:: Pedantic Platitudes ::

:: Sunday, November 21, 2004 ::

Ah, yes... the week in review:

Last Sunday, I went to a meeting for Harvard Model Congress. We were coming with ideas on how to better the government simulation in the spring. It'll be a lot of planning before the big weekend in March, but it's going to be a lot of fun.

Afterwards, I went to a celebration for Diwali, a Hindu festival often described as a "Festival of Lights." Candles glowed all around, and there was a wonderful celebratory atmosphere. I didn't go with anyone, but at the ceremony I ran into several of my friends. Diwali is a time when Indian families get together, so participants at this ceremony recounted tales of being with their families, which they couldn't do because they were at school. There were a lot of prayers said and songs sung, and afterwards there were some amazing Indian desserts served. It was such a culturally enlightening experience. I'm glad I went.

On Monday, I spent all afternoon working at the psychology lab. It was fun running subjects with the new study I'm working on. You meet the most interesting people on this job.

On Tuesday, the tutors in my entryway from last year were having a study break featuring cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory, so my friends and I went and socialized and ate the wonderful cheesecake. I love cheesecake! I tried the tiramisu, the German chocolate, and the peanut butter chocolate cheesecakes. So many varieties!

Wednesday was a super-busy day. I was running all around campus. I went to classes in the morning. Then, after a quick lunch break with a couple of friends and a hilarious conversation, I went to the Harvard Business School to participate in an economics study. They pay so well. I made over $20 in less than an hour. I then went to a lab meeting back at the psychology department building. After the meeting, I worked a couple of hours in the lab and then went to hear a talk about the neurobiology of economic behavior by a professor visiting from (gag) Stanford University. It was an interesting lecture.

I had wanted to watch a bit of the hilarious film Goodbye, Lenin! at the Center for European Studies, but they were having technical difficulties and the film started late, so I headed off to have a quick dinner and meet up with friends for a private early screening of the new Nicholas Cage film National Treasure, which was being presented by the Harvard Undergraduate Council.

From the trailer, National Treasure seems like a horrible, horrible movie. The concept and plot is so utterly outlandish that it's hard to take any bit of the film seriously. However, the film never really takes itself too seriously in the first place, so it was actually entertaining. If you allow yourself to suspend disbelief for a couple of hours during this movie, you can have a good time. There were some great car chase action scenes and big explosions (in true Jerry Bruckheimer style). It was very Indiana Jones-ish at parts, and it was actually fun to see how they pieced together random historical sites into one mystery to solve. I'm glad we got to see the movie for free; I wouldn't have wanted to see the movie if I had to pay for it.

On Thursday, I worked at the psychology lab in the afternoon.

A pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner Thursday night! After spending the afternoon working in the psychology lab and then having tea at the weekly Lowell House get-together, I went to dinner, where there was turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie! I love pumpkin pie. I haven't had it in quite some time, so it seemed to taste extra wonderful. After dinner I rushed to the Kennedy School of Government to participate in a 45-minute economics study in which I received $25. Yay.

Tonight, my roommate threw a tea party, so we drank tea and ate cookies. We also played the "psychiatrist game," and hilarity ensued, especially when we were portraying members of the opposite gender. I then spent the rest of the night doing schoolwork. I ended up pulling an all-nighter because there was so much work to be done.

On Friday, I went to breakfast and then to my classes. In the afternoon I got trained to code some videos in the psychology lab and then headed off to lunch. I then participated in an economics study at the Harvard Business School, where I made $32. This has been a particularly lucrative week with regard to business school studies; I've made about $80 this week from these short studies. Well, I guess that's really nothing compared to the people who make hundreds of dollars per hour.

After the business school study, I went and (finally!) got a haircut. I've been needing one for the longest time. The lady who cut my hair was very nice. We were talking about wild hair colors, and she mentioned that she has pink hair in her driver's license photo.

Since I've been craving it all week and the store is near the barbershop, I got some bubble tea! I got the lychee milk tea flavor. Good stuff! I then went to see the movie Bolivar Soy Yo with the Harvard University Colombian Association. It was in Spanish with subtitles. It was very funny!

This weekend is the huge Harvard-Yale football game, so the campus Friday night was abuzz with a billion parties. Harvard's college rival is Yale, so the match-up of its football teams is treated with great anticipation and celebration. This weekend, we got a lot of visitors from Yale. Music was blaring out of windows, and people were roaming the streets in search of the next event to go to. Friday night was my friend's 21st birthday, so I went to a get-together to celebrate it. It was good fun!

My friends were going clubbing in Boston, but it was getting kind of late and didn't seem worth the cost of admission and transportation, so I opted not to go, even though I really wanted to dance. I instead went to visit a couple of friends, and we chatted for some time. It was a pretty low-key evening for me, considering all the events there were on such a major party night. I was also dead tired from staying up the whole night before, so I went to bed fairly early.

One event I missed that I think would have been interesting was one called the "Dance Conspiracy," which was this party where everyone would be given radios and headphones, and everyone would set their radios to the same frequency, which would be playing dance music. So from a non-participant's perspective, it would be completely silent except for the shuffling and movement of dancing bodies, while to participants it would just be a regular dance. I thought it was a creative concept. It would be intriguing to see masses of people grooving but to apparent silence.

Yesterday was "The Game"! I had a quick lunch and headed over to the huge event. Before going into the stadium, I went to the massive tailgate on the field across the street. There were so many people partying there! Each house, club, and social organization had a tailgate, and they served food, snacks, drinks, etc. People were dancing to the blaring music, too. Lots of fun. I then headed over the stadium to watch the game. So much fun! Harvard defeated Yale 35-3. Yay!!!

Alas... this update was three and a half pages on a Word document. Sigh. I need to update more often so I won't need to write these uber-long super updates.

Quote of the Day: "Egads! My stock is falling! Flash!"

:: SL 8:21 AM [+] ::
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