M. Willis Monroe

Just got back from visiting family down in Pennsylvania. Christmas was good. I’m heading into Providence now to move benches back into the meeting house and then take the GREs this afternoon.

I took the train up to Boston. I really like the MBTA commuter rail. It’s quite quintessentially American; these huge carriages pulled by this huge diesel locomotive for no more than an hour carrying not quite a full load for dirt cheap. It has it’s charm. Once in Boston Nia and I went to see Bodyworks 2 at the science museum then hung out there for a bit before meeting her dad and his partner at the airport. They drove us back into Cambridge where we found a table which we took back to her flat. Hung out with Nia and Breezy in their flat and then went to bed. Woke up this morning and headed back home on the T to South Station. Got on the commuter rail coming home. Ran into Dan in the Providence Train station, that was a pleasant surprise. Perhaps we’ll do something later this evening. I’ve got to get out and bike or something, I’m just sitting at home snacking on food all day long.

SantaCon was on Saturday. It was a hoot. A bit different this year as we spent more time just standing around and less time in pubs which I think was a bit of a bad idea but that’s ok it was still SantaCon and still a load of fun. Our party consisted of: Anna, Josh, Noah, Nils, Aimee, Alex, Richard and me.

I flew home on Monday. I tried dressing all smart and it worked pretty well. I was treated quite nicely at the airports, shown an express baggage check-in line at heathrow.

Yesterday I went into Brown to do some Hittite work in the library. Then I ran into Allen at the Brown bookstore. Then I met up with Mike and Bill, we worked on Mike’s present for Kim. Today I’m heading back into the library to do more work and then I have an eye exam and then I’m taking the train to Boston to see Nia.

This is where I’ve been spending most of my time recently, the soas library. I just finished writing a paper on the interaction between Mesopotamian cities and their rural surroundings.

I ran the pub quiz last night, it was holiday themed and great fun.

I think I’m coming down with something, my throat hurts and I feel tired.

Nils, Noah, Aimee and her friend are all coming tomorrow to stay over for SantaCon on Saturday!

Worked really hard this week on an essay and my dissertation. So I thought I’d have a good proper weekend. Yesterday I went to see Ed’s end of term movie down in Soho in the morning. Then the lot of us (Ed, Lucy, Fergus, James) went around London for a bit and got some food. Then we headed down to New Cross to goto a party at the squat of Rubbish and Nasty, where there was some live “Wrong Music” which was actually quite good. After that I left and headed to Kensington to see Anna play with the University of London Symphony Orchestra, after that we all went out for a drink.

Today I got up and cycled to Quaker meeting. Had a nice meeting and lunch afterwards and we sang Christmas carols with all the kids. Then on the way home I got in an accident and broke my glasses, bent the front fork of my bike and roughed up my face a bit. So that’s a bummer, I’m going to call the bike shop tomorrow and see if they can bend the fork back (It’s not too bad). Tonight I’m going to see a movie with our neighbors and maybe try out a new pub around the corner. And then next week it’s back to work. My applications for grad-school are starting to materialize which is nice.