On The Move…

This was taken during the three hours or so of sunshine that I got during my two week visit to California. We took the opportunity to walk around a bit and see the lovely countryside

From left: Jenevieve, me, Aunt Jennifer

The boys play with one of their new toys – a “volcano” powered by vinegar and baking soda.

From left: Malcolm, Jesse, Forrest

A small fraction of the Christmas haul for my cousins Malcolm (age 8 1/2) and Forrest (age 5 1/2). I think the bulk of my mother’s luggage was literally giftwrapped presents for these two 🙂  It was so great to see Forrest for the first time and Malcolm for the first time in six (?) years.

from left: Forrest, me, Malcolm

Taken just before I had to leave Nevada City, CA for the long, overnight journey back to Boston. I’d *always* wanted to play on one of these big trampolines when I was younger but we only had a small one at home.

From left: Malcolm, me

A view of the Sierra Friends Center, the focal point of the local Quaker community.

I just finished replacing all those
calories I burnt during five hours of dancing last night by eating a
wonderfully satisfying Thai green curry with chicken.  And of
course this is addition to the stuff I ate before my aunt brought lunch
home – the handful of grapes, serving of yoghurt, glass of milk,
leftover Singapore-style noodles (from dinner last night) and fragment
of a chocolate chip cookie.  This vacation has been a dietary
disaster (but a gastronomic fantasy) which will have to be
damaged-controlled for the next couple of weeks, no doubt.

—

Last night when the clock struck
twelve and passing cars started honking their horns, I was standing at
a random street corner in the SoMa district (6th and Bryant, I believe)
where I got a pretty good view of the fireworks (probably near the
Golden Gate bridge).  The area was deserted since most
people were indoors celebrating, but I liked being all alone and quite
quiet.  It reminded me of my other nocturnal walks, and I thought
about the last couple of New Year’s eves, which I’ve spent in quiet
rooms and hallways, always just away from the big throbbing
parties.  Like the Sea of Dreams
event that my uncle was working at last night.  That was a pretty
crazy event.  Literally thousands of revelers, all dressed in
feathers, bodypaint and faux fur.  As I’ve said a couple of times,
it was like Halloween, Mardi Gras and the backlot of a major Hollywood
studio all rolled into one crazy, pot-smelling, intoxicatingly happy
mess.  I didn’t have my camera with me so you’ll just have to take
my word for it.  After the novelty had worn off, I chose to walk
over to
some nearby club, where I satisfied my club craving till five in the
morning, when it was time for my uncle to pack up and leave (the club
where I went was open till noon today).

That was a really fun night, not least because I finally got to wear my Marc Jacobs shirt in pintucked, striped silk 🙂

—

Soon we will leave this beautiful
house (with its black slate tile and Grohe fixtures in the bathroom) in the
Laurel Hill district of San Francisco (a breezy area with lovely views)
to head back to the Sierra foothills, where hopefully I’ll get to see a
little more sunshine before I fly back to Boston in a couple of days.

—

Happy New Year!

Since my last update, I finished
writing that five-page final paper, a response paper that I finally
didn’t manage to turn in and somehow packed a bag and left for winter
recess.

So now I’m in California, in the
foothills of the Sierra mountains.  It’s beautiful here, so
blissfully quiet and simple.  The food is good, the air is fresh
and I’m having a lovely time with my violin, my DVDs and my lovely
cousins.

I’ll have a proper update with photos and all at some point.

Merry Christmas.

Done!  But just barely.  I went to bed at about 6.30am this morning (meaning I lay down on top of my sheets with the lights on) and woke up at about 12.30pm, with about three quarters of the paper written.  I thought I had loads of time (read: two hours) so I was truly shocked when it suddenly turned 2.45pm and I was yet to be done with my paper.  I spent about ten frantic minutes trying to (a) hastily craft some kind of concluding sentence to the final paragraph and (b) trying to make the one-sentence-too-long paper fit into the seven-page limit*.

* At this point I had already exhausted all the tricks I could think of, including moving substantial amounts of material into the footnotes (font size 9) and reducing the spacing between paragraphs (there are strict rules about double spacing the text itself).

But that’s all done now.  Whew.  Now I shall allow myself a few minutes to enjoy a glass of wine and pretend I didn’t miss two classes today and don’t have a whole bunch of other work due (including a response paper for MIT due at 5pm today!).

Incidentally, I don’t think I ever posted my first Justice essay, which my TF called the best he read “by far” despite the one huge logical flaw (which I realised myself about ten minutes after turning in my paper).  While the praise was very appreciated and gratifying, it also means that the essay I just turned in has no chance of achieving the same level of success, given how unstructured, philosophically muddled and weakly positioned it is overall (and let’s not forget the truly horrendous last page and concluding statement).  Anyway, to read my first (superior) paper for this class, click here.  In this essay I argue that torture is never justified, even to prevent an iminent catastrophic terrorist attack.

PS: As a result of all the nonsense I ate last night while writing my paper (including milk and graham crackers, Hagen Daaz ice cream, a bowl of soup and a whole load of chocolate), I am now literally two pounds heavier than when I started writing.  Bleargh.

This entry marks the last stupid act of procrastination before I actually start on my Justice paper that is due in just fourteen hours (during which I will have a sleep a little, and even hopefully make it to classes in the morning…  we’ll see).

I’ve watched March of the Penguins and Bewitched on DVD, I’ve eaten a bagful of sour patch kids candy (ensuring an impending sugar coma), I’ve made a bunch of fluffy diapers, I’ve tidied the common room somewhat.  And now I’m blogging, just before 11pm, nearly five hours after I was first free to begin drafting an outline for this terrible paper.

I would panic, but the paper questions are just so uninspiring that I would almost rather just not write at all.  But I can’t.  And I won’t.

So let’s get cracking, shall we?

Seriously there are only a few things that can get me out of bed in the morning.  These include early (read: 10am) classes, time-sensitive travel plans and breakfast meetings (groan).  But vying with these motivations is the lure of a delicious dining hall breakfast.

Take this morning, for instance.  I fell asleep while reading Masp