Keeper of the Caius (See, 'cause it's pronounced, "Keys", and it's...)

Flying above Heathrow,
Never dreaming of the time or my dwindling cash flow
-Sloan, "The Great Wall"

I still have no idea how I came to be here. I mean, I'm sure it has something to do with filling out paperwork, boarding an airplane, etc., but I cannot yet fathom the fact that I am here, among the halls where Watson and Crick first met, where Douglas Adams, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman and Hugh Laurie practiced comedy in Footlights, and where Stephen Hawking studied and publishes. Every step I take is a mind-bending experience, and I pray that it never fails to hit me anew with each passing day.

Wow, all of that sounds terribly haughty to me now, but it's true. This is all too incredible to believe.

I flew in on the redeye and arrived Monday morning, and I quickly set about settling in. The accomodations are nice. I had visions of some minimal, Spartan niche that they'd tuck us away in for some reason, but it's not like that at all. Some of the people who arrived early have said that their rooms are much nicer than the hotels that they stayed in before the program started.

We all had tea together the first day, and dinner a few hours after that. I was immediately struck by the temper of the group. It seems that every time you go on a study abroad, or a camp somewhere, or what have you, there's always at absolute least on person who can't stand it, who wants to go home to their boyfriend or girlfriend, who spends every waking hour on a cellphone with their family at $1 a minute. There's no-one here with that disposition. There's no-one here with anything but an eagerness to learn what there is to learn, see what there is to see, and to form friendships as fast and as heartily as they can. Also, fun. There is a spot of that.

I want to write so badly about all of the plans that we have, but I'd rather write about them after they've happened, so I won't do it yet. Instead, I'll report that I have had one session in each of my classes so far, and I couldn't be more excited. I am in a class on Shakespeare in performance, taught by Dr. Paul Hartle, who has been teaching at Cambridge thirty years, and teaching Shakespeare at Cambridge twenty years. He also has the most deliciously extensive Shakespeare DVD collection you could imagine. We're delving into Othello right now, and we've been discussing, among other things, race and casting throughout history, and Dr. Hartle seems, for sheer love of the subject, to have stowed away every actor from Paul Robeson to Laurence Fishburne to a very uncomfortable Anthony Hopkins. His knowledge and enthusiasm are limitless, and the class is an absolute joy.

I am also taking a course on James Joyce's Ulysses, wherein I fear that I may be in over my head, but enthusiasm presses me onward nonetheless. It may prove more educational to me overall, just because of my level of ignorance about Joyce. All in all, I couldn't be happier or more ready to delve into things than I am now.