letter may 2, 2010

Dear Everyone,

Time is racing by, and another fortnight has passed. There isn’t much new for me at work. I have taken all of your suggestions, and decided to name my work image blog ‘neuropathimages.com’. Of course, I still don’t have a camera, and there is no code for the site, so you will have to wait to see microphotographs of nerve, muscle, and brain.

Nicola and Cindy were out of town last week to look at some mid-Atlantic institutions of higher learning. They visited William and Mary in Williamsburg (peanut soup easily available), met up with Ruth Watkins to look at University of Maryland at College Park, took a quick look at tiny St. John’s College in Annapolis and finished up at Johns Hopkins. They also saw Cheryl and Brittany Jenner, and Cheryl’s new dog Mitzi. I think that Nicola liked all of the schools, but the large campus of U Maryland concerned her, since she is so geographically challenged. I think Hopkins would be a good fit for her: they have a great English Department, the university is not too cloistered, Baltimore can be fun for people of that age, and there are some familiar faces nearby. I don’t know much about William and Mary.

This week, Nicola also took two days of Praire State exams required by the state of Illinois. The first part is the ACT, one of many national tests she will need for her college application. Thirty years ago, all you needed was either the ACT or the SAT. Now there are multiple subject tests to take as well. I don’t know if this indicates that there has been an improvement in what teenagers’ knowledge. I’m sure it does show increasing profits in Princeton, or wherever these test services’ corporate offices are located. In any case, Nicola and Lucas had a half day off on Wednesday because of security surrounding the ACTs; I half expected the tests to arrive and depart by armored truck. Jasper unexpectedly had the day off on Friday, because a chartered bus ran into an electric pole right outside their school, and the electric lines were down. A small portion of Garfield, the street outside of our house was closed for several days, and this is on top of all the federally sponsored road repair that is going on all around us.

Lucas’s streak of tennis wins ended yesterday with a loss to the second singles player from another school at a tournament in Barrington. But the Hinsdale team won overall beating New Trier and Nequa Valley (a Naperville school) along with 5 other teams. So far they are unbeaten. Jasper is still swimming 4-5 days a week, and has his first long course meet of the summer in two weeks. I will miss this, since I will be in Puerto Rico to help give an aikido seminar. Cindy has been busy gardening, and brushing out Meeko’s fur.

We saw Julie and Julia last night. It was okay, but not great. Was Meryl Streep was a little too flutie as Julia Child? And I think Amy Adams could do better. It was hard to be interested in a movie on such a quotidian topic.

Love, H.