The Breakfast Room

This is actually something new at Merton: the room where I'm having my class this year. In previous years, I've been in perfectly ordinary classrooms that might be found in any college setting anywhere in the world, but for some reason this year I'm in this beautiful sixteenth century room. (Since we're studying cosmology, maybe the scheduling office had a sense of humor and liked the contrast of viewing Powerpoint slides about black holes and quantum mechanics on a screen with drapes hanging on either side and a marble pedestal on top.)

The room next to this, where the group sitting at high table on formal nights assembles for drinks before dinner, is called the Queen's Room. Henrietta Marie, wife of Charles I, lived in these rooms for several months during the English civil wars in the 1640's.

Saturday reflections

A puddle on 42nd Street, capturing a face from an ad on a building across the street.

I am heartily sick of my own face now after months of Zoom, especially now that I'm in online classes. When I'm sitting in an actual classroom, I don't have a mirror in front of me, displaying every expression on my face (and every place my self-inflicted Covid haircut is clumping together and sticking straight up.) I can actually focus on the instructor.

In a Zoom class, my face is always there and it's hard to stop noticing it. Sit up straighter! Turn the laptop so no one is looking into your closet! Can't you tuck that piece of hair behind your ear?