Planet Olin

... courtesy of Gui.











Haahaha, it's true.

I think I have forgotten the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sweet.

This is sick.
http://www.jibbitz.com/

I’ve discovered now that it’s probably a good thing that I haven’t been eating purely Scottish cuisine for the entire trip, otherwise I think I would have gained about 20 pounds by now. There are some local eateries that will batter just about anything you give them. Battered fish, battered kebabs, battered sausage, even battered pizza (which is absolutely abhorrent). Eat just one of these delightful treats and it completely covers for your 2500 calorie a day diet. It’s certainly a much cheaper way to eat on a price per calorie basis, but it’s just not the diet for me. I have had a few dishes that have been quite good, though they’re still not very good for the heart. Haggis and black pudding are both quite tasty, but it’s probably best not knowing what's in them if you’re ever planning on trying either one.

I took a trip down to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, this past weekend which didn’t start off too well. Our bus broke down midway, so we had to wait for a replacement and we were then diverted from our main route due to a bridge closure and then got stuck in a traffic jam due to a bad accident. That turned the 3 ½ hr bus ride to 6 hrs of general craziness. Edinburgh is a fantastic city that definitely made up for the long trip down. A large castle is perched on a hill at the center of town and the hills throughout downtown remind me a lot of downtown San Francisco, only with building hundreds of years older and dozens of small alleyways and passageways that just beckon you to stray from the main streets. The town is a bit too touristy in a few areas, but there are its hidden gems. I discovered this nice pub near downtown that had several musicians fiddling and playing all sorts of Celtic music with almost everyone singing along in a place that couldn’t hold more than 25 people packed like sardines. Go Lonely Planet Guides for giving an extensive list of just about everything to do and see in Scotland!

The weekend before I participated in a highland folk danced known as a Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) at the Aberdeen Music Hall where a folk band played and hundreds of people danced to all sorts of Scottish and Irish jigs and reels. It was so much fun! I was definitely one of the only guys that evening not dressed in a full kilt outfit with all the accessories (sadly the whole outfit would cost me at least $300)  I’ll have to find a way to possibly rent an outfit before I go.

Ah, what is this pain?
It could be hunger,
or fullness.
Though I think it's too sharp.
It feels worse when I stand.

Maybe it's because I ate fake food.
The pain did come during my meal.
Though I was too close to the end to stop.
Damn you Success Rice and your powdered cheese!
I mustn't accept this conclusion.
For, what will I eat the rest of the week?
Besides, Race for the Cure cheese was so good.
How could Race for the Cure rice be so bad?

Perhaps I simply waited too long to eat.

This, too, shall pass.

I decided to skip class, a lab meeting and an advisor presentation today to go hear some really great speakers. The real highlights were Bill Gates, Paul Farmer (remember "Mountains Beyond Mountains"?), aaaaaaaaand  (que drumroll) the Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Everything here is moving fast, perhaps too fast. At least I get to go home for Thanksgiving.

Yay for a new party in power of the House and hopefully the Senate. Don't screw it up.

BOO FOR STILL NOT BEING ABLE TO BUY FREAKIN' WINE AT SHAW'S.

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, not a cloud in the sky. Sometimes, it seems almost sinful to have weather this nice in November. And it's definitely sinful to be sitting inside doing homework on a day as nice as this, but such is life. Or rather, such is graduate school.

Midterms are over for this quarter, so I've had a little bit of a break (no Dynamics homework this week!) and actually had a weekend with only one problem set to do. On the flipside, I've also gotten 2/3 of said midterms back. Safe to say, some things don't change: I still seriously stink at in-class exams. Oh well, it's only 30% of my grade (HW is 10% and final is 60%), so if I do really^3 well on the final (unlikely) I might just pull off a miracle. Let's just say I'm hoping the (in)famous Stanford grad school grade inflation kicks in at some point. But that's just Dynamics (I haven't gotten Linear Algebra back, but I suspect it will be the same thing...)

On the other hand, Biomechanics is just getting mo' better. We've started working on our term paper: it's similar to a grant proposal, in that we look at the prior research in an area and propose something new to do. My group is looking at the development of early-stage Parkinson's as it relates to gait, with the intent to come up with an easy battery of diagnostic tests to help diagnose people early. It's amazing how much research has already been done on gait and PD, and how much is still totally unknown and not even being investigated. The whole concept of walking and running still amazes me, and learning more about it just makes it even more stupefying that it just all works. Most of the time. (Yeah, yeah, so I'm a little excited...)

So I guess the Daily Show has been filming their Midwest Midterm Midtacular at Ohio State all week. I've been watching the videos online. It is freaking HILARIOUS. And TRUE. All those things the audience is laughing at that you don't think is funny? It's because you're not from Ohio.

Linky link to Comedy Central's stuff. Windows only. :( YouTube may have some stuff back up, I don't know...

This is Paul, who who many of you have now heard about. For those of you who haven't been in the Olin-gossip loop (where rumor has it I've been the topic of much discussion), Paul is a Kiwi who lived in England till around eight years ago, so he has a mostly British accent. Shockingly enough, he's not an engineer. I've found that talking with him >> talking with folks online, so I haven't been spending much time with my laptop.

Earlier this week we went to Queenstown to explore around a little bit. Unfortunately, Queenstown is little more than a really expensive tourist trap, but we spent most of our time out walking or hiking. We stayed with some friends of my mom, avoiding the annoyance of a hostel and getting some really great homemade food in the process. I'm trying to run down all of my food before I get more, so dinners lately have been rather interesting combinations of food, such as tonight's bulgar-lamb-pea casserole. Breakfast this morning was good though, because while hanging out at Paul's flat we discovered that toasted sandwhich makers can double as really good waffle irons.

Anyways, I have my history final tomorrow, and I don't have the faintest idea of what Rennaisance Humanism is...