Freshers Fortnight

Freshers fortnight is a week of fun organised by the SBR (the graduate student council at St John's) to welcome freshers (first time graduate students at St John's).

The agenda for this arranged fun was:

Considering classes started on the 8th you can see that no one expects much work to actually happen in the first few weeks. While this might be the case for PhD students (they seem to have more time on their hands than the rest of us), it certainly isn't for me. Hence, my involvement was rather scant after from the 8th.

Well, I will talk you through some of the highlights:

• The reception was in this ancient building called the School of Pythagoras which is supposed to be the oldest building in Cambridge, which is saying a lot.
• The wine reception was amusing for a few reasons:
  1> Everyone's conversations is oiled by wine - sometimes good other times quite funny.  Very few got out of hand though.
  2> Every conversation had the same questions: Name? Where you from? What you studying? What do you think of Cambridge? .... It became quite a cliche by the end of the evening.
  3> I was wearing my half life 2 shirt (well done to those who know what I am talking about) and it was cool because there were quite a few people who recognised it and thus it was a good ice breaker. I am still friends with them. Computer games bring people together I don't care what anybody says! mwhaHAHAHA!
• The tour of the St John's was cool.  We have our own (free) facilities for tennis, table tennis, badmington, squach, billards and a gym.  The SBR also has a TV, Hi Fi , a Wii and a snooker table.  The cinema outing was cool because the people were cool but the movie wasn't to my taste.  Way too liberal and nothing blew up!

This post isn't finished. Yet!  I hope you have enjoyed it so far!

Arrival

I moved to Cambridge on Saturday the 27th of September 2008.

We hired a car and two kind friends helped me and my stuff get to Cambridge. We left at some hellish hour (before 6am). It was a gloomy affair because even when the sun did rise it was choked by thick mist for most of the day. Pictures of the trip can be found here (if you have access).

After navigating our way here (GPS rocks!), I got my keys from a kind porter and went to go and see my new abode. But the keys didn't work and I had to go back to the porter to get a new set. I was happy with my room but not at the prospect of unpacking everything.

After my friends helped my lug all my stuff into the room we went for breakfast at a little French place called Cafe Rouge which treated us to an awesome breakfast. My friends bade me farewell and I promptly fell asleep on my bed!

A awoke to unpack and fix my room. My friend who gave me the tour in August came around, we did some shopping, watched a movie on my PC and thereafter I retired to get a good night's sleep to face the new day and all its possibilities.

The next day I got to meet some of my house mates. Most of which are new graduates like myself (ie: freshers). Two of my house mates are long standing Johnians and one of them took us freshers on a bit of a tour around Cambridge and also to some shopping centres to get some supplies or overlooked necessities. During our tour we went to a church service at King's chapel (it was a Sunday after all). The choir was great the the chapel was quite pretty. After that we went punting and I can see how, in the summer months, this will be a great retreat from the pressures of academic life. I was fairly good at keeping the boat straight and eagerly await opportunities to get better.

The next few days were full of getting supplies, sorting out administration (of which there seemed to be a never ending deluge), socialising with my new house mates and just generally finding my feet. One really pleasant aspect of St John's is the buttery. It's our canteen and an example of the food they serve can be found here. The prices are low but the quality is high.

The real stuff started on the 1st of October with the official start of term and the freshers week of fun organised by the SBR (graduate society in St John's).

First Cambridge Visit

On the 2008-08-23 I visited Cambridge for the first time.  Strangely enough my visit was guided by an old school friend who happened to grow up in my neighbourhood, straight outta Benoni!

The train trip was painless, which means that I got the express. But, my first impression was conflicted because the train station is not in the most scenic area of Cambridge and on nearly every pillar at the train station advertisements for Angela Ruskin University were displayed which caused me to doubt if I was at the right stop.  My friend met me at the train station and we began the tour. One of the first things I noticed was how quiet Cambridge was compared to London. My friend looked at me incredulously and told me that this was one of the busiest Saturday's he had seen. I was just impressed by how laid back the place seemed after being in London for 6 months.

All the photos of my tour can be found here.  These are the highlights:

The main postcard pic of Kings College taken from the river cam across some of their lawn The deal here is that unless you are a fellow (something after PhD) college lawn is off limits, which is why some college deemed it necessary to make their ducks honorary fellows.

The chair leg scepter of Trinity College. Trinity being our rival is it meet that I mention them somewhere. The story is that some audacious students "borrowed" the stone scepter but before they could put it back the College announced that any tampering with this sculpture would result in expulsion thus they never did.

The bridge of Sighs, St John's version and some people punting. Punting is an interesting story: The physics of it are simple but the skill is to get it going in a straight line. Apparently the trick is, after having pushed off from the bottom, to keep the pole in the river and use it as a rudder.

Some stained glass in St John's Chapel. While many symbols have come to represent St John's (my College) in some way, the eagle seems to be most prominent. This is of interest because my old residence, Afslaan, at the Rand Afrikaans University had the eagle as its symbol.

St John's: A nice scenic look at New Court (left) and 3rd Court (right) and the backs (the grass).

My Home, Whinside.

The Centre for Mathematical Sciences (CMS), my department, comes complete with the big names like Prof. Stephen Hawking.

Near the end of the my tour of Cambridge we saw this plaque. It gives you an idea of the successful history of the place.

My tour ended with a pint at a pub called the Eagle. One of the most famous of Cambridge pubs, there is a ceiling with signatures of Second World War pilots and perhaps more importantly this is where Crick and Watson came to drink after work during the period they were working on the structure of DNA. The express ride home was filled with thoughts of how blessed I was to shortly be studying at Cambridge.