The month started on the theme of water. Just when we fixed the major clog in our kitchen sink (night of April 30), we had to boil our tap water because of a water main break. It felt like living in a Third World country. The boil water order only lasted a couple of days, but afterwards I felt like a walking time bomb because we didn’t bother bleaching our dishes. Thankfully, nothing came of it except a mysterious throat condition: my throat felt like it was constricted. A nurse practitioner thinks it might be thyroiditis; strep test came back negative.
I didn’t have to worry about water at work (the boil order water was in effect in communities east of Weston, but not the Republic of Cambridge!), which was a good thing because I was organizing like crazy: teacher luncheon at Nikita’s school, N’s birthday party, and reminding CDP scientists to update their profiles and register for a conference. I also submitted a proposal for next year’s 4C’s, and prepared two talks – one on Journal Clubs for the WAC conference, and one on “The Carnival of the Animals” for Nikita’s class. Yeah, what was I thinking? Even Mother’s Day was not immune: I made and froze cupcakes for Nikita’s birthday celebration at school, and bought stuff for teacher luncheon. I realized how overcommitted I was when I left at work the CD I needed for the presentation at Nikita’s school – thankfully, I was able to retrieve it and arrived at the school only 5 min late. It’s amazing I actually got work done on my classes, but gratifying to learn that four (!) of my students got prizes in Technical or Engineering Writing.
Nikita’s birthday went very well, and we celebrated it three times. Saturday (his actual birthday) was crazy because not only did we had to work around his classes, but I had to deal with his birthday cake not coming together (sponge cake would not rise – so much for the infallible Cook’s Illustrated), Vanya getting a splinter, and (much later) a mouse in the house. We enjoyed our roast chicken dinner, and Nikita got a fair amount done on the Star Wars Lego ship we bought him.
Sunday was a party with his classmates at Plaster Fun Time. Yes, I had the foresight to plan the party outside of the house. Here is Nikita applying primer with Ivan:
And here he is blowing out the candles from the cake I made; Ivan is covering his ears in the background. Instead of the Boston Cream Pie he wanted, he got a (lopsided) four-layer sponge cake with raspberry jam, pastry cream, and buttercream frosting. At least it tasted good:
Nikita, of course, got even more Legos, all of which were done by the evening:
Monday was cupcakes at school. The only thing I forgot in all of this was handing out goody bags at the end of Nikita’s party (because I was taking photos), but making the buttercream frosting (made three times in one week!) became increasingly difficult, perhaps because the butter was either too cold or nearly melted. The frosting for the school cupcakes took 12 hours to set!
Things got much more manageable once the International WAC conference started, and not just because I was out of town. I discovered how lovely the IU campus is (really, MIT needs more trees, if not a stream), and got to stay with Ilana, one of my best friends from college. My panel went well: we had about 20 people in the audience (a good size for a conference with multi-panelled sessions), and it included some big names such as Anne Ellen Geller, Kathleen Blake Yancey, and Magnus Gustafsson from Sweden (one of the few attendees from outside the U.S. – the conference is sadly about as international as the World Series). The rest of the conference itself was very good. The talks were of much better quality that the 4C’s, but I was still surprised at how some people were unprepared (e.g., downloading material during the presentation). I realized that our preparation of students for the professional world may not include giving talks at conferences on teaching writing. Still, it was nice to be provided food all the time - I even had dinner at the fancy cocktail hours. So, I didn't see much of Bloomington, but a cancelled session did allow me to tour the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.
At the end of the month, I only had to submit grades and chase scientists about poster abstracts. I also started preparing the CDP progress report and my materials for promotion in the fall, but I had time to post photos and enjoy the latest volume of Glee songs (really strong set, but I would substitute “Physical” and “Safety Dance” with “4 Minutes” and “What It Feels Like for a Girl” from the Power of Madonna episode; I also found Glee Radio). And the weather was absolutely gorgeous during Memorial Day weekend: sunny, low 80’s and low humidity. It was wonderful hanging out in the backyard with my family. Plus Igor brought out the ping pong table given to us at the end of last summer. My racket skills are terrible, but I’m getting better.
Looking back on this month, I actually got a lot of reading done: The Poisoner's Handbook, Breakfast with Socrates, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, and Sweater Quest. Admittedly, the reading was rather light, and probably the most memorable book is Breakfast with Socrates, which I learned about from Christian Science Monitor’s suggestions for Mother’s Day. I also started knitting a baby blanket. The endless garter stitch is driving me crazy with boredom (I should’ve included stripes for variation), but at least the KnitPicks cotton yarn is lovely. And thanks to Sweater Quest, I have a long list of patterns to check out.
Last night, I started trying to teach Nikita how to knit (again), but if it doesn’t work out, it’s okay because he has enough extracurricular activities. Igor increased the amount of time Nikita plays chess outside the house (chess playdates; individual lessons from a current Grand Master). It might actually be paying off, which I’m grateful for because Igor was cursing every time he brought home Nikita from chess. We also found a new violin teacher (previous one is leaving town) whom we like a lot and focusing a lot on the basics (e.g., posture, holding the bow) – making practicing that much more fun. Nikita is probably making the most progress on the piano, but is increasingly rude to the teacher. It may be because his piano lessons take place as soon as he arrives home from school. I hope so, because then it would be easy to fix such comments as jazz being “only for Americans who want to shake their butts”.
Ivan is still obsessed with music, too. He was amused by the Beethoven’s Wig CD’s I brought home from the library (nice concept, but I can’t listen to Richard Perlmutter’s voice for very long), and impressed Igor by asking for "La Traviata", which he hadn’t seen in a few weeks, by singing a song from the opera. I’m not totally surprised because Ivan often sings snippets from arias, particularly from "Don Giovanni". He doesn’t get all the notes in, but I think he has a stronger voice than Nikita. And when he’s not singing, he conducts or makes a trombone or cello with whatever he has. Igor thinks we should start him on the cello (Suzuki method), but I’m resistant to the idea because who do you think will end up supervising three music lessons a day?
