Running in Christ Church Meadow

On the whole, Christ Church is one of those enigmatic destinations that simultaneously represent both the timeless value of the ideas and ideals that survive history, as well as their awkward evolution as they linger alongside contemporary society. Wow, what a mouthful – perhaps a visual will help convey my position:

Imagine you’re walking into Christ Church Meadow (pictured below) on a sunny Sunday afternoon. A gentle breeze dances along your cheekbones, while bending the pale wheatgrass just enough to make it appear as though it were woven across the ground and into the distance. As you approach the rod-iron gate opening into a valley, your eyes trace up the exposed layers of rust and black paint, then slowly re-focus on the clay-colored tower emerging from the… (THUD!)

You just tripped over a small red backpack.

As you slowly push yourself from the earth and right your head, you see them – Field Trippers. It’s like the Association of Natural History Museums shut for the day and told every 6^th grade class in the Northern Hemisphere that this was the only place to see dinosaur bones.

Now, of course it is grossly hypocritical for me to judge tourists or tourism, but I’d also like to give credence to the notion that Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) might not have enthusiastically approved of the mass-produced Cheshire Cat Christmas ornaments hawked across the street from his alma mater (p.s. I bought three). But while I have spent five months trying to tour England like a local, I’ve come to the conclusion that you have to take the good with the “bad”. It’s great to genuinely appreciate the unique beauty of “traditional” art or take in a new culture through an “authentic” festival, but sometimes you just need to ride around in the obnoxious double-decker tour bus with the convertible top.

Still, to make places like Christ Church Meadow even more surreal, I often try to enjoy them while engaging in some mundane activity. For example, it would be the highlight of my trip if I could do laundry in the Houses of Parliament or mow the lawn around Stonehenge. Unfortunately, these activities being largely infeasible, I’ve taken to simply jogging through such international landmarks. And today, after running three 1-mile (?) laps around the Meadow, I think I can safely declare this the 2^nd most amazing place I’ve ever run.

Didn’t think I’d leave you hanging, did you? Here’s my top five.

1^st Place – Harlem, George Washington Bridge, Palisades Interstate Park

3^rd Place – Universidad Politécnica de Valencia Elevated Track

4^th Place – Portage West Middle School

5^th Place – Central Park Reservoir

Where else? Back to Oxford.

Now that we’re officially in Exam Period and I don’t have regular lectures during the week, I thought I would spend a little more time in the South and visit my friend Malini again. I’ve got a few books to read (and re-read), but I figure that the change of scenery (and research in the Bodleian) might do me good.

Yesterday, to put an end to my one-week cultural drought, Malini and I went to a pair of plays. First, a friend of hers was in a short piece put on during a week of theatre events at Jesus College. Then we went to the Burton-Talyor Studio to catch an amateur production of the Tom Stoppard farce, “Dirty Linen” (he also more famously penned another show I recently saw, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”). I know that this is not my first mention of British farces, but just in case you can’t picture what this play might be about, here is the Wikipedia summary:

• ‘The work is a farce that portrays a special committee of the House of Commons appointed to investigate reports that a large number of MPs have been having sex with the same woman.’
  

If that isn’t inspired writing, I don’t know what is.

On a somewhat more civilized note, Malini and I got cream tea at the famous Randolph Hotel earlier this afternoon. Surprisingly, not as good as my earlier tea at Nottingham’s University Club, but it did come with unparalleled presentation.

Canoe Club AGM (Annual General Meeting)

I forgot to write about this last week, but after recapping the Week One Hustings on Monday, I believe that one more look at student organizations/elections would be beneficial both for my personal reflection and your vicarious enjoyment.

The Canoe Club had their AGM last Wednesday at a pub just outside of campus. On the surface, it was a pretty traditional affair:

• curry
  
• mock awards
  
• sentimental speech
  
• nominations and elections
  
• general merriment
  

While the election process may not have been as wild as Monday’s, it did carry its fair share of foolish behavior, inside jokes, and nonsensical yelling. But almost ironically, I have continued to be impressed by the level of responsibility and organization the student organizations here possess. During my years at Michigan, I considered myself a bit of a ’student organizations’ junkie, and felt I had seen the gamut of how to develop and maintain a successful student group.

Of course, my previous experiences dealt primarily with engineering professional development, service, and leadership groups, so comparing these to activity-based groups (caving, canoeing, acting) is a little like comparing apple pie to plum pudding.

Oh, and despite the fact that I will only be in England for another couple months and have only the most novice paddling skills, I ran for the Canoe Club’s Head Coach position (mostly so that it wouldn’t go uncontested). While I naturally lost on a platform that repeatedly made reference to the two aforementioned facts, I secretly hope I got at least one vote…

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One more thing: This was too funny. In one effort to retain some “American-ness” during my time here, I have adopted my friend John Nanry’s phrase “weak sauce!” (an interjection signifying mild dissatisfaction – akin to the word “bummer!”). So at some point during dinner conversation, I find occasion to use the phrase and one of the other Canoe Club members, who assumes I’m talking about the curry, replies “yeah, it is a pretty weak sauce.”

One Final Down – Three to Go!

Today I finished my first class (Detective Fiction), although it was quite anticlimactic as we had a final paper rather than an exam. My paper was titled: The Utilization of Narrative Strategies in Detective Fiction, and acted almost as a case study exploring 4 different authors contributions to the development of the detective genre. It has been very interesting to study how this field has transformed over 100 years, from Poe’s establishment of the unnamed but unfailing narrator/sidekick to Collins’ use of multiple, subjective narrators all the way to Christie’s self-aware and self-mocking narrative devices.

As you might have guessed, the above photo comes from one of my more ’stirring’ writing sessions.

May Day!

May Day has always been a personally confusing holiday for me. The last time I remember celebrating it was in 1^st Grade when I “weaved” a 2-dimensional May Day Basket out of colored construction paper strips and filled it with (i.e. glued to it) a bunch of 2-dimensional construction paper flowers. Even now with the power of Wikipedia, I’m not exactly sure what occasion I was celebrating back then.

But as far as I know, here in Nottingham, May Day is just another bank holiday. However, since it always falls in-between the end of lectures and beginning of exam period, Hu Stu celebrates it by throwing a big outdoor party.

We filled our courtyard with a bunch of inflatable toys: Bouncy Castle, Elastic Run, Football (pictured above).

And sumo suits, of course. For all of my Michigan Engineering readers, this probably looks a lot like our end of term party, Springfest.

Here I am eating a Cadbury Flake® ice cream cone. Delicious.

But today wasn’t all play – we also held a hustings (platform to present candidates for election) for next year’s “Week One” reps for Hugh Stewart (effectively the event coordinators for ‘Fresher’s Week’). Since these representatives are largely in charge of social event planning, the candidates were judged on the basis of such criterion as:

• Flexibility: Dancing while bags of flour and jugs of milk are thrown at you.

• Teamwork: Passing baked beans along a line of four members.  (No hands!)

• And of course, the truest test of Leadership: Tandem cucumber consumption.

Okay, so maybe it was more like an episode of Nickelodeon’s Double Dare than a formal election, but it did provide an outlet for the candidates and spectators alike to express their Hu Stu and University of Nottingham spirit.

We’re Number 2!

Today my buddy Nick and I went to another Nottingham Forest match (last game of the season). There were bizarre implications where if Nottingham won and Doncaster (another team) lost, then Nottingham would move into second place in the Coca-Cola League 1 (actually the third most prestigious league – behind the Barclay’s Premiership and the Coca-Cola Championship), guaranteeing them automation promotion (to the Championship).

If that sounds confusing, don’t worry. It is. And after seeing 4 matches live and dozens on TV I’ve only just figured out how the promotion/relegation system works (Wikipedia helped). And the upshot – as suggested at in the title – is that Forest won over Yeovil Town (3-2) and Doncaster lost to Cheltenham (2-1). And I’ll admit that this was probably the most exciting sporting event (save a couple of American football games) I’ve ever seen.

Despite loads of policemen, everyone on the lower level stormed the field anyway.

And the players all did a “victory lap” thanking all of the fans.

Nick, James and I. You can’t see it very well, but I’m wearing the yellow alternate away keeper’s jersey I bought at my last Forest match.

The Crucible

I thought it would be funny seeing British people faking an American accent…

…until I remembered that most early colonists were British.

Have you ever had a penguin ’round for tea? (Part 2)

For those of you reading this weblog chronologically, the long-winded point of my last post was that despite the perceived English custom of afternoon tea as a traditional, elegant activity, most of my tea consumption was under much ‘less quaint’ circumstances.

Not that this is a bad thing… but I did decide that in getting the full ‘English experience’ I should sit down to a proper afternoon tea sooner or later. So today, I met up with my mates from the play (remember “Half a Heartbeat”?) to have tea at our University Club. The service delivered the whole nine yards with finger sandwiches, scones and cream, and a pastry selection – along with tea and coffee, of course. And all for only £7 per head (ridiculous value).

Despite the fact that I was the only non-British member of our party, I think everyone was pretty impressed by the sophistication of both the food and our surroundings. We were also impressed by the sheer volume of the food – we got started pretty late in the afternoon (after most others had left), which was lucky because the tea service covered almost every table in our section of the room. To be honest, I was worried we had somehow mis-ordered, and that the bill would double or triple through our mistake.

Fortunately, this did not happen, and I got my first proper afternoon tea under my belt.

***Oh, and who’s curious about the title of this (and the last) post? Well, this is the lyric to a song (with a little dance) that our cast would sing to warm up for our play performances back in March. It reminds me of one of the games a camp counselor (or East Quad residence advisor, for that matter) would play to get kids energized after lunch. To save us both the embarrassment of writing out the lyrics/dance here, just watch this video.***

Have you ever had a penguin ’round for tea?

When I imagined daily life in England before moving to Nottingham, one of the most vivid stereotypes that commandeered my imagination was sitting down to proper afternoon tea. There is certainly something both romantic and whimsical about fine china, delicate sandwiches, warm tweed jackets and soft leather armchairs. Unfortunately, most tea services in this form went out with the Victorian era.

But that is not to say I haven’t enjoyed my share of tea in the months I’ve lived here. It’s just my tea time more resembles the following…

It’s 1:00am. I’m sitting in my room reading, writing or sleeping (probably a little of all three), and my blockmate Sameer shouts through the double-doors of our en-suite bathroom that he’s boiling water for coffee. I respond, yelling for him to “add a little more for me”. Sameer fills his Sainsbury’s electric kettle from the tap of his bathroom sink, then walks outside to plug it into the hallway outlet. (Using the kettle with one of the outlets in our rooms would blow a fuse.)

After about 5 minutes, Sameer brings the half-empty kettle into my room, but I remember my only mug – a Nottingham mug I bought at the tourist centre downtown – is dirty. After a 30-second wash using Sameer’s dish soap (note: England calls it ‘washing up liquid’), the burning hot tap water of my sink, and my index finger, I’m ready to pour and drop in a Tetley’s tea bag. (I bought a box of 80 bags in February – earl grey – I’m probably close to halfway through the box.)

This whole time Sameer has been watching a pirated episode of ‘Scrubs’ (probably Season 2) in his room. And while I can’t be bothered to sit through a whole episode, I figure that I’ll need to wait a few minutes for the tea to steep, and I’ve already taken a break from whatever work I was doing anyway. 22 minutes later, I remember that there is a lonely mug of tea waiting for me in my room. Miraculously it is still kind of hot, but bitter from the over-steeping. No worries, this is easily fixed with a few Tesco sugar cubes and a splash of semi-skimmed milk I picked up with my meal credit from the food court at the Sir Clive Granger building. The milk is a few days old, but it still smells alright.

Believe it or not, the tea is delicious – and the warm, subtle flavor is just the thing to calm me into a tranquil sleep (caffeine be damned), shutting out the whining discourse of JD and Dr. Cox that seep through the paper-thin walls next door.

Hmmm… that was a longer ramble than usual. For the sake of clarity I’ll continue this topic in a new post.

“The Oxford Murders”

Don’t worry; it’s only a film (and novel) title. Today, Saumya (Malini’s flatmate) and I went to catch this movie, mostly because it is filmed in Oxford and draws on a number of local academic and cultural references.

The theme of the novel/film is actually sound: a debate between two academics over whether patterns in nature are the work of some kind of intelligent design, or the product of artificial frameworks that are applied (and revised) by humans seeking order in a random and chaotic world. The plot surrounding that theme is entertaining enough, but the acting leaves something to be desired.

I think most people in the theatre were there for the same reasons we were. When the love interest opens with her line: “I play the cello down at the Sheldonian” (an historic theatre in Oxford), the whole place just cracked up with laughter.

Back to Oxford

When I visited Oxford over the Easter holiday, I ended up leaving a few items behind (clothes, souvenirs, sleeping bag). These were things that I didn’t want to bring to London, and subsequently forgot about as I went directly to Nottingham at the end of my brother’s visit. Therefore, I felt that this was as good a weekend as any to drop down and pick the stuff up. I’ll keep you posted if anything more exciting happens…

What in the World is Ryan Reading?

When it rains it pours…

Get it? Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

The Third Condiment

Alright, so since I’m turning into a student theatre junkie I guess I’ll at least spare you my usual ramblings and just put up the poster.

But “The Third Condiment” was hilarious (mostly because of the Welsh accent).

Storytellerz of Nottingham!

A few months back, I posted about a pub downtown – Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem – that hosts the ‘Storytellers of Nottingham’ on the last Thursday of every month. But as you have probably inferred, I had not yet been to any of the previous Storytellers nights (because if I had, I clearly would have shared the awesomeness that transpired).

Now what forces could have possibly kept me from this event for so long, you ask? On the surface, I did have rational excuses (Canoe Club practice in January, a football match in February, and Easter Holiday in March) …but the real reason was that I could never convince any of my blockmates to go with me. However, with this month’s theme of “Tales of Old Nottingham” (in the spirit of the Jones Fellowship, could there be a more perfect subject?), I called in as many favours as I could and got a foursome to commit (Me, Ben, Alex, Shenker).

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On top of being enormously entertaining and taking place at the coolest pub in Nottinghamshire, seeing the Storytellers of Nottingham also carried some personal significance – as I too used to be an amateur storyteller (through a club at the Portage Public Library). Even though my storytelling career ended when I was in the 4^th grade, I am actually a little surprised at how little I can still remember about that chapter of my life. I vaguely recall telling one story about magical eggs, and another about some kind of abstract creature made up of shapes on a journey to find more shapes(?).

My most vivid memories are (1) skipping school one day to go to some storytelling event at one of those historic colonial villages and (2) my 4^th grade teacher taking a 15-minute teaching break so our whole class could watch a public-access TV broadcast of me telling a story. It’s funny, but at the time I don’t remember that being weird or embarrassing at all.

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As I said, the Storytellers of Nottingham (pictured below) were excellent – and just what I expected. Most of them were from the area, and each had just enough quirky charm and Greene King in their bloodstream to make the perfect narrator. Topics of each story ranged from the witch hunts of four centuries ago to lovers during the wars of the Victorian era. And one speaker simply talked for 20 minutes about how hard it was to use the toilet and do laundry in 1930s Nottingham (bonus points if you can guess which one!).

Seeing the Storytellers really let me reflect on all of the diverse literary forms I have had the opportunity to experience during my time here. But the most gratifying part of the evening by far was hearing my blockmates eat their words and tell me how much they enjoyed going.

Revenge on the Cross-Town Rivals (Rugby)

Earlier in the term the University of Nottingham football team suffered a demoralizing 0-2 loss against rival Nottingham Trent University in the annual Varsity match. Tonight, Uni turned the tables by delivering a slim but convincing 10-3 win against Trent in the Varsity match for rugby. Unfortunately, attending this game (my first live rugby match) erased any certainty I had about how rugby is played.

Now, perhaps the above statement is a bit exaggerated. I was able to follow about 80% of the action, usually until either the ball was kicked or the referee got involved. And frankly, without any kind of announcer calling the game, I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of my fellow British spectators were often confused with exactly what was going on. Fortunately, my friend Emma (an Australian student on exchange) was in our crew tonight and patiently explained the same rules over and over despite the fact I never really understood the game any better.

But we won, and there was a lot of yelling and singing and the random Nottingham cheerleaders were back and there was even a streaker. Take that Trent!

Res Hall Showdown (Round 2)

Last time I explored the merits of Hugh Stewart Hall against those of East Quadrangle the focus was the showering facilities (where Hu Stu won hands down… or more accurately, by about 50 psi). Today, we’re looking at another of the basic life amenities provided by the hall – food.

While there are some drastic differences among some similarities, the basic takeaway is that both dining halls leave me with the same modest sense of meal satisfaction. After adjusting my expectations to the changes at Hu Stu (both positive and negative), I don’t think I could say that the experience is significantly better or worse than East Quad. However, for a more comprehensive assessment, I have broken down the showdown into a number of categories, listed below in Table 1.

Food Quality:

Now, as mentioned, I can’t really pick one hall over the other in terms of food quality, but there are sub-categories where each hall excels. For example, meat – and main courses in general – seem to get a little more love (or more accurately, money) at East Quad. However, Hu Stu usually does put together one or two very competent vegetables each dinner, while East Quad relegates their “California Blend” or “Asian Style Vegetables” to the euphemistically-named World Harvest Bar.

Dessert is almost a toss-up. Every once in a while Hu Stu will put out something incredible (like chocolate sponge with cream), but East Quad definitely has more consistency in this area so they get the nod. The reverse is true for soups, as once in a blue moon East Quad will put out something fantastic (like pumpkin soup at the Sustainable Resource Dinner), but Hu Stu dependably delivers cream-based soups that are often the highlight of the meal.

If this list were extended to more auxiliary foods like salads, bread, and beverages, East Quad would probably take those categories simply based on variety, but I’ll get to that.

Food Quantity:

If one of my East Quad friends came to eat at Hu Stu, or vice versa, I think both would initially prefer East Quad based simply on food quantity and variety. Probably for reasons of size and student preference, East Quad purely offers more food (and allows “all you can eat”, something Hu Stu does not). If I wanted to have three ice-cream-covered waffles at every dinner for a week, East Quad is happy to accommodate. If I want to wash down my hummus-topped honey wheat bagel with organic rice milk, no problem.

I will give Hu Stu the consolation prize of better portion size, because when you’re only getting one entrée, they make sure you get all you’re entitled too. In fact, I would rarely desire ’seconds’ even if they were available. (Of course you could take that to mean a good thing or a bad thing.)

Extras:

While Hu Stu is no Christ Church, the ambiance of a high ceiling, tall windows and long benches do give our dining hall a lot of character. But while I don’t agree with the “two cafeteria” strategy of East Quad, I agree that it is otherwise more efficiently designed. I just seem to spend more time queuing and getting in people’s way at Hu Stu (the soup for example, while delicious, is located in a very cumbersome corner of the room).

Special meals is another toss-up where each hall has their own strength. East Quad honestly cooks restaurant-quality food for holiday and other special meals. At Christmas 2006, we had beef tenderloin (a perfect medium rare) and seafood enchiladas (indescribably amazing, yet I have to write more to add emphasis to how amazing they were). That was unquestionably one of the top 10 meals of my entire life. On the other hand, Hu Stu usually cooks the same quality of food for special meals, but they do serve it to the table in courses, everyone dresses up, and there’s wine. So it’s a different kind of nice.

Finally, Hu Stu has a conveyor belt toaster, something I’ve wished for at East Quad ever since the first time my bagel took so long to toast that I forgot it was there.

Overall:

Draw. But I must reiterate that the true value of a dining hall is not measured in bagel varieties or serving size. What matters is this unquantifiable sense of satisfaction that the meal leaves you with 5 minutes or 5 hours after you can’t taste it anymore. And that isn’t just a product of the food.

What in the World is Ryan Reading? (Library Book Edition)

“The Blue Cross”, “The Queer Feet”, and “The Invisible Man” of the Father Brown series by G.K. Chesterton. Now, if you look closely at the spine of this book, you’ll notice that I picked this one up at the library. I’m afraid I have reached the point where I won’t have room in my bags to take all of these books I’m reading back to the States, so I’ve been making more use of the university library. However, this has led me to make an amazing discovery that I will definitely write about in a future post (once I take some pictures).

How’s that for suspense?

Race Day!

For my more faithful readers out there, you probably have noticed few blog posts about me running. Beyond the fact that writing about running would likely become monotonous and boring (a sin of which I’m guilty enough), I simply haven’t been running much lately. To be honest, I’ve never been close to running competitively or consistently since high school; I’ve only casually (italics indicate the liberal use of the word) kept it up in college. Even so, my last race was the Ann Arbor Turkey Trot in November… until today.

Today was the Nottingham Marrow 5/10K Run. Now even when I am out of shape, I never pass up a good opportunity to churn out a 5K. The only problem is that usually I’ll get motivated enough to put in a couple weeks of training so that I finish with a decent time (see: aforementioned Turkey Trot, Kalamazoo Klassic, Run to Climax). However, as you are aware, I’ve spent the last 4 weeks on holiday, and literally have not run a step since February. The good news: I did finish the race (something I actually doubted for a while). The bad news: 25:58.

Now, for all my non-running friends reading this weblog, I am actually very lucky to be able to run a 5K cold, and I should be proud of a 26-minute finish as it is a very respectable time. For all my running friends – I’m so so sorry. Seriously. I don’t know what happened.

Additionally, I’d like to remark about a few of the unique aspects of this race. First, I was surprised how many of the runners were there for the 10K race. Usually I find that at least twice as many runners opt for the 5K, but here that ratio seemed to be reversed. (Perhaps outside of the country of Prefontaine, the 5K doesn’t hold as much prestige.) Nevertheless, I felt like a bit of a wuss as I expressed my fears of not finishing the race to my hallmates, only to find out they were all doing the 10K.

But more interestingly, I ask you to examine the photograph above. Yes, it was weird that there were high school cheerleaders performing at the starting line, but try looking a little left of center… Yes! Do you see it? The guy in the inflated sumo suit? It seems that fancy dress is encouraged not only when raising money for a charity during a marathon, but when running a local 5/10K as well. Even more amazing, the sumo suit guy ran a sub-40:00 10K.

Okay, round two. Can you find Swamp Thing (or the guy in green underwear I presume to be Swamp Thing)?

Round three… nevermind.

**Oh. And after the race, the organizers provided massages (typical), a Gatorade type drink (standard), and a giant bowl of chocolate and sweets (huh?).**

More New Theatre

One change I have certainly felt in my first week back from the Easter Holiday is my increase in free time due to my decrease of play rehearsal time. However, just because I am no longer a performer in the New Theatre does not mean I’ve cut all my ties. This weekend I went there with my former cast to see “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”. The two leads were very talented, and while I may not have understood all of the meta-theatrical elements Tom Stoppard (the playwright) was trying to convey, it certainly was a unique interpretation.

Then again, maybe not so unique since I (as an actor) got the “backstage” perspective of our play just a few weeks ago…

Then, Now… Forever Forest

Today my buddy Nick and I dropped into a Nottingham Forest (football) match against Luton Town.

Despite the low score of the game (1-0, Go Forest!), the first half was actually really exciting with a lot of shots on goal. Plus, I bought a bunch of kit after the game, like a sweet alternate away keeper’s jersey.