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| About two months ago, I received an email from the Chemistry Department at Millersville. It was an application for a summer research opportunity for undergraduate students (REU) in Cadíz, Spain. So to make a long story short, here I am sitting in a small room in an apartment building on the outskirts of Puerto Real in southern Spain. It´s Thursday evening, cool, breezy and the fair is going to start at 10pm. The feria is a big deal here is Puerto Real; they shut the whole town down for several days and serve special drinks and dress up in flamingo outfits and dance. I will take pictures and post them somewhere.
So after two and a half days of orientation at Bucknell University last week we left point A and travelled to point B (Point A being Lewisburg, PA and Point B being Puerto Real, Spain). So it was bus, plane, bus, plane, and van. With much walking in between. And eating. We had American food, Spanish food, drinks, etc. It was good eating.
We got to Puerto Real on Sunday night. And found a restaraunt with a Spanish menu, Spanish waiter/bartender, and Spanish food. Luckily two girls in our group, Olyvya and Ruth, speak Spanish so they could interpret for us. We slept (or tried to), woke up, ate, walked around Puerto Real and ate some more. Then on Tuesday we were formally welcomed to the University of Cadíz by the Rector. We climbed to the top of Torre Tavira (a watchtower formerly used by merchants to watch for ships), had a most excellent meal that lasted longer than most church services, and explored the city. Spanish food is good.
Today I woke up late. My room is on the second floor. It has a window into a tiny white private courtyard. The others tried to wake me, but they couldn´t get into the apartment or the tiny courtyard. So they couldn´t pound on my bedroom door, or throw stuff at my window. My alarm clock dutifully rang, but it was promptly shut off by a lethargic, mostly unconscious individual. So after missing our first Spanish class, I finally woke up at 10:10am. At least I woke in a general sense of the word.
We were given lab coats and goggles, toured the university, and ate lunch. Then we were assigned to our labs and given glassware. I am in the same lab as Jeff, Rachel and Ashley. Jeff, Rachel and I are working with lichens from Antartica. The others are working on other projects.
So this blog will be updated as time moves on. Whether or not it is updated with any sort of regularity remains to be seen. Maybe I will even write in español.
Buenos noches! | | |
| Xanga is neglected. I use facebook. For what? To see what everyone is up to and to waste time. Speaking of wasting time, about a month ago I decided that I spend too much time surfing the Internet and reading the newspaper and that I should stop. I decided that for the rest of the semester I wouldn't read the newspaper (except to glance at the front page) or use the Internet except to check my email, do school-related activities like research, and business (bills, etc). Instead I (mostly) used that time for studying.
The results: it was good, I discovered that I had a lot of time to do stuff, that I didn't need to spend so much time on the Internet.
Now this semester is over, and guess what? I'm back here on this here Internet thing wasting my life. Enough is enough.
In high school, our English teacher told us to "Read, read, read". "Read everything you can get your hands on." It's good advice; it's good to know what is going on the world. However, this was before the Internet was really popular. You can read almost all the articles in a newspaper in about an hour and a half as long as you don't read the ads or the classifieds. This a managable amount of information. It is impossible to read every thing on the Internet. So you have to set limits.
Information. There's a lot of it. You can't know it all and even if you did, most of it is pretty boring anyway (or completely inaccurate).
That's my spiel for today.
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| Good evening folks. It's been awhile. Well time goes on and we still find ourselves here and now. We are told that someday time will be no more. I don't know what that really means, but our world will stop. The fighting and wars, the doubt and indecision will stop. We will finally face reality.
Until then, this world goes on.
- I got my teacher observation placement today: Reynolds Middle School, 8th grade science. It starts next Tuesday morning. I'm a bit nervous.
- Superbowl: somebody won; they weren't wearing green jerseys, but it was still good.
- Snow is a gift from God. Driving in it is fun with four wheel drive, sorry to all of you who don't have that privilege.
That's all. Good night, folks.
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| Hello, it's me. Here again. One month ago I said I would update weekly, with four updates between then and tomorrow. It's been two weeks.
Fat lazy people run in circles to win the race of roadside assistance while gas station attendants watch in perpetual stupor and pump gas into large cars full of clowns. Dogs run upside down on the road of life and the manhole covers grow legs and rob donut shops. After the donut shops are fully looted the leftover donuts roll out to the highway and hitchhike to the nearest state line running from the cops, running from life, running from the dread of night. Yet it catches them and they fall into a long dreamless sleep and wish that they could wake up but they never will.
Ok that was (almost) completely random. School starts tomorrow and so I must stop being random and buckle down and be serious.
The Eagles beat the Giants, but you already knew, or you don't care.
In the future I plan to update either weekly, intermittently or never.
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| I'm writing this xanga update but events conspire against me. The events of the day especially chose to conspire against any semblance of productivity which is sad when you are actually trying to be productive. I could tell you about them, but you would get bored. So I won't.
Other events that conspire against me: its late, my roommate is watching Pirates of the Caribbean, someone left a bag of chocolate covered popcorn at our door and it would be a waste not to enjoy such fine vegetables, if popcorn could be considered a vegetable.
Well let us examine this. An ear of corn is considered a vegetable. So if you shell the kernels off and cook them in water, they are still considered vegetables. If you take the kernels and mix them with other vegetables such as peas, carrots, and lima beans the kernels are still considered corn and still considered vegetables. So if you take certain kernels of corn and heat them in oil until they explode, wouldn't they still be considered vegetables? They contain the exact same ingredients as the pile of corn beside your mashed potatoes on your plate of food (that is if you happen to be eating a plate of food that contains mashed potatoes and a pile of cooked corn; if not just close your eyes and imagine you were, you might want to imagine some sort type of meat on your plate as well (unless you're a vegetarian)). They have been heated, but regular corn is also heated. I believe there is a solid case for considering popcorn as a vegetable. Some people may disagree but until someone can make a good case for the nonvegetablality of popcorn I will consider every serving of popcorn I eat to be a serving of vegetables. So there.
This past week was filled with interesting things. Christmas (of course). A bunch of time spent with good friends and family (and friends that could pass for family). An interesting instance of the Construction Game, during which I acquired a bunch of excavating equipment (or little stickers with pictures of said equipment) and an interesting nickname. But I will not put that nickname on xanga. So there.
Merry Christmas to all of you and may the Lord bless you with a happy and prosperous year (and good night).
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