I realize that my last blog post was way back in the end of August when I got back from Morocco. Granted, I haven’t had too much to report on since then apart from work but I guess its good to update even when I don’t have exciting surf trips to go on and reflect upon afterwards.
So when I got back from Morocco the first and only thing on the agenda was to get my Transfer Report done. This report is basically a halfway progress report that needs to be done after your first year of graduate work. It tends to be more tailored to DPhil students and is used as a way to determine if you’ve made adequate progress in your first year and if you have a viable plan for the remaining two years of your degree so that you will finish a good and valid DPhil project in three years. However, because I am just a Masters student, I only have 2 years and my requirements for my project differ significantly from that of a DPhil student. That being said, my Supervisor didn’t even realize I needed to do a Transfer until I mentioned it to him a few month ago. So yeah, that's where I stood. The transfer is a 60 page report highlighting what you did in the past year and what you plan on doing for the rest of your degree. Basically it meant doing a lot of reading and researching on the basics of model predictive control (what my project is about) and trying to write it up in such a way that it seemed like I knew what I was talking about. That seemed to be easier said than done. Anyways, I finished the report and turned it in on September 1 and since then have just sort of been waiting in limbo. I need to “defend” the report with an oral examination in front of my supervisors and two other members of the engineering department but considering my supervisor was in Greece until last week I still don’t have a date and am waiting to find out when that defense will be. Gotta love waiting....
While I’ve waited I’ve pretty much done one thing and one thing only: football! Well, working out and football. I’m playing for Mansfield Road which is an Oxford city team that plays teams from all over the south of England. We have a great squad with a lot of really fun players and we’re coached by a good friend of mine which is fun as well. Somehow or another, it still really surprises me, I have become a bit of a goalscorer. I have 5 goals and 3 assists through the first 4 games which has been fun. We’re 3-1-1 in a league we were promoted into so we’re doing quite well. Its been a lot of fun and I know that its my last year of playing football consistently so it’s nice to get to play as much as I can.
Speaking of football, last weekend I recrossed off one of my England to do list items: see a game at Anfield. Neal and I had been talking about seeing a Liverpool game for a while and we wanted to get it in before Ian left the country. Unfortunately he didn’t get to come with us but I’ll get to that point shortly. So as a member of the Liverpool FC All Red club (basically a fanclub type thing) I have priority access to tickets and can purchase them a week before they go onsale to the general public. Unfortunately I can only buy 1 but since we had lots of people who wanted to go to the game, I bought my 1 ticket the week early and then bought 7 more (the number I had been told to buy) the next week. Unfortunately, the week before the game, all my careful planning and counting went down the drain and people began dropping out. Brian couldn’t make it from Belfast because it was too expensive, Ian was really really really really really busy working on his thesis (poor guy) and the two guys from Croughton who wanted to come couldn’t. So basically I was stuck with £120 worth of tickets that needed to find owners! They were graciously accepted by Bonnie and Liz, two of my teammates, and Bradford and Austin, two of the new USAFA guys in England. So, now that our band of 8 was complete (including Kim and Simon), we could head to Liverpool!
Friday night I took the train up with Neal and Bradford and when we arrived in Liverpool we checked into our hotel down on the Albert Dock and then went straight to Cafe Sports England, the restaurant/sports bar owned by Jamie Carragher. We didn’t realize how crowded it would be though and wound up not getting a table because we didn’t have a reservation.
We just had a drink instead and then got food elsewhere before meeting up with Kim and Simon at a tiny pub right by the central train station. This pub was definitely a “local” pub and we were the youngest people in there by about 35 years! We waited there just long enough for Austin to get in from London and then moved on to several different pubs and clubs around Liverpool. We lost Neal sometime in the course of the evening but somehow he managed to find his way back to the hotel. Luckily Simon, Kim and I were down in the lobby having a drink and so I was able to let Neal in considering the security guys asking him for his room number were having none of Neal’s usually effective Southern charm and persuasiveness. Neal usually gets what he wants...these Scousers were having none of it! It took a lot to get Neal to go to sleep (lots of Okie Dokies were involved) and finally the only thing that would get Neal to shut up (after running up and down the hallways) was Bradford telling him that he was praying. Prayer really does solve all manner of problems!!
We woke up the next morning (some people worse for wear than others...) and went to the Beatles Museum at the Albert Dock. It was really cool to see the progression of the Beatles and to get a better understanding of what made them go from happy-go-lucky I Wanna Hold Your Hand to crazy drug induced Strawberry Fields and I am the Walrus. A couple interesting tidbits that I learned about the Beatles that I didn’t know before/knew a little about but not really enough to speak confidently on:
-The Beatles’ first tour outside of the UK was in Hamburg and it was even before they really got big in England
-The 5th Beatle, Stu Sutcliffe, was a childhood friend of John's and was really only in the band because of that. That is why, when he fell in love with a girl in Hamburg and left the band, nobody was really all that upset or angry about it. That woman, however (can’t remember her name) was the inspiration for the famous mop haircuts the Beatles were known for in their early days (before they went all crazy and drug induced)
-The original drummer of the band, Pete Best, was really popular with the fans in Liverpool and was often considered the best looking member of the band. When the new manager, Brian Epstein, came in and replaced him with Ringo Starr, fans of the band and of Pete especially protested outside of the Cavern Club, the club in Liverpool where the Beatles really made a name for themselves. This club still exists and is still used to launch the careers of Merseyside musicians.
-Brian Epstein, the manager, was extremely extremely influential to the Beatles. His first act of business was to clean up the band’s image. One way he did this was to introduce suits to the band, giving them a more cleancut look.
-The Beatles' first single released, Love Me Do, did well in the charts, reaching #17, despite the fact that Beatles fans in Liverpool boycotted the album, refusing to buy it out of fear that the band would become so popular that they would leave Liverpool. Oops... I don’t think it worked too well...
-Brain Epstein was not only influential in the Beatle’s when he was alive but his death also hit the band extremely hard. When he died in 1967, at the young age of 33, the band had started to experiment with drugs and with eastern religion and philosophy. However upon his shocking and untimely passing, the band sought solace in these other arenas and their music really reflected that.
-The Magical Mystery Tour movie premiered on BBC on Boxing Day but was an absolute flop on its first showing. Despite this it was shown again early in the new year, this time in colour, and it was better received by the British public.
-John Lennon was a really really weird dude. He had lots of issues with US Immigration and had trouble earning his green card, facing the threat of deportation. Because of this, he decided to declare the independence of the state of Nutopia, a world with no borders and no laws. When Ford became President he didn’t want to bother with the battle with Lennon and overturned the deportation order.
After the Beatles museum we took a cab up to Anfield and met up with Si, Kim, Bonnie, and Liz at a pub by the stadium to watch the Chelsea-Man City match. The pub was packed to the brim with Liverpool fans and it was the start of our “matchday” experience. We then headed into the stadium and were going to try to trade seats with someone near where everyone else was sitting so that I could sit with them, but it didn’t quite work so I would up sitting on my own. I was glad, however, because not only was my seat closer and more central, it was also in the middle of a group of true Liverpool supporters. My observations of the match and the Anfield experience are:
-A sweet old man who has been coming to Liverpool games for 30 years and is super friendly before kickoff becomes a COMPLETELY different person once the whistle blows. And profanity coming out of said sweet old man’s mouth is something else.
-Steve Bruce has a big fat head. Well, according to the entirety of the Anfield crowd he does.
-There may be such a thing as Karma considering Liverpool lost to Sunderland last year because a beach-ball was thrown on the pitch and interfered with play. This goal should not have counted but it did and Liverpool went on to lose the game. This year, the Sunderland players had something to complain about when Fernando Torres jumped on a questionable error by the Sunderland defense. Sunderland had a free kick in their own half and the defender set the ball down in the spot marked by the referee as if about to take the kick. Instead of actually taking the kick, he flicked the ball backwards towards his goalkeeper, seemingly intending for the goalkeeper to take the kick instead. However, since he touched the ball with his feet, it was in play and Torres jumped on it before sending the ball to Kuyt who put it in the back of the net. The Sunderland players were irate, Steve Bruce (and his big fat head) was very angry, but the goal rightfully stood and Liverpool took the lead.
-They sadly surrendered that lead, first with a penalty kick and second when Glen Johnson completely lost his mark at the back post, but they pulled level late in the second half when Torres and Gerrard combined for the first time pretty much all game.
-On that note, when Stevie and Fern play together, magic happens. When they don’t, its ugly. Can we not figure this out please Liverpool? Know your strengths and GO WITH THEM.
-English football fans are unlike any other group of fans I know because they are loyal to their teams but they will also hold their teams accountable more than any other group of supporters. The choicest words were reserved not for Steve Bruce, not for the Sunderland players, but for the Liverpool players when they weren’t performing. The Anfield faithful will not blindly applaud their team when they are playing like crap, and they have no qualms about calling their players out.
-I lied about the choice words—those were actually reserved for the referees. Wow, do football supporters enjoy abusing referees. Granted, the referee was pretty atrocious, but still, such language.
-If you speak with an American accent (especially in Liverpool where they HATE their American owners), you better know what you’re talking about and have some concrete opinions and knowledge of the club, or you better keep your mouth shut. The accent is defo a negative when trying to fit in at Anfield.
-I really really really want to come to a game and sit on the Kop End!
-Finally, despite the fact that Liverpool is currently playing very poorly and happens to be sitting awfully close to the bottom of the league table, I will always love them and always stand by them. You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Well, I just found out the date of my Transfer Viva. It is in 12 days and so I should probably get down to the business of truly preparing for that. So enough with the blogging and onto the prepping. Woohoo Viva!!!
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