graduation weekend dispatches

Grantchester revisited. Among the items on the Cambridge tourist to-do list that we missed when my family visited in January is the walk to Grantchester. This may sound familiar to longtime readers with sharp memories. Grantchester is a tiny village a few miles up the River Cam where the poet Rupert Brooke once hosted future members of the Bloomsbury Group—including John Maynard Keynes, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster and Bertrand Russell—for tea and civilized conversation. Today Brooke’s old home and orchard are a teahouse that preserves some of the memory of that group.

After my parents and I arrived back in Cambridge for graduation weekend, the Grantchester walk was first on the agenda, but unfortunately the appointed day did not turn out quite the way I might have hoped. Contradicting an observation I had made earlier in the trip that thunder and lightning are rare in Britain, the afternoon was spotted with thunderstorms and pouring rain, with spells of cold drizzle in between. Dispirited by the weather and feeling a touch of pre-departure depression, I felt like calling off the walk, but my parents were game to face the storms, mud, and cows. The teahouse and surrounding orchard would usually be jammed with people on a summer afternoon, but for at least part of the time we were the only people sitting outside. In the end I was glad we went—the hot tea, conversation, and visiting a fun old place helped to restore my mojo for the festivities to come that evening.

Latin lessons. After changing into some dry clothes, we headed to Emma, where I had organized a graduation-eve formal dinner for Development Studies classmates and their families. The countries represented included China, India, Japan, Brazil, the U.S., Canada, Austria, Germany, and Greece. We had pre-dinner drinks in the cloisters by the college chapel and then moved on to a cozy upstairs room with lots of portraits of dead white men in wigs. I was incredibly grateful that Dave, a member of the catering staff who we always prayed would be the one quarterbacking our MCR dinners, was overseeing things. Dave did throw me one surprise, though: shortly after we were all seated, he came over to me and asked if I wanted to recite the College grace. I think my initial response was on the lines of, “uhhhh… I don’t speak Latin, Dave.” He showed me where both pre- and post-dinner graces were printed in the program and we had a 30-second dress rehearsal. I remember exactly two things from the third of a year of Latin I had in seventh grade (and any Latin scholars in the audience are welcome to correct me on this). First, the letters more or less always make the same sounds, unlike in English; second, it’s pronounced more or less the way a native English speaker would expect. With that slender bit of background knowledge and Dave’s confidence, I read out the grace without any obvious stumbles. I don’t know if the same could be said for my pronunciation, but I doubt anyone in the room had the slightest idea what I was saying. If you're curious you can check out the graces, with translations, here.

Pull my finger. Graduation, like so many other things in Cambridge, is steeped in formality and 800 years of tradition and takes little note of the way the rest of the world prefers to do things. There are lots of graduation ceremonies on different throughout the year, and the timing of any particular student’s graduation depends a lot on the idiosyncrasies of his or her course. There are no go-out-and-get-‘em speeches. Graduates shuffle through their small piece of the all-day ceremony by college, so I wasn’t even with my Development Studies classmates. My required outfit included a tuxedo, a white bow tie and bands (which made me feel like I should be trying somebody for witchcraft in 1690s Salem), a black gown, and a big black hood lined with blue silk draped over my back. I knew little about the ceremony going in and warned my parents not to expect much.

What I did know was that I was going to have to hold some guy’s finger. (Eight hundred years of solemn tradition, building up to… a fart joke?) Each college appoints one of its fellows as Praelector, and from what I can tell that role involves presenting the graduating students and enforcing the dress code. Rumor has it that if one of us students commits a wardrobe infraction, our college Praelector is fined… in bottles of port. Anyway, the graduates from each College march into a fancy old building known as the Senate House, and their Praelector extends a hand to the first four graduates in the phalanx. As each graduate holds onto one of those fingers, the Praelector leads the group forward and gives a brief testimonial, in Latin, to their learning and morals and their fitness to proceed to the degrees which they are to be awarded.

Now comes the really weird part. Picture, at the center of this grand assembly, a fairly senior man or woman sitting in a fancy chair and dressed in a bright red cape lined with white fur. This is (rarely) the Chancellor, Prince Philip; or (less rarely) the Vice Chancellor; or (usually) a deputy of hers, often the Master or President of a college. Our caped MC was the Master of Magdalene College, and the outfit combined with his kind face and round glasses gave him the appearance of a clean-shaven Santa Claus. After the Praelector’s testimonial, each individual graduate’s name is called, and each in turn kneels on a cushion in front of the big chair and extends his or her joined hands as if in prayer. It looked a bit like we were being knighted, minus the part with the sword. The presiding officer then clasps the graduate’s hands and formally confers the degree, in Latin. The new graduate rises, taking extreme care not to trip over the gown in the process, and gives a bow before exiting stage right.

Amazingly, the least ceremonious part was the paper diploma. After all of these traditional flourishes, I was expecting a huge piece of parchment with Latin calligraphy and perhaps a wax seal. Instead, what I got was a piece of 7x10 paper that looks like something I could have easily printed out on a home laser printer. It certifies, in English, that I attended the Congregation of 18 July 2009 and only later gets around to mentioning that I was awarded a Master of Philosophy degree. The mode of presentation was no more dramatic: we received our diplomas inside a plastic sleeve from an usher as we exited the Senate House. Like most of my friends, I opted to get a wooden University of Cambridge frame—partly because I fear that no one will believe it’s a diploma otherwise, and partly because I fear that one day I might accidentally toss it out with some old bank statements.

This has probably sounded a bit snarky, and there certainly was plenty of joking all around about the sillier aspects of the ceremony. But like many other things here, I think Cambridge’s odd approach to graduation is best approached with an open mind, a sense of humor, and a healthy dose of respect for eight centuries of history. And most importantly, after the red capes and Latin incantations we all get to walk away as Cambridge alumni—which is really, really cool in any language.

quintessential cambridge experience #4: may week

The pinnacle of the social year at Cambridge is May Week-- which, as you should expect by now, is not in May and lasts considerably longer than a week. I've discussed the Cambridge institution of May Balls before, but here's a quick refresher, which I have lazily copied from my February 15 blog entry and pasted here:

"If you thought formal hall sounded decadent, you ain't seen nothing yet. May Balls are all-night parties put on by most of the colleges... and they are nothing if not celebrations of excess. Think of them as a cross between prom and Project Graduation, marinated in booze. Ticket prices vary widely, but a middle-of-the-road May Ball starts around £100 (about $145). The more prestigious balls are very hard to get into; the ball at St. John's College once made a Time magazine list of the 10 best parties in the world."

I attended two May Balls this year, one at my own Emmanuel College and the other at Jesus College, which I chose because lots of my Development Studies classmates are there. The timing was less than ideal, as they fell on back-to-back nights, but I know many May Ball warriors with far more exacting schedules than mine. To get a sense of what's involved in one of these bacchanals, pour yourself a glass of champagne and enjoy this photographic tour of the Emma May Ball, with the appoximate time each picture was taken.


7:45 pm: Dinner. Many balls offer "dining tickets," which allow you to start off your evening with a multi-course meal a la Formal Hall, for about £30 extra. Despite the general consensus that dining tickets are not worth it, given the copious quantities of food at no extra charge for the rest of the night, I decided to indulge just for the Emma ball.



11:oo pm: Texas hold 'em. Casino games are a May Ball staple. There's no real money at stake; instead, everyone gets an allotment of chips at the door, and those who are successful at poker, routlette or blackjack can cash in their chips for chances to win prizes like plasma TVs or plane tickets. Our poker game coincided with a port tasting in the same room, and James (to my right in this picture) was close enough to the port table that he could refill our glasses simply by swiveling around, not even needing to stand up. Needless to say, the decline in my poker performance was steep and severe-- no plasma screen TV for me!



12:30 am: Cornershop. Any May Ball worth its salt has a main stage with bands playing throughout the night, plus performances elsewhere on the college grounds by comedians, hypnotists, a cappella groups, and dancers. As I discovered at Williams and in Anchorage, these smallish venues tend to bring in bands that are either struggling to make it or washed up. Headlining the Emma ball was a British-Indian group called Cornershop, who are well past their prime and still coasting on the strength of their 1997 hit "Brimful of Asha." These one-hit wonders made the mistake of not saving their one hit for the end of their set, so shortly after the "Asha" was empty, the tent where they were playing nearly was too.



1:15 am: Dodge 'ems. Another essential part of the May Ball experience is carnival games and rides, which range from bumper cars (called dodge 'ems in Britain) to strength tests to ferris wheels. I had a car to myself, and after a full-speed collision with a car containing two of my friends, my butt got enough air that even the dodge 'em guy looked impressed. During the round after us, a piece of the ceiling came off and landed on some poor fellow's head, bringing back memories of that awful Boston tunnel accident. Fortunately this guy was fine- he needed some help out of the car, but I'm pretty sure it was because was blotto before he got in, not because of a concussion.



2:30 am: Hookah. The Ball brought in our friendly neighborhood purveyors of hookah and created a magical little space to chill under the branches of an ancient tree. For the uninitiated, a hookah (often used interchangeably with shisha) is a Middle Eastern water pipe used to smoke flavored tobacco. You can't see most of the pipe in this picture, but Ev (on the left) has the stem in his hand, and in the foreground you can see the blocks of charcoal that heat up the tobacco. At this point in the night, having somewhere to sit and relax was crucial, and I think the key to a successful May Ball is having lots of activities for different energy levels.



4:00 am: Silent Disco. I can't say I fully understand the appeal of Silent Disco, but apparently it's all the rage in Europe. Instead of grooving to the tunes supplied by a DJ, you get a personal set of headphones, which provide a small selection of channels with different types of dance music. When a particularly catchy song played on one of the channels, I would lift my headphones for a moment and could hear scattered people singing along amidst the sound of shuffling bodies and shoes.



5:50 am: Assembling for the "Survivors' Picture." Every May Ball has a "Survivors' Picture" for those who make it all the way to the end. There is also usually some modest breakfast food; Emma had gooey chocolate croissants from the Italian cafe across the street. After the picture was taken I walked home, slept for a few hours, and got ready to do it all again the following night at Jesus College's May Ball. What a life!

quintessential cambridge experience #3: bumps

This time of year is heavy with ritual in Cambridge, and among the finest of those rituals is May Bumps, a multi-day series of boat races on the River Cam. Every college at the University fields boat crews, as do the medical, veterinary and theological schools and Anglia Ruskin University. Both terms, “May” and “Bumps,” need some clarification. They “May” part is easier to explain: as in the case of May Balls, it’s a relic of an earlier time when the academic year was structured differently.

“Bumps” refers to the way in which boats—each with eight rowers plus a coxswain, who steers and yells out commands—advance in the rankings over other boats. The races are not timed, and as will be explained momentarily, many of the boats in a given division will not even race the entire course. In the Bumps, success is only about rank, and the way you improve your standing is to overtake (“bump”) the boat ahead of you. Roughly 18 boats race at a time, and prior to the starting cannon they line up in the order determined by the previous day’s rankings (or previous year’s, if it’s the first day), with about 1½ boat lengths of space between each one. If one boat bumps another, their race is over; both pull over to the banks to let the rest of their division go by, and on the next day’s race they swap places in the order. It’s also possible to “overbump”—if the 2nd boat bumps the 3rd, and then the 4th boat bumps the 1st, the latter two will swap places during the next go-around. At the end of several days of racing, the top boats in the top men’s and women’s divisions are crowned as “Heads of the River.” However, any boat can earn a bit of glory by winning “oars,” awarded to crews that bump other boats on four consecutive days.

The official May Bumps program claims that 15% of the University participates. It sounded unrealistically high at first blush, but then again it seems plausible that 15% of my friends and classmates are rowers. Though it is a great Cambridge experience, I never felt especially tempted to join a boat crew, perhaps because it’s famously demanding on participants’ schedules and sleep-wake cycles. I really enjoyed watching the races, though—a lot of people come out, and it’s a nice atmosphere. Here are a couple of the Emma boat crews with MCR members:


The Men's II boat- MCR friends Kevin and Pat are the two rowers on the far left.


The 4th-ranked Women's I boat. Fellow Ephs Catherine and Maggie are 2nd and 4th from right.

mid-lent term dispatches

The atmosphere in Cambridge has been noticeably different during Lent Term, the middle third of the academic year. It seems like everyone is hunkering down and working much harder, yours truly included. Certain Michaelmas Term luxuries, such as attending lectures for classes I am not taking for credit, are now largely a thing of the past. At least eastern England at this time of year is damp, cold, and gross, so it doesn't feel like we're missing anything.

An unpleasant class. One of the changes in format in our program during Lent Term has been semiweekly student-led seminars. Last week a classmate from Sudan conducted a seminar that was supposed to be about NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and civil society in Sudan. As many of you know, I was an activist with Save Darfur while I was in Alaska. My Sudanese classmate is a very pleasant guy, but occasionally he has made comments that have made me bristle. During his presentation, he spent relatively little time on the topic and mostly tried to debunk what everybody knows is going on in the Western part of Sudan.

He used many of the tropes that the Sudanese government uses to defend itself, including:
(1) referring to Darfuris are "rebels" and never once using the word "civilians";
(2) asserting, without evidence, that the Janjaweed militias are a "myth";
(3) cataloguing crimes and abuses perpetrated by employees of international organizations working in Darfur--which undoubtedly have happened--while never mentioning the hundreds of thousands of murders and rapes in Darfur, the millions of refugees streaming out of the country, or the burned villages;
(4) suggesting that the Darfur atrocities have been fabricated by some kind of Western activist-government-media conspiracy against Sudan.

As far off the mark as I think he was, I didn't know if challenging him directly on the facts during class would be the right approach. Perhaps fortunately, I didn't really have a chance, because he went on long enough that there was very little time for Q and A. From talking to some other classmates afterward, I got the sense that everybody knew the score. One recommended that I look at it as an "anthropological experience." I don't know if I will try talking to him about it in a less public setting, or even if it's worth doing so. If my German classmate were a Holocaust denier, I don't think I would bother trying to reason with her. The best approach I can think of for now would be to say something like, "that's not how I understand the situation in your country at all-- I'm just interested to hear more about where you're coming from?"

Cambridge has balls. Luckily even in the middle of Lent Term it isn't all work and no play. On Friday I attended the somewhat misnamed Springball at Churchill College. Springball is a very early preview of Cambridge's famous May Balls. If you thought formal hall sounded decadent, you ain't seen nothing yet. May Balls are all-night parties put on by most of the colleges, mostly during one week in mid-June (they were in May a long time ago, hence the name), and they are nothing if not celebrations of excess. Think of them as a cross between prom and Project Graduation, marinated in booze. Ticket prices vary widely, but a middle-of-the-road May Ball starts around £100 (about $145). The more prestigious balls are very hard to get into; the ball at St. John's College once made a Time magazine list of the 10 best parties in the world.

Churchill's Springball is nowhere near that level, but it's a pretty crazy party nonetheless. I went with a large posse of Gates people, many of whom are at Churchill, and we stayed from 8 pm until the bitter end at 3 am- which is very early by Cambridge ball standards. The food was generally pretty bad (surprise!), though I was a big fan of the donut stand. Activities included multiple concerts and dance floors, sumo wrestling in big padded suits, massages, an inflatable obstacle course, karaoke, and laser tag. I lost one of my cufflinks in the ball pit, and one of my friends -- who worked the second half of the ball in exchange for attending the first half for free -- miraculously found it at the end of the night and got it back to me.

You will surely be hearing more about May Balls, as I'm going to be attending two. One is an Oz-themed ball at Jesus College, which is where many of my Development Studies classmates are. The other is, obviously, Emma's ball. Fortunately I have no part in the planning of our ball, which got some bad publicity recently for a poorly chosen and subsequently withdrawn theme: "Empire." I didn't find the theme all that upsetting, and I do believe the intent was to "reflect the style and fashions of both Britain at the end of the nineteenth century and the diverse countries and cultures with which Britain was then entwined," but I'm irritated that the committee was so politically tone-deaf.

The contrast in subject matter above is not lost on me, and on Saturday I talked on the phone with my friend Kate, whom I'll be visiting at her Peace Corps post in Cameroon in late March. We shared a laugh over how a sentence like "I lost my cufflink in the ball pit" could be so completely foreign to her day-to-day life. Though I'm completely immersed in it right now, I am sure that Lent Term in Cambridge will seem alien to me too when I'm where she is.

more odes, and my upcoming homecoming

"The Chick is on my Disk": An Ode to Kiwis. I am pretty sure that in my adult life I never had the occasion to meet any Kiwis (New Zealanders) prior to coming here. I was missing out, I have since discovered. New Zealand has a strong presence in the Emmanuel MCR, belying a population size that is microscopic in global terms (4 million). The Kiwis I have gotten to know here are incredibly fun and easy-going people, and they have one of the world's most entertaining accents. Kiwis sound a lot like Australians, except that they tend to swap around some of the vowel sounds; i's sound like e's and e's sound like i's, for instance. The president of our MCR is a Kiwi-- I call him "Mr. Prizedint"-- as is one of my co-social-secretaries. During one of our committee meetings, my co-social-sec informed our prez that "the chick is on my disk," which of course meant that the check was on his desk. You can also watch the first minute of this to get another humorous illustration courtesy of Flight of the Conchords, the Kiwi comedy duo that did that silly French video I posted a while back.

"Remorseless": An Ode to Peter Nolan. I would be remiss if I did not pay tribute to one of my favorite Cambridge characters. Peter Nolan is a professor at Cambridge's business school, a leading expert on Chinese industry, and the main lecturer for a Development Studies course I am taking on big business, globalization, and developing countries. His course is open to several different MPhils, so his lectures usually pack in a couple hundred people, but he's so good that it's well worth the lack of personal interaction.

Standing in front of a lecture hall, Professor Nolan looks less like a business expert more like a beatnik poet in a blazer, with a wild mane of silver hair, a perpetual five-o-clock shadow and a deeply corrugated brow. As he lectures he paces back in forth across the front of the room, as if he's formulating his arguments as he goes along, and occasionally gazes off somewhere far away as he's making a broad point. His most endearing feature is his wealth of Nolanisms, including his tendency to call everything a "two-edged sword" and to regularly use emphatic adjectives such as "intense," "enormous," "fantastic," and my personal favorite, "remorseless." I didn't realize I become a leading Peter Nolan impressionist until one of his later lectures this term, when he referred to "this two-edged sword of capitalist globalization" and at least a half-dozen of my classmates looked at me with smirks on their faces.

Professor Nolan is one of two people in the Development Studies faculty whom I would call "big idea people": professors who, in addition to presenting the gamut of theories in their particular field, have their own grand theory that they subtly or not-so-subtly try to inculcate into their students. Professor Nolan's basic shtick is that, for better and for worse, most of the innovation and dynamism in the global business arena comes from competition among a small number of big oligopolistic firms in each industry. The "two-edged sword" metaphor is a favorite of his because he seems to believe that globalization is both really, really good and really, really bad, and that there's no contradiction in affirming both stances. I will probably come back to this subject with my own thoughts in a later episode.

Back to the States. I am heading back to Massachusetts for Christmas on Thursday, so I don't know if I'll have a chance to post again before then. I am already trying to de-program certain bits of British vocabulary that I have picked up here that will make me sound ridiculous at home: "queue" and "keen" and "trousers" to name a few. I am looking forward to it, for all of the usual reasons, and also because I find that returning to one's home country after some time away brings many revelations.

ode to formal hall

I have complained about bureaucracy and kvetched about overcommitment, but as Michaelmas Term '08 draws to a close I thought I'd focus on the positive and pay tribute to some of the things that make Cambridge special. The first installment of a multi-part series: an ode to formal hall.

Each and every one of Cambridge's 31 colleges have some version of formal hall, which is a regular, highly ritualized multi-course dinner. I've already described formal hall for you once, but at the time I didn't appreciate what a central feature of Cambridge life it is. No joke: I eat an extravagant, sumptuous, Thanksgiving-sized meal here at least once per week. Every college does it a little differently, and the character of formal hall is a little window into the soul of a college. Some colleges hold formal hall quite often, others quite rarely; some require academic gowns, others do not; some seat the fellows (i.e. teaching faculty) of the college at an elevated "high table," others are more egalitarian; some have their own port and a cheese course after dinner, other's don't; some have multiple elaborate graces in Latin, others have a pithy two-word blessing. Most colleges have pre-dinner drinks and post-dinner parties in other spaces on the college grounds.

I would guess that the majority of Cambridge grads go to formal hall at their own college with some regularity, and it's also possible to attend other college's formal halls either by getting a friend to bring you as a guest, or through "formal hall exchanges" between colleges. Some M.Phil students set the ambitious goal of dining at all 31 colleges during their year. I haven't adopted that goal for myself, but I have been to six so far, so I'm on track to hit up more than half of the total by the end of the year. Here's a photographic tour of five of them:

Newnham is one of three all-women's colleges at Cambridge, but they sure seem to import a lot of guys for formal hall. There was much fodder for stereotyping: the hall itself reminded me of a wedding cake, and after the final grace the head of the college delivered an unusual pep rally-style speech about what a great term it's been. I went with four of my Development Studies classmates, two of whom are members of Newnham.

Trinity is among the oldest, wealthiest, most prestigious, and most traditional of the Cambridge colleges. I ate my dinner with a large group of fellow Gates Scholars under a looming portrait of Amartya Sen. Sen is a former master of Trinity College and Nobel Prize-winning economist/philosopher whose thought is the basis for one of the courses I've been taking this term. Some of his most pathbreaking work has been in the area of famine, and the obvious irony did complicate my feelings about our opulent feast. I suspect that's just how Professor Sen would like it.

Churchill is a relative newcomer, founded in 1958. Named for the former prime minister and styled as England's MIT, Churchill has a large male majority, but only because of its emphasis on engineering and other high-tech fields. Churchill is also one of the more secular colleges. The pre-dinner grace is just two words: benedictus benedictat. ("May the blessed one give a blessing" or something like that.) After dinner, the students traditionally raise a rather sedate toast "to the Queen," followed by a rambunctious toast "TO SIR WINSTON!"

Peterhouse is the oldest college in Cambridge, and the fact that they've had eight centuries of practice doesn't mean the food was good-- in fact, it was pretty awful. The hall is entirely candle-lit and reminds one of a medieval castle, which I suppose is pretty close to the truth. As the fellows were filing out at the end of the meal -- a ritual obliging the students to stand in silence -- somebody knocked their long bench over, sending it tumbling to the stone floor with a tremendous thud. As soon as the door closed behind the last fellow, the hall erupted in repressed laughter.

And last but not least, the best college, Emmanuel! We have "MCR formals" every other Monday, which means that we pack the hall with grad students and have some kind of theme dinner and after-party. I really do feel that Emma has some of the best food around, and the formal dinners always conclude with a cheese course and a glass of Emmanuel College port. (Yep, someone bottles it just for the college.) As one of the new MCR social secretaries, I'm now the one responsible for coordinating the MCR formals. But that's a tale for another post.

from the less-important elections desk

Elections are in the air in Cambridge, and it's not just because of the latest round of regime change in the U.S. (and New Zealand!) After a not-so-suspenseful election, I am the new treasurer of the Gates Scholars Council, which organizes all of the social events, speaker series, publications, and other services provided to and by Gates scholars. I won this post through a Soviet-style election in which I was the only candidate, which was true of about half the Council positions. However, I did win convincingly over RON ("re-open nominations"), who is an option for every office. In my case, RON went down 95 to 1. RON got at least one vote in every race, leading me to believe that either (A) each of the new Council members has at least one archenemy or (B) somebody is making a statement for electoral competition.

After another, only-slightly-more-suspenseful election, I am also one of three Social Secretaries for the Emmanuel College MCR this year. I say only slightly more suspenseful because although there were four candidates for the three slots, one of them chose not to submit a "manifesto" (Cambridgespeak for a candidate's statement), which is tantamount to running for president and not campaigning. The planks of my platform included an Emma community service day, an Iron Chef-style cooking contest between graduate houses, and more opportunities to interact with Master Richard Thomas James Wilson of Dinton and other college muckymucks.

A third election is underway for two student reps to the Development Studies committee. I'm not really interested in this one and did not nominate myself, but someone put my name in. There are ten candidates, and unfortunately only one of the ten represents a developing country. The rest are mostly from the North America, the UK, and the Netherlands. Not to be ungrateful to whatever kind soul(s) nominated me, but I did not vote for myself and am hoping that I will lose. As an aside, I have a colorful tradition of occasionally not voting for myself... there is one particularly embarrassing story from my childhood that my mom likes to bring out if she feels that some embarrassment is in order.

In other news: I'm going to Paris! I'm taking the high-speed train to the City of Lights tomorrow night with a small posse of Gates people. Updates on our très excellente adventure to come soon.

matriculation

I have a backlog of quintissentially Cantabrigian experiences to report to you on, so I begin tonight with Matriculation. It's one of those wonderfully tradition-encrusted institutions of Cambridge life, and it marks the official beginning of membership in one's College. I've never read any Harry Potter books, but there were lots of elements of the experience that made me think of Harry Potter. (Quick review: Cambridge has 31 colleges, and each grad student is affiliated with one of them, more for housing and social life than for academics. Mine is Emmanuel College.)

The ceremony began with a group photo in the front court of the College, in front of the chapel. We were required to look respectable--dark suits for gents--and wear our academic gowns, which are a must-have unless you're at one of those "modern" and "progressive" colleges. Before the big group photo, I organized a smaller photo of the eight new Williams people at Emma this year. Unfortunately, the chapel is totally washed out in the late afternoon sun, but you can at least see the silly robes they make us wear:

Observant family members may notice that I'm wearing the "Nana tie," which just happens to be the Emmanuel College colors, pink and blue!

So, now the Harry Potter-esque part. The kernel of the Matriculation ceremony is signing your name in a big book as the Master of the College and the Graduate Tutor look on. Before they started calling us upstairs, we received very specific instructions: we were to write our full names, undergraduate institutions, and places of birth. For those born in the British Isles, that meant the "historic county" of birth--which led to puzzlement for those born in London, which has apparently devoured a lot of historic counties around it. Those born in the U.S., Canada, and Australia wrote our birth states or provinces, and everyone else was supposed to just write the country. A Russian student asked if that meant the country as it now exists, or as it existed at the time of birth, and I'm not sure if she got a satisfactory answer.

The head porter called us upstairs in alphabetical groups at five-minute intervals, whereupon we were ushered into an opulently furnished room with lots of portraits of dead Emmanuel fellows on the walls. We signed a bunch of papers that said we would uphold the values of Cambridge, pay "due respect and obedience" to the vice-chancellor and the university, and all that jazz. The Master, Graduate Tutor, and the book were in the next room at the head of a very long table, and the dean of the college called us in there one by one.

Finally it was my turn, and as I started writing in the book, the Master asked how many names I had. I informed him that, regretfully, I only have three, but it was my understanding that his full name is rather impressive. (His wikipedia page identifies him as "Richard Thomas James Wilson, Baron Wilson of Dinton GCB.") We chatted briefly about how I was getting along, and he congratulated me and said, "you are now a member of the College, and will be for the rest of your life." For some reason, I thought of that kid from The Sandlot going "FOR-EV-ER. FOR-EV-ER."

Naturally, when everyone has signed the book, a lavish evening of drinking and eating ensued. The end.

4 glasses of wine + orientation

After a week in Cambridge I am just beginning to wrap my mind around the innumerable ways in which the whole approach to education here is different from what I am used to in the U.S. It will take several posts to digest and share my thoughts, but I'll start with one of the most interesting features of Cambridge life -- the college system -- including a "not in Kansas anymore" experience from the other night.

This thing called "The University of Cambridge" is basically an administrative shell for an unruly collection of institutions, including 31 self-governing colleges, various academic departments and committees, and a wide assortment of other entities (such as the Gates Cambridge Trust). As our Gatesian elders warned us during the Lake District trip, navigating this often baffling system is one of the primary challenges of our lives here and an excellent education unto itself.

For grad students such as yours truly, the 31 colleges exist primarily as centers of residential and social life. The colleges vary widely in personality, age (ranging from 31 to 724 years) , wealth (£8 million to £700 million), and student body composition (grad vs. undergrad, male vs. female, home vs. international). Reflecting the pious history of the university, six colleges are named after Jesus or God in some form (Christ's, Corpus Christi, Emmanuel, Jesus, Trinity, and Trinity Hall). Other colleges bear the names of monarchs, clergy, famous alumni (Darwin), and political figures (Churchill).

When I was applying to Cambridge, I had to rank my top two college preferences. At the time I didn't know any of them from Adam -- from Adam's College? -- and frankly didn't feel up to sorting through the morass. Luckily, I had a lazy but defensible way out of making a real decision. For historical reasons I won't bore you with, nearly all Williams alumni at Cambridge are at Emmanuel College. Indeed, "Emma" is a veritable Williams-in-exile, typically with about 20 Ephs in residence at any one time. The current crop consists mostly of 07's and 08's, and I actually knew a few of the former the last time we shared a campus. And Emma just happens to be a great college for lots of other reasons-- it has a rich historical pedigree (founded 1584) without being snooty or overly traditional, it's centrally located, reasonably wealthy, has very pretty grounds, and is neither too big nor too small. Of course, it seems that everyone at Cambridge believes their college to be the best college, so maybe it's just the brainwashing setting in.

Now, say you were a college administrator and you had to put the following activities in a suitable order: (A) dance party, (B) introductory remarks by college bigwigs in an auditorium, (C) multiple-course dinner with multiple courses of wine, and (D) cocktails. In America, surely, the order would be BDCA. Apparently that's not how it's done in Britain, though, because on Monday night we had all consumed at least four servings of alcohol before the bigwigs spoke.

The evening began with the cocktails, followed by the first MCR* formal hall** of Michaelmas Term.*** The food was actually quite good, and we were served a glass of wine with almost every course: white wine with the appetizer, red with the main course, port with dessert. The Master**** of the College said grace in Latin before and after the meal. I was seated next to a very sweet Scottish girl who, sadly, I had a very hard time understanding due to her accent and the horrible acoustics. Her failure to touch her wine led to quizzical comments her friends on the other side of the table, and I watched in amazement as she put away three glasses in rapid succession and then continued our conversation without missing a beat.

Once we were, ummm, warmed up, we proceeded to the auditorium for welcoming remarks from Master Wilson, the Senior Tutor*****, the Head Porter******, and the president of the MCR. All of the speeches were actually quite funny and entertaining... but it could have just been the wine. The Head Porter, who bears a striking resemblance to Terry Bradshaw, was particularly funny. Finally, at the end of the evening, we proceeded to the Old Library (where we started with the cocktails) for a 90s-themed bop******* under the eyes of the dead white guys whose portraits hang on the walls.

And yes, you read that right: all of this happened on Monday night. Apparently the idea that most of one's drinking should be done on the weekend is an American invention too.

Vocab:
*Middle Combination Room (MCR): refers to the social organization for the grad students and the grad students themselves as a unit, in addition to the physical room where they congregate.
**Formal hall: a sumptuous multi-course dinner, eaten by candlelight in formal dress and academic robes.
***Michaelmas Term: October to December.
****Master: like a college president. Ours is a member of the House of Lords who has worked for Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.
*****Senior Tutor: an academic who oversees the welfare of grad students in the college. Ours is a chemist, and it seems like an odd feature of the UK system that he has to spend some of his time assigning us rooms, but that's how it works.
******Porter: no equivalent in the US system, porters are responsible for security, locks, mail delivery, and otherwise keeping the gears turning.
*******Bop: dance party. I didn't need a footnote for that, I just wanted to use seven asterisks.