Jun 09, 2007 19:02
Wow, busy couple of days:
My talk at the symposium went really well. People told me they enjoyed it, especially the non-art historians in the audience, and I had great conversations about the work at the reception afterward. A lot of them had never seen the work I was discussing (since contemporary Mexican art is largely ignored in the U.S.) and I'm happy they all seemed to like it so much. I love introducing people to something that they didn't know existed but that delights them when they see it. It's so satisfying and I hope I'll have lots of opportunities to do that in my new job. I'm excited because I think I will!
My parents came for graduation and it was great to see them. I still can't believe they drove 2 days here and 2 days back just to visit me for 3 days, but I'm really glad they did. At our M.A. hooding ceremony, my director basically said in his "congratulatory" speech that Master's degrees are not worth anything and we would all have to get PhDs to be worthwhile human beings. Typical. But that's the last time I have to listen to his elitist tripe at least. Katie Couric was the college's graduation speaker and gave a speech that was basically a mash-up of other people's quotes and statistics about "our" generation... pretty underwhelming. One very cool thing about graduation though is that the college tried to make the event as environmentally friendly and "carbon neutral" as possible. They calculated the approximate number of miles traveled by all of the students' families and friends and bought carbon credits to offset all of their travel. All the food was local and organic and they served things like finger sandwiches so they wouldn't have to waste utensils. I will definitely miss that school's commitment to environmentally friendly policies, it's really impressive how much they do. They have an obscene endowment to fund all of it (which makes it a lot easier than it would be for a public college) but I still think it's a good use of their ample resources.
I got everything packed and moved to Andrew's and it's such a good feeling to be *home* with him and the kitties again. Last night we went to a gallery opening and I bumped into one of my former students who's interning at the place for the summer! People there all knew about the job that I got - which was a little strange - but the art world here is pretty small. So, it was neat to start meeting soon-to-be colleagues. After the opening, Andrew and I went out for a belated celebration of his birthday with a bunch of friends, drank some mojitos, and grabbed a late dinner at a schwarma place. Mmmmmm.
We returned the moving truck early this morning (barely on time) and they'd lost my reservation for a storage unit but had a teensy one left that I could use (whew!). We unloaded the last of my stuff into it and - with only a little squishage - it just fit (double whew!). We biked home from the rental place, stopped and had breakfast at a cute little bakery, and then came home to set up for the neighborhood yard sale (which was conveniently scheduled for today, triple whew!). I sold a ton of stuff that I was just going to take to Goodwill or Salvation Army anyway, and made about $100!
I just baked some bread so the whole apartment smells wonderful--what a luxury to have time to cook! Now I just have to start unpacking.
All in all, things are very very good in darcillaville. I feel quite blessed.