It snowed here yesterday morning. The campus looks beautiful when it snows, and I had planned to take my camera and get a few photos of it, but I forgot yesterday. Then I thought I'd look through images of Georgetown online to try to find a good one, but the few I saw were really pretty ugly. Very disappointed. But while I was looking for images of Georgetown, I came across this picture - apparently last year researchers in the Georgetown University Medical Center last year were "able to use simple, non-toxic chemical injections to add and remove fat in targeted areas on the bodies of laboratory animals." So it's not just a pretty place. Oh, and actual photos of Georgetown, snowy or otherwise, will follow. Sometime. When rodents don't catch my fancy more.Yesterday morning I went to a lecture given by Eric Maskin, who shared the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2007. This is the second opportunity I’ve had to see a recent Nobel Prize winner, though I didn’t make it to see Orhan Pahmuk last semester as it clashed with a class. Maskin is interested in politics, and some of his work is specifically applicable to the mechanism of voting. The title of his lecture was “How Should We Elect Presidents” (a timely consideration… the next primaries are coming soon) but it was in reality quite a dry lecture on different methods of voting. While the US system of indicating only one preference on the ballot is in his consideration a very unsatisfactory method—he showed lots of slides regarding the “Nader factor,” allowing a minority candidate to change the likely outcome (yes, I detected, as a pattern, a remaining bitterness on his part that it’s been eight years of Bush, instead of eight years of Gore…)—he conceded that the Australian system is vastly preferable. Though still not the best. I was interested that all the viable voting systems he examined had been proposed centuries ago—and when he described the five desireable outcomes that a voting system should allow for, all existing systems only allowed for four out of five. (This, apparently, had also been analysed fifty or sixty years ago.) Some of his recent work has basically been to prove in a number of ways that a True Majority Rules method is the best. It may well be, but I have to say I would not want to be a vote-counter or scrutineer for that particular tallying. Especially if there were more than three candidates! It made for quite a dry morning, but I’m glad I went. Still, analysis of voting systems, it turns out, does not a rousing subject make.
My friend Robyn, the best friend-from-Pittsburgh a girl could ever want, had her oral exam this morning—this exam is akin to giving a conference paper and then being quizzed on it by two professors—and passed with flying colours. She arrived in the grad lounge soon after eleven this morning, flung herself in a chair and said, “I need a drink.” I was waiting in anticipation and we headed over to the Tombs for some pre-noon wine. This is not, as those of you who know me well already understand, a regular activity for me. In fact, I believe it is the first time I have ever gone to drink anything before noon. Perhaps it was my inexperience that made this colour my day—I got through everything fine (meetings; reading Judith Butler; talking about Judith Butler in the critical reading group I have just started…) but when I got in the door tonight, I didn’t want to leave again. I had a couple of invitations, but I’m holed up at home, enjoying a rare evening of no study. I’ve been playing cross-hemispherical scrabble online with my mum, always a happy experience.
This weekend is a little up in the air. Monday is a public holiday—it’s Martin Luther King day. I’m hoping to see a film on Monday morning, because the cinema near me has cheap sessions before noon on a Monday, and I’m glad to say that I’ve actually been up and out of the house early every day this week. I plan to keep it up. I was talking with Michelle about having a study session at the Library on Congress tomorrow: it’s a combination tourist/student activity, and we grad students like to multi-task as much as possible. I’ve been checking up what’s around town, and I’ve found that the National Gallery of Art is showing free British New Wave films over the weekend, including “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,” which is also a possibility—as is the fact that Madeline Albright will be at the Borders in Tyson’s Corner signing her new book. This seems kind of demoralizing: there she was, Secretary of State, and now here she is at Borders in Tyson’s Corner. I guess those cameo appearances on the Gilmore Girls can’t last forever…
I need to finish reading Belinda this weekend: I was worried it would be tedious, but I am so much enjoying it. It’s obvious where the storyline is eventually headed, but I’m curious as to how it’s going to get there. There’s something lovely in that moment of anticipation: I still don’t know how Maria Edgeworth is going to work out all the problems she’s set for herself—especially as the organization of the novel has so far been so intricate, so clever.
The other lovely thing that happened this week is that I’ve met another Australian—a Melbourne University girl, in fact, who’s here on exchange, studying Art History. I overheard her in Saxby’s the other morning and rudely interrupted her, because I was happy to here an Australian accent. We exchanged details and met up for coffee yesterday. It was one of those nice moments where we realized there were teachers and even students we knew in common. She should be joining in the fun at my Australia Day party next week. She did suggest that we try to make pavlova, but I’ve never made one, and neither has she. Furthermore, she told me herself she’s a terrible cook. I’m not, but I can be an impatient one, and I’m not sure how busy the day will be. Maybe we’ll stick to honey joys (which they don’t have here!) and lamingtons. Marvellous!
