vendredi, décembre 16, 2005
Une heure à les vacances noël!
mercredi, décembre 14, 2005
Eglises et chorales: Ce doit être Noël!
Well, my first (and so far definite favourite) visitor has arrived and is enjoying Paris, and I'm enjoying having him here! Alex arrived very, very early on Saturday morning, and luckily the airport trains waited until Sunday to go on strike (and they're still on strike- everybody loves a grève in France).
Obviously a situation that required coffee! So Alex was sent to the kitchen to earn his keep...
And it has been rather a musical week since he arrived, including last night's Sankta (Saint) Lucia concert at the Eglise Suédoise here in Paris. 13th December is Sankta Lucia, a Swedish tradition where a bunch of people sing some special Sankta Lucia songs and christams carols, while carrying candles and wearing white robes, one girl with a red sash for a belt and a crown of candles, the other girls with tinsel belts and crowns, and the "starboys" with white pointy hats with stars on them. Judging by the "Saint" bit, this obviously has some sort of religious background, but I must say, I don't really know too much about it. Something about a girl who came and saved and/or gave food to some people who were underground, and she had to have the candles on a crown because she needed the light to see and her hands to carry the food. Anyhow, the concert was really lovely, and some nice glögg (like a mulled wine) warmed us very nicely afterwards.
We also found a busker concert in one of the metro tunnels, literally a small orchestra- about 10 violinists, cellos, and even a double bass! You often see buskers in the tunnels, but this was the most impressive I've seen!
And just before Alex arrived, I went to another churchy christmas concert, this time at the Romanian church with Ruxandra and Raoul from the lab. The Romanian choir wore sheep fur skins, and although I can't claim to have understood much of what they sang, it was beautiful.
vendredi, décembre 09, 2005
Waouh!
As of yesterday, my PhD has been (more or less) officially passed!
The examiners reports are back, and are very complimentary, though no Nobel prize recommendations unfortunately (yet). I have a list of corrections to make, basically ranging from a couple of typos to slight clarification on certain points, then I have to get it all printed out again (ahh, the joys of Kinko's, that somebody else has to face this time- thanks Johan!!), then bound up in nice leather, and submitted to the (extremely) rare book library at Fisher, and a nice one to the folks, and then I'll be DR JEN!!!
Furthermore, congratulations are also to be extended to my esteemed colleagues, Emily and Alex, who have submitted their PhDs in the last couple of weeks (or days)! Well done to all!
lundi, décembre 05, 2005
Une jolie petite ville et un voile d'une vierge
Another out-of-Paris experience this time... All the way to Chartres, a very pretty little town a hundred or so kilometers from Paris. Famous for its cathedral, especially the stained glass in said catehdral, and even more especially the blue colour in said stained glass. Apparently they don't to this day, know how to get the blue that ye olde Chartresians pulled off, and obviously recording keeping those days could be improved upon.
Anyway, see for yourselves, it looks blue to me!
There was also an exhibition on about contemporary stained glass, which I thought was more interesting. The old-style stained glass just doesn't excite me like it obviously excites some. Most of the panels were made by a South Korean artist turned french catholic priest called Kim En Joong and they supposedly represented religious scenes (??), and I thought they were beautiful.
Chartres is also the home of the veil that Mary apparently wore at some stage. This bit of fabric was given to Chartres by Charlemagne in 876, and has apparently been dated from around the right time. Luckily in the six times the cathedral burned down between 743 and 1836, the veil was saved!
Pretty coblestone streets.
I have no explanation.
