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.