Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

I’m afraid I may never get around to describing my travels before Christmas simply because I’ve been so happily distracted with things since I got back.  In fact, I rarely think about Oxford or my travels, but one recent event certainly made me appreciate what I learned there.

Nick, my roommate Zach and I all submitted papers from our time in Oxford to an undergraduate  philosophy conference at Pacific University.  We were accepted and got to present our papers at the conference last weekend.  There were one-hundred undergraduate paper presentations and Cora Diamond spoke.  She’s a big name in Philosophy and happens to specialize in the same guys Zach and I studied at Oxford.

Since we last spoke…

It’s been almost a month since my words trailed off in Germany.  For those of you that live in the Seattle area, I’ve probably seen you already, because I have binoculars (just kidding), but for everyone else, I want to give a little closure and then devote later posts to describing my travels and reflecting on the whole experience.

Right now, I’m eating a delicious cucumber tuna-melt, at my 5-person apartment.  My four apartment-mates are all here, which makes it feel like home (in a way so much better then the dorms or the cafeteria of the last two years).

I am not doing band, but instead am tutoring a freshman in Algebra I (and some science).  

back on the right side of the road

I only have 10 minutes of internet, so I’m just going to tell you that I had fun in Edinburgh, which was a very ‘vertical’ city and Dublin which was very musical.  I said good bye to Marie and Ruby last night and flew over to Munich today.  Snow delayed our bus so I have only really had time to eat dinner and now

Runaway! Runaway!

The plan was to leave Oxford around noon, and have some time in London to see museums etc. Rather, I should say, “the plan was to plan to leave at noon and have some time in London to see museums”. Unfortunately, my first too flights have very restricted baggage, so I had to decide what to leave behind. After a few hours of stalling and rearranging stuff in my bags, I finally admitted that the only decision I had to make was whether to get rid of a few books immediately and see some of London or get rid of them later and see none of London. It came down the second.  Honestly, I was fighting back tears. It was really frustrating to think I had planned everything so well except the baggage for these two flights. I’m glad I did it though because I my bags are light and the final plan is simpler than the alternatives were.

Part of the problem was that I have gotten so little sleep. 

[insert witty/profound title here]

My parents left a week ago after spending a week here in Oxfordshire. Sadly, I wrote about it a week ago, but the internet crashed, deleting the original post.  – that’s right; the entire internet crashed…you didn’t notice?

It was wonderful having them here. 

The changing of the ‘seasons’

Sadly, my parents didn’t get to see a rugby match because it was cancelled due to injuries (i.e. paper and lab deadlines), and since the match this week was cancelled due to snow, my season is  over. This also means there are no pictures… of rugby that is.  

But it’s alright, because I had a great last match two weeks ago.  It was a totally different experience than earlier games.  I had a lot more opportunities to tackle and they were generally easier, because instead of full back, I got to play ‘winger’ on the front line (i.e. less momentum). As usual, we barely filled the field and our opponents had extras, so we decided to set the tone hitting them hard, and I finally got a taste for it. 

Practical optimism

I came to Oxford very disillusioned with academics.