Odds and Ends (or Fish and Chips, if you prefer)

-  Had my first discussion class today for Development Economics with the venerable Professor Ha-Joon Chang (author of Kicking Away the Ladder and Bad Samaritans…among other books).  It was a good time.  

-  Michelle was doing some online grocery shopping today and noticed that “English muffins” are called (simply) “muffins” over here.  It was a bit alarming how much this pleased both of us.

-  Went to a society kickoff event for the Cambridge University International Development Club last night.  I was expecting a complete train wreck once I noticed that the organizers were mostly 19-year-olds wearing matching sweatshirts.  That the event started about 25 minutes late was another good omen.  Sadly, everything went boringly well.  The guest speaker was a bit of a drag, but even the promotional video that the undergrad team put together wasn’t as corny as I had hoped.  Oh well...I guess that’s what you get sometimes at a good university…competence.  The after party did have live music though, which was…interesting.  The band played an acoustic version of Poker Face…which obviously made up for all my pent-up disappointment and turned my evening around in a big way.

-  Matriculation dinner at the college tomorrow…so we get to dust off the old formal wear.  I’ve heard these are generally quite good, but I’m a little bummed that ours falls on the same night as Ha-Joon Chang’s book signing event at Heffers (yep…one of the bookstore chains here is called Heffers).  Needless to say, it was a very difficult choice on which to attend.

-  Found out today that one of my classmates is co-starring in a university presentation of the hit musical Rent at the local theatre in November.  My first reaction…I am such a lay about.