Waking up for class at 8 am was painful as usual, particularly since I lost track of time last night and slept way less than I normally do (although 6 hours would be very normal at Caltech, or if anything too much). I had class from 9-5 more or less non stop. It was very painful to say the least and strongly reminded me of high school, which I loved dearly, but do somewhat enjoy the course schedule at Caltech. I finally got started on setting up one of my supervisions today with two girls that I sat with during class. It makes me feel a lot more reassured knowing that I'm slowly chiseling away at the work that I actually need to accomplish. I also had a intro lecture on how to write a Part II essay. I essentially got the feel that everyone else basically knows as little as I do since Part Ib is very different from Part II. The example essays didn't seem too complicated or difficult, so I imagine that writing one of them should be relatively easy after I've done my first one, giving me more time to spend on more important things :)
Even though I was completely exhausted by the end of the day, I really enjoyed all of my classes. Surprisingly to many I presume, I still haven't fallen asleep in ANY of my classes. It might just be the new environment, but I'm pretty proud of myself. One thing though that's different about the material here is that at Caltech they would lead us through all the experiments and have us come to conclusions about the topic material on our own, whether that be coming up with the final formula or just getting us to go through the methods that come before major discoveries are made. Here it's much more simplified since they seem to just hand that kind of information to you in their power points. I definitely prefer Caltech's teaching methodology in this respect, but it would help if the teachers were slightly better at being coherent.
I also got hot chocolate from another coffee shop that is called Fitzbillies Restaurant. I had high hopes for this place since it looked all fancy, and it was still pretty delicious, but it was missing the wow factor. I have yet to find somewhere better than Benet's. Everyone talks so highly about hot drinks and pastries in Europe, so I need to confirm this theory for myself :) And that excuse permits me to have as much as I would like! Yeah I'm ridiculous, I know.
After all my classes were over, I really wanted to stop by the Museum of Zoology, but it was closed so you'll get pictures of that another day. It's actually located right in front of the Department of Zoology, where one of my classes is located. Instead I took some pictures of the other colleges. They are all located very close to the my class buildings, which is kind of annoying since St. John's is SO far away.
Here is the outside of Pembroke College, where Anish (Caltech) is staying. I think you can get better views of it from the inside, but I didn't have much time today, so this will have to do for now.
No one is currently staying in St. Catharine's, but Prakriti will be here during Lent Term (2nd term)! It's a lot smaller than the other college and doesn't have the same type of architecture, but its still rather quaint and peaceful since tourists are not allowed inside its gates.
This week should be pretty normal with just classes and reading, but I'll try to keep it relatively interesting since there is still SO much left to document, as you can see. You'd think I'd have already covered all the amazing buildings here with all the other posts, but Cambridge continues to surprise me! I still can not believe that one city could have so much history and tradition. I am so glad to be a small part of its timeline.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, I bought spoons today :) Finally. I got sick of only buying things that I could eat without utensils even though they will be useless to me in 7 weeks.
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