我去哪儿？

今天是二零零七年五月三十一号。 昨天我坐地铁去美国大使馆。 美国大使馆在Bond St.地铁站的西南边。 美国大使馆对面有一个公园儿。

星期天我坐飞机去加拿大。 加拿大在美国的北面， 在英国的西面。 加拿大比英国大。 加拿大冬天比英国很冷。 我去Banff. Banff 很漂亮。

Translation:

Where am I going?

Today is May 31, 2007. Yesterday, I took the tube to the American embassy. The American embassy is southwest of the Bond St. tube station. Across from the American embassy there is a park.

On Sunday, I will fly to Canada. Canada is north of America, and west of England. Canada is bigger than England. In the winter, Canada is much colder than England. I'm going to Banff. Banff is beautiful.

The park across from the American embassy is Grosvenor Park. Séverine pointed out to me that this area of London is called Mayfair and that "My Fair Lady" is a pun on "Mayfair Lady" (I didn't know that).

Lollipops

There's a lovely text called Local Fields by J.W.S. Cassels, which is not a field guide to regional farmland but an introduction to p-adic numbers. His preface begins with a quote:

My heart is inditing a good matter. Psalm 45.

Before listing the contents of the book he issues a warning:

Paragraphs which can be omitted at a first reading are marked with an asterisk. But if you do skip them, then you miss some of the lollipops.

BANKSY

Should five per cent appear too small

Yesterday I took a trip down to the IRS office at the American Embassy. Even though U.S. citizens living abroad get an automatic two month extension to file their taxes, I was the only one visiting the IRS and got to bypass the long lines of visa applicants. Also, having taken their advice to leave all bags and electronic devices at home, I got in with a wave of my Massachusetts driver's license and a quick duck through the metal detector.

On the website for the IRS office, it clearly says that they won't answer questions over the phone; you have to go down to the office in person. Maybe I misunderstood, but I swear there was a sign up in the office advising you to call to get your questions answered.

The people in the office were very friendly though and happy to just answer my questions on the spot. It doesn't seem like my situation should be that unusual, but I read the relevant information, and it's not at all clear what I'm supposed to do. This one guy seemed very well versed in the technical details of the treaty which gives us the Foreign Earned Income exemption. This exemption says that if you live here in England for 330 days of a given year (starting at any time) then income earned here (under about $80,000) is exempt from U.S. taxes. The part that's unclear is that I haven't yet lived here for a full year, but I plan on doing so, so that, after I've been here for a year, then I can claim this exemption from the time I got here. But I'm supposed to file my taxes for 2006 now...

Unfortunately, as it turns out, this whole question is irrelevant to me. I had a secret fear that I didn't even want to mention, and it has been realized. Apparently Fred has betrayed me, because my stipend is not considered "earned income" at all. I don't work for my pay. It's unearned income, so the U.S. government feels no compunction whatsoever in taxing the pittance on which I live. Worse, that money is converted into U.S. dollars before it's taxed. It's not so bad this year, because I've only been here for a few months, but next year it will look like a real salary, and they'll tax it that way.

On the bright side, they told me to just bring down all my information and they'd help me to fill out the necessary forms and file my taxes right there. "Really?!?" I asked, incredulous. In retrospect, it's probably easier and faster for them to help me fill out all the forms than for them to explain to me how it works, but I would have thought that I'd have to pay someone to do that for me.

Bernard Herman

Loose Marbles

I've been reading this New Yorker blog about New Orleans. In his May 8th entry, he talks about a band called Loose Marbles and mentions that they're playing in Washington Square in New York this weekend. I wish I could see them. Here's another video clip, with a better shot (towards the end) of their dancers.

Bruce Almighty

Dad said there was a group of Dutch kids at his program in Iona, Scotland who nicknamed him "Bruce Almighty" because they could hear him laughing 500 metres away.

Yesterday, Dad got some sightseeing in around London: He caught the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and then stopped in at my office before heading back to the Westminster area to spend the afternoon at the Cabinet War Rooms. He topped off his British government tour with a brief visit to the Houses of Parliament where they were having some debate on climate change.

In Chinese class last night, we learned that cathedral is 大教堂 (big church). Also, in Chinese they have measure words. So, whenever you talk about a quantity of something, you have to insert a measure word. You can't say three apples, you have to put a measure word between the three and the apples. The most common measure word is probably 个 (gè) and if you don't know which measure word to use, you can probably just say 个 and get away with it. But there are some particular measure words that you use with certain types of objects. Some can be translated as "glass" or "dish", e.g. 我要一杯啤酒 -- "I would like a glass of beer". We also learned 条, which is supposedly used for "various long narrow things" but we learned it because it's used for dog. Another measure word we learned a while back is 口 (kǒu), which means "mouth". Our teacher told us last night that this is a special measure word used for family members and pigs.

Dad met up with me and some friends after Chinese and we went to the Old Bank of England pub. Today Dad is visiting Coventry cathedral and tomorrow he heads out to Paris.

"Event Horizon"

The new Antony Gormley statues are up in London, and many of them are on my way to work. One of my officemates had told me a while ago about the installation on the coast of England (near where he's from), so when I saw some guys putting one in on Waterloo bridge the other day, I knew exactly what it was. They're up in conjunction with a show of Gormley's work at The Hayward this summer. I'll probably go, even though it seems ridiculous to pay for art when there's so much available for free.

People are already having fun with the ones you can approach. This one is showing the effects of his first Saturday night in London. The ones on the rooftops I find much spookier. They look like they're in a trance and about to step off the edge, and it's rather disturbing. The ones on the beach look like they're going to walk out into the ocean, unaffected by the bouyancy of the water.

Actually, the strangest thing is probably that they're all cast from the sculptor Antony Gormley's body.
It's one thing to have an anonymous statue all over the place, but to put up replicas of yourself everywhere... I don't know.

Here are some better photos of the statues.

Trafalgar Square

Dad got in last night after an all day train ride from Glasgow. We had Chinese food in Chinatown and then hit Trafalgar Square for some banjo playing. We only got in a few songs before we were politely informed that musical instruments are not allowed in Trafalgar Square. I guess that explains why there are so (relatively) few people hanging around there. It's still a nice place to be, but we'll have to find somewhere else to play.

Today, while I worked, Dad sampled the London church scene. He attended mass at St. Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square this morning (you can see it on the far right in this picture, with all the scaffolding around the steeple--they're in the middle of a huge reconstruction project). We met up for lunch in the courtyard of Somerset House and then Dad headed to Westminster to attend an alternative worship service at St. Matthew's. Tonight he's at the pub with the clergy from St. Matthew's for discussion.

Tomorrow, he's planning on walking around a lot to see some more of London. Hopefully he'll get to check out some of the newly installed Gormley statues (more on this soon). Then the plan is to head up to Brick Lane for Indian food for dinner. mmm....

我爸爸今天来伦敦!

我爸爸今天晚上坐火车来伦敦看我. 他星期四坐飞机去巴黎. 我们星期二晚上去酒吧喝英国啤酒. 英国饭不好所以我们吃中国饭.

Translation:

My dad is coming to London today!

This evening, my dad is taking the train to London to see me. On Thursday, he'll fly to Paris. On Tuesday evening, we'll go to the pub to drink English beer. English food is not good, so we'll eat Chinese food.

Actually, maybe we'll have some Chinese food, but I'm sure we'll have Indian food and maybe some Ethiopian food.

Banff!

I got waitlisted for a while, but in the end I managed to finagle myself an invitation to this modular forms workshop at the Banff International Research Station in Calgary.

Nice, huh? I can't wait. It's in early June (just before I move to my new flat). It's right on target for me (research wise). They haven't sent out any sort of schedule yet and I heard they're not doing a conventional conference (tea and cookies sandwiched by research talks), so I'm not entirely sure what to expect. But I know at least that there are some people attending who know a lot about the stuff I'm working on, so it should be helpful. Plus, those mountains! I could use some fresh air.

I have so much work to do in preparation though. There's a lot that I want to know and have done before I go talk to these guys.

We've got one!

It looks like we've got a flat. (Fingers crossed that the landlord will accept our offer.) It's just up the block from where we are now, so it will be an easy move. It also means that I don't have to break down and buy a monthly tube pass; I can continue walking everywhere.

It's not super nice, but the location and price are right. I'm still just down the block from Borough market, but now I'll have a lounge (living room) and a washing machine.

Tomorrow is the London installment of the London-Paris Number Theory Seminar at Imperial College and Saturday Dad gets here! With his travel banjo! He doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to have him playing old union songs in Trafalgar Square for me.