March 2007 Archives

Spain pictures are uploaded! Here are some trip highlights with links:

• Touring the Royal Palace.
  
• Madrid-at-night tapas crawl (hope there's a Facebook pic I can grab soon).
  
• First Castillian-translated edition (circa 1450) of Maimonedes' "Guide to the Perplexed."
  
• Kids and snow (movie) in Segovia.
  
• Al-hambra fortress at Granada was ridiculously amazing. First, the gardens (movie/pic). Next the intricate architecture. Also, the ceilings. And finally, the scale of the entire structure.
  
• Sevilla's Alcazar gardens and view from the minaret.
  
• The synagogue at Cordoba's wall designs.
  
• World class Flamenco dancing in Cordoba. Literally, we saw the world champion perform -- v. cool.
  
• The Great Mosque in Cordoba, that's now a Cathedral, but still has Roman influences.
  
• Toledo's enviro-escalators and synagogue-that-looks-like-a-mosque.
  
• Scape-goating the intolerant Christians.
  
• And of course: the awesome people and leaders!
  

Two-minute blog: Segovia (decent alcazar and cathedral), Grenada (Al-Ahabra == awesome), Cordoba (haven't seen the city yet, just the hotel), and Sevilla (everything like I remember, Levies' food was just as tasty!).

Have to run -- am taking lots of pics, which will be posted by Monday.

I´m in Spain this week on a Princeton "Muslim-Jewish" dialgue trip. For some reason, the staff here decided they needed to send 23 Princeton students across the Atlantic to achieve real dialogue. Well, I wasn´t going to object :)

The itinerary is Madrid, Segovia, Toledo, Cordoba, Sevilla, and Grenada -- lots of places I haven´t been before. Today we visited the now-unused Royal Palace: it was my first time in a Throne Room. And since not much is open on Mondays, I toured the Reina Sofia (modern art museum) for the second time in a year. A Salvador Dali painting caught my eye that I had missed my first time through: atómica melancolica. Now it´s time to get to catch up on sleep (I only got 4 hours on the plane).

And I´m tied for first in my family´s NCAA pool! Hopefully leaving the country won´t jinx anything :)

A few items that should have happened years ago, but I'm glad to finally report them:

• Women's Soccer will be back in the US in 2008! Only six teams (including a DC team), but that's a good start. By the time this league gets underway, I'll have fulfilled all my PhD requirements except the dissertation, giving me plenty of time to head to DC to watch the Freedom (or whatever their new name will be). Until then, go Wildcats!

• My sophomore year at MIT, I suggested to the administration that they use the free space in W20 (the student center) for my favorite restaurant: Subway! Unfortunately for me, back then LaVerde's market handled the demand for subs. Recently, however, LaVerde's became lame (see p.16), and MIT decided to put in a Subway. According to Dawn, it's still not completed, but when it does I fully expect a dramatic increase in the acceptance rate among MIT admits!

• I finally solved the problem that I came to grad school for (mostly). I presented the solution at the Princeton Methodology seminar on Friday and received good feedback. Look for the working paper to be posted on my CV page in about a month.

• The DNC finally decided that having one voter file in all 50 states is a good idea! No kidding. And they couldn't have picked a better company to contract with, VAN. It's the only propriety voter file solution that I hear anything good about.
  

In NCAA news, my 5 teams this year (for my uncle's pool): Florida, UNC, UCLA, Texas A&M, and Tennessee. So far, I've got one win out of Texas A&M.

Sometimes I fail to blog because nothing is happening in my life. But, these last two weeks have just been too hectic for me to sit down and compose my thoughts.

Friday a week ago, I hosted a Princeton grad student Shabbat dinner. Attendence was great: 23 people showed up. And we had enough food, thankfully. I made two 9x13 pans of veggie lasagna. The only bump in the road was that the supermarket had no zuccini for the lasagna, so I bought cucumber thinking that might work as well. I came to my senses when I started chopping the cuc' -- clearly this vegetable was too moist for lasagna. Anyway, everyone had a great time (I think -- they stayed *really* long) and I look forward to hosting another one next year :)

Saturday I went into NYC for Seth's birthday party. It was a regular 2E reunion (sans Amitha and James). Samidh thought they had screwed us on the check so I bet him my dinner portion of the bill to his and his new SO's that the restaurant staff was being honest. Everyone pulled out their Treo's and sure enough, my natural inclination to trust people came through: free dinner! And I don't feel guilty since Samidh is making a fortune in his consulting job.

Sunday, I was off to DC, where I said goodbye to Taren who is now in Australia for about a year. Then I met up with Steven and Carrie and saw Bridge to Terabithia. The movie, despite the trailer, follows the book quite closely. The flim starts slowly but gets much better at the end, which is super depressing. (Just as I remember the end of the book being!)

Last week I pushed the deadline for my paper at the State Politics and Policy conference. Five hours of sleep a night is no fun. But the conference, in Austin, TX, was great. The city's motto is "Keep Austin Weird" and I must say that they are successful. Received helpful comments from folks, and one very correct observation that I was "quite enthusiastic about data." (There's a reason for my license plate.) Returned Saturday night (sans bag -- grrr, Southwest) and watched a terrible movie, Keeping Up with the Steins, with Gayle.

Sunday, back to NYC for the Chinese New Year's festival with Chicklet, MFD, and Jeff. People were popping confetti cannisters, and they had weighted red ribbons that floated down via parachutes. Everyone would reach up their hands to try and grab them as they descended. Being taller than all the Asian folks (sorry, sometimes the stereotypes are true), I caught one pretty easily. The ribbon read "Good Luck" in both Chinese and English, so I guess I'll have a fortuitous year. (I'll need it for generals.)

Came back to NJ to find my bag waiting for me (yay Southwest) and headed over to Kate and Nathan's for game night. We played a game of RummyKub in which Miranda kicked all of our butts (damn she's good). After she left to do work, I won the next game. But, then everyone had to go home and do work. Sad.

But, on the bright side, I'm making a dent in that generals reading list. And two of my four presentations this term and now done with. Though the next one, on March 9, will be the hardest to finish on time. So I see more 5-hours-of-sleep nights ahead of me.