basil

People keep making fun of me for how I pronounce the word "basil". I have been pronouncing it like I would pronounce "basilico" in Italian, phonetically "bas-ill" not "bay-sill". It is really irritating to have people going on about this all the time.

I just went and checked the Oxford English Dictionary. It says that the "a" is like the "a" in "pat", and the "i" is like the "i" in "pit". Even allowing for the British accent, how can that possibly be "bay-sill"?

And it's not just a British thing. Merriam-Webster says it's "bazl", with the "a" like the "a" in "ash".

So there. Ha.

tut tut

Today it's pouring rain. It's really great weather for getting indoor things done, particularly since I still don't own a decent raincoat. I spent the morning doing the past month's worth of laundry--the clothes I wore to Sandra's birthday party still smelled incredibly strongly of fried food when I took them from the hamper--and so my room is currently decorated with damp clothes hanging from every possible hook, hanger, and bar.

I fried potstickers for lunch, and since then I have been mostly reading for my seminar on "experience" in medieval science: parts of books dealing with astronomy/astrology and collections of rare natural and manmade items, like "automata", partially or fully mechanical creations (some of which seemed as crude as college pranks to me), e.g.:

"Item, there is a window where, when people wish to open it, a personage in front of it wets people and closes the window again in spite of them. Item, there is a lectern on which there is a book of ballades, and, when they try to read it, people are all covered with black, and as soon as they look inside, they are all wet with water, when one so wishes. And there is another mirror where people are sent to look at themselves when they are besmirched, and, when they look into it, they are once more covered with flour, and all whitened." (p.100, Wonders and the Order of Nature)

Sounds like it was a great excuse for the person who owned them to humiliate his guests! There were also mechanical monkeys, and silver-gilt table fountains with thirty-two spouts for serving wine and perfumed water... But it's amazing how these curious things can so quickly lose my interest when I know I'm required read about them in a textbook.

I managed to read about half of what needed to be done for Monday before the urge to nap became irresistible. Now I guess I'm going to open a can of something to pour over rice for dinner. I think the next thing I want from home is a bagful of mocha mamon from Goldilocks. And maybe a bag of turon too. Mmmm.

Harvard Book Store

I've actually been reading books for fun recently. Today it was Tom Stoppard's Invention of Love, over dinner. I hadn't noticed while watching the play in San Francisco a few years ago just how much of the portrayal of Housman was set against Oscar Wilde, but it was incredibly obvious this time around. Last week I read Richard Bausch's book of short stories, Someone To Watch Over Me, which was very moving without being depressing, and part of The Parrot's Theorem, a novel centered around the history of mathematics that was a bit dry and rather too dense to read in one sitting. A strange collection of books, assembled at the Harvard Book Store.

One of the best things about the Harvard Book Store is its remainder tables. Like Moe's in Berkeley, the remainder tables are rich with things that look worth purchasing. I even saw Tim's book Life Beyond Earth on the upstairs remainder tables. The tables catch your eye just as you turn to your right entering the store, and then once you've been hooked, you are drawn inexorably down the curved staircase to the basement, where there are used books for sale, and tables and tables more remainders--tons of beautiful new hardback books for less than $10 that normally sell for $30-40. It's hard to walk out without getting something. Clearly for me it's pretty impossible.

it's snowing

It's snowing! It's snowing!

psychotic women

Very tired today. I think this is a carry-over from the night before last, when I couldn't sleep till 5 am (don't know why), and then when I did fall asleep I had a nightmare that I was a maid at a mansion that belonged to Tim and Cal, being attacked and bitten in the neck by their pet white-and-orange flying goldfish (with little whirring propeller fins like helicopters). In case you were wondering, these waterless goldfish lived on a little sand-pond with miniature dunes and palm trees. When I have nightmares at least they are gosh darn creative.

At noon, right after Murdoch's class today, Sue and I rushed over to MIT E51 for a talk on the gendered marketing of psychopharmaceuticals. Since I did work on this a few years ago, it wasn't too surprising to me, but it was interesting to see the additional crazy stuff this person had dug up after working on it for 6 years. He basically argued that in these 1970's ads (from doctors' psychology journals) for Valium and other tranquilizers, the drug is being primarily marketed as (1) a way to make it possible for psychotic women to finally act normal and get married, or (2) a way for married women who have gone psychotic to stay married. Being single is the perceived "disease", that is, that the drugs are really being marketed to treat. One of the ads showed a photo collection of a woman's failed relationships with the simple headline "35 and single"; prescribing info followed. It was really that blatant.

We didn't stay for the question period as we had seminar at 2; we went to Dudley instead for lunch. Then it was class till 4. The day has really flown by.

all wet

At my going-away party a bunch of the gals who had been at Harvard predicted that there were three things that would happen to me before my year at Cambridge was over with. Yesterday I experienced the first one of the three.

It poured rain all day yesterday. In the morning I brought one of my sturdier umbrellas and wore my black waterproof jacket. But by the afternoon we had wind to match the rain, and in the time it took me to walk from Dudley House (the dining hall) to the dorm, my pants got completely soaked. All the water sheeted off my nice waterproof jacket where it ended at my waist, and ran right down the front of my pants. So in the afternoon I stayed in the dorm, dried off, and tried to think of a better clothing strategy.

In the evening on the way back to Dudley I decided to wear my long black wool coat instead. Halfway to Dudley I discovered that the rain ran right down the coat and spattered off the edges of the front closure, right onto the insides of my legs. By the time I got to Dudley my pants were wet again, but worse! They were wet down the inner seam of my pants, so it looked like I'd had an unfortunate "accident".

So you'd think that was bad enough for one day, wouldn't you? After dinner I went out to the curb to catch my bus to swing lessons. It was raining pretty hard, so I stood as close to the buildings as I could, away from the curb. A car came speeding down the middle of the road, and SPLASH it went through a puddle. I saw the water fly through the air in a beautiful arc, across the road, across the sidewalk, right up to me as I tried to turn away--not fast enough.

Classic Cambridge experience #1: Getting thoroughly soaked by a car running through a puddle. To be repeated soon and often.

applications angst

I spent most of today working on my applications for graduate school. I was going to go study at the library, but it was such a gloomy rainy day I didn't feel like going out; my shoes are still muddy and drying in the hallway. So I sat there online filling in little boxes on the application forms. Ugh. I somehow managed to forget how awful these forms were since the last time I did them. Can you imagine, Harvard wants to know all the publications and books you have written, and all the inventions you have patented, in a 2-line space? The whole thing is totally absurd. And then they want to know how much money you will have in your checking account for them to take away from you on 9/1/2003, if they let you enroll.

I made rice, and pan-fried some canned corned beef for dinner. Canned lychees for dessert. I'm going to sleep soon; it's getting late. It should be easy to fall asleep tonight on my nice new bed with flannel sheets and the pitter-patter of the rain outside.

new mattress

Although I managed to lock myself out of my room today (again), I feel like I got a lot accomplished. This morning around 11 I wrote to the facilities manager asking if I could get my mattress replaced, and I wrote to Prof. Hook asking him to follow up on my missing July paycheck. Then I had class, lunch, and seminar, and after that I went over to the Archimedes Project office with Mark to set up my Project account.

So when I finally got back at 5 pm, I checked my mail to find that my paycheck was on the way, and that I would be getting a new mattress! It took me about ten minutes to look over at my mattress and notice that in fact they had ALREADY come and switched the mattresses (I had removed my beddings just in case, but had left them stacked on the mattress--they put them back on the new mattress in the same position)! So instead of my crummy creaky stained and sagging old mattress, I now have a brand-new, extra firm mattress. All I need now is a pillowtop pad and I will be all set to get some good sleep! Funny that I didn't think of getting the University to replace the mattress until Tita Aida suggested it--and they were able to take care of it in less than 6 hours. Their poster says it usually takes 12-24 hours to even get an e-mail response to your request. I guess my sob story email about not having slept well in a month must have touched the facility manager's heart?

I keep checking my mailbox, but no sign of a package yet. Amazon should be sending me textbooks, Sierra Trading Post should have my long underwear on the way, and that mattress pad better be here soon...my bed is very very hard now...

widener

I think I'm just grateful that today is nearly over. Perhaps my luck will change tomorrow. Today I shattered the handle on my new Harvard mug, coughed for a full hour in the morning because I had breathed instead of swallowing (my throat still hurts), had my second-ever optical migraine just before lunch, and then missed half of Murdoch's class retrieving my lost wallet and Visor from Widener's lost-and-found. Plus it was cloudy and raining all day. But enough of that.

Widener is my kind of library. You walk up this huge flight of white stone steps, past the giant pillars, past all the neon flyers that say ACCESS RESTRICTED TO HARVARD AFFILIATES ONLY, nod to the doorchecker, proudly swipe your card; then with a satisfying creak the turnstile lets you into the lobby. The lobby is all marble floors and pillars and high ceilings and brass-edged glass cases with history exhibits about the Library. Can you imagine, Widener is so old it has its *own* history exhibits? To the left through the open glass doors is the room with the Circulation Desk, warmer and brighter, swarming with people, through which you walk to get to the Stacks. At the entrance to the Stacks another person checks your ID. Today the girl checking ID was translating Sallust's Bellum Catilinae. The Library is so perfect that even the ID checker reads Latin.

So the Stacks are like a maze. There are five floors above ground, and another four underground. Plus there are two separate halves to the building which only connect at certain levels. At the entrance to the Stacks there is a table full of flyers. The black-and-white flyer just explains how to find books in different parts of the Library. The most important flyer is green, though. It explains how to find the restrooms...

The study carrel I was assigned is S 326 B. This means I take the elevator to Floor 3. The moment I push through the metal door into 3-East, the cold hits me. They *refrigerate* the Stacks to preserve the books. They call it air-conditioning, but it feels about 50 degrees in there, and the floors are marble. The ceilings are low and bare metal; all you can see is rows and rows and rows of books in the dark aisles. Rumor has it that part of the reason it is so cold and every aisle is equipped with motion-sensitive lighting is that they're trying to discourage the old Harvard pastime of having sex in the stacks before graduating. Perhaps it's worked; certainly all *I* want to do in the stacks is read...or hibernate.

3-East is Classics books. I catch glimpses of familiar book titles as I walk down the corridor to the end of the building, and then make a right; it's tempting to stop and browse, but I continue to S 326 B. The carrels are brand-new as of this year, and beautiful. The desks are medium-brown wood, and very large and heavy, with well-lighted hutches and Ethernet. When I sit down in my huge wooden chair, to my left are the books of the Stacks; to the right is a window with a view of green leaves and one of the ubiquitous red-brick buildings on this campus. Behind me are steel shelves on which I can leave books I've checked out for use at my carrel, and a wooden locker (to which I have the combination) that matches the desk.

Studying here makes me feel both spoiled and neglected. About an hour into studying I start to freeze and have hallucinations about Dickens' Scrooge, too cheap to heat his office. I think I'll have to get a woolen throw and sheepskin slippers and leave them in the locker. Today I tried taking my shoes off, but the marble floor was icy cold...