Wow, what a week it has been! Things are getting busier and busier.
First, celebrations! A friend from Wesleyan is coming to visit me Friday/Saturday from Paris, and I'm super excited to see her again. I hope I'll be a good host, as I'm always nervous I'm not doing and saying enough (or too much), but she's such a sweet person I'm sure it will be hard to get wrong :) I also feel quite flattered that she's coming to visit--it was such a surprise, though certainly a most welcome one! I feel kinda cool and special, though I know people visit each other all the time.
And yes, we are going to celebrate! That same Friday evening (well, that's tomorrow!), my college is holding a special Hallowe'en Dinner and Costume Festival, so she and a fellow college-friend and I are all going to go--and we're going to dress up as the 99% with all the pamphlets and fliers I have! We're pretty excited (or at least, I am). All the food is going to be themed as 'eyeball soup' (bean soup) &c &c with lots of orange-typed foods. She's only here for a night, so we'll play by ear how much celebrating to do (especially as I'm sure she'll be a bit worn out from travelling). The next day is FoodCycle--like a more organised, Google-Spreadsheet-planned-out Food Not Bombs--and I'm going with a Cam friend of mine from the Occupations in London. :) Then, an Angels in America marathon in our college lounge!!!
Halloween in Europe is always funny, but I think it's even funnier in Cambridge. Halloween is, HANDS DOWN, my *faaaaaavourite* holiday. And they do it here, but it's certainly a different and more European take--that is, get dressed up, get wasted, have a party. Not exactly candy, decorations, farm-trips, hayrides and pick-your-own-pumpkins, though I have actually been really surprised by the number of stores that have gowned up for the event and are selling Halloween-themed crockery and cookie cutters and cupcake/muffin-lines, &c. Haven't really seen anyone using them, though, but then again I'm only around the broke college students, so what do I know! To be honest, most things in 'Harry Potter-land' (as my Grandmother calls it) are gearing up for Christmas now. Just three weeks ago I saw a big department store putting up large shiny red Christmas trees...it's really weird to have the mood changing like that, before we've even had Halloween yet--before most leaves have even fallen yet! It kind of pulls one out of the current season and makes life & timing feel really...bizzarre.
On Monday, another friend from my course has invited a group of us for another (properly-timed) Hallowe'en Get-Together. So I'm going to get plenty of Halloween in!--which is funny, considering that I skipped out on one of my all-time favourite activities (pumpkin-carving) last night at my college in order to go to a Diwali celebration on campus (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali). A good friend of mine who's in my course and college (and lives just across the hall from me) and who's from Delhi explained Diwali to me as a festival of lights in celebration of the God Rama's triumphs over the demon Ravana after Ravana kidnapped Rama's wife Sita, and after Rama et al return from exile in the dessert. So Diwali is supposed to be the day of good triumphing over evil, and the idea is to celebrate Rama's return to his home with the lighting of many candles, the playing of music, &c. Wikipedia does not exactly confirm this take on the story (as far as I could glean from a quick skim), so I'm not sure if I've *actually* got that right or not, BUT, it's so much fun and so beautiful and I can imagine that this would be an amazing thing to be a part of in Delhi or elsewhere in India. My friend and I were both surprised by the number of friends from our course and college we ran into there. I also met my friend from the Occupation there (who's also getting involved in other activisty/volunteery things with me), who's really cool--so all in all we had lots of people to mingle with, and had a lot of fun. Plus there were sparklers! And Bollywood music!
Diwali sparklers!
On the academic side of things, I just muscled my way through a bit of a tricky place with regards to my distance differential-equations class, and specifically with regards to my midterm exam. It's supposed to be taken at an NVCC/NOVA testing centre, but *obviously* I can't do that. Anyway, an overly-long story short, there was VERY little (read: none) communication with me about the special procedures and deadlines for overseas students to request proctors (or, 'exam invigilators') &c &c and I may or may not have created a huge firestorm yesterday over the issue--but it worked because in a single day I received a) 2 e-mails from one person about updating the e-mail communication system in various different ways, b) 3-4 e-mails from another person verifying my choice of proctor, that the choice had been confirmed, that the materials had been sent out, and so forth, and c) an e-mail from the mathematics assistant dean saying she'd forwarded my message to my Professor so he'd know that I'm doing everything in my power to get things done on time. Phew. I guess the moral of the story is--always sound firm, and always copy the deans.
Well, you know how I like long updates. Don't like to leave any stone uncovered! Professor Ha-Joon Chang also donated 3 signed, dedicated books to the Occupation Library (Starbooks) and tasked me with delivering them. I feel pretty cool. He also said he'd write 5-6 letters for me (while warning me that of course he doesn't know me very well and, on top of that, he thinks I should consider that I might be miserable in a neoclassical programme and might end up indoctrinated). Since my list of schools is longer than that (but significantly cut down from what it once was!!), I also wrote to my Wesleyan macroecon professor to ask if she'd write 4-5 for me, and she wrote back SO enthusiastically--I'd forgotten how well we get along--so now I'm debating how to divide my list of schools between them. Ack! She's only been at Wesleyan for 3, maybe 4, years now, so obviously he's the more famous & well-established choice (plus it'd be nice to have someone from Cambridge in addition to my other two Wesleyan recommenders who have already committed themselves to helping me), but she saw me twice a week for 14 weeks and saw lots of my work (3 exams and 6 problem-sets including research and writing assignments, and math), so it's a bit of a difficulty. Oh well!
Love to all--and Happy Diwali and almost-Halloween! xo
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