Dear Everyone,

It’s been pretty busy here the last couple of weeks. Nicola had the role of Hippolyta in Hinsdale Central’s production of Midsummer’s Night Dream. It was an interesting enactment. The fairies were punk rockers, and there was a live rock band on stage. Lucas was in the crew. I liked the set and costuming, but as usual, I found it hard to understand the dialogue at times. Shakespeare is hard enough, and is more difficult with poor acoustics, and high school thespians. But it was still pretty enjoyable. I got to see Nicola in a wedding dress, so I guess I can die happy now.

Hippolyta and Theseus in the foreground, Oberon and Titania upstairs in the background

This weekend was even busier. Jasper was in the Hinsdale swim meet, and he had events over three days. His times have improved over the last month. He knocked off 26 seconds on his 1000 freestyle (now he’s at 12:54), and I bet he could get it down to 12:30 if he didn’t have any other events to swim on the same day. On Saturday, Nicola had a concert at the Lincoln Way High School in New Lenox, IL. This was for the IMEA (Illinois Music Educational Assoc) regional concert, which is by audition only. She was in this chorus last year also. Alas, she wasn’t called back for a tryout for the state chorus this year. Then, yesterday she has an honors solo recital, where we were graced by the presence of Hannah and Alison. Cindy went to the recital, while I went to the end of Jasper’s swim meet. Otherwise, Sunday morning I went to Highland Park with Lucas. We had an investment meeting (Lucas did homework and played with Daisy), and then afterwards I took him to his annual Camp Greenwoods winter reunion. Lucas has applied to be a ‘counselor in training’ at camp next year, but he hasn’t heard yet if he has been accepted. On the other hand, if he stays at home, he can probably work on his tennis game some more.

I finally have a camera on my microscope at work, and we are also finally getting the grossing cameras set up for large specimens, as well as an internet capable camera for frozen sections. This has really taken a long time, so I hope we will be satisfied when it all comes together. The impetus for my personal camera was the desire by the outside sales personnel of our pathology group for me to develop a website where I can post pictures of muscle and nerve biopsies. They already have one for kidney biopsies. Now I am working on the website to make sure it will have the search functions I think are necessary. I will probably post brain tumor pictures on it as well. You can email me if you want the public password to the website, as the pictures are anonymized.

Friday I went to the high school to give a brain cutting demonstration. You may recall that when I was at Loyola, the AP psychology class from Naperville Central High School would come over twice a year to see a brain cutting. The Loyola morgue was built with a small adjoining demonstration amphitheatre that could uncomfortably accommodate about 40 students. Since Nicola is now taking this class at Hinsdale, I made contact with her teacher Jeanne Donaldson, and we figured out a way for me to go to Central. She found a room, and a videographer, and I saved up a couple of brains, gathered together sundry equipment (knives, tissue cassettes, blue pads, etc), and drove out to Central on a day off. I think the demo went pretty well. The chair of the Social Studies department as well as the school principal showed up (probably to check both me and the demo out). The time flew by, since I was doing this during a 50 minute class period. I had more time to do this when I was at Loyola. Anyway, I think it went pretty well, and I didn’t unduly embarrass Nicola. I guess if they want me back, I will continue to do this for a few more years, probably at least until Jasper is a graduate.

I emailed my friend Wilbur Pan on facebook, and found out that he will be in Chicago for the week, so we are getting together with him and his family in Chinatown tonight (we went to Joy Yi, http://www.joyyee.com/ , great smoothies). Otherwise, we are getting ready for our day-after-Thanksgiving feast.

Love, H.