In Russia...

... From the moment a son is born, the mother worries about the child dying in the army.

Apparently really bad hazing goes on in the Russian Army, and if you get sent to war, you return either physically or emotionally dead.



Singapore is so sterile. Thank goodness.

Happiness

Is a wireless connection in your room.

I return back to the world of on-demand internet. Woo!

Server down =(

Oh ya and someone is squatting on my fandingo website so I can't get pictures and other hosted stuff up. =(

And yes of course i'm too lazy to set up any sort of imagestation or photobucket account of that sort. It should be up soon, hopefully.

Paris internet

So i finally get to the Paris Uchicago Centre and get wireless access from school. Past few days have been very patchy, the wireless at the dorm doesn't work, and the comlab needs us to have an account to get in. Which we have to email someone to get. Logic? Logic.

Flight

Detroit Airport:

Upon landing after a short 48 min hop from Chicago filled with good-natured people (including a kid who always had to have the last word, even during the safety briefing, and a stewardess who obligingly went "okay honey, i'll let you have the last word and i'll just go about my business" (ironically)), I was given the impression that DTW was quite a tiny airport. it was nice and small and uncrowded and quaint, and it even had a fresh flower vending machine for the convenience of unfortunate people who forgot to bring something home.



Blundered around the airport a bit before realising that the northwest ticket counter was nowhere to be found (perhaps around the corner in that little nook there.......no.), i am redirected to the intra-terminal shuttle bus (which i narrowly miss) and head to the most damn amusing airport terminal i've ever been to, remembering that of course detroit is the northwest hub, and so of course they have an entire terminal to themselves. I realise asking the location of the northwest ticket counter was like asking where one could find salt water when you're standing in the dense rainforest next to the beach (all beaches have forests next to them, don't you watch Lost?)

Lots of time on my hands, so i take a picture of the nondescript fountain centerpiece. While i was lining up the shot, a monorail train pulls in. WTF?! it turns out that the 'tram shuttle' the map boards refer to is this cute little 2-carriage tram which runs the length of the terminal (78 gates) and is of course painted the northwest colours (i.e. a shiny red). Damn cute. i of course diss it and take a stroll down the length of the terminal to stretch my legs and check out the shops, in an attempt to find a nice place i could sit.

The first shop i step into (a tech and gadget shop, naturally) is selling this cool boardgame called hold-em poly, which is like monopoly with texas holdem elements thrown in. 'Way cool', i thought, and quickly moved on in line with the now-intuitive 'don't show too much interest when alone in a shop' school of thought. I head further down, and there's a shop selling Michigan trinkets, together with Michiganopoly and Spartopoly. hmm. Even further down in the token chocolate shop i find Chocopoly, and past that in the pet shop is Dogopoly and Catopoly. No bull. The whole place is a conspiracy of Monopoly franchisees.



Whatever. I head further down and stop to eat at PB&J, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich place. Think subway with less class and less choice. But it was so novel i just had to try it.



The menu allowed for the typical american level of customization (creamy or chunky? white, wheat, sourdough, cinnamon swirl? grape or strawberry or blackberry?) i elect to Choose my own creation with 3 toppings! and get a peanut butter, banana, and chocolate sandiwch. Now this complex order was probably so gastronomically impossible that it took 2 cashiers 3 minutes and 5 cancelled orders to figure out how to enter it into the system. Not that i was in a hurry, and they were all nice about it in the quaint unhurried unstressed easygoing midwestern style that i just might miss. Or might not. With a final "let me know how it tastes", the server dismisses me with my new sandwich. yummy.

The first bite was pure heaven. So exciting. Of course after a bit it turns out that the proportions were a bit off, so the large amounts of peanut butter gummed up my mouth in ways unforseen, and the bread was a little chewy and stale, probably from how they had no customers. Funky enough experience, even though i could have made it myself better and for a fraction of the price, but it was a spur of the moment farewell to PB&J sandwiches, and a hello to PB&J baguettes.

edit: I have since bought my own PB and J and bread for a grand total of about 4 euros. it'll last me about a week or two? hmm.

Abused children

So what's to say that some of them don't actually grow up stronger in the face of adversity, and aren't exactly emotionally scarred and traumatized and cowed into corners for the rest of their lives?

Beauty World...cha cha cha!

Pseudo Self-discovery

Because it is good to no yourself:
My Nohari Window

And of course to be positive:
My Johari Window

I always thought the Johari window was invented by someone called Johari.

Graffitti part 2

So sitting in quiet contemplation of two-constraint Lagrangian functions today, i notice that my favorite wall of graffitti has been painted over with a fresh coat of paint. Over which i guess people will start drawing and writing again, just as a blank canvas is inexorably filled with the sketches of artists. Artists who favour a variation of talents in variations of "fuck", "for a good time call:" and the occaisional haiku. Which just means the cycle will repeat itself; an endless race between young bright college students and the administration which wants to keep the walls (and the uni's reputation) clean.

So after a few coats of paint, we'll have a sort of paint/writing/paint/writing/paint/writing layer, which reminded me of the fresco paintings in Istanbul's Hagia Sophia which were covered over by Islamic motifs and words, and are now being uncovered. Maybe one day in the future when all the walls crumble, a future archaeologist will pop by and try to decipher those magic numbers which seem to give people a good time.

I didn't eventually solve that Lagrangian of course, but it didn't matter because after handing it up the teacher sent around an email saying sorry but that wasn't on the syllabus and he didn't know why he set it. I guess it really is a better policy to just skip questions you don't know how to do.