Ben Jones' band Tremulant playing at the Middle East 

To a Close

Finals have drawn to a close, and so ends my first semester at college. Last week seemed to move at a snail’s pace but by this time tomorrow I’ll be back in West Virginia. I haven’t been home since leaving for school at the end of August. Most others have already left; only Bill, Ante, Scott, and Jason were left in the house. My dorm hall is quiet, and it's about time for a well deserved break.

Happy Holidays

Andrew and Loice with the finished 5000 piece puzzle 

Peek-a-boo, Baker 5W hallway 

December 14 @ 5 PM

Classes officially finished. Oh boy!

Before the impending storm 

Chris and snowman 

My weekend project: a correspondence checkerboard inside the Baker 5W bathroom 

Still Life: Charles Gate East 

After the storm 

Sunset over Simmons 

Ballet-dancing bears! 

Inside the Opera House 

Snowstorms and Checkers

Classes are finally winding down; my last lecture is on Wednesday which means I get to gear up for next week’s gauntlet of finals. This weekend Boston experienced a fantastic blizzard, complete with thunder and lightning through an intense whiteout. In the words of Louis Black, “they don’t even write about that sort of thing in the Bible!”

On Friday snowmen were constructed and then later destructed by the impending storm. Saturday morning welcomed sheets of ice and slush to the streets of Cambridge. Saturday afternoon kids were supposed to come to Theta Chi to build gingerbread houses but were kept away by the storm. Instead, college kids ate candy and made replicas of Stonehenge out of Graham Crackers.

On Saturday night I saw The Nutcracker at the Boston Opera House with the staff and crew of The Tech. Amazing. The architecture students walked with jaws dropped into the massive performance hall and I was reprimanded by security for taking pictures of the ceiling.

Following the show a catered party was thrown in the student center, ensuring that I’d sleep soundly until the following morning.

Coming down the home stretch of first term freshman year.

Early morning at Columbia University 

On a walk through the upper west side 

A neat (seemingly abandoned) old church on 116th street 

Janna and I at Columbia 

The lights of Rockefeller Center 

A sketchy guy next to Spongebob and Dora 

A cluster of skyscrapers 

On the streets of NY 

Janna with curryrice and Calpico, a welcome sight 

This woman was doing an interview for an Eastern European new program 

Mmm...mmm...good 

A bit too cold for the naked cowboy 

Leaving Times Square 

Times Square subway station 

A crazy monument near the Chinatown Bus stop 

The Big Apple

Following last weekend’s shenanigans with the Theta Chi formal and AXO blind date, I got a ride in the back of a U-haul van to South Station at 2AM on Sunday morning to catch a bus to New York. My destination was Columbia University, where the 2005 Japanese Language Proficiency Test was being administered.

Arriving in the city at 5:50AM, I stepped off the bus into the middle of a blizzard in Chinatown. I could barely see across the street and therefore felt like quite a vagabond while I trudged around looking for a subway stop that would take me uptown. A woman who got off the bus with me couldn’t speak English very well and didn’t know where we were so I tried to explain to her friend on a cell phone what street corner the bus had deposited us. Without a map I walked toward a large glowing pagoda which ended up being Chinatown’s main informational booth. Finding a subway station I followed the D line to 59^th street where I switched to the 1 and rode it to the Columbia campus.

With plenty of time to kill, I did a final review of Japanese before walking around the Columbia premises down to 105^th street. I was thrilled to be on my own in the city even though snow drifts made walking in street shoes a difficult process. I grabbed a sandwich at a local deli before traipsing back to campus for the test.

Outside of the test hall I was spotted by Janna, my exchange student friend from Japan who I had not seen since returning home (she is now an art major at VCU). She was there with her friend from Columbia and he gave us directions downtown for when we finished the test. Janna and I talked for a while about old times before the test began.

The test itself was not amazingly difficult but there were plenty of tricky parts. I was more surprised by the number of people attending the event; over 100 coming from as far away as Pittsburgh for the examination. The JLPT is only offered once a year in select cities around the world so I suppose I was lucky to have a relatively short commute.

After the test Janna and I caught a bus (for free, the meter wasn’t working) downtown into Rockefeller Plaza and Times Square. Most of the snow had melted from the multitudes of people plodding on the sidewalk and we window shopped at a few stores before finding a Japanese bookstore next to the famed Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Continuing with the Japanese vein we ate curry and udon for dinner at a small restaurant near Times Square run by a Japanese-speaking guy from Mexico (an interesting contrast from the Mexican restaurant on MIT campus which is owned by a Japanese guy). After dinner we took pictures in Times Square, bought some cheap souvenirs, and boarded a train back to Columbia.

At the station I bid farewell to Janna and caught another train into Chinatown for my trip back to Boston. I got home early the next morning, caught a cab back to Theta Chi, and slept through most of my classes the following day.

At only $15 a ticket I can’t wait to go back to NY, as long as no tests are involved.

At the Theta Chi formal 

Volkan enjoying his meal 

Lindsay, myself, Alison, and Volkan at the Brazilian BBQ 

Exploring local Cambridge 

Samba dancing at Ryles 

Matt, Lindsay, and Bill 

Alex and his date 

Bill and Grant 

Sachin, from the REAL Cambridge, Mikko, and Juan 

Ice Rinks and Brazilian Meats

Lots of craziness this weekend; especially when sleeping on a bus makes one day blur into the next. Before I get into that, the start of the weekend:

Friday was the Theta Chi formal which began with Brazilian Barbeque at a place in Cambridge. Massive all you can eat buffets accompanied guys circulating between tables with giant swords of meat. Jackson and Lindsay struck up an eating contest, and I ate far too much in general.

Following dinner, and exploration of a back alley apartment, thirty or so people walked to Ryles Jazz Club for Samba dancing. We got a quick lesson on the Brazilian art and then were left to our own devices. No one was too horrible of a dancer even though we must have looked ridiculous to the people who actually knew what they were doing. After dancing Bill, Alison, Lindsay, Matt, and I took an entertaining taxi ride back to Baker, and then on to LCA where their party had been “cancelled.”

On Sunday AXO sponsored a blind date ice skating and hot chocolate party. I really had no idea who I was going to be set up with but the evening was fun. We skated, talked of long walks on the beach, and ate cake. At 2AM I took a bus bound for NY. And then the real adventure began…