On The Move…

Last night we sang at Parkman House, the official residence of the Mayor of Boston (although he doesn’t actually live there), and today we sang at a penthouse apartment overlooking Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the Mayor of New York (ditto).  Fun times.  Who can complain about gourmet sandwiches and Veuve Clicquot?  Not me.

New York is such an amazing place to be young and well-connected.

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Today on the bus I finally got around to drawing up a plan of study for the next two weeks, and immediately realised how little time is left.  And so ended the mental vacation I’ve been on since Tuesday.

I’m going to finish reading “The River Runs Black” tonight, and maybe try to get through “Beyond Great Walls” as well.  Or perhaps I should either work on planning my French essay or go to bed early and wake up early?  Hmmn.

(Just got a call from Jay inviting me to a party at Jorian’s.  I hate that I’m choosing to stay in.  Bleah.)

Almost without my noticing, classes are over for the semester.  Amazing.  It’s been a good semester.

I’m actually really excited, which is surprising.  Excited about picking classes for next semester, excited for the summer internship in London, excited about the possibilities for next year.

It’s a good feeling.

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Thank you Flora for the lovely postcard that arrived today.  *hugs*

And apparently Terence recently pulled his *first* college all-nighter.  Amazing.

Yesterday was Saturday-on-a-Tuesday for me.  After turning in my final short paper for HSA-12 (dear God please let this one be well-received) and taking my ES 6 exam (unexpectedly long),  *edits out details about regular Jason-related procedural irregularities/excitement* I felt like I basically had nothing to do for the near future.  Which of course is nonsense if I consider the two response papers, pile of reading, two final papers (20-25 pages, and one of them has to be in French!), two lab reports (requiring statistics, yuck) and four final exams I have to get through before the end of the semester.

But in any case, I felt like I could take a break.  So I wrote a Crimson story on the planned celebrations for Boston’s 375th birthday (four months of street fairs, cultural performances and special events), and went to a panel discussion at the KSG about a controversial paper entitled “The Death of Environmentalism” (email me if you want a copy) that pitted the authors of the paper against two environmentalist bigwigs and a professor of environmental politics (who was very impressive – I think I’ll try and take her class next Fall).  That was pretty fascinating.

Last night and today were more of the same.  I went in to the Crimson to get that story edited, got tickets to various performances this weekend, dropped by Jill’s office for a chat, gave a very intimate admissions tour (with a French prospective student – so many French people around lately!), and attended the very fancy pre-departure ice-cream social/briefing at the Center for European Studies.

I really need to start getting some work done…  like doing the Hist 1856 readings.

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This weekend I’m planning on seeing Brahms’ Requiem on Friday evening, the Bach Society’s 50th anniversary concert on Saturday (I’ve always wanted to see this), and “L’Echange” a French play by Paul Claudel, on Sunday afternoon.  Saturday is also Arts First weekend, so the Dins will be performing a number of times and I’ll try and catch Vox Jazz (they’re amazing!) too.

The weekend is nearly gone.  And while everyone around me is steaming along finishing up the end-of-semester assignments, I’m….  just not.

I went on two field trips this weekend, which took up most of Satruday and Sunday – from 9am-3pm.  We went with Prof Moorcroft to Nahant Beach in Northern Massachusetts to look at intertidal pools communities yesterday and to investigate latitudinal zonation today.  Fun stuff.  Except for the rain and cold, which I could have done without.

And then we sang at Pre-Frosh Jam on Friday, and I saw the Kuumba concert last night, after speaking on a student panel for prefrosh parents.  We’ve also been recording solos and trios this weekend.  So that’s pretty much where all my time went…  not reading Oatley or Hardt & Negri…  I need to work up a little panic if I hope to survive past Tuesday.