Celebrities

Part of living in the Boston area is having to deal with Harvard. There's a lot of great things, like beautiful graduate students who can become your girlfriend, and a lot of not so great things, like boatloads of over privileged undergrads.

Another one of the positives is that there are a lot of great speakers who come around. In the last few weeks I've seen Gordon Wood, a prominent Revolutionary historian, Jeffrey Sachs, an internationally renowned economist, and just yesterday, Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator from Nebraska.

Hey, they're celebrities to me. The unfortunate part is that when they come around, they're usually hawking books ... which can be of dubious quality. I guess nobody bats 1000%.

For a little color, here's a picture from behind my house.



Also, I think the commenting might be fixed. Why don't you give it a try?

Rosetta Stone

One interesting thing about enrolling at a school of International Relations like the Fletcher School is that, well, they expect certain things. International-ly things. Like for their students to be able to speak a foreign language--preferably by the time classes begin.

Accordingly, I've recently become the proud owner of the Rosetta Stone software (you may recall the Rosetta Stone company from kiosks in the mall). The software takes an interesting approach. The idea is to reproduce the way we learn most effectively; specifically, the way we learn as children. There's a lot of matching spoken words with pictures and the like. I'll update you on the results.

You'll also be interested to note that before I bought the Rosetta Stone software I tried to use an old CD from the Learning Company called "Speaking Spanish" that you bought for me years ago. Unfortunately the software is so old my computer can't read it. There was an accompanying booklet that I've been using, however.

Todo que fue viejo es nuevo de nuevo.

Irene's Health

Thanks for asking about Irene--she's doing fine. She's been forbidden from exercising, ordered to eat meat and take a daily pill of iron sulfate, but she's fine.

She's obviously very disappointed about not being able to run in the marathon. And, all of the sudden not being able to exercise (except for "light stretching") is driving her a bit batty. But if she sticks to the regiment she'll be fine.

Also, I got an invitation to Dave Webster's wedding today. It's going to be in Baltimore on June 7th. And to a South Carroll girl (Courtney Anne)! Who'd have thought it...

Handsome Christophers

I wanted to let you know that there has been yet another birth: Ed and Ann had their second child, Mary Elizabeth, on March 31st. They seem to be just a bit ahead of Amy and Chris for timing.

Here's a picture of the happy twosome.



I received the news from Amy that it's another boy on the way for them. It's practically a parade of soft little feet.

The Judge

Just a quick post. A few weeks ago I attended an event at the New England School of Law (NESL) with several other of Justice Sosman's law clerks. To commemorate Justice Sosman's time on the bench, the Law Review for NESL--a student operated professional journal--dedicated their latest issue to the Judge and her jurisprudence. Then they had a little shindig to celebrate/network.

Fair's fair. Here's the group of us together:

Iron and Fiction

Sad news! Irene had blood drawn yesterday and she's anemic! Quite anemic. So anemic, in fact, that she's taking iron supplements, refraining from vigorous exercise, and beginning to eat meat again. It's hard to believe, but of the three becoming an omnivore is not the most important. Why? Irene will not be running the Boston Marathon. Irene will not be running the Boston Marathon.

Luckily, Morgan Memorial Goodwill has agreed to simply hold the money and save space for her to run next year. She's still down about it, of course.

Less consequential but also disappointing is that I've seem to have lost my taste for fiction. It's quite a claim, but I recently read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'm working on White Noise, and I've got Our Town on deck. But I've got to say, I haven't enjoyed what I've seen so much. And White Noise and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are supposed to be quite funny. Not that I haven't enjoyed them, but ... I haven't really enjoyed them, certainly.

Apparently you have an increasingly humorless child.

A Beneficial Website

Check out Free Rice. The idea is that a certain amount of rice (20 grains for each word) is given to poor individuals across the globe for each correctly chosen definition. The rice is paid for by advertisers at the bottom of the screen.

How much rice can you contribute? Let's have a Boundy family competition!

With only a few mistakes along the way, I managed to donate 1020 grains of rice and to get to vocab level 40. Who knew venesection meant phlebotomy, anyway?

About-face...

As it turns out, I may have spoken too soon about Deerfield Academy. Irene really enjoyed St. Paul's, which is in Concord, New Hampshire. Only 75 minutes away.

As for whether it's better or worse, I really can't say. U.S. News & World Report doesn't do an elite boarding school ranking and so they can be hard to compare. It's something Irene has been trying to figure out. Endowments and class sizes are just readily available criteria.

St. Paul does have a strong Episcopal tradition. And a monster chapel.

La Cucaracha?

Ugh. We've got a few unwanted visitors at 277 Highland Ave.

Any advice? I've already cleaned thoroughly and invested in some poisonous traps, which seems to have had some results.



Yuck.

In happier news, Irene is interviewing at St. Paul's today. She's teaching the Communist Manifesto, so we've both been boning up on our Marx. While she was preparing for the class, she came across this amusing retelling of the Manifesto:



Enjoy.

Job Front

Good News! Irene was just offered a position at Deerfield, which is about two hours away from the city in South Deerfield, Mass. Deerfield Academy is one of the upper echelon of boarding schools, or so I'm told. The school's endowment is $375 million, which comes out to over $630,000 for each of the 600 students currently attending. There are 110 faculty, making for a teacher to student ratio of about 5:1.

Here are some pictures:





The sprawling campus stretches over 280 acres and includes 127 buildings.

Of course nothing is set in stone, but given its prestigious nature and relative proximity to Somerville, and so to me, Deerfield has the edge over most of her other possibilities--including St. Paul's School for Girls (although she did like the school a great deal).

As for me, I find my mind constantly wandering back to the Peace Corp...



April Fools. I'm looking for temp jobs, I'm looking for temp jobs.