I've now completed the first academic year of my PhD program. I can't say that I have many inspiring or reflective words on the first leg of the journey. Those will have to wait until I finish generals in a year. Instead I think I'll blog about all the celebratory activities I've been up to this past week.
First, mini-golf! I hadn't gone mini-golfing in way too long; Melody and I found this great course about 20 minutes form campus. The course included streams, long walks between holes, large pine trees, swans, and genuinely difficult holes. The greens were shaped to reward very accurate long putts and outside-the-box thinking. The obvious method for getting your first shot near the hole was almost never the optimal approach. On top of that, the course is on the outskirts of this quaint NJ town, Hopewell, which has lots of antiquing and fun stores. The coffee shop we went to afterwards (to grab some ice cream on a gorgeous day) had all these Irish quotes written on the wall -- don't see that in starbucks.
That evening, Saturday night, I drove to DC to see folk and run in a 10K. I had a Thai dinner with Katherine from the Dean campaign. Unfortunately she wasn't quite done with her term as she was trying to write on to Law Review. But that didn't stop her from inviting me down to DC for the 10K on Sunday morning. Speaking of people finished with 1L, after dinner I visited Janeite in her summer place (she's in DC this summer to work for one of my favorite non-profits). We rented the new version of Pride & Prejudice; we almost went with Good Night and Good Luck, but neither of us were in the mood for something that serious. So we decided to make fun of Kitty and Lydia instead (stay tuned for my upcoming review of the flick).
Had to get up nice and early on Sunday to run the 10K Capitol Hill Classic. A bit of unluck resulted in Katherine starting a few minutes after me and though she caught up and passed me along the way, somehow we missed each other. The race route was great: we ran around RFK and the Capitol Building. How I miss DC...Anyway, I ran 9:15-minute miles, which is not bad. I guess I could have run faster as I had gas left in the tank at the end, but I didn't think I needed to kill my body over a friendly 10K.
(Aside: Speaking of friendlies, did anyone else see the US Men's National team get embarrassed by Morocco on Wednesday? That was ugly -- if we don't step it up a good two notches at the World Cup, it'll be 3 and out.)
Sunday afternoon I went to my old high school (with Enjanerd and ITP) for its 20-year anniversary. I found out that the evil principal that came on in 2000 resigning. Though she left us with a truly terrible "Alma Matter," which was performed for the first (and hopefully last) time on Sunday. The moon bounce was great fun though!
Wonderfully, the absence of Miranda and me did not halt the tradition of Sunday night frisbee at 734B. The TJ event ended just in time for me to join all my West Wing friends. Some of them joined rec leagues and the level of play has significantly increased over last year. People have forehands now, which was certainly news to me.
On Monday it was off to New Haven for Yale's graduation. I knew five people getting degrees (four of them graduating) and I managed to find all of them :) Spent the majority of time with Elf and her family(-ies). We had dinner at this great sushi place in downtown New Haven, and wrapped up the evening with a game of settlers. Despite my losing streak at Princeton, I managed to find my touch again and pull out the victory. Either the people at Princeton are just smarter than me or I've found an optimal strategy for regular Settlers but have not attuned my playing skills to the Seafarers version we use up north.
This weekend, it's off to Boston for the second of the twins' weddings! (Hrmm, should probably get on their registry and find a present...)
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