/travel/oxford/It's that time again...
..another oxfordian e-mail from Rob!
Things continue to go well here. Yesterday, I went with Caroline and a guy from work and some of his friends to take part in the big No War on Iraq rally in London. I don't think I've ever seen so many people. A lot of funny placards too. "Bombing for Peace is like Shagging for Virginity" was probably my favourite. Honourable mention goes to "The only Bush is my own." One of my co-worker's friends brought a giant pair of underpants that read "Pants to War" (translating roughly to war sucks, but made amusing by the pants/underwear connection.) It was very peaceful, though Hyde Park took quite a beating under all those (around 1.5 million, depending who you believe) feet. At the end of the day, after some 7 hours on our feet, we grabbed some tea ($2) and snacks in London and headed home on the bus. All in all, quite enjoyable. I was wearing my Canada toque that I got for Christmas, and ended up meeting a girl from Regina because of it. (Just for the record, I was only half-heartedly there to protest a war on Iraq...I think certain aspects of military enforcement are justified, with the support of the U.N.)
Last weekend, Caroline and I went into London as well. We saw Buckingham Palace from about 100 feet away. It was nice, but not all that impressive..being held so far by a giant wrought iron fence diminishes its glory. Westminster Abbey was more impressive, and hopefully we'll go in again and get a tour of the Abbey and parliament and such. We also finally made it to Trafalgar square, where we had intended on spending new years eve. We visited the Cabinet War Rooms, where Churchill and his cabinet did their planning during WWII. This was quite interesting, particularly contrasting the conserving attitude of the posters of the time with the American message of 'spending money helps fight terrorism.' I picked up a little poster that says "Dr. Carrot keeps you healthy" with a cartoony carrot dressed up as a doctor. It's funny. And we went to the National Gallery, but didn't have too long there. Hopefully we'll make it back there again.
The highlight and raison-d'etre of our visit to London was BodyWorlds(.com), an exhibit of plastinated bodies and body parts. It was the night before its final night in London, and we had to wait for about 90 minutes to get in. They had lungs and livers and full muscular, skeletal, digestive, etc. systems on display, sometimes showing how two systems fit together. We were very tired by the end where they talk about how it's all actually done, so I don't have a good grasp of it, but I gather it's some technique to preserve the bits of the body by turning them into plastic. In any case, they were real livers and stuff. They also showed foetuses (foeti?) and an 8-month-pregnant woman. The exhibit is quite controversial, and until I saw the baby-stuff I didn't really see why, but I can imagine that it bothers a lot of people. They had several deformed foetuses as well, including cleft palettes and siamese twins, and presumably non-deformed foetuses from about every week during the pregnancy, showing the normal progression. Moral qualms aside, it was certainly worth ($20) seeing, but I left wanting to be convinced that there was nothing underhanded there, particularly with the pregnant woman.
The Feds -- the U of W student union -- elections are over, with none of the team/party that I was a part of winning, except myself and Jesse Helmer who both got acclaimed (no one ran against us). The fact that our team-mates all lost is quite surprising to me, but that's the way it goes I guess.
In related school news, I'm probably going to run for Feds board of Directors, another elected position that I am eligible for since I'm a councillor. I'm also going to be on the board of uwstudent.org, a student-run media corporation for news at waterloo as the Technology Directory. Yay for titles.
Had my first bit of home-sickness in the last couple of weeks, particularly not being on campus for the height of the election. It's mostly passed now, but I think four months will be long enough.
Got a flat tire on my bike. Took it in to be repaired, 'cause I don't have any wrenches here...$26 for the tube and labour. Not too much more than in Canada.
Reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.' I encourage anyone who's been frustrated by the encroachment of technology on their lives to read it. It's a sort of modern philosophy interwoven with a (semi-?)fictional story to give concrete examples of thinking about technology via Motorcycle Maintenance. Any two-sentence summary doesn't do it justice, and it's really worth reading and thinking about.
Housing fine. Probably moving out for the last few weeks of the term once my contract is up. Work good. They gave me keys, so I can stay in the office late where there's free internet access.
Pictures online (courtesy of Caro -- thanks Caro!) at http://www.student.math.uwaterloo.ca/~crioux/photos/angleterre.html (that's the most recent page..hit 'moins' to see previous pages.)
As always, I hope all's going well for everyone, including without limitation midterms, election aftermath, travels, and work.
Cheers, Rob
-- : Rob Ewaschuk : University of Waterloo : Computer Science (4A) : : www.studentforce.ca : Currently on co-op at www.decisionsoft.co.uk :
