These days everyone and their moms claim to be "interested in photography" on their resumes, and have all the fancy equipment and SLR cameras. I don't recall interest in photography being such a ubiquitous thing before -- perhaps the transition from film to digital has made photography more accessible since you don't have to pay for having the film developed or have to do it yourself in a dark room. Anyway, having a super shallow depth of field and cranking up the contrast on your computer, or Adobe Lightroom-ing a photo to make it all yellowy and vintagey-looking, seem to be what pass as good photography nowadays, at least on blogs (and no, I'm not saying mine are any better). It bugs me that it's a formula for creating aesthetically pleasing pictures and that's what everyone (but not literally everyone) does Where's the creativity? I just think it leaves something to be desired.
You'd think that a school with a big ass endowment can afford to spend some of it on hiring competent administrators to run it smartly and efficiently. Apparently not. In order to be cleared for this one requirement so that I can graduate, this person told me that I need to produce two letters from another office saying exactly xyz. No matter that I was only ever sent one letter -- now, instead of communicating with that other office to ascertain a fact that I've offered proof of over and over again, I'm being told that it's on me to get the other letter. Who knows how long it'll take to actually get to me, and by then it'll probably be too late anyway.
I realize it's not a big deal and that big bureaucracies need to have rules, but I think in this case it's overly rigid (there are some other details I won't bother going into -- just take my word for it :) This administration runs a school, not a country. The person I'm dealing with acts like she's afraid she'll get ripped apart by her boss if she showed some independent thinking, but she's basically the boss and one who 唔識轉彎 at that.
I guess I shouldn't be this frustrated, it's just that certain other things about my law school have already boggled my mind. In college if I needed a tax form filled out I just brought it to the registrar's and they would do it right away. Here, I have to come back the next week to pick it up. In college the IT infrastructure was coherent and efficient. Here I have four different sets of user names and passwords (btw, the email interface sucks too). And now, I'm basically acting as the go between for two different branches of this big ass bureaucracy. Effing overrated.
So after long battles with the Chinese government about censorship issues, instead of pulling out of China completely, Google decided to move its google.cn to the HK servers. So when you type in google.cn you actually get redirected to a google.com.hk page that is catered to the China market (i.e. the interface language is simplified Chinese as opposed to HK's traditional Chinese and the search results actually bring up China sites as opposed to HK, etc).
NYT: If It's All About The Journey, Cornell Didn't Lose
Every program has a mission. Cornell’s mission is not to slay the Kentuckys of the world, but to win the Ivy League title, do as well as it can in the postseason and celebrate the journey.More here and here.
The nation was captivated by a Cornell team that went further than expected and riveted by a core of Kentucky freshmen attempting to do the unthinkable.
It's not often that people care about Cornell sports teams in anything other than hockey (which itself isn't that big outside the northeast in the first place), Ivy League schools not exactly known for their athletic prowess. Cornell the university doesn't get much media exposure either, people go flocking to Harvard for quotes and expert opinions. So it's been a little strange seeing a different article on the basketball team on the NY Times every day this week. A former starter for Kentucky now on the Cornell bench (here). The "old, ramshackle" house that a bunch of the guys on the team live in (here) (and I know exactly how ramshackle houses in Ithaca get). A reporter signed off "From Ithaca, New York ...", words I honestly don't think I've ever heard spoken in that context before (here). It's also on ESPN, Business Week, Washington Post, numerous blogs, countless local newspapers ... and I'm not talking about recycled AP or Reuters articles either.
Needless to say, I'm covered head to toe in multiple layers of Cornell gear (yes, I am wearing three pairs of pants). Hope they win tonight's game, but either way they've come very far and have already won everyone's respect.
I recently got back from Portugal, where I went for spring break. We spent a couple of days in Lisbon then rented a car and visited some smaller towns (Sintra, Cascais, Setúbal, Tomar, Coimbra), and were in Porto the rest of the time.
Palácio da Pena in Sintra
As for the food, Portuguese cuisine is known for bacalhau = salted cod. I was salted cod-ed out by the second day. I also learned the hard way to not order the açorda = mushy bread.
On a brighter note, we went on a hike in Peneda-Gerês National Park which was beautiful. The person at the tourism office recommended that we go on this "moderate" 10km (6mi) trail, the Trilho dos Currais. It turned out to also have a 3000ft elevation gain on rugged terrain. Got to the top and rewarded myself with a pack of Haribo gummy bears, canceling out whatever number of calories I might have burned.
Before Portugal, I unexpectedly had to go to Hong Kong for a week. I had to fly back from Hong Kong to Vancouver to New York to Boston then to Madrid to Lisbon all in 40 hours. The tally of airports that I have flown/will fly to/from/through in 2010, up until September:
HKG-JFK-BOS-JFK-HKG-YVR-JFK-BOS-MAD-LIS-LHR-BOS-JFK-YVR-JFK-BOS-JFK-YVR-JFK-BOS-JFK-YYZ-GLA-OSL-BER-HKGA lot for me, considering what I do doesn't involve much (or any) traveling. The lesson from this list clearly is to live in a major city with direct flights going to it.
On the knitting front, I'm currently working on a pair of socks (pattern: Rockyview Socks) for my grandma. She wanted something green so I got BMFA sock yarn in a colorway called County Clare (which I would love to visit one day). The yarn is self-striping, and this particular skein curiously is giving me radioactive green stripes.
Also finally blocked a shawl (pattern: Dane Shaw) that I had finished weeks ago. I knitted this in Malabrigo Sock in the Archangel colorway, the yarn is soft and the colors are gorgeous.
For now I'm back at school in Boston, with only a month to go before my final set of exams (ever! not counting the bar exam) so must buckle down. I'll be going on a hike in Mount Monadnock State Park in New Hampshire next week, maybe after that I'll be able to post some Quatchi-in-the-woods pics :)