Better Late (and Short) Than Never...

            Okay, so I missed a week. And I actually did something fun during that week, so I’m going to go back and talk about it a little. And then we’ll get caught up on how other things are going. (This is going to be a short post though, because not much has happened and I’ve got a test to study for. :P )

            A little over a week ago, some friends and I went to a free showing of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, as performed by the Cantata Singers. The Cantata Singers are a professional choir who perform out of the New England Conservatory here in Boston. As you might expect, they’re rather amazing. It’s their 50^th Anniversary season this year, and to celebrate they were holding some free shows, to give back to the community. This was lucky for me since tickets, while not the most expensive things in the world, are more than I’m willing to pay on a regular basis. :P

            But anyway, we went to see Elijah, which is performed entirely in German. I don’t know enough German to have been able to follow along, but I could pick out a few random words here and there. I was extremely confused for about half of the show though, since in German the name, ‘Elijah’ is ‘Elias’. So I got a bit lost when I was trying to follow the story- I wasn’t quite sure where the main character had gone.

            The singing was gorgeous, and the performers got several standing ovations at the end. The show was rather long (almost three hours) but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did doze off for about 5 minutes right before intermission, but I was able to catch up on what had happened. I don’t remember much of the story of Elijah from high school or grade school, so this was a nice reminder. It is much more violent than I realized though- there were quite a few more murders of false prophets than I think we were presented with when we were growing up.

           

            Last week, I had my first exam. It was in 7.06 (Cell Biology), which is the one class I actually feel like I’ve got a handle on. It was nice having an exam and coming out feeling like I might have done alright. That’s not something that happens all that often here. In contrast, this week I’ve got an exam in 20.330... which is the class where I have approximately zero idea what’s going on. That one is less about Biology and more about engineering, which makes me question my life choices a bit. I’m glad that I’m in bioengineering, because all of the cool science advances that I get excited about are still largely due to bioengineering, but sometimes it’s harder than I think I’m cut out for. Particularly when the confusing bits are about flows and fields and things that I have very little background in. I’m also more interested in the cell biology side of bioengineering than in the mechanics side, which makes it difficult to get excited about this class. My professors are wonderful and highly amusing though, so maybe it will get better.

            This weekend, the class of 2015 held a Masquerade Ball. It was more fun than I expected it to be (I generally hate dances...). But it was nice to have an occasion to dress up for. I bought a new dress, and will provide pictures when they’re put up on Facebook. I didn’t take any because I was being lazy, and one of my friends was using her DSLR for pictures, so my point-and-shoot would have paled in comparison. There was also some excellent food at the event, which is always nice. :)

I think that’s all for this week... I’ll try to do some more interesting things this week so we can have an exciting update next week!