That was quite pleasant.
Mar. 2nd, 2003 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdSo, back from dinner. It turns out that this Deerfield dinner (at the Washington Athletic Club) marked the first time school reps had held a formal event in town for 25 years. It was pleasant; as expected, I was one of the youngest people there, with only two people from classes after mine showing up; most of the folks there were in the 50+ crowd, at least. And, of course, I was the only alumna. (Stupid 50 years of single-sex education!)
The main event was a fairly extensive presentation on the new 80,000 square foot science, math, and technology building. I'm going to miss the old science centre; but even when I was there, I could tell that it just wasn't working out the way it had been intended. Yes, mountains of open lab space is good, and it made for a great, airy lab environment, but it just didn't have the kind of classroom space it needed. Plus, the whole "unified science" approach just never caught on; Deerfield dropped the last of those courses a few years ago, in favour of more traditional class approaches. And all that made for a building that really just didn't fit that kind of approach.
The new building is... very modern. Which I don't mind, since it's replacing another very modern building. (Most of the campus architecture is either Georgian or New England Farmhouse, to blend in with the rest of the town.) The LEEDS programme, which is some sort of smart/environmental building rating organisation puts it in the top 25 of buildings they've looked at. The roof will be covered in sod; most of the lighting will be natural light, with huge expanses of glass facing east and west.
Of course, that makes this is a building that would never work here - it'd be blinding too much of the time, and too dark in the winter, with little southern and northern light collection. But it should work well there; being in Massachusetts, they're enough further south that it should fly.
It's also 45,000 square feet larger, which is why they're moving the math and technology departments into it too, once construction is completed. That'll give more room to History, Languages, and English, I think. I love the atrium it includes, too; the 3D walkthrough they showed had some gorgeous imagry. I hope it works out in real life as it does on paper.
And yes, there's still a planetarium. It'll be smaller, but it'll still be there.
Several little things have changed about campus life, but it's still the same school. There's only one all-school meeting anymore; it's on Tuesdays, instead of two, Mondays and Fridays. There's no longer a half hour of free time between dorm-study (7:30 to 9:30pm) and dorm curfew (10pm - you can go wherever you want in your dorm after that, but not outside it). This actually reduces one role call. The Deerfield Girl statue finally has an appropriate quote on it; good!
I got to amuse the current (I still think of him as the "new") headmaster by telling him about the mistake Mr. Kaufman made with our class, our senior year; he congratulated us mid-year on how well-behaved we were being, and such, particularly in comparison to the previous year. I just shook my head at the time, because I knew what was really going on, but just not being caught; our class promptly exploded. He actually mentioned this in his talk and promised not to make that mistake. Good. ^_^
That's about it. Oh, the dinner was good; a nice salad with a light, savoury vinaigrette dressing of some sort; a main course which had both beef and fish, and the fish, though cooked, was done so well that I almost liked it. Not quite. But almost. I did taste it. Desert was a nice bit of cake; I'm not sure what kind, but it had a lot of texture and taste of poundcake, served with strawberries in a light sauce, a little whipped creme, a piece of candied lemon (so. good.) and an odd little sliver of something sweet which had the club logo on it. I'm still not sure what that was - it wasn't cast sugar, it was suggestive of marzipan but was much better - but it was tasty.
And that was that. I like the new headmaster; amazingly, David Pond (alumni office) swears that he remembers me. He's paid, of course, to do that, but I have been in touch with them lately (for reasons talked about in other filters) and he's handled some of that, so I suppose that makes for something of a legitimate reminder.
Oh, and the new belt and dress worked very well together. I just wish black was a better colour on me. I mean, sure, you need a black dress regardless, for some occasions, and as black goes, this works wonderfully. But, well, still.
And that's about that. ^_^
The main event was a fairly extensive presentation on the new 80,000 square foot science, math, and technology building. I'm going to miss the old science centre; but even when I was there, I could tell that it just wasn't working out the way it had been intended. Yes, mountains of open lab space is good, and it made for a great, airy lab environment, but it just didn't have the kind of classroom space it needed. Plus, the whole "unified science" approach just never caught on; Deerfield dropped the last of those courses a few years ago, in favour of more traditional class approaches. And all that made for a building that really just didn't fit that kind of approach.
The new building is... very modern. Which I don't mind, since it's replacing another very modern building. (Most of the campus architecture is either Georgian or New England Farmhouse, to blend in with the rest of the town.) The LEEDS programme, which is some sort of smart/environmental building rating organisation puts it in the top 25 of buildings they've looked at. The roof will be covered in sod; most of the lighting will be natural light, with huge expanses of glass facing east and west.
Of course, that makes this is a building that would never work here - it'd be blinding too much of the time, and too dark in the winter, with little southern and northern light collection. But it should work well there; being in Massachusetts, they're enough further south that it should fly.
It's also 45,000 square feet larger, which is why they're moving the math and technology departments into it too, once construction is completed. That'll give more room to History, Languages, and English, I think. I love the atrium it includes, too; the 3D walkthrough they showed had some gorgeous imagry. I hope it works out in real life as it does on paper.
And yes, there's still a planetarium. It'll be smaller, but it'll still be there.
Several little things have changed about campus life, but it's still the same school. There's only one all-school meeting anymore; it's on Tuesdays, instead of two, Mondays and Fridays. There's no longer a half hour of free time between dorm-study (7:30 to 9:30pm) and dorm curfew (10pm - you can go wherever you want in your dorm after that, but not outside it). This actually reduces one role call. The Deerfield Girl statue finally has an appropriate quote on it; good!
I got to amuse the current (I still think of him as the "new") headmaster by telling him about the mistake Mr. Kaufman made with our class, our senior year; he congratulated us mid-year on how well-behaved we were being, and such, particularly in comparison to the previous year. I just shook my head at the time, because I knew what was really going on, but just not being caught; our class promptly exploded. He actually mentioned this in his talk and promised not to make that mistake. Good. ^_^
That's about it. Oh, the dinner was good; a nice salad with a light, savoury vinaigrette dressing of some sort; a main course which had both beef and fish, and the fish, though cooked, was done so well that I almost liked it. Not quite. But almost. I did taste it. Desert was a nice bit of cake; I'm not sure what kind, but it had a lot of texture and taste of poundcake, served with strawberries in a light sauce, a little whipped creme, a piece of candied lemon (so. good.) and an odd little sliver of something sweet which had the club logo on it. I'm still not sure what that was - it wasn't cast sugar, it was suggestive of marzipan but was much better - but it was tasty.
And that was that. I like the new headmaster; amazingly, David Pond (alumni office) swears that he remembers me. He's paid, of course, to do that, but I have been in touch with them lately (for reasons talked about in other filters) and he's handled some of that, so I suppose that makes for something of a legitimate reminder.
Oh, and the new belt and dress worked very well together. I just wish black was a better colour on me. I mean, sure, you need a black dress regardless, for some occasions, and as black goes, this works wonderfully. But, well, still.
And that's about that. ^_^
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no subject
Date: 2003-03-03 06:18 am (UTC)Interestingly enough, one of the engineers that I interviewed with at Apple on Friday grew up in Amherst, and had come to campus in 1984 to meet with Evan Eggers ('85) and the rest of our whole circle of geeks. I vaguely remembered something like that having happened; I'm not sure whether he remembered about the single-sex part or not.
Yay for the planetarium! But how is there not a half-hour of free time if study hall ends at 9:30 and check-in isn't until 10?
Oh, and I met both Eric and David Pond at my 15th a couple of years ago, so they both now know that there are two of us....
no subject
Date: 2003-03-04 04:47 pm (UTC)The planetarium is also getting an entirely new star machine, which is... I think they said 1/5th the size of the current one, but has more functionality. That's what makes the smaller size (33 foot diametre) reasonable.
But how is there not a half-hour of free time if study hall ends at 9:30 and check-in isn't until 10?
Study hall doesn't end at 9:30 anymore, that's how. Very easy. ^_^
And finally, I did mention to David that you had thought about coming out here for this thing, before the interview came up, and he immediately mentioned that you'd been there for your 15th. The alumni office people are scary.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-03 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-03 10:05 am (UTC)It's Latin!
Date: 2003-03-04 04:50 pm (UTC)This is because most people who know Latin know "church latin," which is fine, but has had pronunciation drift.
Or so Mr. Boyle hammered into our tiny little brains, anyway. God forbid you get it wrong in his classroom. I say it the classical way to this day.
Re: It's Latin!
Date: 2003-03-07 01:04 am (UTC)