Blogmas Days 5+6: Performances

Yesterday, I had Winter Showcase for my dance group. I have decided that I am definitely no longer an undergrad. This is a couple of years late, but every time I am in a room with screaming, hyper teenagers, I get a little grumbly. It's probably because I don't really know any of them. Goodness knows I still scream like a little girl around my friends.

Today, K and I went to Top of the Hub, Boston's tallest dining experience, on the 52nd floor of the Prudential Towers. Dinner was seafood filled and totally filling. Then we saw the Boston Pops Holiday Concert. I miss orchestras and orchestral concerts. They played Hallelujah and I was immediately taken back to high school and the billion times we played it. There was also a singalong portion that I greatly enjoyed, and a narration and accompanying soundtrack to The Polar Express. 

It's now late and rainy. Signing off!

Blogmas Day 3+4: The Last Classes

I thought that I was done with "last class" experiences after finishing my last real class last semester. But yesterday was the last class of the class I am teaching. Usually, I feel very bittersweet about the last times for things. For every last lecture of classes that I've taken, I get a pang of sadness, even when the class has been pretty boring. I've always been very sentimental and have disliked changes in my routine and the ends of things.

But this time, there is not really a bittersweet feeling. I don't really feel sad that the class is ending. It's not that I've disliked my students. In fact, I've found them to be wonderful and it's been great to watch them grow this semester. I've even learned quite a bit this semester. It's just that teaching takes so much time, and working across the river, I feel like I haven't had much time to really devote to research. Classes aren't really my priority anymore and that's ok.

Tonight, I'm giving my last section. I suppose that this should also be a bittersweet occasion, but I really just want to get it over with. Cell signalling is interesting, but ultimately, not my cup of tea. Here are pictures from today: the river and a group of people being festive. Random.

Blogmas Day 2: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I knew Christmas season was starting when coffee shops started putting out their holiday cups and serving holiday drinks (current favorite from Starbucks: Gingerbread Latte...yum) and storefronts started displaying snowflakes and mannequins in thick scarves and festive hats. Cambridge does this thing where they string up nets across the lampposts and make patterns of lights in them to make the whole street sparkle.

But today, as I stepped off the T in Harvard Square, I noticed my first nighttime lit Christmas tree. And though it was only a marginally chilly 37 degrees out, it suddenly felt a lot more like winter and Christmas here.

Blogmas Day 1: New York Adventure

Blogmas 2013: This year, I shall include at least one image with each blog post!

New York, in December

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It's December! The holiday spirit has hit me (it hit in mid-October, but who's counting) and after the awesome NYC adventure I went on with KKS, I decided that I would revisit Blogmas this year, particularly because I won't be spending Christmas with my family.

K has come to Boston for Thanksgiving, one thing I have to be very thankful for, and besides cooking a turkey and gravy and Brussels sprouts for our Friendsgiving potluck, we've been bumming around Boston doing some light Black Friday shopping and hiding from the rain by watching movies and playing music. But this weekend, we went to New York, for a bit of a nostalgic adventure as well as to see Twelfth Night, my favorite Shakespeare comedy, staring Stephen Fry, one of my favorites as well, as a wonderfully sympathy-inducing Malvolio. We got seats on the stage, and I was so close to Mr. Fry that I could have reached out and touched him as he was leaning against our booth. (Disclosure: I refrained, but the older lady sitting next to me did not.) I was so close that I could see the spit flying out of the actors' mouths. (They were all actors; an all male cast with men playing the women as originally done in Shakespeare's day, which made for some very funny hysterics.) I was so close, in fact, that when the Fool was dressing himself in a cloak and fake beard, I GOT TO HOLD THE BEARD.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience and even though I did not get pictures of the play itself, I did get this:

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Today, we wandered around the West Village with IS, got some coffee near NYU, which had all the stereotypical hipster students wandering about, and strolled along the river, marveling at the dog owners and their dogs and talking about generally non-important things. Our bus ride home was elongated greatly by the three accidents on the road and I learned that the toilet on the bus was nothing more than a hold over a huge vat of disinfectant. Joy.

But I'm back home in my room now, safe despite overturned trains and malfunctioning cars, and looking forward to the next couple of weeks before going home. I'm excited for LJ to return bearing Christmas decorations for our little apartment, as well as Christmas baking and gift giving.

There is not one photo that encompasses my New York trip, so I shall include some. Happy Dec. 1!