my parents are still here ...

but oddly, although this is among the longest visits they've ever made to where i was living, i'm finding it pretty pleasant.  i'm able to say Look, i have all this work to do, so let's meet at X time and do X thing, and then you can amuse yourselves while i write this paper and i'll see you tomorrow.  somehow entertaining them is more exhausting than entertaining any other pair of guests i've ever had.  i wonder why parents should be different.

anyway.  last night, a very good verdi requiem at the sheldonian theatre, in seats that were sadly quite uncomfortable (but i don't think there are more than five or six comfortable chairs in that whole building).  saturday was a graduation ceremony, which was why we got the hell out of town; i was explaining to my mother that kids don't graduate immediately upon finishing their degree here, but have to book a slot in a ceremony at some hand-wavy time in the future, because the sheldonian is quite small and they therefore confer degrees several times a year and you go when you can.  (overseas students get a bit of a preference in getting into a ceremony relatively soon after they've finished.)  why, she wondered, do they just not move all the graduation to a bigger venue, so they can do everyone at once?  i looked at her in slack-jawed amazement; first of all, it's less of an expectation here because especially among the undergraduates there's more of a sense of belonging to their individual college than to the university -- but more importantly, it's the sheldonian theatre!  sir christopher wren designed that building -- people don't want to move graduation to some lecture hall or gymnasium just in order to fit more people in!  i was surprised at her for even suggesting it, and then i was surprised to find myself caring that much.  :-D

[backflip]

oh, MAN, y'all, glasshouseslive is AWESOME!

[clutches birthday present][looks guiltily at paper due tomorrow morning][puts present down; will play with it later]

[glomps GH with a big long-distance hug]