Post 7: Hold on, I‘m Coming

Haven’t posted much this week, but I'm back.

Milo arrived on Monday. We had a great time, but his visti was cut short by an email informing him that one of his collections (exams) would be on Thursday afternoon rather than Friday. Thankfully, Business Drive (the wonderful car service used by Trevor and Barry) was able to get him to Oxford Wednesday evening.

Oxford has an interesting approach to exams. They take place when you return after a 6 week break between terms. No rest for the weary.

Today, the NYU crowd starts to arrive. Mieke, my former grad student who is here working with Trevor, has organized a punt on the Cam for the weary travelers. Tonight we have a dinner, hosted by Trevor and his spouse, Barbara Sahakian, a leading researcher on memory herself. Yesterday, in fact, my spouse, Nancy, asked me if I knew Barbara Sahakian, the Cambridge researcher featured in the new New Yorker article on memory enhancing drugs. I said indeed I do, and that I expected to be having dinner with her tonight.

We have a full day of idea exchange and debate tomorrow. It will be grueling for the NY team, with no chance for them to get over jet lab before having to perform. Barry is then hosting a dinner in Downing College Friday night.

The crazy New Yorkers, though, are all leaving Saturday, after a single full day in the UK and no opportunity to enjoy the beautiful Cambridge spring.

All except Daniella. I just had to tempt “Sticks” with the opportunity to play drums on Saturday and she changed her plans.

Daniea and I will play when Deep Blue, Simon Baron-Cohen’s band, takes a break. But first, Simon, Bhismadev Chakrabarti, and I play Mind Over Matter, with Simon on bass and Bhisma on tabla. We need a little rehearsal, which I think we’ll do at Simon’s on Saturday morning. Daniela will join us at the rehearsal, where we’ll run through Piece of My Mind, and maybe When the Night Is Dark. Daniela and Bhisma then plan to have a chat about a possible experiment that came up in the discussion before my lecture at Simon’s Autism Research Centre.

That’s it for now.