Popsicle is Allowed

Oh wow, so much has been happening!

The Red Sox won the World Series!

Apple picking!

Apple pie baking!

Pumpkin carving!

Sarah is coming to Boston toorrow! (And so is Salman Rushdie!)

And so much more...but first...

I love the funny connections I make while studying for the Lit. GRE. I was reading A.E. Housman's poem, "When I was One-and-Twenty",

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

when I was reminded of the a poem on a Korean notebook (title: "Popsicle Is Allowed"),

Years and years ago, when I was only seven years old I heard a wise man say,
With a sigh and sad eyes,
"Dear, give all your ice cream and popsicle
but not your heart and soul away."
But I was just only seven years old, and,
No use to talk to me...

Ahhhhh! I love it!! Back to studying now...

How to get an A for Green!

Less than two weeks ago I was at a post office in Kenmore Square. The guy ahead of me had received a package, and asked if he could leave the cardboard box there for them to recycle (he had already opened it and removed his...boardgame...). "Well you can leave it here," the kindly postal worker replied, "but it won't be recycled because we're technically on BU's campus, and BU doesn't recycle." Wha? Come on, BU!

That interchange prompted the idea in my head that someone should rate colleges according to how "green" they are. Well...someone has! The Sustainable Endowments Institute just came out with the College Sustainability Report Card, which you can download here. They rate schools in eight categories, including Food and Recycling, Climate Change and Energy, Green Building, and Investment Priorities. Who is at the top of the class? Carlton, Dartmouth, Harvard, Middlebury, University of Vermont, and University of Washington. And what score did BU get? Barely passing with a C.

Check out the descriptions of notable initiatives in each of the eight categories. Each school also gets a full-page report card that describes why it got the grade that it did.

We gon' sip Bicardi like it's Earthday

Next month I'm going to visit my friend Chandler in the Netherlands, so I'm thinking maybe I should swing by the Sustainable Dance Club. Plenty Magazine writes about it, and my absolute favorite part of the article is the mention of "party scientists." Yeah, such a thing actually exists, but only at Delft (the tech school Chandler attends).

Fresh fodder for conspiracy theorists: Dragonfly spy robots!

There's an article in the Washington Post about dragonfly spy-robots. It all proceeds just the way you think it would...

until you hit page 2 and it starts talking about CYBORG INSECTS WITH COMPUTER CHIPS IMPLANTED IN THEIR BRAINS!

In other news: If 6 pm in Boston Common is the haven of dog-owners, 1 pm on Commonwealth Ave must be the time and place where all the professional dog-walkers convene. First I saw a woman with 5 tiny spaniel-looking-things, then a guy walking SEVEN huge wolf/dog hybrids. What?