On The Move…

Last week was a blur of activity, what with hosting four prefrosh (new admits), which as Asya pointed out, is really a full-time commitment (even though Dave kept insisting I wouldn’t have to babysit).  While I’ve cleared the resulting sleep debt, the work debt is really escalating to crisis point very rapidly.

Friday night was Southeast Asia Night, which was a surprisingly well-attended and fun event.  We got to hang out, see many of the Singaporean upperclassmen together (for once) and eat yummy food including Vietnamese spring rolls, Thai iced tea and kueh lapis fedex-ed directly from Indonesia by the resident billionaire’s son.  On Saturday we rented a lovely big car and made the drive down to Brown University in Providence, RI for the Singapore Lecture Series which was… just about exactly what I’d expected.  There was good food, fairly interesting speakers (but rather desultory content) and a beautiful campus.  It was a nice chance to take a nice drive and rigorously discuss subjects I’ve been thinking about recently with Darryl, Mel, Shirley and others (as much as a conversation can be rigorous).  Maybe at some point I’ll type up and post a few of my musings about Singapore, which largely represent a perspective I’ve only heard vague echoes of elsewhere despite straining to find similarly inclined individuals.

Sunday was Easter.  Happy Easter! (And because I’ve had mortifying encounters with this, Happy Passover!)  I finally did laundry (so many “missing” items of clothing turned out to have been in my overstuffed hamper), read some Al Young and some Rushdie and made it to the gym.  Overall a good, fairly productive-feeling day.

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To return to an old theme, the dining hall here really has a way of thwarting any diet moderation plans I have.  Recently they’ve been serving up unbelievably tempting delights like grilled asparagus spears, chicken and green pepper soup, coconut rice and wasabi peas (which have suddenly become a staple at the garnish counter along with sesame crackers and sunflower seeds).  *fake grumble*  I love my dining hall.

And right now, instead of working urgently on my final research paper for my junior seminar (due tomorrow!), I’m needlessly binging on… wasabi peas (again!), spicy popcorn (from Madagascar; they’re almost more potent than the peas), dark Valrhona chocolate (I still prefer the smoothness of Scharffen Berger) and an entire pound of fancy (and super-fattening) confectionery from Pastiche, an extremely highly-rated confectionery and caf