An update, for once

Disclaimer: this update is for Yisha, a very good friend of mine.

Anyways, I am quite inebriated right now. In fact, I probably wouldn't be typing this up if I wasn't schwasted from imbibing an entire bottle of fine Italian wine. I have realized, for a while now, that nothing productive gets accomplished after a formal dinner. Getting pennied is such a fantastic way of making sure you are too drunk to get any real work done. Much better (and classier) than beer pong, at least.

What's been going on in my life, you ask? Well, tons of work, as always. I'm perpetually a week behind my lecture material. Cambridge is quite a hard taskmaster. I'm always a bit envious of my fellow Brunonians who study abroad at other institutions and go traipsing across continental Europe every weekend. I mean, there's a reason why LSE is also known as "let's see Europe." Damn them. There's always scientific research papers I need to read, and I have to write at least one neuroscience-based essay week (which, I guess, for humanities students it's not too bad, but for science students it's unusual).

Yesterday, I participated in my first university-level athletics sporting event (ever). I've only been fencing since the beginning of Michaelmas term last October, and somehow I managed to get on the Varsity women's 2nd team for fencing at Cambridge. There weren't enough female intermediate fencers to fill the 2nd team, so they had to drag two women beginners this year into the Varsity 2nd team.

I'm starting to really feel the neuro-depressant effects of alcohol on my central nervous system now, so bear with me. I'm trying hard to stay awake.

Fencing for Cambridge was a great experience because, I mean, for a study-abroad student, it's pretty impressive to be playing a sport for the university against Oxford (as opposed to simply competing between colleges). Unfotunately, Oxford won the fencing tournament this year by 8 points, which is not a lot, considering that each individual fencing round (for example, "women's 2nd sabre") consists of 45 points. I really felt outclassed by most of my opponents, however, despite whatever the beginner's coach says (Richard Morris is so cute though... too bad he's gay and taken). What I found especially hilarious was that I had to fight on the women's sabre team, considering I only learned how to fence sabre the  the day before the tournament. I've only had a substantial amount of practice with the foil (although I did fight decently on the women's 2nd foil team).

I fought a match with an experienced sabreist who scored 5 consecutive points against me in less than two minutes. It was comedic, to say the least.

Umm, what else has happened? The previous weekend I presented a poster at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This was mildly amusing because I received a travel grant from Pembroke College that partially paid for a plane ticket back to the United States. I went with two other British students, who upon exiting the airport in Washington D.C., was like, "Woooaahhh it's like being in Hollywood movie." They marveled at the sight of our huge roads, our huge cars, and—occasionally—our huge citizens.

It's okay, I told them, because I sometimes feel like I'm in a Harry Potter movie when I'm in England.

I got to be really good friends with a girl named Tara over the course of that weekend. We ate meals together at really "American" restaurants like Johnny Rockets, a legit Chinese restaurant in D.C. Chinatown, a Wafflehouse for breakfast, and Firehook Bakery. She's such a supercool and supernice biochemistry student. We got free cookie cutters shaped like various NASA satellites at the conference, and we plan on baking satellite-shaped sweet biscuits some upcoming weekend.

UGH WHY DOES WINE TASTE SO GOOD BUT MAKE ME SO DRUNK. I JUST GET SLEEPY WHEN I'M DRUNK AND I HATE IT.

What else... um. I had "Halfway Hall" yesterday evening at Pembroke. They normaly invite the 2nd year students for Halfway Hall (because it's halfway through their 3-year degree programs), but they're nice enough to invite the full-year study-abroad students too. I was seated with the other study-abroad students. The main course was venison, but it tasted like liver.  On the bright side, the dessert—peanut butter brownie with ice cream—was heavenly. There was a bop at the junior parlour afterwards (i.e. a party), and I managed to muster enough shamelessness to dance to a few songs. Some drunken girls kept dragging me to the dance floor, and I obliged. Dancing is fun anyways. At one point, I was dancing in a circle, arms-around-shoulders, with a bunch of guys, and one of them asked, "AT WHAT FREQUENCY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO OSCILLATE?" I love the nerdiness of Cambridge.

So now we are in the 6th week (out of 8 weeks) of Lent term at Cambridge. After the 8th and last week of Lent term, there is a 5-week-long Easter vacastion. I plan to travel across continental Europe during that time with a couple other American study-abroad students. In particular, I would like to hit up Paris, Florence, wine country in Italy, Berlin, and any city in Turkey. I need to start booking tickets soon, however.

Okay, I am getting extremely sleepy now. My wine has won the battle. Good night, my friends!