Midterms, Essays, and Espionage! Oh, my!

After spending a good part of Saturday exploring the city and playing ultimate frisbee I decided to take it easy on Sunday and spent a good portion of the day reading out by the river even though it was unbearably hot. I had a nice chat with one of the PA's about Gabriel Garcia Marquez and saw two people fall into the river while punting. The first guy that fell in caught himself on the ladder by Bodley's Court so he only fell in half way but it was extremely funny and he was a good sport about it. The second person was a Spanish kid who got bumped and just sort of jumped in which made it far less funny. Later on in the evening I went to the King's bar to watch the World Cup final. Although I usually like Spain and although I did have Spain winning in my bracket, spending so much time in Bonaire compelled me to be a loyal Dutch fan last night. Unfortunately, Paul the Octopus predicted that Spain would win and he was right once again.

Today was the first day it's actually been fairly cold since I arrived in the UK. It was a welcome break from the swelteing heat with which we have been dealing. Despite the cold weather, I still got ice cream and, thanks to a friendly and talkative Benets employee, I am now the holder of a Benets Loyalty Card- "Buy 9 ice cream cones, get one free." After a hurried dinner at King's, I walked over to the Union to attend a lecture, entitled "A 21st Century View of National Security," given by Sir Richard Dearlove. Sir Dearlove was the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1999-2004. He joined MI6 in 1966 and spent time working in various places including Prague and Paris. During his time as "C" (Chief...like M in James Bond), Sir Dearlove had to deal with the 9/11 attacks and was on the only plane to fly into American airspace on September 12. Sir Dearlove discussed the recent US/Russian spy exchange and the potential for a rapid escalation of conflict between India and Pakistan. He also discussed "the new terrorism" that is practiced by groups such as Al-Qaeda. In contrast to traditional motives for terrorism, organizations such as these do not have clear political motivations, but rather have ideological motivations that do not discriminate against clear targets or locations, but instead aim to bring down an entire culture. Sir Dearlove also mentioned the fact that our entire world is constantly on the edge because if our technology fails for a prolonged period of time, we would be in a great deal of trouble. He cited examples such as the volcanic ash that shut down air travel across Europe and the Atlantic and emphasized the chaos that this one natural event caused. The possibility of bioterrorism is also a major threat in the modern world since it is fairly easy and cheap to get access to viruses that could wipe out entire populations or at least cause mass panic like in the cases of SARS and Swine Flu. It was yet another lecture that I wish all of you could have attended.

Tomorrow I will be going on a rooftop tour of King's College Chapel. Rooftop tours of the Chapel are only granted to students at King's College and I read something where it was referred to as a "money-can't-buy" tour which, in my opinion, makes it even more exciting that being able to walk through all the gates that say "Private". I also have two midterms this week and a paper due on Monday so look for an update about the tour later in the week (although I will probably end up procrastinating and writing an update about it tomorrow).

Cheers!