Eat, Sleep and Observe

Having stayed up all night, I naturally slept most of the day (I did wake up for lunch, though). I did not find a single astronomer present, though the day crew was merrily chatting away in Spanish.

During dinner, I managed to get a snap of Oscar. He's off duty tomorrow with the rest of the observatory crew, who do 1-week shifts at the mountain. That's pretty lucrative, come to think of it - one week of work (one shift a day), followed by an entire week off!

The shifts change on Tuesdays, and there is a mass exodus from the mountain at that time. According to our telescope operator, the other shift always brings bad weather. We will have one night tomorrow with the new crew...

Before observing, I caught this lovely sunset in the Andes.

Tonight was mostly the same as yesterday, technically speaking. Scientifically speaking, we observed a ton of supernovae and their host galaxies. It was fun to (in some cases, be the first to) discover the host galaxies and see information being unraveled from their spectra. Tomorrow we will use a new instrument - the Magellan Echelle Spectrograph (aka MagE). None of us have used it before, so it'll be a new experience. I may not get around to posting again tomorrow, since we are leaving for Boston immediately after our night is over, but will make sure to upload some pics, perhaps during our long layover in Santiago.

Observing in Chile - My First Night

Tonight was my first night of observing at a real telescope - the Magellan 6.5 m Clay telescope, in Chile! The telescopes are a short 3-minute drive from the dorms. On the ground level is a nice lounge and kitchen (!), and on the upper level is the control room, from where a door leads into the telescope dome.

In the control room, we met up with the Instrument Specialist in the early afternoon. The Instrument Specialist set up the instrument we were using: he put in the slits we wanted to use for spectroscopy (by changing the position of the slit on the sky, you change the angle the light hits the grating, and thereby optimise the grating to function more effectively at a different wavelength), as well as multi-object masks.

Each of these masks have lots of tiny slits cut into them, which we will align with stars in the sky, and then take spectra of the galaxies we have carefully chosen the slits to fall upon (taking care that the resulting spectra from different objects do not overlap). These masks are cut from sheet aluminium using a laser, based on mask files that my advisor sent to the observatory a month in advance of our run.

Next, the instrument specialist cleaned the primary mirror of the telescope, something that is done every week. We thus got a glimpse of the 6.5 m mirror in its full glory, as it was turned nearly face-on to

us! Here's a mugshot of me posing with the Clay telescope.

Next on the agenda was some calibration. We took some images of the blank dome during the afternoon, with the aperture wheel in various positions, to make sure that the slits and masks were mounted in the wheel in the order that the instrument specialist said they were. Then we imaged He-Ne-Ar lamps, to check that we'd set up the slits to give us the right sort of wavelength coverage. Finally, we took some bias images and headed back for dinner. Boy, it feels like we're always eating...

The afternoon brought some clouds, and we were a little worried that things would be bad at night. Thankfully, they blue over :) and everything has been clear all evening. We started the evening with twilight flats, followed by spectrophotometric standard stars for flux calibration. We then imaged some GRB fields, and took spectra of host galaxies. Excitingly, I got to image a GRB host galaxy that I have used in my research! The individual i-band frames do not show any detection at the expected location of the source, but stacking will tell so much more. We also used the masks tonight. He're a picture of my advisor and colleague, Wen-fai, getting the next mask ready, after I'd taken spectra with the first one. It promises to be a fun three days!

Observing in Chile - the journey

I'd never been to a real telescope to observe, so of course when my advisor suggested I join him, I jumped at the chance! The travel and the observing is so breath-taking,

that it awoke in me the desire to post to this blog again after a four-year hiatus. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I'm enjoying describing my experiences! Feel free to write a comment, or shoot me a message.

One of the first things I realised: it's hard to get here! Never have I gone through so many security checks in one day (5 - Boston, Miami, Santiago, La Serena, Atacama). We took a 3 hour-flight from Boston to Miami, followed by a 3-hour layover, then an 8-hour international flight from Miami to Santiago, followed by another 3-hour layover. Next on the itinerary was a flight from Santiago back North along the Chilean coast to La Serena.

Boy, was the view gorgeous! The terrain was very hilly and a barren brown. The entire country is rather narrow, and from the plane you can see the entire East-West extent of it. On the west is the Pacific Ocean, lapping away at the coast; the continental shelf is rather shallow and there are rings of completely-submerged islands that make the water look green in places. Each time a bit of the ocean floor becomes high enough, it pokes its head above the ocean and becomes a tiny island, maybe a hundred square meters in size.

On the East rise the majestic Andes, their snow-covered peaks guarding the country's Eastern frontier, and abrupt snow line distinguishing them from the lesser hills spread out below all the way to the ocean. The air corridor lies right in the middle of the two, affording a beautiful view of the entire country.

When the plane flies low, you can sometimes tell where the country gets its food - there are step farms in the occasional valleys between the hills. I have never seen trees growing in step farms, which leads me to believe that those are orchards.

Everything went fine until we tried to land in La Serena. Swooping low over our destination, we saw a giant bank of cumulus clouds many dozens of kilometers wide rolling in from the ocean, hugging the ground and spreading along the valley like a blanket. To the folks on the ground this march of the impenetrable cloud bank, seeming to us from the air almost like the dust kicked up by a ferocious advancing army, spelled a spell of fog. Which meant we could not land.

The plane took off, sharply banking to the left and flying out over the ocean. The captain announced (in Spanish) what I took to imply that we were to wait for the clouds to dissolve and the fog on the ground to lift before we could land, and that this was likely to take about half-an-hour. The flight itself was supposed to be 45 minutes long! Well, more exciting views for me.

The cloud bank was very narrow, and we soon cleared it as we rose over the ocean. But it was apparent that the clouds were forming a short distance from the shore and then advancing inland. Needless to say, the fog did not lift in half an hour. The plane banked again, and flew further North along the coast. At this point, I dozed, and woke to the aircraft landing, as I soon discovered, in the town of Atacama, Chile, about 200 miles North of La Serena. On alighting, miles upon miles of brown barrenness stretched on all sides. It's winter here, but the temperature is about 20 degrees C and rather pleasant. Another plane had landed beside us - perhaps the flight going South to La Serena, and both of us were stranded in the middle of the Atacama desert.

The little cafe in Atacama was overwhelmed by the couple of hundred passengers, and decided they could only serve a ham sandwich for lunch, thwarting our plans of checking out the famous Chilean avocado. An hour later, we were ready to take off again. This time we did land in La Serena, where a driver from the observatory picked us up. By now, we had been traveling for over 24 hours since leaving Boston, and a 2-hour drive awaited us from La Serena to Las Campanas, where the Magellan telescopes, together with the 100 inch du Pont and 40-inch Swope telescopes are located.

Our first leg was on the Chilean highway to Vallenar, 200km North of La Serena. I dozed during bits of the drive, and always awoke feeling like we had not gone anywhere at all - miles upon miles of barren brown stretched on either side of the dusty road, and a railroad line dogged us almost all the way to the telescopes, until we crossed it at a level crossing about 20 miles from the telescopes and left it behind us. Pebbles and small rocks were strewn all over the landscape, dotted by the occasional hardy winter shrub at most a foot high. The road often curved sharply to the left or the right, and occasionally fell away at over 30 degrees of average incline, only to steeply rise again. That the land is parched was apparent when we noticed that the road sides were often cracking in giant fissures hundreds of yards long; there was not a bird in the sky, and it seemed as if no creature could live in this desolate rocky desert. So imagine my surprise when we met a herd of mountain goats, crossing the road!

Eventually we left the road to Vallenar and turned on to the road to Las Campanas, the home of the Magellan telescopes and La Silla, the European Southern Observatory. A couple of miles down, we spotted both observatories perched upon their respective little hill tops. The road forked, and we took the one to Las Campanas. Some day I will visit La Silla too...

The domes seemed so near, then - but the winding road through the plateau took the best part of the hour to get us there, and it was past 4 PM when we alighted at Las Campanas, "The Bells", so named because the rocks in this area ring like bells when tapped due to their metallic content. We found our names on the guest list white board, with little stars next to them. After settling in, we were greeted by a scrumptious dinner. Astronomers swear by the kitchen of the Las Campanas Observatory, and I can see why - the steak and potatoes were good, but the soup was even better - and the cheesecake! Wow, it's going to be a brilliant three days here!

During dinner time, we met Oscar Duhalde, the astronomer who discovered Supernova 1987 in the LMC, who was a lot of fun to chat with. I had been wondering where they get their water from. Oscar tells me that they have wells all around the observatory for this purpose. The water table is 40 m deep, but underground water is sufficient to supply the telescopes and support buildings.

In the evening, we held a strategy meeting - what will we be observing and when? How do we optimise our viewing, so we can get as many objects in as we can? Which spectroscopic and photometric calibration stars will be observe? It's best to start out in the West and move East, but you don't want to start too far in the West too early, because that part of the sky is still bright. I'm clearly going to learn a lot about "real" observing in the next few days. So exciting!

In the evening, I took my binoculars and stepped outside. I was immediately stunned. First, everything was pitch dark. The Milky Way stretched from South-East to North-West, with enormous dark patches that could only be giant molecular clouds silhouetted against the milky backdrop such that they almost seemed three-dimensional. I searched for familiar constellations. Of course, the hemisphere was playing with me by making everything upside down. But I had the last laugh by bending over backwards. I saw the limbs of Scorpius cunningly straddling the Milky Way, an up-side down Hercules tumbling in the North, the tail of the Big Dipper poking above the Magellan domes and pointing to a brilliant Arcturus, the planet Saturn in Virgo completely dominated by the bright stars of Centaurus, the closest star - Alpha Centauri, the beautiful Southern Cross; and oh my, is that really the globular cluster omega Centauri directly overhead? I have never seen a globular cluster through my naked eyes! That's when I caught sight of the Magellanic clouds. No description had prepared me for the sight. The LMC looked enormous, 20 degrees above the horizon, the most prominent feature was the bar, aligned perpendicular to the horizon, with a clear hint of the arms coming off the top and bottom. The SMC was less distinct, but no less spectacular, trailing about 20 degrees behind the SMC. That sight totally beats the Northern attraction - Andromeda.

Tonight will be our first night observing. The seeing in the past couple of days has been great at 0.5 arcseconds. I'm looking forward to seeing the 6.5 meter telescopes for the first time...

Matriculation Dinner

These are my experiences at the matriculation dinner held on Saturday, 20th October. Read it in conjunction with the end of the previous post on "Mushrooms with a sprinkling of supervisions", for the beginning of this post to make sense.

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Arose at 7:30 and arrayed myself in finery. Black suit, white shirt and red tie. Wore gown for the third time tonight. Went for dinner. On my left at the dinner table was a Chinese guy called Xi (pronouced she) Tan. On his left was a german guy whose name I didn't quite catch. To my right was a chinese guy called K. K. K. Lee. I think his first name was Ke(l)vin. (Not sure about the 'l'). To his right was a professor, who had been dislodged from the high table. Not sure why there were professors sprinkled all over the tables, but I guess the high table can't accommodate all of them. The German guy is doing maths, doesn't like colours and failed the Turing test, Xi is doing computer science and sleeps three hours a day and the three of us were chatting mostly amongst ourselves. Didn't speak much to KKK Lee and he probably got a bit bored sandwiched between me and the professor. Oh and the professor was the Director of Studies (DoS) of the german guy, which means the professor was a maths professor. Deduction.

There was my name on a folded bit of paper that was standing on its legs at my place at the table. It said "I Laskar". There were napkins folded like flowers. Three different sizes of wine glasses (whose use became clearer as the evening wore on), two sizes of forks, two knives and one spoon were arranged as well. (Now that I think about it... were they silver?) There was also a folded menu card and a list of toasts on the table. The first course was smoked salmon in something sauce. Then a main course of steak, potatoes, mushrooms, then the "cheese board" and finally coffee and truffles. On the second page was a list of toasts (with "proposed by the Master" in brackets). The first one said "Queen" and the second one read "New Fellows". Quaint.

So the first course arrived and wine was served. They had both red and white wines and the waiters went about periodically refilling glasses. I didn't realise it then, but the wines that were being served had names and the names were written on the corner of the menu card. I read those and thought them to be names of people written on the menu in memoria of their recipes. Anyhow, I busied myself with the salmon. It was a thin slice of pink stuff and to my surprise, it was cold. It didn't have any salt either. Ate it nevertheless.

There were times between the courses when there was no food for long durations and then we would look around and smile politely at people. I did get a conversation going leftwards with the compsci guy and the german Guy (Labelled Xi and G respectively henceforth). Couldn't see the chap in front of me too well as he wsa obscured in glasses and water bottles. Oh and the water was "sparkling water", as opposed to the other flavour of water they drink here called spring water. On Xi's comment that he couldn't find any difference between the water and the wine, I decided to try out both.

So I tried the wine. The reason I did was because there was some in my glass. The reason there was some in my glass was because the waiter didn't listen to me when I said I didn't want any. The lady who served the row of people facing me across the table was asking each person if they wanted what she was giving. They guy who served my side didn't. With the result that I had some wine in my galss. Anyway, the point is that there was some wine in my glass, so I decided to try it out. If Xi couldn't tell the difference between the water and the wine, either the wine was watery or the water was winey. I thought the latter was unlikely and that what he meant was that the wine was watery. It turned out that it was the other way round. I sipped some of the wine. It made a burning sensation on the way down and was somewhat bitter. Not particularly appetising, but I did make sure I had enough of it to remember the taste afterwards!

Up next was the main course. There was steak and as the waitress brought it around, I considered it prudent to ask what it was made of. When she confirmed that it was indeed beef, I declined the steak, with memories of the fresher's formal still fresh. "Would you like a vegarian option? Are you a vegetarian?" I said yes and no in some confusion, then clarified that though I wasn't a vegetarian, I didn't want the steak. To that she nodded understandingly and vanished. Subsequently, the mushrooms and potatoes came around, but I wasn't asked. Everyone had their share of steak and mushrooms and potatoes and I waited with an empty plate until someone came and removed the plate as well.

I understood the concept when a few minutes later, a plate preloaded with food arrived and was placed in front of me. It had brinjal in tomato curry (ugh) and some little round yellow things, which looked like bajra. I'm not sure even now what that really was. I guessed that it was some cereal, like rice, but it wasn't rice or wheat or corn, or bajra for that matter. Or maybe it was bajra. Anyway, I tried it and it wasn't too bad. Then one of the waitresses asked if I'd like some mushrooms (yes please) and some potah-toze (yes thank you). So then I proceeded to polish off the contents of my plate with considerable relish. The most surprising thing was that there was some salt in the cereal, though none in the sabzi, mushrooms or potah-toze (and probably none in the steak the others had as well) Just to verify, I did ask G how the steak was and he said it was good. Anyway, I'm still sure I didn't miss having it, such is my faith in the British kitchen.

When the main course was over, waiters issued forth once more from their recesses and cleared the table. Now I realised what all the glasses were for, for port was then brought forth and poured into the third glass, the first two having been used for white and red wines respectively. I declined the port (and the red wine earlier). Apparently, the port glasses are different and are the ones used for toasting certain members of the royal family. Suddenly a gong rang. All conversation ceased and the hall fell silent. Their was an enormous rustle as Everyone stood up. The master bellowed something. Everyone lifted their glasses and drank port. Their was another enormous rustle and Everyone sat down. Converstaion resumed normally. The entire episode lasted about fifteen seconds. It dawned on me several seconds later that what the master had said was the phrase "To the Queen". So everyone had just toasted the Queen. Hmm.

Then we had the cheese board. What that means is that there is a plate with a variety of new and young as well as old and stinky cheeses pasted on it and you can take as much as you like, with the idea of having it with biscuits. I'm not sure how universal this idea of cheese-and-biscuits is, but it was fairly new to me. It's when I saw that there were biscuits placed at the head of the table that I made the connection. Further, the head of the table was occupied with students of somewhat unsocial nature (or of obliviety to the fact that there were no other plates of buscuits on the table) with the result that whatever was placed there never made it down to the rest f the table. The truffles met a similar and unfortunate fate. They were put down at the head and the head got pretty merry on them, but they never arrived at the middle of the table. As far as the biscuits go, we just had the cheese with knives. As regards the truffles, someone from the next table finally took pity on us and passed us some of their truffles.

After the cheeses, there was another gong, followed by the same rustling and ovation. Then the voice of the master was heard over the PA system, which is pretty impressive, given that you can't locate where the speakers ar and he bade everyone be seated. The first thing he said in his speech was "I have two bits of some not so good news" and then he proceeded to elaborate. The first bit of bad news was that South Africa were beating England in the ongoing Rugby match and that while South Africa had scored fifteen, "England's score differs from them by a perfect square", as told to him by professor something. He then followed out the calculation and informed us that that meant that England had scored six. Though how he figured out which perfect square to take away from fifteen, there being three of them below that number, I still haven't discovered.

The second bit of not-so-good news was that of all the free dinners hosted by the college in our honour, this was to be the last event and that we had already met the people who were going to be important in our student life here, the tutors and the dierectors of studies and that he now had pleasure in being the last one to welcome us to Trintiy and that he was the Master. He then said that the primary duty of the master was as custodian of the Master's lodge and mentioned the Grandfather clock of Newton which is housed there and which he showed us when we went for drinks there on the 15th. The next thing he said was somewhat of a surprise. In welcoming us to Trinity, I imagined he would quote illustious stalwarts of yore who had brought fame and fortuen to the in ages past. What I was not expecting was for him to begin his solitary list of eminent members with the comment: "It has been exactly hundred years now this matricualtion dinner that Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the former Prime Minister of India entered Trinity and was seated at these tables just like you today"

The rest of the speech was a general and humorous welcome to the college and what one must and must not do, punctuated with ceremonial polite laughter and ending with the traditional clapping. As the speech came to a close, the master requested all the non-first year student (and I got confused whether it included me, not actually being a first-year student) to please rise and to drink a toast to the new members of college. A few scattrered people all across the hall rose as if on a pushbutton and toasted those who remained sitting.

The last thing on the menu was coffee and truffles. I decided to try the coffee out, making sure I got a lot of nice white milk, only to discover that therewas no sugar in the coffee, nor anywhere else on the table. So I didn't drink it. That was it for the party. Everything was eaten and all the drinks had been drunk and it was a quarter past ten and everyone was just sitting and chatting aimlessly until someone from the high table actually got up and bade us go forth. Then there was the familiar rustling and everyone lined crowded the doors.

The event was followed by departmental drinks. The Natural Sciences staff had cordially invited Natural Sciences students (affectionately called Natscis) to after-dinner drinks in the Allhusen room. I asked a porter where that was, discovered it was right next to the hall and then made my way there. That's where I found a number of people I knew, along with my Director of Studies, Prof. Malte Grosche. I got myself a glass of orange juice and stood near the door welcoming people in. That's when David Yu (The MIT exchange student who's doing Part II Physics and is at Trinity) came in as well and waved characteristically at seventyfive degrees to the vertical. We spent the rest of the evening chatting and also roped in my DoS, who later turned out to be David's DoS as well. The evening ended with the three of us being the last people to leave. As we went out, the stars were shining brightly and I enquired of my DoS if there was any Astronomy Club operative in Cambridge. He mentioned somethine, which I haven't tried to look for yet. He then pointed out the pole star and Cassiopeia and I was quite impressed, considering the fact that he's a Quantem Mechanics Prof. We said goodnight for the night and the revd. prof made his way to the bar.

So this is how we dined and sup'ped
Apologies for taking s'long to put it up!
Many more stories to come, so do read!
And I'd like to get some comments as back-feed

Mushrooms, with a sprinkling of supervisions

Thursday, October 18th contd...

In the evening, we had the Trinity singer's rehearsal. Practised a bit before the rehearsal and then went to the chapel for the rehearsal at eight. As usual, it lasted until ten. Then I got hold of the pianist and a score for Handel's Hallelujah chorus and practised it with the piano once for the audition tomorrow. Fixed a rehearsal time with James, the pianist, for 1 pm tomorrow.


Friday, October 19th

Had a QM and an REL class as usual. Then disappeared from the Cavendish as I had my Corpus Christi Chapel Choir audition at 2pm. Went to St. John's and took last night's sabzi (mattar aloo) from the fridge, brought it back to Trinity in a box and had it here with bread. Then left for the music practice room to meet James. He came soon after one. We went through the piece a couple of times and then he left and I went to Corpus. Waited outside the chapel for a bit for Leo Tomita, the organ scholar at Corpus whom I had been in touch with. He told me immediately that "there was too much of a gap" between what they wanted and where I stood in terms of singing ability and that I should try music lessons and that they'd open up a whole new world. I think so too.

Came back and worked on the REL supervision assignment, which is to be submitted on Sunday. Waited long whiles for Nandhini to come for dinner preparation. Got a mail from Pradipta, my CCT parent, saying that he was back from Arizona and would I like some candy? Gladly replied in the affirmative. He arrived at 9 as I was waiting for Nandhini. Since there was no dinner to be had and no Nandhini either, went with him to his room and helped him make a Bengali experiment. Don't know what they call it but it is made with paneer (which was readily made by putting some lemon in milk and then strainging the liquid through a handkerchief). The paneer is gathered into balls and fried (more easily said than done) and then put in a curry. It wasn't too bad, but it was an experiment after all. Had it with rice at around midnight.

Came back from Jesus Lane where Pradipta's room is, to find most entrances into the Blue Boar Court compund locked, being early am. Went around to the main gate (across the street from the Great Gate of the college) and was finally able to get in.


Saturday, Octber 20th

Slept long. Awoke at 10:30 and got ready. Went to see the Great Court Run at 12 noon. The college has one Great Gate and the courtyard it opens into is called Great Court. There, every year, on the noon of the day of the Matriculation dinner, they hold the Great Court run. In that, you have to run around the perimeter of the court as the clock strikes 12 and finish before the clock finishes donging. It goes ding-dong four times (to indicate that it is a full something-o'clock) and then dangs oclock times and finally dongs oclock times.

I went ot great court just before 12 and found to my delight that today people were allowed to get onto the grass, which covers most of the court in four patches. There were runners arrayed in running suits streching just inside the Great Gate and another group of runners in fancy dress (there's a prize for fancy dress) under the clock tower, which is to your right if you are standing inside the court with the Great Gate behind you). The idea of putting the fancy dress runners there is that they don't impede the srious runners starting at the Great Gate. It's assumed that runners beginning at the clock tower will have sufficient speed to get out of the way (i.e. cross the Great Gate) before the serious runners reach it at the end of their lap.

So it danged 12 times and donged twelve times and in that time of some 45 seconds, Sam Dobin managed to run around the court. The full story, which made headlines, can be found at: http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk
I was there to see it and to cheer Sam on :) Wish I'd made a movie.

Checked email and wrote to Nandhini reminding her about today's Durga Puja, which was being organised by the town's Hindu cultural society. Read a bit and then picekd up Nandhini and went to the Durga Puja for free lunch. I've heard it said that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Accepted it grudgingly, having to wait until 4 for the lunch. Boring puja. The mantras and even the pulic announcements were in Bengali. The whole thing was held in some sort of a hall (It's called Guildhall. Don't know what it is really. Just a hall, I suppose. In fact there are two, big hall and little hall, inside this building called Guildhall. So much for British naming conventions).

Came back and worked on the REL assignment until 7:30. Today we had the college matriculation dinner. I'll write about that in a separate post as there is much to tell. That's it for Saturday.


Sunday, October 21st

Went for a jog, for the first time on a Sunday. I'm afraid I caught a chill. It was severely cold that morning. It's a requiredment of the human bidy for the inhaled breath to be brought to a certain temperature and the cilia were hard pressed for the task, with the result that I had a headache from the cold air that morning. Is till have it, compunded with some loss of sleep, making me wonder if it may be meningitis (!) but we have a habit of personally glorifying everything. Will go and sleep in a bit and hope it wears off...

Anyway, to continue my Sunday story, I met Shivam early morning and bought some cheese-and-onion breadspread. Made some sandwiches and dropped off some at Nandhini's with the aim that I'd arrive at John's again in the afternoon for lunch. Discovered when I got there with the Sandwiches at 11 that she had already made lunch (grr) and was planning to go to the Gates Common room (lucky Gates scholars of the world have a common room for themselves with free soup - I think I mentioned it before in one of my posts) to study. Seeing my lunch slipping away before my eyes, I dissuaded her from going there just yet. Cambe back and had sandwiches. Shivam kindly offered to drop off my REL assignment in P. Wong's pigeonhole. I put a slip on the assignment apologising for the handwriting. Shivam then left with my REL assignement and I sad down to work on the Quantum Mechanics assignment, which is due Tuesday.

Worked until 2, then went to John's and found Nandhini had eaten the lunch she had made at eleven, at eleven itself and had left the sandwiches. I had the remainding sabzi with bread for lunch and she had the sandwiches. Then I decided to travel to the Gates room with her and avail of some freesoup along with finishing my QM work. Picked up my books from Trinity and we went to the Gates room. On the way I bough a calling card for 5 pounds. I can now call home (whoopie!). Haven't used it yet.

Came back from the Gates room at eight thirty. It was bitterly cold outside. Carried some cups of freesoup to warm the hands and the minds :)
Reached John's and cooked. Made Dal-palak (palak in dal) and mattar-makki. She made the dal, I made the mattar. Very nice dal and ditto for the mattar. We had it with rice. Left for the night.


Monday, October 22nd

Dragged myself out of bed for the morning run. !5 minutes is now standard. Lot of fun, but it is getting cold now. Have been running with gloves on, but wish there was something to cover my ears. Will look around for ear muffs. Had Comp Phy and REL today. REL was nice! We talked about antenna theory. Met the prof after class and told him about the radio telescope and that I had seen the syllabus before coming here and been waiting for this lecture.

Went back to college and picked up some bread on the way. Went to John's and got last night's veggie and had it with the bread. Was feeling queer and so slept a while. Then rushed at 2:30 pm back to the Cavendish for my first supervision. The (REL) supervision was fine. There were three of us and a P. Wong, PhD student studying MRI in the Radiology lab. Pauline (Wong) first asked us if there were any specific questions about any part of the course so far. Upon a reply in the negative, we proceeded to discuss the questions. Very friendly environment. She also told me there was nothing wrong with my handwriting and that she'd seen much worse. Brightened a little on hearing so. When we came to the qns on Maxwells' equations, she said let's write them down one by one. She began with div B = 0. David Yu wrote down Div E = rho / epsilon naught. Bo wrote down curl E = - del B / del t. I was the unfortunate on to get the last one, the one with the curl B and so proceeded to mess it up with pomp and flair.

Anyhow, after the supervision, which lasted an hour, walked back with Bo to Trinity. Then sat down to beat out the QM questions. Had a tough time and was late going to Nandhini's for dinner. Discovered that she'd made rice and dal for both of us, but thinking that I woulnd't come, had made palak and eaten it all. Reminded her that we'd still need something for lunch the next day. Made some mattar-mushroom and had it with the rice and dal that was left (which was quite a bit) and then packed up the leftover sabzi into her lunch for Tuesday and my and Shivam's lunch for Tuesday as well.

Left just before 10 and made it out of the St. John's Great Gate just as they were closing it, with the porter on my heels. Came back, sighed and sat down to finish the QM assignment. Got into bed just as the Trinity clock struck 12 midnight.

Of Chapels and Leture Halls

Monday, October 15th

Had two lectures in the morning, as usual. QM was boring. REL was fun. Went to Shivam's and practiced some more of the Hallelujah Chorus. Had some bits of last night's dinner that was left. Then I went to Trinity and booked a music practice room for an hour and tried out the notes of the chorus on the piano. Pity I didn't have the score with me. Tried to figure out the chords so that I could play at least the chords during the audition. Went for the audition at 1:15 to Queen's College. Didn't go very well. I was asked to sight-read a piece, which means you have to sing by reading the notes a bit of music you may never have heard or seen before. Failed miserably. Was told they'd be in touch.


Tuesday, October 16th

Woke up to a cloudy morning. Sneaked a jog before it started drizzling. Trudged through the rain to the department. Had a comp phy and then a thermal phy class. Met Dave Green for projects during the winter. He didn't have any. Almost forgot we had a Theoretical Physics - 1 (TP1) class at 12. Rushed to class 15 minutes late. Discovered that the class had also begun 15 minutes late.

Had lunch in the cafeteria (pasta again, terrible and expensive). Then we had a TP1 examples class, where we were supposed to solve problems given at the back of the handout and ask supervisors if we got stuck anywhere. Just like a supervision, except that the whole class was together. That was fun. Managed to solve 7 of the eight problems, before 4 pm. It rained all day today. Came to college at 4:30 and studied a bit. Met Nandhini at 8 at St. John's and we made peas and mushroom, gobi-aloo, dal and rice. Good food.


Wednesday October 17th

Got up at 6:15 to find it was raining. Went back to sleep blissfully. Missed the morning jog. Today we had QM and REL again. Slept in QM. REL was nice. We discussed dipole radiation. Got a mail from Queen's saying thanks-but-no-thanks and that they had been looking only for tenors anyway. Didn't have lunch. Shivam left for eddies and I hung around the department until 1:30, when Dr Rachael Padman (comp phy teacher) was holding her research review meeting. Attended that and then left for college. Made pasta and soup here in college and lunched at 4 pm. Tried to study a bit but wasn't too successful. Booked a music practice room and practised from 6 to 7:30. Came back and stared a bit longer at the REL problems when Nandhini came knocking.

Went to Sainsbury's and bought some shelled corn and 5kg of potatoes. Went to John's and made some delicious beans-aloo-makki, rice and dal. Came back and went off to sleep.


Thursday, October 18th

Went for jog today. Had baked beans for the first time in the hall for breakfast, along with customary cereal. Not bad. Went to the Cavendish for lectures in comp phy, thermal phy and TP1. Then had lunch in the cafeteria. Lamb pasta bolognaise. Today is the last time I am eating there. Small portions of horrible food for exhorbitant prices (Rs 210, if you wish).

Then we had the first compy phy practical class. We just had to sit in the computer room and pretend we were doing something useful. Actually, even that was not necessary. There were supervisor-like people floating about and you could call one if you wanted help in something. The computer room is nothing but a bunch of computers, which students use to check email and stuff. So there were people doing different things on the comps and not just people from part II Physics. The entire thing was not bad - we just have to show our face once a week there. Lasted three hours. Just came from there.

Will have some bread and beans-aloo-makki I saved from last night for lunch today (but didn't take it this morning). Then practise for the Trinity singers rehearsal tonight. Then the rehearsal itself. Have written to the Corpus Christi College CHapel Choir incharge, on a suggestion from the Queen's chapel choir incharge and arranged for an audition tomorrow afternoon. My fourth audition here. The previous three for the Trinity Chapel choir, Cadenza (acapella singers) and Queen's Chapel choir being unsuccessful. Let us see how it goes.

Have to finish the REL and Quantum mech questions also before supervisions on Monday and Wednesday respectively.

More soon.
Tanmoy

A-punting we will go...

A punting we will go (2)
Hi ho a merry-o, a-punting we will go!
The peas stand alone (2)
Along with some blinky beans, the peas stand alone!


Sunday, October 14th

We went punting today. All the CCT scholars. Well, almost all. We gathered at 12:30 at Queen's college and waited for the others to arrive. People were taken batchwise, five at a time along with a CCT-senior for a punter and dumped on punts and pushed into the river. I was wrenched from the affiliated-student-group boarding a punt (Nandhini, Nandhini, Umang, Girija) as I was told I was needed to book some Trinity college punts, since the number of punts was short. So I went with the CCT-senior-in-charge-of-organising-everything, Sriram Govindan to Trinity and booked a punt. When I reached Trinity, found the affiliated-student-punt waiting there. Merrily got in and pushed off.

We had loads of fun. Each of us took turns punting. All except me got a chance on the down trip. It was a nice sunny day for a change and the ducks followed us on the river, craning their necks for titbits. Umang had fed them a whole muffin by the end of the down journey and thereupon earned flak from several hungry co-passengers on the punt, myself included, for none of us had had any breakfast. I had the oar for some time and the idea was to push away other boats or push at the banks, to prevent collisions. We alighted at Jesus Green, a huge park behind Jesus College and lined up for icecream. We all got cones with vanilla/chocolate icecream and a chocolate 'flake' (looked like a piece of bark to me - managed to convice one of the CCT scholars that it was. Had fun while she was trying to figure out what it was doing in the middle of her icecream.)

After ices, we started on the lazy trip back. Me took the pole this time and got my sleeve all wet with the water that would trickle down the pole it time it was pulled out of water. Mighty heavy pole. Kept making the boat go round to the right and bumping the bank. Nandhini had the oar and was kept busy keeping the right bank away, which had developed a strange afinity for the boat. Girija suggested that we might try racing the ducks. Punted long and hard (shoulders still aching Thursday). Was de-puntered at John's. Joined the gang in singing O-majhi-re tpe of songs. An Indian in a passing punt yelled to us to sing louder :)

Came back tired. Went to Queen's College to attend their evensong and catch hold of their conductor. Found their conductor. Expressed interest in joinging the choir. She called me for an Audition the next day.

Went to Edmund's and practiced the Hallelujah chorus for a bit. Had dinner and came back to room. So was spent the Sunday.