ХРЮ!

...And the filling in your first advent calendar chocolate is... vodka and cranberry!..

Гуглила сестру. Из 200 картинок на 10 изображена она, на 14 - Путин. Среди остальных действующих лиц Медведев, Абрамович и Ричард Гир. Остальных я тупо не распознала. 

Моё же имя выдаёт фотогалерею матинститута да серию девушек с сайтов знакомств.

To hell with X5 - cycling is the way forward! Takes just twice as long, but is infinitely more enjoyable. And I am actually being serious - it was one of the best cycle rides we've had. The weather was perfect (for cycling, that it!), the route was mainly flat, the scenery was beautiful and there was almost no traffic. On top of all this we had an absolutely fantastic time in The Other Place itself - punting, walking aroung colleges, learning about local myths (and bumping into Stephen Hawking as an extra bonus)... Was very hard to go back to reality on Monday morning! Thanks so-o-o-o-o much to Olya & Misha for their company and wonderful hospitality! 

(Actually we did take X5 back - apparently they take bikes now. And they have upgraded their buses, so the journey was way more pleasant than it used to be. Still extremely boring, but at least with no funny smells!)

 

(more pictures here)

It turned out yesterday that (1) I have 300 pounds' worth of teaching allowance (2) I need to spend most of it by the end of July. Apparently anything related to teaching or research will do, including IT equipment, but I thought I'd concentrate on books and fun maths toys. So, does anybody have any suggestions which fun/ useful stuff I could buy? Ideally it should actually be related to the pure maths papers I teach. Or, if the worst comes to worst, statistics. Thank you :)

Turns out that I have an Erdos number of 5. Ironically, this is not due to my contribution to mathematics, but because of our paper on MRSA incidence, where I am author number 6.

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Imagine: it's Friday of week 8, 10.30pm. A tutor bumps into two finalists who are walking down the city centre. And where do you think they are walking from? An art exhibition! The tutor, on the other hand, had just been out drinking at yet another schools dinner. O tempora o mores. 

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В разговоре оказалось, что не пригласили меня на выпускной ужин в Хильду, потому что выпускной никто не организовал. Вот серьёзно, первый раз о таком слышу. С одной стороны деток жалко, с другой стороны в очередной раз подумалось что правильно я сделала что ушла. Грустно на самом деле. Грустно, что после девяти лет мы расстались на такой ноте, и что кроме студентов (и нескольких замечательных друзей конечно) нет никаких приятных ассоциаций. Ведь даже диплом вручали в другом месте, и причём устроили такой приём, который от родного колледжа я бы в жизни не получила. 

Having accidentally discovered how much saturates my favourite dairy products contain (seriouly, have you seen this?? and this wasn't even extra thick double cream!), I realised something needs to be changed. So, from now on I refuse to read food labels.

-- Сева, ты хочешь пойти к нам в колледж на парти?
-- Нах, там будет скучно.
-- ?!?!?! Что за лексика?!?!?!
-- Я имел в виду nah. Ты же просила русскими буквами писать.

... it takes you a while to realise that the expression "a function space in central Oxford" actually makes sense. And has nothing to do with C(K).

... your husband calls you geeky because you use GPS to find out which bus stop to get off. Instead of asking the driver.

Train, followed by two planes with one-hour break in between. And what do you think was the only part of the journey that went wrong? The bus from Heathrow to Oxford! Due to a fire, they cancelled their service to the central coach station for two hours and didn't tell anyone. Typical?..

On the bright side, the wait resulted in a very long and orderly queue any true Englishman would have been proud of :)

On a separate note, seems like our era of perfect neighbours might be coming to an end. We just found out that the next door house, where a lovely elderly half-deaf lady used to live, has been sold.