Entzing, Thirst, swinging, concerts, darts, and a primary tute!

Whilst at Colby, should one need an outfit for a theme party—such as last Friday’s first “Entz” of the term here, themed “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!” (after the popular British reality show)—the first place to go is undoubtedly Goodwill. Whilst at Oxford, however, goodwill is merely a prevalent attitude (especially at chillaxed St. Catz), so for costumes students go elsewhere, and they go inventive. Some opt for full-on body paint, as in the two na’vi—real, not avatars—I ran into at the college bar, while others go for a more home-grown approach in line with one’s natural appearance, such as a surprisingly good Prince (a.k.a the artist-formerly-known-as-the-artist-formerly-known-as-Prince), or my neighbor Ben with his impeccable Prince Harry impersonation. Myself, skeptical as to the English fame of the one and only Ben Cunkelman, could not take this latter approach, but I found enough neon to make my anonymous 80s work-out video costume come together. Pictured below, pre-Entzing, are Prince Harry, myself, and Peter as Lady Gaga (obviously taking the look-alike approach). The next Entz is a week from Friday (end of 4th week) with the theme of “guilty pleasures,” and I welcome suggestions in the comments section. Fire away.

On Saturday I stopped by the offices of one of the papers here, The Oxford Student (abbreviated as OxStu, Cherwell is the other paper), to meet the staff, see the space, and—oh right—lend my services. Here, in my first foray into English journalism, I found the OxStu editor’s room to be both eerily familiar and surprisingly comforting, as it resembles Colby’s own newspaper womb in many ways (do I hear an Echo?). For the week I wrote three short pieces—what they call “nibs”—essentially condensing press releases from the University’s news webpage. One, covering the astonishing similarity between the Tokyo railway system and a certain slime mould, appears to have fallen prey to comma-period substitution, Still, I was pleased that in not providing my own headlines, I perhaps got my most intriguing yet: “The Science of Sex,” Indeed, I’ll be a British tabloid writer in no time, Pictured below: the OxStu office and my step towards catching Michael Phelps at a party for News of the World, O.K., I’ll stop now, More like now,

Or now.

On Monday I met with my new primary tutor at Keble College (another beautiful spot outside Catz, pictures on the next post I promise), where we discussed our course of action for the term. Now, having tried to answer the question “What is law?” in Legal Positivism and feeling the typical study-stoke slowly drain out of my veins, my new tutorial on the “Ethics of War” is comparable to an EpiPen of studadrenaline. As my tutor put it, “I don’t care much as to what we should call law as to what we should do” and thus my readings are a mix of crash-course international relations, modern practical ethics, warfare strategy, and political science. Unfortunately, this means Thomas Hobbes is back, but at least I’ll get to attack his political realism with moderate doses of egalitarian liberalism and complex moralism. (Listen to me, term-dropping, almost as if I’m at Oxford.) My first essay to write for this week answers the question “Let's stipulate that international political institutions are less competent than domestic political institutions. Does it follow from this that there are no moral norms governing international relations?” Indeed, it’s infinitely better than “what is law?,” and studying in the RadCam or Bodleian Library only accentuates my excitement. (A note about the Bodleian: it’s a tad intense. During our library induction we were told that to study there is to “enter the fortress” and one slide in the presentation—which explained how most of its book stacks are deep underground—depicted the building as the above-water portion of a massive iceberg. You see, by law, the Bod is required to hold all books ever published in the U.K. and it even has books off-site in salt mines in Cheshire. Indeed, if man ever goes extinct due to nuclear war, at least we know where our biblio-Atlantis will be.)

Now oddly, despite being here for over three weeks, I had yet to enter an actual tutorial (i.e. bring in a written work for my tutor to see) until Wednesday of second week, when my secondary (“Existentialism and Current Issues”) met. Unfortunately, having brought my camera to the meeting, Prof. Inwood had sorted up his office to a presentable point so that images of the stereotypical absent-minded study appear to have eluded me, but the meeting itself went as expected in some ways and very unexpectedly in others. Indeed, Prof. Inwood read my paper aloud back to me, stopping after each line (this was expected, or should I say, what I hoped for, in an Oxford tutorial) and each time he stopped he would stare off into space (I could see the gears turning) before either returning to my paper or making a philosophical comment. Now, the latter is where I got the unexpected, as in one instance when he brought up fox-hunting in England (related to a point I made about consciousness) and remarked, “Now, I don’t suppose foxes fear death, or are ever really conscious of it as a possibility. In fact, they probably quite enjoy the chase…Squirrels, too…” My paper, written about foreign aid in Haiti and existentialist ethics, had been brought to a discussion of roadkill. Only at Oxford, I guess. Below are some shots I took on the walk back through Trinity College, including the alleyway leading to Inwood’s office and some of the grounds.

Moving from tutorials to nightlife, that evening some friends and I went out to Hertford College, where my friend Rachel from Colby and several other Americans are studying, to sample the liquids at the bar of one of Oxford’s oldest colleges (est. 1282). Interestingly, the bar didn’t feel so much like an olde English tavern as a fraternity basement, with a grungy, blackboards-on-the-wall, jam-packed atmosphere (very different from St. Catz, with its long-bar and wide-open common room), but I quite liked the change. From there we ventured to meet up with Judy, another good friend from Colby (they’re everywhere!), who just happened to be stopping by the Ol’ Town on her way to nearby Durban. Now, turns out a club in west of town—“Thirst”—was hosting a birthday party for Megan, a fellow St. Catz student, so as Oxford students we got free entrance and vouchers for free drinks. My personal favorite was the “’57 T-Bird with Arizona Plates,” (with a mango-orangey flavor—girly, I know) and with an area to chill out and talk in addition to a blacklit dance floor, the evening was a good balance between discussion and motion. The bartenders were also on their game when it came to pulling out all the stops while mixing the drinks, passing shakers between them and flipping glasses like burgers at the Base Box. Pictured below are Sir William, Judy, and myself the next morning in front of the RadCam, before Judy was off to nearby South Africa.

Later that evening I again went out, this time for charity in a double-date “swinger’s” event—myself and another chap took two ladies out to dinner—which was good fun not only in meeting more full-time students but also for the purposes of cultural inquisitiveness. Indeed, on the walk to the restaurant, whilst discussing accents in the U.K., I was prompted into doing as many different American tongues as I could, jumping from Bawstun to Noo Yawk to Memphus to Nayshvill to HellaCali speak. (Here in England the northern accent is comparable to the U.S.’s southern in terms on radical inflections, and stereotypically the two align in terms of the rural-urban dichotomy.) After dinner the four of us—myself with Josh, Hannah, and Victoria—then met up with all other St. Catz “swingers” at House Bar on High Street for half-price cocktails. (Side note: Josh is an engineering student here interested in studying aeronautics at MIT—small world—and I only found out the next day that Josh’s dad taught The Beatles to meditate. Second side note: To those wondering, ‘Out on a Wednesday and Thursday?,’ most students here typically go out mid-week when the town isn’t tourist-infested, so Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are usually the best nights. It’s bizzaro-world for sure.)

Now, related to finding things out after the fact—as in Josh’s case—a few weeks back on one of my first nights here I had dinner with a music student named Mark who studies clarinet and composes his own music. As he got up to get a pint, his friends revealed to Peter and I that Mark is quite talented as a composer and player—being U.K.’s “Young Composer of the Year”—and that he just doesn’t let on much. Well, on Friday, Mark had a concert at the Holywell Music Room (pictured below), so Peter and I just had to go, and oh my Mark is good. The hall, a beautiful old church, made for a fantastic setting, and the performance of a Brahms quintet was candy to the ears. To check out Mark’s original works, visit www.myspace.com/marksimpsoncomposer

So that’s the week. All in all, I’m feeling more of a rhythm, and runs with the O.U.C.C.C. are going well. We did another 12-miler last Sunday that was even wetter than the first—tramping through knee-deep water at times—and thus in proportion all the more epic. Here at Catz, Billy and I have taken up darts—playing nearly every night after dinner—and with a tournament against Magdalen College in week 7 our skills are improving nicely. (Pictured below is Peter killing Billy with his “U.K. death throw”).

I’m off to the library now to finish that paper, but in the meantime here’s a quote from today’s The Times, one pertinent to my readings on diplomacy:

“Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments”—Frederick the Great.

To read the full article, go here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7010326.ece

Cheers all!

Nick