mostly done with apps

I just submitted the last of my three major grad school applications, to Princeton. I submitted to Harvard yesterday, and Stanford just a few days ago. Now I just need to send the remainder of my supporting materials, and turn in applications to Johns Hopkins and Wisconsin-Madison (neither of which could possibly be worse applications to do than the ones I have already done). Yay. Almost done.

Winter Waltz

I was sitting at the dining table round 7 pm facing a big plate of spaghetti with dried porcini mushrooms and garlic in olive oil, when a girl from the second floor started trying to convince me to go to the Dudley House Winter Waltz. She was an incredibly good salesperson. I already had plans to go swing dancing with Stanley at 9, but since this was a "if you are only going to be here a year you MUST go to it" type of event, I changed my mind and gave Stanley a call to cancel. In half an hour I showered and dressed in a hurry (the event was semi-formal, but I just wore my crinkly lilac mock-turtleneck and a pair of black slacks) and then walked over with her in the rain.

As we approached Dudley it was heart-warming to see the place dressed up with Christmas lights and garlands and red ribbon. Upstairs they had converted the lounges into a coatroom and a champagne-and-snacks room. Downstairs the Dudley Orchestra was doing its best to play danceable music. They were pretty awful at first (I think because they were missing a few people) but they improved substantially as the night went on so that I was really enjoying it by the end. It was easy to compare because they only knew about 5 songs, which they repeated in sets.

I only got to sit down for about two minutes when I first got there. Then somebody named Frank asked me to dance, and the rest of the time from 9:30 pm to 1 am I was either dancing or drinking water.

The reason I hadn't wanted to go to Winter Waltz was that I had figured that everybody came partnered and didn't circulate, but in fact this was not the case. There were a lot of guys there, mostly from MIT, who had come without partners. Most of the time I danced with two guys named Brad (scientist in neuroscience, choreographer, ballet and tap dancer) and Edmund (electrical engineering professor at Yale, master's at Oxford, Stanford Class of '94, taught to dance by Richard Powers, Bryna Chang's "big sib"; boy is the world a small place!). They were both pretty good, though Brad wanted a "fifth-point" follow, which just didn't work for me. I just don't like being plastered up against a guy, and it's really not necessary if he's a halfway decent lead anyway. In general the dancing worked slightly better once I changed from heels to flats because then I wasn't three more inches taller than the two of them.

I also had the chance to dance with Miguel (very nice Classics grad student visiting from Spain) and a guy who I keep running into everywhere on campus but whose name I don't know (vegetarian, plays the flute). Plus some guy named Don who I met while he was attempting to clean off the back of the dress of a girl who had had several glasses of champagne spilled on her. And a guy named Thad (or was it Ted? or Tad?) who apparently I met in September on the steps of Dudley but had totally forgotten. And I danced with a scary Asian guy in suspenders who kept kicking up his heels without looking behind him. I was really worried he was going to maim a girl or two. There was another Asian guy I danced with, or rather just ran around the floor with (he was going so fast that he left the music way, way behind), who tried to say something to me in Chinese as I was leaving, but I had absolutely no idea what he was getting at, so I just smiled sweetly at him and ran away.

In any case it was fun and very good exercise, and now I'm really ready to go to sleep.

books, books, books

So I have received complaints that there haven't been any blog entries for the past couple of weeks. This is because I have been working on term papers for what seems like forever. I have something like 60 books checked out from various Harvard libraries (Widener, the Depository, Andover Theology, Cabot, Lamont, Design School) and the MIT libraries too. It's a cycle: think of something, talk to the prof, chase down a book, find out in the book about another book, go back to the library for the other book, read some more, talk to the prof about the second book, chase down an article the prof prescribes which then mentions another book etc., etc. Back and forth with a heavy backpack in the snow, uphill both ways, etc., etc.

Now the books are all over my room: on every available shelf, in piles on my floor, falling off my desk. It is really starting to drive me crazy.

Last Wednesday I treated myself to a neck/shoulder/back massage at the health center. I have been meaning to try a professional massage for some time, but (1) it's expensive and (2) I didn't want to take the trouble to ask around for recommendations, etc. So since the health center here contracts out with massage therapists, I just made a reservation through them. I tried some guy named Bob Collins, and it was $10 for 10 minutes in one of those funny massage chairs. I must admit I didn't think 10 minutes would be enough to do anything, but I was so wrong. After 10 minutes I was so relaxed and de-stressed that I was ready to go to sleep. It was just awful having to get up and carry my bag and trudge back across campus.

I think it would be nice to make a longer appointment for sometime in January when I'm in the midst of actually writing these papers instead of doing the research (since writing is so much more stressful) but I don't know if it would be worth it. I might be completely asleep after 10 minutes and that seems like a bit of a waste.