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2002-04-22: Life of Luxury?
Apr. 22nd, 2002 12:00 amWell, I must say, the first day of my newly declared Life of Luxury has been a good one.
My scheme to turn in my paper this morning (actually due on Friday) worked out without a hitch; I'd guessed correctly that the copyman would be duplicating them today (as he wouldn't have had time on Friday). I left Delphi at quarter to nine, took care of everything, and got back here before ten. This is also to say that I finished my paper on multiculturalism in Sweden, although not to say that it's a particularly interesting paper by any metric. In the end I just advanced a null hypthesis and implied that everything's going to be great. Woo. The trick comes on Thursday when I have to defend my paper in a seminar. Eek. After my paper defense, I need only write a paper for Applied Non-Commutative Analysis, and then I have no more further academic obligations here. I think I'm going to write that paper on Protein Symmetries or something. Oh yeah, I also intend to omtenta in Particle Physics, so I guess I do have some work remaining. But other than that, my project is to be productive having fun, meeting people, etc. You know, all the stuff I should have been doing all along.
After eating breakfast, I sat outside in the sun and read Cairo: The City Victorious until it got a little cold outside due to the wind and the sun going behind a tree (you see, up hear in the North, the sun doesn't just go "up" and "down," but it goes around the sky). So then I went back to my room where I fell asleep (you see, last night I only got to sleep at 4, owing to having consumed two cups of coffee, one of tea, and a coke, and then got up at 7:45.), until being woken by the arrival of the Mizells!
The Mizells! Yes, the Mizells were here, Jim and Pam. They bought a new Volvo at the factory in Göteborg and have a week to drive all around Scandinavia before shipping it to the United States. Not bad! So they got here on Friday and spent the weekend in Copenhagen, and I showed them around Lund for about four hours. I think they really liked it here. The weather was particularly splendid, and it's hard not to love any place with plum blossoms blowing in the Spring breeze. It was really nice to see them too, and to hear a little bit about what's happening in the Mizell clan.
Grant is in Afghanistan! I knew that he was in the Air Force (having done a tour at the Academy) but hadn't thought at all about the possibility of him being off in Afghanistan. Wow. Apparently he flies cargo planes to and from Afghanistan. I don't know how he feels about it, or what it's really like, but it just sounds so exciting. Makes me question whether what I'm doing is suitably exciting. The Mizell family has always impressed me with a sense that they're always on top of everything. Once when I visited their house a long time ago, John was practicing Caligraphy, and that really impressed me.
I showed the Mizells around the korridor, and then we walked down through LTH towards the city center, visiting Krischansta on the way. All the way I think I talked nonstop about every detail of Swedish life and society, in response to their questions; I was kind of surprised to realise all the things I've learned while being here. I knew none of this before I got here. They seemed quite impressed by the cathedral and the university building. After eating falafels and buying some konditori goodies we walked back to Delphi. Andrew's studying Architecture at Berkeley, so we stopped in the LTH office of admissions to gather some propaganda and then we stopped in the A building to look at the architects' native environment.
The A building looks like fun. All over the place there are models and sculptures and other constructions, and the air is full of the smells of glue and wood and styrofoam and everything you use to make models and such. The Mizells quizzed one girl about the Architecture program. The girl (astonishingly cute I must add!) said that she was actually studying stagecraft but was also taking a class in architecture for fun. Hm, classes in stagecraft. I'll keep that in mind...
After less than four hours in Lund the Mizells had to drive off towards Kalmar in their new Volvo. They sure seemed enthusiastic about Lund, and it was certainly fun showing them around. The weather couldn't have been better, and I'm sure that helped. (Also, I think it was the first day all that the fountains had water in them again, since the winter.)
In the evening, walking back to the C building from ICA I ran into Alice and some of her friends (one of whom, Belinda McFadgen, is a girl from New Zealand, living in B2), who were having a barbeque; Alice invited me to the barbeque and Anna came too and it was quite nice. They've all been involved in a program here (in Ecology) and have become quite close.
At 8 I went to the meeting in SSKK to discuss the house party (husfest) we're going to have. I was impressed by the organisation — we even had a vote to determine whether we should vote. The result is that we're going to have a huge B/C building house party on May 8th. Should be grand.
My scheme to turn in my paper this morning (actually due on Friday) worked out without a hitch; I'd guessed correctly that the copyman would be duplicating them today (as he wouldn't have had time on Friday). I left Delphi at quarter to nine, took care of everything, and got back here before ten. This is also to say that I finished my paper on multiculturalism in Sweden, although not to say that it's a particularly interesting paper by any metric. In the end I just advanced a null hypthesis and implied that everything's going to be great. Woo. The trick comes on Thursday when I have to defend my paper in a seminar. Eek. After my paper defense, I need only write a paper for Applied Non-Commutative Analysis, and then I have no more further academic obligations here. I think I'm going to write that paper on Protein Symmetries or something. Oh yeah, I also intend to omtenta in Particle Physics, so I guess I do have some work remaining. But other than that, my project is to be productive having fun, meeting people, etc. You know, all the stuff I should have been doing all along.
After eating breakfast, I sat outside in the sun and read Cairo: The City Victorious until it got a little cold outside due to the wind and the sun going behind a tree (you see, up hear in the North, the sun doesn't just go "up" and "down," but it goes around the sky). So then I went back to my room where I fell asleep (you see, last night I only got to sleep at 4, owing to having consumed two cups of coffee, one of tea, and a coke, and then got up at 7:45.), until being woken by the arrival of the Mizells!
The Mizells! Yes, the Mizells were here, Jim and Pam. They bought a new Volvo at the factory in Göteborg and have a week to drive all around Scandinavia before shipping it to the United States. Not bad! So they got here on Friday and spent the weekend in Copenhagen, and I showed them around Lund for about four hours. I think they really liked it here. The weather was particularly splendid, and it's hard not to love any place with plum blossoms blowing in the Spring breeze. It was really nice to see them too, and to hear a little bit about what's happening in the Mizell clan.
Grant is in Afghanistan! I knew that he was in the Air Force (having done a tour at the Academy) but hadn't thought at all about the possibility of him being off in Afghanistan. Wow. Apparently he flies cargo planes to and from Afghanistan. I don't know how he feels about it, or what it's really like, but it just sounds so exciting. Makes me question whether what I'm doing is suitably exciting. The Mizell family has always impressed me with a sense that they're always on top of everything. Once when I visited their house a long time ago, John was practicing Caligraphy, and that really impressed me.
I showed the Mizells around the korridor, and then we walked down through LTH towards the city center, visiting Krischansta on the way. All the way I think I talked nonstop about every detail of Swedish life and society, in response to their questions; I was kind of surprised to realise all the things I've learned while being here. I knew none of this before I got here. They seemed quite impressed by the cathedral and the university building. After eating falafels and buying some konditori goodies we walked back to Delphi. Andrew's studying Architecture at Berkeley, so we stopped in the LTH office of admissions to gather some propaganda and then we stopped in the A building to look at the architects' native environment.
The A building looks like fun. All over the place there are models and sculptures and other constructions, and the air is full of the smells of glue and wood and styrofoam and everything you use to make models and such. The Mizells quizzed one girl about the Architecture program. The girl (astonishingly cute I must add!) said that she was actually studying stagecraft but was also taking a class in architecture for fun. Hm, classes in stagecraft. I'll keep that in mind...
After less than four hours in Lund the Mizells had to drive off towards Kalmar in their new Volvo. They sure seemed enthusiastic about Lund, and it was certainly fun showing them around. The weather couldn't have been better, and I'm sure that helped. (Also, I think it was the first day all that the fountains had water in them again, since the winter.)
In the evening, walking back to the C building from ICA I ran into Alice and some of her friends (one of whom, Belinda McFadgen, is a girl from New Zealand, living in B2), who were having a barbeque; Alice invited me to the barbeque and Anna came too and it was quite nice. They've all been involved in a program here (in Ecology) and have become quite close.
At 8 I went to the meeting in SSKK to discuss the house party (husfest) we're going to have. I was impressed by the organisation — we even had a vote to determine whether we should vote. The result is that we're going to have a huge B/C building house party on May 8th. Should be grand.
