Big Milestone For Nick

Last night Nick finished writing his dissertation, and today he distributed copies of it to the members of his defense committee. Of course, he is not quite done yet. Nick will defend his dissertation, Spatial Integration of Motion Signals in Macaque MT, on Tuesday, June 16th. For now I am just hoping that most of the late nights in the lab are over.

For those of you like me, who do not know what Macaque MT is... MT stands for "middle temporal", and it is a specific visual area of the brain.

Boston: Getting into the Details

After 5 weeks of complete immersion in Boston’s history and architecture, I have passed the written and the oral exams to become a Boston By Foot guide. Now I can concentrate on learning my tour. And by “my tour” I mean the Victorian Back Bay tour, which I signed up to give for the first time on June 7th.

I have been enjoying looking through old photographs of Boston uploaded by the Boston Public Library. The Trinity Church in Copley Square was completed in 1877, but at the time it did not look the same as we know it today. The following photos show Trinity Church before the western porch was added in 1897. At the time, the towers above the western entrance were also replaced. In these photographs you can see the church with the original entrance towers.

Stereograph of Trinity Church taken circa 1875

This stereograph of Trinity Church is not dated, but I dare to guess that it was also taken circa 1875

This photo of Trinity Church was taken in August, 1888, and there are no towers above the western entrance.

Trinity Church today as seen on a postcard

Taking a Break with Maru The Cat

Maru the cat is obsessed with boxes. In fact he is creating quite a frenzy on YouTube. And we are obsessed with Maru.

Here is some Maru cuteness for all you cat lovers out there.

While doing homework on Victorian Boston...

While doing research for my Victorian Boston paper (for the Boston By Foot Guide In Training program), I went back to the Boston Public Library flickr account. Thus I came across a whole set of old photographs documenting the construction of the McKim building.

Amongst those photos, I came across this gem (the photo above), capturing Trinity Church before the western porch and the west facade towers were added.

On the right in this same photo you can see Sturgis & Brigham's original Museum of Fine Arts building of 1876.

113th Boston Marathon

Yesterday over 20,000 runners participated in the 113th Boston Marathon. It was quite windy, but the temperatures were mild. No rain is all I asked for, since I got to spend a good chunk of the day cheering the runners. After running for Dana Farber last year, this year I joined the Dana Farber Marathon Challenge cheering section at mile 25. We put DFMC signs and lots of ballons up before Beacon Street was closed to traffic, and settled in to wait for the runners.

The wheelchairs came first.

The elite women runners zoomed by so fast that I barely had time to blink. So I made sure I was prepared when the elite men came by.

I made an extra effort to capture Ryan Hall going for his 3rd place finish.



Of course we cheered the loudest when the DFMC runners came through.


After watching the marathon, I walked over to my friend's place further down on Beacon Street to feed her cats. The living room windows faced Beacon street, and the cats seemed completely fascinated by the marathon.

Walking Around Colonial Boston

If you thought my discussion of the word "muddle" was a bit... should we say muddled, then you cannot imagine my state of confusion in trying to figure out and write about the difference between Colonial and Georgian architecture. And why am I writing essays on Colonial Boston? Because I am currently training to become a Boston By Foot guide. One lecture and one paper down, 4 lectures, 3 papers and 1 exam to go before I might be ready to give any tours.

In the process of reading up on a few of Boston's 18th century buildings, I have discovered that the Boston Public Library has a Flickr account containing public images of old Boston photographs, rare books, manuscripts and many other interesting items.

Did you know that the Old South Meeting House was the largest building in Boston at the time it was built in 1729?

Though built to function as a church, the Old South Meeting House often housed town meetings because it was the largest building in Colonial Boston, and Faneuil Hall has become too small. (Faneuil Hall was not expanded until 1806.) Thus, inadvertently, the Old South Meeting House has become one of the centers for Revolutionary activity.

Muddle

I have developed tender feelings towards the word “muddle.”

A muddle. It sounds like a puddle. Are you in a muddle when you are in trouble? I might be in trouble if I am in a puddle. I might be in trouble if I am in a muddle.

Clearly you can write poetry using this word. I blame E.M. Forster for my silly fixation.

In the movie “A Room with A View,” an adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel by the same name, Mr. Emerson tells Miss Honeychurch that she is “in a muddle.” The movie is where I heard the word for the first time, but my curiosity was peeked while listening to E.M. Forster’s novel, “A Passage to India.” I realized that the author not only used the word “muddle” repeatedly, but that he wrote entire paragraphs about muddles.

“I like mysteries but I rather dislike muddles,” said Mrs. Moore.
“A mystery is a muddle.”
“A mystery is only a high sounding term for a muddle. No advantage in stirring it up, in either case. Aziz and I know well that India’s a muddle.”
“A Passage to India”

“…there’s nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror—on the things that I might have avoided.”

“…all of my teaching of George has come down to this: beware of muddle. Do you remember in that church, when you pretended to be annoyed with me and weren’t? Do you remember before, when you refused the room with the view? Those were muddles—little, but ominous—and I am fearing that you are in one now.”
“A Room with A View”

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “muddle” has several meanings as a transitive verb,

1. to make turbid or muddy
2. to befog or stupefy especially with liquor
3. to mix confusedly
4. to make a mess of, to bungle

as well as one meaning as an intransitive verb,
5. to think or act in a confused aimless way.

To use the word in a sentence, I could say that, for example, my brain is muddled, implying that I cannot think clearly.

Before checking the dictionary I suspected a relationship between the words “muddle” and “mud.” At the same time I thought that such an obvious association was unlikely. Imagine my excitement when I read the definition and realized that my initial guess was actually correct! Moreover, the Merriam-Webster dictionary claims that one of the possible origins of “muddle” is the Dutch word “mode” meaning “mud.” Strangely, the dictionary fails to provide any definitions for the word “muddle” as a noun.

In his novel, “A Passage to India,” E.M Forster associates a muddle with a mystery. Miss Quested finds India mysterious, while Mr. Fielding thinks that India is a muddle. Mysterious events in the Marabar caves lead Miss Quested into a muddle. (Does that make her regret coming to India?) In his novel “A Room with A View,” E.M. Forster refers to muddles as regrettable actions or avoidable situations. Miss Honeychurch finds herself in a muddle after she lies to everyone including herself about her true feelings. As a result her family and friends find her actions mysterious. When Miss Quested and Miss Honeychurch admit the truth, mystery surrounding them dissolves, and they no longer find themselves in a muddle.

Does a mystery lead to a muddle, or does a muddle lead to a mystery? Evidently, either one is possible.

“Perhaps life is a mystery, not a muddle…”

Thus a muddle remains a mystery to me.