Good Times, Great Oldies

Work has drastically improved since the beginning of last week. I've written three articles of increasing quality, in my estimation. I'm starting to remember what I liked about this in the first place: getting crash courses on little bits of science here and there. This week I've learned so much about the biological bases of alcoholism and addiction (Wednesday, genetics of addiction), why some diseases are a bitch to cure (Thursday, the open genome of bacteria), why it's so awkward when I hang out with Cat and Vaughan at the same time (Friday, mimicry as a social psychological phenomenon) and how to build the best sandcastle possible (researching for Monday, a revised model in granular physics). I'd be happy to tell you about any of them that you're interested in, but you'll also soon be able to see them on the site; we soft launch on Monday! Social stuff has also gotten easier...it's not like I have friends there, but I don't feel like I'm the weird chick on the outside anymore. I'm also happy to be sitting next to the two designers now...they're good guys.

This weekend I went up to New Haven. Last night was really, really nice. I trained in and met Jen at Woolsey hall for a performance of the Mahler 2. It's a pretty frickin' awesome piece. Inventive, yet listenable. Beautiful, yet not saccharine. Passionate, yet not slutty. Then I chatted with some people, walked with Jen for a bit and met Caleb at Koffee Too? On my way to K2 I called Vaughan to arrange lunch for tomorrow, he said he was busy, so I said "OK, later." I realized a few minutes later I probably should have explicitly asked him to call me. The Pounder (that's Caleb: Caleb = K-lb = K-pound = Pounder) and I took a walk over to the basement of the Becton center to explore, where Vaughan miraculously called me back. Caleb and I played music on a sculpture for a while then caught the last ten minutes of the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Chinese subtitles in Davies Auditorium. We then met up with Caleb's friends, Nat and Kit, as well as Kit's roommates at Rudy's. This was, unforgivably, my first time at Rudy's, and I was very pleased with the place. The fries were awesome, as promised, and we found a quiet area to chill and play asshole. I'm not a card game fan, nor a drinking game fan, but the game was mindless enough and the attitude was chill enough that I had a really nice time. That, and I won the first two games. We left and played a bit of fusball in the Branford basement with Nat and Kit (me with Nat, Caleb and Kit...they kicked our asses). After the game Nat and Kit instantly fell into each others arms and started making out. Awkward sidelong glance between me and Caleb. I stopped keeping eye contact in those situations; I feel too guilty. Then we all parted and Caleb and I sat in our respective beds chatting for a while and then went to sleep at about 3 am.

Today was a little less magical...the computer crashed in the debate tournament, so Vaughan wouldn't talk to me at all, or even tell me he wouldn't be able to make our lunch. So Caleb and I killed a lot of time in less-comfortable-than-I-would-have-liked silence waiting to get in touch with him. I felt pretty bad for dragging Caleb around while he probably could have been making better use of his time (although he later said he probably would have just slept) and fairly pissed at Vaughan for not being considerate enough to step out for 30 seconds and give us a time frame. We got lunch at Ivy Noodle (I was famished, not having had a square meal in about 25 hours) and went back to Caleb's, where I read Dan Savage's new book and Caleb read for a bit then gleefully (he's got a very adorable glee) jumped into bed, cuddled up in the covers and napped. When he got up we crashed the debate venue and managed to catch Vaughan for a 30 minute chat. So the two of them met...a truly important step in the crashing of the worlds. Caleb afterwards commented that Vaughan was a lot like me. I mentioned that yeah, we had startingly similar interests, but he said it was more than that, we had a similar way of talking and everything. I had almost forgotten. I'll get V's reaction to Caleb soon. Afterwards, Caleb and I went back to his room, chatted for about 15 minutes and then parted ways. He went to the dining hall, and I went to grab a light dinner with Jen and Andrew Korn. Lovely conversation ensued and continued for my car ride home with Jen.

Now I am home, chilling, reading, enjoying a little bit of time to myself with my parents out for the weekend. It's been a while since I've had this kind of simple privacy. I miss it.

Thanks for reading if you made it to the end. Tomorrow: attempt to see the adult version of Spelling Bee with Greg.