My brother came up last night to see The Secret Garden at Greensboro College, so I met him there and he came back and stayed with me last night. The show was really quite good, and I liked the music, even though I’d never heard most of the show before. It makes a lot of changes in the story (from what I remember of reading the book, which I need to go back and re-read now), but they’re usually for the sake of spreading out the story among the cast, it seemed. I seem to recall the book being largely about Mary and how she changed over the course of tending to the garden and helping with Coin’s recovery, whereas the musical made a much bigger deal about Archibald Craven’s loss of his wife Lily, and all the backstory on Mary’s family’s time in India was told in dream-like sequences that were quite well-done. I’ll have to keep Greensboro College in mind when thinking about arts events to try out in the future.
We slept in a little this morning (I had my big departmental seminar yesterday, so I felt justified in taking a little time off 
) and went to the Celtic Cafe for lunch – very tasy Ireland-inspired meals, complete with soda bread. He’s now off to Raleigh to see another show (which some friends of his are performing in) and I’m back at work. It was fun to spend some time together, especially since he’ll be moving in the next several months, perhaps quite far away…
Speaking of my seminar, it went really well – I didn’t get nearly as worked up about this one as I have in the past, though I still did feel like throwing up right before Dan introduced me. I was presenting a lot of new data, which is awesome, but it also meant that I’d not presented it before and the first time is always a bit rough in spots, trying to communicate what I think is important without getting bogged down in all the details. But I think it well ok, and I got some interesting ideas to think about, plus the relief of that being my last departmental talk until I defend my thesis. Yikes.
Oh, and I’m over halfway through The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl – I’ll probably finish it this weekend. It was really slow going for the first 40-50 pages, but it really picked up and now I’m quite sucked in. I’ll save any further comments for once I finish the book.
(Sorry this post is so ADD, I feel like it’s jumping everywhere – it’s kinda all-encompassing for my life in the past week or so)
Kari did this, and tagged anyone who hadn’t done it yet, so I’m giving it a try – listing 6 weird things about me:
1. I really, really like things to be even – not just pictures hanging on walls, but if something touches my left arm, I feel kinda ‘unbalanced’ until the same thing happens to my right arm. Similar things happen with certain walking patterns (even numbers of steps).
2. I am still scared of watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, from the first time I watched it when I was very young – there’s a scene with a scary man who locks the kids away in a basement room (I feel like he maybe has some candy to lure them in, but I can’t be sure). I refuse to watch it to this day. (Same goes for Pete’s Dragon – scary!).
3. Several people have had something similar to this on these lists, but here’s mine – I play along with music when I listen, as if I’m playing the piano along with the music. I used to do this a lot more than I do now (mostly cause I’m not playing piano now), and I periodically do something similar when I’m talking and I ‘type’ the words.
4. I prefer driving alone – not that I mind being in the car with people, but I love my ‘alone time’ in the car, listening to NPR or singing along to CDs. Unfortunately, I also have a tendency to get lost while alone, so having people in the car is sometimes a necessity
5. My knees and elbows hyperextend. I don’t think this is particularly weird, but everyone who sees it gets a little weirded out, so I figured I’d add it here.
6. There are some foods whose smells I like, but I don’t like the actual foods. Bacon and coffee both fall into this catagory – love the smells, but really don’t like the food/drink. I do like turkey bacon, but coffee is a no-go.
OK, anyone else who hasn’t gone this, go ahead and take off – comment here if you do!
This weekend I finished my 5th book of the year, Thirty-three Swoons by Martha Cooley. It was strange, but interesting – I found it hard to relate to the characters, but I found that was largely because I didn’t agree with some of their choices, not because they were unappealing or anything. But now I do want to find a book on the perfume industry (fiction or non-fiction) because that aspect of the novel was really intriguing. I started Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult last night, which is good so far – I think I’m going to try Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro next, cause reading the back of the book makes me very curious – I can take that one along on the trip to Wintergreen.
I’m having dinner tonight with my mom, who is up in Greensboro to see a client, so I’m driving over there before she heads back to Charlotte. And I’m meeting with some of the women at my church, cause I’m supposed to be helping plan the women’s ministry retreat/conference in March – I’m excited about being involved, but scared about a large time committment right now – we’ll see after tonight…
My friend Beth just started working part-time at this new place called Sociale, where you go in and can assemble entrees right there in their kitchen with help from their chefs, or you can just pick up stuff pre-assembled. I wanted to go to their opening Friday night when Beth started but was too tired (and no one to go with 
) – hopefully I’ll be able to go sometime in the next few weeks when Beth is working again – you should check it out!