Corina's Visit

Corina flew in Thursday evening. She's a senior in high school and looking for programs in aerospace engineering. Although she'll probably stay in California (UC Davis and Cal Poly are her first choices), I thought we should bring her here for a look at Georgia Tech, just for comparison. This is a feeble excuse for having her visit us, but hey, any excuse works for us!

She's a delightful kid, easy and open with us. We hit it off extra well the first evening, when I pulled out two accordions and showed her how the damned things work. Her music training really shows - no problem with rhythm, and she instinctively determined the locations of keys on the right hand by feel, rather than looking at the keyboard (which is what I've always done!). I've been inspired to stop looking and to learn how to do it right myself. That will be a big help, since I can't see the lower half of the keyboard with my current favorite glasses...

Within about an hour she was playing "Holiday Waltz" almost without error and was well along with "The Brave Cowboy". How is it that these accordion masterpieces aren't on the radio every day? Or at least on YouTube?

She and I toured the campus yesterday morning. First an interview with the Undergraduate Advisor in the School of Aerospace Engineering, Dr. Sankar. Teresa, a 13-year old from Missouri, and her dad were there too. He lives in Atlanta, and Teresa's going to go to high school here. Dr. Sankar was charming, witty and informative, but the interview was in an undecorated windowless small conference room in the double-ugly cinder block Guggenheim Building.

Then on to the Bill Moore Student Success Center, under the west stands of Bobby Dodd stadium. We got to gaze over the football field from the presidential suite, and Corina imagined herself marching and playing trumpet with the GT Marching Band. Only four student/parent pairs showed up for the slide show and pitch by a charming guy who serves on the Admissions Committee. Couldn't tell if he was a student or a young staff member. (We missed the first couple of minutes when he introduced himself.)

Finally the walking tour across the cold, sunny campus. I learned a few things, like the fact that several of the buildings have exterior design features related to the disciplines inside: the bands of bricks around the Manufacturing Research Center do look like conveyor belts after you're told to look for them, and you don't even have to squint to see that the north façade of Boggs is at least shaped like the periodic table (again, once you're told...). The guide, a senior ME major, exagerrated the George P. Burdell stories a lot, but I suppose that's appropriate. Still, it's hard to believe that he was ever a finalist for Time's Man of the Year.

Lunch at Octane. Marie wanted us to do the Cyclorama, but I insisted on a 30 minute nap, so we came home. I slept nearly an hour, and Corina was zonked for the rest of the afternoon.

Dinner at the Woodside Grill was delightful, though they're clearly really struggling. Excellent food, but high prices and a lousy location. Hard to imagine many people paying $50+ apiece for dinner when there are a string of "Adult" businesses so near.

We closed the evening with "Slumdog Millionaire", a film I enjoyed immensely. I'll have to see it again before I can decide whether it's really a great film, or just a really good one.

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Saturday was a lazy morning, lunch at down-and-dirty Daddy D'z, and a tour of the exhibit of the terra cotta army of Emperor Qin's tomb at the High Museum, dinner in the mezzanine at Dogwood (a new place on Peachtree a couple of blocks south of North; very nicely reminiscent of Bottega in Birmingham), then accordion practice before bed.

Sunday morning a cold walk to the Flying Biscuit for breakfast, then through Piedmont Park home, an hour of accordion practice, and then to the airport to bid our GREAT niece adieu!