Jay, who is a Somerville alum. (This is a fund-raising affair and several of the tutorial fellows will be going.) That's black tie, so I'll need to buy stuff for that as well. I hope that some of this clothing can overlap with the specific stuff I need for the Examination, so I can buy as little of this stuff as possible. One option would be to avoid dinners like this, but I think the idea of having dinner with a member of the House of Lords is pretty cool and is a neat type of opportunity that not many people get a chance to do. Plus, I'll get to explain to her my network analysis of voting networks that can also be used on voting in the English parliament (to look at party realignments, for example, as my SURF student found for the US Congress this summer). (I have been told where I can get relevant data sets, though I haven't tried to find them yet.) That will be really cool.

In completely random news, I saw a flier today advertising a new radio station that is starting in 8 days in Oxfordshire. It's name should be familiar to many of you: JACK fm. They're really spreading rather widely (and doing so pretty fast).

I think that's about it. I'm considering working on my grant proposal a bit tonight. We'll see if that happens. Also, I have my first tutorial sessions tomorrow. That will be fun. I'll get to interact with my students more. I've run into a couple of them here and there (including one math major at the ice cream place I like) since the official meeting last week, but then tomorrow we can start interacting a little more closely.