On Tuesday December 9, Patrick Min returned to defend his thesis. At breakfast at PJ's (finest restaurant in Princeton) he demonstrated a unique notion of cappuccino and then we were off to his defense nicely monitored by Tom Funkhouser his advisor.

On Thursday, I had another lunch group consisting of Left to Right: Beatrix Colomina (Architecture), Michaela Hau (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology), Wendy Heller (Music), Ronnie Sircar (Operations Research and Financial Engineering), Alan Mann (Anthropology), Marina Brownlee (Spanish and Portugese Languages and Cultures), and David Howell (East Asian Studies and History) and again though the focus was not as good this time. Later that day, I spoke with Jeremy Adelman (History) and Hiasashi Kobyashi (Electical Engineering) about various aspects of campus life.

On Sunday (12/14), I continued assembling the last 3 decades of the penny sculpture getting the 10th decade started and observing that the 9th and 8th were working well as were the first 7 though a little support in decade 7 would be good.