End of semester

Aaahhh too much going on... Between end-of-the-year theatre (Varsity Show and Richard III), end-of-the-year work (lab report, quantum pset, mechanics pset, German stuff, studying, etc.), and end-of-the-year social events, I don't see myself getting very much sleep for the next week and a half. What fun.

Instead of doing work for the last week I've slept, learned how to play "The Queen and the Soldier" on guitar, watched several DVDs, juggled, and enjoyed the nice weather. And, although this has been less time-consuming, I've also found something new to be annoyed about: in preparation for graduation, a bunch of fence posts have been installed around campus in the middles of random walkways. I'm sure that many schools would add three foot posts to the middles of walkways at the end of the semester when everyone is too stressed out to watch where they're going, but only at Columbia are they covered in wet paint.

Work

So here's a theater story, because I do still work there and occasionally things do still happen that make me feel good about myself (or at least that make me feel like I've spent two waking hours not doing physics).

Tonight was a reading (or rather a playing of a recording of a reading by Ginsberg) of Howl followed by a panel discussion. It was somewhat entertaining because the panel speakers were good, but mostly it was interesting as it was being protested by the Underground Literary Alliance which I hadn't previously heard of. I don't think ULA is really intended to be taken seriously, but they managed to be rude and disruptive while being unimaginitive and not especially funny. One guy was kicked out for heckling. There was another guy dressed up as a clown who snuck onstage and invited the panelists to silence him by attaching a mousetrap to his tongue... they passed on the opportunity. The audience was unimpressed. The guy was escorted out by security. Ostensibly, the point these people were trying to make ran along the lines of "this whole thing is really fake." But dressing as a clown and setting off a mousetrap on your tongue is completely sincere (and I'm sure no one has ever though of it before).

Conclusion - [some] humanities people supposedly have lives, but don't have anything useful to do with them.

Spring!

Ah, the joy of Spring: there's more daylight, it's warm, things are turning green, I'm in a good mood for once.
Ah, the reality of Spring: my nose is running, my sinuses kill, I'm not in a good mood anymore.


Anyway, the other thing about the nice weather is that I'm no longer motivated to stay indoors and do my work. Instead I've been out taking pictures with my camera (and Karen, my long-suffering roommate of last year, has been out taking pictures with my camera). Here are two such pictures: The first is of some flowers growing beteen the physics building and the business school (taken by me). The second is the moon through a magnolia somewhere on campus (taken by Karen).