On The Move…

It’s the Year of the Pig, apparently.

My day started with an emergency admissions tour, which overran and made me a bit late for lunch, which lasted three hours, and then barely two hours of thesis dataset building before it was time to spend the rest of the night eating pineapple tarts and drinking green tea.

I’m glad Xue decided to hold a dinner party – if not the rest of us thesis-trapped seniors would never have bothered.  There was yu sheng and everything, not to mention oodles of miscellaneous comfort food like roti prata and mee goreng.  I even brought home a tub of fried rice and roast chicken.  And the company was quite select as well.  A fun time all round.

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I wish my dataset was more revealing…  gah.

Something I meant to write yesterday but put off in the rush to get a whole bunch of things done:

One of the many exceptional perks of working with/at HUCE is the fact that the space is frequently used for fancy faculty dinners and receptions for guest speakers.  What that means is that there is a steady influx of fancy finger food platters catered by the exceptional Formaggio Kitchen.  The thing is that professors and distinguished guests at events like these don’t usually spend much time sampling the fine cheeses, home-made paté and antipasto served.  Instead, they prefer to network, maintain their low-cholesterol diets and preserve their fresh breaths, all in the secure knowledge that a similarly delectable catered dinner will be served in a little bit (I forget the caterer HUCE uses).  What this ultimately means is that shortly after these events there is usually a plenitude of artisanal brie, fresh fruit, parma proscuitto, sliced baguettes, sweet pickled onions and whole grain mustard all laid out beautifully and left for the hungry (grad) students still lurking after hours.

Yum 🙂

PS: If you’re ever in need of speciality/gourmet deli products or catering in the Cambridge, MA area, I highly recommend Formaggio Kitchen (based on my familiarity with about half their exquisite speciality platters).

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The weather was magnificent today.  Bright and hard edged with a refreshing chill.  What can be better than trenchcoat weather?  I guess perhaps beach weather – as we were walking out of class Prof G told me she was heading back to her apartment to pick up her bags and catch a flight to Puerto Rico for the long weekend ahead.  Although I only managed to say it in French to her at the time – Buon Viaggio!

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I’m finally seeing some progress on the empirical end of my thesis, which is really good considering that I’ve essentially abandoned the qualitative part (gathering electronic dust in draft form) while working on getting data this past 9 days.  Which also means I should get back to work on that.

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I received a surprise call from London today, which was pleasant.  I got to say pretty much all the things I’ve been meaning to write about, but haven’t had much a chance to given the swirl of events.  Having a semi-personal yet business-y phone conversation with someone you’ve never met is always going to be a touch strange though, given how difficult it is to guage the other person’s reactions, especially over the slight transmission delay.  I pray it went well, and came off favorably.

Back to the dataset.

PPS: Today was my first section meeting for Ec1010b, and it was held in a building I walk by all the time but never knew was a Harvard academic building.  Turns out the very nice space also houses the oh-so-niche Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies!  I’d heard recently that it’s the smallest concentration in the college – the department website lists a grand total of seven current undergraduate concentrators!

Feeling a touch deflated, after the excitement of speeding on the Acela Express down and up the Northeast Corridor.  Two down, one shaky, three to go.  It’s all happening so fast now. 

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On the return trip, the woman who sat next to me (some high-powered headhunter from a top HR consultancy) was fairly intimidating in her ceaselessly efficient productivity.  While I spent most of the 3.5 hours snoozing, eating dinner and doing a small amount of reading, she appeared to accomplish dozens of important tasks on her blackberry, cellphone, laptop, hardback book and miscellaneous presentation folders.  These tasks included (re)scheduling various meetings in different cities on both coasts for the next two weeks.  And all while appearing composed and highly competent the whole time.  She even had the small ziplock bag of roasted almonds (ie healthy power-woman snack) in her stylish (but all-business) minimalist sturdy leather totes in bright red and dusky orange!

I’m reminded also of Prof S.  *Impressed* 

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Maybe I’ll feel more optimistic in the morning, after a nice long sleep.

PS:  I did greatly enjoy my meeting with the Prof today, even if it seemed a little surreal that I had spent all that time travelling (at their expense) for such a brief conversation that could have been mostly (but less personally) conducted over the phone.  And of course the setting was just lovely, and it was nice to catch up with HJ.

A quarter of a century.  Ugh.

The “Club Culture” party (which I refuse I think of as my birthday party) went splendidly, and with very few hitches.  Excellent music, great guests, happy partiers.  Maybe I’ll talk more about it sometime when it isn’t 4am and my feet aren’t sore from dancing.

The final line-up is more or less decided. This will be the least number of classes (4), least number of weekly class hours (7.5) and least number of final exams (1) I’ve ever had. Additionally, I don’t have any classes on Monday or Friday. I know this all probably sounds really idyllic, but somehow I can’t quite shake the sense of strangeness – it feels peculiar to be taking so few classes, precisely during the last chance I have to take these classes as an undergraduate. It’s not really like me.

At the same time, I didn’t manage to find anything else that I really wanted to take. And more importantly, the thesis-writing is like taking 5 classes at the same time. Seriously, it feels like I’ve done more work over the past two months than I’ve ever had to do for all the classes I’ve taken in a single semester combined. Awful. I really pray I have something I’m proud of at the end of this process… which is looming. *nervous jitter*

Incidentally, this semester I’m only taking classes with professors I’ve had before, so they’re all-stars in my book 🙂 Here’s the list:

ESPP 90j: Environmental Crises and Population Flight. With the distinguished Prof L, from my wonderful freshman seminar. The topic seems right up my alley, given the close links with the junior seminar paper I wrote last year, and the overlap with my thesis work.

Literature 104: On Theory. This counts for the last upper-level class I need for a secondary field in French… even though it’s conducted in English 🙂 Taught by Prof C, who has the distinction of being the professor I’ve taken the most number of classes from – four, including this one.

Econ 1010b: Macroeconomic Theory. Despite the abysmal CUE guide ratings this class has received in the past, I’m hopeful that the material will not be too difficult. Also, Prof G is teaching the course for the first time this year, and I already like her a lot from having taken her course on cultural economics last semester. Plus, this course would also help me qualify for a secondary field in economics, should I choose to receive that.

ESPP 99r: Thesis seminar. Blearrrghggh. At least this doesn’t actually have class meetings. Just one-on-one sessions with the ever-helpful Prof M.

And that’s the line-up for this year.

A rather eventful, hectic sort of day.  Mainly it seemed hectic because I constantly wanted to just lie down and relax.  Right from the moment I dragged myself out bed at 6.15am, to turn off my alarm.  The interviews turned out successfully, judging by the outcome… at least for me.  That’s good news, I know, to have a solid, competitive and compensated summer internship offer with a top outfit in a great location.  If only the elation could be enjoyed unalloyed by thoughts of March and August, untempered by a mixed result, unaffected by the want to go to bed.  I’m also vaguely miffed at having missed the celebratory lunch.

It helped to sit in Nathan’s massage chair for about twenty minutes, although later at Lodge the sensation came back to haunt me in an unpleasant fashion against the hard, straight seat backs.  Lodge meeting tonight was…  something quite new.  The experience of having to push through that endless, narrow corridor-catwalk jammed full of bejewelled, tuxedoed officers (average age: 45) from other lodges was quite intimidating and discomfitting.  Then the prodigious feat of memory and protocol displayed by R.W. T. was breathtaking (not that Lodge isn’t usually impressive that way).  Finally, the banquet that followed was far fancier than previous events.  It reminded me of the European leg of world tour, what with the enormous platters of cheese, fruit and cold cuts interspersed with serving stations for whiskey, cocktails, wine, juice and soda.  My personal favorites were the circulating trays of beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres and bacon-wrapped scallops (yum!).  And after an hour, just as everyone was getting seated, I ran away to avoid the tedium of a two-hour long meal (especially since I was already stuffed)…  but not before lingering to hear the jazz duo (double bass and keyboard) play Antonio Carlos Jobim’s sublime Wave.

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I did no thesis work today 🙁

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PS: I still *heart* cold winters, but only with the assurance of heated interior spaces and the promise of warmer days ahead.

The first day of NYC menswear shows for FW07/08 were today and overall nothing terribly exciting happened. 

Rag and Bone presented the most tightly edited show (just 19 looks), with few missteps, I think.  I love their “Nelson” waistcoats, especially since I had an almost identical one tailored for me two years ago. 

John Bartlett’s clothes had the best polished finish of the lot.  The Perry Ellis Signature show was really dull, and didn’t seem to have a sharp editorial point to make  And finally the Duckie Brown show displayed some creative potential with a few strong ideas (that one plaid coat comes to mind), but fairly poor execution overall (those suits! ugh…) and a remarkable incoherence for just 26 looks (no, a couple of pop-color wigs, gloves and beanies are NOT enough to tie a show together).

Anyway, it’s not like we didn’t know that American menswear is one increasingly unadventurous (and poorly executed) yawn.  Hopefully there will be something better to report over the next few days.

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The ads in the Adidas boutique round the corner look suspiciously like the current (and long-running) Lacoste ads…  hmmmn.

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I can now watch HDTV on my pc!  The quality is unbelievable!

…and it’s not always good news.

So as a little break from going blind trying to extract information from UNODC* documents on their website…  I proceeded to continue going blind trying to extract information from UNESCO** documents on their website.  And I learn to my chagrin, that of the 192 member states of the UN General Assembly, 191 are members of UNESCO.  And the one, inexplicable and highly visible exception is… Singapore.  ???

A brief web search reveals no satisfactory reason for this anomaly, which puzzles me.  And also annoys me, since it means I’m automatically ineligible to even apply for certain positions within the organization.  How terribly bizarre.  Perhaps I’ll ask the DPM if I meet him at some upcoming event.

* United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
** United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

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Ok, it’s time to leave the museum.  When I walked in here about 6 hours ago I remember musing about the irony of how I actually somewhat envy the idea of working at a museum such as the Louvre in Paris, like an acquaintance of mine currently does.  Truth is the collections here are pretty fascinating, beautiful and important in their own right – for example practically just outside of HUCE are many extremely precious plaster casts of mesoamerican steles and other monuments that have since been damaged or destroyed.

And now I actually leave.

I didn’t have any classes today, or rather I didn’t have any classes to shop today.

Instead I gave a rather intimate lengthy admissions tour, and then went to lunch with Ming at the Signet.  I hope we both make it past Monday, given that we both really want it now.

I’ve accomplished very little else, and yet (or thus) I’m feeling rather deflated and listless.  I know that probably means I need exercise, but I don’t really feel like it.  And I also did jog over to the admissions office this morning, which is better than nothing.

In other news, I went to Prof S. and successfully requested unrestricted swipe-card access to HUCE, so I can now spend even longer hours there through the weekend.  Joy!

In fact, I think I’ll head there now.

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PS: Paris fashion week (women’s RTW FW07/08) starts today!

So, according to research led by a visiting fellow here, big brains are better for birds.  Very fluffy!