Cambridge

Hello, everyone. I've been at Cambridge since Sunday evening. We've finally gotten out of traveling tourist mode and have more or less transitioned to busy student mode. Some of you have asked what it is that I am actually doing in Cambridge. Over the course of five weeks, I will be participating in the International Summer School program with a group of thirty five other UF students. We are studying English and Irish Victorian history and literature at St. Catherine's College at Cambridge University. We attend lectures and are required to write two essays. The essays will then be graded and discussed with a professor in a one hour session called "supervisions," an Oxbridge tradition.

Right now, it's the end of a long day and I'm getting ready to go to the Sherlock Victorian library at St. Catherine's to study with my flatmate. My paper will probably explore the "crisis of faith" phenomenon in Victorian literature as present in the poetry and writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a 19th century Jesuit priest.

As I will need all available power to study, I'll confine my remaining comments to the discussion of food.

I ate marmite this morning. I don't think I'm ready to talk about it yet. If you've smelled it before, you'll understand.

We dine "in hall" for our dinners, kind of like Hogwarts in Harry Potter, only not quite as majestic. The meats are of ambiguous origin (we determined that Monday's was fish and not pork based on the presence of a fish knife) and generally breaded. As far as institutional food goes, it's not that bad.

My flatmate is ready to go to the library, so I'll sign off for now. I hope that all is well back home.