The Gabtrotter

Here I am, sitting half comfortably in Selwyn College. I moved here 2 weeks ago, because they kicked me out of Clare since I was switching programs. Inconvenient, but interesting to see what I would come to miss. It’s funny, if I could take the positives of Selwyn (good bathrooms, fast internet) and merge them with Clare’s it would have been 5 star hotel; nonetheless, a very unique experience.

Alas, my six weeks have come to a close and I am packing up shop tomorrow. I have changed my itinerary and added time in London, now I’m spending the most time in London. The Art History class I was taking inspired me to visit galleries to actually see the works we have discussed, but more on that later. I’m looking forward to my time in London; I actually like the British accent. Unlike in Australia, I haven’t gotten sick of it.

My travels are finally coming to a close. It feels like everything has changed. Thankfully, my friendships haven’t. My mom’s house burned down a couple of days ago. My sister and brother-in-law lived there and everybody lost everything, including our dear dog, Bobby. Such a tragedy. Who has fires anymore? It feels like such a prehistoric thing, but these things happen; however, you never expect them to happen to you. I’m so sad for my family. The only thing I lost was my iMac, my dear editing computer. Fortunately fire insurance should cover it. That house was the house I grew up in. Now it’s just gone. So bizarre. I didn’t really say goodbye, I just thought it would be there when I got back. Just like 750 in Boston, I expected to be back in May… things change.

Here is the schedule:

Cambridge > London > Cardiff > London > Edinburgh > Belfast > Dublin > USA

I’m ferrying over to Belfast from the south of Scotland. I’m excited about doing that; seems like a titanic adventure.

I asked someone for their e-mail address today and they told me that they didn’t have one. I was shocked; they are from France. The woman gave me her mailing address though, so I’m going to write her a letter. I like writing letters, but I don’t know how anyone can get by without an e-mail in modern society.

How can we tell who is getting by anyway?

Bye for now.

There is a woman, who was in a class of mine for two weeks. She also stayed in Clare College with me, her name isn’t important, because I always just think of her as the judge. The second day of class, I had noticed that the class registrar said, “judge” before her name so after that I decided to talk to her about her profession.

The judge is an old woman, I would say mid to late sixties. She cannot walk well, and does not use a cane, she must have been too proud to do so because she really could have used one. She knew a lot about all sorts of things, and one could tell that in her day she was a good looking woman, a power woman. She went to UC Berkley and then to University of San Francisco’s Law School. She told me that she went to Law School at a time where there were few women in the business, and she had received a lot of lip for it. I told her it was good that women in her generation helped pave the way for women in my generation, and it’s true. She was a lawyer during the times of Harvey Milk in San Francisco, and knew the mayor before he was shot. This woman has seen a lot, and there she was sitting in class a couple rows in front of me.

She has a husband, and her husband was with her but not in my classes. I saw them at breakfast, if there were other people at the table then they chatted. If they were alone, they didn’t say a word to each other. They usually left the table at different times, without even a word of dismissal, no “see you later honey” or anything like that. They always sat together during the mundane plenary lecture. Her husband was a finance guy in San Francisco. In their day, they really were a power couple, at least in terms of career choices.

The judge liked me; I always called her “the honorable” just because I thought it was fun. Since I had met her, I was always trying to find an opportunity to ask her about being a judge, since I am thinking about going to Law School I thought she could shed some interesting light. One day, my opportunity came.

She was a general common pleas judge, I believe. She told me that she never was bribed and that for the most part California wasn’t an area where those things happened. “That happens in the south” or “Chicago” and places like that she said. Her favorite kind of cases were corporate fraud, because there was a smart thief and it would be a puzzle to try and figure out what he or she had been doing to steal the millions.

Upon being asked some of the difficulties of being a judge she told me this story:

“When I was first starting out, I was in Small Claims Court. It’s for smaller incidents, and there aren’t any lawyers. I had this trial with an older middle-aged woman and a “kid.” When I say kid I mean someone 18 or 19. The woman was one of those bossy types, she was ordering people around my courtroom before the case and already she had started to rub me the wrong way. She was bringing the kid to court saying that he had backed into her at an intersection. Right away, I thought this case was ridiculous. How often is it that someone backs into you while driving on the road? She gets up there, and says, ‘I’m a very careful driver’ and I told her that we don’t take that into consideration and all I need to know is what happened. ‘The light turned yellow, and I stopped of course, but he backed right into me.’ Again I was thinking this is a ridiculous case… So I tell the kid to tell me what happened, and he gets up there and says ‘I did back into her, my car shifted out of gear.’ I was surprised and I asked,

‘Why are you contesting it then?’ and he told me it was because the woman was charging him for damage that he could not have possibly of done. Well, I hadn’t been taking notes on damages because I had written that case off without hearing the story. After that I always took careful notes on both sides, on everything. As a judge you never know where the story is going to go and you have to put aside your own personal judgments when you are working.”

I smiled at the judge, and told her that it was a very interesting story. I really enjoyed it. After that I didn’t really see her too much, and now she is back in California, doing what retired judges do. I will most likely never see her again. Nonetheless, her story will probably last with me forever. All this because I read the class roster and saw “judge” in front of her name.

(view of library from Clare College)

A couple of weeks ago, I acquired a library card to the general University of Cambridge Library. It’s not your typical library; at least I have never seen such a place like it before. First of all, you have to have a purpose to be there. One cannot just waltz in to take a look around, this is a very “special place.” I don’t know the generalities of the whole place, so I will just talk about my experience.

Once I actually received a library card, I was very excited to take a stroll through this seemingly remarkable place. The librarians didn’t really give me a briefing or anything. The only thing they told me was to leave my book bag in the baggage room, and that when I was ready to come in, I could scan my card and be on my merry way. I hastily left my bag where other bags were hanging, all unattended, unlocked. There were lockers but everyone seemed to honor the honor system here, so I left my belongings and decided that no one would find anything to steal in my bag anyway (which is sadly true).

(scanning entrance)

I half-proudly sauntered through to the scanning device with card in hand, expecting some kind of beep telling me to go back where I came from, but nothing happened. So, I made my way up the stairs and was greeted by three directions, and from those directions the possibilities seemed infinite. People passing by all were very scholarly, like they knew what they were doing and why were there. Me, a mere observer (with an idea to check out a play), felt like I had landed on a type of academic moon where reading glasses and cardigans were the suit of choice and cartons of books and wooden desks were its crater covered terrain.

I needed to loan out Yerma by Lorca so I decided to duck to the corner where two computers shined. I typed in Yerma and sure enough they had it. I looked at a map of the library on the wall and found the section, the general reading room, which incidentally was right around the corner from me. I cut through a room filled with grey and people standing at computers to get to this reading room. The room was dead silent, except for the librarian typing away on his Dell. I asked him if he could show me where this number was, pointing to a tiny piece of paper with the library code for Yerma. He smiled at me, and I explained that it was my first time here and didn’t know how this worked:

“Ok. Well, you can either request this book online or in the section of the library where the book is located. Since you are already here, what you need to do is grab one of those slips of paper and fill it out. The book will be grabbed for you within the amount of time listed on the board.”

I thanked him for the information, and turned to the board. It read 45 minutes. Clearly they are really fearful of people stealing their books, because they don’t let you bring a bag into the library. However, to have someone else grab the book for you, that seemed a little ridiculous to me. Nonetheless, I needed to read the play for the next day so I decided to fill it out. I dropped off the green slip and decided to walk around the library while I waited for the book to meet me on shelf G.

Now, I would have taken pictures but A.) I didn’t have camera and B.) They don’t allow cameras into the library. Even though I could easily sneak my stealth, bite size Canon with me, I have decided to honor their system.

I remembered seeing a sign to the “rare books room” and decided that might be interesting. Who knows what rarities I might find? Well, I walked in and there was a glass entryway that read, “do not push, wait to be let in” or something to that effect. Already, this place seemed to be like a china shop. It was a large brightly lit room, filled with tables and people working behind them. I walked around the room, trying to decide what to do. The librarians/door guards were watching me as I walked around the perimeter. I didn’t know if I was allowed to grab books from the shelves (they didn’t look that old to me), but I decided not to in case an alarm would go off and I didn’t really know what the procedure was. Once I got close to their table again, I smiled at them and walked out.

I thought the place was rather boring after I once was out of it. What were people looking at with those rare books? Words on a page are words on a page, old words on old paper read the same as old words on new paper.

I meandered my way upstairs and found the manuscript room. It looked just like the rare books room, and decided not even to wait to be let in. I then decided to leave the section all together and made my way to the courtyard. It wasn’t a pretty courtyard, just a place for people to smoke. Since I didn’t smoke and I didn’t feel like sitting down, I left.

I walked around and was brought back to the spot of three directions. I still had 20 minutes to kill. I decided to go back to Clare College (which is conveniently right across the street) and drop off my bag at my room, just to kill time.

(view of Clare from the library)

I returned in a half hour and my book was waiting for me. I took it downstairs to check out, but I was told that my card wouldn’t let me take it. My card didn’t give me such a privilege. I shrugged and gave the book back and left. It wasn’t a rare book, but I couldn’t take it out. I’m not sure what the rules are there, or why I couldn’t check out the book specifically. What good is a library, a place of intellectual comfort & stimulation, if you can’t utilize the books in a way that is comfortable and stimulating for you?

I’m sure there are different rules for students who are there full-time, but I would rather have a welcoming take-all library like Northeastern any day. Sometimes going away from home makes you realize what you love about home to begin with.

(Cambridge’s Library)

(Northeastern’s Library)

Note:

Each College does have its own library, that does function like a regular library. But, the University library functions quite differently. Over the summer, there is a specific summer library which has been great, but it’s about the size of the living room in my last apartment.

I know I know, I haven’t even really talked about my stay here yet and already I have my after Cambridge plans. Nonetheless I wanted to have a game plan for the rest of my trip. Here it is:

One thing I love about Literature is in reading these great works; you learn that human sentiment although has changed in language has not really changed in feeling. I am currently studying Wordsworth v Byron and although I am not much of a Wordsworth fan, I really appreciate Lord Byron. “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” is a somewhat autobiographical poem by Byron; my Professor described it as a sort of travel log of his many adventures. Canto the Third had been written after he had fled England after disgracing his marriage and had been ostracized for his “unruly” and “improper” conduct (I put the quotes, but he did do wrong). Canto the Third is the accounts of his travels (through the tale of Childe Harold of course) during a desolate and lonely time for him in his life; he cannot love the woman he loves, a form of torture still today.

One passage in particular rang true to me, and I thought I’d share it:

“Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;

Where roll’d the ocean, thereon was his home;

Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends,

He had the passion and the power to roam;

The desert, forest, cavern, breaker’s foam,

Were unto him companionship”

- Canto III. Stanza XIII.

Often times when traveling, you learn to take refuge in the nature around you.  Sometimes even, you don’t have the indulgence of someone else to be with you to share the experience and you are seeing these wonders alone. I say this, and then I think… well, that’s not entirely true. For me, as much as I did find peace in nature and appreciating the natural beauties of say southern Portugal; I also did have something there to share it with me. I wrote in my journal one day while strolling along the coast after a day of sunshine at the pool:

My camera is my companion sharing with me these experiences. Its pictures will remind me of what I saw like an old friend does at a much overdue lunch. It will remind me of the times gone by; it will be my keener and more vivid eye as my own memories begin to fade.

This is true though, not just for traveling purposes but also in remembering times that have long since passed. I am not quiet like Lord Byron at all in anyway, but I can relate to him in some ways: the seeking refuge in traveling – hoping to escape the memories of love and other times of happiness – and then falling victim of painful nostalgia. It seems, that no matter how far you go, these memories can still grab a hold of you and feel as sharp as it would anywhere in the world. I like when Byron says, “What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?” and those scars are painful to remember. Yet we carry on, through the adventures… then pretty soon your other pictures are buried with newer pictures, of new sights sought and lands conquered. I have come to realize that scars tend to fade with a lot of sunshine, a tan can cover a lot of things up; nonetheless, covering it up does not mean that they do not exist. Now I am getting lost in metaphorical messages, enough.

I have finished four full days here at Cambridge. I have been more than comfortable in my accommodation, and I have quiet literally received a royal treatment here; it is truly an academic oasis and it is inspiring. I do not have a camera right now (long story), but it was supposed to have arrived on Monday. Hopefully, when I do receive it, I will be able to share some photos and in turn document some memories.