This is kind of old news by now, but yeah, I went to Switzerland. It was my first time to “the Continent.” Actually, the entire MIT Concert Choir went to Lausanne, which is on the north shore of Lake Geneva, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, in order to sing Brahms’ Ein Deutsche Requiem together with the University Choir of Lausanne.
We had two performances, both in the Cathedral of Lausanne. It was my first time singing in a cathedral — in fact, one of the few times I’ve gotten to sing in a venue with really nice acoustics (ok, Dabney Lounge at Caltech was pretty good).
When we weren’t performing or rehearsing, we played tourist. I toured Lausanne, Montreux (which has a nice 12th-century château), Evian, and Geneva. Yussanne came out from London to visit! Here are pictures.
It was cool to actually have time to hang out and socialize with kids in the choir. Some of them are pretty cool. Even though we spend 5 hours a week together, we spend most of it singing and there isn’t much time to get to know people, especially outside your section. Plus, I’m usually hungry and grumpy from a long work day. :)
Oh, and I gave an astronomy talk too. When my advisor heard that I was going to Switzerland, he set me up with some of his buddies at the Observatory of Geneva, and I presented a little talk about our current research. It went pretty well, I thought.
So my bible study group is pretty much awesome. They all got together to give me a “care package” for my upcoming qualifying exam.
I don’t really know what’s up with the Victoria’s secret bag. But the stuff inside it was pretty awesome. Chocolate, coffee, Jelly Bellies (yessss), rum (”Break open in case of emergency”), and more. Oh, and some really nice flowers. We didn’t have a vase, so I put them in the bottom part of Ali’s hookah.
I have been totally stressing out about this exam, even though I know I shouldn’t. I was feeling stressed and tired and kind of isolated when I got this, and it totally made my day. Still tired and stressed, but it’s nice to see that people still care for me, even though I’ve been neglecting them.
P.S. The exam is on Tuesday, from 2 to 4, if you feel like putting in a good word with the Man Upstairs.
No, I didn’t go anywhere, but I sure did quit posting for a while. Maybe now there’s enough backlog of events to give me material to post on for a while. No promises though. I hope I haven’t completely driven away all my fans by my long silence. (That’s what RSS feeds are for, folks!)
You might have noticed the new picture up on top. I took that a while ago from a construction site in the North End. Here’s the full image.
I kind of like the contrast between the desolate foreground and the bustling city lights. Of course, when I take cool pictures, it is totally not on purpose. :)
In other news, I upgraded the software, so things look a little nicer, etc. Peace out!
I went to London. It was cool. I saw Yussanne, Mayra, and Phil. Here are some pictures.
