Diamonds are forever

Anna was telling me about the clever Tiffany's campaign, which singlehandedly spread the idea that the right amount to spend on a diamond engagement ring was three month's of the man's income.

'They even put a calculator on their website so that the man could work out how much he should spend,' she said. 'Although, any man who needs that calculator probably isn't worth it...'

'I read somewhere that the original reason for the diamond engagement ring was because once people got engaged, well, it was kind of like they could start sleeping together,' I said.

Anna looked puzzled. 'Was it to prove that they really were engaged?'

'No. It was in case the woman got pregnant and then got dumped. She would at least still get some money to survive on by selling the ring.'

Anna considered this briefly. 'So the ring's like a deposit?'

I started laughing. 'Exactly!'

The Mosuo

The Mosuo are an ethnic group living in the province of Yunan near Tibet. My parents visited them on their last trip to China.

Mum described the matriarchal society. 'The women are the bosses. They run the village, the families and businesses. When a Mosuo woman sees a man she likes, she can point to him and say, 'Come here' and they will go to her bedroom. To show that there she has a man in her room, the man's hat is hung on a hook near the door. When the woman is tired of him, she can tell him to leave. He takes his hat with him and the hook hook by the door is empty again.'

I listened, astonished. 'Mum, I don't know if many men would mind that...'

Mum shrugged. 'Well, if the woman gets pregnant, it is the responsibility of her brother to raise the child. That is the burden of the men, to look after the children of their sisters.'

You can read more about the Mosuo here.

Eight computers, unhungry again, and unproductive

On the weekend, I spent 6.5 hours cutting open dozens of cardboard boxes, pulling out eight sets of computer towers, monitors, keyboard, mouses, software, assembling them, crawling under computer desks to wire them up, plug them in, untangle them, rewire, uninstalling trial software, installing indispensable freeware, installing Microsoft office, setting up a wireless network, printer network, riding to electronics stores to buy more power boards, setting up administrator and user accounts, setting defaults for printing, security, software updates, registering software, flattening cardboard boxes, piling them into a mountain of tired cardboard.

Today I posted a box of software back to the computer store, was on the phone with tech support to troubleshoot a dead DVD-RW drive on one of the new computers (turned out the computer assembler didn't plug the power into the drive), picked up two new toner cartridges and installed them, posted instructions for accessing the wireless network on the wall, updated security settings on the computers, and helped someone with the wireless settings on their laptop.

Exhaustion.

In the past week, I have lost my appetite. I eat breakfast and lunch as normal. By the time dinner comes around, I prod my stomach and am still unhungry. I've skipped dinner about four times in the past week.

If you're not hungry, is it better to eat something as scheduled or not eat?

I haven't changed my level of activity. I ran around doing the computer stuff on Saturday, biked four miles and walked the same on Sunday, ran around carrying boxes today.

Besides puzzlement about my lack of appetite, I'm worried about all the food in the fridge. I bought enough groceries to feed normal Joan appetite. Now there's too much food. Lack of eating led to three of my potatoes turning green and white and fluffy.

I ended up cooking a big pot of vegetable curry to stop any further deterioration. That was on Thursday last week. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep the curry.

I wasn't hungry today but I ate dinner anyway. I hate wasting food.

I've decided not to buy any food this week and live on the dried foods in my cupboard, plus 10 eggs. I might buy some milk and a bit of fruit too.

Maybe I've been eating too much all my life. For each meal, I would typically eat one or two sandwiches worth of food mass (I rarely eat sandwiches but you get an idea of the serving size). It will be hard to change my concept of 'meal' to something smaller.

I haven't been productive at all for the past three weeks. It bothers me. Mostly, it's my own fault. I get tired and instead of working through it or walking it off, I sleep or read or go on the internet. Like now.

Silen'ces'

The pronunciation of names in UK English is messed up. 'Magdalene' is pronounced 'Maudlin'. 'Edinburgh' is pronounced 'Edinbra'. You can count on the 'w' being superfluous: 'Norwich' is 'Norrich', 'Berwick' is 'Berrick', 'Warwick' is 'Warrick', 'Bromwich' is 'Bromich'.

Interestingly, 'Sandwich' is not 'Sandich'.

The thing that drives me nuts is the 'ces' syllable, which is completely absent in speech.

Gloucester = Gloster
Leicester = Lester
Worcester = Wooster

I was complaining about this to Owen. Owen was saying, 'I was in this town near Oxford, it had a ridiculous name...'

'Oh! I KNOW! Bister!' I jumped in, naming the town spelt 'Bicester'. 'Look, I can handle Gloster and Lester and even Wooster. But Bister, that's just perverse!'

'It's better than Toaster,' Owen said calmly.

'Toaster?'

'Yes, there's another town called Toaster -- T O W C E S T E R.'

Hufflepuff!

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

I am not a Harry Potter fan but I do like the idea of sorting people by personality. If it's not MBTI, then it's Hogwarts houses and sorting hats. I looked up Hogwarts houses on Wikipedia and found the following descriptions.

• Gryffindor values courage, chivalry and boldness.
  
• Hufflepuff values hard work, loyalty, determination, patience, friendship and fair play.
  
• Ravenclaw values intelligence, knowledge and wit.
  
• Slytherin values ambition, cunning and resourcefulness.

On reading this, I thought, 'Hmm. Hufflepuff, I guess. Maybe Ravenclaw.' So I searched for 'what harry potter house quiz', did the first test and got these results.

Hufflepuff - 14
Ravenclaw - 12
Gryffindor - 11
Slytherin - 8

Sheesh... this sorting hat quiz is intense! There's a consent form.

I just did that test. It was very long but at least the questions weren't leading. I got:

Ravenclaw - 88
Hufflepuff - 85
Gryffindor - 81
Slytherin - 41

Walk through my day

Yesterday was a fun day. I wrote some sub-sub-sections of my dissertation in the morning. In the afternoon, my college held its annual garden party, so I sat in the sunshine while eating and drinking with friends. I left the party to meet a classmate for coffee. We then walked to to a local architectural practice because the director had agreed to be interviewed for our research. After the interview, I walked home, changed, then went to Parker's Piece for our weekly class football game. I left the game early to go to a meeting; I'm helping to organise the orientation camp for the next batch of 100 students on my scholarship. The meeting ran over time, so I was late for The Round Ceilidh at Emmanuel College. I danced English folk dances with a libraryful of people until 10:30 PM. Then I walked home.

Don't know what to do? Go psuedo-space

Getting closer to the end of a degree course, it's natural for people to start talking about careers.

'What are you doing after this?'

'I don't know yet. Maybe study some more.'

'I'm going back to my old company.'

'I might travel a bit.'

'I've got two interviews next week.'

Here's an option for anyone who doesn't know what they want to do for the next two years: take a pretend trip to Mars. You can apply to the European Space Agency -- see the call for candidates (pdf). Now, there's something to tell the grandkids!

Grocery pie

This chart is based on what I spent on my last three weeks of grocery shopping. I spend £15-20 a week on groceries. I suspect that I am fruit-and-vegetable heavy and bakery light.

By the way, it was not my idea to put two decimal places on those percentages. Of course I can't state my grocery proportions to four significant figures of accuracy. OpenOffice did that automatically and I couldn't figure out how to change it. I don't know if it's because OpenOffice Calc is not user friendly or if I'm crippled by Microsoft Excel brain.

Photographer

I went to Oxford on the weekend for my first gig as the designated photographer (I was paid in food, drink and dancing). The event was the Balliol College MCR garden party, 'A Summer Night at Sea'. I learned something about being an event photographer: because you don't know the people, it's difficult to remember if you got everyone at some point during night.

Didn't know I was looking for love until I fondue

I cannot think of the word 'fondue' without singing the Everything but the Girl's song 'I didn't know I was looking for love' ...until I found you.

I'm a fan of the chocolate version, and luckily for me, Anna decided that chocolate fondue would be the centrepiece for our girls' night in.

In a typical engineering course, you might get about 15% of students being female. Our engineering for sustainable development class is blessed with 33% women, and with the partners of men in the class, we could have up to seventeen women at our social events.

After extensive and sensitive consultation, Anna determined that it would not be politically incorrect to have a girls' night in. Sorry guys, you're not invited. Monday was the night (the beginning of May Week) and it was a decadant night of mojitos, corn chips, summer fruits and chocolate fondue, ice cream, jelly, buttered popcorn, chick flicks and natter about childbirth, women in science and business, the cultural role of women around the world, and... our dissertations. (There is no escape.)

The gorgeous women of the engineering for sustainable development community.

Anna and I went to the Video Emporium to hire chick flicks. Not knowing people's precise tastes and moods, we covered all the ground and rented Like water like chocolate (foreign language weepie), Erin Brockovich (girl power + environmentalism), and My big fat Greek wedding (funny and supposedly pointpointingly accurate).

Plugged in

There once was an extrovert, Joan.
She carries a Nokia phone.
With emails to type,
And Aussies to Skype,
Plus Facebook -- she's never alone!

This reminds me of a footwear ditty. Now that I think about it, I think I spelled 'sandals' wrong.

English dinner for one

You can tell when I'm lonely solitary because I'll post something about cooking. When I'm not interacting with people, I'm at home, cooking, which is why there are no other stories to entertain you with.

Without planning it, I cooked myself a very English dinner tonight. Di left me pork and apple sausages from our barbecue on the weekend -- she's in Florence this week so I'm making sure the food isn't wasted.

For dinner, I grilled two sausages and made potato mash (seasoned with salt, a bit of milk, mixed herbs and paprika). I have paid £8 for a meal like this at The Big Bang.

But wait! There's more! ...Dessert!

I had some bread past its use-by date, so I made bread and butter pudding based on this recipe, but scaled it down by a third and used diced apple because I have no raisins or sultanas.

Interestingly, while I was chopping and mixing and mashing, my eyes kept drooping. I was very sleepy, even though it was only 6 PM. Normally, I wake up if I'm doing something but I must have been tired because when I finished eating and washing up, I flopped into bed and slept for an hour.

Bread and butter pudding with apple

Feeds...four?

• 4 slices of bread (from my pantry: wholemeal)
  
• Small, erm, handful of soft butter
  
• 330 mL milk (from my fridge: skim)
  
• 1 medium sized apple, diced (from my fridge: cox apple -- really nice, never had it before I came to England)
  
• 1 large egg, beaten (from my fridge: free range)
  
• 2.5 tbsp sugar
  
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
  
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

1. Butter one side of each slice of bread. Butter a loaf tin.
   
2. Line loaf tin with bread (you will need to cut the slices into thirds). Save three thirds of bread slice to use as the cover.
   
3. Mix in a bowl the milk, apple, egg, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon.
   
4. Pour the mixture into the loaf tin. Sink the remaining bread slices into the middle.
   
5. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3 (170°C: 325°F). Let the tin sit for about 20 minutes.
   
6. Bake the cake until it is 'golden brown' or 'not too gloopy'. Mine took a long time, about an hour. The recipe reckons it should take half an hour.

Bat licence

I was thumbing through some careers materials and found this in a job ad: "We are particularly interested in individuals working towards a Bat Licence."

Dissertation milestone -- Woot!

My last post gives people the illusion that I'm organised for this dissertation. What you haven't seen are the previous versions of the Gantt chart, from which you would have realised that over time I have moved the red block representing the first milestone from March 26 to May 28 to June 4.

So, did I hand it in the week starting June 4? Of course not. I just emailed it off then, three days late.

But like the honest consultant that I am, I kept the supervisor up-to-date with my setbacks. Upfrontness is my best policy.

I'm pleased it's in. I now have a month to write the next three sections. They're the chunkiest and most important sections but I think I've gotten the hang of this now.

Running from the grey front

Express delivery, guaranteed

"This will be interesting," Alex said, when he walked into the kitchen.

I swallowed my toast. "What?"

"I ordered the scanner from Amazon last night and they guarantee delivery by one o'clock today. I looked it up with the parcel tracking and it's in Scotland."

"You paid for express delivery?"

"Yes. I'm leaving for Norway tomorrow. I need to scan my books today."

I looked at my watch. "It's 10 o'clock! Scotland to Cambridge in three hours? No way." I shook my head incredulously.

"They've guaranteed it, Joan. They've given their word. If it doesn't get here by one, I get my delivery fee back."

"Wow. This will be interesting... If it comes at two, will you still try to get a refund?"

"Of course," Alex smiled. "A promise is a promise. One o'clock."

"Well. Good luck to them, I say."

Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang.

The web is your billboard

It took me about a year to figure out why I have a blog. I think of this as a mini magazine. It appeals mostly to people who I've met yet the writing should be interesting enough such that more people would read it if this was the only blog in the world.

Luckily, there is plenty of good writing on the web elsewhere.

I would like your thoughts on something. I am meeting more and more people with 'public face' websites. These websites have their real names, contact details, CVs, portfolios (art and writing), and so on.

This blog is a different beast. I don't use surnames, company names, contact information, photos of people at private events, or any other identifiers. I've done some growing up here so it's obviously not my public face. In fact, if you put my full name in quotes into Google, this blog is far, far down in the listings. I'm not even sure how Google connects my name to this blog, actually.

What I'd like your opinion on is:

• Why do people have public internet faces? How do they use it?
  
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a public face?
  
• What rules should people follow about the information they put on their websites?

Runs on the formal hall board

Formal halls are a highlight of the Oxford or Cambridge University experience. Each college has formal halls once, twice, or even three times a week. You get a three course meal for anything between £3 to £16 (A$7.50-40), and it often includes sherry, port, wine, coffee, tea, chocolates and fruit. Cambridge has 31 colleges. By the end of my year here, I will have been to formal hall for at least eleven of them.

Formal halls attended or soon to attend

• New Hall
  
• Hughes Hall
  
• St John's
  
• Clare Hall
  
• St Catherine's
  
• Newnham
  
• Wolfson
  
• Sidney Sussex
  
• Darwin
  
• Churchill
  
• Emmanuel

Formal halls regretfully declined because of other commitments

• St Edmund's (missed out three times!)
  
• Trinity Hall
  
• Downing

Lunched at

• Darwin
  
• Peterhouse
  
• Hughes Hall
  
• St Edmund's

An ecology of supermarkets

The UK grocery market is bigger than Australia's. Australia basically has Coles and Woolworths. You might count IGA, too. However, the competition in the UK is much more intense and strangely, there is a relatively clear hierarchy of 'poshness'.

From my eight months here, the hierarchy of prestige seems to be:

1. Waitrose
   
2. Marks and Spencer
   
3. Sainsbury's
   
4. Co-op
   
5. Tesco
   
6. Asda

There are others that I've heard of or walked by but I can't place on them on the poshness ladder because I haven't experienced them. Aldi is probably near Asda, at the bottom. There's also Morrisons, apparently one of UK's 'big four' supermarkets. I wouldn't have known it existed except that Damjan had to go into one once to ask for directions (we got lost while travelling in Yorkshire). I've also been to Somerfield. There is a full list of UK supermarkets on Wikiepedia.

I've talked about Sainsbury's on my blog before. Little Sainsbury's in the centre of town is my main grocery store because I like what it sells, I like its layout and 'vibe', and it only takes me 15 minutes to walk there.

There are other mainstream grocery options, though. The Co-op is even closer than Sainsbury's but I find it expensive and I've had bad experiences with clueless staff there.

On special occasions (when I need anything exotic), I go to a really big Sainsbury's further out of town. It's 2 km away. I would normally ride there. Riding home with a heavy backpack is made harder by a serious hill and busy traffic.

You might remember that I once ordered from Tesco online. I've never been inside the actual Tesco because I always thought it was far away. However, I've just looked it up and it's even closer than big Sainsbury's! It is in a very busy part of town, though. There's a big road with lots of traffic. I'm a little nervous of riding there.

I love going to Marks and Spencer. It's full of beautiful food. Often, I go just to look at the cold sections and the shelves. I might spend twenty minutes before finally selecting a chocolate or a yogurt. I visit M&S to reward myself after a tough day or after handing something in.

I want to visit Waitrose one day. Waitrose is at the very top of the supermarket ecosystem. If I love M&S, imagine what Waitrose will be like! The nearest Waitrose store is 5 km away. Maybe I'll bike to it as a field trip or for exercise.

Anyway, the reason I started this blog post is because yesterday, I visited Asda for the first time. I found a shortcut there and discovered that it's actually as close to my house as little Sainsbury's!

Asda was huge and confusing. I felt a bit frightened, actually. Nothing was where it should have been. The chips weren't near the biscuits. The fruit section was split across three aisles. The skimmed milk was hidden. I couldn't find the honey. The meat was all mixed up instead of being organised by animal. After about fifteen minutes, I wanted to flee to my familiar, safe little Sainsbury's.

I wandered around for an hour and had to get help twice. I eventually gave up looking for low fat mature cheddar cheese because I just wanted to get out of there.

Interestingly, at the checkout, I was the only person with a reusable bag. Everyone else was taking plastic bags. I think it's because Asda targets people on lower incomes. I don't know why lower income people tend to use plastic bags. Maybe they don't care about the environment as much?

At Sainsbury's, about a third of people seem to have reusable bags. A British friend tells me that everyone at Waitrose uses reusable bags.

Procrastination by ze frank

This video is a short guide to procrastination. The opening is a bit confusing but persevere! Humour awaits.

Seaside weekend at Sheringham

This weekend, I went stayed at a seaside town called Sheringham, about two hours north-east of Cambridge. I went with 34 fellow scholarship holders and their friends. We played kickball on the beach, had a hog roast feast (delicious, although perhaps not politically correct), and played Scrabble until one in the morning.

Beach houses, which people can buy to store their bathing gear, deck chairs, and surfboards. Such houses can be very expensive.

It was very, very foggy. You can't see it from this photo (I adjusted the contrast). It was funny to see someone pushing a stroller a foggy beach.

Sand anti-buckets.

The beach was very pebbly in places. Friends delighted in how smooth and beautifully patterened the rocks were. As I understand, the smoother the rock, the older it is because it has had time to erode away.

Lunch! They fed us roast pork and pork crackling (yum...), stuffing, roast potato and chicken, green salad, potato salad, mustard, apple sauce, and chives in Crème fraîche. Dessert was fruit salad, strawberry cheesecake and some sort of chocolate caramel cake.

There were a lot of big rocks. They had furrows on the surface, showing where they had been drilled out of a larger monolith. I think someone told me that the rocks were transported to Sheringham from Scotland. Maybe it was Wales.

For Cambridge students, I thought we were pretty bad at spelling and vocabulary, actually. Ian and Rebecca put down 'sinned', then 'atoned'. That's spiffy.

It says, 'Probably the Largest Cone in the World'.

Business school

Negotiation 101: Today's Dilbert comic:



Economics for beginners: The stand-up economist.