Sir Richard Dearlove

I am currently taking a course on the history of U.S. and British intelligence. Last night Sir Richard Dearlove came to speak to us. He was the head of MI6 (Britain's external intelligence agency) during the 9/11 attacks. He talked to us about the future of the intelligence community and answered some questions. He told us about the flight he took on Sept 12, 2001 to the United States. Their plane was the only one allowed into American airspace that day, and they took off before they even had clearance to land. It was incredible to hear someone of his knowledge and experience talk to us about these things. He even said that there is undeniable evidence that Saddam Hussein attempted to buy yellowcake (a uranium concentrate key in the process of building nuclear weapons) from the Egyptians, that it would be unreasonable not to use intelligence even if it was gained by torture, and that he had been misquoted when the media said he had said that the U.S. was basing its intelligence around its policies. Just another amazing experience that happens on a regular basis here in Cambridge.

A visit to the "other" university

This last week was much more relaxing than the previous few. The first one that I have not had atleast one paper due (don't worry I have three due in the next week). I was able to spend more time participating in activities like croquet, basketball, punting, and sightseeing around Cambridge. On Thursday we went to the Wren library, named after the designed by Christopher Wren, that is located at Trinity College (where the race scene in Chariots of Fire takes place). On display there they have a Bible from the 8th century, Isaac Newton's personal copy of the first edition of Principia Matematica with his own notes and corrections in it, and A.A. Milne's first edition copy of Winnie the Pooh.

On Friday we woke up really early to catch a bus to go to Oxford. We found bus tickets for one pound each, the only catch was that we had to leave at 5:30 in the morning. Oxford is a very cool city, much different than Cambridge. It is much bigger and busier, with lots of busses and traffic zooming all over whereas Cambridge has much more of a small town feel to it. We saw several of the colleges, and many of the spots where they film the Harry Potter movies. Also went to the college where C.S. Lewis taught, and had dinner at the Eagle and Child where the Inklings used to meet. The Inklings were a group that included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis would meet to discuss the books they were writing and other things. We actually got to sit at the very table where they would meet, and on the wall they had pictures of them and a framed piece of paper where they had all signed their names.

I went with a few other BYU students, two of which knew a former BYU student who is a faculty member there now. She took us on a tour and was able to get us into a few places for free, like the tower of St. Mary's Cathedral that had an amazing view of the city. At the end of the tour we went to the Oxford Museum of Natural History where they have the last remaining soft tissue from a dodo bird, a dodo bird skeleton, some dinosaur skeletons, and shrunken heads from south america that were used in one of the harry potter movies.

I spent most of Saturday studying. I also found out that my camera arrive, but it is being held hostage by Cambridge customs until i pay them 70 dollars, so I am going tomorrow to see what i can do about that. Luckily one of the other girls in the program has an extra camera, so I have been using it for the last few days, the only thing is she does not have a computer cord for it so I still can't upload any pictures.

Yesterday I taught primary again, it was just me and two five year olds. I taught for the first five minutes and then we ended up drawing pictures on the blackboard for the next half hour. After church we went to the American Military Cemetery that is here in Cambridge. There were dozens of American air bases in the Cambridge-shire area, and many are buried there along with a memorial to all the air men that were lost fighting over the english channel and Europe.

After which we had a testimony meeting in the Kings Chapel.

That's all for now, I will start uploading pictures this week for sure so expect more frequent posts of mainly just pictures.

Cramming one semester into a week.

This last Winter semester at BYU I wrote five research papers, I have written that many this last week and a half on top of studying for a final exam. So that has pretty much consumed my life for the last week. It has been an awesome learning experience though. I am becoming much more efficient in my research and writing abilities. My supervision is going extremely well. I am a completely different writer now than I was two weeks ago. Professor Steinberg is honestly the nicest man I have ever met. He has this uncanny ability to tell your paper is horrible while making you feel great about yourself at the same time. For an hour we went over every line of the paper I submitted to him, and he pointed out everything I did well, and everything I did wrong.

It is unreal the amount of world class personal attention that I am getting here. For everyone of these five papers I have submitted I get one on one feedback from my professors. That is more than I have gotten in the last three years at BYU. I know for a fact that I will progress more as a writer here than I have in the last three years at BYU.

To give you an idea what I am writing about my last five papers have been on whether or not Spanish Carlists were fascist, why the US and Britain did not go to war again after 1815, advantages of constructing chronologies when doing research, why Francisco Franco rose to power instead of one of the more charismatic Spanish generals, and if manifest destiny was just America's version of British Imperialism. Not all of them sound really that interesting I know, but I have really enjoyed learning more about them. What I enjoy most about it is the challenge of finding the evidence to prove my thesis correct.

After my final exam on friday (the term is still not over some of the classes are only 4 weeks and others are 8) I took a much needed nap and then a big group of us went out clubbing. It was my first experience in a European night club, and it was actually a lot of fun. Then yesterday afternoon I went out with some guys to a pub to watch New Zealand play South Africa in rugby.

This morning I went to church and helped teach a primary class. Wiping noses, taking kids to the bathrooms, convincing them to come out from under tables to join the lesson, and keeping kids from escaping was a drastic contrast than what I have been used to after attending singles wards for the last few years.

After church I went to dinner at one of my professors houses. Dinner was really good, and afterwards we watched a documentary. I was happy to hear from him that I had received top marks on both my term paper and final exam. It has been great really getting to know him, his name is Dr Peter Martland and he is one of the top intelligence historians in the world. He is only one of two men in the world that does not work for the British Government to have been granted access to the secret MI5 archives.

After dinner the Cambridge Ward historian came and talked to us about the history of the church here in Cambridge. He had lots of interesting stories, but what was supposed to be a 45 min lecture turned into an hour and a half. One thing that I left excited about is that he told us the Cambridge University Library has a copy of the first Book of Mormon printed in Europe in 1841 that you can actually check out, along with all the original Millenium Stars. I am going to go tomorrow and check them out, hopefully I will have my camera back by then so I can take some pictures.

I am excited for these next few weeks. I will have more time to explore the city and see more of all the cool museums, libraries, and colleges. Most importantly I should have a camera, so I promise more fun, non-academic, picture filled posts.

First Weekend in Cambridge

This last week I sent my camera home to be repaired since they could not do it under warrantee here, but my mom sent me her old one so I will be able to post more pictures soon. Also this upcoming week I have three papers and an exam, so there won't be much time for picture taking anyways. After that my schedule is a lot easier so I will be sure to explore Cambridge more then with my camera. This last week went really well. I got an A on my first paper which made me happy. I also had a really good meeting with my supervisor. I was excited to find out that I have my last class on the 14th, so the culminate my study of the Spanish Civil War I am going to fly to Malaga and make my way to Barcelona visiting important historical sights along the way.

Also this last week we went and saw Harry Potter. It was a lot of fun because they pretty much rented out the entire theater for all of the kids in the programme (yea that's how they spell it over here). The movie was good, my favorite part was the beginning scene where the death eaters cause all the havoc in downtown London, this was because I had been to all of the places they showed only a few days prior. This weekend was relaxing. First time in over a month I have had a couple days in a row not having to be going to class or traveling somewhere (rough life I know). I played ultimate frisbee one night, I guess they don't see that too often around here because we got some strange looks from people walking by. Also we had a discussion group on the other night which was really interesting.

My time here started to make me think about becoming a professor, this weekend I attended a conference where some of the leading minds in the world were there presenting. I fell asleep through the entire thing because I did not understand a word they were saying. Granted intellectual history isn't really my thing, I still let convinced that I am meant to be a lawyer, not a professional academic.

Sunday I attended the Cambridge family ward, I have been asked to help out with the young men. This entails sitting in their quorum meetings and playing soccer with them at mutual, it is going to be a lot of fun.

Every Sunday night they do a pub quiz. They split us all into teams and ask general knowledge questions, granted general knowledge questions thought up by Cambridge graduate students are a little harder than your average trivia questions. My team won though, primarily thanks to the grad students on our team; however, I did contribute by knowing that Steve Harris is a member of Iron Maiden and that Socrates said, "A life not examined is not worth living." First time I have put something I learned in Poli Sci 201 to use.

I will try and post again this week, but no promises. After this week though I will have much more time and I promise to come through with some more interesting and entertaining blog posts than this one.

Puro Chile Tu Cielo Azulado!

Two years ago today I returned from my mission in Santiago Chile. Viva Chile!

Your Eurobasedson Part II

In my last few weeks here in England I have developed an attachment to a few different kinds of food and drink that I had not tried before.

Cadbury dark chocolate, so good i have started buying it in bulk to save money.

Apple Soda


Fish and chips with mushy peas

Most of all lamb, I had never eaten it before coming here but they serve some type of lamb almost everyday in the cafeteria here and it is really good.

London for the weekend.

I decided to try and blog more frequently because so much happens everyday here it is easy to get behind. Friday I had my first paper due. I was in the library until about 2 in the morning and then went to bed for a few hours and was back there at 6. I really wish the library at BYU was open 24 hours a day! Then Friday night I played soccer with the King's choir and went out for drinks with them after, don't worry I just had a coke. It was a lot of fun getting to know them and to actually interact with British students since all of us in the program here are American. Friday I also went on a walking tour where they showed where all the famous writers lived around Cambridge. I live just around the corner from where Shakespeare first put on the first performance of Macbeth, where A.A. Milne started writing Winnie the Pooh, the mill pond where Chaucer would go for inspiration while writing the Canterbury Tales, and countless others.

Yesterday we were in London. We did a walking tour and saw the sights. After which we went to the British National Museum where we saw so many amazing things like the Rosetta Stone, the Flood tablet, and the sculptures from the Parthenon. I was so tired though, every room we went into we would all just sit down and rest awhile. After that we went to a restaurant near the globe theater and got some really good ramen. We then went and saw A Mid Summer's Night Dream in the Globe. It is honestly the first time I can say that I have enjoyed Shakespeare. The actors were great and kept the audience very involved. The setting was in the 1920's but it was the original script otherwise. Puck was this scantily clad women who would come out into the audience, she grabbed a few BYU guys and gave them quite a thrill. We were in the standing section in the middle and its started to rain on us a little a few differen times during the play but it held off.

Today we went to church at the Cambridge Ward. Elder Johnson of the 70 was there visiting his son who is the bishop of the ward, he also gave a fireside tonight which was awesome. Well im off to bed and have a long week with lots of work to do ahead of me!

Soccer with the King's Choir

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey
The London Eye

Taking a nap at the British National Museum