Mary Poppins medicine is real

Well...not exactly. It doesn't come out of a bottle, and it doesn't change flavors, but it DOES taste good.

The reason I discovered this is because I seem to have picked up a rather unpleasant cold somewhere. I haven't figured out yet whether this is the two-week cold that some people have gotten, or whether it's something different - but whatever it is, it can't seem to make up its mind. First it was a fever and sore throat, then the next day it was a stuffy nose, and now today it's a horribly runny nose and lots of sneezing. This has resulted (so far) in two pharmacy runs, to get different kinds of medicine.

Some things are similar over here, but others are different. For instance, they have Sudafed - but it's right out on the shelf, not a cardboard thing that you have to take up to the counter. Apart from that, all the brand names are completely different - and so are the flavors. Blackcurrant, lemon, or lemon and honey seem to be the popular ones here. Cough drops are much bigger, and taste worse - the ones I got were about the diameter of a quarter, and twice as thick - but they're VERY effective.

And they have something called LemSip, which is a cold medicine that comes as a powder and dissolves in hot water. (I was miserly and bought the generic version, not that it made a huge difference.) I was expecting it to taste pretty awful, but to my surprise, it's pretty much indistinguishable from hot lemonade. Mind you, I've never had hot lemonade, but I think this is what it would taste like if you heated it...

I love British humor...

For a little while now I've been seeing these bus ads around Oxford:
"There's probably no Dawkins. So stop worrying and enjoy Oct. 25th at the Sheldonian. www.premier.org.uk/craig"

I finally got a chance to read the small print on one of those ads, and realized what it was talking about: William Lane Craig is coming to Oxford to give a lecture on the fallacies in The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins's best-selling book. A little research online turned up the full story behind the ad.

Apparently, Craig offered Dawkins the chance to make a debate of the event, but Dawkins declined. Repeatedly. Even after being encouraged to debate Craig by several other people including a philosopher (and atheist) at Oxford, and after being made familiar with Craig's credentials (two PhD's, in philosophy and theology, and a reputation as one of the foremost modern Christian apologists). The tour website says that the invitation is still open for Dawkins if he should decide to make an appearance - and that if he doesn't, an empty chair will be left standing on the stage for him.

What is most delightful about the bus ad, though, is that it's a parody of a atheist bus ad from 2009: "There's probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life." The ad would have been cheeky enough on its own, but the story behind it is so much more entertaining...

Another interesting point that I came across: Dr. Daniel Came, the Oxford don who encouraged Dawkins to participate made a comment at the end of his letter about the ontological argument for God's existence, which Dawkins mocks in The God Delusion. I read The God Delusion as one of the three books we were assigned for the lecture series and wrote a critique of it, and Dawkins's response to the ontological argument seemed quite weak to me. Dr. Came puts it much better than I could, though, when he says,

"On the basis of your brief discussion of the argument in The God Delusion, it appears you do not understand the logic of this argument. The ontological argument moves from the logical possibility of God’s existence to its actuality. Douglas Gasking’s parody of the argument, which you cite, moves from a logical impossibility to actuality and so is not parallel to the argument. In addition, you do not discuss the more sophisticated modal version of the argument advanced by the American philosopher of religion, Alvin Plantinga. Admittedly, you do say that some philosophers ‘resort to modal logic’ in an attempt to prove the existence of God. But this is a bit like saying ‘some botanists resort to looking at plants’ and so can hardly be said to constitute an objection to the argument." (emphasis added)

(For the full story and the rest of the letter, you can go to http://www.bethinking.org/what-is-apologetics/introductory/dawkins-refuses-god-debate-with-william-lane-craig.htm.)

I am struck by the difference between Dr. Came's attitude (again, as an atheist) and Dawkins's. While Dawkins seems to feel the need to ridicule or make light of opposing viewpoints, and often presents them in the most unfavorable possible light, Came is willing to evaluate an argument honestly, on the basis of its strongest formulation. Unfortunately, the honest and reasonable approach doesn't seem to get much publicity these days.

Freshers Week

Freshers Week at Oxford is the week just before the beginning of the actual term, with lots of activities for all the first-year students who have just arrived. Even though none of the students in our program are first-year students, the program office took advantage of this extra time for several orientation activities, as well as giving us the chance to participate in some of the events.

I met with my academic advisor and one of my tutors on Monday. Both meetings were fairly short and not too eventful, although I did get the reading list for my first tutorial that day as well. The essay isn't due until next week, though, so I have quite a bit of extra time to work on that assignment. On Tuesday, we had our Bodleian Library orientation and got our cards, which are useful for a lot of things besides just getting into the library. (It's a lot like the Library of Congress, where you have to show your card to get in - you can't check out books. The Bodleian is one of three copyright libraries in the UK, which means they get a copy of every book published.) The Bodleian doesn't just have A classics reading room - they have THREE of them. One is all Greek literature...one is almost all Latin literature...and I think the third one was print copies of journals.

On Wednesday we had a tour of the library at New College as well as some of the other areas of the college: the Junior Common Room, the chapel, and the gardens. The New College library also has a classics reading room of its own, and unlike the Bodleian, they let you check books out. I've already taken advantage of that to get one of the books for my first tutorial, although to get access to some of the other books I'll need to go to the Bodleian.

On Thursday, the big event was Fresher's Fair, which is where all the student organizations at the university come and set up a booth and try to reel you in. Even though Oxford is a much smaller university than Mason, I could swear they have three or four times the number of student organizations. It was almost all set up inside the Exam Schools building, which is where a lot of the lectures are held during term, as well as (surprise!) exams. They routed you from one room to another - I think there were seven or eight rooms in all.

I've picked a couple of things to try out - we'll see how they go. One is the Oxford University Fencing Club - fencing is one of those things that has always seemed cool to me, but I've never bothered to try. Well, now I'm going to try it. Hopefully I won't be too awful...I went to their "taster" session on Sunday afternoon, and it seemed like fun.

The other one is a student-run choir at New College. (No, not the famous one - you have to apply to that one as a freshman, you have to be a guy from what I can tell, and it's insanely competitive. This one is a non-auditioning choir called the Wykeham Singers, named after the college's founder.) The first rehearsal was Monday evening, and was a bit harder than I expected - I can sightread music on the piano just fine, but I'm not nearly so good at it when it comes to vocal music. Thankfully there are a bunch of altos (no way I was going to hit the high notes in the soprano parts), so I was able to sort of follow, and they let us take the music home with us.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with my second tutor. My two tutorials are on Seneca the Younger and Virgil & Horace - my fourth choice and my first choice. I didn't get the tutorial I was hoping for in Greek, but at least I got one in prose and one in poetry. I think the term is going to be very interesting, all in all.

Catching up

I've been meaning to post for quite a while, but Fresher's Week has been a constant process of finishing things up only to realize that there's one more after all. Looking back, I can see that I haven't posted since I left Vienna - over a week ago.

Paris was a lot of things, including very hot. The Paris metro also is kind of on the sketchy side - and I'm talking about busy stations near major tourist attractions, like the Louvre. Most of them smell odd, although no two of them seemed to smell the same, and they all looked pretty filthy. The trains themselves seem to predate the invention of air conditioning, or even proper ventilation for that matter. The windows that open are on the sides of the car, high up, and don't seem to do any good at all. I made the mistake of getting on the metro during rush hour once. After that I timed things more carefully - it's not an experience I cared to repeat.

By this point in the week, I was getting pretty tired of all the traveling. It's fun for a little while, but too much of it just gets to be overwhelming. Of course, the fact that it's Paris didn't really help with the overwhelming side of things - the sheer number of people would be a lot to deal with all on its own.

Still, I was hardly going to pass up the opportunity to see the Louvre. I spent about four hours there the day I arrived, mostly in the antiquities section. For the first time in my life, I think I've found a museum that's too much even for me... :) Room after room of statues and pottery and coins and artifacts and...the list could go on almost indefinitely. I saw the Venus de Milo, and I have to say I'm not sure what all the fuss is about over that one - it looks a lot like any other moderately weathered classical sculpture. But, for whatever reason, that particular statue is highly admired...so I made a brief stop to see it.

I also went by the room where the Mona Lisa is exhibited, of course. It was interesting to see it in person, although not all that easy. They have barricades keeping everyone ten feet away from it, set up in a funnel shape so that people can gather and then push forwards and leave to either side. I realized that the way to get the most time in front of it was to come up one side, edge along the front, and then leave through the other side. Worked pretty well. It's really true what they say about her gaze appearing to follow you as you move, too - very creepy.

I went to the Musee d'Orsay the next day, but there wasn't as much to see there as I had thought there would be. The Musee d'Orsay has a substantial collection of Impressionist paintings, including a lot of ones that used to hang in the Louvre, but they're undergoing renovation until the end of the year and the Impressionist collections were all closed. They did have a lovely Van Gogh exhibit open, though, which I enjoyed.

I stopped by the Eiffel Tower that evening just to look at it from the ground. There were massive lines to go up (although the line for the stairs was pretty short, understandably), and I just didn't feel up to the effort of standing in line for so long. So I contented myself with taking pictures of it from the ground.

On Sunday, I took the train back to London, where I went to church at St. Paul's. (I just like being able to say that.) Afterwards, I made my way to the Globe Theatre at a very leisurely pace and sat on the riverbank for a few hours, until it was time for the play.

I have to say, the seating at the Globe is a big improvement over the Yard. The website says that you don't have a good view of all of the action, because the pillars will get in the way, but that's only true from some perspectives - I had a fantastic view from where I was sitting. The play I went to see was Dr. Faustus, by Marlowe. It was really intense (not unexpected) and very well done.

That's about it for travel week. I'll see about getting photos up later, and also a post about Fresher's Week.