A Weblog

Freshman year five girls lived upstairs from me. One was a varsity cross-country runner. In high school she had done some modelling for the specialty magazine Runners’ World. She along with the other two girls in my entryway on the team were among the five best freshmen runners we had that year. Her roommate, Julie, eventually ended up as my blockmate. Both Julie and Megan — the runner had a name, too — wound up in Leverett with me. Julie, of course, through the blocking process; Megan, by transferring in. Most of my freshmen entry did something along the same lines. We stole Rebecca from the Quad. Gabe crossed over from Mather. Matt was a compromise between the two, going from Mather to the Quad. But the superhero wasn’t in Leverett. She, Erin, was in Kirkland. During the first entryway meeting, our proctor started us off with an ice breaker. We were to introduce ourself to the group, stating name, home state, and something “interesting.” As a freshman the standard name/year/house affiliation intro was a practical impossibility. The interesting fact is a killer. Anything that is really interesting about you isn’t the sort of thing you want to offer up for first impressions. Consequently, they’re usually pretty lame as a matter of course. Thankfully, we were spared Two Truths and a Lie. (I’ve killed a man. I have an older brother George. I’m an only child and always wanted an older brother George.) My roommate wowed us with the versality of his name. Backwards it is “oD kraP.” Phonetically, as he told us, it’s funny. Erin, being from the ambiguous South, explained that she likes to hunt ‘gators. But that’s not the superhero part, either. As I said, you can’t give a truly intersting fact during these ice breaker games. Erin’s heart beats abnormally fast creating an electric charge slightly stronger than the average human. For this reason, all of her electronics break within months of her owning them. She went through two alarm clocks and one computer freshmen year. Why? They were both zapped. Indeed, when Erin was thirteen, she underwent a surgery literally to kill part of her heart in an attempt to reduce her electric personality. Think of it! So fantastic is her power that she graduated in only three years, only to continue onto Columbia architect school. Awesome is she who wields the current that flows through her veins. Behold!

In the interest of keeping you, my loyal and extended reader base, from becoming too bored, and to validate your checking up on me, I have written a short albeit very boring post. It teeters slightly on the technical side. Please excuse me. I promise a post of worth in the immediate future.

Tonight my father and I discussed some of the merits of XML (extensible mark-up language) with extensions to telephony, public switching, and the .NET standard. This, in turn, prompted me to look up more on XML, and a little about SGML (standard generalized mark-up language). XML is a meta-language and fits nicely in my present trek into meta-physics. Of course, my goal is ultimately in meta-cognition. In the meantime, I should work on some practical skill sets. Hence the computerish talk. Since graduation, I’ve taken on a lot of academic goals for myself, programming being among them.

[Other resolutions include: reading a book I should have already read every two weeks --- not the same book --- Someone is mugged in Central Park every two hours, and he's really sick of it; working through the proof of the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem; learning more relativity, more developmental psych, more epistemology; applying to graduate school.]

In addition to my light XML reading, I decided to check out, on Divia’s suggestion, the Apple Human Interface Guidlines. Mitchel Resnick, my professor at the Media Lab over at MIT for a class on technology and education, would be glad to know that his class had a lasting effect on me. [In his class, I wrote a design brief for a software package to impart a particular mode of thought while developing a geometric intuition. In the conclusion I urged the reader never to implement my design lest it be used irresponsibly. The moral: technology, like alcohol, can be a valued servant but terrible master. Teach first, dazzle the kids with blinking lights later.] If I’m very lucky but not very careful, I’ll end up with a D. Ed in math and cognition.

Also I went to Tracy’s with DJ to hang out with them, Michelle, and some of Tracy’s friends from, as I understand it — and I’m making this part up based on imperfect data — Legal Seafood. Michelle brought me my GameCube power cord, The Twenties by Edmund Wilson, and the navy fleece all of which I had left her place the night before.

In the morning my sister, a handful of her friends, Michelle, and DJ, if he wakes up, are heading Downtown to Filene’s to celebrate the liquidation sale.

Paper Mario may be the end of me.

In seven minutes my Harvard ID should not, if what they threaten is true, allow me into Leverett any longer. Even so, I can’t muster the necessary fear that would otherwise inspire me to get the last few things out of my room so the next kid can take it. Instead, I’d like to post this very silly graphic explaining the three possible geometries of the universe without much introduction or explanation. Notice that it is unduly funny. [I stole it from NASA's WMAP page.]

Never match Bikila burger for burger at an all-you-can-eat McDonald’s studybreak. It’s hard to sleep on seven cheeseburgers, an apple pie, and a large carton of fries.

My stomach is so densely packed right now. It hurts to lie down. Still, sleep must prevail; Divia and I are programming in the morning.

To ring in the New Year, my physics friends and I prepared curried potatoes, peas, and onions; a beef stew; some bread, cheese, and wine; followed by brownies and Friendly’s fudge swirl ice cream. Ryan, from Holliston, chose the ice cream. Anahita, who is from Iran, sat next to Christian of Germany. After wearing a dopey grin for twenty minutes, I explained to Anahita, in the kitchen, tastefully far enough away from Christian, how funny I thought it was that her president recently publically denied the Holocaust. Germany’s response was outrage, as they have been apologizing for the past fifty years. Anahita had know idea what the Holocaust was. The Russians, Pavel and Timor, introduced us to a drink known as Polar Lights. Only Russians would mix champagne with vodka. We washed it down with cavas.

We all split after dinner. Ryan and I went to Boston Beerworks. Meredith Yerkes, whom I mistook for Laura, bartended. Bruce, whom I had never met, engaged me in a conversation about vectron, a super light, super strong material made from tubes of carbon, and its potential use in transoceanic cargo transport. Anahita and Verena met us. That didn’t stop Bruce. Happy New Year!

Since then I have swum twice, water polo once, and squash thrice. Today is my off day. Coincidentally, Michelle came back from her trip. If were the type of person who used euphemisms, I’d say it was “eventful.” You can read about it yourself. But since she’s back, and Hector’s back, I split my time. First to Cambridge Commons to see my boy two days before his twenty-second. Then, at 12:30am EST, or thereabouts, Michelle and I hopped in the Neon to go to the LL Bean flagship store in Freeport. I drove deliberately slowly so that I could marvel in the silouettes of nature in the night.

Night driving is my favorite type of driving, as I explained to Michelle. She was afraid that she might fall asleep. Indeed, I encouraged it. There’s nothing I like more than driving on a lonely stretch of highway in the deep night while someone I care for sleeps safely and soundly to my right, except, perhaps, being driven and sleeping myself. That’s why I was sure to bring my quillow.

LL Bean didn’t have a tuque with flaps like the one my mother sent me last winter, and I’m sad to have lost it. With any luck, it’s hiding behind my couch or under a book. But if that is the case, I have no evidence of it. Neither could I find a pair of boat shoes that suited me. You see, I’m trying to avoid socks. Looks like for the meanwhile I have little choice. [I did just come back in from across the River, near the stadium where I park my car, in my slippers. They are sufficient for short excursions but nothing far.] All was not lost, however. Michelle purchased two pine-scented candles and a very demure, silver deer’s head bottle opener for her keychain. And I picked up the most technologically inclined winter jacket I’ve ever seen. It is called a Wildcat and it was on sale. There are many more pockets and lens chamois for my ski goggles or glasses than I could’ve ever discovered while in the store.

To test out my new avocado coat, Michelle and I drove around until we found Portland Head Light [House] to watch the sunrise over the water. We drove back to Cambridge and were tucked in our beds by 9am, maybe a little later. I woke up for real around 8pm. DJ joined me for breakfast at Grendel’s Sunday Seven — a menu of seven food items each costing only a dollar. DJ and I both took a double patty hamburger, rare, and a cheese quesadilla. Add a four bean chili to my order.

And, to honor my promise, you can now read what DJ’s up to from the link I added under navigation. It’s called “DJ’s Blog.”

Time to sleep. I have to proofread Mike’s thesis and pick up the canoli from Mike’s [not the same Mike] tomorrow.