I took a day off from astronomy today to pursue another interest of mine. History. Specifically, Civil War History. I was not wise in my choice of methods.
Cracked.com has a fascinating article on annoying trends that make every movie look the same that lends this particular post it's title. The movie that is the subject of this post is Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, and it sucked. I could just leave it at that, but I won't because I'm a good blogger and I wouldn't do that to you. However, before we go any further, I would like to say that there will be SPOILERS starting with the next paragraph. My assumption is that this movie was so bad that you will not want to see it. However, if you do, skip the next paragraph and I will distill for your reading pleasure the reasons you should not see this movie in the paragraph right after. Full disclosure, I missed the first 10 minutes. If there was something in the beginning 10 minutes that made everything in the movie make sense other than Abe loosing his mother to Vampires, I missed it. Speaking of which...
Abe Lincoln loses his mother to Vampires and spends the first half of the movie trying to find and kill the guy who did it. He succeeds. However what precedes one of the weirdest action sequences I have ever seen (no joke, there is a duel that involves jumping between the backs of stampeding horses and a gun-axe) is a training sequence that gets the full Rocky treatment and some super awkward flirting. Actually, most of the movie gets the Rocky-timelapse treatment, which means that at one point we jump from Abe campaigning to a 3 second shot of Fort Sumpter and then to Gettysburg. There is so much wrong with that chronology it's not even funny. A whole lot happens between campaigning, Fort Sumpter, and Gettysburg not the least of which is Lincoln actually getting elected to the presidency. There could have been a significant "revenge swearing moment" where Adam, the most evil of the vampires, swears his revenge; but that would make his choice to donate all of vampire-kind to Jefferson Davis for the Battle of Gettysburg pointless. This is another choice that particularly angers me because the presence of vampires kind of makes the Battle of Gettysburg pointless. The whole goal there was to get French and British support for the Confederacy, which those nations were poised to give had the Confederacy won at Gettysburg, but vampires makes the point moot. I will give the movie credit though, they did make the vampires pretty damn terrifying looking. You can also really tell that this movie was directed by the same guy that did Wanted. Even the awkward flirting between Mary Todd and Abe happens in alternating super-fast/bullet-time motion, which is pretty hilarious. The writing is also pretty terrible. It's pretty much written in the style of a B-Action movie, which makes Lincoln sound a little like Schwarzenegger at times. Also you can talk along with the movie, even if it's your first time in the theater. The movie closes with Lincoln's randomly British Vampire Hunting Sensei who turned out to be a vampire himself in a scene completely devoid of emotional significance even though Henry - that's the guy's name - had been telling Abe to kill his kind for the first half of the movie asking a new guy who at the time is getting super drunk why he's getting so drunk. It is my sad duty to say it is my opinion that this guy is probably George W. Bush. He's getting hammered and the book was published about six years ago.
It's not actually a terrible action movie if that's all you're looking for. I was looking for more of an alternate history spin on Lincoln's life. I did not get that. It made me sad. But more than that, this movie took a really interesting war (it's my second favorite behind the Pacific Theater of WWII) and punched it in the face. It legitimately brutalizes the American Civil War and I'm not just saying that because none of the generals got any mention (note, I'm not saying none of my favorite generals. I'm used to a good half of my favorite Civil War generals not getting any mention at all because they fought further west than Grant's Mississippi campaign. I mean literally none of the generals.). I mean because a fascinating war got turned into something trite and pointless. The Emancipation Proclamation was treated as a civil rights move and as a Fuck You to vampires that were not even in the war yet. Lincoln's war was personal, not ideological. It's all rendered a bit silly. I haven't read the book - even though it comes well recommended - but this movie does not serve to interest me in learning what Timur Bekmambetov glossed over in cutting his movie down to 105 minutes. But I will say that Benjamin Walker is awesome. In the brief moments that he says Lincoln-stuff, he really embodies the 16th president. And he really looks like Lincoln in profile. The make up and score of this movie are amazing. But that's not enough to recommend the movie to you.
Saturday 30 June 2012
Tropical Astronomy
So funny story... I've been in Puerto Rico for the past week and have been doing astronomy and I haven't blogged about it. Which is sad and silly and is a situation I need to rectify.
However, to be perfectly honest, I'm not really sure what to say about everything. I am working as a summer student at the Arecibo Observatory analyzing the recombination curves of neutral hydrogen transfer to determine and quantify the degree of asymmetry in galaxies. In deep space (it doesn't happen with significant frequency in dense areas like our atmosphere) stray electrons find stray protons and form atoms. Except they don't form atoms the way we see them on Earth. On Earth, hydrogen is one electron around one proton in that atom's lowest or first energy level. In SPACE (please imagine that in a ridiculously dramatic voice) an electron will find a proton and settle into it's 500th energy level and cascade down to a more stable energy level. This emits radio waves which we can see with radio telescopes. This only happens in deep space because out there there is far less interference so electrons and protons can form atoms with huge radii. By detecting these transitions we can determine the density of nebulous objects because we can figure out how much hydrogen is there. This process takes a long time but it happens pretty often, so it's really useful. Depending on the orientation of the galaxy, we can determine how it's spinning relative to our plane of observation. Do me a favor, hold a piece of paper out in front of you. Now turn it so that you're looking at the thin edge. If the galaxy is spinning in that orientation, we see a double horned profile (the one on the left). Now flip it so that you can see the plane of the paper. If the galaxy is spinning in that orientation, we see a Gaussian profile (the one on the right). Normal galaxies produce a mostly symmetrical profile whereas what I will call funky galaxies produce an asymmetrical profile. Galaxies can be funky because of their activity level (galaxies that are forming a lot of new stars will be asymmetrical), because they have an energy producing black hole, because they're interacting with another galaxy, or something. Galaxies are still kind of a mystery to science. In any event tracking neutral hydrogen transfer can help you figure out how far away the galaxy is, the total amount of neutral hydrogen in said galaxy, and how fast the galaxy is rotating. It's a very useful tool.
For my work, I've been writing a program in IDL to quantify the degree of asymmetry based on figureing out to what degree the graph of the curve and the inverse graph of the curve match up. It looks like this:
What you see on the right is a graph of the degree of asymmetry. The program on the left takes the relative max of that graph and divides it by the root mean square of the noise on one side to determine the degree of asymmetry of that particular galaxy. There are better ways to do this calculation (for example you can write a program that properly quantifies the mass of the galaxy on both halves of the graph which is much more accurate) but this is a good start. When you run the program (what you see above is just the text of the program itself), it looks like this:
So that's going to be my life for the next two weeks. I'm starting a new project soon that I think will take what I've been working on a little further. I'll be sure to keep you updated, unlike this past week.
However, to be perfectly honest, I'm not really sure what to say about everything. I am working as a summer student at the Arecibo Observatory analyzing the recombination curves of neutral hydrogen transfer to determine and quantify the degree of asymmetry in galaxies. In deep space (it doesn't happen with significant frequency in dense areas like our atmosphere) stray electrons find stray protons and form atoms. Except they don't form atoms the way we see them on Earth. On Earth, hydrogen is one electron around one proton in that atom's lowest or first energy level. In SPACE (please imagine that in a ridiculously dramatic voice) an electron will find a proton and settle into it's 500th energy level and cascade down to a more stable energy level. This emits radio waves which we can see with radio telescopes. This only happens in deep space because out there there is far less interference so electrons and protons can form atoms with huge radii. By detecting these transitions we can determine the density of nebulous objects because we can figure out how much hydrogen is there. This process takes a long time but it happens pretty often, so it's really useful. Depending on the orientation of the galaxy, we can determine how it's spinning relative to our plane of observation. Do me a favor, hold a piece of paper out in front of you. Now turn it so that you're looking at the thin edge. If the galaxy is spinning in that orientation, we see a double horned profile (the one on the left). Now flip it so that you can see the plane of the paper. If the galaxy is spinning in that orientation, we see a Gaussian profile (the one on the right). Normal galaxies produce a mostly symmetrical profile whereas what I will call funky galaxies produce an asymmetrical profile. Galaxies can be funky because of their activity level (galaxies that are forming a lot of new stars will be asymmetrical), because they have an energy producing black hole, because they're interacting with another galaxy, or something. Galaxies are still kind of a mystery to science. In any event tracking neutral hydrogen transfer can help you figure out how far away the galaxy is, the total amount of neutral hydrogen in said galaxy, and how fast the galaxy is rotating. It's a very useful tool.
For my work, I've been writing a program in IDL to quantify the degree of asymmetry based on figureing out to what degree the graph of the curve and the inverse graph of the curve match up. It looks like this:
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| I think you can click to enlarge. |
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| In case you're wondering, my background is a Schrödinger's Cat joke. |
Tuesday 26 June 2012
Dear Russia and Puerto Rico...
In a less than substantial blog post, I'm going to comment on an interesting fact about my viewing statistics.
HI RUSSIA AND PUERTO RICO! Somehow, y'all are beating the US at looking at my blog. I wanted to say thank you, but also to ask why. Puerto Rico, I get; I have friends who live there. But still not a substantial enough number to warrant the fact that they are the country that holds second place in the competition to look at the things I write the most. But Russia? Hi guys. I once traveled to Russia - more specifically Moscow and St. Petersburg - and from what I've seen you live in a lovely country. It is on my bucket list to travel on the Trans-Siberian railroad. Two of my favorite writers are Russian: Anton Chekov and Mikhail Bulgakov. But I don't speak Russian (although that would be awesome) and I don't particularly blog about Russian things. So I am curious as to how you find my blog and what you find interesting. I feel like I ought to cater to my audience...
HI RUSSIA AND PUERTO RICO! Somehow, y'all are beating the US at looking at my blog. I wanted to say thank you, but also to ask why. Puerto Rico, I get; I have friends who live there. But still not a substantial enough number to warrant the fact that they are the country that holds second place in the competition to look at the things I write the most. But Russia? Hi guys. I once traveled to Russia - more specifically Moscow and St. Petersburg - and from what I've seen you live in a lovely country. It is on my bucket list to travel on the Trans-Siberian railroad. Two of my favorite writers are Russian: Anton Chekov and Mikhail Bulgakov. But I don't speak Russian (although that would be awesome) and I don't particularly blog about Russian things. So I am curious as to how you find my blog and what you find interesting. I feel like I ought to cater to my audience...
Sunday 24 June 2012
As You Like It... IN A PARK!
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Public Theater and the public themselves have shown their love - as hopefully will continue to show - by snapping up tickets to sit outside, regardless of weather, to watch Shakespeare. The first production of this season at the Delcourt is Shakespeare's As You Like It. Even though I've lived in NY for the past 15 years of my life, I had not until recently seen a production of Shakespeare in the park. Now I have.
One of the things that I find really interesting about the Shakespeare in the Park experience is the technical challenges posed specifically by the venue. A similar experience could be said to be had at Shakespeare's Globe in London, but they don't do much in the way of Tech. At The Globe they do set and costume design and that's about it. In Central Park, The Public fully techs their productions. Lights, sound, costumes, and set. Everything. Which poses some interesting problems. For example, even on a clear night, the lighting design can be completely changed by humidity; what was once a tightly focused special becomes a wash across the sage. I find this kind of thing super interesting because it's not like they can change their plot based on the weather. They just have to deal with it which is so beyond my skill set that it confounds me.
I got really lucky with regard to weather when I went to the park. We couldn't have asked for a clearer, dryer night. A little chilly, perhaps, but the show certainly took my mind off that. I'll admit that going in I was not a huge fan of As You Like It. I had previously seen a rather mediocre production from the Bridge Project, a group that aimed to unite the Old Vic and BAM by way of world tour and classic theater. I wasn't pumped to see this particular show. But once the music (Bluegrass, incidentally composed by Steve Martin) started playing as the audience finished filing in, I was hooked. Daniel Sullivan, the director, chose to set this production on the 19th century American frontier and it totally worked. When Shakespeare is taken out of it's time, I get a little leery of what the results might be. I feel like if the setting does not make the story loose its sense, then it's fine. But (for example) I once saw a production of The Merchant of Venice set in a prison and I spent the entire show thinking "Well how does that work in this setting?" But the American frontier is quite conducive to the story told by As You Like It (for efficiency's sake I won't synopsize). Lily Rabe plays an excellent Rosalind; she captures the changes of heart that Rosalind/Ganymede goes through with ease and realism. Oliver Platt also plays an excellent Touchstone, the court jester Rosalind and Cecilia take with them into the woods to help them cope with their separation from court. However, to me, the standout supporting character was Stephen Spinella as Jaques. He plays the droll, sarcastic character perfectly. He makes it seem like a perfectly logical conclusion for his character to [SPOILER ALERT] choose to join the bad Duke Frederick in his commitment to religious life. This is coming from the guy who spent most of the play complaining about where he was. But also from the guy who spoke for three hours off stage to a wounded dear. What I'm saying is that Jaques is complicated and that Stephen Spinella plays him excellently. It's totally worth it to see this nearly perfectly performed production of a play that only betrays its oddities in the hands of such a talented cast.
One of the things that I find really interesting about the Shakespeare in the Park experience is the technical challenges posed specifically by the venue. A similar experience could be said to be had at Shakespeare's Globe in London, but they don't do much in the way of Tech. At The Globe they do set and costume design and that's about it. In Central Park, The Public fully techs their productions. Lights, sound, costumes, and set. Everything. Which poses some interesting problems. For example, even on a clear night, the lighting design can be completely changed by humidity; what was once a tightly focused special becomes a wash across the sage. I find this kind of thing super interesting because it's not like they can change their plot based on the weather. They just have to deal with it which is so beyond my skill set that it confounds me.
I got really lucky with regard to weather when I went to the park. We couldn't have asked for a clearer, dryer night. A little chilly, perhaps, but the show certainly took my mind off that. I'll admit that going in I was not a huge fan of As You Like It. I had previously seen a rather mediocre production from the Bridge Project, a group that aimed to unite the Old Vic and BAM by way of world tour and classic theater. I wasn't pumped to see this particular show. But once the music (Bluegrass, incidentally composed by Steve Martin) started playing as the audience finished filing in, I was hooked. Daniel Sullivan, the director, chose to set this production on the 19th century American frontier and it totally worked. When Shakespeare is taken out of it's time, I get a little leery of what the results might be. I feel like if the setting does not make the story loose its sense, then it's fine. But (for example) I once saw a production of The Merchant of Venice set in a prison and I spent the entire show thinking "Well how does that work in this setting?" But the American frontier is quite conducive to the story told by As You Like It (for efficiency's sake I won't synopsize). Lily Rabe plays an excellent Rosalind; she captures the changes of heart that Rosalind/Ganymede goes through with ease and realism. Oliver Platt also plays an excellent Touchstone, the court jester Rosalind and Cecilia take with them into the woods to help them cope with their separation from court. However, to me, the standout supporting character was Stephen Spinella as Jaques. He plays the droll, sarcastic character perfectly. He makes it seem like a perfectly logical conclusion for his character to [SPOILER ALERT] choose to join the bad Duke Frederick in his commitment to religious life. This is coming from the guy who spent most of the play complaining about where he was. But also from the guy who spoke for three hours off stage to a wounded dear. What I'm saying is that Jaques is complicated and that Stephen Spinella plays him excellently. It's totally worth it to see this nearly perfectly performed production of a play that only betrays its oddities in the hands of such a talented cast.
Saturday 23 June 2012
Starstruck
I get lights in theater. Even if I hadn't known that a specific effect existed, I can often figure out how they were done just from experience and reading. That was not so for Peter and the Starcatcher. I looked at that show and thought to myself: "I do not know how that was done." It was awesome. That ladies and gentlemen is what Tony Award winning lighting design looks like. Speaking of technical Tonys (which get next to no love during the broadcast), Peter and the Starcatcher swept the "Design for a Play" awards. Lighting design, costume design, scenic design, and sound design all went to this show.
Now I fully recognize that all that alone is not enough to put most people in seats. It's enough for me to want to go see a show, but I recognize that that's not so for most people. But what is enough is the fact that the entire production is amazing. From the beginning prologue (it's very Henry V) to the final look (which to me becomes even more striking in memory), the play completely immerses the audience in this particular version of Victorian England. It has basically two major sets - one for the ship The Neverland and one for the island on which they are shipwrecked - and the cast makes them come alive with perfectly in unison motion. If the ship moves, they tilt. It's genuinely remarkable how they make the docks of Victorian London and the deck of The Neverland come alive simply by moving. When they get to the island, lighting design takes over to distinguish between the different environments. With a shift, the stage transforms from a sandy beach to a jungle to a mermaid grotto. And the show is really freaking funny. In discussions about the chest around which the plot of the show revolves, Molly (the only female actress) explains that Starstuff (the contents of the box) makes you who you want to be; if you're good it will make you better, but if you're evil and want to take over the world, if you're a person like "Genghis Khan, or Caesar, or Ayn Rand" (quote from the show) it would be devastating if you were to come into contact with the Starstuff. In short, pretty much everything is that funny.
Go see this show. If the tech Tonys weren't enough, Christian Borle (who plays Black Stache) won for Best Actor in a Featured Role in A Play. So there's that...
Now I fully recognize that all that alone is not enough to put most people in seats. It's enough for me to want to go see a show, but I recognize that that's not so for most people. But what is enough is the fact that the entire production is amazing. From the beginning prologue (it's very Henry V) to the final look (which to me becomes even more striking in memory), the play completely immerses the audience in this particular version of Victorian England. It has basically two major sets - one for the ship The Neverland and one for the island on which they are shipwrecked - and the cast makes them come alive with perfectly in unison motion. If the ship moves, they tilt. It's genuinely remarkable how they make the docks of Victorian London and the deck of The Neverland come alive simply by moving. When they get to the island, lighting design takes over to distinguish between the different environments. With a shift, the stage transforms from a sandy beach to a jungle to a mermaid grotto. And the show is really freaking funny. In discussions about the chest around which the plot of the show revolves, Molly (the only female actress) explains that Starstuff (the contents of the box) makes you who you want to be; if you're good it will make you better, but if you're evil and want to take over the world, if you're a person like "Genghis Khan, or Caesar, or Ayn Rand" (quote from the show) it would be devastating if you were to come into contact with the Starstuff. In short, pretty much everything is that funny.
Go see this show. If the tech Tonys weren't enough, Christian Borle (who plays Black Stache) won for Best Actor in a Featured Role in A Play. So there's that...
Sunday 10 June 2012
Waterville and Medford
In case you're wondering, my dad and I did actually make it from Colby to Tufts in time for tours at both. The answer to your next question is yes, we are completely insane.
Colby was nice. I really can't say much more than that. It seems like a perfectly pleasant place to go to school. Class rooms look nice; buildings look older but not so old that they look like they're falling apart; and housing is apparently good. Like Bates, Colby provides almost entirely Cross-Sectional housing with the exception being some senior-only apartments. My concern is really only their obsession with environmental sustainability. Those of you who read this blog will be familiar with my High School's commitment to empowering women (for those of you who don't, I refer you here, here, and here). Similarly you will be familiar with the fact that I have gone to the same school since Kindergarten and have been told to be empowered every step of the way (see: 4th grade project on important american women before 1850. Looking back on it, that project taught me a lot; specifically how to cobble together a research paper with zero resources available). Colby kind of takes that attitude toward environmentalism. Don't get me wrong, I like breathing clean air and not dying of heat exhaustion in February, but any topic that is treated the same way my High School treats empowering women will get under my skin. That's really my only major concern. Flipping through the course book, I was not disinterested in any of the courses and the people we saw there at 9:00 AM on a Friday during Summer Break seemed happy to be there (they were mostly there because they were tour guides or because they were doing research). So as I said, Colby was nice.
We did have to leave the tour a little early to get to Tufts, but I really don't think I missed anything and I think it was totally worth it. Tufts is located in Medford, MA a suburb of Boston and treats the City in exactly the way I like an urban/suburban school to treat a city: it's there if you want it, but there's always plenty to do on campus. Tufts really was a great experience. My tour guide happened to be a religion major and he spoke very highly of his experience in that department and of the advising process that brought him to his major. He also spoke very highly of the performances that the school puts on throughout the year, but - when he found out that I was interested in theatrical design - introduced me to another guy in the tour guide group who works very closely with the theater. Cole, the other guy, showed me pictures of past shows that he had worked on and ones that he hadn't, which was really nice for me to see. As he said, if you can design lights for theater in the round, you can design lights anywhere. Housing at Tufts is different from the ME schools I looked at in that it is only guaranteed for 2 years, but our tour guide said that getting off campus housing isn't too difficult and the university will help it's students out. He also featured Tufts' theme housing on the tour, which wasn't really mentioned much on the ME tours; if you so desire, you can live in a Spanish Language house, a LGBT house, or a house with basically any other common interest. Our tour guide had a friend who spent a semester in the Russian Language house to prepare for a trip abroad, which is pretty cool. All in all, Tufts was really cool. Everyone there seemed really happy and I could not foresee any problems for me with the school itself.
Boston is another matter. My dad and I have both have a pretty good sense of direction, but Boston confounded both of us. Never had I seen an intersection with two "One Way" signs facing each other but I was treated to that sight a number of times in Cambridge. Honestly, the place was designed by a drunken monkey. Every suburb has it's own Harvard Street and none of them intersect. Our plan was to drive by Harvard and MIT just to look at the buildings, and we managed to drive by Lesley, Harvard, and Boston University. MIT was hidden within the terrifying maze that is Boston urban planning. My dad and I did get to take a picture in front of the sign that says Harvard Law School, which was awesome. For those of you who don't know why this is funny, watch this. Now. Anyway, I cannot emphasize enough how stressful it is to drive in Boston. If I end up going to school there, I know I won't have a car, but I feel like walking or biking would be stressful in that city.
So that's the trip. I have three schools left on my list that I'm seriously interested in, so look forward to three more of these "first visit" posts, but I'm getting closer and closer to revisits, overnights, and class auditing at the schools I liked. Look forward to that I guess.
Colby was nice. I really can't say much more than that. It seems like a perfectly pleasant place to go to school. Class rooms look nice; buildings look older but not so old that they look like they're falling apart; and housing is apparently good. Like Bates, Colby provides almost entirely Cross-Sectional housing with the exception being some senior-only apartments. My concern is really only their obsession with environmental sustainability. Those of you who read this blog will be familiar with my High School's commitment to empowering women (for those of you who don't, I refer you here, here, and here). Similarly you will be familiar with the fact that I have gone to the same school since Kindergarten and have been told to be empowered every step of the way (see: 4th grade project on important american women before 1850. Looking back on it, that project taught me a lot; specifically how to cobble together a research paper with zero resources available). Colby kind of takes that attitude toward environmentalism. Don't get me wrong, I like breathing clean air and not dying of heat exhaustion in February, but any topic that is treated the same way my High School treats empowering women will get under my skin. That's really my only major concern. Flipping through the course book, I was not disinterested in any of the courses and the people we saw there at 9:00 AM on a Friday during Summer Break seemed happy to be there (they were mostly there because they were tour guides or because they were doing research). So as I said, Colby was nice.
We did have to leave the tour a little early to get to Tufts, but I really don't think I missed anything and I think it was totally worth it. Tufts is located in Medford, MA a suburb of Boston and treats the City in exactly the way I like an urban/suburban school to treat a city: it's there if you want it, but there's always plenty to do on campus. Tufts really was a great experience. My tour guide happened to be a religion major and he spoke very highly of his experience in that department and of the advising process that brought him to his major. He also spoke very highly of the performances that the school puts on throughout the year, but - when he found out that I was interested in theatrical design - introduced me to another guy in the tour guide group who works very closely with the theater. Cole, the other guy, showed me pictures of past shows that he had worked on and ones that he hadn't, which was really nice for me to see. As he said, if you can design lights for theater in the round, you can design lights anywhere. Housing at Tufts is different from the ME schools I looked at in that it is only guaranteed for 2 years, but our tour guide said that getting off campus housing isn't too difficult and the university will help it's students out. He also featured Tufts' theme housing on the tour, which wasn't really mentioned much on the ME tours; if you so desire, you can live in a Spanish Language house, a LGBT house, or a house with basically any other common interest. Our tour guide had a friend who spent a semester in the Russian Language house to prepare for a trip abroad, which is pretty cool. All in all, Tufts was really cool. Everyone there seemed really happy and I could not foresee any problems for me with the school itself.
Boston is another matter. My dad and I have both have a pretty good sense of direction, but Boston confounded both of us. Never had I seen an intersection with two "One Way" signs facing each other but I was treated to that sight a number of times in Cambridge. Honestly, the place was designed by a drunken monkey. Every suburb has it's own Harvard Street and none of them intersect. Our plan was to drive by Harvard and MIT just to look at the buildings, and we managed to drive by Lesley, Harvard, and Boston University. MIT was hidden within the terrifying maze that is Boston urban planning. My dad and I did get to take a picture in front of the sign that says Harvard Law School, which was awesome. For those of you who don't know why this is funny, watch this. Now. Anyway, I cannot emphasize enough how stressful it is to drive in Boston. If I end up going to school there, I know I won't have a car, but I feel like walking or biking would be stressful in that city.
So that's the trip. I have three schools left on my list that I'm seriously interested in, so look forward to three more of these "first visit" posts, but I'm getting closer and closer to revisits, overnights, and class auditing at the schools I liked. Look forward to that I guess.
Thursday 7 June 2012
Hey World, I'm in Maine. Thought You Should Know
The title pretty much says it all, save for the reason I'm in Maine. I'm visiting more colleges. Yay!
After driving up to ME from Harrison, NY (which is a bit of a drive), my dad and I hit Bates College for their 9:30 tour. Bates doesn't do info sessions this time of year, which is just fine with me because at this point they're all starting to sound the same. I liked Bates a lot. It is warm (even thought I needed a real jacket in June) and friendly and welcoming and self-contained. They really want you to be a part of their community. They also offer really cool housing opportunities. Almost all of it is cross sectional (Freshman through Seniors mixed together) and they offer the opportunity to live in proper houses with about 20-30 of your classmates; this gets a big thumbs up from me because it's nice to have friends of all ages. They also have an unlimited dining plan and 64 different types of cereals of which they have 32 in rotation at any given time. If you want to, you can eat all 64 different types of cereal in two weeks. I also loved looking through their course catalogue. One class in particular sticks out for me, but they all seemed really interesting. The one in particular that I am just dying to take is one that combines Physics and Religious Studies to look at the origins of the universe. Awesome or awesome? I will end up double majoring because I'm interested in too many things and Bates really seems to encourage that. The offer lots of interdisciplinary opportunities and they encourage you to combine in any three ways majors, minors, and what they call General Education Concentrations which is basically a minor lite. These are all wonderful wonderful things that make me want to dance ridiculously with joy. Also my tour guide - Jonathan, a theatre/rhetoric double major - hollered at me as I was walking back to my car "I really hope you come here". And I do mean hollered; he basically yelled across a quad, which I think speaks to the inclusiveness of the campus.
On the flip side, about 25 minutes away in Brunswick, ME is Bowdoin college. Some people talk about "the feeling" when they walk onto a campus of knowing they will go there. I had that feeling in reverse at Bowdoin. The people seem nice enough and it had actually warmed up by they time I got there but all in all the buildings gave me the feeling of being in a horror movie psych ward. I had Zero interest in anything in the course catalogue - to be perfectly honest, everything in there read like a gender studies class and they only had one class on theatrical design which, in my book, is a bad sign - and the literature seemed cold and uninviting. I'm sure it was just fine for Hawthorne, Chamberlain, and Longfellow but it is so not for me. It gave me the feeling of wanting desperately to be a big university even though it wasn't. I like my schools to be themselves and Bowdoin certainly was putting up a front.
So today was definitely a productive day. Tomorrow I'll be visiting Colby and maybe, just maybe, making it down to Tufts in Massachusetts for a tour and info session. That'll be a little tight and a little psychotic but why not try, right?
After driving up to ME from Harrison, NY (which is a bit of a drive), my dad and I hit Bates College for their 9:30 tour. Bates doesn't do info sessions this time of year, which is just fine with me because at this point they're all starting to sound the same. I liked Bates a lot. It is warm (even thought I needed a real jacket in June) and friendly and welcoming and self-contained. They really want you to be a part of their community. They also offer really cool housing opportunities. Almost all of it is cross sectional (Freshman through Seniors mixed together) and they offer the opportunity to live in proper houses with about 20-30 of your classmates; this gets a big thumbs up from me because it's nice to have friends of all ages. They also have an unlimited dining plan and 64 different types of cereals of which they have 32 in rotation at any given time. If you want to, you can eat all 64 different types of cereal in two weeks. I also loved looking through their course catalogue. One class in particular sticks out for me, but they all seemed really interesting. The one in particular that I am just dying to take is one that combines Physics and Religious Studies to look at the origins of the universe. Awesome or awesome? I will end up double majoring because I'm interested in too many things and Bates really seems to encourage that. The offer lots of interdisciplinary opportunities and they encourage you to combine in any three ways majors, minors, and what they call General Education Concentrations which is basically a minor lite. These are all wonderful wonderful things that make me want to dance ridiculously with joy. Also my tour guide - Jonathan, a theatre/rhetoric double major - hollered at me as I was walking back to my car "I really hope you come here". And I do mean hollered; he basically yelled across a quad, which I think speaks to the inclusiveness of the campus.
On the flip side, about 25 minutes away in Brunswick, ME is Bowdoin college. Some people talk about "the feeling" when they walk onto a campus of knowing they will go there. I had that feeling in reverse at Bowdoin. The people seem nice enough and it had actually warmed up by they time I got there but all in all the buildings gave me the feeling of being in a horror movie psych ward. I had Zero interest in anything in the course catalogue - to be perfectly honest, everything in there read like a gender studies class and they only had one class on theatrical design which, in my book, is a bad sign - and the literature seemed cold and uninviting. I'm sure it was just fine for Hawthorne, Chamberlain, and Longfellow but it is so not for me. It gave me the feeling of wanting desperately to be a big university even though it wasn't. I like my schools to be themselves and Bowdoin certainly was putting up a front.
So today was definitely a productive day. Tomorrow I'll be visiting Colby and maybe, just maybe, making it down to Tufts in Massachusetts for a tour and info session. That'll be a little tight and a little psychotic but why not try, right?
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