Tea matters

Now that I am home, and now that I've re-tasted various American brands of Earl Grey tea, I've come to the disappointing conclusion that American brands of Earl Grey are really weak sauce. Compared to the swooningly fragrant loose leaf Earl Grey that I purchased through the Cambridge Tea Society, all the teas from American companies taste flat. Just flat.

I'm seriously stocking up on quality British tea before I leave Cambridge. And digestives.

Some candies I've sampled

Tunnock's chocolate mallow teacakes! Made in Scotland!

The mallow is made from egg whites instead of gelatin, so it's silkier
and airier than American marshmallows. I guess that makes them
more like a meringue. Pretty tasty stuff.

Kinder chocolates aren't actually British, but you can't find these in
America easily.

Creamy white-chocolatey, condensed-milky filling. It's okay.

Another smart-alecky reply

Okay, I admit that I love being smart-alecky, and remembering my smart-alecky comments. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. Sorry! A few weeks ago, I was in a conversation about a recent, well-publicized scientific breakthrough in figuring out how to make cells stop aging (i.e. getting one step closer to making "immortal cells").

I had quipped, "So, what? Nature already figured out immortality. It's called cancer."

Though, in retrospect, I think the more appropriate quip should have been about lobsters. Some researchers argue that if lobsters weren't eaten by predators (including humans) or didn't succumb to infectious disease, they'd live forever by the same mechanism that those scientists used on mice.

Immaturity never gets old

One time, I was studying with a friend and this precious exchange occurred:

Chris: Relativity can suck my dick.
Me: Are you sure it's sucking your dick... or are you just moving in and out of its mouth?

I'm normally not this clever, I swear.

Favorite photos from Michaelmas term

Brown FML

Yeah, the one about calling Providence taxi by accident and confusedly trying to negotiate a pick-up time until I realized that I was talking to someone in the wrong time zone?

That's me. True story.

Wasted like £1 on the international call too. Jeeesh.

Here's a long one...

I must apologize to anyone following my blog and wondering which edge of the planet I fell off from. Michaelmas term ended last Friday, December 4. Actually—before I go any further—you know what's sad? I had an internal debate about writing the above statements British-style, meaning it would look like this (differences italicized):

I must apologise to anyone following my blog and wondering which edge of the planet I fell off from. Michaelmas term ended last Friday, 4 December.

So yes, I'm beginning to warm up to the British ways of spelling and syntax. Using 's' instead of 'z' seems more... elegant? Putting the day before the month makes more sense? Don't even get me started on the imperial system versus the metric system (although, admittedly, I still can't think in Celsius).

Anyways, term finally came to an end. Now I actually have some time to catch up and breathe after 8 weeks of nonstop information overload. Because there are no exams until June, the lecturers just keep on piling knowledge on your plate, expecting you to somehow miraculously retain it all. This is what medical school must feel like. It's both a curse and a blessing that each term only lasts for 8 weeks: vast quantities of information is crammed into 8 weeks—but only 8 merciful weeks.

Of course, it's not as horrible as I make it seem. I may have studied long hours, reading papers until my eyes bled, trying to eke out essays I was never properly prepared to write when I was at Brown—but on the whole, this past term has been extremely enjoyable and I look forward to the next term (though not the one after that: "exam term"). Outside of lectures and work, I had plenty of sanity-saving diversions. I learned how to fence, went on fungal forays and photoshoots, helped out with Cambridge Triple Helix events, traveled around London, explored the streets of Cambridge, pennied people senseless at formal dinners, chilled at student jazz sessions, socialized over tea at Tea Society meetings and department tea rooms, invited friends over for wine and cheese or Irish coffee, attended organ concerts, sang Christmas carols with the college chaplain, stayed up late playing bananagrams, and fell asleep many times cuddling with a dedicated cuddle-buddy.

Oh, before I start forgetting all the funny ways British people say certain things, I will try to list all the differences I've encountered in person:

• Beta, omega, theta = "bee-tah", "o-mee-gah", "thee-tah"
• Tomato = "Toe-MAH-toe"
• Aluminum = "Ah-lu-MIN-ium"
• Vitamins = "VITT-a-mins"
• Stand in line = "Stand in the queue"
• To vacuum = "To hoover"
• The letter Z = "The letter zed"

And British students don't make "that's what she said" jokes. I kind of miss them.

I've run out of meaningful things to say for now, although I may touch upon the subject of killing mice in a subsequent post. In short: I have to decapitate baby mice for my research project, and although I can do it without fainting or crying, I still feel pretty bad about it.

Part II project

Project allocations came out last week, and I got my second choice—Peter McNaughton's lab! Put simply, my project will involve transfecting a gene for a particular pain-modulating ion channel into mouse knockouts of the same gene. This is to make sure that the ion channel does what we think it does, which means restoring pain-modulation to the nerve cells.

Not a bad project, I must say. Now that I've met with the PI, I'm actually quite glad that I got this project over my first choice—because of all the cool things I will learn how to do! This includes:

• Dissecting dorsal root ganglia out of mouse spinal cords
• Culturing neurons
• Transfecting DNA into neurons
• Using confocal microscopy to image the neurons
• (If time permits) patch clamping neurons and recording their activity

I asked for a wet lab, I got a damn wet lab all right. When one of the post-docs took me on a tour around the lab, he showed me the old electrophysiology rig that Alan Hodgkin used! Craaaazy. I must admit that I feel a bit anxious though. Based on my conversation with Dr. McNaughton, it seems he is holding me to high intellectual and technical standards, which makes me worry that he might think me too dull later on.

...I hope I can meet his standards?

Things I miss and don't

Things I miss:

• Raw apple cider (i.e. the non-alcoholic version you get at farmer's markets)
• The mulled cider you make from raw apple cider
• Pumpkin pie
• New England clam chowder
• Clam cakes
• Maple syrup
• Pancakes. Like, real pancakes. Not the stuff they serve here cold, in a bowl, with custard.
• S'mores nights in front of the King House fireplace
• Ovens (and baking sugary, buttery treats with friends at 1am)
• Group-studying with friends until the wee hours in the morning
• The Blue Room
• Brown student theatre (PW, how I miss thee!)
• RISD

Things I don't miss at all:

• The all-pervasive cloud of pot smoke in dorm halls
• Pants-drenching, fierce New England rain
• My Brown mailbox, which was always too damn high for me
• Smelly, musty dorm carpets (they vacuum ours every week)
• Overcooked mystery meat at the Ratty
• Overcooked almost-everything at the Ratty

Fifth week blues

I think I might be experiencing some of what people around here call the "fifth-week blues." I generally can keep up with lecture material, but when I try to write an essay, I find that I've never felt so goddamn dumb in my life.

It's not always so bad. On my last essay, when I finished scrawling the last word on it, I felt as if I discovered a little law of the universe. It's actually quite exhilarating when I understand things.

Of course, I have to run into a brick wall several times over before it happens. Discovering little laws of the universe is hard.

A passing thought

During a talk given by a neuroscience researcher this afternoon (with tea and cakes, of course), a thought passed through my mind: Here at Cambridge, I feel like I'm at a Society for Neuroscience conference— every single day.

All neuro, all the time. It's great.

I wish essays weren't such a pain to write, though.

Projects!

This is going to be a boring update, but I just want to jot down a few things for my own satisfaction.

I've submitted my choices for the research project I wish to work on during Lent Term. I didn't end up arranging my own project because the projects they offered on the list were quite good, and I am just so damn busy. Here are the projects I have chosen, in order of preference:

1. Matthias Landgraf - Title: Cellular interactions and synapse development in a locomotor network
2. Peter McNaughton - Title unknown (probably a topic on TRPA1 channels and/or pain)
3. Amy L. Milton, Barry J. Everitt -  Title: What is the role of dopamine in CS-fear memory reconsolidation?
3. Zara Bergstrom - Title: EEG correlates of strategic processes in episodic memory retrieval

Landgraf's project is a strong first choice for me, since I really want to work in a wet lab that isn't just cell cultures. He does experiments on Drosophila—yes, I know fruit flies are not the most exciting or cuddly animal model—but it's with optogenetics! For those of you who don't know what that means, it basically means: shine a light on the animal, activate specific nerve cells, and watch the animal freeze/walk in circles/walk normally/spasm/etc. So damn cool. Optogenetics is a relatively new technique, so loads of new experiments are just waiting to be thought of! Dr. Landgraf seems like a pretty cool guy and his lab cohorts are great too.

Plus, his lab is across the street from Pembroke College. That means if I need to do any late-night or early-morning work, I don't need to make a 10-minute commute. I can just roll out of bed.

Cornish pasty

So there's a little shop called West Cornwall Pasty Co. near the open market in Cambridge, and I decided to try one of their Cornish pasties. I just ordered the smallest one they were offering.

It was filled with seasoned beans and potatoes. Quite delicious. My only other experience with pasties was at the Ratty back at Brown, and those were okay.

Anyways, I went to a formal dinner with my college "family" tonight to celebrate my "mum's" birthday. This formal dinner was a lot more sober than the last one I went to (during which I got pennied three times), but it was still great fun. If there was one thing I wish Brown had that Cambridge has, it would definitely be formal dinners. Not only are you served fantastic food by candlelight, it's a great way to celebrate something with friends or socialize with a society. Plus, you get to dress up and put on a wizard robe formal gown.

Well, back to reading papers. I'm like a bajillion papers behind. Ugh.

My charmingly old bike

Since somebody was itchin' to see my bike, here it is!

Not the prettiest of bikes, but it does its job... with a sort of janky old-style Cambridge flair. At some point, I need to get someone to remove the old shelf-thing from the front wheel (it's kind of useless). Also, the gears and chain need to be wiped down because they are grotty as hell.

A Cambridge education

I'm sort of forcing myself to take time time off from reading papers to write this post. Back at Brown, I designated Friday evenings as no-work evenings, so I really ought to continue that habit here.

The thing is, Cambridge's education system is really quite horrible for a shameless workaholic like me. There are no real examinations until the end of the entire academic year (that means June), and it is up to you to decide how much work you want to do. For Part II Neuroscience, there are no clearly defined reading assignments—none of that "Read p. 134-165" bullshit. Each lecture is accompanied by a reading list spanning ten to twenty papers, but they are merely suggestions. Which papers you actually decide to read is entirely your choice. Plus, no specific textbooks are assigned to a course. You can purchase or borrow any textbook on your subject. Whatever pleases you, madam!

So naturally, I checked out three-fourths of the neuroscience textbook collection from the Pembroke Library. Not because I'm hell-bent on getting first marks on the exams (though that would be nice), but because I honestly want to learn as much about the brain as possible! If I had the mental stamina, I would read every single paper on every reading list. It's this sort of mentality that has me reading papers until my eyes bleed (but I enjoy it, I promise!).

One thing that struck me about the Cambridge education is how utterly bookish it is—at least for the sciences. Many Part II Neuroscience students and medics, who are all third-years, have never read a single research paper from a scientific journal until now. Even fewer have worked in a research lab. They have spent the last two years building and solidifying their knowledge base, mostly by attending lectures, reading material from handouts and textbooks, writing short essays, and attending supervisions. It seems that Cambridge doesn't really emphasize the application of science—specifically, research skills—until the third year, when you can attend laboratory techniques workshops, present papers at journal clubs, work in a research lab, and write up a research report.

They really want you to KNOW your science before you DO science. It's quite a different philosophy, compared to that of most American universities.

Anyways, here's a little something I made in response to what some people have been telling me:

Okay, I might pay a little less attention to molecular neuro

Cultural bonus thing

So Brown offers a "cultural bonus" of £150 if you're studying in the UK for a year. It can used for pretty much almost anything except paying your college bills, which is pretty awesome. I can use the cultural bonus to buy a railcard, which can shave off a third of any rail ticket price (the bonus will also reimburse the costs of rail tickets). I can pay membership fees for university societies. I can also be reimbursed for the costs of staying in student hostels, buying museum tickets, concert tickets, eating haggis, etc.

Unfortunately, two things are conspiring against my lusty travels around the UK right now: the dismal autumn/winter weather, and being loaded with schoolwork. I'm pretty sure most of my escapades will occur during the obscenely long Easter break we have (it's 5 weeks long).

On another note: I will put up a photo of my bike as soon as the sun returns to England. It's been avoiding us the entire week.

More snippets of my day

While biking to my molecular neuroscience lecture this morning, I got bike chain grease on both of my pants legs. Ughhh.

At lunch, Pembroke's cafeteria (affectionately known as the "trough") served caramelized figs in flaky pastry crust, topped with burnt orange syrup and whipped cream. It was so delicious I helped myself to a second serving at dinner. Such decadent desserts are served on a daily basis because they're leftovers from formal hall dinner. They're also cheap—only 87p!

I also stayed awake during stats lecture. Woooo!

What else... I read some papers on neural transplants for Parkinson's patients, plus some chapters from Neuroscience to Neurology, at a coffee shop across the street from Pembroke College. It's called Trockel Ulmann & Freunde, and it's a cozy and colorful little nook that's not overrun by tourists. I think I'll be studying there often. Too bad they close at 5 p.m. though.

Lots of things close at 5 p.m. here.

This evening, I biked farther away from the center of Cambridge then I ever did before—to Fitzwilliam College, where CU Taekwondo was holding their first practice session. 1) I'm glad I didn't end up at Fitzwilliam because it's goddamn far and the architecture is depressingly modern, and 2) I'm surprised that I didn't feel any surprise at all upon witnessing people who were yelling and kicking each other in the face.

Snippets of my day

Principles of Neural Science came in the mail today, and I kissed its shiny covers. In front of the porters.

My bike's gear shifters got fixed and its chain lubed up. Now it rides like a new bike, even though it was made in the 1960s (like the rest of Cambridge, it's goddamn charmingly old).

I drank sparkling elderflower cordial for the first time at Cafe Pembroke. It smells and tastes like lychees. Highly recommended.

I fell asleep during my stats lecture for the first time. I feel really guilty because I'm sure the professor was watching me as I repeatedly woke up and nodded off again. I hope he understands that 2PM is never a good lecture hour for me.

I found a new friend at Gonville and Caius College. She's a 2nd-year medic and she'll let me know when Stephen Hawking will be eating at their hall.

I might be going to the AAAS conference in Washington D.C. this February with Cambridge's TTH chapter!

Caramel wafer biscuit

I spotted these chocolate bars at Cafe Pembroke, and I was intrigued by the red-white-and-yellow tinfoil wrapper, so I bought one. The wrapper says these are made in Scotland.

I was expecting something like stroopwafels (which are damn delicious), but it turned out to be more like a giant Kit-Kat bar with chewy caramel in between the wafers. Not bad, but not remarkably good either. I'm glad I tried it though.

Societies I may join

I went to the Freshers' Fair this morning (followed by a trip to some charity shops on Burleigh Street), and signed up for a handful of societies. Here are the ones I settled on:

• Cambridge Taiwanese Society
• Cambridge Triple Helix
• CU Tea Society
• CU Mycological Society (to go on mushroom hunting trips!)
• CU Fencing Club
• CU Photographic Society

Matriculation week schedule

Yyyyyyep.

Settling in

I arrived at Pembroke College on Saturday, fabulously sleep-deprived. After getting my keys from the porters (who were extremely helpful and chipper) and fetching my mail from my "pigeonhole," I hauled my luggage up a narrow spiral staircase to my room. At the base of the staircase, there was a sign hand-painted with our names and room numbers.

D staircase inhabitants

You get a scholar's room if you made first marks on last year's exams (or if, like me, you happen to be a Roger Williams Scholar). The scholar's rooms are full of Asians. I'm not even kidding. Check the names next to rooms 11-16.

My room turned out to be quite spacious! It's the size of two large Brown dorm singles stuck together, with a door in between. One part of my room serves as the study room and living room; the other part is a bedroom with a sink. I can see where they boarded up an old fireplace. What's awesome is that this room is the best university accommodation I've lived in so far, and yet it's cheaper than Brown dorms (about $4000 for the entire academic year, after converting from pounds to dollars). I didn't take any photos of the room interior yet, since it looks like... well, like I just moved in. I'll put up photos soon.

Here are the views from my two windows:

Old Court buildings

Looking over the Old Court green

I've never had the problem of having too much furniture at Brown, since the rooms I've had always tended to skimp on things like bookcases. My Pembroke room, on the other hand, has more furniture than I know what to do with. There's a huge bookcase built into the side of one wall, and it partially extends around another side of the room. The bedroom closet was large enough to store all of my clothing, and then some. One entire dresser is completely empty because I didn't need it. The room also came with three tables: a large desk, a medium desk, and a small coffee-table. I also have three chairs.

Of course there are downsides to my room. First, I have to travel another staircase's bathroom to use their shower. The bathroom for my staircase has only a bathtub sans shower. Second, I have to walk outside over to another court to use their laundry facilities. My building is so goddamn old (built in 1347) that there's no way to install a laundry room. The communal kitchen leaves something to be desired. They also turn off the heat at 10:30 PM, presumably to be kind to the environment. It doesn't get that cold at night though.

So far, I've met a few other study-abroaders at Pembroke. There's one guy from CalTech (who also happens to be in Part II Neuro) and two people from the University of Michigan.

I've been insanely busy these last few days, so I don't have much time for lengthy blog posts. However, I will do my best to touch upon these topics in future posts:

• Pembroke food (absolutely FANTASTIC by the way)
• Matriculation
• Differences in teaching
• The drinking culture (I've had more alcohol in the last 3 days than I usually have in 2 months)
• More photos, I promise

Pembroke College seal

Public service announcement

My Tier 4 student visa finally came in the mail today. Ughhhh. Right now, it's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen (because its non-arrival was the only thing preventing me from flying to the UK). Word of warning to those wanting to obtain a student visa: Apply for your visa more than one month in advance of your planned departure. Not less than one month. Not exactly one month. More than one month. Save yourself from an aneurysm or something.

My college "family"

I'm in the unique position of being treated like a fresher and a third-year student simultaneously. I get to participate in all the fresher festivities, but my coursework will be up to par with third-year neuroscience students. One of the fresher things I get to indulge in is being part of a "family." They are kind of like "units" back at Brown, except that members are grouped by shared interests rather than dorm subdivisions. Not surprisingly, my entire family is composed of math and science students: 3 CompScis, 2 Mathmos, 2 Bio NatScis, and 1 Phys NatSci. 

WHOOO NERD POWER ♥

Clinical indecision

This post isn't Cambridge-related, but I figured a blog is as good of a place as any to muse about career prospects. I just finished reading When the Air Hits Your Brain by Frank Vertosick Jr., MD. It's a fantastic book, by the way, and should be mandatory reading for anyone seriously considering surgery as a profession. Oliver Sacks, it's not. But for what it lacks in obscure-medical-mystery department, it makes up in the brutally honest, sometimes self-deprecating, descriptions of day-to-day life as a neurosurgical resident.

I've been searching for a book like this one for a while. You know, to beat humility and reality back into me. For the last two years, I've been idly entertaining the idea of becoming a neurosurgeon. I love the human brain—the three-pound universe between your ears. Love it, love it, love it. What better way to pass the time than being wrist-deep inside someone's cranium and saving their life? I've shadowed my dad's neurosurgeon multiple times. Rounding up on the post-op patients, talking with patient's families during clinic hours, conducting pow-wows with other specialties to decide on a patient's fate, being hyperfocused on a surgical procedure for hours... I can really see myself doing that for a living.

I must admit, however, that self-aggrandizement also plays a role—albeit a small role—in my desire to become a neurosurgeon. Thankfully I'm not alone in this regard. The very first sentence in Frank Vertosick's book reads, "Neurosurgery is an arrogant occupation." A fellow PLME student observed that all neurosurgeons exude some degree of overinflated self-importance. As for me, I enjoy envisioning myself strutting down hospital corridors with a slew of residents and interns in tow, kind of like that one scene in Kill Bill where Lucy Liu leads a pack of yakuza gangsters in style.

But alas, these are the siren calls of a profession guaranteed to exact a toll on nearly every other aspect of my life.

For one thing, I want a family. It appears that surgical residency, especially for neurosurgery, tends to preclude a happy domestic life for women (and for men, to a lesser extent). If you're spending 18 hours a day at the hospital, that leaves you 6 hours for sanity-saving sleep and not much else. Try carrying a baby to term on top of all that. I've heard that some female neurosurgeons plan a single pregnancy during the "research year" of their residency program, and then pass the baby off to a full-time babysitter. It's the only feasible option, besides paying exorbitant sums to hire a surrogate mother.

I'm also not sure if I would be resilient enough to handle 6-7 years of grueling residency. How do I know if I can handle the pressure of making life-versus-death decisions on the spot? How emotionally devastated would I be after making a stupid mistake that cost a patient's life? Would I eventually burn out and become an unfeeling surgical psychopath? What if I don't have what it takes to be a neurosurgeon?

Maybe I don't have what it takes to be a neurosurgeon. And I would be okay with that. Perhaps I would be better off as a war strategist and message decoder instead of risking my limbs on the battlefield. To appease my intellectual hunger for studying the human brain, I can still decide among plenty of medical specialties and sub-specialties that have "neuro" in their names. Neurology, behavioral neurology, neuroradiology, interventional neuroradiology, neuro-ophthalmology, neuro-oncology, and neuropsychiatry are all careers for which I would be more than happy to bear the name on my white coat.

BUT GAH, THE INDECISION.

92 and still kicking

Woooaaahhh. I just found out that Andrew Huxley (of the Hodgkin-Huxley model) is:

1. Still alive
2. Teaching at Cambridge, somewhere

I don't think I have any lectures taught by Huxley, but I will be sure to keep an eye out for any special seminars or talks that feature him.

A different take on academics

My impressions of Cambridge thus far have been based on website descriptions and hearsay, so my judgments should be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, I suspect that Cambridge's attitude toward academics is pretty much antithetical to Brown's.

One major difference I see is the element of academic competition. At Brown, tour guides often emphasize that Brown students are not cutthroat, and that they are much more likely to seek help from a peer than sabotage the work of others. Of course, one could flaunt this quality at many American colleges, but it seems that Brown especially likes to give the impression that we all approach our studies with the placidness of Hindu cows.

In contrast, Cambridge appears to shamelessly pit students against each other in every way imaginable. Individual colleges vie for the highest proportion of top-marks earned by their students. At some colleges, your pick of next year's housing is based on your exam scores. Monetary awards are routinely given to those who earn the highest marks. And, of course, your exam results are publicly displayed. In 2008, Peterhouse was denied permission to hold a May Ball event because their exam results were profoundly poor that year.

(I'm sorry—but can you imagine if Brown did that? "IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PROVOST: BECAUSE THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF BROWN STUDENTS HAS NOT MET EXPACTATIONS, THE UNIVERSITY MUST CANCEL SPRING WEEKEND THIS YEAR." Well, uhh... damn.)

Another big difference is how students choose to display their academic diligence. Brown students tend to moan and groan about how much work they have (guilty). This is especially true of pre-med students, who often whine about how many all-nighters they've pulled at the Sci Li, how many pages they need to write for a paper, how many hours they've spent in lab, how long they've gone without showering... Want evidence of this? Read Brown FML during exam time.

I am told that Cambridge students, on the other hand, tend to hide their industriousness from others (except maybe from their Director of Studies). In fact, the guidebook given to us by our study abroad office warned about being lulled into a sense of complacency by the lackadaisical attitude of other students. I wonder if showing off how much free time you have is Cambridge's version of academically one-upping each other in casual conversation. We'll have to see.

Despite these differences, I'm actually looking forward to a change in pace, a change in attitude toward academics, a change in teaching style. Oh, especially a change in teaching style. Although Brown's teaching is generally superb, I was starting to get bored of the usual memorize-regurgitate-rinse-repeat formula in many neuroscience classes. I've been itching for a real challenge, and I sure hope I'll get one through Cambridge's cozy-but-intense supervisions plus amassing vast amounts of knowledge for a single end-of-year exam.

I'm ready to go now

See: pennying

List of potential researchers

The Part II Neuroscience curriculum at Cambridge requires me to spend Lent Term working in a research lab—a requirement to which I am very happy to oblige. The University posts a list of projects to choose from during Michaelmas Term, but if I do some extra legwork, I can arrange my own project or pick another lab that's not on the list.

I've spent two summers and two semesters seeing a project from start to finish in a fundamental research lab at Brown, and as a result, I have had rigorous training in the scientific process. However, I have also discovered that my interests lie much closer to translational "bench-to-bedside" research than to purely fundamental research. My goal is to spend Lent Term working on a translational (possibly clinical) project.

I'm not really sure how receptive Cambridge clinical researchers are to undergraduate students, but I'm going to compile a list of the ones I'm interested in working with anyways, so I know who to pester come October. I will amend the list as I find more neuroscience research labs.

I'll list the researchers after the cut.

American confections

One of my friends at Brown invites me to Russian Tea every Friday afternoon. It's a laid-back, small social gathering in one of the dorm kitchens, where she serves tea with Russian chocolates and biscuits (one type of biscuit is so hard and dry that we call them "teething rings for Russian babies"). Us non-Russians always pore over the variety bag of Russian chocolates, asking, "Which one should I try?" The event is a great study break, and I almost always meet someone new.

Which got me thinking, it would be nice to hold these informal tea gatherings when I go to Cambridge next fall. Socializing over tea is such an ingrained part of British culture that it wouldn't be too strange, but I want to add a touch of "America" to my tea gatherings by offering confections that are unique to the United States.

However, I had a hard time coming up with a list of American candies that haven't already been mass-marketed all over the globe. Things like Kit-Kat Bars and Snickers are already international brands, so it wouldn't be very exciting to bring them. Less popular brands of candy, such as Mars Bars or Whoppers, might be harder to find in the United Kingdom, but (in my opinion) they don't taste all that great, and I wouldn't even want to serve them.

I was talking about this at Russian Tea this afternoon, and they suggested that I should bring peanut butter candies. I didn't realize it before, but peanut butter is, in fact, a distinctly American foodstuff. One girl told me that when she was traveling France, she was craving peanut butter, but she had a hard time tracking down a jar of peanut butter in their grocery stores. She eventually found it in the international foods section. Crazy, eh? Maybe I should make peanut butter cookies and fluffernutter sandwiches to serve at tea time. Peanut butter cookies and fluffernutter sandwiches are fucking delicious.

I was also thinking of bringing confections that are distinctly from the American South/Southwest, since (I am from Texas). Pecans pretty much don't exist in Europe, so I can introduce some Brits to southern-style pecan pralines. Maybe I'll just pack a bag of pecans into my suitcase and bake pecan pie and and pecan sandies. Maybe I'll bring a Paula Deen cookbook.

My tea gatherings are going to be amazing.

Why are they tempting me

The more I think about it, the more I want to join Cambridge's taekwondo club.

I used to have a knee-jerk reaction of "AW, HELL NO" every time someone suggested that I join Brown taekwondo (TKD). It was simply too time consuming, and the idea of getting a new injury every week wasn't very enticing. But after seeing all the friendship and close camaraderie at the end-of-the-year Brown TKD banquet... I actually really wanted to join. And I already know a full third of the Brown TKD members anyways.

I think, during Freshers Week, I'll try out both the fencing club and the taekwondo club at Cambridge. I'll see which one I click with most and join that one. My motivation for joining an athletic club is mostly for the camaraderie, to be honest, and not so much the competition. The only advantage of picking taekwondo is that it'll be something that I can continue doing when I get back to Brown. This is because Brown only offers varsity-level fencing, and nothing less intense than that. Boo.

(God, I can imagine the ridiculous amount of "likes" I would get on Facebook if I joined the Cambridge University Taekwondo group.)

For the record

Things to do:

• Keep a photoblog
• See all the sciencey stained glass windows
• DNA, Venn diagram, neuron (Gonville & Caius dining hall)
• Cross-section of plant stem (Pembroke library)
• Get a Pembroke College scarf
• Walk over these bridges:
• Mathematical Bridge
• Clare College Bridge
• Bridge of Sighs
• Go punting on the Cam
• Go pub crawling at least once (probably during Freshers' Week)
• Take up fencing again at the CU Fencing Club
• Fight Oxford at the Varsity competition
• Publish an article in the Cambridge TTH
• Visit Nicole/William/Luis at Oxford
• Visit Marie at UCL
• Visit Caitlin at King's College London
• Guy Fawkes Night fireworks and bonfire
• Attend evensong choir at Trinity College chapel
• Attend the Boat Race between Cambridge and Oxford can't go because I'll be in Europe
• Volunteer-bake at the Cafe Project
• Strawberries and champagne on a punt, at sunset

Places to go:

• The Eagle pub
• University Museum of Zoology
• Whipple Museum of the History of Science 
• Fitzwilliam Museum
• Cambridge University Botanic Garden
• Visit as many coffee/tea shops as possible
• Ely
• French market
• Ely Cathedral
• Fitzbillies Bakery (52 Trumpington CB2 1RG)
• The top of St. John’s Tower (the highest vantage point in Cambridge)

• All the UK tourist spots (London, Stonehenge, etc.)

Eat these foods:

• Scones and clotted cream
• Jellied eel
• British/European candies and chocolates
• Yorkshire pudding
• Treacle tart got five-pennied for this one
• Chelsea buns (from Fitzbillies) 
• Huntingdon fidget pie
• Scotch pie (in Scotland)
• Stargazey pie
• Eccles cake

The journey of a thousand miles begins with

...one of these things.

Actually, it's about 4,752 miles. Or 7,648 kilometers.

YEAH WINDOW SEATS ALL THE WAY.