Lent term begins

As you might guess from my long absence, I went back home to the Bay Area about a week into December.  It was a smooth transit, though due to Cambridge being a long bus ride from Heathrow, I was up for 24 hours straight.  On the upside, this made for essentially no jet lag as I slept like a baby when I got to my own bed.

Briefly, winter break was busy and fantastic.  I got to see my entire family and adore my six-month-old nephew, who must be the most sociable baby ever born.  Then I flew to Miami to play with the band at the Orange Bowl (go Stanford!), drove to Orlando for some Disney World time, and finally back home for a week before returning to England.

Here's me on the sidelines before the pre-game show.  Notice the sheen of sweat from wearing a wool jacket in Miami.

So now I'm at the end of the second week of term.  Here are some thoughts that have been rattling around in my head:

Ever-evolving academics
Those of you who saw me over break may have seen me carrying a hefty biography of Tennyson with me.  Just before heading home, I met with my supervisor, and we agreed on a slightly modified direction for me to look at for my research.  I'll bore you with it another time, but in short it looked/looks like Tennyson would be really helpful.  Cue one of those surprising realizations that you really don't know anything about X really famous author.

One 583-page book later (and one other good one), I am very comfortable talking about him and his circle of friends -- but not his poetry, which I still barely know.  I continue to consume various books that I find in the library catalogue.  In fact, my bibliography suggests that I've read at least part of just under 20 books/articles, many of those made up of multiple articles.  That doesn't sound too impressive, but my goodness it feels like a lot!


You never know who(m) you'll "run into" around here
So reading all those books I run across a number of people multiple times.  For example, there's Edward Bulwer-Lytton.  He wrote Anglo-Saxon themed children's books using real historical figures.  He was also a friend of the pompous, social-climbing uncle Alfred Tennyson disliked.  And, the internet tells me, he wrote the infamous opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night."  The other day I was eating my lunch in the Trinity Hall hall, and I absently read the name card on the portrait opposite me.  By golly, there was Edward Bulwer-Lytton!

I also learned that Trinity Hall has an F.D. Maurice Society, named for an incredibly deep-thinking theological scholar (and former T.H. student) who simultaneously worked for social justice with things like colleges for women and working men.  He was also a very influential member of the Cambridge Apostles, the secret society that Tennyson was part of.  Small world.

Spring is coming
For one thing, it hasn't been nearly as cold as when I left.  For another, I'm hearing little birds twittering around me more often.  And finally, the gardeners are digging things up and planting other things, giving the smell and impression that life is reemerging from the ground.  QED.