The only downside is that my subletter has already moved in, so I am semi-homeless for the next week and I still need to pack all of my stuff and store it. Luckily it looks like one of my roommates is not going to be around much, so I am crashing in her room for now. Also, it will be a good opportunity to go through all things and see what I can get rid of.

Other stuff:

• I satiated my Providence/College Hill nostalgia. I still love the city and campus, but obviously nothing feels the same when all the people you lived with are gone.
• After missing the Michigan Theater sneak preview of Where the Wild Things Are for my 5 hour affinity diagramming meeting a few weeks ago, I saw it in Cambridge with Andrew. I’m glad I finally got to see it, but I found it mildly disturbing and in retrospect I am glad I didn’t end up seeing it by myself.
• I failed miserably to develop any kind of sense of direction at all. All the awesome navigating skills I thought I had developed last year were obviously a direct product of the Chicago grid system and very visible and non-ambiguous landmarks.
• I only slept about 5 hours each night but it was totally worth it.
• Somehow I actually managed to get some homework done.

• My family
• Maurie and the Kathans
• Maddie
• Parkway Deli
• Occasional pleasant waves of high school nostalgia
• Free laundry
• The sound the cicadas make at night
• Montgomery County Agricultural Fair

Things I dislike about being home:

• Humidity
• Very bright cloudy days
• Car dependence
• Feeling bored and awkward
• Rockville Pike
• Mosquito bites

• Luckily this can be fixed by reinstalling GRUB using the Ubuntu Live CD.

• Glossy screens in office environments are dreadful.

• If you live in Chicago and you need to rent a car, you can probably save a boat load of money by getting it in Oak Park. Their Hertz is even within walking distance of Green line and Blue line stops.

• If you update your credit card’s address twice within 10 minutes and then immediately attempt to use it to buy a laptop, you will set off a fraud alert and the charge goes through.

• Meatless tomato sauce (from the Italian station)
• Yogurt (from the salad bar)
• Garlic, chili powder, curry powder, onion powder and salt (from the spice counter)
• 3/4 of a little packet of half-and-half (from the coffee area of the beverage station)

All the portions are improvised every time. It helps to heat it all up at the end because the yogurt makes the sauce cold, and to mix everything very thoroughly. Also, don’t use too much curry powder, because then it will taste like dirt, or too much chili powder, especially if it is not mild chili powder, because then it will be too spicy. I haven’t managed to put too much garlic in yet.

• Web designer
  Because HTML/CSS are among my few marketable skills.
• Librarian, perhaps law librarian
  I have to admit I do not full understand what librarians do, but having worked under some of them for the past three years they seem like happy, well-adjusted people.
• Copy Editor
  I like to read, I like to proofread, I like to edit. Con: I have no official editing experience besides my few months spend as a substitute copy editor at the Herald where my biggest responsibility was checking people’s graduation years.
• Social worker/Counselor
  I like listening and talking to people I know about their lives. I like helping people. I am not sure if I would like this role as a formal job.

The neti pot is totally amazing although it takes concentration not to snort the saline solution up your nose by mistake.

Other health things also acquired recently: CVS brand instant hand sanitizer with shea beads, Vicks digital thermometer, Airshield Immune Boosting Formula, generic Nasal Decongestant Spray, Tobramycin antibiotic eyedrops

COGS0090: Quantitative Methods in Psychology
Statistical methods and their application to behavioral data. Topics include elements of probability theory, correlational techniques, principles of hypothesis testing, and analysis of variance.

ECON1170: Welfare Economics
This course is about economic theories of what’s good or bad: economic efficiency, externalities, social choice, voting, social welfare, mechanism design, and so on. Note that the course isn’t about “welfare programs,” rather it’s about social welfare in the abstract. This is the area where economics, philosophy, and ethics overlap.

and, as of yesterday

POLS1820D: Civil Liberties: Moral, Political and Legal Approaches
This course will examine major constitutional controversies within the context of wider debates in political and legal theory. Readings from Supreme Court cases and prominent texts in political/legal theory. Topics include free speech, privacy, abortion, takings and capital punishment.

What is there to say? No philosophy. I am finishing up my concentration requirements next semester. More quantitative classes than ever before. Civil Liberties will be the first seminar I have taken at Brown. Slightly worried it will be too similar to classes I have taken before. On the other hand, my other classes are not like anything I have taken before, so maybe that balances it out.

I finally won some bookshelf speakers on eBay. Soon enough music will fill my room again and my first foray into used low-end audio will be complete. I set up my Sansui 661 on top of my refrigerator already.

Maurie will be home this Friday and for the rest of the summer though — THANK GOD. Otherwise I would go crazy. My aspirations for this summer include:

• Taking lots of walks and bike rides
• Rearranging my room, getting a new desk, getting rid of cruft.
• Spending copious amounts of time with Maurie and her family
• Study for and take LSATs
• My two classes at Maryland (Criminology and Micro Economics). This should take up a nice chunk of time (6 weeks).
• Trip to California with Mummy: Santa Barbara and San Francisco, to see the uncles, Brittney and hopefully Donald and Lauren.
• Trip to Providence and Western Massachusetts to see McComas, Sarah Faux and Katie.
• Trip to Chicago, maybe?

• Economics and the Law (Economics)
• Introduction to the Theory of Literature (Comparative Literature)
• Science and Power: A Bioethical Inquiry (Community Health)
• Civil Liberties: Moral, Political and Legal Approaches (Political Science)
• Making Decisions (Cognitive Science)

I was blocked from registering for:

• Moral Psychology (Philosophy) [Desperately need to take a seminar to fulfill concentration requirements]
• The Political Economy of Punishment (Public Policy) [Oh my god this sounds so cool!]

Other classes I am considering:

• Modern Architecture (Art History)
• Linguistic Anthropology (Anthropology) [This is sociolinguistics, right?]
• Rise of the Scientific Worldview (History)
• European Intellectual History (History)
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Philosophy) [The undergraduate seminar...I have already read Kuhn's book for another class. This conflicts with Bioethical Inquiry, though]