Coriolis Trading Company

You never know where you will end up in life

I have joined the shipping industry! My new company, Coriolis Trading, has officially begun with the launch of our website at coriolistrading.com. Looking forward to this new chapter in my career. 

Oxford: The Year in Review

First, I must apologize (or apologise?) to any of my friends and family who have actually bothered to check my blog over the past year. I must admit, it has been rather sparse. However, here I am at my Oakland sublet with a free evening and a cup of tea, and I find that I'd rather do some just-for-fun writing than some actual work. Lucky you, this means you get to hear my stories and my lessons learned from the last year - perhaps slightly edited for diplomatic purposes.

I think that, interestingly enough, my experiences of Oxford fall mostly into three distinct groups, which only really started to overlap toward the end of the academic year.

The Thames Path. My favorite form of therapy during the most intense part of the year.

Marston Rd

Instead of choosing to live in college, like most freshers, I chose to seek out private accommodation. Although in most cases college housing is very nice (completely different from the 3 to a room, institutionalized dormitory in which I spent my first semester at Cal), I'm still incredibly glad that I spent the year living outside the so-called 'Oxford bubble'. Oxford is its own idiosyncratic and strange little world, and I think that complete immersion in it would have been a little bit too much of a shock for my Californian self. I am, after all, the kind of person that enters a cold swimming pool by degrees.

A selection of the housemates and myself on a camping trip in Cornwall. From left to right: Tommy, Jen, Dan, Bert, and me.

I shared a nice house with a kitchen, living room, and garden with six other students. Ben, Dan, Tommy, Jen, Laura G., and Laura W. were an amazing part of this past year. All six of them treated me like family, and I will always be grateful. There were a few times this year when I really did feel like giving up and going home (something which has never happened to me before), but these kids weren't about to let that happen. They were 'wicked cool'. That brings me to another point about this house - this is where I learned most of my British slang vocabulary. By the end of the year I was starting to use expressions like "well good" and "cheeky git." The Marston Rd. kids had contaminated my speech!

Laura G. and Laura W., at the wedding ceremony of out other housemate, Ben.

My Course in Medieval English Literature

In many ways, my coursemates were the highlight of the year. They were, and still are, without exception, amazing people. I do mean that about everyone, even the few who were, shall we say, less than personable. There were fifteen of us on the course: seven Americans, seven Brits, and one German. Brian, our resident Rhodes Scholar, started things off by scanning all of the recommended articles on our course list and emailing them to everyone in the group as .pdf files. The rest of the year followed in this vein ... we planned study groups, shared resources, went for numerous drinks and dinner sessions, and generally acted as a support group/resource pool for each other. This "we're all in this together" attitude paid off, and I'm happy to say that I think our little band of miscreants produced some of the most impressive work of any MSt. group to date.

The medievalists celebrate finishing our dissertations with a picnic on the Trinity lawns.

Trinity College

I've had a lot of trouble getting people in the States to understand exactly what an Oxford college is for. Let me explain:

• Oxford has thirty-nine, separate, self-governing colleges. Yes, these are part of the main university.


• Every student at Oxford belongs to both a college and a faculty. A faculty is like a department - there is an English Faculty, a History Faculty, a Law Faculty, etc.


• Lectures are organized through the Faculty. Tutorials (a one on one or two on one session for undergraduates with fellow in their field) are organized through the colleges.


• Colleges are responsible for student welfare: they provide food, housing, a college library, and each college has its own chapel with its own pastor.

This coming year, I'm the Welfare Officer of the MCR at my college. MCR stands for Middle Common Room, which serves as the name of both a physical room in college, and the body of postgraduate students at Trinity, of which I am a member. As Welfare officer I am in charge of general health & happiness for all of the Trinity postgrads ... although as one of only two committee members at the moment, chances are I will be taking on quite a few other responsibilities too, at least during the first few weeks.

Olga and me, the members of this year's MCR committee. Olga is MCR president.

The members of the MCR at Trinity have been a varied and interesting group to get to know. We're a small postgraduate body - there's only about a hundred or so of us, and only about fifty of those are regular participants in college activities. But through the year we've had dinners and bops and coffee & cake, and I've very much enjoyed getting to know a group of people who come from all over the world and who study an incredible variety of subjects. I've had a particularly good time socializing with the scientists, who are always telling me intriguing facts about all sorts of things I'd never heard of before. Highly entertaining stuff.

Trinity MCR Garden

When I got back to the Bay Area a few weeks ago, it felt in some ways as though I'd just dreamed the entire year. It's hard to believe, really, that such a decadent, fascinating, dramatic period in my life actually happened ... although, I'm starting round two of this whole production in about a month's time. Reality will sink in then, I suppose. So far it's been, as my supervisor put it, "An intellectually rewarding experience." There are, of course, many more things to tell about everything that happened this year, but you'll just have to ask me about them!

Summer at a local pub - English monopoly anyone? I'll give you £400 for Mayfair.

Oxford Pictures

I know it's been far too long since I posted anything. Likely most of my friends and family won't notice that I've started keeping my blog again (except Corwin, who apparently doesn't have any real work to do). 

At any rate, here are a few pictures I've taken over the last months. I think they tell it better than I could ...

The Radcliffe Camera


Catching the bus on the High Street





Notre Dame de la Gare in Marseille





more to come ...

Oxford Myths & Legends

During my first couple of weeks as an Oxford student, I've been regaled by the older grad students with all sorts of myths and legends about Oxford student life. Here follows a short selection of things I've been told that I don't (quite) believe:

1. In the infamous Balliol vs. Trinity feud, the death toll stands at four: one Trinity student and three Balliol students.
For those of you who have never heard of the Balliol/Trinity feud, it supposedly started back in the sixteenth century, when Trinity was founded. Apparently Trinity's founder, Sir Thomas Pope, purloined some land from Balliol in order to build his new college. Balliol has never forgiven us, and the feud dates all the way back to, well, several decades probably. Anyway, they sing at us every time they have a party and get drunk, and occasionally attempt to scale the walls into our college. I guess they're just not satisfied with their own grounds!
Supposedly, sometime in the seventeenth century, one of Trinity's more elderly fellows had a stroke and lost his mind. He proceeded to march over to the senior common room, which overlooks Balliol's grounds, and shoot several Balliol students with a shotgun. According to the story I heard, he managed to kill three of them.
No one has yet provided me with any stories behind the one Trinity death.

2. Somewhere in the Oxford University Exam Regulations, it states that if you appear for your exams riding a horse, dressed in full armor and carrying a sword, the examiners must provide you with a pitcher of ale.
I'd like to see someone try this one.

3. Several years ago, an undergraduate fresher booked the Trinity college chapel for her wedding date seven years in advance. When asked whom she would be marrying, she replied that she didn't know yet.
The person who told this story swears that it's true, but I really don't believe it. It can't be very cheap to book the chapel!

4. Noted medievalist Eric G. Stanley once made a seminar presenter shrivel up and float away like a little puff of smoke solely through the use of sarcastic comments made after his or her presentation.
OK, so I made this one up. But it's by far the most believable myth I've recorded here.

On the subject of Oxford legendary, this Friday marks the feast of St. Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford. She was an eighth century abbess who managed to preserve her virginity from the lecherous King Algar of Mercia through the grace of God, who struck the King with a mysterious blindness which prevented him from finding the saint. I'll be attending an evening service in the chapel at Magdalen College in her honor.