Long time, no post

Hello Everyone,

First, my apologies if you were expecting a blog entry sooner than this (and I hope you were!) However, I have had my fair share of work, but I only have one more essay to complete over the next month with six already finished. Also, my music composition is going well. I am nearing completion of my string quartet. First movement is completely done, second movement is almost done, and only started the third movement. Also, the weather here has finally gotten nice after weeks of really cold temperatures, even dropping below freezing on occasion (in May!)

Lots has happened since I last wrote in this blog, perhaps none quite as important as the British election and the aftermath of it all. As it turned out, it was a hung parliament (no party had a majority of seats), and Cameron (of the Conservatives) and Clegg (of the Liberal Democrats) formed a coalition. For Britain, this is the first coalition in peacetime (there was a coalition during WWII) since the 1930s, and is something that the electoral system is not used to. Even though the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have pretty different views on a number of issues, they were able to come to a general consensus and platform to rule the country. In my opinion, it is a strong agreement and should last (contrary to the opinion of critics), especially considering how similar the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are in wanting to reduce the huge deficit and restore civil liberties. The following picture is from facebook the day of the election, and the tally exceeded one million who had voted before the day was up.

The biggest trip I have been on the last couple of weeks was two weekends ago when I went to Windsor Castle and Cliveden. Here is Windsor Castle:

It was fun to see again after 10(?) years, although it was heavily overrun with tourists. Furthermore, we visited at the same time that the queen was staying there, and saw lots of extra security and people going in and out. Furthermore, it is amazing to think that tourists see a large portion of the castle, but there is still enough of the castle left for the queen and everyone else that surrounds her to live in and work at. Huge castle. While there, there was standard British festival, namely the changing of the guard, which is in the next picture.

We also visited Cliveden, an Italian style mansion that was host to the Stanford In England program during the 1970s. It is an absolutely gorgeous building above a 'cliff' (English-sized!) over the Thames. Quite an amazing location, and it made several students somewhat upset that they didn't have the chance to attend Cliveden instead of just being in Oxford. However, it is literally in the middle of nowhere, which was part of the reason Stanford moved to Oxford, so that it was in a much more 'happening' place. I definitely approve of the move as staying in Cliveden for 11 weeks would have been to much, but for a week? Doesn't sound too bad... Here I am in front of the mansion. Looks pretty nice, doesn't it?

And here is the 'long garden' full of tulips.

Next, here is Geoffrey Tyack, the director of the Stanford in Oxford Program, who led us on a tour of the grounds. He was the one responsible for moving the program to Oxford, and has been the director since the move.

Finally, I have neglected to take and put up a picture of my roommate Valen and I so far. However, we finally did get around to taking a picture, and here we are in front of a fountain at Cliveden. Valen is one of the six of us who went from Lowell to Stanford in my year.
In case you noticed, I have actually stopped using British spellings for words. There is a very direct reason for this: the United States will be taking on England very soon in the World Cup and I now need to realize and show my patriotism, by being proud of how Americans spell English words. I also did this for my tutorial paper, and as a result, we now have a small bet on the game. I do have to say, I'm not terribly optimistic about winning the bet, but maybe I can get a draw?

That is about it for now, as I do need to move on as I am leaving to travel to Poland in less than two hours, which should be a whole lot of fun. Unfortunately, to catch my 7:15 flight direct to Rzeszów (on the terrible budget airline Ryanair), I have to take a bus that leaves Oxford at 1 am. Not terribly pleasant, but I definitely look forward to seeing my Polish host family again in less than 12 hours!

So long for now, and since I am (almost) done with work, I will be much better about updates when I get back from Poland (including an update on how it went.)
-Andrew