Endlessly repeating

we were in the museum of modern art today. the entrance fee is 20 dollars, but today it was free because of Memorial day (which we in fact totally missed.. :( ah, and we did not have to work today!). above a part of a huge piece of art, called "Endlessly repeating twentieth-century modernism". it was really beautiful. with special mirrors the artist created a seemingly endless repetition of the objects; depicting the capitalist notion that all objects are eternally repeatable, that everything can be remanufactured endlessly without regard to era, geography, or culture. im not sure whether i agree with that (in fact i dont), but it was fascinating to look at. it had 4 sides, but it was placed stupidly, so one side you could not really look at. below there was a normal mirror, in which you could see yourself, from waist to feet. it was funny that most people totally ignored the beauty, and walked by, just looking at their reflected selves....
maybe another day i post a picture of the entire object.

Smart marketing

prudential center does not have that many nice shops. but it does have zombies once a year (see yesterday), and it has a food court where they have one shop that sells good coffee (which is rare), and very very tasty cookies... so we wanted some cookies. since it was almost closing time, you got 2 cookies for the price of one, that was nice!. we thus choose 3 cookies and got 3 for free. but then the lady said: ah, if you have 6 cookies, you get another 6 for free! and thus we were so stupid to choose now 12 cookies, resulting in us paying for 6 cookies, instead of the 3 cookies we initially wanted.... now isnt that a smart sales-technique.... she got rid of her last cookies and she made us pay for them without us realizing it at that moment.
but the box she put the cookies in was sooo nice and i liked to walk around with it.. :) and we still have many cookies.. (1 cookie is almost like a meal....).

Bostonian zombies

sitting in the subway there was a couple putting blood stains on themselves with red paint. the guy wound a bandage around his head, and the girl was putting one around her knee. a party, we thought?
somewhat later while leaving prudential center, many, many scary-looking people were walking towards the food court entrance of Prudential. the stream of people seemed endless... and the wounds all over their bodies looked very real.... must have been scary, sitting in the food factory, eating your fries.. and suddenly all these zombies coming in. i think there were like 500 zombies flooding prudential center. but as sudden as they appeared, they were also gone again.
what it was? no clue! and so far i have not been able to find anything on the internet about it..
in this pic the girl is "handing out" blood......

Proud graduate

during lunch i saw this. he is in front of the nice building... :)
and his girlfriend takes a picture. after many more pictures followed.... real fun to see.
glad i did not have to wear something like that during my PhD defense!

Bus stop

as told before, to get somewhere, we need to take the bus first. what i do not understand here, is that the bus stop is merely a sign for the bus to stop. and, ah yes, it says which bus number stops there and what its final destination is. but a schedule? o no, that you will not find... and thus you can never just pass a busstop and think: ah, lets check whether a bus might come in 5 mins.. and depending on that, either walk on or wait for it.... grr....
good we're moving to a place close to the subway...

Harvard tent

the view onto the Harvard medical school is currently blocked by an enormous tent. since thursday they are working on this tent continuously. it really looks ugly. i found out why its there: for the graduation ceremony. also weird: here, you defend your PhD thesis. but you do not graduate yet.. no, that is together with ALL other PhDstudents during a massive ceremony and i now know it will be in this massive, ugly tent. it now has tables in it, and even ceiling fans (lots of them; it actually is very hot since a few days now). when i passed today, i saw that each entrance is guarded by two poles that at first glance reminded me of ticket validating machines (for the soon-not-existing-strippenkaart!). i already wondered why the hell those would be needed for a graduation ceremony (maybe to validate your PhD-degree?). but then i saw that of course these are hand-sanitizer-dispensers...
crazy americans!! everywhere, at any place, these stupid things are present. maybe to ensure that you receive your PhDdiploma with clean hands.....?

Lab picture

defrosting the freezer goes very quickly with a hairdryer. the noise is gruesome, however.... well-known problem in the US is the limited labspace. is that why in my current lab nobody ever cared to defrost the freezers? i think half of the freezer's space is taken by ice. i never saw a worse -80 before (not in the pic.. :) ). tomorrow a bigger freezer is to be defrosted. yeeey.
luckily its hot outside.

Magic words

when walking to work, there are usually people in my way. they walk so slowly! ofcourse... being used to biking... i could just ring my bicycle bell whenever someone was in my way. now... i miss this bell... hahaha! but it would be a little weird, i guess, to use that to get people out of my way. i however refuse to resort to these magic words that are ubiquitously uttered here: "Excuse Me". if only it would be meant as these words were originally intended. it is nothing like a gentle "pardon". it means "get the F*CK out of my way right NOW" without actually having to use any swear-word. its being used at any given moment, in any given situation, regardless. sometimes it feels like this hissing sound is everywhere around me. then i have to suppress the impulse to just pinch these people; those familiar with the magic words must agree with me it often sounds like "squeeze me".

Man Fish

a colleague of tim went with us to the beach in Newburyport, an hour from Boston or so. that was nice! there was heavy fog and it looked real pretty on the ocean. but i did not manage to take good pictures of that.. :( saw a lot of fishermen. i asked this man whether i could take his picture, and as you see i could. they told us the fish was meant for the BBQ later that evening.
they say that dog owners look like their dog. but can fishermen look like their fish?

Fruit & Vegetables

we went to Haymarket today. market! only fruit & vegetables and much cheaper! especially bell peppers.. they are so expensive here.. ooh, it was such a huge mess. empty boxes and rotting stuff everywhere. this pic is actually when the market was closing. then it was really chaos. people taking their merchandise back to their cars, stuff that was left as trash.. and people going around trying to find some free edible vegetables left behind. some had huge amounts (i then understood why so many people had brought their shopping carts). we were looking at some boxes of mangos, and then a woman accused us of stealing them... haha!, while another woman was indeed trying to run away with a few (dont know if she managed?). people looked like ants scrutinizing the street.....

Many cards

Since i am here my wallet got overloaded with cards... discount cards mostly. but last week i also received 3 cards for my insurance and i will have 4 (if i fnally get the Harvard ID) just to enter the lab. as you see, for esprit i have a red one again... :( but who knows, maybe i get it to platinum? and i still do not have cards for some shops where i just did not buy anything yet (Macy's, Shop rite... ). luckily i got such a nice wallet with so much space!
it happened already i was in one shop, presenting a card from another shop... there are just too many.. but without cards... no discount!

Fun nuggets

so we had "fun nuggets" for dinner... they are not so good with meat here (or we didnt discover it yet?), it tastes spongy and they shaped it into dinos.....? or sausages with orange peel in it... yegh! usually no meet for us, unless its a burger at the phoenix landing with peanutbutter and apple slices :)
at least im good with veggies....! although that sometimes turnes out not so nice either... hahahaha.

Harvard ID

this tree i posted before, but then it was full with blossom. i passed it to try to get my Harvard ID once more. the previous time i could not, because i was not yet in the system. that took more than a month (why?). in that month i officially could not access fulltext papers in Pubmed (had to use Tims ID), and could not leave or enter my lab after 7 in the evening, or in weekends. and.. security was annoyed sometimes i dont have one, and for registering trainings, i also need it. yesterday again it was not possible, since i was in the Harvard system as "Cathleneyne". i either could get a card with that name on it, or first get my name spelled correctly at yet another building... arrrghhhh..., since the lady making the badges was not allowed to make changes to my name herself... aarrghhhh!!!!
maybe when the tree has lost its leaves... i will finally have this stupid Harvard-ID......

Green line

this is the tram, the Green Line, i have to take to get to the lab (to get there, we first have to take the bus, and thats the problem; it doesnt run very frequently). it is very old, and very very noisy. and... very slow. the reason it is so slow is because it is mostly not underground, and it is the very first tram in the world, or so they claim....it takes almost 30 minutes to get to the Longwood-stop, sometimes longer, depending on the traffic. good thing is, i get on at the very beginning, so i can always sit. then later it gets very crowded, and when i get to Longwood, it is almost empty again. also very frustrating is that often trams come by, but do not stop, or that just a few stops before the last, it suddenly is taken out of service, and i have to transfer to another tram. nice thing: i have read already several books since we are here.....

Many steps

at Porter square subway station you have these very long stairs... once walked up them instead of taking the escalator. once youre up, there is another set of stairs... yesterday we went from porter sq to park street. all the way there was a man telling stuff in a very very loud voice to a guy who seemed really interested, but only was nodding.
at park the talkative guy also got out, continuing his story until the metro left. and then this is what he said to some girl he certainly did not know: "hey you. jeezz, you look like a kid! you know that? you really look like a kid! you must hear that a lot! how old are you?" '20'. "ah well, you really look like a kid, like 15 or so..!" and then he walked on while she got up the stairs. weird, no?

Time consuming

without bikes (or a car) everything takes soooo much time... i really do miss my bike. but i am afraid to bike here. maybe in the neighbourhood would be fine, but to work, no way, far too crowded and the cars so big and so little space on the bad road with all its holes.. but it means we really walk a huge amount. weekends are far more busy and tiring than work, at the moment. today for example we first walked to Market Basket (favorite supermarket), in total that takes like an hour. then we walked to Porter square in Cambridge (i like that area a lot, nice shops etc), then we walked to the house of a colleague of tim, who celebrated getting her PhD (that was nice), and then we had to walk back home again. i think at least 2 hours of walking today, and yesterday no less. worst is, usually we walk with so much stuff we buy here and there and everywhere.... :)

Two packages

jeeejjj! my parents sent me these 2 packages..! more clothes, and some stuff i could not find here but really wanted to have. of course they delivered it at home on friday but then i was at work. thus i needed to come get them at the post office. luckily we just got this typical american (!!) shopping cart this week, otherwise it would have been a little difficult to transport them...
unfortunately both packages were ripped open on one side (why/how/when?), and they hadnt bothered to tape them again... so now i keep wondering what all i lost... :(( (for sure one bike-light. i only have the red one; they are soooooo expensive here, like 20 dollars at least for a set). ah yes, the word "like" i should use more often to become a real american!

Same building

different angle and no chinese tourists.... still a very nice building.. :)
its raining very very hard at the moment! and i had my first presentation. but that was a little boring. do have a lot to do in the lab from now on... although every day i still discover things i need before i can do the planned experiment for that day... luckily most orders arrive the next day, causing not so much delay, unless i again discover i miss yet something else (which happens a lot).

Harvard Medical

on my way to the lab i always pass this building (harvard medical school). usually there are people in front to have themselves photographed. here i actually wnated to have a pic of me in front of the people who were getting their pic in front of the nice building.. but tims phonecamera did not work... :(
just heard from fikadu that the inside of this building is not as nice as you might suspect from the outside...

New apartment

we just heard that we are accepted as tenants at this apartment complex. we are working for "preferred employers", which means that we do not have to pay a deposit nor a last month's rent! besides.. we can have 2 walls of our new apartment painted for free, hahahahaha! i am thinking of purple for the bedroom... the apartment is smaller than the one we have now, but the livingroom is big, and it is on the subway, so no more buses!! there is a typical american kitchen (jeejjj!) with a bar, a dishwasher, and an OWN washer and dryer. we had a special offer and do not have to pay rent in august, sept and oct..... there is a "resort-style pool" onto which we have direct view, 24 hr fitness and free internet around the pool and in the "community room". it all seems perfect, no? our apt is the one on the corner, upper level. so thats the only minor thing: there is no elevator; moving the couch will be heavy......