Second week in Cambridge

I have to write this post covering Friday 20th until this morning, so that my next post can be about a very funny event that happened to me at the mall this afternoon. You should check back tomorrow about this time for that post: although not at all important, it will be one of the most amusing posts I've written (if it had happened in March, I would have used it as my April Fools' Day post because no-one would believe it).

So, Friday: During the day I searched craigslist for furniture, ending up finding a desk and chest of drawers for $100. That is substantially more than I could have paid, but I thought it was quite a good price because it included delivery. Anna visited my end of Cambridge for dinner: her Mum shouted us dinner at Eastside Grill. It is a pub with good quality typical pub food (pasta, burgers, large salads...). My eggplant something or other (breaded and cheesed) linguine was very nice, and extremely filling.

On Saturday evening I went and saw John in '2010: Our Hideous Future'. This is a new musical written by a couple of locals. It started rather slowly: it looked like the writer was trying to mine old jokes for humour that just wasn't there, or at best was only funny to those involved. Fortunately, it improved substantially and the characters began to attract our sympathy. Despite a couple of weaker points, I really enjoyed the last three quarters or so.

On Sunday I watched Memento with Jordan and Su Yee. Although I had expected a very confusing film, I actually found it surprisingly straightforward: about as straightforward given the conceit chosen to illustrate the situation of the protagonist. I would put it firmly in the list of movies I've enjoyed, though not on one of those I need to see again. I did notice a slight mistake, where a character's lip is shown uncut between moments where it was cut. That confused me for a moment, before I decided I'd just missed noticing that it was cut (but then I found the mistake on imdb).

On Monday I bought a bookshelf for $5 (even including delivery!). That almost brought to an end my furniture purchases: it at least allowed me to get everything positioned (my mattress taking the place of my bed).

Tuesday was a very rainy day: I bought an umbrella (and was annoyed by the American tax system, where an item advertised as $9.99 actually costs $10.61, so a $10 note won't do!). I caught the bus home, finding it more convenient than walking in the rain but less convenient than walking in the dry.

Wednesday was even rainier, and unfortunately my laptop got wet and wouldn't work. I left it to dry, and hoped. After our group meeting, I moved into my new office in the basement of the chemical engineering building.

On Thursday, I was happy to discover that my laptop does in fact work again.

On Friday I signed my lease and collected a key to my new office before a meeting with some experimental colleagues. I had some ideas about the causes of overpotential in the initial stages of battery discharge, one of which one of the experimenters had had and tested, and found to be incorrect. That puzzled me, and gave me plenty to think about. I also went to the physics department's welcome barbecue for the first years, although I actually talked mostly to a fellow second year who is struggling with a decision between research groups.

On Saturday I visited Anna. I helped her take some bags to her room at Harvard (Helen also helped, then spent the rest of the day with us). We had lunch at Harvest (my gnocchi was unfortunately too cheesy), sat in JFK park and chatted, went to the mall, sat in Lechmere Canal Park and chatted, then had dinner in Chinatown before a little wandering looking for supplies for Anna's room. A very pleasant day: Anna is so lovely and has very good taste in friends.

In the evening, I noticed that my friend Amanda is having a birthday party on Wednesday evening, in Washington DC (she lives in Washington DC, or strictly speaking studies there, living just across the Virginian border). I decided I should take advantage of my student life to do crazy things, so I'm going to her party. It will be at a restaurant I really liked when I ate there with her in November. I'll leave Boston around 8 am on Wednesday, spending approximately 5 pm to midnight in DC, arriving home at 11 am on Thursday. It's a lot of travelling for a short time there, but bus travel in the northeast is cheap, and hopefully I can do most of the same things (work during the day, sleep at night) I would be doing anyway.

Sunday was a relatively quiet day. I went to pick up my bed, which was supposed to have arrived. It had, but the mattress seems to have also been sold, presumably as a twin size, which it is not (it is extra long, because I am extra long). I took home the box spring, and will return next week for the mattress.

This morning I had an interesting scientific idea. In short, it is how the relaxation of the supercapacitive charging in a cathode can lead to enhancement of lithium concentration in the electrolyte, decreasing overpotential during subsequent discharge (I assure you, that isn't gratuitous jargon, simply brevity).

And in the afternoon...