Caltech

Fresh Perspective

Although the Cambridge study abroad program doesn't have an examination period for study abroad students (lucky people), I definitely still had finals this semester. It was, however, the most relaxed, unstressful finals week I've ever had since going to uni. I still studied, of course, but with only two finals and two weeks to study for them, I didn't feel pressed for time in any way. On top of that, Edinburgh posts old exams online (solutions not included).

Taking my fluids mechanics final, I felt something I haven't felt in ages. Confident. Usually during finals at Caltech, I'm constantly getting a feeling of dread everytime I turn the page. Reading each problem, I feel my mind drawing a complete blank as I try frantically to write something down that will hopefully make some sense and earn me at least partial credit. It's no wonder after a few terms at Caltech, for most of us our self confidence takes a pretty hard hit. It was completely different here though. Granted I didn't know the answers to *everything*, but it was definitely the best I felt during and after a final exam than I have for so long. It's sounds so silly, but I'm not kidding, I really did feel good about myself afterward. That's probably one of the best things I'll take away from studying abroad- a fresh perspective. As techers, we all really need to take time once in a while to step back and realize how truly challenging Caltech is, and that as much as we like to dismiss it, we actually *are* smart. It was a pleasant ego boost that was most certainly needed.

 Although the semester is over, I'm not going home immediately. Starting tomorrow (December 18) I'll be in Paris with two other techers. I've been looking forward to this trip ALL semester. Yayyyyy so excited!! :D

Missed Childhood Memories

Since i've lived in San Diego all my life, I've never had a white winter. It follows that I've never in my life built a snowman. Now that I was in Scotland, and there was plenty of fresh snow, I knew I'd kick myself if I didn't build one while the snow was around. Luckily for me, on our walk back from King's Buildings (the bus didn't run that day because of the snow ): ) my two friends agreed to build one with me in The Meadows! (: The meadows aren't.. actual meadows. It's just a huge park. A huge awesome park that looks incredibly perfectly picturesque in all seasons, but particularly so during the winter.

 

Making a snowman takes... a lot more effort than I thought it would. It was surprisingly hard to start making a decent snowball (I bet all you east coasters are laughing at me now. :P). After some time, and lots of hard work and rolling up snow, we got a snowman... .looking thing standing!

 

Add a hat, a scarf, and some branches we kindly borrowed from the nearby hedge and .... we had a snowman! My very first! :D I tried making a snowangel a while ago too, but I failed pretty terribly. It was pretty pathetic. Most of the snow is melted now. Maybe by this point you'd think I'd be upset by this, but I'm actually very relieved. The Edinburgh Airport, as it would seem, is not well equiped with handling snow, so it shuts down or delays even at the slightest snowfall. Trudging around in snow and trying not to slip on ice gets kind of old after a while too... so I think I've had my fun, but I'm still perfectly fine with my nice warm Californian winters! :D

 

An Edinburgh Christmas

I know it's a little early to be talking about Christmas, but I can't help it! Christmas is a really big deal here. Starting exactly a month early (Nov 25), Edinburgh's Christmas on Princes St begins. There's so much to do there, from a giant ferris wheel and many other rides, an out door ice skating rink, and my favorite, a German Christmas market! As far as I know, there's nothing like this back in California, so the idea was incredibly exciting to me. (: There were so many cool things to look at.

And of course, no market is complete without lots of delicious food! Having a major sweet tooth, on my first trip I got a waffle with cinammon cream on top. It was sooooo good. <3 Especially considering that it was absolutely freezing outside!

On the first day the festivities began, there were also these two really tall "christmas angels" floating around greeting people. It was probably the best and most hilarious thing I've seen there. How were they floating? Segways. Hidden under their giant dresses. Yes. Best Christmas Angels ever? I think so.

Snow Days

So, when I saw the snow fall last weekend, I was really excited. Like really really excited. What was even cooler was that it stuck that night too. It was like magically over night, the entire city transformed into a winter wonderland. Sooo corny I know, but it's true! (: Most of my classes ended lecture last week, so with my free Monday I decided to take a little adventure to an art museum I've been meaning to go to, a little less than 2 miles away. 

i felt like i was in a snowglobeeee :D

 

I think I enjoyed the snow more than any normal person. There was hardly anyone outside, and the people who were were just trying to get to their destination and soon as possible. Meanwhile, I was taking pictures of everything in sight...

 

 I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the Dean Gallery, but after I left I ended up wandering across the street to the National Gallery of Modern Art... and subsequently a walkway to the Water of Leith? It was really pretty. Snow makes everything so much prettier...

As pretty as it is though, the snow's unusually early and heavy arrival has been causing a lot of problems too. Airports and trains throughout the UK have been shut down and my exam on Monday even got rescheduled. I really hope the weather clears up soon for all the travelling I'm supposed to be doing this month. ): 

A Belated Thanksgiving

I think most of us tend to forget this, but Thanksgiving is a strictly American holiday. So many of my friends IM'd me on Thursday asking if I was doing anything and would be surprised when I told them I had class that day. (To be fair though, I was surprised when I realized/remembered Thanksgiving was only in the states, too, in the beginning of the semester. :P) Despite this, we decided to have a belated Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. It was the first Thanksgiving for six of the ten of us! :D

my excited dutch flatmate makes her first hand turkey :D

We went all out. Mashed potatoes, bread rolls, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and of course, TURKEY! (: We were so lucky one of my friends makes the turkey for thanksgiving every year at her house. She even gave him a name- William Paul Edward David George Franklin Kincaid Wallace. :P Errr don't ask? hahaha. 

mmmmmmm....

And as of course, the end of Thanksgiving marks the officially start of celebrating CHRISTMAS!! :D my other American flatmate's mom sent her tons of boxes of graham crackers (yeah they don't have those here. D:) so we made gingerbread houses!! (: The roof of my house caved in. So I turned it into an indian village, since we were still technically celebrating Thanksgiving.... 

2/3 of the village is now eatengone. but that's okay.... :P

The day after exactly marked the beginning of my last month of study abroad. There's still a lot I want to / planned to do here, but I'm also super excited about going home soon too...! (: 

Spectres and Snowfall

Through our entire time at Edinburgh, I realized that all of us from Caltech hadn't really done anything together yet. All of us failed and missed a tour of Mary King's Close on Halloween weekend, so this Friday night (as in a little while ago) we went on a ghost tour of the underground vaults! Whoo Caltech! :P 

The tour itself was hilarious. Thimal and Nick,both Flems in my year, were "flogged" and "hanged" respectively by our tour guide in a demonstration of what they used to do to criminals a long time ago. That by itself was hilarious, but was even better was, out of nowhere during one of the tour guide's stories, IT STARTED SNOWING!!! Two of us had never experienced first snow before or anything like it, having lived in southern California. That added to the Christmasy backdrop of the streets was the most magical thing ever. (: We couldn't stop smiling. 

The second half of the tour was underground, in the vaults. The underground vaults are allegedly the most haunted place in the UK. ... yeah I didn't know that when we were paying for the tour. I hate scary movies and anything of that sort. And yet somehow, about two hours ago, I stood in the most haunted place in the UK. Greeeeeaaaatttt. Luckily for me though, I didn't experience any "paranormal disturbances". Luckily, the snow and my flat's thanksgiving dinner tomorrow were enough to shake off any unsettling feelings I had while down there (and seriously, I had a lot. Did I mention I hate scary things?) The tour ended with the guide telling us a few more ghost stories in the cellar connecting to their gift shop and small artifacts room. We took pictures, messed around a little, discredited the so called "orbs" and "ghosts" in photos they had up on display, and headed back to Kincaid. 

 

So yeah, snow, ghosts, hangings. Edinburgh apparently is completely riddled with ghosts and ghouls. Why didn't anyone tell me this before I decided to come here!?!? 

 

I Still Prefer Small Schools

I'm in week 9 out of 11 as far as classes goes, and 10 out of 15 for my entire time abroad. Even though I've still got a good amount of time left here, I still think right now isn't a bad time to say that being at Edinburgh definitely helped reassure me of one thing, if anything- going to Caltech was the right choice. It's way too easy to get bogged down by work and stress, and the self imposed intimidation you feel being surrounded by incredibly intelligent peers doesn't help at all. As techers, we're constantly asking ourselves "Did I make a mistake coming here? Maybe I should have gone somewhere else..." I think it's safe to say now though, that even with all the ups and down of Caltech, going to tech is a choice I still don't regret, and wouldn't take back.

The biggest thing is, I'm muchmuchmuch better suited in a smaller school. Most people prefer going to big schools - it's a lot more open, tons more people and club and events and everything. Even though Edinburgh Uni is many many times bigger than Caltech, it's ironically harder to meet new people. At a big school, it's very easy to get sucked into your own circle of friends and never branch out too much after that. The nice thing about tech is that the main purpose of rotation and the first week of classes is explicitly to meet everyone. Because the population of undergrads is so tiny, it's not really possible to meet someone and never seem them again. You'll at least bump into them time and time again. On top of that, the house system encourages you to interact and become friends with house members- people you might not have spoken to otherwise (now, there is the issue of a lack of inter-house socializing, but that's a whole other story.) 

Another nice thing about small schools is, you're always well informed. With an undergrad population of around 900, it's much easier for information to get around and, even though professors can sometimes be elusive and hard to track down, for the most part it's fairly easy to get in contact with faculty, even if it means having to find them in person. If all else fails and you have a question about a class, there's always bound to be someone you know in that class who you can ask anyways. I had problems for the longest time in the beginning of the term trying to figure out what was going on in two of my classes, and communicating with the course secretary took a while. I couldn't ask anyone because I honestly just didn't know anyone else in my classes, other than techers who were just about as confused as I was. What's worse, I found out weeks later that my advisor signed me up for a non-existent section for one of my courses so I had been missing out on lectures. That's a nightmare I won't go into in great detail though. 

 

I think that's enough ranting though- all the same I still strongly encourage everyone to try study abroad. I'm not The University of Edinburgh's biggest fan, but at the least it made me love my actual school more. (: <3 

International Receptions = Free Food

It doesn't matter what university your'e attending- anything involving the words "international" and "food" is always guaranteed to be good. Every year at Caltech during third term, there's an international food fair where, for a dollar, you can sample foods from all over the world. I always come back to my room completely stuffed and ready to food coma. When I heard about the international reception this week, I definitely jumped at the opportunity to get a free meal comprised of yummy exotic foods, just like any good college student. The most interesting thing I noticed that was different between the one here, and the one at tech, was the countries represented. At tech, basically every Asian culture was represented, making up the majority of the fair, while at Edinburgh we got to try things from Poland, Slovenia and many more European countries. Meanwhile at the Korean table, I could hear the Korean Student Association club member exasperatingly explaining to everyone who walked by how they weren't serving sushi, but kimbap, and that there was a difference. I felt bad for him. It makes sense that the two food fairs had focuses on different continents though, considering the demographic spread of the universities themselves. Enough about that though... onto the food! (: I didn't take too many pictures... but here's a good one to get your mouths watering. 

The first thing I tried turned out to be horse meat, but I didn't find out until after I started eating it. I was a little mortified and my first reaction was "oh my god I'm eating myself" since I'm year of the horse. The worst part was it tasted pretty good. Err... well I guess I broadened my horizons to say the least, and that's what these things are for, right? x__x

Time for Tea!

When you try to think of things people do that are super British, posh tea parties with tiered platters, scones, and cupcakes probably comes up at least once. I absolutely adore desserts,so the idea of having afternoon tea was fascinating to me. One weekend, my friend and I spontaneously decided to finally make this happen- we already had a place in mind for a while. It was a bright sunny Sunday morning- perfect for a tea party! (: We got the afternoon tea for two and sat ourselves outside. We were considering dressing up all classy before, but in the end couldn't be bothered to make the effort. It's okay- it was still delicious, and the tableware was so cute! :D 

strawberries and cream tea :D so fruityyy hahaha

yummmmmmm :DD feeling classy!

Scones, tiny cupcakes and tarts, and sandwiches all washed down with tea. Needless to say it was a very satisfying and filling brunch. Part of me thought this afternoon tea thing would be just a one time thing for me since it was a liiiittle pricey. I really should have known better. This week I had a huge french macaron craving, triggered by this week's episode of a certain tv show I won't mention the name of. I ended up dragging one of my friends with me to this cafe for tea and macarons.

why are all the plates always so pretty!? i wish i could take it home with me.

It was... mmmmm..... delicious. And just what I needed to unwind from a week spent mostly working on final assignments. :D The macarons were nothing to compare to legit french ones but it still kicked the craving. Even better, the almond tea I got was delicious. It reminded me of almond milk tea, what I *always* get whenever we go out for boba when I'm at Caltech. I miss it so much </3 this was a pretty good substitute though. 

almond tea! (+ a really yummy biscuit on the side)

I'm planning on going with my friend to get tea sometime this week at a place more nearby. Next weekend we're going to try to go back to Cuthbert's (the macaron place) to have high tea for two, with the tiered plates and everything. We sadly didn't find out about this option till *after* we ordered. I think this is the start of a new addiction... 

Remember Remember

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Whether or not you were aware, last Friday was Guy Fawkes Night aka Bonfire Night, celebrating the anniversary of the failed Gunpowder Plot. If you've seen V for Vendetta, you're probably familiar with the story, but if you haven't (which you should), the abriged version of the gunpowder plot was basically a failed attempt to assassinate King James 1 in 1605 by blowing up Parliament. All that *really* matters though, is this is the UK's fireworks/explosives holiday, much like 4th of July for us. (:

Normally, people go up to Arthur's Seat in the evening to watch fireworks go off throughout the city, and to set off fireworks of your own. My flatmates and I headed up Calton Hill instead though, since it still provided a great view, but with less climbing. I've never been to Calton Hill in the daytime, but it was really pretty at night!

okay this is probably not the best picture... it looks really eerie, but it really was pretty! x:

At around 7pm the fireworks started going off. Looking for them was kind of reminiscent of finding shooting stars during a meteor shower. It was exciting, but it probably would've been much more enjoyable if it hadn't been raining nonstop ever since we left the flat... in the end, we left around quarter past when the fireworks started. We were all freezing and wet.

that one tiny dot is a a firework. It was pretty hard getting pictures of them since they were so far away... and my hands were going numb and I didn't want my camera to get wet from the rain. ): In short, it was cool seeing all the fireworks go off everywhere, but I think I'll stick to my warm summery Independence Day fireworks from now on. :P