Early Monday morning 6/30

Okay, I have learned two things from last night's semi restful sleep. Admittedly I did sleep pretty well until about 4:30 when nature required I get up, but then back to sleep until 6 or so. Not too bad considering I fell asleep around 10:30 or so last night. But the two things are important and I will try to rectify them this morning after breakfast or between classes this afternoon, depending on when shops open this morning. 1) I need a source of white noise (ie a fan) because there is too much background noise from the street both late at night and early in the morning and 2) I need a set of ear plugs, for the same reason, but when things are really bad. My bedroom faces onto a street the college shares with the famous Oxford Covered Market, and the market people start bringing in supplies and setting up around 5:30 am or so. Rattling glass bottles, delivery trucks, etc all add to a slight cacophony of sound that I am sure I will get used to in the long run, but may take a bit of time, and time I don't necessarily have this week.

Yesterday was one of those odd and surreal days the longer it dragged on. I honestly could, by the end of the day, feel myself not quite connected to things and certainly feeling things through a bit of a haze. After writing yesterday I grabbed a shower and wandered about town, getting some lunch (a BLT, chips and diet soda) from Boots: The Chemist (an English pharmacy chain) for like 2.99. Picked up a magazine (The Economist) and showed some students I ran into on the street where the shopping mall was and the major Sainsbury grocery store. Then I stopped by my cell phone provider but they were a bit swamped, so that is a stop for later today. It felt strange and comforting to be wandering around Oxford and seeing things that were both extremely familiar and to notice the changes that were taking place with new developments and construction.

We went on the standard bus ride tour of Oxford for an hour or so, starting around 3 pm. I had seen it all last year, so I spent a bit of the time catching up with Ralph and Ingrid Lucurcio. Ralph is one of the other faculty members here, teaching a civil engineering leadership course. He is a retired brigadier general from the Army Corps of Engineers, so the students, with his playful encouragement have taken to simply calling him "The General." One of my students did come up to me and ask me if his real first name was General or not, which I found amusing and I still have to share that anecdote with Ralph later on today. They it was off to the King's Arms for a pint with the Lucurcio's and which ever of the students were still awake enough to function. After that a brief walking tour around the area where the pub was, then back to Jesus College for dinner. Dinner was something simple: sole tourine, roast chicken, roasted potatoes, string beans and chocolate cake. Good and free food.

I went back to my room to rest and nearly fell asleep before I got a phone call from Heather who had returned back to Oxford after escorting the board of trustees group to Bath for the day. We had an orientation meeting with the students from 8:30-9, then I took some students out for the last time (about a dozen remarkably) for G&D ice cream. The store is a bit of an institution here in Oxford, and while not exactly cheap (about 2 GBP for a scoop) it is darn good homemade ice cream. I think a bit more of the students would have gone if it wasn't already getting very late and very cold (into the mid 50s I think by that point).

Today is the first day of classes, so its time for me to go grab a shower. Two classes: Western Civ 2 (with about 22 students) and History of Science 2, with about 7 students. The Western Civ class is the largest course we are teaching, and it will be nice to have 2/3rds or so of the students together at least once a day. We are going to take advantage of that situation by taking them to the Bodelian library for a tour one morning, required for my students, highly encouraged for the others. Then this evening is the formal dress up dinner with the president and provost of Florida Tech and the visiting board of trustees, then hopefully another quiet night before starting the day all over again. I will have some pictures to post later today as I forgot my camera for most of yesterday and only this morning deleted the pictures from last year so I have space on the sim card.

Ah...its good to feel at home, though I do miss the sense of everything being so...new.

Sunday night, June 29th

Tired is an understatement, but I still have a couple hours to go before I can decide to call it a night. Looking at my watch, its about 2 pm right now, and I have been up since 7 am on Saturday morning. I got about 2 hours of constantly interrupted sleep on the aircraft (this time the longest stretch was about 45 minutes). Our plan was late an hour due to weather here in the UK and was then an hour later when we were grounded by a thunder and lightning storm that did not allow us to depart for another hour after we had already gotten on the aircraft. So I think our flight finally got off around 8pm when it was supposed to leave at 5:50 and we got in this morning about 8:45. The coach was there to meet us and we got dropped off at Jesus College.

My room this year is in the 2nd quad, and I will take pictures tomorrow when I am more coherent. My room is very different from that of last years: I have a faculty room originally built in the 1600s (the ceiling beams are that old) with an ensuite bathroom, a sitting room, and a bedroom. Hopefully I refridgrator will be delivered tomorrow. For lunch this afternoon I had a BLT, a bag of crisps and a diet coke. Dinner was simple and provided by the hall which consisted of chicken, ravioli, seafood turine, salad and chocolate cake. I did manage to head off to a pub for a pint with a bunch of students and the Locurcio's. Tonight it is a meeting with Heather and then we are going to find some ice cream before calling it a night.

I will let you know tomorrow when I am more fully awake. Its going to be tough to make it to 10.

Ciao for now...

Saturday, June 28th

Well my little break in Orlando has been a good one. I got to spend a few days at a hotel to rest and relax as well get my batteries rejuvenated after one of the more stressful weeks I have had. The car issues have been taken care of with Eric agreeing to drop the car off on the 22nd of next month to be repaired and ready by the time I return. I need some new body work, painting and a new front bumper cover as it is called (covers the entire front of the car) which all together will run about $1500 bucks. More than half, of course, is the cost of labor. So these last two days have been interesting way to relax before heading off to the airport later this afternoon.

I will be at the airport around 3 pm (the flight leaves around 6) because we are a large group and hopefully everyone will be there between 3 and 3:30. I am pretty sure I can arrange for a group check in, and then we fly from Orlando for London Gatwick arriving around 7 am tomorrow morning (or 2 am EST). Then a two hour drive from Gatwick to Oxford, settling into the rooms at Jesus College, before heading out for a tour of the city and trying to keep everyone awake for an 8 pm group meeting, and then turning everyone free for the day (and sleep for a bunch of us). I have class at 11 on Monday morning, so I need to make the adjustment fairly quickly. Knowing the my past adjustments to jet lag, it will be about Wednesday or Thursday before it hits me that I have to adjust.

The weather, at least according to the BBC, is going to be a bit up and down. Tomorrow should be write around 70 or so, with lows in the 50s. However it is supposed to warm up to the upper 70s by Wednesday and low around 60, before cooling off 10 degrees back to the 60s the next day. The usual up and down on an English summer and hopefully it will stay on the cooler side then the warmer side since A/C is pretty darn scarce in the UK.

I am both looking forward to going because I know what to expect but also a bit of trepidation because I have a bigger role that last year and I am lacking the two to three days of pre trip adjustment I had last year. I am in charge of about 25 students though I will have a bit of help from the husband and son of the program director.

Anyway, that's it for now. Time to pack up the computer and get things together for the trip. I will update tomorrow at some point once I am settled in Oxford. Probably in the evening when things have calmed down.

Ohh good news too!

I almost forgot. I went into my office yesterday afternoon before class and then off to check mail in my department mailbox. In there was an official university envelope and despite the momentary twinge of "what the hell is this about?" it was good news. Inside was a notation from the provost that I received "equity pay" to try and bring me up to par with the rest of the faculty and the recent new hires (who all make more than I do). This is going to be my 9th year at the university (though 8 by their calculations due to my being an adjunct for a semester when budgets were being slashed in 1999) and finally I qualify for the equity program. It comes to about a 6% increase to my base salary. So good news finally...

Okay, now it is time to get ready for work this morning.

Thursday 6/26

Well its been an eventful pre-flight week, but not always in a good way. Monday night I was picking up a friend from Orlando International Airport and was driving home in light rain and complete darkness. I noticed as we were approaching a toll plaza under construction that the rear hatchback light was intermittently coming on, which meant that the hatchback hadn't been closed properly. I went through the toll plaza and put on my directional to pull over and close the hatch. Crash... I collided with another car speeding through the toll plaza e-pass lanes (the automatic toll payment system). The Florida Highway Patrol were called, and while no one was hurt, there was damage to both cars, more to his then mine. So I have been spending my time talking to insurance companies and the body shop, getting the mess straightened out as much as I can before I leave town on Saturday afternoon.

Add in the chaos of finishing up classes and grading quizzes, getting finals prepared, and somewhere in the middle of that packing, and well you can imagine how chaotic it must be around here as well as entertaining my friend who came into town for the week and their birthday. Today is the last day of summer classes at the university for me. I have some quizzes to grade after I give them this morning, notes for the Oxford courses to round up, stop by the bank and head to the auto body place to arrange a date my car can be dropped off and fixed so that it is ready on the Monday morning after I return. Then it's off to Orlando for the next few days to rest and relax before leaving for the airport to be there at 3pm on Saturday.

I have all the paperwork in place for Oxford's arrival (flight details, where the coach is going to pick us up, etc) to try and get everything in place so that when I am nearly brain dead from lack of sleep and jet lag, I can at least semi function as I deal with immigration, customs, luggage collection and then taking it all to the the coach for the 2 hour drive from Gatwick to Oxford. Once in Oxford the program organizer (who is herding a bunch of the university's Board of Trustees on a trip) will be joining us and things fall into her hands. I don't expect many problems, but with 22 people and myself, who knows.

All my packing is done except for my computer bag and some last minute bits and bobs. I have brought along the two suitcases I had to buy in Oxford last year, splitting the clothes roughly equally between them so that if one gets lost, I at least have the other for a couple days. However, one bag is more full than the other, so I have plenty of space to bring things home. The larger bag gets left behind in Oxford while the smaller one accompanies me to France and Scotland. I also have to pack my messenger style bag that I wear around as my portable briefcase (the computer bag is too damn bulky) in one of the suitcases as well. Should be fun trying to get it all together this afternoon.

Ohh and my passport too...can't forget that.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Oxford Mailing Address

Here is the mailing address for my summer stay, in case you need to mail me anything. I will be in Oxford from June 29th through the morning of August 3rd. About 5 and a half weeks.

Professor Matthew Ruane, Florida Tech
c/o Jesus College
Turl Street
Oxford, England
OX1 3DW
United Kingdom

Pre-Trip Post 6/23

Welcome to my summer 2008 travel blog. Like last year's experiment, this blog will recount some of the important events and odd occurrences that take place during the 2008 Florida Tech Summer Oxford program. Once again we will be staying at the centre city campus of Jesus College, Oxford for the first two weeks and then moving to flats about a mile north of town at Steven's Close (off campus housing for the college). The trip will include four day weekends in Ireland, Paris and Scotland, as well as day trips to Bath and Stonehenge, Blenheim Palace and the Cotswolds, and my super special outing to London at the beginning of July to see the Tower and a few other exhibits in the process. It might even involve me spending a few pounds (actually a lot of pounds) and staying overnight before coming home to Oxford the next day.

Besides my thoughts and views on the trip, I will post some of the pictures I take to help you visualize what the day's events are about.

Invite anyone you know who might not have received an invite to read and participate in this blog. Feel free to comment if you have a blogger account. You can always send me email at the usual addresses and I welcome feedback positive or negative.

Now its off to run last minute errands, teach the end of my summer session here in Melbourne, then spend a few days in Orlando before flying out on Saturday afternoon. At 3pm Saturday, June 28th, my duties as assistant professor and assistant coordinator of the Florida Tech Oxford summer program begins.

Wish me luck!