...but mainly the former.
Apparently my blog is a bit more popular than I thought, and it seems I have offended Mariana from Argentina! She apparently didn't like my post about setting out to prove that all stereotypes are in fact true, and had this to say about it:
"you are an asshole and an idiot to believe all stereotypes are true. People like you should just die, and in doing so, make this place a better world."
I'd like to apologize for offending her. I guess that while I was busy ruining the world I forgot that people who wish death on others "make this place a better world."
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Pre-Days 8-11 - Almost There...
Not much new to write about. Thursday was a pretty busy day, we started later than usual and were supposed to have a safety seminar but the lady that does it had something come up, so we went to the "Palmetto Pig," an all you can eat BBQ buffet. Being that the place is called the Palmetto Pig you can imagine there wasn't too much for me to eat there, but I still managed to load my plate up with food I was probably gonna waste.
After lunch we went back to campus to study some Japanese, and then had a pretty exhausting Japanese class where we watched some more outdated Japanese culture videos.
After class, since apparently we hadn't eaten all that we could eat earlier, we went to the Olive Garden for some neverending pasta bowls which, due to neverending salad and breadsticks, ended all too soon.
After dinner and a long, drawn out, and pretty uneventful trip to walmart, we went home and passed out.
Friday was maybe the most fun I've had since I've been here. In the morning we met Segawa-Sensei, a chemical engineering professor at Sophia University in Tokyo who was a big proponent of the program. Japan has a mandatory retirement age at 62, so he retired and will be moving to South Carolina. We all gave him a quick 5 minute biography of ourselves and then parted ways. After the biographies we had the usual lunch/do nothing/study/class routine.
After class Claire, Tim and I went to publix to get beer and cake for Joey's going away party that night. For some reason Joey could never remember the Japanese word for money (okane) so we wrote Joey "Okane" Kotarek on the cake along with some dollar signs. He was very touched when we gave it to him, but I think he started feeling a bit awkward when we cut out the dollar signs, put them on our faces, and took pictures of the "moneyshot." It probably didn't help when I ate the Joey and told him that Joey feels so warm and gooey in my mouth. I guess he better get used to it though, or things are going to be very uncomfortable the next 3 months.
Saturday and Sunday were pretty relaxed, my favorite pseudonym for boring. Saturday I went with Claire to watch the Oklahoma Washington game at a bar near the hotel, but didn't do much else. It is now Sunday, and me posting to the blog in the afternoon has both a purpose and a reason. The purpose is to give me something to do, and the reason is because I know my evening will probably be as uneventful as my morning was.
On that note, I leave for Japan in 4 days which is pretty fucking nuts.
After lunch we went back to campus to study some Japanese, and then had a pretty exhausting Japanese class where we watched some more outdated Japanese culture videos.
After class, since apparently we hadn't eaten all that we could eat earlier, we went to the Olive Garden for some neverending pasta bowls which, due to neverending salad and breadsticks, ended all too soon.
After dinner and a long, drawn out, and pretty uneventful trip to walmart, we went home and passed out.
Friday was maybe the most fun I've had since I've been here. In the morning we met Segawa-Sensei, a chemical engineering professor at Sophia University in Tokyo who was a big proponent of the program. Japan has a mandatory retirement age at 62, so he retired and will be moving to South Carolina. We all gave him a quick 5 minute biography of ourselves and then parted ways. After the biographies we had the usual lunch/do nothing/study/class routine.
After class Claire, Tim and I went to publix to get beer and cake for Joey's going away party that night. For some reason Joey could never remember the Japanese word for money (okane) so we wrote Joey "Okane" Kotarek on the cake along with some dollar signs. He was very touched when we gave it to him, but I think he started feeling a bit awkward when we cut out the dollar signs, put them on our faces, and took pictures of the "moneyshot." It probably didn't help when I ate the Joey and told him that Joey feels so warm and gooey in my mouth. I guess he better get used to it though, or things are going to be very uncomfortable the next 3 months.
Saturday and Sunday were pretty relaxed, my favorite pseudonym for boring. Saturday I went with Claire to watch the Oklahoma Washington game at a bar near the hotel, but didn't do much else. It is now Sunday, and me posting to the blog in the afternoon has both a purpose and a reason. The purpose is to give me something to do, and the reason is because I know my evening will probably be as uneventful as my morning was.
On that note, I leave for Japan in 4 days which is pretty fucking nuts.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Pre-Days 6-7 - Columbia...Not Nearly As Fun As Colombia
Well, the charm of this city did not take long to disappear. Columbia is kind of like the poor man's Gainesville. Sure both are large college towns in the middle of nowhere, and both have beautiful college campuses, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. While UF's success seems to have had a halo effect on the surrounding area causing businesses to thrive, the success of USC pretty much ends with USC.
My other complaint has to do with the trains. There are two separate sets of railroad tracks that run through the campus no further than a quarter mile from where I'm staying. They seem really cool at first, as though they really give the campus some sort of character, but after about a day of living in sight of these monstrosities I've decided the following--Adam Schwartzbaum and Pauly Shore are characters as well, and frankly I'd take bland and generic over excessive and annoying any day.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to happen to me the last 2 days, maybe even the last week, happened but a few hours ago as we were leaving the engineering building. We left the building and had just gotten into the car when this relatively well dressed black man walks up to the car and goes into his shpiel asking us for money. Ordinarily we probably would have just driven off, but this man comes up to us and immediately busts into the most incredible panhandlermonologue I'd ever heard. It involved squatter laws, pawning his and his wife's rings because he'd just lost his job (she was standing near by), and needing $11.72 more to make rent, and though he was probably bending the truth a bit we gave him some money anyways. Fuck even if we had been swindled, that man earned his money this night.
Bravo my friend, bravo.
My other complaint has to do with the trains. There are two separate sets of railroad tracks that run through the campus no further than a quarter mile from where I'm staying. They seem really cool at first, as though they really give the campus some sort of character, but after about a day of living in sight of these monstrosities I've decided the following--Adam Schwartzbaum and Pauly Shore are characters as well, and frankly I'd take bland and generic over excessive and annoying any day.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to happen to me the last 2 days, maybe even the last week, happened but a few hours ago as we were leaving the engineering building. We left the building and had just gotten into the car when this relatively well dressed black man walks up to the car and goes into his shpiel asking us for money. Ordinarily we probably would have just driven off, but this man comes up to us and immediately busts into the most incredible panhandlermonologue I'd ever heard. It involved squatter laws, pawning his and his wife's rings because he'd just lost his job (she was standing near by), and needing $11.72 more to make rent, and though he was probably bending the truth a bit we gave him some money anyways. Fuck even if we had been swindled, that man earned his money this night.
Bravo my friend, bravo.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Pre-Days 3-5 - A Long Weekend Part Deuce
Nothing brings cool people together better than their dislike for not so cool people, and nothing brings not so cool people together better than their like for engineering. Thus as you can imagine I feel that I've lucked out the last few days in that we coolies outnumber the bottom-feeders.
My first weekend over here got off to a pretty slow start. My Friday was rather uninteresting and consisted of dinner at Zaxby's followed by some TV and an early night's sleep.
Saturday morning began with Claire and I getting breakfast at IHOP, which was followed by a few hours of me studying Japanese, which after about an hour became me trying to find anything I could do to divert myself from studying Japanese. My Saturday began to look much like my Friday night until Claire called me to see if I wanted to watch the Oklahoma game with her (the UF game wasn't playing here). We called in some pizza and walked over to Green's, the liquor store on campus, (awesome, I know) to pick up a liter of Morgan, which we killed over the next 4 hours.
After the OU game I got a bit of a sweet tooth and we ordered some key lime pie, which came with a side of shards of ice and some freezer burn. I guess I was wrong to expect the restaurant at the Holiday Inn to make, or in our case defrost, anything better than a sub-par key lime pie, but I went downstairs to return it anyway. After watching a bit more football I decided to go back to my room and pass out.
Sunday Tim came back from Clemson and invited us to a friend's 21st birthday party (apparently they have a University Commons over here as well). Somewhere between breakfast at Firehouse and lunch at Moe's (apparently they don't believe in red and blue tortilla chips in South Carolina), I learned a bit more hiragana. This will be one of my alphabets for the next 3 months:
After getting about 60% of the hiragana down it was time to head to the party where we merilly celebrated some kid's 21st pseudo-birthday (I call it a pseudo-birthday because I'm convinced he was lying and it was really his 12th). People began trickling in including a guy named Pete, who had spent 9 months in Japan, and another Dane, who was pretty cool but definitely not cool enough to justify the confusion he caused.
Pete basically told us that the "proper" Japanese that we were learning we'd probably never use, which is always reassuring. He did however teach us dirty Japanese words which we'll almost certainly use. Perhaps most importantly however, though obviously not too necessary, he reaffirmed what we'd known all along--Japan will be awesome. After the beer ran out we headed home and I went to sleep.
Which brings us to Monday. Basically, more lunch at Moe's, more hiragana (about 90% proficcient), dinner at Mellow Mushroom, and the FSU vs. UM game.
10 days to Japan.
Dane out.
My first weekend over here got off to a pretty slow start. My Friday was rather uninteresting and consisted of dinner at Zaxby's followed by some TV and an early night's sleep.
Saturday morning began with Claire and I getting breakfast at IHOP, which was followed by a few hours of me studying Japanese, which after about an hour became me trying to find anything I could do to divert myself from studying Japanese. My Saturday began to look much like my Friday night until Claire called me to see if I wanted to watch the Oklahoma game with her (the UF game wasn't playing here). We called in some pizza and walked over to Green's, the liquor store on campus, (awesome, I know) to pick up a liter of Morgan, which we killed over the next 4 hours.
After the OU game I got a bit of a sweet tooth and we ordered some key lime pie, which came with a side of shards of ice and some freezer burn. I guess I was wrong to expect the restaurant at the Holiday Inn to make, or in our case defrost, anything better than a sub-par key lime pie, but I went downstairs to return it anyway. After watching a bit more football I decided to go back to my room and pass out.
Sunday Tim came back from Clemson and invited us to a friend's 21st birthday party (apparently they have a University Commons over here as well). Somewhere between breakfast at Firehouse and lunch at Moe's (apparently they don't believe in red and blue tortilla chips in South Carolina), I learned a bit more hiragana. This will be one of my alphabets for the next 3 months:
After getting about 60% of the hiragana down it was time to head to the party where we merilly celebrated some kid's 21st pseudo-birthday (I call it a pseudo-birthday because I'm convinced he was lying and it was really his 12th). People began trickling in including a guy named Pete, who had spent 9 months in Japan, and another Dane, who was pretty cool but definitely not cool enough to justify the confusion he caused.
Pete basically told us that the "proper" Japanese that we were learning we'd probably never use, which is always reassuring. He did however teach us dirty Japanese words which we'll almost certainly use. Perhaps most importantly however, though obviously not too necessary, he reaffirmed what we'd known all along--Japan will be awesome. After the beer ran out we headed home and I went to sleep.
Which brings us to Monday. Basically, more lunch at Moe's, more hiragana (about 90% proficcient), dinner at Mellow Mushroom, and the FSU vs. UM game.
10 days to Japan.
Dane out.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Pre-Day 2 - A Long Weekend
Well I had a post, but it got lost, so I'll give a quick run down of my day because I don't feel like typing another one:
Woke up at 6AM when some weird guy who looked like this
walked into my room randomly, looked around, and left. I guess I'll go find out what the hell that was about a bit later.
Went to Ashley's office with the other REU students and looked at pictures and things from her trip.
Went to lunch at a Jimmy John's Knockoff.
Took a half hour nap.
Went to the Japanese language lab for an hour to go over the previous day's lesson.
Learned more Japanese with Sakakibara-Sensei for the next 3 hours.
Ate at Zaxby's for dinner, it was subpar.
Came back to the room to relax a little.
Some time in between there I found out that the "A" in "A-Beta Complex" stands for amyloid, and Amyloid-Beta is a protein that is the main constituent of amyloid plaques in the brain of Alzheimer's patients, so my research seems like it will be loosely related to Alzheimer's.
Not sure what I'm gonna do this weekend. Looks like sleep, Japanese (particularly practicing my hiragana), and hopefully a little crunkage somewhere in between.
It's gonna be a long weekend.
Dane-San out.
Woke up at 6AM when some weird guy who looked like this
walked into my room randomly, looked around, and left. I guess I'll go find out what the hell that was about a bit later.
Went to Ashley's office with the other REU students and looked at pictures and things from her trip.
Went to lunch at a Jimmy John's Knockoff.
Took a half hour nap.
Went to the Japanese language lab for an hour to go over the previous day's lesson.
Learned more Japanese with Sakakibara-Sensei for the next 3 hours.
Ate at Zaxby's for dinner, it was subpar.
Came back to the room to relax a little.
Some time in between there I found out that the "A" in "A-Beta Complex" stands for amyloid, and Amyloid-Beta is a protein that is the main constituent of amyloid plaques in the brain of Alzheimer's patients, so my research seems like it will be loosely related to Alzheimer's.
Not sure what I'm gonna do this weekend. Looks like sleep, Japanese (particularly practicing my hiragana), and hopefully a little crunkage somewhere in between.
It's gonna be a long weekend.
Dane-San out.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Pre-Day 1 - I'm Learning Japanese I Think I'm Learning Japanese
Before you pat my back for the witty twist on an 80's classic, I'll admit I thought about this post 2 months ago and have been waiting ever since to make it. If you still think it's pure genius, I guess I'll accept the recognition.
Today was the first official day of the program, and as you can imagine I was pretty keen on finding out more about what the hell I'll be doing for the next 3 months.
9AM: Orientation
Luckily I set two alarms because the one at the hotel didn't go off (go figure). Being that this was technically my first day of school I decided to dress my best; jeans and a t-shirt it is. I got ready pretty quickly which left me with some time to read my e-mail, which is a good thing because had I not I would have never learned how to
The orientation was brief but interesting. They explained the purpose and history of the program, things we could expect, and other miscellaneous information.
10AM: Walking Around
After the orientation, Ashley (the REU coordinator), Claire (aforementioned participant), and I went around the building to meet people and for me to get better acquainted. Apparently Claire knows everyone, so it was really more Ashley and I watching her catch up with people, which was rather entertaining to be honest.
Noon: Lunch
Lunch was pretty uneventful. I met my advisor, Dr. Bender, and had to bite my tongue to avoid making Futurama references.
2PM-5PM: Japanese Lesson
After lunch we went over to the other side of campus to meet Sakakibara-Sensei for our first Japanese lesson. Tim (one of the other REU's) and I had a relatively easy time for the first lesson since we'd both done some lessons on mp3's ourselves, but it's always fun to see someone struggle with the language for the first time. Words like "hajimemashite" become "nanawakam...no no, this isn't right at all, what was I saying?" I had to stop myself from laughing because I kept thinking of the scene in Office Space:
Bob Porter: We'll be getting rid of these people here... First, Mr. Samir Naga... Naga... Naga... Not gonna work here anymore, anyway.
After Japanese class we went back to the hotel and took a bit of a break, went to watch the USC game, and then came back to the hotel where I'm about to finish this post to go brush up on my Japanese. Sayonara.
Today was the first official day of the program, and as you can imagine I was pretty keen on finding out more about what the hell I'll be doing for the next 3 months.
9AM: Orientation
Luckily I set two alarms because the one at the hotel didn't go off (go figure). Being that this was technically my first day of school I decided to dress my best; jeans and a t-shirt it is. I got ready pretty quickly which left me with some time to read my e-mail, which is a good thing because had I not I would have never learned how to
"Show your girl a huge explosion as I used to do Buy this product now and all women will be yours It’s the best thing you had ever seen!"After finding out a bit more about the Nigerian Prince who wants to give me half of his $15,000,000 inheritance I got a call from Claire, one of the other REU participants, and we decided to go to orientation together.
The orientation was brief but interesting. They explained the purpose and history of the program, things we could expect, and other miscellaneous information.
10AM: Walking Around
After the orientation, Ashley (the REU coordinator), Claire (aforementioned participant), and I went around the building to meet people and for me to get better acquainted. Apparently Claire knows everyone, so it was really more Ashley and I watching her catch up with people, which was rather entertaining to be honest.
Noon: Lunch
Lunch was pretty uneventful. I met my advisor, Dr. Bender, and had to bite my tongue to avoid making Futurama references.
2PM-5PM: Japanese Lesson
After lunch we went over to the other side of campus to meet Sakakibara-Sensei for our first Japanese lesson. Tim (one of the other REU's) and I had a relatively easy time for the first lesson since we'd both done some lessons on mp3's ourselves, but it's always fun to see someone struggle with the language for the first time. Words like "hajimemashite" become "nanawakam...no no, this isn't right at all, what was I saying?" I had to stop myself from laughing because I kept thinking of the scene in Office Space:
Bob Porter: We'll be getting rid of these people here... First, Mr. Samir Naga... Naga... Naga... Not gonna work here anymore, anyway.
After Japanese class we went back to the hotel and took a bit of a break, went to watch the USC game, and then came back to the hotel where I'm about to finish this post to go brush up on my Japanese. Sayonara.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Pretty Sneaky Cincinnati
I'm currently on the plane to Columbia, though I guess by the time I get the internet access needed to post this I'll probably be somewhere else.
The trip to Cincinnati was uneventful, particularly because I slept most of the way, but in keeping with my tradition of captivating an audience by talking about nothing, I thought I'd share my experience thus far on what is officially the first day of my trip.
Upon entering the Cincinnati airport I was very excited to be greeted by what I could only describe as an upscale Moe's, particularly because it looked upscale...
...and it was called Moe's. A little curious how Southwest had traveled so far Northeast (this originally said North but a quick google verified the location of Ohio...don't laugh, you didn't know either) I went in for further inspection, and was rather disappointed by the absence of my good friends Moo Moo Mr. Cow and Joey. You almost had me there...
...pretty Sneaky Cincinnati
P.S. Technically I'm now writing this from the Holiday Inn.
Also following the true spirit of this blog, edutainment, I drew a map of my travels thus far:
The trip to Cincinnati was uneventful, particularly because I slept most of the way, but in keeping with my tradition of captivating an audience by talking about nothing, I thought I'd share my experience thus far on what is officially the first day of my trip.
Upon entering the Cincinnati airport I was very excited to be greeted by what I could only describe as an upscale Moe's, particularly because it looked upscale...
...and it was called Moe's. A little curious how Southwest had traveled so far Northeast (this originally said North but a quick google verified the location of Ohio...don't laugh, you didn't know either) I went in for further inspection, and was rather disappointed by the absence of my good friends Moo Moo Mr. Cow and Joey. You almost had me there...
...pretty Sneaky Cincinnati
P.S. Technically I'm now writing this from the Holiday Inn.
Also following the true spirit of this blog, edutainment, I drew a map of my travels thus far:
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