10/12/09 – 10/18/09
Another week in the life of Hoxie.
A lot of people were talking about the weather being bipolar this week, but it seemed pretty consistently cold and miserable to me. It was good practice for the “biking in the cold/rain/snow” experience that awaits me, though; now I know what I need to buy to get ready. I picked up a fender yesterday to counter the spray coming off the streets, but much more important to Hoxie Happiness is going to be a good pair of biking pants. My current strategy is to wear shorts and bundle up on top, but this results in a sweaty upper body and frozen-solid shins. (I was hoping my body would take the average, but no luck so far.) Wearing a hat under my helmet seems to do a good job of providing warmth and protecting my upper ears from the wind, but I’m eyeing this for maximum facial protection and ninja appearance.
I had some fun this week, too. On Wednesday night, I rode over to the Sunset Grill in Allston for an unofficial incomplete Pine Crest Class of 2005 reunion. In attendance at various parts of the evening were myself, Joel Lewis, Sam Cohen, Christina Fernandez, Courtney White, Alex Bassett, Courtney Caliendo, and Sara Lanes. It was great to see everyone and find out how close people are to me: Christina works next door at the Broad Institute and Sara is right down the street at Harvard Law, for example. I’m looking forward to seeing these guys again sometime soon.
I also decided to get back into the salsa swing of things this week, so I attended the Intermediate BU Lesson yesterday. It was intense! In the good old days, we’d do a nice 20-minute warmup of basic steps, side steps, basic turns, etc. Then we’d learn a little partnered routine and practice that for a few minutes before going on our merry way. Now that BU has an official competition team and beginner lessons dedicated to the easy stuff, though, we hit the ground running with a complicated individual pattern and music no slower than 120 bpm. I was in the back row and couldn’t really see what the instructor was doing, plus it had been more than a month since my last salsa experience, so I was struggling. (At one point, I was the only person in the room facing right while everyone else faced left. Oops.) Twenty minutes into the lesson, just as I was starting to lose faith, I was saved by the bell: the fire alarm went off!
After evacuating the building, we reconvened and jumped into the partnered routine, also complicated but more doable. I was learning the routine with two girls, Christine and Dina, who were both equally talented and forgiving of my rustiness, and it was looking pretty decent by the end of the hour. Putting the individual footwork and the partnered routine together was really neat, as they’re usually presented as unrelated entities. At the end of the lesson, I got recruited for the BU competition team, but as a graduate, I don’t think I’m allowed to compete. Still, I’m looking forward to the lessons on Saturday afternoons and will definitely be attending again.
With the Mathematics GRE behind me, I can now focus my energy on getting graduate school apps ready to go. A few personal statements are in “edited draft” mode, so I’m going to send them out to some friends for feedback. Other schools need some more work, but that’s what the next month is for!