Week 1 of senior year second semester, and things are pretty busy already! My roomie Sara and I were in charge of dessert for Mellon Forum this week, so we decided to make chocolate-covered strawberries/pineapple/pretzels. A trip to Shaws and 3 hours of dipping later, ta-da!
A lovely display of deliciousness
TWO trays of chocolate-covered strawberries(and that's not even including the pineapple)
Let's just say dessert disappeared quickly...Master K even joked that she should start hiring us to cater her events! Isn't it wonderful when you get to have fun and make yummy stuff on Yale's dime?
In terms of classes, I have to finish up both majors, so I came in with a pretty good idea of what I had to take. Senior Essay in HSHM is one credit, and I was planning to take Epidemics and Society as my fourth term course. For psych, I'm writing my senior essay through a seminar with Marvin Chun entitled "Mind, Brain, and Society," a mix of neuroscience, ethics, law, philosophy, and psych, so it should be pretty awesome.
After some debate, I also decided to take Abnormal Psychology over Biotechnology because I heard (from my roommate) that Abnormal Psych was a good course, and I figured I would get enough science in med school starting next year. The final question (still unresolved) is what I'm going to take for my fifth class, a seminar of some sort to be my final HSHM elective. Choices:
1) PLSC 248: Politics of Health Care - a Political Science seminar with William Kissick, who is a Yale alum and taught at UPenn for many years. He's one of the guys who helped draft Medicare, way back in the day. I'm hoping to go into public health as well as practicing medicine, so this would be very useful information.
2) HSHM 447: History of Chinese Science - a HSHM seminar with William Summers, whom I also had for Perspectives on Science one semester freshman year (he also teaches Philosophy in the Directed Studies program - a true Renissance Man!). Alternative medicine (e.g. accupuncture) is becoming a huge movement, so I figured it would be a good idea for me to learn about this too.
3) NBIO 535: History of Neuroscience - a grad-level Neurobio course with a historical twist...this would seem to be the perfect intersection of my two majors!
To get some (indirect) advice, I decided to attend a Master's Tea with David Hyde Pierce, a 1981 Silliman alum and now a famous actor. TV buffs will know him as Dr. Niles Crane from Frasier (a 4-time Emmy-winning role), while theater folks may know him better from the original casts of Spamalot and Curtains (for which he won a Tony in 2007)
Master's Teas usually begin with the guest telling us students something about their lives - how they got to where they are, and where they hope to go next - but Mr. Pierce simply opened the floor: "I have absolutely nothing to say, so just ask me questions!" What followed was a wonderful 90 minutes of intimate conversation touching on everything from how he got started in acting (he was originally a music major intending to become a concert pianist), to his first disappointment (auditioning for the Yale School of Drama and not being accepted).
He also had some hysterical show anecdotes, e.g. touring with a production of The Cherry Orchard in Japan: "Every night in the theater, we would hear this pitter-patter noise, kind of like rain. We couldn't figure out what on earth it was, until the wife of one of the actors came from the States to watch the production. Afterwards, she came backstage and told us that all the Japanese audience members had these headset-thingies that provided instant translation so they could understand what was going on, but as they would fall asleep, they would all drop their sets, and that was the pitter-patter noise we heard every night! In some sense, I guess that was the first feedback I had from an international audience!"
While at Yale, Mr. Pierce double-majored in Theater Studies and English: "When I chose to double-major, I guess I was subliminally listening to my mother's advice to always get a liberal education base. An English major seemed to be about the vaguest thing you could be...besides a philosophy major." Now as a successful actor, he's trying to branch out into different areas, such as trying musical roles, and he has even returned to playing piano, recently performing with Victoria Clark. His advice for students: "Always do scary things when you're old!"
With that in mind, off to tackle my first week of reading...
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