1/11/10 – 1/17/10
Another week in the life of Hoxie.
I decided to try something new for 2010, so I enrolled in a class down at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education: Improv Comedy. Every Tuesday night for the next few months, I’ll be heading down to Harvard Square to work with three other students and two teachers (excellent teacher:student ratio if I ever heard one) on my improv skills. Why improv comedy? Well, Ryan and Colin always looked like they were having fun on “Whose Line Is It Anyway,” plus I thought it would be a good way to meet some people and improve my conversation skills. Our first lesson was great… we learned the ground rules and then hit the ground running with a few games designed to get us thinking quickly and working with other people. Really looking forward to doing this.
The other activity I’ve been spending a fair amount of time with lately is the guitar. I’ve played for at least 45 minutes every day but one this month, and believe it or not, practice makes perfect. My basic open chords are sounding pretty good, including the transitions between them, and I’m getting much better at picking and strumming. Barre chords are the next major hurdle, but once I build up a little more hand strength and coordination, the sky’s the limit. Rock on!
It was a busy week at work… I found out on Tuesday that I’d be giving a 30 minute presentation at a department meeting on Wednesday afternoon, so a couple of days were consumed with making slides and perfecting the delivery. Things went well there, and I made it back to my desk just in time to see the completion of an R program that I submitted more than a month ago. I’m juggling a couple of projects right now (including processing the 10GB of text files that were generated by this little 35-day computing adventure), but they’re all interesting and I’m still enjoying my time at Biogen Idec.
Speaking of enjoying work, the Drug Discovery group had its New Year’s party on Friday evening. After a quick bus ride across the river and an even quicker elevator ride up 50 floors (my ears actually popped), we were greeted with a spectacular view of Boston and Cambridge from the Top of the Hub. Despite living 10 minutes away for 4 years, I had never been to the top before. It was very nice… I actually knew enough people there to have some interesting conversations, and the food was delicious: hors d’oeuvres and red wine, a couple different pasta dishes, steak, and chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert. I tried everything at least once and wasn’t disappointed.
Saturday was a balmy 45 degrees, so I took the bike out for a spin around the city. I had almost forgotten how good it feels to ride a bike in nice weather instead of just putting your head down and pedaling until you get there, but it was wonderful. I wasn’t the only one who noticed the sunshine and warmer temperatures; the Newbury Street area was crawling with shoppers, joggers, and dog owners. I know that spring isn’t for another couple of months, but it was a nice taste of things to come 