Reflecting

Well, if you haven't already heard, our time in the UK is quickly drawing to a close. I submitted my thesis a couple weeks ago and am scheduled to have my viva voce (defense) on July 19th. The guidance for the viva being rather nondescript, I'm a little at a loss as to how to prepare for it. Unlike the US, I will not be expected to give a presentation to my peers and committee....I don't even really have a committee anyway. I'll be examined by two people who have little to no knowledge of my efforts over the past three years. However, at the graduation dinner (to which all 3rd year PhD students were invited regardless of whether they were actually graduating) I sat next to the Master of the College. As she's been an examiner several times, I asked her what to expect, and was a bit relieved when she basically said they were just going to sit down with me and ask lots of questions about my thesis and the work I did, the main point being to convince themselves I had indeed done the work and written the thesis. I'm still a little worried about allowing "the examiners to probe your knowledge in the field" as that could encompass just about anything, but hopefully that is as minor a part of it as the Master suggested.

It was very sad to think that the graduation dinner would be the last formal dinner I'd have in the Hall. There will be two graduate formals before I leave, but they'll be held in the SCR rather than the Hall. Also, that was probably the last opportunity I'll have to talk to the Master. Having been on the MCR Committee for two years, I've had many opportunities to talk to her, and she's a really great lady. A Dame as well, which is pretty neat, but a very down-to-earth person, which you might not expect from the Master of the College. I've also attended my last evensong at the College Chapel; the good news on that is that I can always go again if I'm here in Cambridge on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Sunday during term time in the future, but as Chapel Clerk it was a tearful experience to hand over my key to the vestry after the final service, to think I'll never be responsible for lighting all the candles in our beautiful wood-lined chapel ever again.

I'm also drawn to think about all the things we thought we'd do. I had hopes of visiting all 31 Colleges; we've probably visited 10 of them. We thought we'd travel all around Europe, or at least all around Britain, but Aaron still hasn't been to Edinburgh, and neither of us has made it to Bath, the lake district, Dover, etc. But on the bright side we have enjoyed country hospitality in Hungerford, we took an unexpected diversion to the peak district, we've seen tons of castles, we saw a small community on a northern Scottish isle, and we've seen basically everything we wanted to see in London. After three years I feel at home here, I'm used to the oddities in the grocery store and the post office, I'm spoiled by the wealth of public transportation, and I don't think twice about hopping on my bike to cycle miles, something I never would have dreamed I'd be capable of when I first moved here.

Of course, whenever I start to get too teary-eyed about this, I think of all the things to look forward to back home - in addition to being close to family and no longer being in graduate school (a HUGE plus), we'll have screens on our windows, mixer taps, water pressure, biscuits from Hardees, bathtubs with bottoms that are at the same elevation as the bathroom floor (here they're higher, quite a slipping hazard), and outlets in bathrooms.

Still, our time in Cambridge has been wonderful, and I know when the time comes I'll be sad to go.

Crazy Cambridge HR stuff

I ran into two wacky Cambridge money related things which I felt like sharing.

First I got this email from the Cambridge HR department:

There were some changes in 2008 to the UK tax regime for individuals whose permanent home is overseas. You may well have heard news reports or seen media coverage concerning a new £30,000 annual levy for individuals who are non UK domiciled (domicile is best described as the country where an individual is regarded as having their permanent home which may not necessarily be the country where they are living from year to year).

You have been identified as a University employee who may be non UK domiciled i.e. who may have their permanent home overseas and who may only intend to work in the UK for a limited period of time.
...

Needless to say this freaked me out. It ends up that it only affects people from outside the country who are planning to live in the UK longer than 7 (or 9) years and who have foreign income as wall as UK income. It also seems like they are going after the rich types mostly. Since that is not me, I don't have to pay it and thus will not be living on the streets soon.

Second, I found out that the Cambridge/UK redundancy policy is downright cruel. For non-UK people, redundancy is like severance pay. It is 1 week for every complete year of employment. Quite literally. If you worked 2 years and 364 days then you get 2 weeks. They do not round up. In a hard economic time like this it is a heartless policy that could only come from greedy bureaucratic number crunchers. The bottomline is to make sure your contract lasts from start date to end date.

That's enough money fun for now.