Nothing Special

And what exactly does that mean to you?

Ever heard the phrase "Please walk your bike"? Well, this is UK equivalent to that. It's really funny. Cracked me up the first time I read it outside the Zoology department in Oxford last week.

The trip to UK was fantastic. It's a very charming place. Spent 6 odd days there. Just back yesterday.

Got a glimpse of some deep-rooted traits of the culture. Just like the example above. It might as well have said "By order of the Queen the petty cyclicst is hereby ordered to dismount from her/his bike!". Makes no difference.

It's a part socialist, part capitalist mindset. "Properiety" seems to be the keyword. Cars in a lane keep driving in a lane with minimum criss-cross unlike in California. Formal attires abound. People speak complete sentences whenever they ask a question or give an answer. They are proud of their history and like to think of UK as a "big place". Really different it is.

Stuti graduated with Masters in Integrative Biosciences. We (me, mom and dad) witnessed her graduation ceremony at Oxford. It was a great experience and very interesting to say the least.

They say it is not a degree ceremony, but it's a process of getting admitted to the elite club of members of the Oxford graduates. For the past 800 odd years, they have been doing the ceremony at a single place, called the Sheldonian Theatre. (http://www.sheldon.ox.ac.uk/). And they have tried the very best to uphold the historical legacy of the process and the events. The entire ceremony is in Latin. It starts with convocation of candidates with Degree in "Divinity", followed by Doctors of Law, Doctors of Medicine, Doctors of Philosophy, Masters and Bachelors in that order. Deans of various colleges come forward and advocate the inclusion of the candidates to the club, to the Vice Chancellor, who then asks the proctors to take a vote (symbolically) and then asks the candidate to swear that he/she will uphold the rules, sanctity and legacy of the club. Entire dialogue is in Latin. "Do Fidem" ("I swear") is the only thing the candidate has/gets to say. Then the candidates go out of the theatre, dawn the robes, and come back to a loud applause.

The ceremony happens almost every weekend in this Trimester (yes, it's neither a semester, nor a quarter). You just pick the date most convenient to you. There were 150 students in the one we attended.

And what about the degree certificate? Well, Oxford believes that Degree certificate is just a formality. So you can get as many of them as you like just the way you get your transcripts. It gets reduced to just a piece of paper after you have gone thru the arduous coursework of so many years.

Also got my H1B visa stamped at London. It was actually easier than doing it at Bombay. It was more organized, staff was more friendly, papers were being checked more thoroughly and people in general were being given more time to explain things. The thing that sucked was they did not let you have your passport the same day - they would want to courier it, without exception to anyone. Wastes time and resources.

Visited Cambridge as well. My current employer (www.uvp.com) has offices in Cambridge. Talked about our software and met some very interesting Dutch folks. Did you know that average height in Netherlands is 6.3 ft? Bizaare.

For what was left, we packed Stuti's stuff. She had amassed about 120Kg of things in just one year! She carried about 40 with her (from UK, you are only allowed 20 in the main luggage. Carry-on extra. The person at check-in counter allowed her some more...). Mom and Dad carried some 65 KG with them. For the rest, we literally had to buy one more bag, which I got with me here. Now it will remain with me until she comes to US! :-)

All in all, I really liked the place. Have any of you beek to Europe before for an appreciable period of time? What do you think about it? I really want to backpack thru it for a few weeks. Anybody up for it?

Well, that's a lot said for the first blog. I should now go to bed - I'm still on UK time. The land of -shires and -hams and -tons will haunt me in my dreams for a few more hours. I also got a book "Notes from a small island" by Bill Bryson, who talks about his life in UK in a really funny way. Looking forward to flipping pages while the fan in my room pulls the cool breeze from outside in....