Fulbright Taiwan

Chinese New Year Photos

2010-04-12T16:36:00.002+08:00

I never posted links to any of the photos from my recent 4 weeks of travels. So here they are.

Kenting
Malaysia
Cambodia
Vietnam
Thailand
Philippines

New things I've done so far on the Fulbright...

2010-03-03T23:59:00.002+08:00

There are many. Over break I was keeping in mind a whole ton, let's see how many I can recall. An incomplete list:

- Drank out of coconuts.
- Got full-body massages.
- Got a 4-hand massage.
- Went to 5 new countries. 6 if you include Taiwan.
- Went to tropical places.
- Went to KTV.
- Lived on the 14th floor. I also spent a month on a 5th floor, with views like this.
- Taught junior high. And took them on field trips.
- Had notes written to me by students.
- Learned some Chinese.
- Danced a lot, to electronica.
- Learned how to ride a motorcycle.
- Crashed my motorcycle (twice in one day, but mom, don't worry, I'm all in one piece).
- Snorkeled.
- Hiked where I could see mountains and ocean at the same time.
- Lived near mountains.
- Lived near the ocean.
- Endured typhoons.
- Drove my motorcycle, in typhoons.
- Killed cockroaches.
- Got chased by a pack of dogs.
- Walked down a beach after a typhoon.
- Visited Chinese temples. Like this one.
- Took my motorcycle-riding ability, and used it in Thailand.
- Rode in many tuk-tuks.
- Was pick-pocketed.
- Saw monkeys, close up.
- Ate guava.
- Ate pomelo.
- Ate wax apples.
- Ate coagulated pig's blood.
- Ate many other new things.
- Picked pomelos.
- Dressed up as Santa.
- Experienced earthquakes, including one 6.4 from my 14th floor balcony.
- Learned to desire milk tea.
- Ingratiated myself into a club scene.
- Traveled on a high speed train.
- Went to a mountain psytrance party for new year's eve. Caught the sunrise.
- Saw penguins.
- Was in a foreign newspaper.
- Had thanksgiving dinner at the embassy.
- Went under a waterfall.
- Ate food boiled in a natural source.

Spring Cleaning

2010-03-03T22:10:00.003+08:00

So I've been back in Taiwan for 9 days now. Indeed, the new semester actually feels 'new and improved'. Such as...

- I bought a new comforter, new pillowcases, and new pillow.
- We got the apartment cleaned really well. I mean, the before and after is incredible.
- I got a new haircut.
- I have new clothes from break (shirts, polos).
- I got a new side bag (my DIS one fell apart).
- I went to new restaurants (one on the corner that owen suggested, the famous nearby 牛肉面 place, and some other brand new place that opened)
- I have a new Chinese teacher and another person in my class (last semester was one-on-one), and a new Chinese book.
- I have new students in my English club.
- I have a new tan, from break.
- I had my best Chinese week on record, somehow, after returning from a break in which I spoke none.
- I went for a run along 宜蘭河.

All in all, I feel very refreshed and encouraged.

I'm still hoping to get pictures from travels up soon...

Oh, the benefits of being a foreigner in Taiwan...

2010-01-14T20:09:00.004+08:00

Tonight after a pleasurable sushi+varied other things dinner, I go over to the Carrefour (large French grocery chain), where I need to pick up some bleach, a cable for our stereo, you know, the usual. On my way through the store (it routes you far enough in, you feel disconnected from any outside world), I notice Orange Soda. Grab 6 cans. Also notice large bins of various nuts. Sample them all. Decide two types of sweet cashews are best. Put some scoops into a bag. Head to check out, grabbing my bleach on the way.

Get the checkout, guy asks me if I have a store card, "沒有", if I want a bag, "我要", scans the bleach, picks up the unmarked cashews bag, looks at it curiously, sets it aside, scans the Orange Soda, slyly moves the cashews down the line. I pay 106nt, way less than it should be. 謝謝. “謝謝”.

Oh, Taiwan.

Kenting next week

2010-01-14T17:35:00.002+08:00

We're staying here. =)

In the local paper...

2010-01-10T23:47:00.001+08:00

CLICK HERE

A little spirit

2009-12-29T19:24:00.009+08:00

(The new Fulbright Taiwan website is now live and pretty here)

First, the following two pictures have been meaningful to my roommates and I, as they represent the ~1 hr trip to Taipei, most often, as it has been, by bus... through really really long tunnels... that is, by train around the mountain, it takes more than 2 hours, so they're rather large mountains...

A bit before Christmas in Taipei, we noted an Ocean Spray gig going on, including one stereotypical white guy for effect...

With Taipei 101 in the background...

好吃！

Here are two classroom worksheets from Thanksgiving that I find notable. The characters in the first one are "mei den lao" AKA mickey d's.

And some Christmas cards, which will speak best on their own...

Happy Holidays.

Clubbing?

2009-11-23T14:50:00.002+08:00

I'm getting lazy, or busy. I'm not posting nearly as much as I'd like to, particularly in terms of text. Photos are easy (though you'll usually find them on a linked public facebook page for my uploading ease)...

With this in mind, I am going to quote the most recent two of my fellow Fulbrighter roommate's blog. Both give a nice overview of what we often find ourselves immersed in on weekends...

Kevin writes (thanks, Kevin...):

Nov. 15 2009

Big weekend coming up

Friday night--11/20--is the Thanksgiving dinner at AIT (The US de facto embassy in Taiwan), followed by a HUGE techno concert with the #1 DJ in the world, Armin Van Buuren. Saturday night we're staying in Taipei again which means more clubbing.

Wooooah STOP!

What does "clubbing" really mean?

For my two roommates and I, we follow these five, simple steps which always translate into an excellent night.

1. Take the bus from Yilan to Taipei around 8PM

2. Eat the finest food we can find (usually an American burger from a restaurant in the university section of Taipei)

3. Head to a club at around 1030PM feeling refreshed, smelling fragrant, and surrounded by the familiar, auspicious air of being a 22 year old Fulbrighter in Taiwan.

4. We exit the club when they kick us out, usually around 3 or 4AM.

5. Then it's decision time.

At this point we're quite tired, amidst other feelings, and usually want to head straight home. But! And this is a big BUT...only a block away from our favorite club, LUXY, is the greatest geometric figure ever created--the golden arches of the one...the only...McDonald's.

So what's a Fulbrighter to do? A cab ride home runs us 1,200NT total--which is about $40. Divided by 3 that's still $13 a head (keep in mind we only make $1,200 a month).

The reason McDonald's is such an opportune post-LUXY hangout spot is because in the event we ask the golden arches for its services, we are also provided the convenience of sleeping there...until the buses start running back to Taipei in the morning.

I won't lie to you. I hate sleeping at McDonald's. From what I can remember it smells weird, the people are way too friendly at 4AM in the morning, and most importantly I can't get chicken McNuggets past 430AM because that's when they start serving breakfast.

So that's a usual Saturday night in Taipei. Clubbing, some Mickey D's, sleeping on plastic tables, then the bus at sunrise.

Here are two pictures--one from a random night in Taipei with Owen (orange shirt) and I conveniently in the middle, and the other from Halloween with my two roommates (Joe and Owen) and I dressed as "In dee on."

Nov. 22 2009 (note that this is follow up entry to the "big weekend" referenced at the beginning of the last post):

Many great feats have happened throughout history: Columbus sailed across the Atlantic, someone created the internet, air conditioning was introduced back in the 18th century, the Phillies won the World Series in 2008, and this past weekend in Taipei I had the greatest time of my life.

To say the least, this weekend was epic.

I ate great food, met even more great people, and to top it off spent Friday night polishing my dance moves with my two best friends out here--my roommates Joe and Owen.

First, the Thanksgiving dinner Friday night went from 6-9ish. The diplomats had us over to their residential building in Taipei and we feasted on everything American--turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, etc. and of course they had bread and caesar salad--the two staples of my diet back home in the Illadelph. The best part of the night was talking to the foreign service officers who are all really cool, really smart, and really honest about the pros and cons of working abroad for the state department. I also met my first ever celebrity,--defined here as someone who actually has a legit profile on Wikipedia--the American ambassador to Taiwan, Bill Stanton.

After wining and dining the night really got started when we rolled up to the club in a brand new, red, 3-series BMW equipped with none other than a diplomat license plate. So imagine me--tall, lanky, most importantly WHITE getting out of that car in front of probably close to 200 Taiwanese all waiting in line to get into the Armin Van Buuren concert, then just walking towards the front of the line. Ah, twas a brush with greatness indeed. Those 30 seconds really set the stage for the rest of the night.

Armin Van Buuren did not disappoint. He started playing at around 1AM and was onnnn point. The crowd was amazing and the main room he was in got so packed they opened up the second dance room and just streamed his music straight into there and put a live video feed of him jamming out on the big screen. It was absolutely one of the best nights I've had in Taiwan thus far.

Here's a clip I found on Youtube from the show on Friday night.
Armin in Taipei 11.20.09

Here are two shots from our Halloween a few weeks back. If you look carefully enough in the first you can see us dressed as Indians.

Best of all, I still have 7 more months out here.

Recent Happenings

2009-11-12T13:47:00.002+08:00

In Pictures (click)

Some older videos

2009-11-08T16:35:00.002+08:00

A few of us Fulbrighters in Taipei, having a typical sorta discussion. See description on YouTube.

In a northern outskirt of Taipei, there is a lunchtime streetmarket. Here's a long wobbly video of a trek through it.

Same streetmarket as above, but this time, running into a peaceful temple in the middle of it.

Ambiance in a temple.

Earthquake dreams

2009-11-08T15:50:00.003+08:00

I was on my balcony the other day, with my suitemate Owen, and it started to earthquake (is that how you say it?). We live on the 14th floor, so it seems that the building height dampers the frequency, but exacerbates the intensity. So it feels smooth, but long movements. We first wanted to stay on the balcony and enjoy the experience, but it quickly worsened and as we rushed to get inside, we found the door closed, quickly opened it, and, as if we knew why or what we were doing, sorta headed sorta-kinda into the hallway/staircase area. It was pretty scary. But pretty neat. A few days later, I had an earthquake nightmare where I was in a mall here (Luna), and things started to fall apart.

Today is Sunday, but I had to go to my school because there was something called Garden Party, some ceremonies, performances... and each class had a stand to hang out in and sell stuff. Like coke with dry ice (which I learned is called gan bing in chinese). Sometimes I got warm, because today, Nov 8, it was 87; so I went into the office. There was this little kid, a teacher's son, there, just being by himself, entertaining himself. He was scared of me at first, but I quickly overcame him with happiness and interest. He showed me how to shoot water out of a syringe. And how to make the calculator beep. After a while, maybe the second time I met with him, we started to show each other some words on the dictionary. I showed him "happy" and "crazy," and he then showed me "plod." What does this suggest, I wonder? Later in the day, I was outside sitting by myself (the school is just filled with people, both students and from the community), and a student walks by, and says, "you are not alone." I find this funny not just for the interpretation of my sitting alone, or the potential insight the comment suggests they might have, but also because a word like alone is not a word I expect any student to know. It's funny, the things students here do and do not know, in English.

2009-11-02T11:10:00.003+08:00

It's been much too long since I've made a significant post. Two weekend ago I went to Kaohsiung, in southern Taiwan, last weekend I went to Taijhong, halfway up the west coast, and most recently, I was back in Taipei last night for the Halloween Massive Godskitchen party. Additionally, I discovered a wonderful hot spring place.

This post deserves some length, but I'm feeling lazy right now. Maybe more later.

Kaohsiung: exploring a sub tropic-of-cancer city, one of the world's largest ports. Fun times at Lamp and at 85 Sky Tower. (Pictures)

Hot springs: in Jiaoxi, just a bit north of Yilan city. Open till past midnight. Multiple pools, multiple temperatures, multiple smells, slides, saunas, and my personal favorite, steam rooms.

Taijhong: Taiwan's third largest city, on the west coast. A great escape from the rain in Yilan, and a nice time visiting an English friend and going to Xaga.

Halloween: The biggest party of my life? Perhaps. Started in a park with the roomies outside of Taipei 101, moved to a huge techno concert, went absolutely nuts in our In-di-an-ren costumes, met a guy from Solomon Islands (where is that?), hit up another bar until past 6AM, enjoyed some daylight and a taxi-driver-recommended breakfast. Then took the hour taxi-ride back to our door.

2009-10-26T10:19:00.001+08:00

A pro-insider trading stance.

Be passive, my friend

2009-10-20T10:31:00.002+08:00

A new, but not-so-different than many others, article about why active investing is usually a bad strategy.

Something else interesting, but I'm not going to elaborate for you...

"On 23 January 2008 Yale University and Columbia University released the 2008 Environmental Performance Index at the World Economic Forum ranking 149 countries. The environmental experts at both universities concluded that "analysis of the drivers underlying the 2008 rankings suggests that wealth is a major determinant of environmental success"."

What booms are made of...

2009-09-30T15:27:00.006+08:00

This article discusses the culture war that does, ought to, or will exist regarding personal economic choices. In short, America has been wealthy for a long time, and unlike other empires has not fallen - what now?

Also, did you know that:

"In states where more people agree that “Even today miracles are performed by the power of God” and “I never doubt the existence of God,” there are more subscriptions to {online pornography}."

Subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where more people agree that “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage” and “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.”"

Apparently Utah leads the pack. Funny stuff.

Students are cute... here's proof...

2009-09-30T09:41:00.011+08:00

Pictures should speak a'plenty here. Students had to write about themselves and about me, as one of their first assignments.

I do like being rendered as an anime character. Also, I think I need to shave. And I apparently don't have a girlfriend because I "don't like woman."

Click them for larger versions.

Post-weekend briefing

2009-09-28T10:57:00.002+08:00

This weekend, I met part of my host family, cooked food in a naturally-boiling hot spring, swam under a giant waterfall, ate at an intense hot-pot buffet, visited a temple (and used the lucky charms for the first time), went to the world's "only true Chinese-palace style hotel" to look around and have some coffee and cake, and finally found Mexican food (and it was decent).

Pictures.

After yesterday, I think I'm becoming more peaceful. What will next weekend have in store?

Sunday Morning Ruminations, Part II

2009-09-27T10:46:00.001+08:00

Good Economist article noting recent developments in the arena of free trade.

The end of Ghost Month

2009-09-22T11:11:00.000+08:00

Just pictures

2009-09-21T18:48:00.000+08:00

I'm overwhelmed with maintaining my online self. So, just photos for now.

Twisters, dogs, and sweet potatoes

2009-09-15T12:59:00.000+08:00

I arrive at school this morning like any other day, perhaps slightly later now that I have my scooter, so the homeroom teachers' office is empty. I begin to populate my desk with my things, go fill my water bottle, sit down. It's only after a few minutes that I lean back in my chair a bit and notice the cute face just near my feet - a rather small dog, sitting, not entirely comfortable in its position this morning. We soon become comfortable. Eventually I have to go to my first period class, and upon returning I find the dog wandering among students - it is a stray, much younger looking that when I saw it under my desk. It's gone now. A good start to Tuesday.

I also shared some English tongue twisters with students (Purple Paper People, Sally's Seashells, and Woodchuck), and they shared Chinese tongue twisters with me. My pronunciation of the record I made of the students' pronunciation of the characters they wrote must have been horrendous. One was about a tiger clawing a drum and it needing repairing. The other, something about 7+1, 7-1, what is it? 7+1, 7-1, it's all 7. I was twisted.

Lunches here tend to be rather good, varied, and almost invariably include a hot or cold soup. My favorite soups are the sweet ones, and today it was a treat - sweet potato and "QQ" sweet soup. QQ is some sort of bubble-tea-like rice flour balls, but filled with some flavor like green tea, or tarro (sp?), which is purple. Tarro bread or cake is great. I'm not exactly sure what it is.

I need to head to 5th period right now.

Sunday morning ruminations...

2009-09-13T12:54:00.000+08:00

A good look at part of the healthcare in Taiwan.

2009-09-10T15:23:00.000+08:00

As a recent shirt said, "This is a Really Many"

Photos 1 -

Photos 2 -

Photos 3 -

I had an AWESOME weekend.

2009-09-07T08:54:00.000+08:00

From Thursday evening to Sunday evening, I was in Taipei with the other Fulbrighters, for orientation officially, and miscellaneous fun unofficially. Two consecutive nights of clubbing to wonderful techno (which makes 3 times in the last 10 days), coupled with a beautiful day in and on the world's highest building (wiki says: "It has been hailed as one of the Seven New Wonders of the World (Newsweek magazine, 2006) and Seven Wonders of Engineering (Discovery Channel, 2005"), melded together by a comfy hotel, led to fun, humor, and a sort of fully-engaging "I have no mental space for anything else" immersive experience. Refreshing and addictive, really. I have only recently internalized the fact that we can get to Taipei from Yilan easily by taxi, thanks to a 12km tunnel expanding my reach of experience. It's a welcomed surprise.

Here's a pic of me presenting at the Fulbright orientation:

Feel the officialness:

The five guys and FSE staff:

I'm feeling behind on many things, which I interpret as positive, as it means that I have many worthwhile things going on.

Apparently the color yellow means something here... students found it funny when another student claimed it as his favorite color in class.

To close,
A shirt:

BACK: "ready yourself"
FRONT: "There are already many things on your mind. put birth control ON YOUR BODY."

People don't care what shirts say here. As long as they are in English.

Short update

2009-08-31T19:12:00.001+08:00

I'm finally settled into my year's apartment, a 14th floor with roof access! Great views, and a great layout, and great roommates for sure. I taught my first class today at one of the two junior high schools at which I'll be teaching. I failed my scooter test last week (the driving, not the writing) and will take it again this Wednesday. And I had a superb Friday night clubbing in Taipei....

All in all, good things are happening.

Hiking Photos

2009-08-25T22:39:00.000+08:00

This weekend consisted of hiking, a lost attempt at a post-hike clubbing adventure in Taipei (too exhausted), and some time at the beach.

Because a number of pictures have people in them, and because there are a number of pictures, they are on facebook (public access) here.

A more unusual post

2009-08-21T00:11:00.001+08:00

People here, I mean natives, are unexpectedly funny...

"You know, she is a conservative woman, but naturally, there is a fire in her..."

- One of the LETs in a lesson-planning session today, in which we had to brainstorm a birthday party. She also suggested we add sexy underwear, male strippers (to which another LET suggested Dr. H be the stripper), and a whip, to the birthday party presents

"What is Hello Kitty going to get for her birthday? It was something we talked about yesterday... a hotel room with her boyfriend!"

For what is perhaps the first time in my life, I actually feel naturally inclined to write some poetry. I think it comes from a certain laziness or desire for efficiency in recording things that happen, things that would take too many sentences to explain.

Square seafood farms in city blocks.
The traditional music in the lobby of Guan Tien Sha.
Too many gifts from natives.
Ho loung guo, my favorite.
Disconcerting indirection.
Arbitrary spelling is friend and foe.
Scooters, most prevalent place.
Lunchboxes, varied and static.

Should I change my blog name to Joe, Lou Shi?

I had Heineken-Cha today - sweet jasmine tea w/ Heineken. And fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. And bing kafe. And finally, the standardized environ of starbucks (imperialism at its best, currently including sinatra).

Today is the start of Ghost month, people do lots of things to avoid ghosts (like avoiding deep water, so I expect I'll find the beach more private this weekend...) I also saw sacrificed pigs on the street, and fires.

Photos - Typhoon and more

2009-08-13T13:38:00.000+08:00

The Beach House at Wai Ao (Sorry for the reflection, seen from the bus)

Turtle Island in the back left, this is elementary school grounds

Elementary school apparently has 4 surfing instructors

Elementary school

Discreet under-the-table snap of English tutoring at a coffee shop ("barista coffee," a starbucks imitator) - there is insatiable demand for English tutors here...

Loudong park near the night market, macro-mode

Non-macro mode

Post-typhoon beach visit: note the moving sand trails

Gabe exhibits the windiness

Post-typhoon surf

"Safty"

Typhoon skies

Typhoon entropy

Videos

2009-08-11T20:54:00.000+08:00

This is not a resort. This is an elementary school.

These kids practice table tennis 6 hours a day. They were good.

"Railway crossing passing"

2009-08-10T21:47:00.000+08:00

On the train:

"For railway crossing passing, no resting on tracks is most intelligent."

On the same sign:

"Create a win win situation through gender equality."

Musings during Typhoon Morakot's approach

2009-08-07T08:43:00.000+08:00

It's 8:43 AM on a Friday. Things today have been canceled due to the impending typhoon, which moves surprisingly slower than I expected, like a watched pot. Was excited for it last night (Ahem, I mean, worried...) and this morning it's still apparently possible to ride scooters on the street, so we've still got some time. Everyone here is pretty chill about it, the Family Mart (which btw plays a nice jingle upon one entering or exiting and is lit up like a car dealer in the US) will remain open, and all that Kelly (one of our staff) suggested we have are some ramen-ish noodles on hand.

The last few days have been a bit fantasy or dream-like; upon noticing this, otherwise small, unimportant happenings become noticeable in this context and reinforce it. Why and how are the right people around at the right time, with no help from us? Why is there a van outside our building every morning that knows where and when to take us places? What are all these tropical plants, and mountains, and extravagant temples, and loads of old people doing tai chi outside at 6AM to jingly music? Why is the sand unadulterated with non-sand things? What are these scooters everywhere? How is there effectively what we would consider a fair in the US happening everyday?

My sleep schedule has been awry, but not necessarily in a bad way, as waking very early is acceptable given that it gets light at perhaps 4:45. I went out one day early this week looking for breakfast, but soon realized I had no idea what I was doing. Eventually I ran into this S. African guy who actually lives in my building, and he showed me this great sandwich (picture below) a shop just down the street offers. I'm not used to a labor-intensive breakfast, especially a really good one that costs NT45 (less than 1.50USD). Here is an article that I later encountered describing the breakfast scene in Taiwan.

Anyone want to try to beat my view?

2009-08-04T06:10:00.001+08:00

Woke up early again today (it gets light very early here). Here's what I saw:

Our neat open air lobby.

Pictures: a start. Still trying to manage videos...

2009-08-04T00:38:00.001+08:00

Hoops at the grocery store.

Welcome to Grimm's Elementary (continued)...

No H1N1!

School.

This beautiful school was our lunch stop today.

Lunch box! They seem to be pretty standard (and note the ISO9001 on the box), with some meat, sweet sausage piece, vegetables, a tea-soaked hardboiled egg, maybe some ginger.

Cool bus interior.

This is the view when you set outside the apartment gates. The lobby-ish place of the building is all open-air. That's Ellen in the bottom-left corner, she helps us with things, like our apartment.

My building, at least for the next month.

Taipei 101, an enigma when you're actually in Taipei, because you can surprisingly never see it. Didn't get a chance to scale it yet.

Street on a Monday morning. It was busier than this picture suggests.

Our hotel in the distance (see sign).

Our first dinner, 11 dishes, too much.

Water area of my hotel room - for tea, etc.

The bathroom was really neat, large, all open (no defined shower area).

Dilbert was at the airport.

Day 1

2009-08-02T07:40:00.000+08:00

"Eggs or Chicken Porridge?"

I took the latter, and it was rather good, with some greens, more chicken on the side, a piece of flatbread that I incorrectly dunked, and "tuna floss," pretty much a flavoring made of tuna, whose packaging read "This food is for recommended travelers to ensure the quality of the food."

Morning light. It becomes light out very early, but also gets dark earlier than I'm used to.

I asked for snacks with the help of my rowmate, and was provided more than one. Downed em' all.

One of my rowmates on the plane helped me acquire food (above) in the middle of the perpetual night, and also provided slim jims and hershey chocolate. Her farewell wish was "You Taipei Lucky." She told me that she was 68 and that I was handsome. Also, in the middle of most other people sleeping, she gave me a pronunciation lesson of the words in my Rough Guide.

ZHUO YUE SE 卓約瑟

^^^ I've just been assigned a Chinese name, which apparently hints that I have an American name, Joseph.

Pictures later (updated: above), time to depart the airport.

Visa!

2009-07-17T06:03:00.000+08:00

Found my residence visa sitting in my mailbox today, great! Though thinking of my passport and visa sitting publicly is a bit nerve-racking...

For now it says "single entry" but I hear I can fix that once I get to Taiwan...

Can you tell I'm anxious?

2009-06-04T01:13:00.000+08:00

Changing "CLE TO CPH" around for logging new adventures in Taiwan...

Excitement - I think it happened when I got an email yesterday from this place:

Backlogged Pictures...

2008-11-21T07:07:00.000+08:00

More Norway

Deerhaven, a large reserve area north of Copenhagen

Mass Picture Upload

2008-05-29T23:28:00.000+08:00

Here is about two months worth of backlogged pictures...

Trecking through Norway

Dyre Haven (Denmark)

Summer house, dinner with host family, Tivoli...

Bornholm (Denmark)

Closing Ceremonies and Festivities

The last of Denmark...

Pictures: Poland and Berlin

2008-04-06T19:10:00.000+08:00

It's slow going getting all these pictures up.

Poland

Berlin I

Berlin II

Pics from the opera...

2008-03-09T05:18:00.001+08:00

Pics...

Only 8 days...

2008-02-29T00:41:00.000+08:00

I suddenly find that in 8 days, that is, next Friday evening, long travel break begins. That was quick. After the truly great experience on the short excursion to Arhus, I can only look forward to the trip with the same group (my human health and disease peers) to Poznan, Poland and to Berlin, Germany. I look forward to getting the itinerary and debriefing, so to speak, this coming Monday. Moreover, I have about 24 hours turnaround time after that week to prepare for St. Petersburg and Moscow. That's also thrilling, but since I have no historical measure for it like Arhus, it still presents itself less feasibly in my mind. And then, my mom and sister are coming for a week! And then, it's already April! Damn.

I haven't taken any photos since Arhus (2 weeks ago) largely because I've been "taking it easy" with my tourist shoes, at least. That is, I found it unsustainable, or at least unprofitable to continue that degree of touring activity, shall we say. Additionally, the last week and the upcoming one present me with much more academic work, and I'll feel better leaving the country with a solid standing in my classes.

So it has been that my economic theories of globalization class has been enjoyable, though not notable. In human health and disease, we've had many hands-on presentations, most recently gastroscopy (yum!). We have another case study coming up tomorrow, and this time I'm more prepared, as I found my digital audio recorder (take that, patient...). And bioinformatics continues to get more complex: "hidden markov models," "viterbi algorithms," and "probabilistic logic programming," appear on my most recently annotated powerpoint print-out. It's pretty great, though the amount of time I can devote to it is far from ideal. It has inspired me recently to restart my grid computing application, BOINC (google or wiki it). I'm attached to protein folding predictor project, to which a few hundred thousand users contribute some ~70 teraFLOPS (IE tons of computation) to help figure out how the shit ton of proteins in existence are folded. Enough of this...

I've been getting pretty crafty in my use of public transport, namely adding busses to my feasible repertoire. Occasionally I improvise and do better than rejseplanen.com suggests to me. Or I'll now and then sleep past my stop and will subsequently successfully reroute myself to my destination. It's enjoyable.

On Tuesday, my host family told me we were going out to eat because they had been approved for adoption! So we went to a pretty great, quite-satisfying-to-me, chinese buffet, that was like 3 weeks new, and reminiscent of US chinese buffets, which, for some reason, I'd been craving since my arrival (perhaps they remind me of that which is most different in restaurants between here and the US).

I tried, unsuccessfully, to catch the eclipse last thursday morning around 4-5AM. Damn clouds...

I also met a group of french and italian students at a bar named Moose in copenhagen last tuesday, and they were pretty great to talk to for quite a while, though I've not made the effort to relocate them again (I do have a number).

I guess that's all for now, I just went quickly backwards a few weeks and ran out of things suddenly appearing in my mind.

Two new sets of pics...

2008-02-17T06:28:00.000+08:00

These are just some randoms from Copenhagen.

These are from a 3 day trip to Arhus, Denmark.

Frederiksborg Palace pictures...

2008-02-07T00:57:00.000+08:00

On Sunday...

Brief update from the computer lab before dinner...

2008-02-06T00:35:00.001+08:00

Today was rather good, and I just got back from Human Health and Disease class at Frederiksberg hospital, and am spending an hour on here before my academic program has a group dinner at some Meditteranean vegetarian buffet called Riz Raz. The class today was hands on with imaging technologies, and I very much enjoyed them because of the tech involved. Specifically perhaps because they continue to improve over time, and the advancements are so very useful in bettering medical care. Anywho...

I also wanted to post that last night my host family informed me that a life sentence in prison in Denmark is indeed only 16 years. Yup. How funny, and there are apparently a few murderers that then get released but do not tend to cause further harm. It's rather interesting.

Finally, tonight, well tomorrow morning early, actually, there is the possibility that the Danish national news might come to DIS and interview students about the US primaries (super tuesday and all) and broadcast it country-wide (well 5 M people). Still cool.

Pics

2008-02-02T05:01:00.000+08:00

Pics

Perhaps a real update...

2008-02-02T03:27:00.001+08:00

So, I finally feel like adding a few items that happened today, after clearly my mind rather successfully last evening.

This morning was an early one: on the train by 7:10, reading the assigned economics for my 8:30 class in town. Few distractions, as usual, but there have been better and worse train rides (I do typically enjoy them, however). Class was good, as I expected it to be ("Economic Theories of Globalization"). Following that, I renewed my Camus book, "A Happy Death," which I checked out after finishing "The Stranger." I've found his writing to be quite enjoyable, but unfortunately, the DIS library makes you renew every week! I checked with the front desk about the city bus tour that was supposed to rescheduled, and it turns out they rescheduled it at the same time my visit to Frediksberg Castle is this Sunday. Boo.

On the way out of the building, I checked the annotated map of the local area on the wall and hoped I'd remember my route to the post office. It was my first attempt at a mailing. After wandering in the right direction, I saw something that said "Post Museet," which means a museum of some sort, and assumed that there must be attached simply a "Post." Luckily, there was, and I proceeded to walk into the room of tellers and look around. I realized then that everyone else was looking around as well, and there was really no order. Expect that I missed it--I should have grabbed a little ticket on the way in by the door. Whoops. So I went and got it, number 32, and enjoyed the idea of not queueing but rather wandering about until my number was announced. Showing the teller my envelope, she quickly told me the price (22.5 Kroner, about 4 dollars), and I hoped that she'd seen it was international. Digging for my change, I noted that I only had one 20 kroner piece left, and I wanted to use it for a big cinnamon bun at a local bakery after this. Thus I pulled out a credit card, and was promptly rejected: "Not that one!" is what I was told. So alas I handed over my coins and left.

It's now perhaps 10:30, and I have about an hour to wander about before I had planned to meet up with someone to indeed go to that bakery that we had discovered only Tuesday, a place with giant cinnamon rolls for only 10 kroner. It's a treat not to be missed. So I did head in a new direction, and took a number of photos of lively squares and the fast moving clouds (those pictures will be up later). I later got the bakery with Hope (the person I mentioned earlier), and we headed in a different direction than we had Tuesday, when we first walked between classes. Through the next two hours, temperatures dropped, and rain began, but something more interesting happened. The American Embassy.

Yes, we came across the American Embassy, and, to my dismay, it was a rather disappointing building in an otherwise nice street. Now, my hope was that it would be something like a welcome center, perhaps offering hot coffee, cookies, and sofas to chat with other Americans. We headed up to the sign and I now forget what it said, but I photographed it. Shortly after, two guys came out of the "front" doors and said abruptly "no pictures!" to which I replied, "Ah, so this is the only building in the city I cannot photograph." They weren't amused, I don't think. I further noted the barricades around the building perimeter, even in a nearby cemetery. Hope asks if we can go in, but no, we cannot. So we head away, unhappy, and aware of the keen difference between my haphazard walking through the Royal grounds earlier that morning but being unable to visit my own embassy! I did snap a picture (ha!) once a bit further away, and, if my memory is correct, may have taken one before our encounter with the guards.

I had my afternoon class at Frederiksberg hospital, as usual, and after headed to central station to catch the train home. A strange language encounter happened, when, as my train was delayed and the next thus double filled, some older man fell right down on the floor of the train on his way in, near where I was standing (seats were filled). Now, he struck me as a bit out of it in general, as he would later make some unneeded comments to the train operator, and seemed generally unkempt. Upon his getting up, adjusting glasses, and standing for a moment, he came to me and said some long sentence I of course could not understand. My reply was "I can't speak," which I repeated again when he didn't get it the first time. I realized after the fact that "I can't speak" could have been misinterpreted. Anyways, I'm not sure what he had intended to communicate to me, but it was a little awkward having him sit only a ways away for the next 30 minutes.

And I ate dinner at a family friends' home and am now back.

And that's that.

My thinking is lagging real time...

2008-01-27T07:04:00.000+08:00

So, I haven't done an actual written update at all yet. This won't really be one, either. I think that I have bunches of things to write, because I have many thoughts, but, given more time, I will be able to better present them in writing. I have had almost no time to reflect or think clearly yet, which is not a bad thing at this stage, except that I can't really write (or accomplish anything with high efficiency) effectively. Expect more from me sometime soon, hopefully.

More pics...

2008-01-27T06:35:00.001+08:00

Click here.

Pics, let's try this...

2008-01-23T07:33:00.000+08:00

Here, try this link...

Posting pics...

2008-01-23T07:04:00.000+08:00

So, I am hoping to be able to use Facebook to upload pictures because it has the best interface. It also has a feature that should allow me to post them on here publicly (IE you do not need to use Facebook to be able to view them). Let's have a go at it, shall we?

Day 1

2008-01-21T06:08:00.000+08:00

I found today that my host family did indeed send me an email with information about themselves, but somehow I lost it in an account I don't usually check. I will post it here as an update today. I have settled in with all my stuff here, and tomorrow things officially kick off. I would write more tonight, but I have various things to do, including sleep. It was a rather whirlwind day.

Dear Joseph

Thank you for the host family letter. It is whit big interest we have read it, and we are looking forward to have you here as at "member" of our family. As you can se our writing is not the best but we do well in spoken English. You are our number tree student from the USA and from DIS. We are a small family, hopefully that wound scare you away. There are only the to of us, Maiken works at a after school program as a teacher and Henrik works as chef baker. We are 29 and 33 years old, and live in our house in a small village named Gadstrup, don't tray to look it up at the internet it's a pretty small place, the nearest big city is Roskilde. The train trip to Copenhagen takes between 40 – 50 min but it's not a big deal for us Danes. As you might now Denmark is a pretty small country, Maiken comes from Jylland that is the west of Denmark and Henrik from east. Most of Maikens families are still living in Jylland and we will have the opportunity to visit them during your stay at our home. Henrik family lives close, his parents only a step away. Our interest are our house there are build in 1900 and use to be an old school, the nature and long walk in the Forrest and long the beach and we work out around 3 times a week. We also love to travel and we trey to be at the big Roskilde Festival every year and love music. We love spending time whit our friends and family. The reason why we decided to have a student in our home is the interest in other people, there culture and there way of thinking. We enjoy to have long conversations about deferens subjects, politick, sports and things happening in the world, we have found out that most Danes properly talks a lot, and have a meaning about most things. The whole idée about having a student is to have a new member of the family and hopefully a friend for live time, here is the internet a great possibility for hawing contact whit all the world. You are arrival to Denmark in a pretty time of the year, the days are slowly getting lighter and lighter, the first to month will be rather cold but hopefully the last to month will show Denmark from the nice side. We are sorry that your stay stops just before the summer begins, but the spring season is also at good time. Some students also have there family coming from the USA to visit, if that's the case whit your family they shall be welcome in our home. You might have some practical questions about your stay in Denmark; you don't have to bring towels, bed ships and stuff like that. We have at the moment only internet on one computer but hopefully we will have one more, so it won't be a problem for you to use the internet. We send you some pictures from our house, of us and your room, just to give you an impression of Howe we live and look. We hope that you will be happy at our home and have a period of your live you never forget, we are looking forward meeting you.

Sincerely

Your host family Henrik and Maiken

Skype

2008-01-12T11:57:00.000+08:00

I am hoping to actively use the Skype program (www.skype.com) to communicate by voice. Check it out--it works largely like an AIM buddy list, but you talk instead of text chat. It also makes it easier to establish when others are ready to have a phone call because they will simply be signed off if they are not.

Preparing...

2007-12-28T13:53:00.000+08:00

I think this blog will be a good way to accomplish two things at once: journaling my four months in Copenhagen and communicating with people without having to tell the same story multiple times (I know, a bit selfish perhaps, but I am only abroad for limited time). Hopefully this further proves to be a worthwhile means of managing pictures, but I will likely still post them on facebook as well.