to rise and bleed and die in fall...

So what happens next, i hear you cry! I have a whole week to update you on.

Thursday was pretty quiet as far as I can remember, just work and sleep.

Friday there was a party (in I-house) run by the alpha-alpha-alpha frat, with a "spring break" theme. Now frats are something id only encountered in films, so I thought id go along. Most of the frats have big posh houses bought for them by rich ex-members, and seem like the ultimate boys club, housing and a place to party all in one. This frat however must have sucked, because they were formed in 2009, and had no place to hold a party, so were doing it in I-house...

I went along expecting wildness, kegs, beer pong, nudity and KY jelly wrestling. I was disappointed. Oh Hollywood, how you lie!! I suspect half of the problem was this was in I-house, so things had to be respectable. My first shock when i turned up was that there were two policemen overseeing admissions on the door, complete with guns! It seems any event on campus where alcohol is served must have police overseeing the over-21s policy. With guns, in-case some under 21 tries to shoot there way in, or something... :S

Once you got in, drinks were free, but only 2 allowed per person!! I didnt end up staying too long, the combination of a lack of drink and not many people i knew made me decide to go to bed. I'm told the wild parties of Hollywood do happen in frats, occasionally, normally at the beginnings of term, and unsurprisingly, never in I-house!

The next night I took myself along to a BBQ/party for someones birthday, this was a-lot better, with unregulated booze, tasty food and lots of people to chat to. Met a grad student from Durham who knew lots of people I know, who was popping by on the way back from Hawaii. Also it turned out that the prospective new Berkeley grad students were turning up this weekend, and some of them came to the party.

The next day (sunday) i woke up with a little bit of a hangover, and dragged myself over to meetup with the grad students and prospectives for a wine tasting trip to the Napa Valley!! The prospectives being around was the excuse, showing them the best bits of Berkeley life, and I got to tag along.

After about an hour and a half in the car we get into the Napa valley, and go round our first winery (www.clospegase.com). This is a small place which makes very posh wine (20-40 dollars a bottle). The owner made his millions elsewhere, and runs the place as a hobby, as you can tell with all the art and sculpture around!! We finished the tour, got two bottles of wine and had a picnic with baggetes and cheese we had bought with us. The Merlot was stunning, long, fruity and without too much harshness, it was excellent. The Pinot grigio (sp) was nice too, with real fruity notes of apricot and pineapple (really!). We then made our way across the road to the Sterling winary, that featured a cablecar up to its buildings! The wine here wasnt as good, with the exception of a nice desert wine. The weather was gorgeous and hot the whole day, making this a really fun experience either way!!

After the two tours our designated drivers took us up to the vista point for sunset over the golden gate bridge. This was pretty damn spectacular!! Photo of me here is attached... After the sun went down we went in SF for a meal at a German restaurant, which was pretty tasty too! All in all a very good day, and I think the prospectives were impressed



Monday was a pretty normal day work wise, but with free pizza for lunch thanks to the presence of the prospectives, and in the evening there was a BBQ at some of the grad students house in the Hill up behind Berkeley. The views from here are FANTASTIC, overlooking the whole bay area, light up with a sea of lights at night. The food was pretty good, so another nice day.

Tuesday was the prospectives last day, so in the evening we all went out for curry (reasonable, not as good as english curry thou!), and then to a pub quiz. Our team came second, so not a bad showing!! The rest of the week has been quiet, up till now, with some work stuff (last minute telescope proposal!) but not alot fun to report...

Bonus points for the first person to tell me where this posts title is from...

Onward

Hey all, sorry I haven't updated this for a few days, I am not brilliant at this blogging nonsense!

So I left off right before the party. I went to the off-license and bought a 6pack of beer (Hoegarden- i didn't recognize anything else to know what was good and what wasn't!). I had a couple in my room, then went down to the party in some guys room. There were a fair few people there, so we filled the room and spilled out into the corridor. Unsurprisingly within 5 minutes there were noise complaints, so we all moved to the recration room, with the table tennis table etc, and carried on there. It turned out there was another party planned there that night, with $2 sangria, so when they arrived they just joined in! I had a good night, danced a bit and got drunk, which was fun.

The next morning I woke up with a bit of a hangover, so went for a walk around the Campus with my camera in order to shake it. Ive got lots of photos, but you may have to wait to see them, as it looks like i forgot the cable to take them off the camera! Doh! The weather was quite nice and sunny, if cold, so I sat outside and chilled out for the rest of the day.

Monday was a normal day at work, broken up only by a compulsory "welcome to the usa" meeting. DULL.

Tuesday was normal too, but in the evening I had signed up for an event in I-house where a mountainering, biophysical chemist was giving a talk. She was the first woman up many mountains, and was pretty hardcore, as well as leading campaigns against flame retardants in kids clothing/sofas etc that cause cancer. The event included a drinks reception, a buffet banquet thing, then an after dinner talk. Lots of I-House alumni were there, going back to the 1940s! It was good fun to talk to some more people, have free drinks, and the talk was interesting too.

Today I have just been at work, main thing to report is that I got my Cal ID card, so I am (for the next 4 months) officially a UC Berkeley visiting scholar!!

More promising...

Hey all!

Thought I would update you on the goings on since yesterday. The day in the lab was reasonably quiet, I saw the secretary about my final paperwork bits and bobs, and have a meeting on Monday to finalize everything, get my ID card etc. I had a meeting with my fellow PhD student, and agreed our joint plan of action, and then met her supervisor together to talk the plans through.

We had to wait a while for him before the meeting, because he was running a younger grad students "preliminary". This is an exam they take at some point (after a year or two) where 3 staff members grill them on various aspects of astrophysics- a couple of hours of blackboard work. The guy failed, so will have to do it again in a few months. I can see how this produces good physicists, but dear lord I'm glad I don't have to do it!!!

Social wise, I got invited to a bar after work with a few of the guys- but i promptly forgot which bar!! I waited in the lobby for those guys at the alotted time, but they must have left already, in the social stakes that was a loss for me, Bears 1: Tim 0.

Today I got up late, and went for brunch. There I managed to sit next to a nice English architect, and a few other guys who invited me to a party tonight: 1-1!! I then went and got a simcard for my phone, so I now have a US number! Ask me if youd like it. I then got on the BART and went to target to buy some bedsheets.

Buying bedsheets/duvet etc should be simple, youd think. No such luck!! My mental list of what I wanted:

Duvet
Duvet cover
Pillow
Pillow cases
Bed sheets

Only one of these items exist with the same name in the states I found out!!

Heres what i got in an all-in-one set (in the same order)

Comforter
(w/ cover)
Pillow
pillow cases and shams (!)
flat sheet and fitted sheet
bedskirt

Now the duvet<->comforter, so that isnt hard to get. You cannot buy ANYTHING for the single bed I have, the smallest thing i could find was something called "full"- whatever that means! Its about my single +0.5

I have really worked out what the shams and bedskirt are for, so I am ignoring them. Ah the joys of a new culture!!

I am about to go buy some beers for this part tonight (which I have not forgotten the location of!), so I shall update you how it went tomorrow!

The flight over + first day

So i figured id start from the beginning...

I turned up at Heathrow for my Virgin Atlantic flight to SFO, weather: overcast, rainy, cold.
I walk into the terminal and go to check my bag in, only to find its overweight- 28 kilos instead of 23. Ooops. 30 quid later they agree to load it into the plane and I head on through security- not a good start!

Once i got on the plane however it all got alot better. There were 110 empty seats in economy for the morning flight to SFO- so we basically had a row each to stretch out in! This, coupled with decent food and the baby sitting near me not crying made it the most enjoyable 11 hour flight ive ever taken!

When we got in it was overcast, rainy and cold. Did we just circle heathrow for 11 hours?! I got the BART (bay area rapid transit) across to Berkeley, lumping my 28 kilo bag behind me, then wheeled it up the street to the place im staying "International House". Ill post some of my photos later, but its a grand building with towers, and a big hall etc. It is the main place they put international students, mixed in with americans, graduates and undergraduates. Warwick take note- mixing is good!!

My room is small but OK, single bed, bedside table, desk and bookcase, and a build in cupboard/wardrobe thing. Again photos will be up soon! The only slight annoyance is they provide no bed linen, and they stuff I hired from them is crap, so I will have to go to the shop this weekend and buy some!

Food wise meals are included in the rent, in the big hall downstairs in the building. Its a buffet style thing, where you take what you want- i'm going to have to start an exercise program if im not going to balloon in weight! The food seems ok, if a tad processed- im sure ill get used to it. Haven't met anyone yet really, everyone else has been moved in for months, so they all have there own groups setup. Hopefully I get more chances to meet people and can get some sort of social life going soon...


This is I-House^

First days

Hello, welcome to "Tim Fights Bears".

This is a blog chronicling my four months at UC Berkeley. As most of you who see this will know already, I am a DPhil (PhD) student at the University of Oxford, studying Astrophysics- specifically molecular gas in early-type galaxies. If I'm bored later I might make a post explaining my project in more detail.

I have been sent over to UC Berkeley as a visiting scholar, to work with our collaborators on the joint project we are pursuing. I will be here for four months, and aim to pack in as much stuff as I can!! Planned so far is a conference in Florida, a summer school in New Mexico, an observing run at CARMA (the mm-wave interferometer I get most of my data from), and giving talks at CalTech, UCSC and UCSB. Plus i need to write papers and meet people!

You might wonder why this blog is called "Tim Fights Bears"- well UC Berkeley's mascot is a bear (as is California's) and everyone around the campus has all these tshirts and signs saying "go bears!" (see below). The fight part is just because it sounded cooler than "Tim meets bears" or something!! It remains to be seen how often I will update this, ive tried blogging before and failed miserably, so lets see!