An American Mathematician in Oxford

I've got ethernet set up in my apartment now, so I've got regular online access again.

I'm exhausted and I have a ton of stuff to do to get settled (and prepare for my perturbation theory course, which starts next week).

Once I got online at work, I went through the built-up e-mails quickly because I knew there would be a lot of stuff to do. The first thing I did online at home is to check on the Rockies-Padres game. I couldn't get online last night, so I didn't get a chance to listen to it. The Rockies won! Their assent to the playoffs was really incredible! I'll blog some more about baseball later.

One thing I've noticed in Somerville is that I keep getting duplicate online and hard copies of things (actually, I was given multiple copies of some things because different people wanted to make sure I get everything I need). At US universities (at least the ones I've been at), most stuff comes only online now, but here they're still in the transition period where one gets copies both ways. For the one day while I didn't have access it was helpful, but now I see that a lot of Somerville College's resources are going to get wasted this way. Apparently, the older folks don't want to have to go online for such things, and I've heard some of the older Tutors are set in their way, so I'm looking forward to getting chastised for my newfangled ways.

I get free lunches and dinners whenever I want, so I won't have too many expenses for a while. (I do plan to get some ice cream tonight though...) When eating in the dining hall (so, for dinners that aren't for private parties), I get to eat at the High Table, which is quite literally on higher ground than where the students (in full view of the table) are eating. Tonight isn't one of the regular dinner nights where Tutors go and I doubt there will be the requisite minimum of 3 to eat in the private dining room, so I'll eat in the regular hall tonight. This could be my chance to eat at the special seat reserved for the Principal (or, in her absence, the highest-ranking Tutor present), but then it seems to me that that almost becomes like the old Table of Shame situation we had in Lloyd. I'm thinking I might just go ahead and eat on the regular tables with the students (a la Feynman). As the Senior Tutor said, I'm a member of the Senior Common Room (which refers simultaneously to an actual room and to the social group of Tutors and Administators in Somerville), so I can do what I want. Many people have confused me for a new student anyway---so I have the power of faculty (which gives much more benefits in this system than in the US one) and I can blend in (to whatever extent I can blend in with anything) with the students. This could be fun.

The head researcher in OCIAM (Oxford's applied math group) is extremely blunt. I was told about him before, and he really utters some off-the-cuff remarks. He was pleased to know that I'm blunt, though given the stuff that he utters, I'm afraid I am beaten hands down in this regard. Plus, I usually need time to become comfortable for that stuff. Anyway, I met some of my fellow applied math faculty members and they seem really nice. There are 5 new ones out of 20 in total (with a couple of the other 15 to retire soon), so there's a lot of new blood in the department. Two of us are Americans, so we plan on taking over (as I indicated to the head of OCIAM's research program). It's our manifest destiny. (Plus, we need more room to breathe.) This is the largest turnover in this group in a looooooong time, so there are some really exciting opportunities to build up some nice new things in addition to what's already there. Oh, and the Tutor assigned to mentor me is an American. The Senior Tutor figured that somebody else who also had to make the US->UK transition would be a good person to choose, and I agree with her completely. I can also ask my colleague in OCIAM (who finished up as a grad turkey in applied math at Caltech when I was a frosh), as he moved here a couple of months ago and has already figured out some of the stuff I need to figure out.

Getting to Oxford was pretty uneventual. The luggage I was taking with me weighed over a metric fuck ton (by which I mean more than 100 pounds), and having two heavy suitcases was a bit of a pain. My brother helped me with that a bit in LAX and then I used a cart to lug them from the baggage claim to the coach when I arrived at Heathrow. (Incidentally, getting into the country was trivial. They wanted to see my work permit in addition to the VISA. Thankfully, I had the work permit in my carry-on suitcase. (I hadn't remembered if I had put it there or in the check-in stuff, which I didn't have back yet at that point, but thankfully I was thinking clearly at some point.) He stamped that, so now I just need to show my passport to get back in. Using the cart helped a lot but things were still a bit difficult when I went on downhill ramps. I had to exert force to prevent gravity my making the cart careen away and because the wheels on my cart were suboptimal, I think I almost twisted one of my ankles a couple of times. There might have been the chance to do some damage, but I managed to be ok.

I got on the coach and then made it to Oxford at about 3:40 pm yesterday. Here is where the tricky part with luggage would come. It was about a .5 mile walk to Somerville but a .25 mile walk to the place that taxis go without being expressly called. Even the .25 walk promised to be very rough with my laptop, my red carry-on, and about 115 pounds of stuffed pastel purple and light blue suitcases, and I felt pretty stupid walking .25 miles just to take a cab to go another couple of blocks. OK, so what happened? I started trudging my way to the cab stop and a girl (Eda, who just arrived 10 days ago from Turkey for a Masters program in some sort of social work thing) walking in the other direction saw me struggling and offered to help. I normally would be stubborn, but the circumstances were extreme, so I wasn't about to protest in this situation. So, the half mile walk become much more pleasant both because I had someone to talk to and because I was dragging one big suitcase instead of two. Anyway, a big thanks goes out to Eda (I'm pretty sure the second letter was a 'd'; my memory is already hazy), who I'll hopefully run into again at some point.

What else... my apartment is a bigger than the one I had before. The bathroom could be bigger, and I really wish the kitchen were bigger and that the fridge I have weren't so piddly. I have a crapload of bookshelves --- something like the equivalent of 8 or more full-sized bookshelves (8 full shelves, not 8 levels in one shelf) in space, so finding room for all my D & D books won't be a problem... Oh, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but the apartment is too cold and I need to figure out a way to get the heat to blast a bit more.

That's it for now. I'll shortly send a spammy e-mail with my contact information and then I need to start dealing with bank account stuff.

Update: I just got a good-natured ribbing for a subset of the above comments from the head of our research group. (I also watched him put a copy of the text into the OCIAM director's box.) I'm also supposed to expect a witty response, so we'll see how that goes. Oh, and I think I should take this as a lesson to learn to be more careful. This also means that my readership has expanded, which kind of goes hand-in-hand with the being more careful part.