Jules and I did have the Indian buffet for lunch on Tuesday, and the owner did bring me a little dish of vindaloo sauce just like old times; it was great. That afternoon I managed to finish everything I needed to do for submittal of my thesis.

There was this question of the "thesis summary" which is a 5-30 page document including graphs, etc., in the form of a journal pre-print. I hadn't written it because I had never heard of it. When I asked Clare some questions about it she just told me to forget about it. Same with the abstract rewrite. So in essence she let me waive all of the difficult remaining tasks and suddenly there wasn't all that much left to do.

The only tense moment was getting Kim to sign the thesis. This, of course, is the final moment of our mentor/student relationship. I gave him a copy of the document and then the sheet that he was supposed to sign. And he pulls out his pen... and then opens the document and starts carefully reading through it. Specifically the acknowledgements. His body language indicated that he was looking for something specific there and I wasn't sure if he was going to page through the whole document or what. I started having these nightmare visions of him making requests for changes even at this late moment. However, after about a minute he just signed the document and that was that.

A funny comparison: Professor Yip, who was also on my committee, signed my document then we talked at length about my future plans and he gave me some philosophical advice about not getting too specialized in my field and staying broadly applicable, etc. Kim just said "Sionara."

Anyway, with the signatures I needed I went and turned everything in to Clare. This constitutes my final act as a graduate student; at that point I had completed all of my requirements for graduation and am effectively a Doctor of SCIENCE!!

The remainder of the afternoon was spent getting various paperwork faxed off to LANL to get reimbursed for my tuition expenses and the personell action for my transfer to N-1 moving.

Met Evan for dinner. He is doing very well for himself financially and professionally, though he apparently has too many contracts coming in and not enough people to do the work, etc. He desperately wanted to hire me but I don't want to do software work right now.

Afterwards I got completely lost driving home through Brookline. Eventually I ended up at Jules' brother's place in Cambridge and met some of their friends. At least one of them was a former 6.270 student of mine. One of the girls there was engaged to JJ of MIT Ultimate fame, who I met while I was at Coe. Small world.

Anyway 7 of us went bowling at Boston Bowl, where they give you a free pair of ankle socks with every shoe rental. So now I have little tiny socks that say "Boston Bowl" with an American flag on them... whoot. Oh, and on the way there Jules had to stop at a gas station... and we ran out of gas about 30' from the pump and had to get out and push the minivan the rest of the way. That was exciting... Anyway, I bowled a 107 and a 119. Fun was had by all, and that was my Tuesday.

Wednesday started off with birdwatching at Auburn Cemetery with Camilla. It is an amazingly beautiful cemetary, but it was lightly raining the entire time which prevented me from using my camera and kept most of the birds away. I learned a lot about birding, regardless. Afterwards I went back to Camilla's apartment and she showed me a bunch of her identification books for plants and animals, followed by her paper models - fascinating stuff. I want to make a bunch of paper geometric models now...

Went back to campus for lunch at Anna's with Jules, and I spent the afternoon dorking around on campus. Picked up some MIT swag from the school store and put in an order to get a few copies of my thesis book-bound. Looked around the Stata Center (including the Bill Gates tower) - it is really an amazing building inside. I can't say much for the outside appearance, but inside it just seems very open and enormous and useable.

Dinner: Jules again, this time Blue Ribbon barbeque. Excellent as always. Afterwards, Zoz. Went to Senior House and hung out with Zoz and some of the denizens of his house. Stayed there very late.

Now it's Thursday. I'll probably eat Indian buffet again today, probably with Jules again. He's my defacto eating partner on this trip, apparently. Probably because neither of us have anything to do right now and thus are always free for food. Dinner is with Zoz at a location to be determined. Then I'll probably go down to Middletown and spend the rest of my time here with the Neenor.