Bodleian Library

The Newcomer's Club has started up their event calendar again now that Trinity Term has started. There are three terms to the academic year, and the spring term is called Trinity. The winter term when we arrived, was the Hilary Term and in the fall is the Michaelmas Term. The tour I missed during the winter term was one of the Bodleian Library in the city centre. The Bodleian is one of only three copyright libraries in England, which means they legally must receive one copy of every single book published in England. And they have been collecting them since the 1600s! So you can imagine the volumes of books they have in their collection. There are underground storage areas with racks of books on wheels attached to the ceiling. This is how they move them around to find some ancient copy of a book that has rarely been looked at.

I think I read a statistic that said every book in the library is read at least once every 16 years. A few other facts about the library - you cannot check out a book to take home. The books can only be read at the library. So there are many reading rooms designated for studying. And only if you are a student or employee of the University can you reserve a book to read. Therefor, Brian does not have this privilege unfortunately. Neither can I go in there, except on a paying tour (which of course is how I did). But the tour I was on was better than the standard since it was through the Newcomer's group.

Of course there is some amazing history to the building of the library, what the rooms were originally created for and it's an architectural gem. But I won't bore you with all that info, you'll have to come visit for yourself (hint, hint!) or check it out online at www.bodley.ox.ac.uk.


Note on all the photos. You're not allowed to take photos inside the actual library areas. You can in the Divinity School and University Congregation Parliament room, which is where these photos are showing.

Royal London

While Brian was at his meeting at the Royal Society, I had the opportunity to roam the Royal part of London. If you have only 1/2 a day or less to see London, this is the area to go to. Within walking distance, you can see Buckingham Palace, St. Jame's Park, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Leicester Square and the theatre's West End. And these are just the bigger name, well-known sights. Of course, if you want to go inside any of them, you'll need more than 1/2 a day. But on Tuesday, it was warm and sunny day, and I could have sat in St. Jame's Park the entire afternoon. It was the most gorgeous park I'd been in and was full of British people on their lunch breaks or strolling through. It also helps that it's one of the Royal parks, so of course it's absolutely perfect.

After Brian headed to his meeting, I grabbed some take-away (take out) for lunch. It's very common here that everyone eats lunch on the go, even while they are walking down the sidewalk. Pre-made and pre-packaged sandwiches are the most popular, with bags of crisps (potato chips) and a cookie or something. I stopped in one of the take-away chain shops called Eat. and grabbed an Asian chicken noodle salad and cookie. Headed to the park and had lunch in the grass. Not too tough for a Tuesday afternoon! Eventually peeled myself away from the park to walk around the area and see what Brian and I should check out when he was done with his meeting.


At 3 p.m. we met up and visited Buckingham Palace, walked through the park some more, to Big Ben and Parliament, by Westminister, by Whitehall palace and the Horse Guards, and took pics by The Royal Society. We also found an Information place where we could book discount tickets for a play that evening. We stopped at a pub close by Parliament, and realized we were having a pint with many of the lobbyists (if that is what they call them here) between the hours of 5-6 p.m. Luckily, we had dressed up a bit so we didn't scream tourists and kind of had fun trying to blend in a bit with that scene. Seemed by 6 though, they had all cleared out (had to get home to the wives and fams I suppose) and the tourists started to come in. By then, we headed to West End area to grab dinner at an Italian restaurant close to the Garrick theatre, where our play was showing.

It's a new play, called Treats. There are three characters, one girl and two guys. The fun part about it was that all three actors are well-known TV stars, roughly in their 30s. The one guy we knew from watching a BBC sitcom called "My Family" and he was the goofy son in the show. So we thought it was fun to see him in a live performance. The girl is in a TV show called Dr. Who, and the other guy is in a new show called Lewis, which is a spin off to the Inspector Morse movies. Anywho, the play was about the girl trying to decide between the jerk of an ex-boyfriend and the overly boring new boyfriend. We enjoyed it and was glad we were able to catch a show. We stopped at Starbucks on our way back to the train (yes, there is now even a Starbucks on almost every corner in London or Oxford) and headed back home. A very, very fun day in London!

The Royal Society

Last Tuesday we took a day trip into London. It was the day after Brian stabbed himself, but he was still up for it, and mainly because he had an important lunch meeting a The Royal Society. So a little background information for everyone to remind you about Brian's grant and how we are here in the first place. Brian received a two-year research fellowship from The Royal Society www.royalsoc.ac.uk, which is the UK's national academy of science, much like the NSF (National Science Foundation) in the US. This is an international fellowship specifically for North Americans (so US or Canada) who have obtained their PhD's and want to further their research and experience. The Royal Society also has other International fellowships like this one for scientists in China or India. Interesting enough, they do not have these type of fellowships for scientists in the EU, since UK is also part of the EU. This year, there are about a total of 77 International Research Fellows with the Royal Society and they vary in age, experience and expertise. The research fellows also are working at various UK universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and the University of London. The research fellowships are mainly for only one year, but Brian managed to land one of the few two-year research fellowships.

So the lunch meeting involved gathering select International Research Fellows for a lunch and meeting. Brian said there were about 10 who attended (see the group photo). We arrived late into London due to train issues (which I've learned always to assume you'll be late in your on the train to London) but Brian made it to the Royal Society in time for the meeting. The meeting was mainly for the Royal Society to find out from the fellows how the program was going and what could they do to help make things better for the fellows. Supposedly the North American grants have been around for only 3 years, so it's fairly new for all involved. Brian enjoyed giving feedback and asking questions and learning more about the organization that so generously has funded a huge grant for him. The Royal Society is also quite prestigious in that famous scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton was a fellow and current physicist Stephen Hawking among others. Only a select few are chosen each year to become actual fellows. Brian enjoyed a tour of the Royal Society building and saw some of Sir Isaac Newton's authentic lab books in the library archives.

And also to clarify, Brian and other other International Research Fellows are not actual real Royal Society Fellows, like the famous physicists. . . but doesn't mean that someday he won't be! :)

And while I'm explaining all this, I'll explain what Brian's role then is at Oxford. Unfortunately he's not a true employee of the University of Oxford. He's more like a visiting academic or visiting researcher, being funded by the Royal Society. There are many other postdocs or researchers in similar situations as Brian, being funded by other entities. The good news is, he's basically treated as a regular postdoc in the department. The bad news is, postdocs are kind of in this grey area anyway, since they are not students anymore, nor are they professors or lecturers or anything. So there are other benefits they miss out on, like not having any affiliation to a particular college at Oxford. Overall though, it's not a big deal to his experience and learning here. It's pretty amazing!

Emergency Room!

On Monday we experienced the social health care system here in England firsthand. We took a fun little trip to the ER! Luckily it's just down the road and Elin was home and could drive us there. And I'm happy to report, it wasn't for me for once!!! But I'm not happy to report that Brian had a minor mishap and has a large stab wound in his hand. Yikes! He's doing just fine and it's going to heal nicely. So the story goes. . .

We had just received our new bikes (well used bikes) and some accessories. Brian was opening some packaging with his Leatherman pocket knife and it slipped and almost the entire length of the blade went into his left hand between the thumb and pointer finger! It started bleeding profusely and I've never seen him turn so white. As we all know, I don't do well with blood at all. But since I realized he might pass out this time, I couldn't and had to figure out what we should do. So I found the neighbor to give us a ride and figured out where to go. We were mainly concerned he either severed a tendon or hit an artery or something. We found the ER for Minor Injuries at the hospital and all we had to do to check in was give them his name, a UK address, and US address and a phone number if we had one. That's it. No insurance info, passport, national insurance number, nada. Frankly, after all is said and done we don't know if we'll get a bill in the mail, or if emergency services is covered on the NHS (National Health Service), which we think it is. So we'll find out.

Anywho, he was triaged by a nurse right away. She just cleaned it and looked it over. Then told us to wait for the doctor to call his name. The wait was about 60 minutes, but could have been worse. The doc looked at it, made fun of Brian with his British humor about stabbing himself, and said he didn't hit anything major. So the nurse came back in, gave him a tetnus shot, some painkillers and put the strip things on the wound (instead of real stitches) to close it up. Understandably so, Brian wasn't up for the rest of the afternoon to go to work, so we grabbed some sandwiches for lunch and he chilled at home while I did some grocery shopping with Elin. Exciting day!

Lazy Sunday

No, I don't mean the SNL parody, but this past Sunday was pretty chill. Since I wasn't feeling too perky from the BBQ the evening before, we relaxed and enjoyed a typical British Sunday afternoon in the park. We walked down to the University Parks, which is right next to Brian's physics building. It's a lovely park with many walking paths, duck ponds and cricket, football (soccer) and rugby fields. We happened upon a local Oxford cricket game, and sat along the sidelines and tried to figure out how the heck the game is played. Well we were not successful and found it rather boring (if you think baseball can sometimes drag on, you will not be a fan of cricket). However, it was nice to sit in the sun and the 70 degree weather and have a picnic lunch.

British Afternoon BBQ

Having a few troubles with downloading our photos, but just got it cleared up. So I wanted to post some photos and tell you about our first outdoor British BBQ. One of the guys in Brian's group hosted a BBQ at his flat with his fiance. Adam is British and is nearing the end of his graduate work at Oxford. He'll continue on still at Oxford for a postdoc. His fiance is Maggie, a beautiful blonde from Czech Republic. She does some type of land surveying outside of London. Her English is adorable with a very strong Czech accent (where sometimes I can't quite understand her!).


So how it worked here, was that Adam and Maggie went to store and bought a bunch of different meats to grill, hamburgers, sausages, chicken, etc., along with the buns, sauces, etc. They also made a nice large salad. The rest of us were to just bring about 5 pounds and BYOB. So it was nice and laid back, with about 10 of us there. 3 gals, 7 guys, so at least I had some ladies to chat with. After the BBQ, we hung out inside at their flat and the guys got into a game of Risk. I've never played it before, but wasn't a bit fan to be honest. So Maggie and I had fun just talking in the corner. I think I had a bit too much British beer though as I didn't feel too perky the next Sunday!

Most difficult British word is. . .

Trousers! Not because it's difficult to pronounce, but because what North Americans call pants, the British call trousers. And even this isn't the main reason why it's a big deal. The problem is, every time I refer to my "pants" (instead of trousers) I'm talking about my underwear! They call underwear "pants" and they call ladies undies "knickers". So when I took Brian's trousers to the dry cleaner today, and started to say, I have some pants to drop off. . . she looked at me funny and quickly pointed out that they are called trousers. I, of coursed, laughed at my own mistake, thinking she too would laugh with me, but no. It was not funny to her, only annoying!

Another "pants" story I've heard comes from my Canadian friend Lindsay, who sometimes substitute teaches at a nearby elementary school. She was giving a spelling test to a class of 4th years. She states the word, then uses it in a sentence, then states the word again for them to spell. So the word was, "tight". Her sentence was: After I ate a large dinner, my pants were too tight. Those kids never laughed so hard, and she quickly realized her enormous mistake (as any little faux paux is so huge here!) and changed to saying her trousers were too tight!

This is a tough one to get used to, and I still haven't gotten it right!