Though I don't have anything terribly fascinating to contribute, I figure it's time to check in and say Hello to the blog.
First of all I've enjoyed all the posts very much, from the concise baseball taunts of Chaitkin to the longer, contemplative essays by Ms. Jonas. They both have their place... And that place is distracting me during work, for which I am eternally grateful.
Work is a Human-Computer Interaction Lab at Cornell. I'm working on a project that is prototyping a digital museum tour, a little handheld device that you take with you through Cornell's art museum and get extra information about exhibits and such. We're adding new features and running experiments to see how the new features go over. It's a good experience for me, and the work will eventually be interesting. Right now it's pretty slow, because they haven't really given me enough to do, which is kind of torturous.
I'm currently freaking out about choosing a topic for my honors thesis. I'm interested in so many things, and find so many questions fascinating. At the same time, Symbolic Systems has given me no area of focus, much less expertise. I'm left with the awkward task of being inspired, on or before approximately August 1. Inspiration does not operate well on such a rigid schedule, and I'm feeling the pressure a little bit. We'll see how it turns out...
Socially everything is great. On evenings and weekends (which is Thurs-Sun for me - god bless 20 hr weeks) I see movies (see Knocked Up... seriously), read (recommendations?), play my cello (mostly the Beatles book, with a playalong CD), golf, go out on the lake, and frequent the local bar scene. Save for my mother's insistence on my getting a second job, it's very peaceful.
And finally, this weekend is my brother's bar mitzvah, which means that 120 family and friends will descend upon my isolated little hamlet for 4 days. I've just been informed that I am going to give a little speech about Ari at the Saturday night party. The speech will be given about 3 hours into the party. This is is coincidentally 3 hours after the bar opens, which is approximately 2 hours and 35 minutes after I get too drunk to speak in public. Wish me luck...
4 comments:
Sounds fantastic. I'm insanely jealous.
The St Louis art Museum has a similar electronic tour guide gizmo (yes, that is the correct and highly technical term).
I saw "knocked up" with Ani and Lisa. Golden.
Don't let your Mom convince to take a second job, and be thankful that you don't have enough to do. Work sucks.
Final thought: as Ashwin has taught us, drunk speeches are some of the best so don't stress it.
Drink a beer for me.
oh man i can just imagine all the Lewensteins screaming "Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech!"
you know, i would recommend a dance too when you're a little drunky drunk, the crowd will go wild
have a blast joel!!
And after the speech and congratulations are given to your brother for his bar-mitzvah, yell "who's next?", and get all the 12 year olds to stand up!
Have fun though. I wish you were coming out to visit CA. Live it up in NY in the mean time. I'm out of here today, so I've seen the last of NY.
I absolutely second Ani's idea that you lead everyone in dance.
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