More Oxford stuff

Later on, I'll write a belated review of "Avenue Q" and make some comments about "Superbad", but let me do more Oxford stuff. I'll try to stay out of trouble this time!

Last Wednesday was the dinner to meet the new frosh. I talked with my charges a bit and will have my first tutorial sessions on Thursday. I wrote about the dinner a bit, and as I mentioned I had some nice conversations by dinner.

I am getting proper iced lattes on a daily basis now, which obviously improves my quality of life. Next to the coffee place where I get them is a pub where apparently (as I found out last night) Tolkienn and CS Lewis used to go. Their are supposed to be some letters between them decorating some of the walls (and the food is supposed to be good), so I'll be trying that place pretty soon.

In a new Monday night tradition, the new members of the SCR are going to meet for dinner. We're eating dinner in College and than hanging out. Kudos go out to the person taking the initiative on this! It's an excellent idea, especially for someone like me who is in a brand new place and needs to meet people (especially those my own age)! We talked about redecorating the quaint SCR room, and my tie dye beanbag chair is one thing that might go there. (As one person put it, "Oxford can always use more tie dye.") There are also some really random books in that room (such as a Who's Who from 1989 and 1995), so another plan is put some other book in there and see how long it takes someone to notice. So, yes, there was some flicking after dinner. (Of course, I'm kind of giving that away here, but if this gives me more information on who is reading this, then that's also good. Apparently, most of my OCIAM colleagues are taking a look at this page every so often, so I have more readers now. You know, it's been very consistent that the only time I find out that I have more readers is when I write something stupid or tactless. How come people who haven't already identified themselves as a reader let me know that they're watching me only when I say something amusing? Compliments about my sense of humor would be nice.)

Anyway, the Monday dinner was fun, and I told the other diners my answer to a facetious challenge posed during the frosh dinner last Wednesday. (I think that my idea, which is highly amusing, for that will be hard to top, and there's no way in Hell I'm mentioning that one publicly because that one could get me in real trouble --- as opposed to the good-natured chastising I already got [and perhaps will get more of].)

I received a mailing-list e-mail about stating my nationality to see what my voting rights here will be. The answer in my case is easy: I don't have any. I did mention that I was going to vote by absentee in the US to do my part to keep the Republicans out of office, and I was very enthusiastically encouraged in the response to my e-mail that I should do this.

Oh, and I've finished setting up my research group web page. You can find that page here.

I also now have a course webpage in blog format. You can find that page here.

I think that's it for now. My current set of simulations is still going to take forever (and I'm doing them a second time because Matlab quit automatically after they were done before I could save them last night, as I had already selected to update new firmware... sigh).