Student life

I'm really starting to think that all of this talk about rain and moderate temperatures was all lies and that they just say that as an excuse for being too cheap to install air conditioning. It has rained once since I got here a week ago and that was a light rain for about 30 minutes. Besides that it's been hot and humid with no relief because all buildings offer is shade. Okay that's kind of a lie because the stone walls do a really good job at keeping it pretty cool inside the buildings and my room is never too horribly hot. I just miss the feel of air conditioning. That is one thing America has got right.

I do love Cambridge though. The library is amazing, I love to just be there. I'll confess I've gone there even when I don't have homework to do just because it's my favorite place to be.


My classes have been pretty good. I was really nervous about them before I started but now I feel so much more comfortable here and they're just like any other class. Well almost. They're still a little intimidating because I'm not used to seminars and reading and papers. But I'll get used to it.

I'm taking a class about Bloomsbury (a group of people who all became famous writers, artists, economists, etc which started at Cambridge. Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Keynes were all in this group) and on the first day our professor told us that we have class in the exact room where this group first started meeting. That's when I realized that I'm at a pretty awesome place.

Last night we had our first formal hall. It's a big fancy dinner where you have to dress up and dinner lasts about 2 hours. This would all be great if they gave you enough food but I left still hungry. I guess I'm weird because most people were fine but I think it's probably just because they were all full from the wine they were drinking. The dining hall is pretty incredible though. Every time I go in there to eat I get so distracted by everything that's around me. And for the formal hall, there were flowers, candles, fancily folded napkins, and everything. It was pretty cool.


This is actually set up for another smaller dinner so the tables aren't arranged as they are for us. For our dinners they're Harry Potter style with the head table and everything.


Some of the girls on the lawn for drinks before formal hall. It was a pretty big deal. We got to walk on the grass (a right normally reserved for the fellows/professors) and our water had ice in it.