Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh

So I'm working on my summary report and tidying figures and LaTeXing and so on.  There's not too much to say about that...In the afternoon I took over data-duty from Maxime and finished some polar-angle-emission scans.  It was straightforward, but I didn't analyze the data afterwards; I handed it over to Maxime.  I look forward to seeing his results tomorrow morning.  That's likely to be the last data I take in the lab this summer.  All things pass...

I had a picnic-style lunch outside with Mélanie today, and it was quite pleasant.  The temperature was great, and we had some shade under a big tree.  We talked (I spoke English, she spoke French, it worked out) and I now have a list of fun places to visit near the Pantheon.  I hope to have those adventures this weekend.  So lunch was probably the highlight of the day.

Well, the workday, at least.  It was another Louvre night!  After all these weeks, I still haven't come close to seeing everything.  In fact, I've never even been able to deliberately find a room or set of rooms for which I set out searching.  I get distracted by a side room, which opens into another room, which leads on into a new set of halls - on the plus side, I can't really go too wrong with anything in the museum.  Tonight turned out to be ancient Mesopotamian/Iranian/Middle Eastern artifacts.  The statues are very different than the classically-inspired ones to which I've become accustomed, but I liked these a lot too.  They're highly stylized and elegant.

Then I found the Dutch and Northern paintings on the upper floor.  As a rule, Dutch paintings are rather too dark-colored for my tastes, but I ran across plenty of lovely works.  They do generally paint very pretty and realistic flowers, and have a delicate way of depicting foliage that appeals to me.  So it was another good Louvre-visit.  I guess I might only have one more visit this trip.  I'll make the most of it!

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