Ten More Things

OK, it's been a long time since I've posted to this. Library school got in the way, and now I just have to give myself some time to fill in some blanks in my life. For right now, however, I'm ready to begin work on ten more 2.1 things for even more fun on the Web. So let's get started by first getting that wiki response in place.

White Coat Ceremony

On 26 October 2007, Alice had her White Coat Ceremony at Temple University School of Medicine. You know, Alice has a connection to Temple, besides all of her friends who went to Temple, besides her Temple Rome semester. In fact, her great-grandmother's cousin taught there - Negley Teeters, who was a famous criminologist. He advocated for prison reform in Pennsylvania and probably visited the very prison that is near Alice's apartment (no longer a prison, but a historical site that is also a haunted house at Halloween). Alice, however, is not impressed with her Temple connection. I keep telling her that her family is full of advocates for the underdogs, fighters for social justice and so forth, but she just sighs.

Anyway, armed with this little bit of family history, we went to the White Coat Ceremony, at which time Alice was given her white coat by a physician attached to the medical school, in her case, the Dean himself, signifying her entrance into the world of medicine. She also took the Oath of Geneva as well. It was a moving ceremony, very profound.

Want to see a picture? Here she is, with her white coat. Now she can see patients...well, not treat and prescribe medicine, I imagine, but you know, stand around the patient's bed, with other medical students, and try to determine the ailment and then suggest proper treatments, that sort of thing.

We are just so proud of her, as you can tell.

Afterwards, we had dinner with her and Mike, her beau, at a restaurant down the street from her apartment.

Dinner was really fine, but the best part was watching Alice and Mike. They just seem to enjoy each other's company so much. I like Mike a lot and think Alice has very good taste.

So you see, it's been quite a busy and wonderful past few months.

The Wedding and beyond

OK, OK, I haven't been here for a while, but I've been really, really busy, with lots of great stuff going on, including....Patrick and Maya's wedding in the UK.

First, we traveled to the London on the last day of July.

Here's a picture of my sister Joanne in London on the first of August. It was a pleasant day for walking around and seeing the sights. We stayed in Russell Square because we are familiar with the area and because we like it there. This is, in fact, Russell Square.

I think I may have made Jo look weird with this picture, but I'll try to fix it sometime. Anyway, we went to London for a couple of days, and then we took a train to Maidstone, where the wedding was to be held. Here is Alice in Victoria Station, where we all met to travel to Kent.

Oooh, I get it. It's the jpeg stuff...not so good.

Oh well...you get the picture (so to speak).
Alice traveled very lightly, with just a carryon, and she met up with us on the morning of August 2, so that we could all go to Maidstone together. It was such a thrill seeing her crossing the station floor, after her trip from the US. It was as though everything was coming together as planned. A good omen...

And then we had the prenuptual dinner that evening with the Dases at the White Horse Inn on Bearstead. We met Maya's entire family and ate and drank wine and just generally laughed it up. You might like to see the White Horse Inn. Very quaint on the outside, very sleek and modern on the inside...

OK, so then the next day, we went to Hollingbourne where Leeds Castle is actually located. That's very near Maidstone. Hollingbourne was the town where Maya had her first job, working in the notorious Windmill, notorious because it paid poor wages and just did not provide a nice work environment. Want to see it?

I think Maya has bad memories from this experience, so I probably should not post this picture, but then again, you can avoid the Windmill if ever you are in Hollingbourne. You know what it looks like now.

That very day, we got ourselves all dressed up and went to Leeds Castle. Now, that is a sight to see.

It was a gorgeous day, unlike the previous four or so weeks, which had been filled with rain and clouds and coolish temperatures. We had lots of bright sunlight and warm temperatures. Before the ceremony, before the guests arrived, before it all began, we waited in the library.

Here are Patrick and Alice, looking kind of jpeg funny in the library.

And then we had the ceremony, and it was magical. In fact, the entire day was magical. In fact, the entire experience was magical.

Here they are, the happy couple, Patrick Macgill and Maya Das-Macgill, right after the ceremony. We went on to have a lovely dinner, at which time, I spilled some red-current gravy on my pretty silk dress, making it a one-occasion dress, since the stain will not come out. Still, the entire trip was just wonderful.

Now Patrick and Maya are living in Birmingham. We hope to visit them when I am finished school and when the dollar is doing better. Meanwhile, we make calls and email and all that.
Ahhh...

Jihad and Second Life

I've been wanting to share this article with you since our trip to the UK last week. In the 5 August 2007 issue of the Sunday Times was this article (link below) concerning militant Islamic jihadists using Second Life for various purposes.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2199193.ece

Interesting...but then would I ever have guessed that the Internet would become such a major source for pornography? Well, I should have guessed, I suppose, since the Internet and the Web are open to access from nearly everyone. Anyway, it's an interesting article. I guess our jihadists are just thinking innovatively.

And off she goes!

Whew! It's been a while since I've touched base here, and so much has happened, such as the wedding of Maya and Patrick, but more on that later. Meanwhile, Alice has started medical school at Temple University School of Medicine. In fact, she started her gross anatomy class on this past Monday. I asked her what she'd be cutting up, and she said a back and an upper arm - still attached to a person, of course. Fascinating.

So we'll have more on all this later.

Off they go!

We're about to travel to the U.K. for the wedding of my son, Patrick Macgill, to Maya Das. I do believe the deluge has ended over there, and the flood waters are receding. Maybe the temperature will rise and the sun will shine. In any case, the wedding will be a delight, no matter what the weather.

The ceremony will take place on Friday, August 3, at Leeds Castle in Maidstone, followed by dinner and dancing until late in the evening. We plan to celebrate with much jollity.

Although we do not plan to stay long in England, at least not this trip, we do intend to pack a lot in - our prenuptual dinner, the wedding itself, a breakfast afterwards, and maybe a visit to a museum or two, once we are back in London. Since only a few family members will be joining us, we plan to have family and friends join us later in Bel Air for an American reception, as we are calling it. The newly weds will join us and then travel to Kyoto for a conference later in August. Such a busy life!

Patrick will be working for Public Service UK, a publishing house that focuses on public policy. He will be working on an online journal called Defense Management. I think with his background in modern European history, he should do fine.

Maya will continue her studies for her doctorate in English literature. In fact, the trip to Kyoto is for a conference where she will be delivering a paper.

How exciting this all is. And just think, in a few weeks, I'll be back at school and life will once again be tedious and difficult and full of work. Oh well...

The Blog Continues...

Hi, I've been away from this for a while, but now I'm back, adding thoughts and opinions to my blog. First of all, I'm going to try for now to relate this to my work, thus justifying my typing on the job, so here goes...

I spent the weekend in Paradise...well, really, Batesville, Virginia, at my friend's house, but it may as well be Paradise. Lisa lives on top of a mountain, with lots of trees, wildlife, and fresh air. We talked a lot about technology, because I had just finished my 23 Things, and she is the technology resource person in her elementary school where she teaches. I did show her my blog, and we talked about Del.icio.us and Rollyo, Technorati, YouTube, and so much more. She knew of many of those, but some were new to her. I wish I had recalled ZohoWriter and GoogleDocs, because she really could have used them in her fifth grade class. Another time...
She was particularly intrigued with RSS feeds, again, a useful resource for a teacher.

I hope to have some images on my Flickr account so that I can share them with you, so that you also can see what I mean about how lovely it is there. I have to get my images uploaded first. Then I'll share.

Then, last night, my sister stopped by for a visit. We sat on the deck, sipping tea in the cool evening air, discussing - what else? - books. She likes Miss Read and Dorothy Simpson, neither of which I have read, but HCPL has many Simpson mysteries. Maybe I will add them to my Library Thing account (www.librarything.com) . I recommended Alexander McCall Smith's books to her, because she does seem to go for the gentle reads - well, her mystery writers may have corpses in them, but like me, I think she'd prefer not to have the graphic descriptions of blood and guts.

That's sort of an issue with my book club (book discussion group). Not all of us share the same tastes, which makes the group interesting, although I must admit we do end up with similar likes and dislikes. Anyway, some books may be offensive to some readers, with language and descriptions or characters that offend one's sensibilities. It's hard to know what lies on that next page. I don't think I've ever stopped reading a book because of language or whatever, but a few I've wished I hadn't read, especially if the descriptions are gross. Is that really necessary? I don't know.

So the book group is now reading Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I thought the language was really interesting, kind of Old World, and since it takes place in another era, mid-Twentieth Century, I remarked to a group member that I thought it was really skillful how the author made the book sound like a translation - kind of formal, with those flourishes of language that translations sometimes have. She looked at me oddly and pointed out that it was, in fact, a translation. Duh...well, the author lives in Los Angeles. How would I know? (I could have looked more closely at the title page!) Anyway, I had to return the book unfinished because I'm off to the U.K next week, and the book was due and I was only half way through. So another book not finished. No matter, this group won't throw me out if I don't finish a book for discussion. It's more about friendship anyway, just getting together. Books do that for people, whether it's two sisters on a back porch discussing mysteries or a group of pals sitting around, eating snacks, and sharing thoughts on a common book read.