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Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Oct. 6th, 2010 11:00 pmI only got to campus by 2pm. I did stop by my favorite pizza pace near there and got a falafel. And then I was passing DunkinDonuts and I got a Boston scream donut (which is just like Boston Crème but with orange frosting lines on top for Halloween). I don’t eat donuts often but I just needed something sweet.
Today was a bad day for concentrating on anything. My mind kept drifting. For some reason I kept thinking of “The Little Drummer Girl” by John le Carre. I read this book five years ago when I was in Norwich. Papa gave me a different book for my birthday, a historical fiction, that I took with me when I went to England. But this particular historical fiction was irritating me with its version of history (I really enjoy reading fairly accurate and definitely well researched historical fiction or my historical brain would protest). So I asked him to recommend another book that I could substitute for the birthday present. He suggested “The Little Drummer Girl.” I’m usually not into spy novels but I couldn’t put this book down. And parts of it stayed in my mind. There is also one of the best love scenes I’ve ever read in literature in this book. So when for some reason this book kept coming up in my head today (I don’t even know why), and I was in the library after all, I found it in the uni library and read my favorite passages for a while. Then I read a bit of the “Constant Gardener” which I want to read eventually since I did love the movie.
I met with a student then graded a bit. I got sushi and tea for dinner and then it was time for Michael Pollan lecture.
He was very funny. I was not expecting him to be that funny. He brought lots of ‘food like substances’ like soup in a can that can fit in your car and other processed food. I read “In Defense of Food” in June, so I knew his basic premise but it was still a lot of fun to listen to and think about the way our culture redefined food to focus simply on nutrition and how it ignored other functions of food and how we eat. I had to leave during Q & A because Papa also had to pick up Mama at her seminar in Brooklyn but I’m really glad I got to see him lecture live.
When someone decides to close the upper level of the bridge for repairs at 10:30 at night, it might be a good idea NOT to create a bottleneck on the lower level so that only one car at a time can get on the bridge out of three lanes. Being stuck in traffic cause by human stupidity late at night for a while – not that fun.
Today was a bad day for concentrating on anything. My mind kept drifting. For some reason I kept thinking of “The Little Drummer Girl” by John le Carre. I read this book five years ago when I was in Norwich. Papa gave me a different book for my birthday, a historical fiction, that I took with me when I went to England. But this particular historical fiction was irritating me with its version of history (I really enjoy reading fairly accurate and definitely well researched historical fiction or my historical brain would protest). So I asked him to recommend another book that I could substitute for the birthday present. He suggested “The Little Drummer Girl.” I’m usually not into spy novels but I couldn’t put this book down. And parts of it stayed in my mind. There is also one of the best love scenes I’ve ever read in literature in this book. So when for some reason this book kept coming up in my head today (I don’t even know why), and I was in the library after all, I found it in the uni library and read my favorite passages for a while. Then I read a bit of the “Constant Gardener” which I want to read eventually since I did love the movie.
I met with a student then graded a bit. I got sushi and tea for dinner and then it was time for Michael Pollan lecture.
He was very funny. I was not expecting him to be that funny. He brought lots of ‘food like substances’ like soup in a can that can fit in your car and other processed food. I read “In Defense of Food” in June, so I knew his basic premise but it was still a lot of fun to listen to and think about the way our culture redefined food to focus simply on nutrition and how it ignored other functions of food and how we eat. I had to leave during Q & A because Papa also had to pick up Mama at her seminar in Brooklyn but I’m really glad I got to see him lecture live.
When someone decides to close the upper level of the bridge for repairs at 10:30 at night, it might be a good idea NOT to create a bottleneck on the lower level so that only one car at a time can get on the bridge out of three lanes. Being stuck in traffic cause by human stupidity late at night for a while – not that fun.