Across Walnut Street is Algeria, where the waiters are doubly surly, because they are kin to the French gastronomic tradition, and because they despise the French, le garçon brought out six sauces in a round, vertical-sided dish to provoke my appetite. "Il faut d'abord deviner l'identité de ces six sauces avant de commander votre plat." And so I ( Read more... )

The days of innocence have ended on this computer. I was trying to download something by Haydn on a file-sharing network when the uploader told me to 'share with everyone', accused me of being a 'lamer' and prompty blocked me. Unfortunately, it's hard to share files when you have none (except for those pre-installed gems like "Party on the Mountain ( Read more... )

I know that everything (the quick recall practice with the autocratic visionary and his willing subjects, as well as the trip to the Small City to the North) will go more smoothly tomorrow if I go to bed, but I figured out this afternoon that I was reading the one book (White Noise) in the world that was truly meant for me. I can't put it down ( Read more... )

I am on sensory overload. After going to Shakertown for dinner with the extended and semi-family, my brother and his girlfriend revealed that they had not really gone to a professors' party with cheese, but had wanted to surprise me with my recommended cheeses in a roundabout way. But then I explained the cosmic symmetry, how I had gone to a ( Read more... )

I realized last night, after typing ten pages (double-spaced) on the new computer that the time was set incorrectly, and that it was not midnight, but a few hours later: such is the power of an epic (or the confessional first-person explanation of an aggressor with a knife, and the travails of a newly-arrived academic team impresario who plots to ( Read more... )

Yesterday doesn't seem like it should have happened. I accomplished too much for a holiday break: I went to an agonizing two hour quick recall practice, registered to vote (after soul-searching over which party to affiliate with), registered for Selective Service (after waiting in line for ten minutes at the post office), received a computer in the ( Read more... )

I have lost all concept of time and space, which is to say that I have not had Internet access for almost a week. Fortunately, I have gotten some (voluntary) reading done: Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World (I am a sucker for any book that includes the line "Access memory at the cellular level and ride the DNA chain like a wave back into ( Read more... )

Admission OfficeP.O. Box 430 ( Read more... )

Birthday:

They said that they had bought me other presents, but they couldn't find them. These were all fine with me. Just think of the natural resources, and the amount of free time that I don't have:

1. Donald Antrim - Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World
2. Don Delillo - White Noise
3. The Beatles - Sergeant Pepper...
4. Philip Glass - The ( Read more... )

On various college application message boards, they are rattling their cages and banging drums. "Here are my stats, what are my chances?" has given way to "Post here if you were deferred/rejected". To say the least, I am nervous too. I have grown to regret every essay that I submitted, and can only speculate about what other people wrote for me, ( Read more... )