Planet Olin

I finally figured out today that when a Korean says "Do you like coffee?" or "do you play ping pong?" it usually means that coffee is on the way, or a game of ping pong is already planned. Needless to say, this had led to plenty of awkward moments full of a group of men laughing nervously (nervous laughter abounds in this country) when I don't feel like having coffee or playing ping pong, so I'm trying to figure out the best way to evade questions like that.

1. Heyyy Boston! Beaching / Harbor-Islanding should happen. The only real question is: when? Vote here for days where you're down for a day trip to either the Harbor Islands (some of which have beaches!) or a more traditional beach somewhere along the coast. I've selfishly removed the two weeks in mid-July that don't work well for me -- <3.

2. So I went to Simon's Coffee Shop this morning and Simon made me a cappuccino. So that's what that's supposed to taste like.

Amazing would begin to describe it. I've never had perfectly textured milk before.

The tomato and mozzarella sandwich wasn't bad either! And all at perfectly reasonable coffeehouse prices!

Someone needs to convince them to move to nicer digs though... as it is, the storefront is slightly awkward geographically in that it is halfway between Porter and Harvard (and a 10-minute walk from either), there's not a lot of seating, and the seating that they have is sort of awkward thanks to the super-narrow layout of the store. Wireless is pay-to-play, too -- $5/hour or $8/day. But the espresso is HIGHLY RECCD. If you haven't been you don't even have a concept of what you're missing.

here is an incomplete yet overambitious list of things i am going to do and places i am going to visit in the greater boston area this summer. if you would like to accompany me to some or potentially even all of them, i would welcome you! if you have suggested additions to my list or if there are places you would like to take me, i would welcome that as well. let us begin!

rock shows and movies, some of which are imminent:
- 6/30, paradise rock club: datarock and ladytron. hm! a little steep at $25 door price though. sold out anyway.
- this week at the kendall square cinema: "auf der anderen seite / the edge of heaven." featured review in the phoenix this week; sounds like fun.
- 7/1: oxford collapse at tt the bear's; $10, 8:30 doors. you know them for "please visit your national parks" -- nothing you haven't heard before, but competent alt rock and probably kind of fun to the secret fratboy corner of your brain.
- 7/4-7/8 daily, brattle theater, 2:30, 5:00, 7:30, 10:00: blade runner: final cut ("to this day, one of the most influential science-fiction films of all time, blending film-noir and high-tech in a prototype for ‘cyberpunk,’ and one of the most authentic seeming visions of the future in all of film.")
- 7/14: fleet foxes and no age are playing separate stages at the mideast! which show do i attend!
- 8/2: wolf parade at the paradise rock club
- 8/12: thao with the get down stay down at tt the bear's; wilco at tanglewood. think i'm gonna go for wilco on this one.

activities without specific dates:
- go boating on the charles (pbie might suffice for this) done! would do again.
- the institute of contemporary art visited; would return. target free thursdays!
- spend lazy weekend mornings at simon's and diesel (north cambridge and somerville seem to have much more active coffee culture than central square)
- museum of science (open til' 9 on fridays, $17)
- museum of fine art (free wednesdays 4p-9:45p)
- isabel stewart gardner museum (tue-sun 11-5; closed 7/4. $5 w/ id)
- beaches! a proper beach, mind, probably well north of us. or maybe the cape, or p-town. any way you slice it! beaches must be had!
- new england aquarium ($20)
- urban oases: boston harbor islands, Castle Island
- as you like it, free on the boston common: jul 16 thru aug 3.
- walk at least the downtown bits of the freedom trail

during the school year:
- 9/16: dandy warhols and stars together at the wilbur theater -- the same day the new fujiya and miyagi is released. best evening in pop, ever? i am totally clearing my calendar for this one guys.
- 9/22: mogwai and fuck buttons, also together at the wilbur theater. kate m. and i are definitely in for this one.
- 10/4: tegan and sara... at the palladium in worcester :/ we should buy tickets now or they will vanish quickly, or else give up because they're playing worcester of all places
- 10/12: the notwist at the roxy theater
- 10/13: lykke li at the paradise
- 10/30: of montreal at the orpheum (!)
- huntington theatre, 11/7-12/7: stoppard's rock 'n' roll! (i'm glad there's a theatre company in town that likes stoppard as much as i do -- they did "the real thing" in 2006.)
- boston ballet is mandatory. i didn't know i loved ballet until i got to see them perform during UOCD last year. i love ballet. amazing.

My major accomplishment today was going into Yongton with two women from work and getting a cell phone activated. (So if there's an emergency, I can be reached at +82 (010) 7218-1337.)

My second biggest accomplishment was not fainting at lunch. The cafeterias here each have three different options for lunch, and I figure out what I want by looking at the plates of food they put in display cases. I usually ask for clarification about what the mystery meat of the day is (no dog yet, sadly), but today's soup looked pretty safe. After all, it was just a beef stew with a side of rice.

Sadly, I missed one rather crucial detail about my beef soup. Underneath the innocent looking layer of greens and beefy goodness were tentacles. They were tiny tentacles, maybe only 6 inches long, but they were obviously from my favorite sea creature (which I prefer to admire from a distance). They even had rows of little suckers attached.

Needless to say, my appetite went out the window. My breakfast nearly did to, but it was kind enough to stick around.

Judging by the number of people on line for the soup, I'm guessing it's somewhat of a delicacy, but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Dog? yes.

Cow knucklebones? Maybe. (They don’t taste like much of anything, and can be fairly decent if they’re boiled for long enough)

Soju? If absolutely necessary.

But octopus? Not happening. At least it wasn't alive, as that apparently happens here sometimes. (I asked about this. There are two popular ways of serving octopus here. One involves cutting up a live octopus and serving the still-wiggling tentacles. The other involves putting some spices on live baby octopuses and eating them alive. Apparently you kill them when you bite down on them, but you have to be careful that the suckers don’t attach themselves to your throat and choke you to death.)

Sang Il was kind enough to sneak a couple of muffins and some orange juice onto my desk when I wasn't around, so I did end up getting something to eat.

Whose idea was it to ship this crap? Excel is essentially useless for scientific graphing, which is a shame, because PivotCharts are awesome.

I just finished reading It's A Wonderful Lie: 26 Truths About Life in Your Twenties that was recommended to me by Janet. It's a collection of essays about the experiences and lessons learned from various female writers about their twenties. Definitely aimed at women, but it gives some interesting perspectives on the weird transition that happens in your twenties from school to starting/finding your career path.

Reading these essays made me feel very glad that I don't have a spending problem, I'm not planning to be married by age 25, I'm not addicted to anything (besides a good internet connection), and engineering vs. writing provides a much more stable income. It also made me realize that it's fine, even normal, that my first job was kind of crappy, my love life is often confusing and messed up, and there is no replacement for good friends.

One thing that really surprised me reading this book is the number of women that had a set time frame that they had to be married and start having kids (often based on their parents example). I am a little odd in this respect, but since I was pretty young I have decided that marriage and kids are not a goal of mine (and I was morally opposed to the idea of me getting married through most of high school, but that's another story). For the most part, I enjoy dating (I actually think I need to date a little more), but I don't see the goal as finding a mate. It is more to get to know someone on an intimate level.

I constantly hear people say "your maternal clock will kick in and all you'll want is kids" or "smart people need to have more children" (to avoid the Idiocracy scenario). When/if my maternal clock kicks in, fine, but it sure hasn't yet. Yes, intelligent people need to pass their genes along, but I'm not going to be pressured into having kids for that reason alone. I'll donate eggs if it comes to that!

It just seems like there is a huge trade-off between career goals and children that is imposed more on women than men. It is changing slowly and depends on the career, but when a working couple has kids it is more likely that the woman will stop work and take care of the kids. My mother did this and she is glad she did, but I refuse to do the same thing. I am just too career focused.

Maybe I just need to find a good house husband or someone who doesn't want to have kids. But really, why am I even worrying about this right now? I really just need to focus on working hard for this year and getting into a good PhD program for next year. Like I said, too career focused (I think it's genetic). :)

I received notice at work this morning and left early.

To All Members of the Olin Community,

I am deeply saddened to report the tragic passing of Jessica L. Herman, a member of the Olin Class of 2011. She died following complications over the past week from her blood clotting disorder.

Our heartfelt sympathies are with her family and friends, especially her parents Eugene and Lisa and her younger sister Laura.

Although most students are away from campus for the summer, I know that our close knit community will show deep concern and support at this difficult time.

...

Rick

I knew Jessica better than I knew Matt and Rachel, even though for some reason we were never friends on Facebook. I feel bad about not worrying about friending the frosh now...

I am so glad Jessica found such great friends in Dani, Thomas, and Jeff. She was one of the first members of her class that I met and she was a very special person. We bonded over Japanese and, in some ways, she reminded me of myself.

You were far to young and it isn't at all fair. Maybe it's that you were close and I felt that you were so much younger than I am that caused me to stagger so much. Jessica, you will be missed.

Today wasn't particularly interesting, as I slept for quite a while, and did a jigsaw puzzle. Ji Min showed me around the buildings since no one else has. She was going to show me how to get to one of the bigger grocery stores by bus, but I ended up begging off since I was tired. Yesterday I found out that cameras are banned on campus, so I can't even take any pictures of my room. When I came back on campus I had to put my camera in a sealed plastic bag, they're that paranoid. I also learned that I'm not supposed to have things like an external hard drive here, since they're paranoid about keeping their data secure. I'll have to sort that out later, since I'm not about to go three months without backing up my half-dead laptop. It also amazes me that no one actually bothered to tell me such things before I got here...

I went into Seoul for the first time yesterday. I took one of the Samsung buses in, and a guy from work (I call him HS because I can never remember his real name) met me in Yangjae. From there we took the subway into downtown Seoul. Downtown wasn't actually as big as I thought it would be, and the skyscrapers are shorter than they look in pictures. Oddly enough, the tallest buildings seem to be in the suburbs, where everyone lives in generic looking high rises.

There have been a lot of protests going on in Seoul recently. They started out because the government is re-allowing American beef to be imported into Korea, and Koreans are scared of mad cow disease. (If this doesn't make sense, you're in good company.) The protests have evolved into rallies against Korea's president, which is what the one last night was about. I asked HS if I needed to fear for my safety, but he said that the protesters were angry only at the Korean government, not Americans. Plus, HS is 6’3” so I didn't think anyone would risk tangling with him.

The subway system in Seoul is similar to Amerian subway systems, only a bit more complex. It was pretty cheap to go from Yangjae to the center of Soul, only about a dollar or so. The people on the subway though are super aggressive though. They make Bostonians seem positively passive.

I also went to a grocery store yesterday. I didn't buy much food, because most of the food was labeled solely in Korean. However, had I wanted to, I could have purchased half a dozen varieties of anchovies, and dried squid. They also sold eggs that were hardly any bigger than the first joint of my thumb, but I'm not sure what kind of bird they came from.

Check out the NEW electric car. I think I want one, even though at least a quarter of my driving is composed of 150+mi trips.

I really want to go out and do something, but I'm afraid to spend money before I have my first paycheck in hand. Oh well, I have plenty of things to take care of anyway. Still, I want to be out with friends so badly right now... Not that I know anyone doing anything particularly interesting tonight anyway, but still.

I keep thinking there are deadlines that are passing me by while I struggle with everyday existence. I have a routine: I wake up freakishly early, go to work, go to the gym, come home, eat dinner, get overrun by whatever pressing task needs to happen at the time, and collapse into bed later than I should. I need to take care of things and accomplish things. I have various exams and applications to think about.

The company picnic went fairly well. It was a chance for me to see the other side: how adults have fun. I feel old for being able to relate more than I thought I would to people clearly more advanced in terms of life experience and young because even though many of my coworkers are only a few years older than me, they all seem to be so much further along than I am in terms of life development. I've never even dated seriously, so how is it that all but two of the people I work with at the picnic was either married or dating with the intention of getting married? I'm talking ages 21-27 here. I don't think about kids or impressing my coworkers for a promotion or so many things that go through their minds. But the adults were still people and still coworkers of mine. Old and young at the same time.

Also, I went out for lunch to Mughal Garden, a great Indian restaurant where I got buffet lunch for about $10.

I really should go back to cleaning my room. And then to bed. I guess I'm really adjusting to working life when 11p starts seeming really late. Farewell and goodnight.