(no subject)

Having found out at 6pm yesterday, when I was already late to leave work, that I was attending a conference this morning at 8, I started today not so thrilled with the prospect, and not expecting to get anything meaningful out of the conference... but, in fact, there was a surprising amount of good interesting stuff. I'd have preferred more notice, but I am happy I got to go. Plus I ran into lakshmi_amman and my old boss from CRA there along with a couple other passing acquaintances, which was pretty cool.

I nailed down an audition piece for the evening in some downtime around, perhaps, 3. Luckily I a) remembered about a third of it, and b) was lugging around the complete works of Shakespeare,* so after I got to MIT I had the chance to sit down and learn the rest of it. I had done about four lines when A. walked by, and I chatted with him briefly, went back to memorization, and three lines later mermaidlady walked up. I did, eventually, learn the piece and do I think alright in auditioning, though it may have been the first time a Leatherman's butterknife was employed in a death scene. On the way back to the T** afterwards I bumped into R. It's been one of those days.

*My shoulder did not thank me for this, nor for the light reading I tossed in my bag with it - Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (~1 kilopage). Worth it though.

**Apparently there are some kind of magical cards that you use on the turnstiles gate-things nowadays. Amazing!