Last week in Cambridge

I had one week in Cambridge between the conference in Montreal and leaving for my holiday at home, and it was lots of fun.

SATURDAY
I spent a large part of the day working on slides Martin requested for a talk about our group's research. In the evening, I had the last of my Saturday night parties for the academic year, to celebrate Camille's brief visit to Cambridge. She ended up cooking (when it comes to cooking, I prefer to do things myself or let others do them themselves, rather than letting two cooks spoil the broth), and we had a very fun evening. We didn't even get around to games: it was so fun just eating, chatting, making pancakes (with the maple syrup I was given at the conference), etc.

SUNDAY
was 4th July. After a lunchtime barbecue, I spent a long time discussing a physics/maths problem with Evelyn. It rather tested our understanding of bases of general Hilbert spaces, as well as our stamina in doing maths in hot weather. In the evening, I (and eventually Evelyn as well) joined some other friends by the Charles River for the Boston concert and fireworks. It was a great celebration, although far smaller than Sydney New Year (I've made this point many times, but I am proud of my home state's biggest party). I was amused when the announcer introduced patriotic American songs and invited us to sing along, then the orchestra (Boston Pops) began 'God Save the Queen'. At first I thought it was a joke, before I remembered that Americans have alternative words they sing ("My country, 'tis of thee..." no, the lyrics mostly don't make sense). The fireworks were the most impressive I remember seeing. I particularly liked those that looked like jellyfish, and the moment when the whole sky above Boston was alight.

MONDAY
I went in to the office because I knew I had plenty to do before coming home. I started to make good progress, which generally continued through the week, although I didn't reach any kind of nice finishing point before coming home, and I'll have to spend a bit of time working out where I was so I can pick up where I left off, on my return. In the evening Camille organised a games night, with people from the Tech Catholic Community. We played Settlers of Catan and Taboo, and had lots of fun. That was our goodbye to Camille for a while: I think she'll be back in October for her graduation ceremony.

TUESDAY
After another (slightly short) day at the office, I headed southeast with Kelsey, to see the College Light Opera Company's production of Evita. On the way we stopped to pick up her sister, and said hello to the family's pet goats. It was nice to pat goats: it had been quite some time! The production itself was very enjoyable. Evita fulfilled her role admirably by wearing around 20 costumes during the course of the show (even though she was onstage most of the time). My favourite performer was Magaldi, a tango singer. Going into the show, I really only knew one song - no prizes for guessing which - and I found it coming up again and again during the show.

WEDNESDAY
was a quieter day. I started a little packing

THURSDAY
Early in the day, I talked to Rahul about some of the ideas that came up at or in my mind because of the conference. It looks like I should be able to get some results from the Ceder group, which would be a big help to my research. I hoped to make it to my last floor dinner, but in the end I had a meeting that ran past the time.

FRIDAY
I spent mostly packing and preparing to move. I sorted my belongings into eleven bags or piles: nine to move to my new place in East Cambridge, two (one bag and one personal item) to bring home. Patrick helped me move things across to the new place, so things turned out pretty easily. In the evening, I joined quite a large group led by Maita, making lumpia and assorted other Filipino and other foods for a delicious dinner. I went to bed for the last time at SP, looking forward to heading home the next day.