On The Move…

It’s truly quite breathtaking, just how quickly time goes by here – it feels like every time I exhale it’s the weekend again…  and I’m certainly not complaining 😉

Last weekend was the Boston Novice Debate Tournament here at Harvard – 17 teams from Harvard and MIT, 4 preliminary rounds, 1 semifinals, 1 finals round.  I was randomly paired up with Siddhartha Sinha from Culcutta, and we made it to the final round, only to face Shiming and his roommate who pulled an all-American history/politics case on us.  Oh well.

Last weekend was also Parents’ Visiting Weekend, so the whole campus had it’s “happy face” on.  I took the opportunity to visit the Peabody Museum with its famed “glass flowers” display with Ryan and his grandmother.  And Saturday night, Xinwei and I had dinner with the families of both my roommates at the North End (yummy Italian food!).

Dinner at a fantastic Italian restaurant located in the North End of Boston.  Ryan and his grandmother are seated to my left, followed by Doug’s aunt (mother’s sister) on the near end of my side of the table.  Opposite me are Doug’s aunt and uncle (she’s the fraternal twin of Doug’s father) from NY, Doug, and nearest to the camera is Doug’s mother. Parent’s Visiting Weekend dinner at North End (25 Oct 2003)

And this weekend?  I’m planning a long-overdue trip to the MFA, and also a daytrip with the AAA to the outlet mall about an hour away.  Plus we musn’t forget – it’s Halloween today!  Lots of candy, and fun costume parties await…  🙂

Tonight Didi and I were brought by our Freshman Host family to a Chinese restaurant over in Waltham (a good twenty-minute drive from campus).  This is one Harvard legacy family – both husband and wife are graduates of the college (the husband also went to graduate school here), his father went to Harvard, her sister too.  Her brother-in-law is Dean of graduate students at the medical school, her nephew graduated last year and her niece is currently a junior here…  woah.

In the car, it was mentioned that his claim to fame was having invented the game of ultimate frisbee with a group of friends while in high school as an alternative to football.  Double woah.  Didi commented that they play Ultimate over in Bulgaria as well.

Like I must have mentioned a dozen times previously, over here if you exchange more than five superficial sentences with anyone you’re invariably fascinated, intimidated or, more often than not, both.

One more thing – over dinner it was mentioned that the New York Times did an extensive writeup on the food scene in Singapore.  So of course when I got back to my room (fairly overstuffed) I went to look it up.  Accurately tasty stuff!  Read a copy of the looong article here.

And speaking of articles, my first FM article was finally published.  Here’s the link.

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It’s Head Of The Charles weekend – the big, highly-anticipated regatta – I’ll be helping out at the launch/recovery point on the river tomorrow after church.

Goodnight.

And life as a college student goes on.  Isn’t it amazing how much stuff happens around here?

Shortly after the exhausting chem midterm (which was easy, entirely from the lecture notes, and yet very badly completed) and classes, I went to judge for the debate tournament at Harvard (apparently the largest nationwide) that brought Sihong over from Stanford.  I also hosted three students from Bowdoin College in Maine, which was interesting.

After writing my expos paper between rounds and judging another couple of rounds on Saturday, I left for NYC on the famed ten-dollar Chinatown bus with Xin Wei.  It was quite an experience to be expelled, half-asleep, from the warm bus at just before 1am onto the windy, chilly streets of Chinatown, NYC.  We stayed with Michelle, who was more than convivial in accommodating two late (we missed two buses), last-minute guests.  I’m so glad the Manhattan subway is 24-hours.

Taken in front of the amazing Hershey’s building just off Times Square, the night we saw "Aida".  Xin Wei & Jason in NYC (12 Oct 2003)“>

We saw Elton John and Tim Rice’s Disney-backed retelling of Aida, which I’ve wanted to see since it opened on Broadway in 2000.  Although it was not bad, I recommend seeing, say, Miss Saigon or The Lion King instead.  I thought of the last time I saw a show on Broadway – Rent, last April, with Terence, who was in Montreal over the weekend. (We should meet up soon, Terence!)

And how much shopping did we do?  Not much.  Moving along Fifth Avenue was slow because (pedestrian) traffic was severely affected by the fascinating Columbus Day parade (I suppose I will eventually post a picture or two), and there really isn’t very much I need right now.  I did, however, buy a pair of cross-trainers to replace the falling-apart pair of New Balance shoes I brought with me (hey, they did run a half-marathon).

I suppose it bears mentioning that I have a cold.  I simply woke up on Saturday morning and realised I was unwell.  Admittedly it was 5am, and I’d only been asleep for an hour or so (in an attempt to finish my expos paper), hence the reasons for my ailing health are not hard to discover.

So now I have my keyboard back 🙂  Yay Fujitsu!

I have my first midterm (chemistry) in about 25 hours, a math 21a problem set due at noon tomorrow, an expository writing paper due 7am on Saturday and a paper documenting human rights abuses due next Tuesday.  I have not started work on any of these assignments.  So what am I doing now?  Blogging.  Of course.

In the time since I last posted anything, I’ve viewed “Centre Stage”, “New Woman”, “Crows and Sparrows”, and Tsai Ming Liang’s “What time is it there?” for film class, I’ve heard Giscard D’Estaing, President of France (1974-1981) and Chairman, Convention on the Future of Europe, speak at the Kennedy School about his work (drafting the new Constitution of the EU in preparation for the enlargement from 15 to 25 member states), erged well over 20,000m, and had the incriminating party pictures I took last weekend printed in FM.

I’m happy.  The weather is pretty random (it was frigid yesterday, but warm and humid last night then really chilly this afternoon), but nice.  I need to go do some math or study chemistry.

PS: I appear to have gained 4 pounds in the last two days, which puts my weight at about 120lbs presently.  No more late night snacking and dining hall gorging!