An update...
May. 27th, 2007 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meanfreepathSo last Wednesday, I rolled (back) into lab. A bunch of us in the "physics" side of the group sat down for a long meeting, delineating scientific goals as well as tasks for the summer. There is a great deal to learn and do, and I'm certainly not going to spend every evening/weekend as lazily as I have been for the past few days, but hey, a bit of downtime after exams doesn't hurt :)
I discovered, by the way, that my advisor speaks pretty good French. We have a French postdoc who joined the group a few months ago, and over the past few days I heard Vinny discussing scientific stuff with her en francais. Il faut que je practique un peu mon francais, sinon je perdra completement la langue. Peut-etre je passerai un week-end a Montreal cet ete avec mes camerades de classe -- on verra.
On Thursday night I went to a concert put on by one of the UChoir choristers, featuring two short operas with which I was not previously acquainted, Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge and Monteverdi's Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. I really liked the Barber -- it's very short, about 10 minutes long. Each of the four players in a bridge game sings a daydreaming, fantasizing aria. I particularly enjoyed the baritone aria where Dave, a businessman, fantasizes about the decadent lifestyle he would like to lead if he were wealthy: a harem with "twenty naked boys, twenty naked girls" and "a virgin every day," but ultimately concluding that he would still probably be trapped in the banality of the nightly bridge game he is engaged in. My appreciation of the Monteverdi was unfortunately somewhat marred by the lack of a translated libretto and my ignorance of Italian. The concert ended with the pathos-filled final aria and chorus from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, "When I am laid in earth."
Friday evening I went English dancing... I must admit I don't do English enough to really get good at it, although I generally get by fine. Perhaps I'll try to make it to the Monday evening Scottish class in Medford this summer. I think I'd like to have one or two things outside lab... somehow I should strike a balance between getting exercise, dancing, and maybe some singing. Jameson Marvin directs the Harvard Summer School chorus; as a director, he is known for being exceptionally picky, but it would probably be a good experience. There are also a number of choral sing-alongs in July and August around the greater Boston area. I doubt I'd often go to the further-off ones, but I'd put up with a train ride to do Verdi Requiem out in Salem.
Anyway... I digress. Yesterday a bunch of us G1's (or are we now G2's?) went to brunch at the Neighborhood Restaurant in Somerville, which serves massive quantities of excellent food. One orders pancakes, and with it comes a generous platter of eggs, ham, and homefries, toast and a sort of Brazilian corn muffin, and cream of wheat. After gorging ourselves, we attempted to play ultimate frisbee in a park, which was... er... interesting. Fortunately none of us vomited. This afternoon, one of my classmate![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katertoticus's friends threw a large cookout, with excellent food. Our host's whole chicken recipe, which involved brining followed by smoking, produced arguably the tenderest, juiciest, most flavorful chicken I have ever had. So there's really been a lot of good food this weekend.
The next few days will be busy with numerous errands and things to attend to before I leave for over a week and a half. I will be flying Wednesday morning out of Logan Airport, flying back early Sunday morning for Swat Commencement, spending the week at home, and then going to Alumni Weekend, from whence I will return directly to Boston.
I discovered, by the way, that my advisor speaks pretty good French. We have a French postdoc who joined the group a few months ago, and over the past few days I heard Vinny discussing scientific stuff with her en francais. Il faut que je practique un peu mon francais, sinon je perdra completement la langue. Peut-etre je passerai un week-end a Montreal cet ete avec mes camerades de classe -- on verra.
On Thursday night I went to a concert put on by one of the UChoir choristers, featuring two short operas with which I was not previously acquainted, Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge and Monteverdi's Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. I really liked the Barber -- it's very short, about 10 minutes long. Each of the four players in a bridge game sings a daydreaming, fantasizing aria. I particularly enjoyed the baritone aria where Dave, a businessman, fantasizes about the decadent lifestyle he would like to lead if he were wealthy: a harem with "twenty naked boys, twenty naked girls" and "a virgin every day," but ultimately concluding that he would still probably be trapped in the banality of the nightly bridge game he is engaged in. My appreciation of the Monteverdi was unfortunately somewhat marred by the lack of a translated libretto and my ignorance of Italian. The concert ended with the pathos-filled final aria and chorus from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, "When I am laid in earth."
Friday evening I went English dancing... I must admit I don't do English enough to really get good at it, although I generally get by fine. Perhaps I'll try to make it to the Monday evening Scottish class in Medford this summer. I think I'd like to have one or two things outside lab... somehow I should strike a balance between getting exercise, dancing, and maybe some singing. Jameson Marvin directs the Harvard Summer School chorus; as a director, he is known for being exceptionally picky, but it would probably be a good experience. There are also a number of choral sing-alongs in July and August around the greater Boston area. I doubt I'd often go to the further-off ones, but I'd put up with a train ride to do Verdi Requiem out in Salem.
Anyway... I digress. Yesterday a bunch of us G1's (or are we now G2's?) went to brunch at the Neighborhood Restaurant in Somerville, which serves massive quantities of excellent food. One orders pancakes, and with it comes a generous platter of eggs, ham, and homefries, toast and a sort of Brazilian corn muffin, and cream of wheat. After gorging ourselves, we attempted to play ultimate frisbee in a park, which was... er... interesting. Fortunately none of us vomited. This afternoon, one of my classmate
katertoticus's friends threw a large cookout, with excellent food. Our host's whole chicken recipe, which involved brining followed by smoking, produced arguably the tenderest, juiciest, most flavorful chicken I have ever had. So there's really been a lot of good food this weekend. The next few days will be busy with numerous errands and things to attend to before I leave for over a week and a half. I will be flying Wednesday morning out of Logan Airport, flying back early Sunday morning for Swat Commencement, spending the week at home, and then going to Alumni Weekend, from whence I will return directly to Boston.
