Oh, yeah…

June 18, 2008 in coffee, flickr, geekiness, history, images, photos, places, thought

So I’m in Indiana now, for the summer. Forgot to mention that. I’m (kind of) hard at work on trying to find a project to start designing an experiment I may or may not run this summer, maybe about mora-timing in Japanese, or maybe about direct and mediated lexicon-access models. Hurrah!

I kept meaning to write something while I was home. Honest, I did. But, obviously, I kind of didn’t. First it was the Python Challenge (which I got stuck on, sigh) and then it was a massive journal/sketchbook-diving, coffee-drinking decompression session. Ruth came for a weekend, which was heavenly and far, far too short. I hung out with Jue a lot, even spent an entire day doing all of the things one might expect twenty-somethings returning from prestigious New England schools to do: get coffee and bagels and the local bagel shop, browse the used-book store, play a bit of flatball in the park, enjoy long, meandering conversations about various personal and intellectual topics over yet more coffee at the local strip-mall Starbucks, and see that a summer blockbuster. I had dinner with Noa, and more coffee-and-bagels with Noa, Jue and his (delightfully über-nerdy) friend CJ, where we succeeded in thoroughly alienating Noa with our vast, shared knowledge of internet memes.

I did a lot of extremely, delightfully domestic things, baking bread and doing laundry and compulsively cleaning up the kitchen. I devoured a book about Red Auerbach that my mom give me, noticing my budding listlessness. I failed spectacularly at cleaning or even tidying up my room, and put off packing for my move until the very, very last minute—probably out of crippling fear of the unknown and the realization that I still had some serious thinking to do before I was ready for another adventure, or even for life to go on as it has been.

Oh dear, this is turning into another long, somewhat serious post. I suppose that what happens when I spend too much time sitting around drinking coffee by myself.

But oh! Life in Bloomington is absolutely wonderful. It’s sunny and not too hot, and my apartment is neat and spacious. I have three (three!) lovely little organic-y grocery stores within easy walking distance (one with an AMAZING beer and wine selection), and can walk downtown (or anywhere else I might reasonably want to go) in fifteen minutes. I have been thoroughly unsuccessful in finding a hip, slightly retro bike but have been quite successful in my culinary adventures so far (except for some failed bread, but I chalk that up to lack of my bread book and any measuring devices). I get along great with my roommate and my professor, even if (or perhaps because) the later is a little bit kooky. Tonight I’m going to a robotics club, sure to be full to the point of bursting with charmingly nerdy people. Life is good, and I’m even savoring, rather than resenting, the slight shortage of human contact.