Spring Weekend

The good weekend continued into a good week. I've been waking up substantially earlier than usual, and running some to try to get in shape (next weekend I'm competing on a blue course at an orienteering A-meet). I think that helps my mood. Also, it was beautiful outside today. I taught class at noon, and then had lunch outside while I did the crossword. While I certainly enjoy bad weather more than most, it was very nice to have a true spring (or better) day. Dinner was also outside, with math department friends on the steps of the library. The department camaraderie is what really makes me feel happy right now I think. I truly enjoy spending time with the people there, whether we are working, doing puzzles or more goofy stuff, like inventing "run-doku". Maybe there should be a bit more of the "working" part, but still, life is good. Except I have to teach my students how to solve linear systems of differential equations to my linear algebra students next week, and I never learned that myself. So I have some work to do, but a quick internet search shows it's pretty straightforward. Nevertheless, while my students recover from Spring Weekend Sunday, I'll be at home learning some diff eq.

Happy Easter

Today was a good Easter. Actually, it was a good weekend overall. I didn't teach Friday, so that I could sing in the Good Friday service at church (somebody covered my class for me). We sang "Forsaken of Man" by Leo Sowerby. When we first started working on the piece, it really didn't seem good at all. The choir parts tend to be short, discordant, and choppy. Gradually our director had soloists sing their parts as lead-ins to the choral parts, and the whole thing started to make a bit more sense. It was a lot of work, but the performance went really well. The soloists (several of which were not from among our paid group) were all excellent. The epilogue in particular really moved me, and the organ tag at the end brought tears to my eyes. The last note in particular closes the piece very well, and left the sanctuary in utter silence for several minutes before people started filing out. I haven't had tears in my eyes from music since "O Magnum Mysterium" by Lauridsen about 5 years ago.

Then we had our weekly Friday afternoon math department games session, where we played Scotland Yard, and two other shorter card games. I really enjoy the current departmental dynamic. It seems like we have a closer group of grad students than we had last year, which I attribute to the awesome-ness of the first years.

Saturday, I finally managed to do the taxes, and in the next few weeks, I can expect fairly substantial checks from the federal and state governments.

Then today, the organ was truly back! Our organ was removed for repairs about 9 months ago. Due to some heroic work by the organ company, about 1/3 was back in time for Christmas. The rest has been gradually replaced since then, though our organist was not using it in services until Good Friday. He did use it a bit in rehearsal, but the opening notes of the opening hymn proved that he had been holding back some from us as well. We sang fairly simple stuff which we had done before, but it was still nice.

After church I went to the home of one of the choir members for Easter dinner. I had been to the house before, but never during the middle of the day on a gorgeous day. The house is right on the bay, and the sun was shining on the white caps...it was just one of the most relaxing experiences I've had in a long time. The food was fantastic too.

If only the Red Sox had won. Then it would have been a perfect (if a bit cold) weekend.

More crosswords

While I'm on a crossword kick (at least more than usual), I thought I'd try my hand at creating one for my friends in the department. After several false starts, I managed to get a grid that worked and filled it in all the way! A lot of hard work though, and I'd have had no chance without the luxury of google and other online resources. Now I just have to tweak it to make it nicer if I can, and add clues.

Crossword Tournament

I've been doing the New York Times crossword pretty consistently (at least Monday through Thursday) for more than a year now. We have one expert solver in the department, and recently several more have joined in. Today we got to test our skills against the wider community in what is hopefully the first of an annual tournament. I competed in the "other" category, since I am neither an undergrad, nor was I competing with a partner, and did better than I expected. I took 3rd place in my division for the first two puzzles, including 8th overall on the second. On the third puzzle, I finished 6th overall, but misspelled "karaoke," so fell out of contention. The white board final for the undergraduate division was an exciting close race, won by a math student who hangs out with us grad students on occasion, which was also exciting. The pairs winners included a student from the class I'm currently teaching. All in all, it was a fun day, with good puzzles and entertainment.

Computer Woes

I returned back to Providence from the winter break, and promptly picked up a virus. Not of the sneezing kind, but of the computer kind. So, out comes my old (7.5 years and counting) laptop so that I can have a fully functioning (if a bit slow) computer to help search for solutions, and finally, almost 2 full days later, my computer seems to be recovered. And without a total reinstall of windows. Of course, I may not have everything, but it's looking promising. Unfortunately two days that I was going to try and get back to research, or at the very least start preparing for teaching again this Spring, were almost entirely wasted.

The organ has returned!

The organ at my church was removed for repairs last May. This past week, parts of it were returned. Enough ranks of pipes were back for us to use the organ for the carol service today, which was very exciting. I'm sure it was even more exciting for our organist, who went running out of our rehearsal room on Thursday after rehearsal ended, because that was the first time he was able to play.

The carol service itself was very nice. We made it through without any disasters, musically or otherwise. We sang a few pieces by Britten, and Rutter, and finished with Silent Night accompanied by solo guitar. And the snow/ice/sleet/rain wasn't too awful this afternoon, so a fair number of people made it to the church. It was still slippery though, and it's all going to freeze tonight.

Snowstorm?

It sure is a good thing we have a parking ban here in Providence already. Because it would certainly be a disaster if the plows couldn't get through to plow the 0 inches of snow we have so far. Not even a flake. Perhaps with the memory of last years storm, we've gone a bit overboard in preparation this year?