I forced myself out of bed around 6:30 in the morning to get over to Harvard Square, where I'd be volunteering at the Mateo Theater again. The screening where I tended bar was a part of the Dance for World Community Festival Week, culminating in today's festival proper. We were put to work early, zip-tying colorful flags to fence posts up and down the streets around the theater. The block would be closed to traffic so dance stages, food stands and organization tables could be erected on the pavement. We volunteers spent a couple of hours fashioning tall, rickety stands out of PVC which would hold the festival signage; gusts of wind blew a couple of these over before we rustled up some sandbags to weight them at the base, which felt like liability waiting to happen. On our lunch break, I made a new friend -- a girl named Devin who's also friends with Nick S. Over poorly seasoned pad thai from a cart and an amazing $5 fairground-style lemonade, we talked about politics, Northeastern, and how dogs > cats any day. I chatted with a young lawyer as we worked, and he advised me to take a gap year or at least carefully evaluate the worth of law school. It's been in and out of my consciousness lately, but I'm feeling inclined against becoming an attorney, at least at this juncture. Later in the afternoon, I was put on welcoming duty, handing a program to everyone who passed by (or at least attempting.) I was partnered with an awkward, younger student who parked himself across the street, and I prided myself on convincing a better proportion of folks to take our programs, not to mention going through more of them overall. I refined my shtick as the hours scraped by, realizing that leading off with the word "free" made people at least 25%* more likely to accept the flyer, and that less verbosity is preferable. "Hi, free program for the dance festival?" I saw all kinds of fascinating Cantabrigians; the best was an old woman with a "Don't Tread on Me" flag flying proudly from her motorized cart. At one point, a middle-aged woman with a gracefully weathered look was "Marilyn Monroe'd" by an MBTA exhaust vent on the sidewalk, and shook it off with demure embarrassment; not too much later, the same thing happened to one of three Buddhist monks passing by, and his two companions did a poor job of concealing their snickering. Once I'd finally finished for the day -- and this felt like an eternity later -- I went to Allston for a fun evening with Jennifer. She's a sweetheart.
Aside: I discovered today that we left Jared's party at an opportune time last night -- the police were drawn to partygoers loitering out in front of the house, cleared the place out, and put the residents on a watchlist. Fortunately, they didn't get in trouble aside from that, but it was a lot less stressful leaving under my own power rather than with John Q. Law in my face.
Playoff section:
Stanley Cup Final:
CHI v. TBL: 3 - 2 Another stupid 2-1 game and Chicago's in the lead.
*Not a peer reviewed figure.
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