End of week wrap-up

July 20, 2008 in geekiness, history, ordinary

In reverse chronological order, no less! Tonight I watched the Red Sox finish getting swept by the Angels, over a pint of beer that was not an IPA that I actually really really liked. Earlier I got a call from Bob inviting me out for a sail, which was just the thing to lift me out of some doldrums and clear my head after a morning of unfulfilling Sunday Times reading and interview transcribing (also, my farmer’s tan is now about twenty times more awesome). Friday and Saturday were kind of a black hole. Thursday night I went to a concert by the Festival Orchestra of the IU Summer Music Festival. It was absolutely, breath-taking-ly wonderful. They played Don Juan by Strauss, a delightful Divertimento by Stravinsky (from The Fairy’s Kiss), and Elgar’s Enigma Variations, the most-played and probably most-reliably-tear-jerking classical piece in my iTunes library. That was really the highlight of the week, and probably one of the highlights of my summer. I have a somewhat unfortunate tendency to lapse into forgetfulness when it comes to things (like the towering giants of classical music) that feed my soul, the upside being, of course, the joyful reunions this allows. I know I had more to say about this concert, maybe something about the bizarre contradiction of being thrilled to the point of public, possibly embarrassing expressions of joy by something that whose etiquette discourages the same. But for the sake of finishing this tonight and getting some closure on the week I’ll wrap this up now.

Oh, I also attended a thesis defense (scariest. thing. ever.) and was lent a book about dynamic systems approaches to development (i.e. growing up) including a cool chapter on language acquisition that pretty much convinced me that language is probably the coolest most interesting thing ever. So there. I also continue to be completely in love with my bike, whose brakes now work flawlessly but whose seat has come loose.