Winter holiday themed cups and winter holiday themed drinks are back at Starbucks (already!)... as of this morning, they were serving hot drinks in their red holiday theme decorated cups... in that spirit, I got the peppermint mocha (tall double no-whip non-fat peppermint mocha... or something like that. I love Starbucks' naming system. So... organized). Even more nostalgic for my college days now though...

I'm officially considering MD/PhD as a future path... I need to do some research on that, however, and talk to more people about it. There are some serious pros and cons. And of course the even-more-than-MD-admissions competitiveness is a discouraging thought.

Tom recently started doing some bench-work with one of the post-docs. But because he's dressed so nicely in lab, people thought he looked funny holding pipets and making buffers. So. At group meeting today, we presented him with a t-shirt that some people designed and said he should wear (on top of his nice shirts) whenever he's doing bench-work. On the back of the shirt, below the picture of a pipet, it says "Sec's forever" :)


I can do vibrato on the cello! I can play the Swan! I can play Nina by Pergolesi! I'm very excited! The Dvorak that we're playing in NSO and listening to Jackie play the Elgar still work me up like no other. I love the cello! Even the etudes are beautiful... I want to be able to play Bruch's Kol Nidrei within the next few months... Did I mention that I love the cello??

Apparently, Newton is one of the more rich neighborhoods of MA. It has great funding for artistic and musical education. Our symphony had a concerto competition last weekend. The winners:

• Elementary school division: a 5th grader blowing away the judges with a great Carmen Fantasy (Sarasate)
• Middle school division: a 7th (?) grader who apparently rocked on the Saint Saens cello concerto
• High school division: co-winners who sounded incredible on Ravel's Tzigane + the Tchaik violin concerto 1st movement.

Sigh. Makes me really wish I had practice more when I was younger. Carmen Fantasy by a 5th grader? Seriously?! I can't even play that piece now! It's so hard. This is insane.