The Coolin

We sung this piece by Samuel Barber at practice yesterday, it was just beautiful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14srUr_8p0g

I love the lyrics (poem by James Stephens, this Irish guy) and Samuel Barber's chords...

Come with me, under my coat,

and we will drink our fill

of the milk of the white goat,

or wine if it be thy will.

And we will talk,

until talk is a trouble, too,

out on the side of the hill;

And nothing is left to do,

but an eye to look into an eye,

and a hand in a hand to slip;

and a sigh to answer a sigh;

And a lip to find out a lip!

What if the night be black!

And the air on the mountain chill!

Where all but the fern is still!

Stay with me, under my coat!

and we will drink our fill

of the milk of the white goat,

out on the side of the hill!

Ah...

Christine O'Donnell beats Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican Senate primary...

I understand some of the anger and energy against incumbents. Sometimes I too wish we could change all of the dysfunctional congress and put new people in their place...

But... can we have a better pick of alternatives?

Cycles

Another school year, another round of trying to juggle research, teaching and having a life.

I think I'm getting better at this time management thing. And that focus and concentration thing.

It's only been two weeks so far, but compared to the lazy summer it feels like it's been forever... I have nightmares twice a week that I've overslept and am late for my 9 am discussion section, which result in me waking up realizing it's only 6:30 am... Mondays through Thursdays are section and office hours and meetings and trying to squeeze in research in between all that. After yoga class or swing dance or tango practice in the evenings I drag myself back to the office and try to squeeze in another hour or two of work. After 4 days of such a routine, by Friday I'm usually too tired to think, and waste my day doing this and that (such as prepping for lab, or grading, or some type of housekeeping)...then 4:30 pm rolls along, and I go sing! And then after choir practice there's some fun activity in the evening. Last week it was weeding the garden with Amanda, then going to Wegmans and Greenstar to get ingredients for our pumpkin beef stew (which turned out completely amazing!). This week it was a beer tasting party, and then having dessert and gabbing at Madeline's with girlfriends. Then the weekend is a lazy combination of hiking and work(?) and swing dance class and socializing and thinking about possibly cleaning my room...

My life is filled to the brim. Yet I still want more. I want to have time to sit still and think deep thoughts and read all those books on my reading list and write better planned blog posts.

While in this week-to-week cycle, time goes both quickly and slowly. It seems slow while I'm trying to grade homeworks and debug code... yet it all seems so quick when I realize that three years have passed and there's a good possibility I'll be graduating in two years.

Seeing my senior lab mates looking for jobs is scary. This is what I'm supposed to be doing next year?! I do not feel ready for that, and feel very inadequate as a scientist- there's so much I don't know, there's so much I need to learn how to approach, how to think as a scientist, how to ask questions... and I'm getting quite used to this cycle of being busy, with school, with life, with friends...

But I will make the most of my final few cycles at Cornell. And look forward to whatever is next. Whatever exciting possibilities await.