:: Pedantic Platitudes ::

:: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 ::

Haha, yay. I'm at Yale visiting my sister. I left Sunday morning after an amazing Saturday. I had an exam Saturday morning, and I got up early that day following only three hours of sleep after a long night of last-minute studying (is there any other kind?). That was kind of a downer. The exam went alright, though, and it was my final final exam, so after having lunch, I celebrated by going into town and shopping.

I had seen a really nice green shirt online, but I procrastinated on ordering it, even though there was free shipping. By the time I got around to ordering it, it had gone out of stock, and I was really disappointed because I really wanted this shirt. So I went into town to look for it in the stores. I started in the American Eagle Outfitters on Newbury Street, but the store there didn't have the shirt, so I walked to the AE store at Faneuil Hall, all the way across the city.

I passed by Boston Common, and I strolled by the lake and stopped by to watch the people skating on the outdoor ice skating rink set up during the winter. Even though the temperature was a "warm" 50 degrees, they still had the rink running with the cooler underneath running. I also toured the big cemetery downtown, which I'd passed before but had never gone into. I saw the graves of Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Benjamin Franklin's mother and father. That was particularly cool because I had seen Benjamin Franklin's burial site when I was in Philadelphia last summer.

The store at Faneuil Hall didn't have the shirt I wanted either, but they called around and said that the shirt in the size I wanted was available at the Cambridgeside Galleria mall, so I walked all the way there, a good 40-minute walk into the neighboring city, to get the shirt. Yay. It also happened to be the last day of the store's winter clearance sale, so I picked up a couple other items of clothing for cheap. Yay for sales.

I hurried back to campus where I met up with a couple of friends, and we had dinner at a nice Japanese restaurant. We had sushi, and my vegan friend had five orders of avocado sushi. I had a California roll, which also has avocado. Avocado overload!!! My friend tried a Philadelphia roll, which has lox and cream cheese. It was like eating a bagel at Sunday brunch. After dinner, we hung out some more until I was no longer interested in spending any more time with them it got late.

I then visited another friend, chatted for a bit, and then we went to my friend's birthday party, where I had a great time with friends. After the party, we stayed up and chatted until we were too tired to talk.

The next morning, I took the subway to South Station in Boston and took the (as-always) sketchy Greyhound bus to New Haven, CT to visit my sister. I slept for most of the trip, but that was good because I was very tired. I settled in at my sister's dorm and then I went out to get some food. I finally got to try Yale dining hall food, since the last time I visited (during the Harvard-Yale football game weekend), the dining halls were closed for Thanksgiving break.

After dinner, I went to see a concert by The Click Five, a new band I recently heard about. They have some pretty catchy tunes, and it was a fun concert. There were also a couple of opening acts that were pretty cool; I wouldn't mind listening to their songs again.

Monday, I went to lunch at Commons, the big dining hall that is reminiscent of the grand hall at Hogwarts in Harry Potter. The food was pretty good, and they had more salad, fruit, and dessert options than at Harvard, but fewer hot food selections.

Afterwards, I went to my sister's friend's introductory astronomy class, which was fun. My sister and I then went to a special house master's tea at one of the colleges here where the guest was composer Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the musical Wicked and wrote lyrics/songs for the Disney films Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I've been a fan of his music, particularly the Disney stuff, for a long time, so it was neat to hear him talk about the process behind writing for these movies/musicals.

Afterwards, we went to dinner. Later at night, I played Super Mario in my sister's dorm's common room, and then we went to an "arts and crafts" study break, where there was paper folding/origami, cupcake decorating, button/pin making, and other assorted paper craft creating. We then got snacks at the late night grill. I played some more video games and finally went to bed really late.

Today, I went to lunch again at Commons, and then I sat in on another lecture, this time an introductory psychology class. The topic for the lecture was cognitive development, and the professor offered a lot of interesting examples of how babies lack/possess certain mental faculties.

Later, I went and took a look at the main library at Yale, which was built in the style of a church, as well as the school's famous rare books library, which is built with these translucent panes of marble that let light in. It's so beautiful inside, despite the ugly exterior. There was also a Gutenberg Bible, one of five in the country and dozen or so surviving around the world, on display. That was cool to see.

Yale is so pretty. I think I wrote about this the last time I was here, but the architecture is really beautiful and really reminds me of Oxford's. There are parts of campus here where I feel as if I've been transported to England. The classroom interiors are really nice, too. The school is nice, but one of the major drawbacks is that it's kind of in the middle of nowhere. Sure, New York City is just a train ride away, but it doesn't come close to the convenience of taking the T into downtown Boston from Harvard.

Quote of the Day: "[Looking at calculator] Wow, that's a really big number." "See that number? That's how large my cock is." "[Points to calculator, which reads -97,382.36]"

:: SL 8:01 AM [+] ::
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