Are we there yet?

Preface:
There are so many people in Cambridge right now who have been studying like mad for weeks and who are staring down (or already suffered through) massive exams that determine an ungodly percentage of their degree results.  Compared to that, I'm having a walk in the park.  But still...

It's a bit of a stressful week.  The three big things I needed to write for this term were: a conference paper, an undergraduate lecture, and my first-year review piece.  Now, I actually had about the right number of words for all of these a week or so ago.  But somehow, the closer the conference got (it was a couple days ago), the more time I found myself spending on trying to get that paper in shape, neglecting the other two...This was capped by a last-minute paper exchange with a fellow student whose opinion I really respect, resulting in a flurry of editing before heading to London.

I'm happy to report that the conference was a fun though long day, showcasing people from incredibly different time periods and interests.  My talk was right at the end, but it seemed to go well.  Yay!  Now back in Cambridge, I have a few days to finish the other monster pieces.  [Quiz: who caught the reference to Sesame Street's "Monsterpiece Theater"?  If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here and watch the related videos.]

I've actually felt rather productive today -- but after most of a "productive" day, I've slogged through editing and adding to six pages.  Out of 20.  Oy vey.  Must must must make it all the way through the first-year thing today, then finish lecture tomorrow.  So it's the Mac and me and the Jerwood makes three tonight.  (Imagine that to swing music.)

Cricket explained for Americans

So in case you haven't been tracking my facebook status, I've actually gotten to play in a couple matches with the Cambridge University Women's Cricket Club.  This causes my friends to boast that "Sarah plays cricket for the university" -- which is not untrue, but somewhat deceptive in terms of how good it implies I am.  Still, for a cheap thrill, check out my player profile on the team webpage:
http://www.cucc.net/pages/Players-squad-Womens_Squad

Now, cricket has this terrible reputation for being impossible to understand.  Aaron Sorkin certainly seems to think so; there's a whole episode of Sports Night in which the cast and crew are trying to understand some incredible game so that they can talk about it on the show, and in an episode of The West Wing, President Bartlet quips, "Now, I am an educated man, Charlie, but when someone tries to explain cricket to me, all I want to do is hit him in the head with a teapot."

I'm here to insist that it's really, truly not that difficult to understand!  Especially if you already know the basics of baseball.  Part of the problem, I think, is the terminology -- so here it is, the basics of cricket explained using baseball terminology (forgive me, cricket fans).

Like baseball, you win by scoring more runs than the other team.  But instead of a diamond of four bases to run around, there are two bases that you run back and forth between, and the outfield is 360 degrees all around.

Like baseball, there's a batter who hits a ball in order to be able to run.  There's also an extra batter who runs back and forth.  They alternate who actually receives the pitch.  Here's a picture from our last match, which was against Oxford (click to enlarge).  On the left-hand side, next to the umpire in black trousers, you can see the pitcher ("bowler") about to throw the ball.  A bit to the right is the extra batter standing ready to run, and on the far right is the active batter with bat raised.

Like baseball, the batter is out if one of a few things happen:

the fielders catch a fly ball
the fielders get the ball back to one of the bases before the one of the batters gets there
the pitch gets past the batter and hits the wicket (3 sticks in the ground where a baseball catcher would be).  [Note: there's no penalty for swinging and missing as long as the ball doesn't hit the wicket.]
the pitch hits the batter in the leg and that leg was directly in front of the wicket.  (Without this rule, the batter could just stand completely in front of the wicket and make it impossible to get out that way.)
Like baseball, after a certain number of outs, the inning is over.  In cricket, it's 10 outs.  If 10 outs don't happen, the inning ends after a fixed number of pitches.

The big difference: instead of alternating batting and fielding throughout the game, one team does all their batting first, then you have a tea/lunch break, then the other team does all their batting.  To be honest, I'm not a fan of this part, because it means that the team that bats first is playing in a vacuum and doesn't know how many runs they'll really need in order to win, whereas the second team simply has to get one more than their opponents.

So there you go!  Not so bad, right?  If you want to know more, Wikipedia's entry is pretty handy.  It only remains to say that it's really fun to watch people's reactions to an American girl playing cricket.  For one thing, it's not a super-common sport for women just yet, but more to the point Americans just don't know anything about it.  Generally, people are surprised, amused, and impressed, in roughly that order.

Study nooks and rambling

As you saw in my last post, I have a few things that require me and my computer to be joined at the hip for the next couple weeks.  Over the course of the year, I've definitely found the spots where I work well, so allow me to take you on a tour.


Number one with a bullet is in the English faculty library.  The library has a number of large tables out in the open on the ground floor, but I feel on display there, and there's too much to look around at.  However, the "first" (American second) floor only partially covers the ground floor, and there's a little wall along the edge.  Along this wall and next to the bookcases are individual desks, and if I can snag one of these, I'm good to go.  They're bathed in natural light from the large windows, and you get a sense of people around you, but it also manages to feel fairly private.  Here's a view from about halfway down the line of desks:

What's that on my computer screen?  Glad you asked.  It's a section of my first-year review piece titled Richard Chenevix Trench and Popularizing Philology.  This Trench guy was a major influence in making the basics of language scholarship accessible and interesting for the general population.  There are about five books of his that I want to read over the summer.  He says great things like, "Language is fossil poetry...many a single word is itself a concentrated poem, having stores of poetical thought and imagery laid in it."  But moving on...


Happy place #2: Jerwood Library in Trinity Hall, mezzanine level, looking out at the lawn and King's College Chapel spires.


If this spot is occupied, I walk to the other side of the room and face across the public bridge (charmingly known as "orgasm bridge" because it's so steep that it's an effort to cycle up) and over the river to a little field.


In other news, by this time next week I'll have given my first-ever conference talk.  Check out the program (my session is at 3:00pm) by clicking here.

Too much to do = happy/stressed Sarah

Here are the big items on my to-do list:

• Write conference talk
• Write undergraduate lecture
• Expand/revise my last essay for first-year review
• Proofread a book for one of my freelance clients.  Gulp.
• Row in preparation for May Bumps (same concept as Lent Bumps -- see earlier post)
• Read some books that have been on the shelf for months, because they're due soon

So yeah, nothing to stress about, right? :P

But at the same time, we're seeing a lot of sunshine (albeit with cold breezes), and there are lots of opportunities to see and have fun with my Trinity Hall buddies.  And you know I love to fill my schedule to the breaking point.  Fortunately, this term is about huge exams for a lot of people, so the department isn't offering many lectures to distract me, and there is a decidedly studious air to the libraries and -- well, pretty much everywhere else.

Speaking of which, it's time to close this window of procrastination.  Until next time!

Apparently, I'm a jock

Well, a "heat wave" has brought mid-70s weather to Cambridge -- and good heavens, there are so many more tourists than in winter!  This mellow weather makes it a delight to sit in the Jerwood Library at Trinity Hall, looking out at the back lawn as punts drift by on the river and muffled chatter drifts in through the window.  Of course, the actual amount of work accomplished is somewhat less than it should be...

Part of this is because I find myself with many a sports training this week.  I've been learning some cricket basics with the university women's team -- some of you may recall that I learned a few skills when I was studying abroad -- and of course rowing is re-convening as we all trickle back into town.

As a result, I'm feeling especially sporty this week, though it's a feeling that has been growing all year.  Since the fall, I've definitely lost circumference as clothes are fitting more loosely, and I'm generally firmer in areas that I used to dislike.  In addition, as a boatie, I'm automatically part of the jock crowd -- but without the sense of exclusivity, because everyone knows that the boat club would love for everyone to row.  Still, it's funny that people treat you with mild reverence when, say, you mention that you've been out on the river earlier in the day.

In other news, my next academic "milestone" is also coming up: submitting a form with supervisor's signature, stating that I intend to register for the PhD at the end of the year (technically I'm probational right now).  Doing this starts the gears turning for a meeting at the end of term with several other professors, who will discuss what I've been doing and how to proceed.  Everyone says not to be scared of it, but that's a bit challenging.

I'll try to post some pictures next time to break up the text.  Wishing you all a happy Easter.

Back in Cambridge, back to work

Three weeks at home went by in a blur, and now I'm back in England.  It's a couple weeks yet until Easter term, so the town is pretty quiet, and spring has truly burst forth since I left.  I find I have only clichés at my disposal: the air is perfumed with flowers; songbirds twitter from every direction of the deepening dusk...You know, I wasn't especially depressed by winter here, but this explosion of sweet nature really shows you the appeal of ancient paganism.

While I was at home, I spent some time reading and writing for my schoolwork, saw some friends, and generally enjoyed the California spring.  I watched Stanford football's spring scrimmage against itself, and I even went to Disneyland before flying from LAX to London via a close connection in Chicago.  I've been working a conference the past couple days, but starting tomorrow it's back to the grindstone for me.

One reason?  I've gotten the go-ahead to give several talks this term: one for my fellow Tit Hall grad students (friendly crowd); one for English department "undergrads" (though I've only seen grad students and faculty at the other talks in this series); and one at an English grad student conference in London (my first conference paper!).  Here are the titles for each:

• Searching for a Ghost Town in the Eternal City: Writers in Rome in the Nineteenth Century.
• "A Collection of Faded Metaphors": Language, Meaning, and the Implications of Philology in the 19th Century.
• To “look on Spirits breathed away”: Locating the Spirit in In Memoriam.  

I know, you totally wish you could come, don't you?  It's really exciting to have these opportunities, but it means that I have to write some really polished material, more or less from scratch for the last two.  But at least I'll have lots of daylight and perfumed air in which to do so!

Spring! (sort of)

Last week's weather went something like this:

Monday -- a welcome day of sunshine, albeit chilly.  Someone cracked a window or two in the English faculty library and created sweet-smelling breezes.  Yum!

Tuesday/Wednesay -- clouded over again

Thursday/Friday -- frigid; I pulled out my down coat and picked a seat in the college library next to the heating vent.

Saturday -- gorgeous and cloudless, warm enough for a thin layer over a t-shirt.  Just right for the BBQ a friend had planned.  Students were out on the back lawn of Tit Hall (allowed this time of year), and the river was clogged with punters.  Be-a-utiful.

So spring is slowly creeping in, two steps forward and one step back.  I'll never see a daffodil again without thinking of Cambridge; they're everywhere!

I took the opportunity Saturday to check out something I cycle past nearly every day.  I live up Cambridge's only hill, Castle Hill.  There is a pub about halfway between me and town called The Castle Inn.  Behind it, there is a grassy mound, which I've always suspected might be the remains of, well, a castle.  Here it is:

It turns out that there has been some type of fortification there for 2,000 years: Iron Age folks, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, William the Conquerer, and Cromwell all built things there.  Apparently this is the highest point on the River Cam that you can get a ship before it really becomes marshy fen, and it's the last good place to build a bridge for the same reason.  Bonus fact: the county's administration is still based on the site, in a modern building about 50 yards away.

Anyway, there's not much to see, but you can climb the hill and look down at Cambridge.  Here's a shot of me with King's College Chapel in the distance.

I now have two days to finish the books I'd rather not schlep home, and then I'm California-bound!  Verdict on Lent term: off to a slow start, middle weeks of feeling lost and sad, last month filled with friends, fun, and victory on several scores.  Hurray!