I am perpetual now. I am nomad.

Week of October 5th, 2003
by King Kashue
Wednesday, the 8th of October

I had a bunch of academic stuff to take care of, inductions into courses, briefings on the facilities, signing the registry of the college...all rather boring...

Tuesday, the 7th of October

So this week at Oxford is called "Fresher's Week" because it is the time that the incoming students get acclimatized to the University. Since I am an incoming graduate, there are a number of things that I have to do, and get to do. Tonight was the "Graduate Fresher's Dinner" where we take dinner in hall (the Exeter Hall was built by the same architect that built the hall at Windsor castle...quite stunning). Since this is a formal dinner, we all wear our academic gowns (the Graduate's gown is somewhat less than flattering). The dinner was quite nice, and I ended up (quite at random I assume) sitting at the High Table, at the right of the Rector of Exeter College (the Head of the College)...We ended up talking for quite a while, and the whole dinner was quite enjoyable...I had intended to go my entire time in the UK avoiding beef (out of an irrational fear of Mad Cow disease) but the main course was steak...and it was good...

Monday, the 6th of October

I went on my first proper pub crawl tonight, and luckily I was not the only person who was looking to stay sober (though there were plenty of people looking to take up the slack on the other end...Overall it was quite enjoyable (though I wore the wrong shoes and my feet ended up hurting quite a bit)...Originally the plan had been to hit 7 pubs...we hit 3... the plan was probably a wee bit ambitious...still a fun night

Sunday, the 5th of October

We went to the pub across the street for the first time since it reopened last week. Evidently it was really seedy before, and they never went there last year, but they've done a really great job in remodeling it. It used to be the Magdalen (pronounced Maudlin) Arms, but it seems as if it has been bought by the Firkin Beer company, so now it's nice and clean and has a really great Quiz machine (we we at the point we could win money but we got a question wrong...stupid machine)...Had a good time, as about 15 people from the house ended up coming over... It's a good thing that the pub across the street is so nice, because I'm sure there are going to be times we do not want to walk places during the winter...