Weekend.
A glorious weekend, in many respects.
Sunday was a flawless spring day.
I ate brunch early in the dining hall, here practically deserted at the crack of 11 am.
Several areas of campus are practically dripping with flowers.
I went to go investigate the campus juggling club and got a lesson in club passing. It's been months since I last tried. I still have the problem that once clubs start flying at my face, everything I throw goes halfway between me and the person I'm trying to throw to.
Everyone was enjoying the sun. Families with digital cameras ready to record every moment. The long-legged and skimpy-shorted Princeton girls were out in full force.
I decided to go up to the top of Cleveland tower for the first time since I've been here. It's only open at annoying hours of the afternoon, and we're forbidden to go up alone and during generals, I suppose to discourage suicides.
Here is the view from the bottom:
And here is the view of the old graduate college from the top:
New Jersey is pretty unimpressive from up high. It's flat and there are some trees.
I sat in the sun outside of the grad college and watched the Indian students play cricket. Still don't understand the rules.
I took a picture of the lights at Rocky College after dancing lessons:
There was a formal dance for the graduate school. I dressed up in my prom dress for the nth time (n large) and gave many mini waltz lessons.
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I'm continuing my attempts to learn to lead in dance, at least when I manage to find a dance class that has a sufficient surplus of girls.
Leading is fun for a few reasons:
1. Girls tend to be lighter on their feet and more coordinated than boys, so they're more fun to dance with.
2. The follower is a mere pawn in my powerful hands. Mwahaha.
3. Um.
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I filed my taxes, after much hand-wringing. Much like everything I've learned in grad school, once you figure out how to properly phrase your questions, the answers are trivial.
Dear Federal Government,
Despite any recent differences of opinion we may have, I sincerely appreciate the service that you have provided me. As a token of my appreciation and fear of retribution, please accept the enclosed check for Unspecified Large Quantity of Money.
Love,
Me
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Did you know that if you put a light bulb in a microwave it will flash pretty colors?
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I check weather forecasts much more now than I ever did in California. I think that this is because while the weather in California does vary a lot, it mostly does so within the margin of error of most weather forecasts, ie whether it's cloudy or sunny. Here when a warm or a cold front comes through, the temperature difference on successive days is approximately as much as California's entire seasonal variation.
It's forecast to snow tonight.
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After more than two weeks, the hand that I smashed skiing is still not better.
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I'm still working on my early morning experiment. The experiment is to go to bed before midnight as often as I can, and to wake up in the morning without an alarm clock. So far, I've been able to manage 8 am pretty consistently.
The upside is that this forms the second block of time in the ten years since I started high school that I'm not sleep deprived. It feels really good.
The downside, of course, is that I'm getting absolutely no work done. I can't figure out how to work during the day. I sit down at my desk in my room or my office, and I look outside, or someone comes in to distract me, or the officemate starts talking, and then there's a class to go to, and the day is gone.
Comments
I looked up the rules of cricket in one of my reference books. This seems to be a slightly modified version...
Brockian Ultra-Cricket
Although it has been said that on Earth alone in our Galaxy is Krikkit (or cricket) treated as fit subject for a game, and that for this reason the Earth has been shunned, this does only apply to our Galaxy, and more specifically to our dimension. In some of the higher dimensions they feel they can more or less please themselves, and have been playing a peculiar game called Brockian Ultra-Cricket for whatever their transdimensional equivalent of billions of years is.
Lets be blunt, it's a nasty game, but anyone who has been to the higher dimensions will know that they're a pretty nasty heathen lot up there who should just be smashed and done in, and would be, too, if anyone could work out a way of firing missiles at right-angles to reality.
The rules to the game of Brockian Ultra-cricket, as played in the higher dimensions are strange and inexplicable. A full set of the rules is so massively complicated that the only time they were all bound together to form a single volume, they underwent gravitational collapse and became a black hole.
A brief summary, however, is as follows:
Rule One:
Grow at least three extra legs. You won't need them, but it keeps the crowds amused.
Rule Two:
Find one good Brockian Ultra-Cricket player and clone him off a few times. This saves an enormous amount of tedious selection and training.
Rule Three:
Put your team and the opposing team in a large field and build a high wall round them.
The reason for this is that, though the game is a major spectator sport, the frustration experienced by the audience at not actually being able to see what's going on leads them to imagine that it's a lot more exciting than it actually is. A crowd that has just watched a rather humdrum game experiences far less life-affirmation than a crowd that believes it has just missed the most dramatic event in sporting history.
Rule Four:
Throw lots of assorted items of sporting equipment over the walls for the players. Anything will do - cricket bats, basecube bats, tennis guns, skis, anything you can get a good swing with.
Rule five:
The players should now lay about themselves for all they are worth with whatever they find to hand. Whenever a player scores a 'hit' on another player, he should immediately run away and apologize from a safe distance.
Apologies should be concise, sincere and, for maximum clarity and points, delivered through a megaphone.
Rule Six:
The winning team shall be the first team that wins.
Curiously enough, the more the obsession with the game grows in the higher dimensions, the less it is actually played, since most of the competing teams are now in a state of permanent warfare with each other over the interpretation of these rules. This is all for the best, because in the long run a good solid war is less psychologically damaging than protacted game of Brockian Ultra-Cricket.
Posted by: Eugene | April 5, 2006 12:37 AM
Here when a warm or a cold front comes through, the temperature difference on successive days is approximately as much as California's entire seasonal variation.
Yeah. I'm looking at the weather more often too. That's a good way to put it.
Posted by: Kris H. | April 5, 2006 06:36 AM
Your campus looks annoyingly pretty, or did you just have the keen eyes to capture the pretty spots?
The very first picture looks particularly eye catchy - reminds me of the dining hall in the Christ Church College at Cambridge, where they filmed the dining hall in the Harry Potters.
Posted by: Zhongning | April 5, 2006 03:33 PM
In contrast, the Bay Area has had daily rain for over a month now! Enjoy your lovely springtime weather ...
Posted by: morganya | April 5, 2006 05:21 PM
Another benefit of leading is avoiding the occasional, but highly annoying, slimy guy (and being able to help friends avoid him too). And of course, there's the amusement of cross-dressing at Gaskell's.
Posted by: morganya | April 5, 2006 05:24 PM
Yes, Princeton really is that beautiful. Not everything is gothic, though.
They designed the grad college specifically to look like Oxford/Cambridge. So not a coincidence.
Leading hasn't helped with the slimy guys so far--they still want to dance with me as a girl. Oh well.
See next post about the weather here. :)
Posted by: Nadia | April 5, 2006 09:15 PM
The other downside of you going to bed at sensible hours is that I never see you online any more. This is not the right direction for us to have time zone differences! :-P
Posted by: Ian Hickson | April 6, 2006 12:31 AM
A slight correction of what I said yesterday - the dining hall in which they filmed the Harry Potters is the dining hall in Christ Church College in Oxford, not Cambridge. :P
Posted by: Zhongning | April 6, 2006 12:54 PM