the yale report

it was cold. and i missed the first day due to our concert sunday night. aside from a disturbing bit of lightheadedness during the second to last movement of the carmina (that fortissimo high g should not be attempted on anything less than a full dinner!), i had a great time. i think the audience may have, as well. april through august are all about beethoven 9, a welcome change from bartok as far as i'm concerned. anyway, i drove up to new haven after the concert, arriving at 12.45 or so. and did i mention it was cold?

in general, though, the visit was really encouraging. visiting berkeley and michigan first had primed me to notice every single instance of snobbiness or grad student misery, but really there wasn't much of either. yale profs are fond of introducing themselves, and somewhat prone to suits/ties/heels, but nonetheless very friendly. and there are folks (where "folks"="ian shapiro," mostly) doing applied theory, and frances rosenbluth told me she's planning a seminar on the comparative political economy of gender, with some focus on electoral system variables. as mr. burns would say, excellent.

i didn't meet many grad students, which had me a little worried. but our evening out with the current students was lots of fun, and those that i did speak with seemed great and professed happiness. i also ran into the proprietor of antidotal, which led to an amusing conversation about blogs and the people who read and write them. possibly most importantly, i very much enjoyed the other admitted students. i was even emboldened to check out the law school yesterday morning in the company of a JD/PhD hopeful (go Carissa!).

i'm going to give this a few days to settle, since i always think i want to go wherever i've just visited. it would be fun to have made up my mind by sunday, though. [which is palm sunday, for those of you who are interested: the beginning of holy week (i.e., the beginning of the end of lent and the time at which i can actively begin looking forward to easter-sunday chocolate malts at silk city).] we'll see.