Hi everyone,

We should be back on track now in terms of sending an e-mail a week
(touch wood) as hopefully this will be in your inbox on Monday
morning.  I'm sure I've got daylight savings wrong which means this
is an hour late - at least, because I've been fighting with uploading
photos.

Jason

___

As indicated at the end of last week's LfA, this installment
surrounds a trip to watch the Boston College vs University of Notre
Dame football game.  My Uncle Peter is an academic at the U of Notre
Dame and when he was asking me when I was going to visit, I jokingly
said "well, BC is playing at Notre Dame this year, can you get
tickets?"  When he came through with the tickets it was clear how I
was spending that weekend.  Despite numerous delays (one of which
threatened to delay my plane for nearly six hours) eventually I got
to Chicago only an hour or so late.  We stayed in Chicago that night,
where Peter has a condo (on the 36th floor of a building with a
gorgeous view of Lake Michigan) with my cousin who has just started
grad school at the Art Institute of Chicago and then drove to
Mishawaka IN, where my uncle lives, the next day (it's about a 2 h
drive).

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3800250&l=3c928e8d35&id=570906321

The first thing to note is that this is the first time that I've been
in Indiana during the Fall.  While I think that I've commented on how
different it is here to Australia (with respect to leaves changing
colour, etc) it really was highlighted by the trip down.  We would
pass stands of trees with colours in the same area ranging from
bright green through yellow and orange even up to scarlet in some
cases.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3800251&l=b82111cfd3&id=570906321

Along with going to the football, this was a good chance to see my
family who I haven't seen since I was visiting the US in February of
this year - I have two cousins (Joanne and Stacey) who were both
going to be in Mishawaka that weekend (Stacey normally lives in
Columbus OH, Joanne just moved to Chicago) because they were looking
at bridesmaid's dresses (Peter is getting married in July 2010).
Their husband and boyfriend, respectively, came because there were
football tickets on offer!

The six of us (Becca, myself, my cousins and their partners) traipsed
out to the stadium on Saturday afternoon.  It was a shocking day to
be outdoors, with light rain for much of the day and a maximum of
about 5 degrees celcius.  But the atmosphere was pretty impressive as
the stadium, which holds 80000 people was full (though no seats were
under cover).  Whilst not by any stretch the strongest two teams in
the nation, this is a rivalry which goes back quite a while and has
also provided a lot of close matches.  Plus, these are the two
biggest catholic schools in terms of football programmes.  A large
number (depending on which source at BC you read, between 4000 and
10000) of students from BC travelled over to see the game and they
were sitting very near us in the 'away fans' section.  We had seats
behind the goals about halfway up - it was interesting to have
another perspective as they were different to where I'd sat
previously.  It was also interesting being there dressed in Boston
College kit (and with my cousins and their partners in ND gear)!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3800320&l=c47d2d3be5&id=570906321

[I asked the guy I'm working with here why so many students travelled
over for the game.  He pointed out that, along with the rivalry, most
of these students went to catholic high schools and so BC and ND were
amongst the top choices for colleges.  Hence, many of them went over
to spend the weekend with friends they knew and would just sleep on
the floor of their dorm room.]

It is worth noting that the end we were at faced the famous mural of
Jesus on the ND library.  It's well known as 'Touchdown Jesus'
because it portrays Jesus with his arms raised, much as a football
referee in signalling a touchdown.  This is not helped by the fact
that it is clearly visible over the end of the stadium near the
scoreboard.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3800321&l=e663688cd4&id=570906321

Another oddity came when listening to the marching band.  This is
massive (see photos from before the game) and very impressive.
During the halftime entertainment, they played music which I would
never consider as 'standard' marching band music.  For example, the
work of Styx and OK Go (particularly "Here it Goes Again", best known
to many of you as 'the song in the treadmill video on youTube').  The
marching was impressive though.  The band were also lead on by a guy
in a leprechaun costume (Notre Dame are "The Fighting Irish" ... I've
no idea either).

However, the hardest thing of all was when they played the Notre Dame
Victory March (no, this is not a spoiler of the result, they play it
at various stages during the game).  The thing is, that most people
reading this will know it ... because its the same as the Sydney
Swans Club Song!!!  It's very odd because the music is identical and
the overlap in words is very, very striking.  I'm assuming the Swans
pinched it and modified it, but I'm not sure when.  Anyway, not
singing along (even with what might have been construed as the wrong
words) was difficult.

[Sidenote:  A little digging says that the Port Adelaide Magpies in
the SANFL also used this ... I'm surprised a couple of you didn't
point this out to me before now!]

The game itself was very close and swung to and fro the whole time.
BC had most of the ball but kept coughing it up whilst ND seemed to
be able to move the ball at will when in their half and then lose it
completely when they got nearer the BC goalline.  While not
necessarily a great spectacle it was really tight until the end (BC
came up with some mammoth plays towards the end in an effort to stay
in the game but losing the ball with 90 secs to go meant it was all
over).  In many ways, it was a bit sad as there is talk that this
game will not show up in subsequent seasons (scheduling being a very
odd thing in college football) and it means that ND lead the series
overall 10-9.

More generic football photos can be found in the album ...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=156459&id=570906321&l=d4aa19477d

That evening we went to a local pub at which Peter is very much a
regular.  When I say that, I mean he eats there every week on a given
night.  Pub understates it, it really is a pub-restaurant and it is
adorned with more ND football paraphenalia than you could possibly
imagine.  Maury, the owner, is heavily involved with the U of Notre
Dame and actually caters for the entire football squad (I assume
something in the order of 100 people) three times a week, along with
being involved with catering for the hockey, basketball and
volleyball teams.  Oh, and he's catering for Peter's wedding in July.
I got a couple of strange looks from him (as I was still wearing BC
gear - and maroon and gold stick out in a field of blue, green and
gold) but I think I got away with it because (a) ND won and (b) I was
with Peter.

One thing that the pub do though is to frequently play the ND Victory
March over the speakers (along with other college fight songs, on
request).  For this reason, the words are written on the back of the
menu (photo to follow shortly - check out album above later today or
tomorrow).  Maury did play the BC college song once for me (and a
couple of people in the back of the pub cheered quietly) but then
played the victory march again to 'cleanse the system'.

The remainder of the weekend was pretty uneventful.  I did travel up
to Chicago on Sunday with Becca so she didn't have to do the drive
alone (she had to get back to DC as she was leaving for a conference
in California on Monday - and working for the government they would
only fly her out of DC) and then back to Mishawaka to hang out with
my family for another day.  I managed to bruise my arm on the
bowstring of my cousin Joanne's new bow, but that's almost the extent
of my excitement for the remaining days.

Finally from the trip was a weird sighting on the plane.  Entering
the flight from Chicago to Boston  in front of me was Liz Ellis,
former Australian Netball goalkeeper and captain (and semi-regular on
the Glass House).  I am fairly sure that noone else on the plane
(except the group of people she was travelling with ... obviously)
would have recognised her.

To finish off this week, something that some of you will already know
but the others will hopefully find amusing.  Recently, I was part of
the team that wrote up a paper for the journal PhysChemChemPhys.  We,
somewhat tongue in cheek, had included a couple of Lewis Carroll
references due to the fact we were looking at rates of nucleophilic
aromatic substitution (SNAr k!).  Brilliantly, the paper got accepted
with the only requirement (on this count at least) was to reference
Lewis Carroll in a footnote.

I never thought that I'd be able to have the final two references of
a scientific paper be "Through the Looking Glass" and "The Hunting of
the Snark"!

Next week, the rather bizarre celebration that is Halloween.

--

Dr Jason Harper                                 Present Address:
School of Chemistry                             Merkert Chemistry Centre
University of New South Wales                   Boston College
Sydney NSW 2052                                 Chestnut Hill  MA 02467-3860
AUSTRALIA                                       USA
UNSW CRICOS Provider Code 00098G