Matriculation and all that jazz

I matriculated from Yale in style. Thursday began with breakfast in the Hogwartian Hall of Graduate Studies, incidentally my home sweet home. We'd been released from math camp for the day, and so, in the highest of spirits, my political scientist buddies and I - momentarily spared from death by calculus - chomped muffins and guzzled coffee with abandon. Next, a march to Sprague Hall for the set piece ceremony. With blazing fanfare, the Yale nomenklatura processed on stage, modeling technicolor (and slightly kitch) academic dreamcoats. Richard Levin, the President, delivered opening remarks. He left us without a trace of doubt that Yale represents the lofty pinnacle of the great edifice of western scholarship - from Athens to the present day.

Levin introduced the incoming Dean of Grad Studies, Tom Pollard. This is a man of phenomenal accomplishment. The highest honor within the gift of the university is the Sterling Professorship, which Pollard holds. I reckon the title sounds a tad glib - like "Dude, that's some really sterling work there. Honestly, top notch. You did great. You know what, we should call you something. How about, a STERLING professor!" (For the record, John William Sterling's largess helped establish the chairs, but the pun's sweet.)

In a quiet, prepossessing voice, Pollard gave a warm, focused talk on "finding the right question". As a founder of modern cancer research, he'd clearly picked his pretty well. Now, he said, it was our turn to make an impact - and to beware of blind, fruitless alleys. His message: the solemn responsibility of advancing human knowledge devolves upon you!

All in all, some great pep talk, with jolly musical numbers in the middle.

A reception at the president's house supplied a civilized coda to the day's formal matriculation events. I shook hands with the man himself, and his wife. Nice crib, I thought as I milled through their art-encrusted mansion. Free to borrow from the encyclopedic Yale collection (on which more another time), they'd selected Renoir, Gainsborough, Roy Lichtenstein, Matisse, Sisley... you get the picture. Coffee and cake in the lush landscaped garden to finish; string quartet nestling somewhere in the bushes; weather: perfect. I was a happy boy.


[In the photo, by the way, from left to right: Nikhar, Steve, me, Lionel, Beth and Dan. Fellow poliscis and wonderful people.]

Wild Strawberries

As a respite from orientation week, I watched one of my favorite films. Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957) recounts one day in the life of an aged physician: the day he's to receive an honorary doctorate in Lund for his service to medicine. Setting out for the drive to the ceremony with his daughter-in-law, Isak comes to a fresh understanding of the coldness that's seeped into his mood, relationships and mores; a selfishness cloaked in "old-world manners and charm". The long-denied failure of his own marriage he at last confides - as well as a never-lost love for his childhood sweetheart. Snapping out of these sad reflections, Isak pledges to renew himself - to rebuild his family over the few remaining years.

Wild Strawberries is a gentle, intelligent film - a meditation on old age and the regrets that accumulate in its tow. And it got me thinking about what it will be like to be old. There's nothing worse than realizing, too late, the bankruptcy of a life ill-led, ambitions unfulfilled. We all know that. Yet perhaps Isak's shortcomings are more to be feared: how careless habits of thought and action, which everyday mean little, shape our character, and eat away at our capacity to change.

I guess staying alert to this looming danger of inertia is the way to avoid Isak's twilight pangs. Stubbornness grows over time. Maybe, with supreme effort, that's not inevitable. So Bergman believed.

"Know thyself," read the inscription above the entrance to the oracle at Delphi. Easier said than done.

McChrystal, Afghanistan and Jimmy Reid

An introductory meeting with my advisor on Friday threw up one surprise. "Hey Gareth, guess who's moving into the next door office. Stanley McChrystal! Plans to teach a grad seminar on leadership this semester." Yale likes to pull in big names - Tony Blair makes guest appearances for a course titled Faith and Globalization (though not with great aplomb, judging by the Youtube clips). Having the ousted general wandering the corridors of the polisci department, presumably in full combats, will be profitable. The counterinsurgency strategy devised by McChrystal remains the mantra of Petreus, his esteemed replacement. What's more, he's still in touch with Pentagon policy wonks, as the war reaches a critical stage in the ever harsher court of public opinion. Nixon's silent majority - the broad-based support for Vietnam, even amid the clamorous protests of the early '70s - simply isn't in evidence when it comes to Afghanistan.

Like others on this issue, I'm caught between two impulses: win the peace with whatever it takes, or think seriously now about withdrawing. That discounts the option of lingering aimlessly, which represents the present scenario (including the indecision about whether to scale down troop numbers in mid-2011). The justifications for pushing on, whether humanitarian or security-grounded, are powerful. It'd be pretty appalling to see the Taliban waltz back to Kabul to reinstate what rates among the most barbaric regimes of the 1990s. The regional implications of a pull-out in terms of India-Pakistan are worrisome. And it needs to be demonstrated to rogue states that giving bed and breakfast to terrorists won't go unchallenged. Taken together, then, I'd stay the course. Yet clear goals for establishing national and government strength must be set, with checklists, so voters can gauge the effectiveness of a war they're paying for dearly - in lives and treasure. The status quo can't be sustained.

To change the subject, Chris sent me a speech delivered by Jimmy Reid, the Scottish trade unionist who died this month. Here, in an address to the University of Glasgow, he sets out his philosophy for education and politics. This brilliant part, one of many, I thought was spot on:

"I am convinced that the great mass of our people go through life without even a glimmer of what they could have contributed to their fellow human beings. This is a personal tragedy. It's a social crime. The flowering of each individual's personality and talents is the pre-condition for everyone's development."

As lucid a statement as ever there was for what the state, through education, might ultimately accomplish.

Green pastures new

Since one reader described the content of my last installment as 'meta' in scope, my ambitions for this entry are more modest. Really I'm quite elated; I want to express as much. Headline banner: my sister Kathleen got into Leeds University. We're all immensely proud of her. She leaves home for northern pastures new in mid-September. It's going to be a testing time for my parents - the last child gone and a big empty house. But they're quickly adjusting to the idea. Perhaps a little too quickly!

Also today, I concluded that Yale will make a mighty fine home these coming years; that the PhD program will be stimulating beyond compare; and, best of all, I'll be among some outstanding individuals.

The friends I've made so far fall into groups. The main one consists of my sixteen classmates, whom I'm gradually getting to know. They're a deeply impressive bunch, about half American, springing from a range of backgrounds. We're plodding through the math together: a two-hour lecture each morning, coffee-shop banter about the assigned problems late afternoon. This evening four of us wound up in Temple Grill. With balmy, Mediterranean-esque weather [note to self, dislike the word balmy, almost as bad as moist - ewwwwww - avoid in future], we tucked into burgers and supped beer, all the while arguing education policy, development aid, films, homelessness. By 8 o'clock, we'd set the entire world and his dog to rights.

More strangely, I attended a leaving party on Wednesday. Odd, since I'd only bumped into Keturah once! She's off to Rochester to work toward a PhD in cognitive science. Sushi and Froyo were her last requests - and judicious ones they proved too. Anirvan and I were totally stuffed after munching on what seemed to be four million curried cauliflower California rolls. Fortunately, our pudding stomachs - an anatomical reality, there's no question - kicked into gear and bore the brunt of the candy-laden frozen yogurt that followed - 'froyo' being another New Haven delicacy extolled by locals (who may not be wholly trustworthy, claiming full credit - as restaurateurs here do - for the invention of pizza and the hamburger).

Yale possesses the most extraordinary gym known to man. Anirvan is keen to scout out its delights - or, depending which way you look at it, instruments of torture: a 50m indoor pool, ten squash courts, indoor running track, fitness center, basketball, tennis center, etc etc ad infinitum. In a foolish bout of getting-to-know-you repartee, I apparently signed onto a tri-weekly fitness regime that should have me running a pace or two faster than Ussain Bolt before the year's out. Those who've witnessed my previous attempts at such get-fit-quick shenanigans will doubtless be chuckling in derision. Ye of little faith. Well, OK, let's be honest, my record on that front's not exactly stellar. But this time will be different! Be sure to check up on me ;)

Those, then, are my few scraps of news, to amuse and divert you in a spare moment. Altogether less weighty than before, I hope.

To end, I should insert the disclaimer that most of these posts are written very late at night (it's hitting 2am now). That might explain any eccentricities that creep in! Something I like to do before nodding off is listen to music. One especially affecting piece I stumbled upon recently is Bach's Christmas Oratorio. At the still core of this magnificent, otherwise uplifting work lies the aria, Schlafe mein Liebster - Sleep my beloved. If, like me, on a hot summer's night you find yourself restless, absorbed, wanting to be lulled, listen to this. It'll surely do the trick.

Math camp

...has begun. Prior to the first semester, polisci ('political science') grad students are required to take a refresher course in mathematics. For many of us, you could read refresher as 'the only math I've taken since kindergarten. Lagrange multipliers? You gotta be kidding - subtraction's a stretch!' Or that's how it feels anyhow :) The topics happen to be fascinating. I'm constantly thrilled - and more often befuddled - by the beauty of logic and numbers. Which is lucky because we're being taken on a whistle-stop tour these next two weeks. It's like an all-you-can-eat restaurant: except, all-you-can-cram. The aim is to get everyone to a similar base level. Digestion can wait until the proper stats and modeling courses begin in September.

I whiled away the weekend in New York City. A Saturday-afternoon outdoor rave at a MoMA outpost in Queens, replete with beach, bar, contemporary art, and a surpassingly attractive clientele; my jaw hung in gobsmacked awe. Ignoring a slight glitch on the train back to New Haven, my adolescent dream - that the Big Apple might one day become a second home - wasn't shattered. The city's definitely close enough for a fun-filled evening stopover.

Since arriving, I've tracked the main American news religiously. I pick the word with care, for two crucial ongoing debates do hinge on questions divine rather than secular. One is the furore surrounding California's Proposition 8 - the law, enacted by referendum, which struck down gay marriage in the Golden State last year. P8 has just been declared unconstitutional by a federal judge. Supporters are girding themselves for a Supreme Court tussle whose outcome would seal the fate of gay marriage across America. There's a twist: Arnie Schwarzenegger, Governor and guardian of his state's laws (if not its economy), doesn't even want to appeal Vaughn Walker's tightly-reasoned, and maybe irrefutable, judgment. Under rules of standing, this could affect whether the nine justices decide to hear the case at all. Whatever happens, polling shows a heartening shift in public attitudes. A majority of Californians now support full marriage rights - a sign of popular penitence. Most think this great struggle for due process and equal protection under the law, in the eloquent language of the courts, is close to being won.

Which is sadly more than can be said for the planned construction of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero. (Actually a full two blocks away.) Despite Obama's iftar speech approving the go-ahead, eighty-something percent of Americans say they're opposed. Much commentary spewing from the right has been hateful, crass, border-line racist - up to and including that of the House Minority Leader, Newt Gingrich. If you want to know what a mob sounds like, take a listen. Thankfully, NY Mayor Mike Bloomberg is committed to the project and the noble ideal it embodies. But the forces arrayed against him are daunting. Their ranks may yet prevail.

And so the world is awash with contradictions. A group, once marginalized, painted as a threat to national identity and a decent way of life, is embraced into the mainstream waters of this totemic democracy. Gay rights look soon to be secured. At the same moment, Muslims, the new great threat, are more vilified than before - less able to practice their religion openly.

It would be very wrong to suggest the United States is exceptional in these respects. Relative to any other country, America is special only in how free individuals remain to do as they please. Yet politics here accentuate group trends, highlighting extremes of class, ethnicity and creed. For a budding political scientist, I guess that's what makes the US so compelling.

Time for me to wrap up and snuggle up. Good night from America. The place and the people grow in my estimation, which was already high, every day. And right now there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Math class at 10am sharp!

Slowly slowly

For me, the hardest part about moving to a new town is not knowing where to buy the basics - without, that is, having to pay in limbs. For reasons of survival, food is a top priority. The canteen doesn't resume here for another week, so I've been reduced to eating an *awful lot* of sandwiches. One lady took pity on me last night and upgraded my sorry-looking BLT to a deluxe (a brazen abuse of the word, as it turned out). Surely I can't look so emaciated after two days as to be labeled the New Haven basket case!

Today I set out on the winding road to the Dixwell shopping mall to pick up t-shirts. People dress more casually around campus stateside; wearing dress shirts each day isn't the done thing. Although what *is* the done thing - donning clothes with YALE emblazoned on every single item, and you should probably accept that as literal - doesn't really appeal either. I'm opting for the middle ground.

In other news, I've figured out how to use my coffee machine, following a protracted battle. Met up with several great classmates to-be yesterday, and seeing another bunch of newbies later on. Exciting times! The octane levels are expected to rise further as more grads land on Connecticut's sunny shores.

For the meanwhile, can someone please point me to the laundry :P

My grandmother

Enid Rosamond Jones was my maternal grandmother. She died in February 1987. A gifted yet troubled woman, Enid won a joint Fulbright and English Speaking Union Scholarship in 1952 for study in the United States. She attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts - one of the 'Seven Sister' colleges, then considered the women's ivy league. Aged 21 and hailing from mining stock, she had never before left Wales.

We had the opportunity on Monday to visit Smith's library. Two incredibly kind archivists rummaged through the major publications for that year and hit upon some real gems. Enid's picture, taken from the 1953 yearbook, is shown above. Their other discovery was a short write-up in the student newspaper, The Smith College Sophian, on the front page of the October '52 edition:

'The first Welsh student ever to come to Smith is Miss Enid Jones, G.S. [Graduate Student], who is from South Wales near Cardiff. She passed her law degree at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth in West Wales. Miss Jones will write her thesis on comparative administration law under Mr. Chapman. In another year she will be able to take the Bar exam back in England. Miss Jones thinks that the house system is "a jolly good idea" and that the singing at Smith is very good. She assured us that as much singing goes on in Wales as at Smith.'

On completing her course - not with any great distinction on account of the rollicking fun she had! - Enid embarked on a speaking tour of the United States, a condition of her ESU grant. She returned to Britain physically exhausted. Though never going on to become a barrister, she taught law at Hendon Technical Institute (present-day Middlesex University) before multiple sclerosis, diagnosed when she was just 30 years old, put paid to her fledgling career. A remission from the disease provided the chance to raise a family. But for the final ten years of this all-too-brief life, my grandmother, wheelchair-bound, suffered painfully.

The tragic unfolding of later events set into sharper relief for us the joy Enid so easily found in America. She often wished she'd stayed here; South Wales appeared unbearably glum and parochial by comparison.

While I didn't know her, it touches me to think that some of Enid's best and happiest years were spent only a couple of hours away from where I too now live.

Divine Providence

Ties of affection and loyalty to my new alma mater bubbled to the surface yesterday. We'd made the short trip from Newport to Providence, the capital of Rhode Island noted for Brown University. Two excessively enthusiastic tour guides fell within earshot as we entered Brown's reddy leafy campus (rather Harvard-like). Surrounded by earnest teenagers and fawning parents, the speakers looked more than a little flustered as their every word was analyzed furiously by these anxious-looking guests. In fact everyone was on edge. It was college open day.

We stuck around to listen to the spiel. But next to us, one parent was heard by your correspondent to mutter to his wife: 'Well, this sure does beat New Haven'. Punk, thought I, feeling a sudden yet overwhelming urge to break into 'Bright college days' with its rousing finale: 'For God, for country, and FOR YALE'. I held back.

While Providence isn't brimming with things to see, the College Hill/Brown district is exceptionally pretty, and the State Capitol area downtown imposing in that municipal kind of way. The laid-back feel of the place and its cleanliness are what struck me most. And a brilliant exhibit on Roger Williams - the Cambridge-educated man who established Rhode Island having fled religious bigotry in the Massachusetts settlements - left a very favourable impression. (I'm really growing to love these local history museums.)

Warmly recommended.

My toodle around New England takes us to South Deerfield MA today, and Boston tomorrow.

Love to all back home. I miss you very much.

Of lobsters, yachts and sunsets

Newport, for those who don't know it, is the East Coast stomping ground for the super-rich. The prime attractions in this town - sailing, yachting, and mansions - might give a hint of that. For the not quite so prosperous, the Nellises among them, watching boats a la Deripaska float gently by in shoal-like formations is a very pleasant pastime. At least for a few days. With lobster every which way you turn - plain old lobster, lobster salad, lobster sandwiches, lobster bisque, lobster ice cream - the food ain't so bad either.

One episode at our hotel last night ranks among the stranger vacation experiences I've had: a champagne toast to - wait for it - the sunset. Yuk, I hear you vomit.

Many of the historic sights in Newport are quite lovely. It's home to the USA's oldest synagogue - a reminder of the religious tolerance which motivated Newport's founders. Slavery played a not insignificant part in the town's development, and the country's first free black church can be found in the colonial centre. Jackie and JFK were married nearby.

An excellent guided tour by the Newport Historical Society - not as beard, socks and sandals as it sounds - will tell you all this and more, should you ever decide to drop in.

We go to Providence tomorrow. Boston next. Along the way we also hope to visit Smith College in Northampton where my grandmother spent a year as an English Speaking Union Scholar in early 1950s. Apparently her records are still accessible in the College library. She died the year I was born of MS. It will, I think, be very moving for the three of us.

Turning a house into a home

It's true what they say: portions are bigger in America.

The flight was pants (I'm going to retain a few anglicisms for the time being). Having been served Chicken Tikka for breakfast, I made it through half of the Dark Knight and about two thirds of Dr No - my attempt at an escapist binge. Graphic violence and spicy Indian food at 40,000 feet don't mix - I think I blacked out for the middle portion of the journey. Soggy sandwiches accompanied by *no alcohol* - not a drop - defined the remainder. Is prohibitionism on the rise over the mid-Atlantic? Miserable. I'm surprised that British Airways lost only £164 million in the last quarter!

We rode direct from JFK to New Haven. The horses weren't spared. We pulled up alongside the Hall of Graduate Studies around 3pm, grabbed room keys and unloaded. The dorms are strange. A 'semi-private bathroom' set-up means two rooms with a bathroom in the middle, connecting doors on both sides of the shower. In principle there's really nothing to stop someone walking in on you butt naked and on the crapper. I guess that's how the firmest bonds of friendship are forged.

A tad dejected by my new abode (it was grimy when we arrived), I trundled to my parents' hotel.

But then...

We saw Yale. And stunning it is. The Beinecke Library, Harkness Tower, Hillhouse Avenue - Oxbridge meets Disney. There seems to be a penchant, verging on fetish, here for cathedrals which aren't actually cathedrals. They just can't get enough of them. The Sterling Memorial Library: a cathedral. Yale Law School: a small cathedral. Payne Whitney Gymnasium: erm, a cathedral (and one modeled on Liverpool Anglican of all places). How my old joke about turning King's Chapel into a block of flats has come home to roost!

Come Monday evening I'd made my first friend. Stuart, of Ramsgate, has just arrived from Cornell to start his second, yes second, PhD. With plenty in common, we knocked back a few in an Irish bar then hit a watering hole off the Green (mugging central, he tells me). Tequila shots to finish. As a barrister I heard in Southwark Crown Court (only observing!) last week put it, with rank disapproval, there were some sore heads in the morning. My first night in the New World was one to remember :S

Yesterday was spent fixing up the room. Walmart served its all-encompassing purpose admirably; Britons take heed: that shop *will* consume the planet. Also, I am the now proud owner of a Blackberry. With a new phone, I am born again. Text me numbers! Mine's on Facebook.

This ends, devoted reader, my first update from the State of Connecticut. Not exactly an Alistair Cooke missive I'm afraid, but give me time. I'll improve my game.

Forgive me too for not emailing much yet. With family around I've had only sporadic access to a computer. That will change soon.

Next stop, Rhode Island!