Drop off day in New Haven

In the end it was, of course, anticlimactic. A typical day of meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, observing human nature, walking around, eating some good food, checking stuff out and, in the end, a bit of a rush because we hadn't been studying the calendar properly. You don't need to know the all the gory details.

Natalie's roommate (the only one we met), seems very nice, as does her family.

It was fairly astonishing -- but not really surprising, given the intensity of her focus on what it is she is doing at any given moment -- that Mary had basically never been in many of Yale's buildings, so she was kind of blown away by the splendor of it all. To me it just looked like college.

Graham, who had himself been overwhelmed by the Gothic architectural detail of Sterling Library on Monday, had pretty much a normal day, which is to say he was tired and a little droopy by the end. I think on Monday it was really the weight of expectations on him. He fears that he can't do what Natalie did. And, from an organizational perspective, it will indeed be a bit of a lift for him to get to Yale or the like. From a management and motivational perspective, the challenge is ours.

Natalie, of course, was like a pig in shit. She will be very happy there, and we will miss her terribly, but we will see her very soon.