On The Move…

As I told Woj a little while ago, my academics have been running on little more than lame excuses and pretending to know the material for a while now.  Since Woj is running pretty ragged as well, he knew exactly what I meant.

It is now about half past midnight.  In the next 90 minutes, I need to:
(a) Read a 200 page novel (Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga)
(b) Post a discussion question on said novel (this was due at 6pm? today… hours ago)
(c) Read the second half of Kant’s The Critique of Judgement
(d) Write a two page response paper on aformentioned Kantian thesis on “Beauty and the Sublime” (this was due Tuesday at 10am, ie two days ago)

Gahh.  I am so tired.  And have been up forever.  I think I’ve been averaging about five hours of sleep per night over the last four days…  since Sunday, at least.

The derivative G&T I’m having right now will probably not enhance my productivity.  Oh well.

PS:  Did I mention that I have to be up by 7am again tomorrow?

Such is the theme of the day.  Last night, just as I was ready to head to the gym to walk on the treadmill and read some Hawthorne, FTV started screening the Paris FW06 Menswear shows, so of course I was forced to stay.

In the end, while I did make it to the gym, I did not finish the greater part of the book as I had planned and in fact fell far short.

This morning, I woke up very sadly having missed section(s), which was particularly aggravating because they were a) both at the same time due to a temporary academic scheduling conflict and b) not at all early in the day.  I felt so remorseful and shamed that I’ve spent a couple of hours reading Hawthorne with decidedly more diligence (I’m now but a hundred pages short of the end) and I will shortly shift my attention to the readings for Ec 1661.

Which reminds me, my classes for the semester are as follows:

ESPP 90e: Conservation Biology.  An ESPP junior seminar with just four students and I’m the only ESPP concentrator!
Ec 1661: Environmental and Resource Economics and Policy.  Another concentration requirement that nearly everyone I know in ESPP is taking because it’s not being offered next year. It’s also a cross-listed class taught at the Kennedy School, which is exciting.
Lit-Arts A-57: Bilingual Arts.  A literature and arts core class taught by two professors, one of whom is Eileen Chow – I audited her “Screening Modern China” film class two years ago, and she still mistakenly thinks my name is “Steven”.
Hist-Std B-41: Inventing New England.  The only historical studies ‘B’ core that I’m interested in.  Even the students and TFs for the class are a fascinating crowd to study.
Eng 167p: Postcolonial Narratives.  An English departmental course that satisfies another literature and arts core requirement.  I’m surprised by how much I’m enthralled by the stuff we’re reading, since I was never particularly attracted to “minor literatures” from Africa, the Caribbean or South Asia.  Excellent professor, herself a graduate of the college.

I can only pray that I will have as lovely (or better) an academic experience as I had last semester.

Day after the Blizzard (13 Feb 2006), originally uploaded by J Y.

The view out my window onto DeWolfe Street and one of the Leverett towers

Things have been very weird around here lately.

After weeks of lovely, almost-balmy weather, the Northeast was hit by a major blizzard with record snowfalls in New York city, and many inches here in Cambridge too.

I received my first-ever care package (birthday cum Valentine’s Day), a very unexpected and extremely delicious heart-shaped box of assorted dark chocolates from Fannie May confections.  Thank you!  I’ve eaten way too many of them already, as have all of my roommates 🙂

Ryan and John are extremely chuffed at having the S*lient republish the Danish cartoons (of incitement-to-violence infamy).  Woj and I were horrified, almost beyond belief.  Ryan and I spent about two hours (from midnight to 2am) talking about respect and rights, rationality and reasonable expectations, restraint and responsibilities.  I know what I believe, and I think I know what Ryan believes, and I don’t think there’s a good resolution, other than to say that Ryan’s beliefs are more immovable and sharply defined… which are characteristics I  think are fundamentally problematic, in this case.  I pray that nothing untoward comes out of this.

In two other unrelated incidents, certain people shocked me with what struck me as unbecoming behavior and/or attitudes.  As usual, I’m always wrong, but that’s no surprise, in a sense.

Not the TV show.  My age.  As of yesterday.

It’s been a pretty great day, even if it happens to be my longest class day going from 10am to 4pm.  A flood of emails, facebook messages and ecards.  Thoughful gifts… the kind of things you want but are too cheap to buy for yourself.  And the sweetest singing birthday telegram on my voicemail from Malcolm and Forrest (hi guys!  Thank you – I loved it!!). And then the Dins very plesantly surprised me at rehearsal with a rendition of “Happy Birthday”.  Lucky me.

Thank you to everyone who remembered 🙂

—

My classes have been picked.  I’ll talk about them some other time.  Goodnight.

D&G has taken the dominant nautical and officer-gentlemen trends for FW06 to a brilliant and logical conclusion – the Naval officer.  Well, I’m excited.

—

I had barely anything to shop today.  Just two afternoon ESPP junior seminars, neither of which were perfect.  And this semester I absolutely must take one of them.  I’d always thought I’d take Global Change and Human Health, which is taught by two professors – the ESPP head tutor and a medical doctor from HMS.  Unfortunately, although the material is interesting and the course website is great, the class seems a little large (which I suspect will mean superficial discussions), the final project seems tedious and the professors are not terribly arresting.  The other choice I have is Conservation Biology, which is *tiny* (so hopefully the experience will be more satisfying), and at least has an interesting premise (the seminar has us write a journal-worthy literature review on some aspect of the science).  At the same time the seminar taught by an unknown visiting scholar and the focus is totally science-based (when I thought I’d managed to completely leave that behind).

I’m leaning slightly towards the biology seminar….

—

Tomorrow I shop a whole bunch of core classes.

Gand Central Station (26 Jan 2006), originally uploaded by J Y.

At Grand Central Station, NYC on our way to Hamden, CT.

From left: Colby, Sam, Alan, me

I’m quite sad about having lost the scarf pictured here…  I simply left it in a subway station when the train arrived just as I was shuffling my various coats around.  *sniff*  I probably won’t be able to replace it.  The only consolation is that I bought two very similar wool scarves last year, so I still have one in red/gold tones rather than the earth/gold version I lost.

At McSorley’s Old Ale House (31 Jan 2006), originally uploaded by J Y.

One of the oldest Irish pubs in New York City, and pretty good beer too. They only serve two kinds–light and dark–but both were very good 🙂

From left: Jon, Sam, me, Ricardo

Intercession was fun, though not terribly relaxing. I brought six books along, and read about 60 pages of one of them. I brought three netflix DVDs and saw none of them. I made a shortlist of about a dozen stores I wanted to visit and made it to about five of them. So overall I didn’t get to do quite a number of the things I wanted to do.

On the other hand, the Dins got to sing at three concerts and had about seven hours of rehearsal. We also saw two spectacular shows (Sweeny Todd and Altarboyz) which must be seen to be believed. All of us got to spend lots of time together in apartments, museums, bars, restaurants and on the street, which I enjoyed a lot. It was nice to get to know the other Dins better, all great guys in their own way.

I’m done!

My research paper was just a little past the deadline (hopefully the professor won’t notice), and shorter than I’d expected (about 30ish pages of text), but it’s done, and I enjoyed writing it.  Perhaps I’ll post it at some point when I get the paper back.

The Justice final went ok as well.  It was reassuring to think that my TF (*heart*) would be grading my paper rather than some random person who doesn’t know me at all.  So thus ends another semester.

In a couple of hours I will be off to New York for the week.  The Dins are spending intercession in the city, rehearsing, singing gigs, the usual.  I’ll update when I can.  If not, Happy Chinese New Year!!  (29th January this year, I think).  I’ll try and be in Chinatown at some point.  Hey, it’s the best I can do.

Family, I miss you.  Happy Chinese New Year to the Chews in Nevada City too. *waves* 
I  miss you guys, Malcolm and Forrest!

See you in February 🙂