Beantown

I just got back from Boston to present a research project I had been participating in over the year (still ongoing) with 6 other undergrads and our prof. It was the American Cultural Studies Association Annual Conference at Northeastern University, and it was my first experience presenting at an academic conference. Our project involved a comparative study of evening newscasts from countries around the world (I watched the HK news for a month, getting some help from my parents, but improved my Cantonese a lot in addition). But being a cultural studies conference, there were a lot of black-clad radical academics who presented theories on sexuality, pornography, and radical feminism. I attended a few sessions, but most of them struck me as very pretentious in a way in which only academics can be. As a result, many of us used the 4 day trip to Boston as an all-expenses-paid trip to one of America's most historic cities. It was pretty sweet.

By far the highlight was catching a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. This is a must for a baseball fan -- the most storied ballpark in the majors, and one you always see on TV. We lined up and got standing room tickets for $25 US, but we grabbed some seats that luckily went unfilled -- Luckily because Boston has rabid fans and sell out every home game they play. Baseball is just incredible when you're at a 90-year old stadium that's packed full of the most devoted fans in the league. Plus, I got to see an incredible game in which Boston scored 5 runs in the last two innings and won it on a walk-off double in the bottom of the 9th. The place literally exploded when that happened. Final score: 7-6 Boston over KC.

Other highlights included eating lobster, walking the freedom trail, and the renowned Museum of Fine Arts where we spent an afternoon. The only other big American Art Gallery I'd been to was the Met in NYC -- and while it wasn't nearly as big, the MFA does have a good collection, the strongest areas being American colonial-era and postcolonial painters like Winslow Homer, Gilbert Stuart and John Singleton Copley. There were some famous portraits of Washington in there. While the international collection was not nearly as extensive as the Met's there was still a decent-sized collection of Monet/Manet/Renoir impressionism plus a couple Picassos and Van Goghs. It had been a while since I had been to a gallery, and I had started to forget the names of many famous painters, so this was a good experience for sure.

Also cool was touring Harvard and MIT. With Harvard, MIT, Boston U, Boston College, Northeastern, Tufts and Brandeis (I'm sure I'm missing some) the Boston area probably has the highest per-capita concentration of elite schools anywhere in North America. While Harvard is typically New England and red-brick, MIT has some really radically-designed buildings... It's always nice to dream....

But back to reality... Time to start work for the summer. I'll be here on weekdays, and likely home most weekends. I'm off!