This seems to be the summer of reunions.
Worked from home on Friday, processing my t-test results for the study of steepness correlation with lithology. The results look promising to first order, but as with everything else in life, the devil's in the detail, and I'm going to have to take a really close look at how what I'm seeing maps onto actual rocks before I can jump to any conclusions. Unfortunately, there are sandstones and there are sandstones, and probably also sandstones and sandstones - and they all seem to be jumbled together in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Whoopee.
In the afternoon, began reading FernWithy's Teddy stories again. It's been a long time, but I still do enjoy them. Jolly good fun. I didn't get very far with that, though, when I got a surprise Skype call from Julie Padilla! A GES friend who went to Korea to teach English to small children, she never fails to make me laugh, and we had a good chat about everything from the overabundance of stupid people in the world to the Korean rainy season. Julie's going kayaking in Mongolia this week, which sounds bloody awesome. Can't wait to hear her stories from there.
That kept me suitably distracted as I waited for what I had been eagerly anticipating all week: My friend Mindi Summers was in town for the day! Mindi's another GES major in my year whom I have seen only once since we had Hydrology with Keith Loague together in Autumn of 2007, since which time she has managed to spend every quarter I've been at Stanford away from Stanford, and vice versa. Speaking to her again bore an eerie resemblance to looking yourself in the mirror - from the most trivial of questions down to the big concerns in life, she echoed so many of my concerns and sentiments that I sometimes had to pinch myself to be sure I wasn't dreaming.
Today (by which I mean Saturday) was another quiet day with an entertaining finish. I spent most of the day lounging around, working a bit on my German thesis, procrastinating online, etc. Thesis work is coming along. I'm now on Page 17, the plan being to pound out another 2-3 tomorrow and Monday morning to round out Ch. 2. There are a few passages I need to look up in sources in the library, so that will have to wait until Monday morning, but on the whole I'm not too unhappy about where I am with this thing. It's very difficult for me to write, though, when there's so much English in my environment. I'm actually rather glad to have been home alone this weekend while Steph's in LA, as it's easier to maintain my internal monologue auf Deutsch when I don't have to interrupt it with English on a regular basis.
The day was rounded out with a very enjoyable evening at John Bistline's First Annual Port and Planet Earth Party, celebrated with members of the extended Stanford Symphony Orchestra family at John's apartment in Rains. He and his roommate have a 50-inch plasma TV and Dolby 7.1 surround sound setup, which makes the high-definition Planet Earth photography (and those epic bass moments when the elephant lumbers across the screen) all the more satisfying. I'd forgotten how much fun good quality BBC documentaries are to watch. Now if only they would throw in a scale bar or two...
In the afternoon, began reading FernWithy's Teddy stories again. It's been a long time, but I still do enjoy them. Jolly good fun. I didn't get very far with that, though, when I got a surprise Skype call from Julie Padilla! A GES friend who went to Korea to teach English to small children, she never fails to make me laugh, and we had a good chat about everything from the overabundance of stupid people in the world to the Korean rainy season. Julie's going kayaking in Mongolia this week, which sounds bloody awesome. Can't wait to hear her stories from there.
That kept me suitably distracted as I waited for what I had been eagerly anticipating all week: My friend Mindi Summers was in town for the day! Mindi's another GES major in my year whom I have seen only once since we had Hydrology with Keith Loague together in Autumn of 2007, since which time she has managed to spend every quarter I've been at Stanford away from Stanford, and vice versa. Speaking to her again bore an eerie resemblance to looking yourself in the mirror - from the most trivial of questions down to the big concerns in life, she echoed so many of my concerns and sentiments that I sometimes had to pinch myself to be sure I wasn't dreaming.
Today (by which I mean Saturday) was another quiet day with an entertaining finish. I spent most of the day lounging around, working a bit on my German thesis, procrastinating online, etc. Thesis work is coming along. I'm now on Page 17, the plan being to pound out another 2-3 tomorrow and Monday morning to round out Ch. 2. There are a few passages I need to look up in sources in the library, so that will have to wait until Monday morning, but on the whole I'm not too unhappy about where I am with this thing. It's very difficult for me to write, though, when there's so much English in my environment. I'm actually rather glad to have been home alone this weekend while Steph's in LA, as it's easier to maintain my internal monologue auf Deutsch when I don't have to interrupt it with English on a regular basis.
The day was rounded out with a very enjoyable evening at John Bistline's First Annual Port and Planet Earth Party, celebrated with members of the extended Stanford Symphony Orchestra family at John's apartment in Rains. He and his roommate have a 50-inch plasma TV and Dolby 7.1 surround sound setup, which makes the high-definition Planet Earth photography (and those epic bass moments when the elephant lumbers across the screen) all the more satisfying. I'd forgotten how much fun good quality BBC documentaries are to watch. Now if only they would throw in a scale bar or two...