College life

The play opens tonight, this is my oh-so-brief "lunch" break at 11.30 am.

Around 20 people from the Trinity Hall Middle Combination Room (grad society) will be along tonight, which is great.

I didn't understand the point of colleges before coming here: teaching occurs through the faculties, though you may as an undergrad have "supervisions" in the college-based office of your tutor. They seemed an anachronism, albeit one that provived accomodation.

How wrong I was.

Your college is the people you share dining, accomodation and social facilities with. Fresher's week is a hectic round in which you meet the self-selecting core of "social" graduate students: an instant clan, peer group, set of friends from different degree programs and countries.

It's been a real experience, and goes a long way to explaining what some commenters see as my social success over here.

(Which is not to say I'm still not a nice guy.)

The intensity of an eight-week term is bizarre: I feel like I've known a lot of these people for more than two months.

Anyway, time to dash back to the play. It's such a combination of confidence, anticipation and sheer nerves at present ...

Still, there will be a lot of hanging around. I suspect my choice of down-time reading will freak a few people, the San Remo manual of naval warfare isn't your standard thespian fare.