Today: Got up late, which was ok since I was severely sleep deprived for the last few days, picked up my dad at 30th street, got a haircut, worked out, wrote a school-related e-mail, made a lovely dinner, and now I'm going to post, read, and go to bed. My dinner was salad, homemade baguettes avec beurre, and cauliflower gratin. Also, I decided to buy a book today. I've been sworn off buying books since sophomore year in college, for two reasons: 1) I move so much and moving all my books was starting to be a giant pain 2) it saves tons of money to just get them from the library. Well, I'm not done using the library, but I want to start buying books again. I even regret selling the ones that I did from St. John's. My policy was good while it was in effect, but now I think it's time to start again. Aside from the obvious reasons that they have a valuable use and that I love books as objects, I think they are a beautiful aesthetic element of a space. That might strike some as a stupid/shallow reason, but I find it compelling. I get so much pleasure walking into a room that is stacked with books, especially great ones. I want to look over from my table and see books, have them physically around me. At the moment, my book collection is paltry. I had the illusion of owning a lot of books while Eva and I were together, but most of them were hers, and now I have this depressing, empty shelf looking at me all day. Anyway, the book I bought today was The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, a classic, and a nice one to set me back on my journey of accumulating an excellent library.

Tomorrow: All day work marathon with some French en route.

Week in Review: I took care of my basic, day-to-day tasks last week but not much beyond that. I'm ashamed that I couldn't advance my non-routine tasks more than I did.
That being said, one great piece of news is that I secured an apartment in Cambridge that sounds awesome. Location, roommates, and price are all excellent.
My trip to New York yesterday was fun. Not only is the bus $1, but it has free wifi too. Once I got there, I walked up toward Washington Square to meet Ben. From there we walked to Greenwich Village and checked out Jane Jacob's former house and block. It's so different than it was when she wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities that visiting wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. The area seemed nice though. Frankly, I prefer Rittenhouse Square over it.
Next we visited the Met with his friend and a friend of his friend, which was great. Ben and I went really slow, studied, and discussed a small number of the European sculptures, checked out the roof garden, got an overview of some of the painting galleries, and moved through the 16th and 17th century European room re-creations and the arms gallery. Many more trips would be required just to look at everything once in a cursory fashion, let alone study each piece.
Afterward the four of us had dinner, and then Ben and I walked to downtown, checked out a few of the neighborhoods down there, and then I took the bus back.
The upper east side around the museum was stunningly beautiful from an architectural point of view. I was really blown away. The majesty of the buildings and boulevards there is unsurpassed by anything I've seen in the US. On the other hand, I was reminded of how ugly I think much of the lower east side and downtown are. Some of it is downright depressing. Overall it was a great day and it was very nice to see Ben again.
Earlier in the week I had another adventure when I took my mom out to Susanna Foo and the Orchestra. The restaurant pulls-off "asian fusion" in a way that actually works, unlike most others that try for it. It was very nice.
As good as the dinner was, the Orchestra was the highlight of the night. They played a sampling of pieces from 19th and 20th century Russian composers. I had never been to the Kimmel Center before, and I was struck by its interior beauty and the acoustics of the concert hall. While I have mixed feelings about the exterior, the inside is great and overall, it's a world-class feature of the city.
A big reason for the low productivity was a re-ignition of my grief over the breakup. It messed me up, and by the time I felt ok again, it was late in the week and I just had enough time to work and go to NY. The extent to which I feel better right now is greater than it has been since the event occurred. I expect the pain to diminish from this point forward.

Plan for next week;
I deliberated about whether or not I want to work while in Pittsburgh, and I decided that it would be best to take a complete vacation. I haven't done that in long time. The opportunity has been there before, to be sure, but it usually gets undermined by my neurosis about not getting enough work done. Not this time! I'm chilling from Thursday to Sunday morning.
Because of this, next week will be a short week work-wise. Tuesday morning through Wednesday evening will be a work block, and I also plan to spend 9 hours on Sunday preparing my Kaplan lesson.
With the time left over, I want to cut into some of my tasks on Moday, which I'll get into with my plan for tomorrow.

Summary of Today: I got up and taught my class, took care of admin, ate a lovely dinner of vegetable soup, french bread, and avocado salad while listening to Debussy, cooked some food for next week, and just did general end of the week type stuff. The highlight of the day, by far, was that I successfully baked my own baguettes. It was my first attempt, and although they're not picture perfect in appearance, they taste delicious. I made a sample one and cut it open, spread some butter on there, and enjoyed the warm, airy interior and the hard, crusty exterior. It's satisfying to do something yourself that people usually rely on someone else to do.

Plan for tomorrow: Haircut, _____, funding research, call about insurance. test old compy., copy wall calendar to new compy.