babies, babies, and more babies

It was hard enough to believe that Irene Kim and Rich Gampell just had their first baby Ty on the 26th, but today I found out over AOL Instant Messenger (perhaps my least favorite medium of communication these days) that my old college roommate Alvina Lai, nee Lee, and her husband Andrew are expecting their first child, due January.

Amazing how things change. . .or don't change.

She's married and readying one of the rooms in her New York flat to be a nursery, while here I am, still being told I look like I'm a teenager by random strangers, still single with no real prospects, and moving into yet another dorm room.

I wish those darn parrotlet breeders would get back to me. I want a baby (bird) of my own.

putting the fun back into junk mail

So I get a lot of alumni association mail these days. A lot of mail, and from a lot of associations. This is what happens when you switch schools too many times. I even get junk mail from Harvard, and I was only there for one year.

Over the past two months while I was away, the mail really piled up.

Here is one of my pieces of junk mail from Harvard:



They wanted me to update my contact info with them so that they could send me more junk mail. I was about to toss it out, but then I noticed all the lovely options for "title" that Harvard offers you.



I figure, if Harvard will send me junk mail addressed to Princess Donna, I might actually take the time to respond...

Dad's 60th birthday party

Me & my fabulous cousin Allison


Singing "happy birthday"


Me & Mom

phone numbers

(609) 986-9414 (home, Princeton voice mailbox 59732)
(609) 258-8522 (House Committee office)
(617) 413-4191 (my cell phone is working again)

I finished moving out of my old room yesterday morning, and now I'm really achy all over. I estimate that I moved around 300 pounds of books up four flights of stairs to my new room, plus furniture and many, many other assorted items. I am very proud to say that (for once) I moved all the books myself, using my trusty frame backpack. My legs are reminding me of what I did by being incredibly stiff this morning.

Many thanks to Morten, who helped me carry stuff that I really couldn't have managed on my own, and Nick, who helped me carry more stuff on Wednesday night after I strained my back and couldn't do any more!

Pictures to come, once I finish settling everything into the new place.

back in Princeton

I'm back in Princeton, but for whatever reason my cell phone is not working.

Tonight and tomorrow I can be reached at (609) 986-8292.

After that and through the weekend I can be reached at (650) 493-8148.

Hopefully I will know my new phone number at Princeton by next week.

ok, now I've *really* seen it all

Today I saw a "fietscafe".

Yup, a little rectangular bar, with a bartender in the middle, and a dozen "patrons" on stools around the outside (which were each fitted with pedals), rolling merrily down the street.

I sold my bike back to the secondhand shop today. :(

I'm very sad.

back in Leiden

Just returned from Germany via train. It was a pretty comfortable, but long, ride. I spent most of it totally asleep. It was a little strange, because every time I woke up there was a different passenger sitting next to me.

Bought a gypsyish dress in Halle yesterday: a shawl-like layer of lace sewn asymmetrically over a long satiny orange slipdress. Am currently wearing it because I have really finally run out of clean clothes.

Leiden contact info until Tuesday:
+31 63 807 0770 (cell phone)

greetings from London Luton

Emergency contact info till Sunday morning:

Marius Gerhardt (Halle, Germany)

+49 345 55 24014 work
+49 345 29 04429 home

On Sunday I will head back to Leiden.

leaving London

This morning I consumed my last Full English Breakfast for awhile, and checked out of the Garth Hotel. I can't really say I'll be sad to go. London is just too big for me. It always is, but this time I didn't even really enjoy the Breakfast, shockingly enough. Maybe because I knew it was being cooked by a rather annoying Pilipina from Batangas who kept trying to greet me in Japanese.

I did make it to four libraries, at least: the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Library, the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Library, the University College London Special Collections, and the British Library. I got a bit of work done, but the main goal was to get oriented so that next time I'm in town I can get work done quickly with less time spent just blundering about trying to figure everything out. There is so much paperwork to be gone through.

All I did apart from the libraries was eat, sleep, and watch weird British TV shows. A lot of the shows are "reality" shows. My favorite one was probably the garbage and sewermen one...

visit to brill

Met with Julian Deahl at Brill and had lunch at the company canteen, followed by a tour of the premises!