greenpass

Safe Space!

In a nod to the Harvard BLGTS Association's campaign to get people to put "BLGT Safe Space" signs on their doors, my downstairs neighbours have started a "Stand up for academic freedom" Larry Summers Safe Space campaign. I may disagree with much of Summers' style and attitude, but I will say again - if he is to be ousted, it should be on legitimate and obvious terms with none of the underhanded fishy backstabbing that has so characterized some of the faculty's dealings with the problem so far. So Larry, if you're reading this and you want to go somewhere where everyone knows your name...Kirkland B-43 is a safe space for you. For the moment.

UPDATE: Check out Students For Larry (not an endorsement as yet, as I haven't had time to look around the site).

It's course time again...

It's my last semester here, which means I get to take a lot of fun classes. Here's my shopping list - cheers and jeers welcome:
Spanish Bab. Intensive Spanish. 7 hours a week, counts as two courses. This way I'll be able to speak four of the most widely spoken languages on earth: English, French, Spanish and Mandarin.
Music 180. Chamber music performance. Monday nights, 7-10pm - if I get in, I'll take the class I've been too scared to audition for since freshman fall, and sing Faure art songs for Robert Levin.
L&A C-40. The Chinese Literati. This sounds seriously cool:
"Examines from literary, philosophical, and historical perspectives the creation in later imperial China of an enduring national culture, which flourished through dynastic change and foreign conquest. Particular attention is given to the role of the literati and their work as poets, essayists, novelists, painters, moral philosophers, and political thinkers. Themes include the relation of culture to political authority, the search for grounds for individual responsibility, the literary and artistic representation of the self, growing ambivalence toward political service, and the rise of individualism. Introduces Chinese approaches to interpreting literary, artistic, and philosophical works."
East Asian Studies 130. The Tang A definite possibility, especially if I do apply for a masters in Chinese Literature or Politics somewhere like SOAS. Depends on the professor though.
Linguistics 110. Intro to Linguistics. I'll probably take this one pass/fail since it looks interesting but a bit more work than I'm willing to put into an elective, especially in a semester with so many interesting classes.
Gov 1300. The Politics of Congress Could be heavy going, but I'll shop it and pick up the syllabus. It's always worth learning more about how the government works from a theoretical standpoint.
Gov 1350. Political Parties and Interest Groups. This looks very cool, although I can't figure out why it only meets once a week for two hours. That looks suspiciously like there's a whole lot of reading assigned. Definitely one to shop.

Alternatively, a little booklet was put into my doorbox tonight that may solve my shopping problems. Entitled "FAS Courses of Instruction emergency addendum", it includes such courses that I think you'll recognize as very much related to my past blogging interests:

Science A-75. Time, Space, the Universe, Maths, and Our God, Jesus Christ
Rev. Evan J. Lushing
M., 1:30-5:30 EXAM GROUP: 8,9
A brief overview of various sciences and maths, taught with the understanding that God is the creator of all things.

General Education 6. Teamwork and Excitement
Corporal Jonathan Murdstrom
M., Tu., W., Th., F., Sa., Su. EXAM GROUP: 8,9
How would you like to fly in a real plane? Do you enjoy working with others in a cooperative and efficient manner? How are your reflexes? Average? Over the course of this ten semester course, you will get the chance to take a variety of field trips to exotic locations like Mosul, Iraq and South Mosul, Iraq. No courses may be taken in conjunction with General Studies 6.
Prerequisites: Age 16 or higher. Actually, 15. We will take 15-year-olds.

Linguistics 85. Crazy Talk

And my personal favourite:
Economics 00. Economics for Women
Larry Summers
M., W. at 3 EXAM GROUP: 8,9
Awww, that's adorable. You want to take e-co-no-mics? This course involves no previous knowledge of economics, mathematics, or words. It will be taught entirely in pictures and/or Barbies.

You gotta hand it to the Lampoon. They may have been around forever and write incomprehensible screeds called "Jester, Ibis, Blot" and have parties where startling amounts of illicit substances are consumed, but when they bother they are hilarious.

People will do anything

Ye gods. He's a Nobel prize winner who once managed to beat an 8 year old (my brother, years ago) at "Star Wars Monopoly", but got whupped at "Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit" by a 21 year old (me). Not a god. Although if he were a god, he'd be a very nice (and smart) one. And I suppose this makes Betsy a sort of domestic fertility goddess, as all the great divine consorts were (Eve, Fricka, Hera, etc.)

Off to New York with the Pitches. My hellish (but fun) semester is over, and I hope I have finally shaken off the spectre of Orfeo and can start blogging again next semester. These big projects are fun, but they do wreak havoc on your academics, long-distance relationships, job search (so far completely unsuccessful), other extra-curriculars (like blogging) and most especially your health. Ever since Orfeo I've been continually sick, although that could have something to do with the horrible Boston winter.

Finally

Finally done with auditions for L'Orfeo (the opera I'm directing), and callbacks are today - this will hopefully explain the long hiatus from blogging, since I've been in auditions continuously until midnight every night the past week and a half (only a very very slight exaggeration).

And yeah, there seem to be some problems with typepad. I'll see about that. New visitors, this site is usually a very pretty shade of green with a nice three column layout, blogroll, links, archives, and all that jazz.

And yeah, the New York Times article? Since I've definitely never worn a tube top in my life, methinks I've been confused for Ezra Klein's lovely and intelligent girlfriend - a woman I'm honored to have been mistaken for, but unfortunately not me. And although Jesse is a wonderful and extremely sweet guy, I'm not dating him (or even practically dating him), since at the moment my life is wedded to a certain Monteverdi opera.

Ah well...now I have first hand evidence that you shouldn't believe everything you read in the Times.

UPDATE: Problems fixed - yay!

UPDATE UPDATE: I finally managed to read the article. Didn't get all the way through it before I had to bang my head against a wall - it's like hearing your own voice on tape, seeing the way other people see you. At least it's the first time I've been described as a "cute woman" rather than a "cute girl" or (worse) "cute coed". Eugh.

Blog shadowing

I arrived here at Kirkland House last night, all set to move into Matt Yglesias' old room with Matt Yglesias' lovely ex-girlfriend. Then, thankfully before I actually became Matt Yglesias, some silly people decided to trade us their incredible room in B-entry for Matt's slanted-roof five story walkup room.

My computer is completely broken and has been for a week or so, but now that I'm back at school I can rejoin the modern world. Many thoughts on peer group dynamics coming up after I give myself a hernia or two carrying about 10,000 books up many flights of stairs.

Birthday blogging

I'm off to New Hampshire for my traditional birthday party. Every year we get together and have a big birthday with my father (left, with golf club in his traditional golfing garb), my mother (on the camel), and sadly my brother is in Beijing, so for the first time in 21 years only one of us will be there. So in lieu of blogging until tomorrow, think of a good caption for this photo, bottom right (fun with Egyptian temples!):

Autumn thoughts

It's been kind of cool here in Cambridge the past few days - lovely and sunny, but dry and with sometimes with a chilly breeze as if to remind you that school is only a few weeks away. And as a good student should, I've started thinking about courses for next year. I'm in the wonderful (or horrible) situation of having almost an entire year of electives ahead of me, so here's what I chose. Tell me what you think:

In the fall:
--Arabic A (this goes for a full year, an hour every morning, 5 days a week)
--First Nights, an easy music class that I have to take as a breadth requirement
--Stats 140, Design of Experiments (for my concentration)
--Campaigns and Elections (meets once a week for 2 hours. Course description: "Examines US congressional and presidential campaigns and elections, including candidates and the incentives and constraints they face, the role of political parties, and the evolution of the presidential nomination process. Considers how voters acquire information and make vote choices. Discussion of media coverage, negative advertising, campaign finance, and electoral reform." I think it's essential to be taking this fall in particular - I hope I can get in.)

(I would take 5 classes but I'm directing an opera that goes up just before Thanksgiving, so I probably shouldn't overload myself.)

In the spring:
--Arabic A (again)
--Spanish, if I can fit it in
--American Democracy (very highly rated, and offered jointly with the Kennedy School and the Law School. Description: "This course addresses what makes the US special as a society and a culture. How are the institutional arrangements of the country and its dominant beliefs related? It also discusses how divergent understandings of American realities may inform contrasting proposals for the reforms needed to realize American ideals more fully. We confront clashes of vision and method in the social sciences and humanities. Ethnic diversity provides one focus among others for these concerns.")
--Chinese 142b (advanced whatever)
--The Chinese Literati (for the Core, but actually sounds really cool: "Examines from literary, philosophical, and historical perspectives the creation in later imperial China of an enduring national culture, which flourished through dynastic change and foreign conquest. Particular attention is given to the role of the literati and their work as poets, essayists, novelists, painters, moral philosophers, and political thinkers. Themes include the relation of culture to political authority, the search for grounds for individual responsibility, the literary and artistic representation of the self, growing ambivalence toward political service, and the rise of individualism. Introduces Chinese approaches to interpreting literary, artistic, and philosophical works.")

This year's going to be awesome.

Edited for foolish pasting. Who needs editors - my readers are awesome.

I want it to be my birthday too

It's Jesse's birthday today, so of course I want it to be MY birthday instead. It's oh so soon...and yet so damn far. And I get to cross the boundary of the legal drinking age for the third time in my life.

My birthday horoscope makes me happy in rather a fatuous way, though: "I think that song "Leader of the Pack" is a good way to describe most of the August 15th people." Read the rest here. Who am I to argue with the stars, especially when they collectively produce something so flattering, so amusingly centered on the page, and with so much helpful advice about "were (sic) my golden rings lie"?

Yo-yo politics

So during the DNC I managed to lose eight pounds over the week. And now I've started exercising again, I've gained three pounds of that back.

I think I may have to become either a professional political blogger or some sort of Democratic apparatchik - it's obviously the only way to achieve my weight-loss goals.

Thanks to Duncan...

Thanks to Duncan, aka Atrios, I have now three things:

1. A full appreciation for his totally laid-back, humble nature. We had lunch a few times and he is just so cool. I kept repeating "Duncan, Duncan" in my head so as not to accidentally say "So Atrios..." (I still called him that by accident a lot, though.)

2. A spot on his blogroll. Welcome, if that's how you made your way here!

3. Laryngitis. I thought I had just screamed my lungs out talking over noise at the convention and the parties, but no - it's the same thing that Duncan had. Oh well - if I have to catch a cold from someone, I'd rather it be Atrios instead of some random delegate or security guard or something...