There Comes A Time In Every Person Named After Teddy Roosevelt's life...

...to celebrate a super-awesome birthday! Teddy Roosevelt Foster, rock on.

A Mary Douglas Sighting!

I was just accepted into Cornell's College Scholar program, which basically lets you trade in your distribution requirements for a senior thesis on a topic you propose at the end of your freshman year. I was reading a book related to the proposal lent to me by my math advisor while waiting to meet with another professor for some course and project advice, and he noticed the book and suggested I track down another article, one of his favorites (or favourites, cuz he was British), in the library. 40 minutes and many flights of stairs later, I begin flipping through the article for photocopying and fall upon a reference to...
(wait for it)
...
Mary Douglas!
How cool is that, CUIIers? How deeply and awesomely cool is that?

Wow, I'm nerdy.

Smiles,
Michael

Pottery

Remember how I went a little nuts with the pottery during TASP? Well, I was back at it again this summer. I've posted some pictures on my math research webpage. If you're curious, the parent site has information about my actual project, which was really cool and, while not successful, did give some unexpected and tantalizing results.

More news

Just a few hours ago I got my rooming assignment for next year. Although Sue didn't volunteer information about the room and my roommates and though I have not confirmed with the TASPer in question, I have established beyond a reasonable doubt that I will be in a quad with Urvesh! You know you want to visit next year...

what's up with the blog?

Why is it not displaying posts past Conan's "Hear ye hear ye"? I mean, as important as that announcement was, I don't think it's fair for it to so blatantly discriminate.

By the way, I'm almost halfway through "Atonement." I'm refraining from judgment until I'm finished.

It's Time Again...

...For our very favo(u)rite YiweyLooi to join the ranks of the especially geezerly. Best of years!

jetlag

I got home last night from Europe to find my internet mysteriously nonfunctional. When that changes I can actually communicate in greater length about my trip. A few noteworthy He said/she saids in medieval art and architecture in Normandy:

William the Conqueror founded two abbeys in the city of Caen to appease the church after his marriage (he was called the Bastard before he went for the more flattering William the Conqueror), one for men and one for women. He is burried in the Abbaye aux Hommes, she in the Abbaye aux Dames. The architecture is significantly different between the two. Honestly though, I think anything past that is just invention.

The Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of the Battle of Hastings, has only 3 women depicted in its 70+ meters. One of them is William's daughter who gets slapped by a monk which supposedly indicates that she has been proposed to or rather, that she has been given in marriage. The top and bottom borders offer running commentary for the story and under this picture, there is a man with a big penis. Noteworthy, I think, as the only other naked figures on the entire tapestry are first, a man trying to rape a woman (in the border a bit earlier) and later the dead soldiers after the battle after their armor has been stolen. Throw in that the entire thing was made by English monks after their country had been taken over. The tapestry really is loads of fun.

I am supposed to be doing work right now (that obviously isn't happening) but I should probably go and make a better show of pretending. Pictures will be posted on facebook, I think, when my parents, who are still in Germany, bring them home on Sunday.