random day
Apr. 20th, 2004 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nibotI had lunch with John Clarke today. By this I mean, "I tagged along on an event intendend to help undergraduates schmooze with faculty," part of the Berkeley Physics Dept.'s efforts at self-improvement. I think it's an excellent idea, but I'm not so sure they got at their target audience: of the five of us excluding the emminent professor, two were grad students in the department, two were undergrads in other majors, and then there was me. So my schedule for the day was shaping up something like this:
08:00 Solid State Nap-Time
10:45 Coffee time at work
12:00 Lunch with Prof. Clarke
17:00 Birthday celebration for Chuck = beer and food at Jupiter
The lunch with John Clarke was good but a little strange. It was revealed that Diane was in 137A currently so then he asked me if I was also in 137A. I said, "Actually I took it a long time ago... with you!" I think he was kind of embarassed. I added, "And 137B and 7B and 7C." So pretty much the reason I went to the lunch thing was because, although I've taken nearly all the physics courses I've taken here from him, and he nods at me all the time, (his daughter was even in a couple of my classes!) we're hardly acquainted. I'm not sure that was really remedied.
At lunch (at Cafe Durant) somehow the first conversation topic that was launched into was the grad student girl ranting about how much she hated london. She had lived there for a semester or something and evidently hated every minute of it. She complained on and on about how dirty and expensive and polluted and crowded it was, how her lungs hurt and how her snot was black at the end of the day. Keep in mind that Prof. Clarke was born, raised, and educated in Cambridge. It was embarassing. I wished I had a button that would electrocute this girl so she'd get the message.
Then lunch was finished and Prof. Clarke invited us to coffee at Cafe Strada. On the way I talked to the girl who had been complaining about london about the CERN program — she had gone in 1998. "You know it's cancelled, " she said. Her theory was that it was because everyone who does the CERN REU subsequently "quits high-energy physics." That may be true, but it's probably only symptomatic...
At Strada I had an espresso, Prof. Clarke had a cappuccino, and the grad student guy had a regular coffee. Prof. Clarke said something like, "Now I'd like to ask you about what you think are big issues facing the department." Or something like that, that seemed to convey some higher-up interest in extracting opinions from current students, part of this whole departmental self-improvement scheme. I didn't have anything to add to the conversation.
So that was lunch with John Clarke.
Back at Donner Hall, I was feeling rather low in exactly the way I shouldn't, having just ingested an espresso; I think it was some kind of anticlimax from this lunch thing. I had to clean out my office, because its rightful owner is allegedly going to materialize any day now. Too bad. I felt so special having an office, even if I didn't use it too much.
At five I wandered down to Jupiter, a bar/restaraunt/microbrewery on Shattuck in downtown. It was Chuck's birthday and everyone from the lab was down there for occassion. It was a nice walk down there, and the sun came out on the way. Jupiter has a very nice, very relaxed back area that seems worlds apart from the downtown Berkeley that surrounds it. Drinking some tasty beer and enjoying the gormet pizza, it sort of felt like the summertime in Geneve.
But then I suddenly had the need to initiate this conversation, after some comedy in trying to get ahold of the server:
Tobin: Can you tell me the composition of your pesto?
Server: Well, let's see.. it's (mumble mumble) walnuts (mumble mumble) ..
Tobin: That is unfortunate. Do you happen to know the fraction of walnut?
Server: No.. why? Are you allergic? Is there something I can do?
Tobin: Do you happen to have any benedryl?
Server: Unfortunately I can't dispense medication...
But someone else had some funky antihistamine, saving me a trip to the nearby Wallgreens; and the walnut fraction must has been pretty low because I was able to power through the experience with not too much discomfort (although now, hours later, my stomach is all tied up in knots trying to process this poisoned pesto.. uuurgh).
It was supposedly a non-drowsy anti-histamine, but it wasn't entirely non-drowsy.. some hours after arriving back at the lab, I woke up with my head on my desk, the lights turned off, my arms asleep, all confused.. Sat up and the motion detector turned the lights on and I figured things out. Dragged myself home, lugging my now one-strapped backpack. Blaaaaah.
Then back at this house I collapsed into pseudo-slumber with weird half-dreams about the topology of the universe. Meanwhile Diane and Gina had a horrible conversation pertaining to flossing, and how you find all these horrible chunks of old rotten food matter, and it's all bloody and OH SO INCREDIBLY GROSS.
To advert nightmares I just had to try this whole flossing thing myself, and was quite relieved to not find any of this horribly disgusting junk they were talking about. So now I can sleep peacably again.
I just thought you needed to know that.
08:00 Solid State Nap-Time
10:45 Coffee time at work
12:00 Lunch with Prof. Clarke
17:00 Birthday celebration for Chuck = beer and food at Jupiter
The lunch with John Clarke was good but a little strange. It was revealed that Diane was in 137A currently so then he asked me if I was also in 137A. I said, "Actually I took it a long time ago... with you!" I think he was kind of embarassed. I added, "And 137B and 7B and 7C." So pretty much the reason I went to the lunch thing was because, although I've taken nearly all the physics courses I've taken here from him, and he nods at me all the time, (his daughter was even in a couple of my classes!) we're hardly acquainted. I'm not sure that was really remedied.
At lunch (at Cafe Durant) somehow the first conversation topic that was launched into was the grad student girl ranting about how much she hated london. She had lived there for a semester or something and evidently hated every minute of it. She complained on and on about how dirty and expensive and polluted and crowded it was, how her lungs hurt and how her snot was black at the end of the day. Keep in mind that Prof. Clarke was born, raised, and educated in Cambridge. It was embarassing. I wished I had a button that would electrocute this girl so she'd get the message.
Then lunch was finished and Prof. Clarke invited us to coffee at Cafe Strada. On the way I talked to the girl who had been complaining about london about the CERN program — she had gone in 1998. "You know it's cancelled, " she said. Her theory was that it was because everyone who does the CERN REU subsequently "quits high-energy physics." That may be true, but it's probably only symptomatic...
At Strada I had an espresso, Prof. Clarke had a cappuccino, and the grad student guy had a regular coffee. Prof. Clarke said something like, "Now I'd like to ask you about what you think are big issues facing the department." Or something like that, that seemed to convey some higher-up interest in extracting opinions from current students, part of this whole departmental self-improvement scheme. I didn't have anything to add to the conversation.
So that was lunch with John Clarke.
Back at Donner Hall, I was feeling rather low in exactly the way I shouldn't, having just ingested an espresso; I think it was some kind of anticlimax from this lunch thing. I had to clean out my office, because its rightful owner is allegedly going to materialize any day now. Too bad. I felt so special having an office, even if I didn't use it too much.
At five I wandered down to Jupiter, a bar/restaraunt/microbrewery on Shattuck in downtown. It was Chuck's birthday and everyone from the lab was down there for occassion. It was a nice walk down there, and the sun came out on the way. Jupiter has a very nice, very relaxed back area that seems worlds apart from the downtown Berkeley that surrounds it. Drinking some tasty beer and enjoying the gormet pizza, it sort of felt like the summertime in Geneve.
But then I suddenly had the need to initiate this conversation, after some comedy in trying to get ahold of the server:
Tobin: Can you tell me the composition of your pesto?
Server: Well, let's see.. it's (mumble mumble) walnuts (mumble mumble) ..
Tobin: That is unfortunate. Do you happen to know the fraction of walnut?
Server: No.. why? Are you allergic? Is there something I can do?
Tobin: Do you happen to have any benedryl?
Server: Unfortunately I can't dispense medication...
But someone else had some funky antihistamine, saving me a trip to the nearby Wallgreens; and the walnut fraction must has been pretty low because I was able to power through the experience with not too much discomfort (although now, hours later, my stomach is all tied up in knots trying to process this poisoned pesto.. uuurgh).
It was supposedly a non-drowsy anti-histamine, but it wasn't entirely non-drowsy.. some hours after arriving back at the lab, I woke up with my head on my desk, the lights turned off, my arms asleep, all confused.. Sat up and the motion detector turned the lights on and I figured things out. Dragged myself home, lugging my now one-strapped backpack. Blaaaaah.
Then back at this house I collapsed into pseudo-slumber with weird half-dreams about the topology of the universe. Meanwhile Diane and Gina had a horrible conversation pertaining to flossing, and how you find all these horrible chunks of old rotten food matter, and it's all bloody and OH SO INCREDIBLY GROSS.
To advert nightmares I just had to try this whole flossing thing myself, and was quite relieved to not find any of this horribly disgusting junk they were talking about. So now I can sleep peacably again.
I just thought you needed to know that.
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Oh Nuts!
Date: 2004-04-21 09:42 am (UTC)Ingrediants:
basil
garlic
nuts
parmesan cheese
olive oil
Re: Oh Nuts!
Date: 2004-04-21 10:49 am (UTC)anything else is a cheap and wrongful immitation. (-:
Re: Oh Nuts!
Date: 2004-04-21 11:42 am (UTC)Re: Oh Nuts!
Date: 2004-04-21 11:47 am (UTC)Re: Oh Nuts!
Date: 2004-04-21 01:32 pm (UTC)Re: Oh Nuts!
Date: 2004-04-21 11:51 am (UTC)