Smatthey at MIT

You have probably all guessed that I'm back to infrequent blogging for reason 1: I'll try to still keep you updated on my most important activities.

A few weeks ago, I visited Boston and Cambridge for a weekend. I packed my schedule reasonably tightly to see as many friends as I could: I spent Saturday in particular going from gathering to gathering. I did make an unscheduled stop at Utopia auditions: I knew if I wandered around the student center around 2 pm on the first Saturday of semester, I would find MITG&SP friends.

The biggest gathering was a potluck dinner at Eli's place with Catholic friends. It wasn't quite as large a group as some of Camille's potlucks, but we still made a good crowd with an impressive spread for dinner. I enjoyed being around MIT friends for an evening: UC students are still nerdy, but they talk about things like classics and anthropology, not computer science and aeronautics!

I also had games night with my former roommates: we played a newly-acquired game called Trajan. It falls somewhere in the middle of my preference list: not so overwhelming that it seems like I can't succeed (like Agricola), but also lacking in a clear way to build up strategically over time. Maybe the latter is just because I'm inexperienced.

I went to the airport on Monday, only to find that my plane had been cancelled. I should have anticipated this, given the forecast snowstorm, but having received a text message when my first flight had been cancelled, I assumed I would be similarly notified the second time. But it just meant an unnecessary trip to the airport, and at least the trains were running on Monday!

I thus ended up with an extra day and a half in Cambridge, and it was actually really nice. Where on the days I had actually planned to be there, I scheduled all my time, now I had no plans and could just "hang out". I spent most of Monday with Jimmy, who has been one of my closest friends since Christmas 2009 (and my friend since a few months before that). We had dinner at Za, chosen mostly due to its proximity to campus: the snow although not so heavy was enough to make indoors a more attractive place to be.

While I was checking emails in a computer room, Davie happened to walk past and see me, and we arranged to have Tuesday breakfast together. Our meal ended up a little more relaxed than we had expected as his classes were cancelled, so we enjoyed a chat about mathematics, music and life.

After an early lunch with Godine, I headed to the airport (trains were not running, but there is a convenient - and kind of free - bus from Back Bay to the airport), and from there my trip back to Chicago was smooth.

It was funny to come back to Chicago and find it almost free of snow, after the many feet all around in Boston!