The BIG summer post

Well, it looks like another summer (and another TASP) are upon us now; what are people going to be up to? Is anyone factota-ing or planning to for next year? I'll be in New York City again, you're welcome to visit of course. Has anyone else's college been swept by a Mr. Rick Astley? Someone managed to replace a video art wall with youtube right as prospective freshmen came in. But anyhow, summer is upon us! The pain is over! Kinda...

Top 5 Songs about sunshine:
1. Sunshine of Your Love - Cream
2. Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles
3. Sunshine Highway - Flogging Molly
4. Why Does the Sun Shine - They Might be Giants
5. Island in the Sun - Weezer

summer in the muck

Hey guys,

How is everyone? A year older and infinitely wiser, I assume?
It's great to hear from you Lisa--and Henrik, I searched for you on Facebook but couldn't find you. Did you already decide that it isn't worth your time? Good move. I wish I had the guts.

I'm spending my summer on a muck farm called Trillium Haven growing all sorts of organic vegetables. Muck is a fantastic, fine soil that's pitch black when it's wet and miserably powdery when it's dry. Sadly, we're in something of a drought, and it's all together too dry too often. But with irrigation, most of the plants are doing okay, and it's in a low area, so the water table is only about 5 feet down.

I work about 50 hours a week, always outside and always moving. It's been tough, but it's good, because I've never had a real job before and now I know what it's like to seriously work my ass off. Everyone should have a blue-collar job at least once, I think. Organic farming doesn't even compare to working on a line, but it's something close. Our customers may be bourgeois, but the work is just as dirty.

In my spare time (of which there is little), I'm working as an assistant to an English prof who puts out a journal, copy editing articles and sending emails to contributors and reviewers. It's a good combination with farming, because the academic half of my family can respect that job, while the other half respects the farming (my mum's parents grew up working on muck farms not far from where I work now). It's great because I never have to apologize about what I'm doing. It's like everyone can say, "At last, you're actually working." They just have different ideas about what constitutes work.

In fact, I think different kinds of work compliment one another very well. It keeps you balanced and lends perspective to any sort of pain. When I'm sick of being inside at a computer, I think of the mid-day heat and am thankful for the walls and the roof and the shade. When my back is aching and I cut my thumb in a bed of broccoli, I think of the amazing pomposity of some professors and am glad to be scratching around in the earth.

All in all, it's given me lots of time to think about life and food and literature and how everything fits together. I've learned tons, too. I can drive tractors (small ones, at least) and slaughter chickens and identify different types of tomato rot. A farm is an excellent place to be curious, and it isn't half as boring as you'd think to read an English pedagogy journal cover to cover.

Anyhow, yeah, letters are great! Let's write some.

Love!
Emma

Chives inside one of our greenhouses.

Beans are a bitch to pick, but they sell like crazy at the farmers' market.
(I posted more pictures on Facebook too.)

Reunion: the blog post

Given the proclivity of blockbusters to have summer sequels, Henrik, Sam, Dylan, and I got together for a little TASP revival last week. Henrik bussed in from Vermont, Sam took the train from Rhode Island, and I took the subway down the street to Dylan's house for a weekend. We took a long time to catch up on life, not least because the MBTA (the subway one) decided that the one train Sam was on was express past my stop. Note this is the only express train on the Boston subway I have ever seen. Anyhow, somehow time passed, Mexican food was eaten, bubble tea was gobbled, Mr. Potato Heads were defiled, Family Guy was somehow involved, Youtube was browsed, and we talked the night away; it was 3 or 4 before we knew it. Those really late-night birds really get you if you're not careful.

It's hard to describe, but I find it really easy to pick up where we left off; I hadn't seen Henrik or Sam for two years, but it was like we were right back at 1322 Hill St., chattering away about people who can focus their eyes underwater, or linguistics, or international development, or park management. And of course, it was wholy TASPly, jumping from how to save the world to "top five movies you've seen in the theaters" to reminiscing about John Sinclair, who, by the way, actually has a somewhat maintained website at www.johnsinclair.us where he begs for more money.

Saturday the 7th (Sam's birthday!) we went to Crane Beach up in Ipswich, MA. The day was gorgeous and sunny, but the water was, in fact, "balls cold." Sam and Dylan are very brave, and they jumped in headfirst towards their shivery doom. Henrik and I are more umm... circumspect, and eased our frigid bodies in inch by inch, only to be foiled by a gonad-level wave. Oh, it was great. We put in some frisbee time, taught Sam how to throw forehand, and I managed to misapply sunscreen such that I now have uneven dark patches on my back. Back in Cambridge, we learned the proper method for eating steamed clams (it involves removing the membrane around the clam's foot) and cut up a magnificent cake that Dylan's parents made for the double birthday occasion (Dylan's 19th was the next day). Moral of the story: Dylan's parents are quite amazing cooks.

Quite aptly given our musical tendencies, we went out searching for some live music, and we found a great little jazz bar a few blocks from Dylan's house, playing some hot latin jazz (you want authentic? Most of the band couldn't speak English) with a crazy crazy drummer who had to change shirts in the middle of his performance. I seem to remember pictures from our walk home, and Henrik has them, right Henrik, nudge nudge? And that was that; we stayed up way too late again, shot flies with a fly gun, told stories, and Sam and Henrik were gone the next day. I gotta say, this was a wonderful break from the summer, and obviously, if any of you are around Boston, ever, come by and visit us. I'll be holding down the fort at MIT for... well, forever. On a related note, I have a day or two to kill in DC on the 27th, so if any of you boys or girls are around, do give me a shout. That makes it our biggest reunion yet, and you're always welcome to create a larger one. Maybe one day when the gods smile and none of us are busy.

-Charles

PS: I added links to some videos taken during TASP and the music server Issac and I set up

Summer stuff

I'm going to Rhode Island for the summer! I got into a computer graphics research program at URI (which is in the city of Kingston, not quite 2 hours south of Boston). Time for some serious reunion planning, Northeastern TASPers.

Also, one of the UMich 07 TASPers contacted Ruth and asked for advice about what to see and do in Ann Arbor and environs while at TASP. Suggestions go as comments to this post, please.

Groetjes,
Sam

Quick poll: What are you people doing this summer? I'll be staying here in Boston to do some econ research. If anyone's planning a trip to New York or anywhere within a train-ride's radius, I can make it there for a weekend.