Life is getting very busy very quickly as our last weekend in Paris begins, so my blog may suffer a bit. I'll try my best to keep it up-to-date and detailed because I don't want to forget the things I do during this extended free time. We'll see.
Yesterday Kierstin and I woke up relatively late at 9:00 am and whiled away a few hours until meeting Margaret and Jay and catching the RER headed out to Ecole Polytechnique. By "whiled away," I mean "practiced our presentations and got dressed in our fancy clothes." Well, Kierstin always wears fancy clothes, by my standards. By 1:00 pm we had met up with the other students and Steve in a small amphitheater in the main building and were waiting for a computer with internet capabilities to be delivered so that we could all retrieve our presentations from UM's version of Sakai. In a stroke of luck, there was an atomic physics conference going on in the hall immediately outside our room, featuring lots of posters and people milling about and, most importantly, free food. We do physics too, so of course we're allowed to take some, right?
The presentations were fun to hear once we got underway. I knew the basics of most of the others' projects, but I finally heard compact and well-planned summaries, so I know a lot more now. The room was rather hot, but we pressed on bravely, helped by a few well-placed breaks. Happily for me, the atmosphere was quite relaxed and informal. I'd expected many advisers to attend their students' talks, but only a few came, and they generally popped in and out quickly. So the audience was basically just us students plus Steve. Not a threatening bunch.
I think my talk went well, which makes me proud. Mélanie made the trek all the way from Cachan, and delayed the beginning of her holidays (I think) just to attend my talk. Thank you so much, Mélanie! I really appreciate it and all of your guidance as I was assembling the presentation. Also the lending of the lab laser pointer. Thanks!
Around 5:30 pm we finished the presentations and headed back into the city. Kierstin and I decided not to leave the RER at the usual stop but to continue to the Musée d'Orsay directly, so as to have plenty of time for our summer-farewell visit. For the past several weeks, I've been visiting the museum alone, so it was a very nice change to have someone with whom to voice my appreciation of the works. Kierstin let me give her a rapid tour of my very favorite paintings and statues, and then we met up with Caleb and Mir and just generally made a quick recap circuit around the whole museum. And we spent the entirety of the final hour before closure in the upstairs Impressionists gallery. Those rooms are still overwhelming. They make me feel the way I expect I might if I'd just been given a million dollars - there's just too much opportunity in front of me. I can't experience it all at once!
We stayed until the bitter end, slowly withdrawing through the exhibit only a step ahead of the workers shooing visitors to the exits. I'll come back. I'll come back. Just you wait, M 'O.
The evening finished with a twilit walk along the Seine back to St. Michel, under a sky that faded red orange leaf green cerulean indigo in the sunset. The payoff from a terribly hot day can be a wonderfully warm evening, and that's how it worked yesterday. We watched the lights from a passing boat on the river throw dappling reflections onto the walls of the stately creamy apartments lining the boulevard. Paris, Paris, Paris...just you wait, Paris. Be patient and I'll come back.
No comments:
Post a Comment