Canto LVII

Okay, so 2 months is my break point. Well, it's been busy, but that can't fully explain away 2 months of ignoring my fan base. But as this is an update, I'll have to do a bullet list with short commentary. I doubt I'll be able to expand much more as that is what has kept me from posting sooner. I want to talk about too many things in too much detail, then I decide I don't have time right now, but in another day or two I'll have time and so on. So let's get down to business from where I last left off...

- Steph and I visited Portland for Sydney and Pete's wedding. Still didn't get to go to the ceremony, but the reception was a blast. It was so much fun seeing everyone and hearing stories. But in so many ways it was just like old times. It made me realize how much I miss everyone and just how special all the time we spent together was. I mean, I love where I'm at and what I'm doing now, but I still get nostalgic about The Cube. Who doesn't?

- After returning from Portland, we left a few days later to head down to Washington DC and Virginia to visit family, friends and see some of the sights. We had a great time, and Steph has lots and lots of pictures if you're interested. I do have one quick story. We were visiting the National Archives (which everyone should so every time they visit DC), and after hearing the guard talk about no flash photography and such, we get in line to see the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights. When we get to the Declaration of Independence, the person in front of us has a camcorder and turns on an extremely bright light on it so that it will show up better while filming it. We were stunned! I mean, this is a literally priceless document and national treasure that has already been so severely damaged by light that you can't even read most of it now, and he's just shining a bright light on it! WFT? After about 10 or 15 seconds of stunned looks from us, I speak up and ask him to not use his camcorder light on the, you know, invaluable document laid before us. I was freaking out for second. How can you do that to one of the most important documents in our history as a nation? AAAAAHHHHHH!!!

- Sadly, after that school started back up. I was hoping this term was going to be all research all the time. But I got switched and I'm now TA-ing this fall rather than next spring. And The Advisor is teaching a class, and to boost attendance, is making me take it. This is not what I want to do with my time, but I don't really have that much choice in the matter. Also, this is suppose to be the term where we start working towards a thesis. Oh God. Oh God Oh God Oh God. No, please no. What the hell am I doing? Actually, this really does deserve it's own entry, so I'll have to wait for a rainy day to talk about all this crap.

- I turned 27 = 3^3. Barring major advances in modern medicine, I don't think I'm going to make it to another N^N birthday, where N is an integer. Steph and I went out for a nice Italian dinner in the North End. I ordered a roast pork loin. I got back something that resembled the side of beef from the Flintstones. But it was delicious. And the following night, which was my birthday, a group of friends from school here went to a local pool bar and had a few beers and played a few rounds of pool. Very nice. All in all, a great birthday.

- At the beginning of this month, our building officially opened. There was a big dedication ceremony and lots of famous alums and donors were here seeing the place. Pretty much most of the work is done around here, so I guess it was the right time. The shelving for the graduate students in being installed this week and next, but we don't count for so much. Anyway, it was a nice party and a day off from real work. But the highlight of the day was meeting Steven Weinberg. Actually, this happened right when I first got in. I saw a friend, Ambar, near the entrance to the CTP, we were chatting when Eddie Farhi (the CTP director) walked by giving the Great Man a tour. Eddie said 'Here are some of graduate students. This is Ambar.' They shake hands as he says 'Hi, I'm Steve Weinberg.' 'And this is Eric Fitzgerald.' We shake hands as he says 'Steve Weinberg.' And just like that they were gone. I felt like saying 'Yes, I know who you are. And can I add that your theory of leptons, you know the one... Uh, the Standard Model. Yeah, that's great.' Did you know it's the most cited paper in high energy physics? I wanted to get my copy of his book signed, but I was too flustered by the whole thing. I met Steve Weinberg! SWEET!

- Well, I would like to talk about football some. Just the Ducks and the Pac-10. I don't really want to talk about the Jets except to say that they need to put Clemens in over Pennington. Give a Duck a chance! Pac-10 is looking scary this year. But it's very top-heavy, with 4 solid ranked teams, and a whole lot of not much under that. But with that said, ASU isn't going undefeated the rest of the way, and I doubt that there will even be a 1-loss team at the end of the season. But a 10-2 Oregon team going to the Rose Bowl wouldn't be a terrible thing. Looking around the college football landscape, can't say that anyone is looking too imposing, and a 2-loss Pac-10 team in the Rose Bowl should be favored. But these upsets are just crazy. I'm afraid to watch any Oregon game because who knows what will happen. Just don't start cheering in the middle of a game because the team in front of you in the polls lost... There's still a lot of football left.

- I'm on a frisbee team this fall. We haven't done that well, and I won't be able to play in the season-ending tourney this weekend, but I had a really good time. We run a mix of man and zone defense, and a switch between various offenses like a normal stack and a horizontal stack. I've never done any of this before, so it's been a real learning experience. But a lot of fun, and at least some exercise most weeks. So that's a plus.

- My brother visited a few weeks ago. He was on his way home after finishing up his masters in economics at the London School of Economics. So a few day layover in Boston on his way back to Portland to... live with our parents. Yes, he's living in my parent's basement. But we had a good time seeing the sights of Cambridge and Boston. We even did the whole Freedom Trail from the Commons to Bunker Hill. I think he appreciated more than the last time he was in Boston. That was something like 15 years ago, on a hot and humid day in July. Never a good time to sightsee outside in Boston.

- Teaching. Has sucked. I was thinking that I would be worried if one of my 8.01T students ran across this and realized how much I hate them for taking time away from doing work that I, you know, actually enjoy. But I don't care. I hate you hypothetical 8.01T student who reads this. I mean it. If you all died tomorrow, all I would think is 'sweet, the rest of the term is off!' I enjoy teaching when it's about a subject I find interesting and/or the students are interested. But I'm teaching Newtonian Mechanics to freshmen who need this class to graduate and could care less about the actual material. It sucks Big Time. Go to hell you little bastards. Did you know that many of them weren't even born in the same decade as me? Just creepy really.

- Other little things. Final Fantasy XII is on hold until winter break. I reached a reasonable place to pause, and took it. Blogging the Simpsons is on my mind, but I just need to find some time to do it. Again, maybe this winter? I've also started working on my own personal webpage, but I'll hold off on showing that off to the world right now. Although since I'm an MIT student, I'm pretty sure just about everyone here can figure out how to get to it right now. Time to lock that shit down. I'm using iWeb, but it's not giving me the control I would like. I have Dreamweaver, but I'm not really that comfortable with that much control. There has to be some happy medium right?

- I'll get to talking about work sometime in the near future. There's a lot of interesting things going on, though, and I'm really enjoying all of this right now.