Cocktail Party Circuit

An article in the Times mentions Williams in talking about colleges going trayless in dining halls:
At Williams College in western Massachusetts, the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives estimates that the college is saving 14,000 gallons of water annually since eliminating trays last spring at Driscoll, one of four campus dining halls, where 147,000 trays had been washed [...]

Come on Oliver, let’s lounge!

So I haven’t posted in forever. It happens.
The Bahamas were just lovely, with plenty of lounging, reading, eating, lounging, swimming, lounging, judging, eating, lounging etc. going on.
Spring finally arrived in Williamstown in the form of summer, and at 91º this weekend it was time for a tasty Poker F picnic, a perfect end to a [...]

Wintry Mix

I’ve been continuing work on my preliminary paper for my art history thesis this year. I’ve been reading the literature for months, so now I’m down to looking closely through the major catalogues to figure out what images I’ll want to focus on. It’s a little daunting, but my advisor has provided her usual excellent [...]

Spoons! What are they?

“It was the advent of the salver spoon which changed so much about seventeenth-century Europe. Up till then, it was a backward province; a place of love, but not of lust; a place of culture, but not of high culture. With the advent of this trinket, everything changed.”
I’ve been re-reading Simon Schama’s Embarrassment of Riches. [...]

Apple pancakes

Another finals week done. I think between the six of us our house wrote enough for a full-length dissertation in the past nine days, and so it was with relief that we dug into our finals Sunday brunch, Poker F style (which was a good way to use up our excess apple supply before leaving [...]

Neither pitchers nor tots

My work week was oddly disrupted by a trip down to New York for the Foundation, but seeing the other scholars made up for it. The lunch and dinner weren’t too shabby, either. It is plain to me now why so many people flock to the world of finance.
I finally got the chance to actually [...]

Fried Artichokes and Passport Control

My final four days of Italy were spent in Rome, which was just as chaotic, ugly, and beautiful as everyone said it would be. We hit the usual spots (the Vatican, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Colosseum) and they were all packed with tourists, but also all stunning and worthy of their place in the standard [...]

Ik heb de T-FACTOR!

When I was waiting at the gate for my flight from Gatwick to Fiumicino this January, I watched as each passenger came up to the agent and flashed his or her passport. I was the only American on the flight, and I was feeling quite lonely.
A couple months later the situation felt quite different as [...]

Polenta EVERYWHERE

The whole summer job search has certainly been complicated by this whole being in Italy business, but the most telling experience took place this Tuesday when I had my final interview for the Steamboat Foundation internship with the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston:
The curators at the Gardner scheduled the call for 1pm Tuesday; 7pm [...]

Making Pigeon-Related Noises

Of course, when I said I’d be writing last week, that was a total lie. I don’t have too much to say about spring break aside from it being absolutely wonderful to get away from Siena and see new faces; that is, faces of friends and family that, seeing them in Italy, I found to [...]