Yes, it’s now a proven fact: One’s brain can burst.
Mine did just that last week at the University of Cambridge.
As it happened, I had a couple of weeks to kill between House Swap #2 (in Cornwall) and House Swap #3 (in Shropshire). Essentially I was going to be a homeless person until I could reasonably show up at my exchange house in Shrewsbury. What shall I do, where shall I go?? I had British friends I wanted to see in Newbury, Norfolk and Nottingham, but I couldn’t very well pile in on them for the whole time.
Rather than looking at this gap as a problem, I decided to head back to Cambridge, where I had so happily attended a weekend seminar two years ago. The timing of the Institute for Continuing Education’s International Summer History Programme was perfect. After hocking a kidney to pay the tuition, I signed up.
This time I stayed on the actual Cambridge campus. We Cambridge students don’t say we stay in dorms: It’s referred to as staying “in college.” Specifically, my “student accommodation” was at Selwyn College, where I slept and took my meals in the dining hall.
Typical of all 30-odd colleges comprising the University of Cambridge, Selwyn College is a group of stately, vine-covered brick buildings forming grassy square called a quad on which no one steps. Ever. Except the fairies, who must perform their maintenance duties in the dead of night because the grass is kept perfect at all times – nary a weed or blade out of place.
Behind the quad is an idyllic garden and a path leading to a cluster of classroom buildings that serve students enrolled at Selwyn and several other nearby colleges.
The week I was there, about 100 people from virtually every corner of the world were enrolled in the history institute – some for credit, some (like me) for enrichment and for the fun of learning. We were young and old, from what seemed like every background imaginable, as culturally and racially diverse a group as I’ve ever been a part of.
As soon as I met somebody new from a foreign country, the first thing out of their mouth was something like this: “Donald Trump is the scariest person who has ever lived! Tell me that Trump doesn’t have a chance of winning! What ARE you thinking about over there, letting him run for President? It’s a joke, right?” Or words to that effect. I’m telling you, the dude has serious credibility issues with people from Australia to Zimbabwe. They’re terrified of such a loose cannon having his hand on the trigger of the deadliest arsenal the world has ever known.
I totally understand their anxiety.
As a lifelong Democrat and proud Hillary supporter, I tried to allay their fears, but it wasn’t always easy, especially with Donald the Demagogue spewing his message of hatred and bigotry at the Republican convention during that same time.
But back to my fabulous week at Cambridge. I had anticipated two lectures a day. In fact, I had FOUR, which meant I went from 9:15 a.m. to 9:15 p.m., with only a couple of hours down time in the afternoon – barely time to rest my aging, overloaded brain. I don’t know about you, but at this stage in my life, if something goes INTO my head, something else has to come OUT. As it was, with the extraordinary scholars I was hearing all day and night, my little gray cells were being scrambled all which-way!
I’ve never thought of myself as the brightest bulb in the hall, but I’m not the dimmest, either. I can hold my own – barely – in most intellectual settings. I read books. I can usually keep up. Dumb, I’m not.
But this week, ladies and gentlemen, was a righteous challenge! All I can say is that it was a damned good thing I wasn’t doing it for a grade. No papers to write, no exams to take: Whew!
A sample of the lectures I got to hear, all presented by Cambridge faculty members who were experts in their field:
Mine did just that last week at the University of Cambridge.
As it happened, I had a couple of weeks to kill between House Swap #2 (in Cornwall) and House Swap #3 (in Shropshire). Essentially I was going to be a homeless person until I could reasonably show up at my exchange house in Shrewsbury. What shall I do, where shall I go?? I had British friends I wanted to see in Newbury, Norfolk and Nottingham, but I couldn’t very well pile in on them for the whole time.
Rather than looking at this gap as a problem, I decided to head back to Cambridge, where I had so happily attended a weekend seminar two years ago. The timing of the Institute for Continuing Education’s International Summer History Programme was perfect. After hocking a kidney to pay the tuition, I signed up.
This time I stayed on the actual Cambridge campus. We Cambridge students don’t say we stay in dorms: It’s referred to as staying “in college.” Specifically, my “student accommodation” was at Selwyn College, where I slept and took my meals in the dining hall.
Typical of all 30-odd colleges comprising the University of Cambridge, Selwyn College is a group of stately, vine-covered brick buildings forming grassy square called a quad on which no one steps. Ever. Except the fairies, who must perform their maintenance duties in the dead of night because the grass is kept perfect at all times – nary a weed or blade out of place.
Behind the quad is an idyllic garden and a path leading to a cluster of classroom buildings that serve students enrolled at Selwyn and several other nearby colleges.
The week I was there, about 100 people from virtually every corner of the world were enrolled in the history institute – some for credit, some (like me) for enrichment and for the fun of learning. We were young and old, from what seemed like every background imaginable, as culturally and racially diverse a group as I’ve ever been a part of.
As soon as I met somebody new from a foreign country, the first thing out of their mouth was something like this: “Donald Trump is the scariest person who has ever lived! Tell me that Trump doesn’t have a chance of winning! What ARE you thinking about over there, letting him run for President? It’s a joke, right?” Or words to that effect. I’m telling you, the dude has serious credibility issues with people from Australia to Zimbabwe. They’re terrified of such a loose cannon having his hand on the trigger of the deadliest arsenal the world has ever known.
I totally understand their anxiety.
As a lifelong Democrat and proud Hillary supporter, I tried to allay their fears, but it wasn’t always easy, especially with Donald the Demagogue spewing his message of hatred and bigotry at the Republican convention during that same time.
But back to my fabulous week at Cambridge. I had anticipated two lectures a day. In fact, I had FOUR, which meant I went from 9:15 a.m. to 9:15 p.m., with only a couple of hours down time in the afternoon – barely time to rest my aging, overloaded brain. I don’t know about you, but at this stage in my life, if something goes INTO my head, something else has to come OUT. As it was, with the extraordinary scholars I was hearing all day and night, my little gray cells were being scrambled all which-way!
I’ve never thought of myself as the brightest bulb in the hall, but I’m not the dimmest, either. I can hold my own – barely – in most intellectual settings. I read books. I can usually keep up. Dumb, I’m not.
But this week, ladies and gentlemen, was a righteous challenge! All I can say is that it was a damned good thing I wasn’t doing it for a grade. No papers to write, no exams to take: Whew!
A sample of the lectures I got to hear, all presented by Cambridge faculty members who were experts in their field:
·
“Winston Churchill – Anti-Revolutionary?” by
the Trustee of the Churchill Foundation. Lots of personal anecdotes about the
great man and his viewpoints on a variety of topics, including his opposition
to women’s suffrage (!).
· “Breaking the Code: The Work at Bletchley Park” by a theoretical physicist and mathematician (and colleague of Dr. Stephen Hawking) who brought an actual Enigma machine for a demonstration of how the British intelligence service used their brains instead of bombs to help defeat the Nazis during WWII.
· “From Boudica to Bond: The British Heroic Figure” by a social historian who traced the evolution of the concept of hero in British culture. Want to guess his top three? (3) James Bond; (2) Harry Potter; and (1) Doctor Who!
· “Breaking the Code: The Work at Bletchley Park” by a theoretical physicist and mathematician (and colleague of Dr. Stephen Hawking) who brought an actual Enigma machine for a demonstration of how the British intelligence service used their brains instead of bombs to help defeat the Nazis during WWII.
· “From Boudica to Bond: The British Heroic Figure” by a social historian who traced the evolution of the concept of hero in British culture. Want to guess his top three? (3) James Bond; (2) Harry Potter; and (1) Doctor Who!
·
“Gorbachev to Putin” by a Russian scholar who
has marched in Red Square.
·
“America in Vietnam: A Political Revolution”
and its aftermath.
And those were just the plenary sessions. My two in-depth courses
met daily and were on the topics of the Victorians’ view of history and the
British in America from Sir Walter Raleigh to 1776. (Or, as the instructor
referred to it, “the crisis of the late 18th Century.”)
Frankly, the class on the Victorian era was somewhat of a dud because I just couldn’t catch on to the professor’s plot. I'm sure he's a brilliant scholar and all, but either I was too stupid or he was too obtuse. I’m going with “obtuse.” I picked up a few stray, arcane threads here and there, but he just could never knit his thoughts into a scarf.
On the other hand, the course on the British in America was exceptionally cool. After all, in school we Yanks learned American history from our viewpoint, right? WE won; WE wrote the history books. But here I had the unique opportunity of hearing American history from the perspective of a Brit. Or, rather, technically, from an Irishman who is now a Brit.
He raised an interesting concept that was new to me and every other American in the class. Some scholars, he argued, believe that the war we Americans call the Revolution didn’t begin as a war for independence, but rather as a British civil war. Huh??! He said that independence was obviously a by-product of the conflict, but that most American colonials still tended to view themselves as British and were initially waging a civil war with their fellow Brits across the ocean because of Parliament’s refusal to grant them the rights they believed they deserved as British subjects.
I’d love to hear what Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would have had to say about that. I didn’t dismiss this argument completely at first, because it was tasty food for thought, but now that I’ve chewed on it for a week, I’ve decided it’s hogwash.
Anyway, by then my brain was so scrambled I couldn’t have argued that the earth was round.
Though I went to bed mentally exhausted every night, however, I absolutely loved that lofty academic atmosphere. I’m so grateful for the privilege of experiencing it! It might not have raised my IQ by a single point, but boy, did I feel smarter just being there.
Now I’m wondering what useful factoids were squeezed out of my brain in order to absorb all that new learnin’. With any luck, it’ll be totally irrelevant stuff, like how to operate my kitchen appliances or the vacuum cleaner…
Frankly, the class on the Victorian era was somewhat of a dud because I just couldn’t catch on to the professor’s plot. I'm sure he's a brilliant scholar and all, but either I was too stupid or he was too obtuse. I’m going with “obtuse.” I picked up a few stray, arcane threads here and there, but he just could never knit his thoughts into a scarf.
On the other hand, the course on the British in America was exceptionally cool. After all, in school we Yanks learned American history from our viewpoint, right? WE won; WE wrote the history books. But here I had the unique opportunity of hearing American history from the perspective of a Brit. Or, rather, technically, from an Irishman who is now a Brit.
He raised an interesting concept that was new to me and every other American in the class. Some scholars, he argued, believe that the war we Americans call the Revolution didn’t begin as a war for independence, but rather as a British civil war. Huh??! He said that independence was obviously a by-product of the conflict, but that most American colonials still tended to view themselves as British and were initially waging a civil war with their fellow Brits across the ocean because of Parliament’s refusal to grant them the rights they believed they deserved as British subjects.
I’d love to hear what Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would have had to say about that. I didn’t dismiss this argument completely at first, because it was tasty food for thought, but now that I’ve chewed on it for a week, I’ve decided it’s hogwash.
Anyway, by then my brain was so scrambled I couldn’t have argued that the earth was round.
Though I went to bed mentally exhausted every night, however, I absolutely loved that lofty academic atmosphere. I’m so grateful for the privilege of experiencing it! It might not have raised my IQ by a single point, but boy, did I feel smarter just being there.
Now I’m wondering what useful factoids were squeezed out of my brain in order to absorb all that new learnin’. With any luck, it’ll be totally irrelevant stuff, like how to operate my kitchen appliances or the vacuum cleaner…
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