Question, what does every university have too much of? Answer, paperwork!

This Tuesday was one of the crummiest days I've had since getting here. It was the day that I first encountered the fascination Cardiff University has with big, bulky, bloated, buckets of paperwork. I thought I'd seen it before, but oh no, things were just getting started.

First, to turn in assignments here you have to hand in cover sheets, pre-printed by your department and sub department. Biosciences in my case. This system is such that it functions, and no one in the department really knows why or how. This made asking questions difficult. Where do I find the rules for formatting assignments? In your handbook. Where do I get a handbook? Everyone has a handbook. How do they get one? When you're a first year. But I'm a study abroad student, what do I do to get one? Ask someone else.

After about two days of searching I managed to piece together enough correct information to find the needed cover sheets and the mystical wall of red boxes where you leave your assignment. The cover sheets were confusing unto themselves in that you need to know the numeric code for yourself (but that isn't your student number and is also not necessarily individualized), your class, major, school, etc.

There is a similar amount of confusion in the biosciences department as to how lab groups are assigned. The Professors receive the assignment from the undergrad office, and the office gets the groups from the Professors somehow. The groups are by numeric codes, which is another one of those things everyone has but know one knows who assigned it, what it is, or who to ask about it. This has resulted in me jumping some lab sessions just to be sure I manage to get a spot. Caroline, another Colgate student here, is in the same boat, so I don't feel like the only confused person.

Tuesday was crummy because a soda machine ate my change, and part of my knuckle when I reached in to grab for my coin in the little coin return bin. So, wounded (albeit very mildly, just very annoying to be powerade less and bleeding at 9am), I went in to my lab. Due to technical difficulties, it was cancelled after detaining us for several hours (we had a break but I still had to miss a class to be there.) Later that day our oven set my dinner on fire, one of my flatmates tried to have a party in his 10'X10' room right next door till 4am (meaning extremely loud music and signing drunks. Entertaining but only to a point), and a fire alarm that had the building outside in the rain.

Wednesday opened with mail getting returned. As it turns out many of the post offices are only contractors, so they couldn't tell me why the mail had been returned. The post cards returned were stamped saying to the effect that I hadn't written down the post code, though I had. I re-sent the cards as oversized envelopes. Chunk of the afternoon was spent wandering the bio tower working on finding and figuring out the cover sheets.

Well, now a few things on a positive note. I'm still having an amazing time here. I've now found some new nooks in the science library (located in the central tower of the main building) that are something out of a Harry Potter movie. Massive windows, narrow, cold staircases, and all beautiful. Some fantastically vile graffiti up there too. I won't reprint it here since this is supposed to be a semi-family show, but lets just say it involved lesbianism in the most pornographic sense. It sent to to describe some personal issues etc. If you're ever in Cardiff the desk on the top floor of the chemistry section is worth a look.

Met with a group I'm doing a presentation on windpower with this afternoon. Two Spaniards and one German. Really nice people. Interesting talking with them though it can be challenging. Trying to rephrase your thoughts in such a way to make them more understandable can be hard, but they're speaking in your language for your sake so its the least you can do. I'd sound awful trying to manage spanish, forget german. Really nice people and very smart. Its been great meeting not just people from the UK but other students who've come here from all over the world.

Well, I realize I'm rambling here so I'll leave it at that. Best wishes to all, and continued high hopes that post cards will reach you all along with grad school acceptance letters!

What a week

Man this week was awesome. We met this group of students called the Red Frogs (named after red frog gummy candy, like sweedish fish). They're great people. They organized a pool tournament for the dorm, but they also have done stuff with us like taken us to the beach and on friday brought us to this SICK Chinese restaurant and then bowling after. I have gone to the beach a lot but I haven't gotten this swimming thing down yet. And man are the beaches crazy. One beach we went to had lots of seaweed but another one was just gorgeous.

I think Wednesday we went on a cafe crawl where the red frog people showed us great cafes in Wollongong. I had some delicious baklava. After that I met up with the other Colgate people at the Glasshouse, a nearby bar and chilled there but decided to head home early at around midnight (although that's late for people here, I guess).

Saturday all the Colgate kids got up at 7AM to visit Australia's capital, Canberra and went through their war memorial and through their version of parliament (facebook pics up sometime...). That night we all went to the pub I went to the first day arriving here, the North Gong. I drank an entire bottle of wine and realized how low my tolerance had slipped to. Long story short, we got there, chilled for a bit and I could NOT stop talking in a Scottish accent. I realized this and actually tried to stop but it was too hard. We came back and Kevin guided me to my room.

Today, Sunday was the first day that the weather wasn't perfect. It rained today and although Sunday is a big going out day, I decided to avoid the thunderstorms and stay in. Besides I have an 8:30 AM class tomorrow and it is the first day of classes.

Speaking of classes, here's my schedule:
INDS 150: Introduction to Indigenous Australia
Lecture: Mon 8:30-9:30
Tutorial: Tue 13:30-15:30

MATH302: Differential Equations 2
Lecture/video conference (?): Mon 11:30-13:30 and Wed 9:30-10:30

PHYS325: Electromagnetism
Lecture: Tue 9:30-10:30 and Wed 10:30-12:30
Practical: Thu 13:30-16:30

Professor Soja's course is probably going to be on Thursday night. My lab was scheduled on Thursday with all the other Colgate kids. I wanted it on Wednesday to have a long day and have Thurs and Friday off, and have Soja's course on Monday but it didn't work out. At least I have Friday off, woot.

Alright I should get to bed. I don't know how the hell I'm going to get my ass out of bed at 7AM, but I'll do it.

Dangerous animal count: 1 (saw a spider in the park)

Misadventures make the best stories.

It's been another busy week here in Cardiff. For me it's been staying up way too late to watch Olympic hockey and other games, and doing work. Works really piling up at this point. I'm going to have 3 papers due in the 2 days before break, and a lot of other stuff before that. I also have a huge project due the day we get back from break, so I'm going to have to cut my travel plans short. I really can't get it all done before, so I'll have to come back early. A bit bummed about that...

Wednesday was one of those buried nights work wise. Some of the flat was off to a foam party in the Union. John and I stayed back doing work and watching the games. Turns out one of them got kicked out for getting sick, and he was delivered home by one of our other flatmates. The three of us took care of him the rest of the night (he was fine). Long story short, he was hilarious when he wasn't being sick. He composed quite a long song about cheddar cheese, and his grilled cheese sandwich that was now revisiting him. We recorded part of it, but we missed the best parts because we were laughing so hard.

Thursday was a lot of class and group meetings. All went fine. John and I were going to meet up with Owain (another old friend from Atlantic Challenge) and his girlfriend for curry night at the Pen and Wig (sooo good) but he ended up bogged down with a paper. So we went to Tesco to pick up groceries and dinner instead. Tesco ready packaged curry= not very good. But it all worked out, since we discovered that Lewis (one of my flat mates) was in a battle of the bands that night! So we all trooped down to the dorm pub to watch his band play. They didn't make it to the semi finals to play for the Summer Ball, but it was a great time. He certainly had a lot of supporters, some of them even made a sign. He was pretty bummed they didn't get through, but honestly I think part of it was the techs. I spent most of the show cringing at feed back and reverb that shouldn't have happened. The lights were nothing if not spastic. It was all I could do from going over and shoving them off the board, but I'm lousy at sound, I probably wouldn't have made it much better.

Friday was an all day field trip with my seds class to Ogmore-by-Sea. A cute little town, with the sheep wandering around without fences. Also had one of the most gorgeous beaches I have ever seen. We were there to track sea level changes in the past. There was the normal sandy bits, but there was huge limestone platforms, and some of the strangest formations I have ever seen. We climbed on all of them. There were massive sea cliffs, comparable to those in Ireland. I listened to a lecture standing in a tide pool, and watching the sizable breakers roll in under the absurdly strong wind (strong enough to blow me forward a few steps every few seconds). This area of Wales has the largest tide range in the world seconded only to the Bay of Fundy. We got there minutes before the tide hit dead low, and by the time we left 3 hours later it had climbed to well over all the places we had been standing. We looked at rare fossilized corals, both solitary and colonial, some over 1.5ft long, and giant brachiopods, crinoids, etc. We climbed over wave eroded steps from when sea level was 100's of meters more than it used to be, and flash flood deposits from when southern Wales was essentially a desert. As cool as that all was, I often got distracted by the giant living Chinese hat barnacles, and other tide pool creatures. The weather was all over the place as usual. Shortly after we arrived it misted lightly, which cleared up, turned back to mist, a heavy sprinkle, all out rain, then went away again. As we were walking back along the cliffs the rain drops began again and soon began to hurt. I was hiding under my hardhat at that point (yep, we all had to wear hardhats), and it took me a few seconds to realize why it hurt so much was that it was hailing pellets. The hail passed as quickly as it began and the rest of the day was sunny. We ate lunch in a sheep field a bit out of the wind. And after a bit more exploration and sketching we went home. Needless to say, I want to go back.

Today was our trip to the London Aquarium (since we didn't get to over V-Day weekend). Woke up at 5am to get ready to catch our bus at 6. Walked down to the student union where we were catching it, to find a huge crowd of Asian students. We were confused, and wondering if they were waiting for the same bus as we were (they weren't, we were on the wrong side of the street). They all stared at us. That's when the drunks showed up. Apparently they live under the union overhang, and scavenge the booze that gets left around from drunky students. They weren't overly threatening, but kept imitating the Asian students, and getting really loud. Their bus showed up a good 15min before ours. We skittered up the stairs hoping they didn't see us. However, they followed us up, and the doors were locked. We were cornered and more than a little nervous. We had no where to go but towards them back down the stairs. They said hello and asked us how we were, we replied 'good' while moving as fast as we could while trying to not look like we were deliberately running away. They let us by no problem and told John to look after me (or warned us against loose women, I'm still not sure which). They continued making noise, until they wandered back down the stairs and down the street. Our bus showed up shortly thereafter.

We got to the aquarium before it opened, but there was already a line. We finally got in, and they managed after a bit of work to find our ticket reservation. The only thing I can say about the aquarium, is that they should follow the practices of the National Aquarium and NOT ALLOW STROLLERS. Oh. My. God. I used to volunteer in a preschool and I've never seen so many SCREAMING kids. Not even happy screaming. 90/100 of them were throwing tantrums or trying to run away. That combined with the fact you couldn't get close to half of the exhibits because parents would just park their prams anywhere, really detracted from the experience. It was a lot smaller than I expected out of London, and definitely not the best I've seen. The walk through shark tank was cool, but not near as cool as Shedds' in Chicago. They had computerized signs that you could only read from head on, and only displayed one species from the tank at a time. It was really annoying. We were almost happy to leave. We wandered around trying to find a place to eat and settled on Subway. John has never eaten in a proper Subway before. I know, I was shocked too. It was a great lunch.

Since we got out of the aquarium so much earlier than expected, we decided to try to get an earlier bus back. Tried the office we bought tickets from before, but they were closed for lunch. To kill time we wandered into the local library to do some exploring. Small, but upstairs they had a sizable music library. Filing cabinet upon filing cabinet of sheet music for vocals and every instument imaginable, it was really neet to see. But no bathrooms. This country really lacks for public bathrooms. There wasn't one in the Subway either. We ended up wandering around the train station to find one, which cost 20p, the attendant ripped me off 20p when giving me change (not a big deal, but still), it was disgusting, lots of stalls were out of order and none of them would flush. However there were blacklights in the ceiling which made the toilet paper glow purple. We headed back to the office to see if we could change our tickets to find that it would cost just as much as it did to book the whole trip. However, we were told we could talk to the driver and see if he had seats. 2:30 rolled around, and I turned my baby blues on the driver. He was a Welshman named Gwin, and though he pretended he couldn't for a bit, he let us on. Right before we left, a rather obease man caming gasping on the bus beet red. Obviously he was running to catch the bus, and running was something he was clearly not used to. Of course, even though there were rows upon rows of open seats, he chose to sit right behind us. John and I were really waiting for him to have a heart attack. He was gasping for a good 30min. He spent the rest of the ride coughing on me, making gutteral noises, clearing his throat, kicking our chairs, and talking to himself. I'm pretty sure he was annoying a lot more people than just us. But we made it home with enough time tonight to get some work done. Or a blog post. Whatever.

Lost in the Mail

Hi all, though I promise an actual post soon, I just want to ask everyone to let me know when and if you get a post card from me. Royal Mail has been a it squirrelly so I just want to be sure the cards reach everyone. Several have come back in the mail and be re-sent. Thanks.

Endlich.

"It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression 'As pretty as an airport.'" The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

I left Hiroshima at 2:30 Japan time. I arrived in Dailan when I walked off the plane was held out of line by very sombre Chinese people for a while until they decided I could go through. Then I got back on what I am pretty sure was exactly the same plane. Then, we flew to Beijing. Then I waited from 6-something until 1:50AM to leave on the 10 hour flight to Germany. Then I had to figure out the Bahn (train system). After one transfer and twice getting kicked out of reserved seats, I am in Freiburg.

More later, when I know where I am and when it is again.

Hey can I try on your toga? Pleease!

Note that Sundays and Wednesdays are their going out nights.

Australians are cool people. And helpful. The type of helpful that you can be on a bus and say that you're lost and someone will help you. Except when they're drunk. We went to a toga party last night, but one of us forgot our IDs. So we took the 15 minute walk back to the dorm in our togas, and the entire way we got people driving by saying inappropriate things. Coming back was the same, and by the 30th car the joke got old. The party was a blast even if we had to pay $5 per beer, and some jackass stole my beer after i put it down for a picture. Anyway after the party we went to the beach to look at the stars. On our way back some old drunk dude started bothering us, so we pretty much ignored him and went on our way.
But the funniest experience we had was with Steven and Chuggs, two high school students who were drunk and high as a kite at the bus stop when we went to go get the ID. First they were talking about cones, weed and hard rock. They kept asking me to give them my toga because they thought it was so cool, but sadly I didn't give it to them.

The next day was orientation. That went smoothly. They had surf safety tips, stuff on their gym and internet quota. I bought internet (16GB per month for $30), so I don't have that much of a quota unless I'm on campus. Also youtube does not count against your quota (YES!). I got all my classes and I will have no Friday classes and maybe even no thursday classes! Well I'm hungry so I'm going to head out to eat. Over and out.


Dangerous animal count: 0

Road trippin'

The last week or so has been a busy one to say the least. I've got reading week for three of my classes this week (ie we don't have to go to them), so hopefully I'll be able to get a lot of other work done. I've got a lot coming up in March before break.

We've had a lot of birthdays in the group (with more to come). We did Indian food for Caroline's and went to a tapas place for Casey's. The last meal wasn't all that great and took 3 (!!) hours, but did involve the whole staff performing and making us all dance and sing, while Casey had to wear a coconut bra and grass skirt, with a maraca. Good times. The night before was the Lash PJ party with the flat. Those pics are up on facebook, but there were about a dozen of us (boys incl.) in pink and brown onesies with fuzzy giraffes on. Good times.

This weekend was one of copious group trips. Friday, Tristan (a friend from AC '06) was supposed to come by, but didn't make it. Hopefully he will in a few weeks. I spent most of the day being bummed, but got a lot of work done, and a lot of postcards sent out. Ended up staying up with TC and watching the UK win their first gold medal in 30 years. It was the skeleton race, and crazy to watch. I always get way to into the Olympics, which has been proving challenging to watch over here. I can only watch BBC coverage, which naturally shows mostly competitions that the UK has a chance in. This would be fine, but their biggest chance is in curling. Don't get me wrong, I love curling, and was super excited to watch a few rounds, but there are other sports in these games, it'd be nice to see them too. It also doesn't help that there's 1 TV for 7 of us (plus whoever else is over), so it's hard to find open time on it when the games are on. Online coverage is spotty, but usually works.

Saturday morning saw me up bright and early to catch the bus to Neath. Neath is a small town, which really doesn't have much going on for it these days. However it used to be one of the main centers for iron works, copper smelting, and a major colliery. Geier made us read an entire book about Neath Abbey and the surrounding industries that arose there (not too interesting). The trip proved to be way more fun than any of us expected. We breezed through the Abbey (after Tintern, nothing compares), and walked the 20min to the iron works buildings, which are in ruins. This involved walking a beautiful path in the forest by the river. Everything was green and covered in moss, just gorgeous. The main building was pretty boring, but I have to say standing in an old blast furnace was pretty neat. We then walked back up the river to see the waterfall. Ended up doing a lot of wading in the river, and exploring some other abandoned (younger) buildings. It was a little sketchy. The rooms were full of random machinery, torn bedding, bottles etc. We very much thought we'd run into either a body or a homeless person. Thankfully, the ceilings stayed up, and there were no unfortunate discoveries. We then headed to Aberdulais to see the waterfall there and the old tin works. Huge waterwheel that is used to generate green energy now. It was very cool, and the waterfall was really neat.

Neath Abbey Aberdulais Falls

The Waterwheel

Sunday was an even earlier bus, since we had a two hour drive to Stonehenge! We didn't get to do the cool before hours go in the circle tour, but it was still pretty magical. Not quite as big as I thought it would be though. After rounding it and taking a lot of pictures, we were off to Bath for the rest of the day. Caroline, Jackie, Caitie, Kristie, Casey and I all went to see the Roman baths that were just incredible. I really wanted to jump in (except for the sketchy looking red algae). We had bought combination tickets for the fashion museum, which we did a quick tour of, it was actually pretty interesting. And there are many pictures of the bunch of us trying on corsets and hoop skirts. We then walked to the Circus (not a circus) and the Royal Crescent. Caught high tea (hot choc and mind blowing carrot cake in my case) in a tea room before catching the bus home.

Stonehenge The Roman Baths

The Fashion Museum The Circus The Royal Crescent

I want my Feburary 19th back...but at least I have Reeses

Waking up on February 18th, 2010, I lazily got out of bed at half past noon and got dressed. I went to bed at 6AM, purposely depriving myself of sleep for the long plane ride. And man was it long. I got to the airport and went to get my tickets, but there was a problem. The airline didn't have my visa in their system...hmm. The lady called the Australian embassy and they didn't have it either. I printed out a copy of my visa and handed it to her. At this point I'm waiting for 10-15 minutes worrying about the status of my trip but luckily her last phone call came through for me and I boarded. I left at 5:30PM EST...and here is where the time zones get weird. Six hour flight (I believe) to San Francisco. I arrived at 8:30PST, and waited two hours to board. I snuck up behind few other Colgate people and caught them by surprise. We walk to the gate and wonder where the two other students who were supposed to be on our flight are. They literally arrived at the last minute before we had to board the plane. Left at 10:30PST and 14 hours later, I arrived at Sydney at 8AM, February 20 2010. I never have and will never see 19/2/10. Customs didn't allow peanuts but they let me pass with Reeses. I have a huge bag from Price Chopper and I was going to damn hell eat all of them before customs if I had to.

At like 11 I arrive at Wollongong and catch up with another Colgate student as he got off his taxi ride to the same dorm (what timing). Apparently there was some Weerona College tradition that involved getting very messy, so I skipped that and instead went shopping with Kevin Kurkul and Emily Weyburne. Went to the beach (GORGEOUS beach) and walked around and finally came home. Settled in for a bit and I went to meet my floormates, who are pretty chill guys. We went out to a pub and man is the beer good. It also feels really weird to be legal. Also grrr at paying for internet. $30 for 16GB for a month. Gaming here is bad but I need to get out anyway.
Here's a picture of a beach I caught as we landed.















Dangerous animals encountered: 0

London Pt.3

After falling asleep watching TV, we of course eventually woke up. That was possibly the worst bit of prose I've ever composed. There a rhyme, bit of an improvement. Zora and I had breakfast together after checking out of our room. Umi has a luggage room so we dropped our bags there. After breakfast we took a cab to Westminster. It wasn't quite like I remembered it. Amongst other changes it was closed, it being a Sunday morning. The Abbey is a cluster of several chapels around a central cathedral. Each of them would be spectacular on their own but together the effect is just more powerful. The whole thing is overlooked by Parliament and Big Ben. From Westminster we walked to Parliament to take photos, and listened to Big Ben toll noon. Very cool. That ring is an icon to say nothing of the clock.

Headed across the river to do more exploring and photo taking. The weather was cold and windy, and the water was kicked up along with it. Not a great day to be out, but you almost don't notice looking at the mindblowing detail of the Houses of Parliament. I have no idea how a mind could put together all that detail and all those mini-spires. Down the way we found the aquarium and due to Zora's sharp eye, gelato!

Having seen all we had time for and picked up a few souvenirs from a street vendor we walked back to the Abbey to hail a cab. This is when things started to collapse....

The driver had no idea where our hotel was, and despite trying to guide him using google maps on my iPhone had got very turned around and stuck in construction. He ended up leaving us nearly 20 minutes from our hotel. By the time we got back to Umi, called another cab, and made it to Victoria station (the wrong part of it due to a misunderstanding between the driver and myself) we had missed our bus. It took us awhile to walk with our bags from the train terminal to the bus terminal. A lot of stressing and being tired. Lucky for us we booked tickets on a bus leaving only an hour and a half later than our original.

We certainly were a bit more run down getting home than we hoped to be, and slightly later, but it wasn't a total disaster. With a bit of luck and a dash of grit we righted things just fine. Overall it was worth it to see some of Whitehall and the other big attractions. What kind of trip to London would it be without Parliament? Its small troubles like we had that make things fun!

Quiet weekend this week, at least for me. Best wishes to everyone at home, and good luck to those waiting to hear back from graduate schools! They'll be luck to have you.

London Pt. 2

Having a glorious day free of classes, I should probably post here, it's been awhile. I guess I'll pick up where John left off on our London adventure.

Saturday morning we tried to wake up extra early and failed as usual. John went down to scope out the hotel breakfast, which turned out to be free and very good. I went down when he got back, and we finally got out the door and walked to the Underground station. We figured it out relatively quickly, for it being such a big system. I think we only messed up once, and that just involved watching a train we could have taken leave and having to catch the next one, no big deal. We got off at the Tower Bridge stop, and took some pictures of the view that immediately greeted us. The line to get into the Tower of London wasn't too long, and we got the student discount, making the tickets almost reasonable. We hopped on a huge tour, and got led around. For those of you who don't know what the tower of London looks like (I sure didn't before we went), this is it:

It's a very cool fortress/castle thing. It's been added on to over the years, so there's a lot of varying architectural style. I think it's most famous for the prisoners that it's held, and as the execution site of a lot of monarchs, think Henry VIII's wives and Lady Jane Grey etc.

We saw the crown jewels, which were even more spectacular in person. VERY shiny. I also had my first encounter with London sentries, looking stoney, but also watching the crowd like hawks. Needless to say, we took Betty pictures with them. We saw the Bloody Tower, where two young princes were most likely murdered, a lot of famous prisoners were held (their carvings in the rooms were so cool), and also where torture was supposedly to have occured. We also explored the White Tower, which had a lot of neat stuff in it. Lots of suits of armour, replica horses, and weapons. Also discovered the base of the flagstaff, which apparently was sent over from British Columbia by the Vancouver Boy Scouts. It used to be a 159 ft. Douglas Fir, that has supposedly been a sapling in the 1550's, and now is the 85ft flagstaff. Very cool and rather random.

After we left the tower we took some pictures of the bridge and wandered back to the station after buying some postcards and booked it back to the hotel to get ready for our big night out. Called a cab which then proceeded to drop us off at the wrong theater. It was raining. I was in heels and a dress, no coat. Ugh. Luckily, we discovered after waiting in the wrong ticket line for awhile, that the theater we wanted was just across the street. But we went to the wrong door, and had to walk all the way around the block to get the right one. We picked up our tickets, and promptly brought an umbrella. A Wicked umbrella, which has a witches hat peak, it's incredible. John looked very posh carrying it around with his suit. We found a nearby pub to inhale dinner at, which wasn't too bad. Temporarily satisfied my salad craving (forreal not getting to eat enough veggies here, it's bothering me).

Our seats in the theater were in the dress circle but we could see rather well. I had to keep dodging around the lady in front of me who had big hair. We spent the pound to rent opera glasses, and I had a lot of fun spying on all the techies and actors taking their places (very poorly concealed for a professional show tsk tsk). The show was amazing, needless to say. I enjoyed every second of it. Caught the train back home after, and spent the rest of the night trying to thaw and watching silly British TV and a bit of the Olympics.

Nagasaki

The first stop on our whirlwind tour of Japan was Nagasaki. Aside from one night of walking through Hiroshima looking for somewhere to eat, this is my first real time in a Japanese city. It's quite a big place when you've been living in the country for a while (where country can be Masuda or Hamilton), and all of the traffic and trams were a little overwhelming. Across from our hotel, there was a huge complex built around the train station complete with movie theatre and Indian restaurant, the latter of which featured prominently in the first night.

Japan is not so big on spicy things, or at least doesn't have as much of a tolerance for it as I'm used to, so when we were asked where on a scale of 1-10 we wanted our food, we went with seven. Seven was in the 'hot' category, the highest of 3 categories, and we thought we were safe. We both spent the meal with our eyes and noses running. What I could taste through the pain, though, was quite tasty. Also, oddly enough, the place's name was Milan. We also found another Indian place of the same name in the city.

The reason we came to Nagasaki was to see the lantern festival for the Chinese new year celebration. Nagasaki is a port city, and so hosts more foreigners than most places in Japan with noteworthy populations from China and Holland. There are a number of signs with オランド (orando) on them, apparently that first 'h' wasn't too important. The Dutch people in Nagasaki were, apparently, responsible for all sorts of industry in the area. There is a park called the Glover Garden (which we kept misreading to be the Clover Garden) which showcases some of the original houses and provided some interesting information. I will summarize the bits I liked:

• Mr Glover: Mr Glover set up many industries in Nagasaki, providing it with its first steam engine and gravel road. He also administered a coal mine, apparently. More interestingly, he founding the Japan Brewing Co. - now known as Kirin Brewing Co. on whose products his mustache features as part of the logo!
  
• There was a section on the Puccini opera "Madame Butterfly," and the first actress to play in it. Or something. Let me know if you can make it out...
  
  
• Glover's son, Thomas Albert Glover, had a Japanese name: tomasuarubero groberu. Creative.
  

The Lantern Festival was really quite exciting as well. It was fun being an American celebrating China in Japan while drinking beer made by a company founded by a Dutch man. There was a performance by an orchestra of people playing some instrument that was something like a shamisen - but not. Notably, it was composed of probably 30 people playing the same instrument, a piano, and a flute. They also all played the same melody line (except the piano and flute), which was also sort of odd.



After that was the dragon dance, which was fun. That dragon's tail was always twitching, and oh how he wanted to catch that gold ball he was after. He chased it positively everywhere around that stage, and it always got away:

That was followed by all manner of people balancing all manner of things. Let me summarize in pictures:



The lanterns, of course, were really pretty too.

The Weekend in London

Okay, most important thing first I guess. Betty goes to London and two other albums are up on my Facebook page so take a look. There are a couple more photos that need to make their way online but I think that the hundred and something shots up there should do the trick. Feel free to ask me what things are as I haven't put captions up on most of it.

It was kind of a nutsy weekend but I had a wonderful time and I think Zora did too. My like last week this will all be told in a few installments since I'm pretty beat and haven't unpacked yet.

Got to London without a hitch, except for a lot of traffic. We had a little trouble getting a cab to the hotel Umi from Victoria station since the cab company that had a booth nearest our gate hadn't heard of the place and I didn't know the address. A Google search later we found it and were on our way. Umi is a small, budget hotel that is very out of the way. This was made worse due to the Underground being partially down for maintenance. If that weren't the case the hotel would have been perfect. It was clean, comfortable, and the staff were fantastic. We checked in with no trouble and moved in to our little room.

On the advice of the reception desk staff we headed a few blocks over to get dinner at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, a semi- famous restaurant that has won all kinds of awards for its food. The price was also great for London food. You walk in and are seated and handed a menu listing all kinds of wonderful burgers (beef, buffalo, chicken, veggie) and fries with sauce (besides ketchup blue cheese, sweet chili, satay, pineapple, and others are available), milkshakes (the oreo was amazing) etc. I had the satay beef burger, Zora the same but with chicken. The burgers were huge, thick enough to be a mouthful for me. Everything was done perfectly, thick and tasty. The fries were the size of my thumb, the blue cheese so chunky they broke off in it, and the sweet chili the right mix of spicy and flavorful. We had a great time.

After dinner we took a stroll and then went back to our room to indulge in an evening of British TV. We don't really watch TV too much at school so this was a real treat. We haven't done more than watch a few minutes over dinner since getting here so it was nice to be couch potatoes for a bit. We saw a lot of different shows. Never mind the Buzzcocks and How to Look Good naked were the favorites, though the music video for Cotton Eyed Joe came on so we had to pause for that!

Liquid, Carnage, and the Superbowl Pt.3

So what is Carnage? Well, Carnage is a pub crawl that has become notorious for its drunken stupidity (think students urinating on war memorials being the norm and you've got the idea). You pay for a t-shirt that lets you skip all the lines and pubs and clubs and then from late afternoon until you can't take it anymore you drink in as many places as you can. The goal is to collect signatures from each place on your shirt. This was superbowl Sunday, leading to some very empty lectures on Monday I might add. We had a fire alarm and just a lot of chaos in the dorm so I didn't make it to sleep until about 3am. Reminded me of my Stillman Hall days.

Not a lot of new news. Its been nice getting emails from some of you, please keep that up! Of course keep reading our blog. My student records here are just about fixed so now I need to set things up so Colgate gets a copy at the end of the semester. Owned my practical yesterday like a lynx does a snow hare (bio majors you must get the reference there). Most of the class did so poorly the prof ended up not grading it, which I was sad about since it was a cakewalk for me. Subject was the cold weather adaptations (mostly biochemical adaptations) of animal life.

Zora and I will be in London this weekend, where Betty might be making an appearance. Locations potentially to come include Morocco, Paris, Geneva, Freiburg and maybe some other parts of Germany, Croatia (maybe), Greece (maybe) and Edinburg. Some of this being depends on how often we get the chance to wash our shirts.

If you're curious my class schedule is:

Monday: 1-3 Environmental Case Studies

Tuesday: 10-12 Marine Conservation 1-2 and 4-5 Animal Behavior

Wednesday: No Class

Thursday: 9-10 and 2-3 Animal Physiological Adaptations 12-1 and 4-5 Population Ecology

Friday: 9-11 Animal Learning and Cognition

Well, lecture is starting again soon. Hope all is well with you back in the states. You're all very much missed. Though I love reading about your lives in emails and texts, and seeing you on skype, a part of me wishes I was there with you in the moment.

Liquid, Carnage, and the Superbowl Pt.2

So now getting on with the week I've finally, hopefully, got Registry to correct my record here to show the bio class I've switched in to. Once that's done I'll have to get them set to send my grades to Colgate but one step at a time I guess.

So Saturday was the beginning of 6 Nations Rugby. A big deal here. England beat Wales. Watched that for a bit in the kitchen at Zora's flat. I brought my laptop in with me to do a bit of work. I don't understand enough about how rugby works yet to just sit and watch it straight.

That night we introduced them to Kings. Fantastic results but Zora has photos so for the time being I leave that bit to her. Suffice it to say everyone had a wonderful time with that. We have plans to teach them Romanian at some point, and we should see if they known Aussie while we're at it.

After the party at the flat we all went out to the club Liquid in the southern city center (cab ride distance from our dorms). We waited on the sidewalk in the cold until everyone's cab arrived and then entered as a group. After little trouble at the door with our American ID's we got in and went downstairs to the club. At about this point I started to feel my chest tighten uncomfortably. I figured it was just from the cold so I wasn't too worried, at least not yet. Liquid is a bit more intense than Revolutions (where I went my first night). It has a TON of fake smoke and is much louder if that were possible. I continued to feel ill as we made our way to the smaller dance floor on the mezzanine. It may have been the wine, beer, cider, smoke, cold, noise and strobes, or a freak random thing, but I was in bad shape suddenly. I went from dead sober to head spinning and collapsed on a couch.

Luckily, Zora realized that I wasn't doing too well (she looked fantastic, best of the bunch). Instead of shouting over the music we talked for a bit by typing on my phone. I just got dizzier and dizzier and eventually we decided to leave. I feel horrible that we missed that night, it would have been a blast. Mostly I just feel bad denying Zora that. I'm glad she decided to take care of me.

We got back outside soon enough and stumbled around in the freezing cold trying to find a cab but all of them were taken. Eventually went in to a Burger King (mirrored walls didn't help either of us out). Somehow we found a free cab all the way back at kingsway (the better part of a twenty minute walk away) and got back to my flat. I collapsed. Felt fine in the morning, was never nauseous in particular but couldn't get any sense of equilibrium. I've consumed a fair bit before but never had that issue so that was kind of alarming. I've since had the better part of two pints and had no trouble. I guess just chalk it up to random experience.

Well, time for class again. I'll give you part three when I can.

Pick your poison...literally

When you hear the word Australia, what do you think of? Kangaroos, crazy accents, British criminals...and dangerous animals. To give you an idea, the box jellyfish can kill you in two minutes. 8 of the world's 10 most dangerous snakes live in Australia. Oh, WOMBATS are deadly too. They can topple you if they run into you. Blue ring octopus with no known anti-venom and stone fish with poison that isn't deadly but is so painful not even morphine can help. Well these things don't scare me, not even great white sharks.

Well I haven't left yet. Really? Yeah. I leave late February, so I've been at Colgate since January. You know, researching ways to wrestle crocs and whatnot. Actually I've just been playing Wii a lot. It feels weird not having any work and not seeing people who are abroad. At least I got to see the Super Bowl in the US. That's all for now, will post more when ACTUALLY down under!

Small Victories

Well, it's gotten right cold again, but after this morning, I couldn't care less.

It's going to sound silly, but today people actually sat next to me in class. That hasn't been happening at all since I started. The lecture hall would be packed and I'd have an entire long row to myself. I really don't think I'm that scary, I don't smell bad, it was strange. But today that changed. The girl who let me borrow her notes (30 pages I had to copy by hand ughh) and her friends filled my row. People talked to me during the practicle (beans: those who lived through Metro chemistry with me will understand the irony: can't let the kids have chemicals? give them beans! can't have live animals for an animal lab? give them... beans!). I also got second place in the plant drawing lab (draw a plant solely from its incredibly confusing latin/ecojargon description). I'm really proud of that, it was not an easy, and now that prof seems to have a bit of respect for me (previously a bit surly). It's funny most of my ecology labs aren't graded but most of them have prizes for the most accurate answers.

Not that they were bad before, but things are looking up all the same.

Liquid, Carnage, and the Superbowl Pt.1

Well, rather than re-tread old ground concerning the Superbowl I'll just say that we missed you all last night. We Americans made a fair amount of noise at the Talybont Social last night, and can you blame us with that win by the Saints? I'd say most people there last night were neutral or rooting for the Saints. Yes, we had pretty normal commercials so I'll have to track down the American commercials online at some point.

So on Friday night Zora and I went with her flatmates to a pub near our dorms, the BlackWeir. Two of the girls in her flat had boyfriends/ bf's family up and they came out with us as well. It was a bit louder than usual in the place so Zora and I had trouble hearing everyone, but eventually we got seats a bit closer to the center of the group as people gradually went home. The night climaxed with Lewis and I doing some wicked buzzed air guitar to Journey's "Don't Stop Believe'in". Several of us stayed up till 3am talking about American politics, the Iraq War, healthcare in the US, and trash in the Pacific Ocean.

Well, off to class but I'll add more a bit later!

Super Bowl Sunday UK Style

This is going to be short, because it's so late, but it needed to be done.

If there is one thing to know about the Super Bowl here: the commercials SUCK. Seriously, we saw the same totally lame Dominos ad in EVERY commercial break. I think we saw two commercials that weren't just lame/normal. One of them was Coke and the other Guiness.

It's extremely weird watching American football with British commentators, who were especially hard to understand. They also put them on in place of commercials, which was really boring. They also like to show the 3,000 strong London Super Bowl party, with American football cheer leaders performing. *shurgs*

There were 4 other Colgate kids at our dorm pub (how cool is that?), and pretty much the whole pub (including us) were cheering on the Saints. Some people were cheering whenever anyone scored. It was pretty funny to watch as entire groups would change alliance.

The pub's special Super Bowl menu was burgers, nachos and fries, typical stuff. I think in total the 6 of us went through 4 plates of nachos, 2 of curly fries, and 3 4-pint pitchers of beer, as well as a bunch of Coors Light, which was the special. John and I split a cider, and had a bit of the beer, but mostly just sat back and watched the others go. It was actually a good time, made me feel less sad about missing the parties back home. No one lost their pants this time, but hey, you settle for what you can get.

Yes We Kan

First thing you need to know:

So... Japan loves Obama. In America, we were excited about having our first black president, and all the exciting things we're still hoping he might pull through on. We don't really go around shouting, "Yes we can!" anymore. When I was in Middle School here two weeks ago, one kid used the slogan in class to respond to the teacher. Yes, he could do the assignment, but, they're quoting our president.

Second thing you need to know:

America has proper Kanji in Japan, but, katakana is cooler. So, America is often アメリカ. Also, a can, in Japan, can be called a kan, with the Kanji 缶.

Those things said, I give you アメリ缶 - The Amerikan:

Under the BaaS bit, it says "私は貯金すると約束します！" which means something like, "I promise to save!" And under that is the joke from above "アメリ缶「チョコレート」" Amerikan [chokoreto], I don't know what that "人り" means, I'll have to ask Sarah later.

I'm hoping to follow up with more on interesting things about stores in Japan, but, that involves getting up the courage to bring a camera into youme town.

The Joys of Being Sober late at Night

Bunch of guys using a shopping cart as a chariot. Drunk and actually peeing from their lofty stance as they went. Eventually they slammed in to the curb and one guy went flying. I'm reasonably sure he injured his wrist given its immobility and the angle he held it at. Had he and his buddies not run off because of campo's arrival I would have offered to try to help the wrist. It will need to be straightened and restrained if it was actually injured. I reckon he was too drunk to know.

So not a ton to report but a few quick tidbits.

After going through a very long phonecall and being forwarded all over the place, like three or four different departments, and waiting about 48 hours, I finally managed to drop my history class and add a biology class (population ecology). It will make Thursdays, and tomorrow especially, kind of nasty. I'm certainly not as up on the work as I wish I was. We're pretty much just supposed to work on our papers and read our textbooks cover to cover.

Prof Perkins (Marine Conservation) has offered to meet with Zora and I to go over our Diatom data and to help us publish it (maybe). Its certainly a nice offer. If nothing else some new eyes will be nice.

Otherwise things have settled in to a bit of a rhythm. Getting more adjusted overall. In the midst of work time Zora and I make dinner at her flat and hang with her roomates. Eventually we go back to our own rooms to do work. At least this week Zora has been coming to spend the night at my place. I've really appreciated getting to have that time with her, and that she would go out for the short walk to my place in the cold night weather. Despite all the new, strange and stressful stuff to adjust to its a bit of home I guess.

Well, that is all for now. Hope to get a buzz from some of you soon.

And Kevin, kudos on the show. I wish we could have listened to it. The titles looked good at least. Knowing your standards I'm sure it was some solid stuff.

Cultural Insensitivity

What's up= Are you alright? This can be a bit confusing the first time you hear it. You think you look ill or something.

Yes, cars tend to be smaller, though there are plenty of cars that wouldn't be out of place in the US. We happen to have an Aston Martin dealership just up the road from our dorms. That's a bit of a shock the first time you see it.

Spiked ciders and juices seems to be the most common drink. Beer is widely available but it is a bit more expensive for some reason. Lots of people drink it but it doesn't seem to be popular as a basic drink. Shots and wine or wine and juice are common too and often are cheap on student nights. A shot is about a pound here. Cocktails tend to be less than three pounds so they are popular as well. Girls tend to like wine and shots a lot more. Mixed drinks tend to have very little alcohol especially when girls mix them for themselves. Overall those of us from Colgate aren't used to the club scene and loud music, not to mention going out most nights of the week (as opposed to weekends), but we can for some reason drink the Welsh under the table if we want to. My tolerance is a time or two at least that of most of the men I've met that I would consider average drinkers here.

The clubs are mostly owned by the same UK wide chains. The experience depends on where you go. Clubs tend to have large bar areas and then usually a second floor for dancing. Some places are Japanese style karaoke clubs (like TigerTiger). Buffalo's is a quietish cocktail place if that's what you're after. The pubs are equally varied and tend to cater to beer drinkers more than the clubs. They are cheaper and have better food too. They are overall quieter, especially earlier in the night. Some of them closer to the dorms get louder at night with more students and young people. You sort of just have to accept that as it gets late if you were trying to avoid the noise.

People smoke a lot. Rolling their own is very common. The supplies are available and obviously its cheaper. People do not smoke inside though you do breathe in or smell a lot of smoke. I wouldn't say that it is more common here, at least visibly, than anywhere else save some big cities (a problem of concentration) or certain parts of Ireland (can't offer a reason there).