TEDglobal at oxford

hello all

\i am in England staying in the dorms of the Keble college at oxford and its such fun! I'm at a conference called \TED(technology entertainment desgin) on a micro computer in an area called bloggers alley. so i apologize about extra punctuation etc the keys are tiny. its worse than my blackberry!

i got here after a plane and a bus with a very very cranky and heavily accented bus driver. but now i'm here so all is well. dad didnt come until yesterday, so i navigated around tuesday's events without too many issues. i was able to hear some really brilliant internet people, gordon brown, stuntment and designers talk about developments in their fields. though i didnt really think mr. brown's talk was all that good. it was lots of optimistic things about improving international bodies and dissing the existing forces like the IMF and the UN...but he basically just wanted to toss them and make new bureaucracies...if years of model un taught me anything, it taught me that making bureaucracies with the same goals as already existings ones does nothing but give new corrupt people more opportunities to screw things up. he didnt really talk about reforming the old institutions, just talked about some kids in africa and how bad he felt for them. basically, a giant political speech, but i appear to be in the minority for my dislike of his speech. i know would have agreed if he was there.

well after pulling an all nighter because the guy on the plane next to me went to the bathroom every 20 minutes... i basically died in my room around 6 after the last session. i just couldnt do the evening party.

the next day aka y3esterday was brilliant. i laughed so hard at the first guy who was a lawyer who told us about how the internet is being defended by individual nerds who all work together to protect the integreity of wikipedia. ya nerds! and imogen heap gave a live preformance = love i am so buying her new cd. shortly after that i was in the lounge in an old hotel here called the randolph when my dad introduced me to his old friends...including meg ryan. yeah. wtf. she was wearing all black, looked SUPER skinny and had hair like my mom but curlier. crazy stuff. I then wanted to show my dad this cool plant air purifier that a french designer/engineer had told us about and i hit cameron diaz who was just chilling in the corner with my bag. \she actually said, oh sorry my bag is huge! and smiled her cameron diaz trademark smile but it was surreal.

the second session was really moving. and i think a lot of the older people cried when this artic swimmer, lewis pugh, told us about his recent 1 km swim outside of antartica in protest of climate change. sweeet. i spent some time wandering around and inside the oxford colleges after i made friends with a woman who's gay best friend got us tickets to see the new production in London called \War \horse. \brilliant no? the evening had more geniuses in store for us and a preformance by a swiss singer called sophie hunger. she was brillant too and i bought her cd.\\

we went to a reception in the natural history museum, had dinner in the ofxford area, and went to a late night piano party sponsored by absolut where i met this crazy bearded scientist who plans to reverse the effects of aging and help us live forever. it was maddness. but such fun! i went to be around midnight after getting up at 7 am...and started again today!

we saw several really inpsiring people today already. i learned about the new economics of our future days, new inventions to combat global hunger and clean water shortages, and then a man from malawi explained to us the simple inventions he had created in his rural village that changed his life. and he told us not to be afraid. he told africans the way out of their problems was to follow their hearts! as soon as trhe link is up i'll add it so you dont think im just some corn ball.

the second session was an emotional rollercoaster from hell. we saw photographs of awful us institutions and practices involving zoo keeping, jails, the justice system, nuclear waste...etc. very scary and depressing. then a man who was an expert on the organized crime trade came and completely captured my attention. followed by an expert on the economics of terrorism...and a rapper who was a former child soldier in sudan. he sang songs about the people who rescued him and he won eat breakfast until he has the money to build a school in his old village. i would have cried except i was in the front row and my reactions were being filmed for the web clip...so look for me there. i think the fact that my face tells you everything made me a prime candidate for this...i think i look like i'm going to cry the whole time. anyway, look up emmanuel jal and be amazed.

lunch was a great debate between me and an indian guy who runs the indian school of economics about langauges and their origins and why hungarian is so isolated...etc.

super nerdy and fabulous.

well i have a few more sessions to attend today...especially the one about religion and its values which is next...so till next i find some internet!