In many small decisions I am often less than decisive. Be it what to eat, where to go, or what to do I’m often ambivalent, except that generally I have at least a few possibilities in my head and my ambivalence is of the sort of “let’s do any of the things I have in mind” as opposed to “let’s do something that I completely dislike,” and the hope is that someone else will hav at least one of the same things in mind as I and suggest it, and we’ll all be happy. Strangely enough, we do not have any way to create psychic Venn diagrams, and this works correctly a remarkably small portion of the time. I haven’t found a solution for this dilemna yet.

Other times, the choice is a simple yes or no, one or the other choice, and often I demonstrate the same ambivalence, but this time it is more along the lines of “either option is fine by me, which would make you happier,” and frequently the other person gives me the same right back, “either option is okay, which do you like better?” It is a strange loop.

Even sillier when it involves holding off on a choice until morning, because I am generally not at my best cranial capacity in the morning, and then, 6 minutes after I’ve woken up and right when I think I’ve made up my mind, bang, door slam, the decision has been made through my inaction. Whoops!

I’m sitting in the Harkness Commons, or “the Hark” as it is called here, munching on another wonderful meal. Derek insists that the selection gets old, but so far I have not gotten sick of it, so perhaps two meals a week is about the right amount.

Why is the Hark so good? Well, mostly because I’m comparing it to Brandeis. Here I have consistantly good food for equal or less than what it costs to get something comparable from Aramark. My chicken wrap was tasty and full of chicken, just like my hamburger had adequate meat, my pizza adequate toppings, etc. No skimping here. There are sauces and flavorings if you want them, so everything isn’t bland. There is a nice, fully stocked salad bar with vegetables that are actually fresh. And the desserts are generally pretty exciting concoctions.

What I love about the Hark is its just a dining hall done right. It’s not trying to be anything more than it is, and what it does it does well. Because the salad bar is actually good (despite lacking ranch dressing, grr!) I’ve stopped getting french fries or chips and am instead getting a small side salad full of tomatoes and artichoke hearts. The dining hall is helping me to eat healthier!

The food tastes better, the ingredients are higher quality, the service is quicker, the prices are cheaper.

Come on Brandeis, what part of this is hard?

Today Jeremy guided me to a really marvelous grocery store, and among other things I bought a pizza that caught fire in the toaster oven, which was interesting in part because it allowed me to find out that our fire extinguisher is not chaged, and a cantalope, along with a melon baller. A melon baller! Words cannot express my excitement at this! Jeremy says it must be a crazy California thing, but now I have melon, melon baller, cottage cheese, yogurt, and granola — all the ingredients for a yummy breakfast.

Not to mention I bought some more strawberries. Yum!

Especially because its a lot harder to set fruit on fire than it is pizza. And dad has already told me, in no uncertain terms, that he is very much against donating money to Brandeis to pay for a new dorm.

So Adam is getting married, but not the one you might think. Adam Batkin proposed to Jess Greenberg on Saturday and got an answer in the affirmative. Unlike a lot of the people at Brandeis, this is the first time one of my friends has gotten engaged. It is an awesome occurance — in that it inspires great awe. This year is just starting to fill up with awe. I’m not sure I like this whole “growing up” thing, and I’m not sure I like one of my good friends moving to Scotland for the next five years. I’m happy for you, Adam, and I’m happy at your happiness, but I’m sad that it means I won’t be seeing you much.

I’m staying in the Boston area in part because I like it here but in big part because the people I know are here. As people continue to split off and move away, I’m going to have to re-evaluate my priorities. I’m not sure I like this idea of people moving away. Everyone just needs to stay put!

My god, Adam is getting married! My head is still not comprehending this. It is just something that seems so remote and strange. People I know don’t go and get themselves married! People don’t move to other countries! People don’t grow up, damn it!

I’m ready to get the heck out of here and face the real world in all of its glory. I don’t expect it to be a terrible transition or a massive challenge. I don’t mind continuing to move forward. Things that have happened in the last few days have convinced me that it really, truly is time to get out of Brandeis. But my biggest problem with this whole thing is that I don’t make good friends easily, and I don’t like the idea of losing the ones I have.

We live in a time where the world is ever-shrinking thanks to the wonder of technology that allows us to reach around the globe in an instant, but nothing compares to just being with someone in person. We will never be able to replicate the experience of living near enough to someone that you can just wander over and knock on their door. The internet cannot compare to this reality. And I, not one who much understands how to keep up relationships with people far away, am completely baffled by this whole mess.

In the words of Douglas Adams, time is beginning seriously to pass. Gotta hold on, gotta keep moving, can’t get swept up in the stream of memories where there is still so much left ahead undone. I’m so often the one pushing change, pushing people to go past the limits of their comfort, pushing new ideas and new experiences, but I find myself for once with the tables completely turned, with me sitting here, wanting to fight the future tooth and nail, but constantly having to restrain myself. Things have a habit of working themselves out, as has been demonstrated in my life time and time again.

We just have to keep swimming, and constantly be in awe of the possibilities available to us just around the next corner.

Last day of classes is April 22, and as of then I believe I should be all finished. Ths is followed by a week of Passover Break, then a study day, then a week of final exams, then a few more days of final exams, then Senior Week, then commencement.

In real terms, that means school ends April 22 and I have four weeks of fun and games before commencement. That’s a lot of time to disengage from Brandeis. That’s a pretty nice setup.

Then, of course, I have to enter the real world.

But hey, if I still don’t have a job or a place to live, that means I have four weeks to stress over it…err…I mean, figure it out!

Yesterday at the market I picked up a box of Loran Doone cookies. Eating them now as I work on my paper, I’m drawn back to childhood memories of Lake Arrowhead — boating over to the village to pick up snacks, playing on the island, water skiing, swimming…cleaning the house. Man, that place was always full of cobwebs — and spiders!

Point is, I remember sitting out in the sun in the middle of the lake, eating these cookies. Its a nice memory.

And if I don’t stop soon, I’m going to end up eating the whole box.

My Bank of America savings account earns me 0.25% interest, which I kinda thought was strangely low, but haven’t really questioned until now. That’s because I saw an offer on TiVo to open up an ING Direct savings account with pretty much the same terms as my BofA one (i.e. no fees, no restrictions, etc.) except they pay 2.6%. One place pays 0.25% and another pays 2.6%. Head…exploding. I don’t understand why this disparity exists. Why would anyone in their right mind use BofA for personal savings with such piss poor interest rates? They’re high-end CD accounts with huge required balances, 5 year commitments, and monthly maintenance fees still provide a lower return. Can someone who understands these things please explain to me what I’m missing here?

When did it start getting freakishly sunny at 8am?

For the last few days I’ve been stressing out about the future. It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks that in a few months Brandeis will vomit me and 800 other unprepared students out into the real world, in all of its glory, and we’ll have to start frantically swimming out way out of the goop and half-digested food we’re floating in.

I’m going about this all wrong. A couple years ago I was so darn positive. It’s almost painful in the way really sugary candy is on your teeth to read some of my old blog entries extolling the virtue of a new day, divining bliss from a new selection in the dining halls, enthusing ecstatically about the latest class I was taking.

Its funny because I know exactly where the tipping point is, and where it all started to, “go bad,” so to speak. Its junior year, when I got off my meds and the Justice went off its rocker, and we had a couple weeks worth of “racist incident” that just threw everything into disarray. It was then that everything that was starting to slowly change really spun up. Grades went down, I failed my first class, I got really confused about my place in the world and the point of student government. I started questioning everything I was doing.

Continue reading “Possibilities”

For my internship at Berkman I’m doing a bunch of research into internet filtering in China. I’m looking into media regulation, internet infrastructure, and legal/technical frameworks for censorship. Other smart people are running tests to actually get some hard data on what types of things are censored. This is difficult because what is typically referred to as the “Great Firewall of China” is not what actually exists. When China had limited access to the internet through a few links, it was easy to impose blocks on certain pages. But as internet usage in China has expanded drastically over the past few years, and total connectivity for that country has risen to almost 80 gigabits per second through nine seperate providers using dozens of connections to various countries, the idea of sifting through and blocking that amount of data in the middle of the network is an almost impossible task. Luckily, the fine internet police in China, assisted in no small part by American and European companies, has stepped in to fill the gaps and dramatically expand the censorship web.

Continue reading “As the Great Firewall falls, censorship increases in China”

I’ve just decided that I absolutely have to decorate my future apartment with posters from my favorite movies from when I was young. I was thinking about WarGames, because I saw a shirt I really want on ThinkGeek that references that movie, but then I remembered Flight of the Navigator and Explorers and Space Camp and D.A.R.Y.L.. I’ve got to get me these posters. And frame ’em. 🙂

Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to announce that, in general, I’m back in action. Having mono and strep throat (at the same time) can put one a little off one’s game, as I have been, and continue to be, but while being sick was pretty yucky, I had a mild case of mono compared to stories I’ve heard tell from various people. Mono has an incubation period of 30-50 days, so I’ve actually had it for a while, but I don’t think I’ve passed it on since I haven’t really been sharing food, water, or kisses with anyone who is likely to get it. What’s great about mono, though, is that it is a herpes virus, meaning it stays with you all your life, and while it is very rare for it to strike again, carriers can become contagious just, ya know, whenever fate feels like it. For instance, a couple months after they get a new boyfriend. Just for instance. Ahem.

I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping, watching television, staring into space, etc., and not much time doing productive things like studying, reading, or going outside. I still haven’t gone shopping, and it has been several weeks…not quite sure what I’m finding to eat, but I seem to still be alive.

I feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of school I missed, to the point where I’m afraid to start catching up on readings because it feels better when I don’t know just how far behind I am, and as soon as I pick up a few syllabi I’ll see that massive list of books that I haven’t looked at yet and be very, very afraid. But Lynn gave me readings and notes on lighting, so I’m going to start with that, since its slighly less deep than Chinese philosophy, and slightly less scary than Writing for the Media.

Continue reading “I (was/am/continue to be) sick”

One of these days I’ll post an entry for which I won’t have to click the “personal” category checkbox. But not this one.

Last Friday I stayed up until, oh, 6:30am to get out the second issue of The Hoot. When I awoke on Saturday, I felt pretty bad. Since then I’ve had an ongoing headache, dizziness, and a sore throat. The symptoms wax and wane but never completely go away. I’ve been tired and sleeping a lot. I’ve been hungry and eating a lot. I don’t really have a good understanding of how sick I am, because it keeps changing, but I would say mild to moderate. Its enough to be really annoying and stop me from wanting to go do anything, but not enough so that I feel miserable.

I feel trapped in a strange middle condition where I can’t tell if I am getting better or worse. I don’t feel well enough to go to the gym, but I have a lot of energy and am really fidgety. I should be doing things like school work (which I really have very little of at this point), but I’m not doing well at focusing. Admittedly that’s not new, but in this instance I’m bored and not going anywhere, so there is no reason not to do something vaguely useful. But I can’t even bring myself to do things relating to my computer, or my web site, or any other kind of thing that I might do to waste time.

In short, it is all very strange. I hope it goes away soon. I’m not in great pain, I’m not bedridden, so I’m happy about that, but being in this weird purgatory state is driving me crazy. And that’s about all I can stand to sit still and write right now. Sigh, back to lying in bed, flipping TV channels. Which is something I never, ever do. What’s going on here?

I went into this semester expecting to have the best schedule in the world — internship Mon and Wed, classes on Tues, Thurs and Fri off (or, rather, used for things like publishing a newspaper and doing homework and hanging out with important people). Instead, due to various circumstances, I’m stuck with something that is far from ideal, and I don’t really see much hope of making it better.

Internship will be Wed/Thurs, with classes at various random times on Mon/Tue/Fri. Hoot production will be hard because we do it on Wed/Thurs, after my internship and, on Weds, in the middle of my internship class. Going to the gym is going to pose quite a challenge due to my days being pretty full, since 6pm is about peak time around there, and they really need a lot more machines. And already I’m getting scheduled into or invited to lots of meetings. I’m finding myself blocking out times that I thought I had but now realize are not safe unless I have something in there in CorporateTime so that I don’t get pulled into things. This shared calendar is a curse!

Igor and my dream of an alternative community newspaper on the Brandeis campus has been realized with the publication of the first issue of The Brandeis Hoot. Our eight page black and white tabloid newspaper came out a little late but none the worse for wear. Lately, the Justice has had a somewhat dwindling news section. We covered a lot of interesting stuff, and when they published a few days later they covered some of the same stuff, in addition to some other things that we did not. You can read the Hoot online at thehoot.net.

While the Justice seems to think that everything we write and every comment we make is a direct jab at them, we’re just trying to put out a good newspaper and cover things of interest to the Brandeis community. I’m being completely sincere when I say that neither Igor nor I want the downfall of the Justice, all joking aside, and we are happy they exist on campus to provide an important student voice. We just want them to get better, and we want to offer student choices. Both goals appear to be happening, so we’re in a good place.

That said, we had a week to start up a newspaper, and it was quite a challenge. Igor, who reluctantly finally took the title of Editor-In-Chief at my urging, did far more work than I. But I did a pretty good amount of work myself, and making a paper, especially from scratch, especially in only a week, especially with no design, no set team, no systems and processes, and the occasional crashed hard drive, is no easy task. Our first issue, which was supposed to come out last Friday, came out instead on Monday. Now we have a short week, a late start, and we have to do it all over again in terms of actually creating proper libraries and such for publishing, and it will be quite the challenge to get out another quality newspaper on deadline.

We need a larger, competent staff. We’re getting there. But it is hard to train new people when you also have to actually get a paper out. Luckily, there are a lot of people willing to help, and some of them even have some good experience that they’re bringing to the table. With any luck, this week will not turn out to be a complete disaster. Also, its pretty darn cool to see something that just a few months ago was a silly idea actually out, in print. We did it! We published a newspaper!

Tonight we went to a housewarming party at the home of some family friends. They’ve actually lived in the house for something like two years, but in that time they’ve transformed it from a slightly oversized house into a massively oversized house compared to the size of lot it sits on, abutting (and providing nice views of) the neighbors’ houses no more then thirty feet away. Personally, if I was building a multi-million dollar mansion, I would try to get some room between myself and the other houses, and put in some nice gardens, or something. But then, I’m not building a multi-million dollar house, so I guess it doesn’t much matter what I think.

At said party I was accosted by a nice woman who wanted me to date her daughter, for some reason. The conversation went something like this:

Her: What year are you in college?
Me: I’m a senior.
Her: Do you have a girlfriend?
Me: Um…yes.
Her: Oh, that’s too bad, you should date my daughter.
Me: I’m pretty happy where I am.
Her: Well, have you seen my daughter?
Me: (not comprehending) I don’t think so…
Me: Oh. Um. Yeah, well, I’m dating a nice Jewish girl. Have to preserve the bloodline and all.
Her: She’s a very strong Christian. She might convert you.
Me: (starts edging away)

At a later point, as we were just approaching the exit, my mother exchanged a few words with a woman who had recently seen Oliver at the Performing Arts Center, which my mom had just seen as well. It was great, says mom. Well, says the other woman, I liked it, but it wasn’t the best I’ve seen. How so, asks mom. Bad idea. Apparently, the two ways in which it was bad are, as follows:

• The orchestra was only five pieces, so the rest of the music was synthesized (or possibly pre-recorded?). This is a valid complaint, but I’m not sure its a massive one.
• One of the ensemble members, a no-name orphan or something, who is twelve years old, has listed in her credits that she played “Lillie” in Annie. The two problems with this are that the character’s name is spelled “Lily” and for a twelve year old to have played the part apparently means that it must have been at a school or community production, not a professional one, and so it should not have been listed in the program.

The fact that a little girl tried to inflate her bio is apparently enough to ruin a play for this woman.

Something written in the program is what made the show sub-par.

And my mom, attempting to keep up the conversation, was somehow able to elicit from this woman the same statement, about the music and the little girl, four separate times. I was tugging on her arm desperately, trying to get her to stop talking to this woman, who obviously had some “repeat” button somewhere that she was accidentally holding down. Finally we disengaged from conversation and were able to make our way to the exit.

Those were the two highlights of the party that I feel comfortable writing about on my blog. Oh, also, I got to play with a cat that looked like a smaller version of Sammy with shorter, less shed-able hair. He was cute, and he was named Scooby Doo, which, ironically, reminded me of Buffy and the Scooby Gang. I think I’m going to name my cat (which I’m hoping to get after college) Willow, if its a girl. If its a boy, maybe Rupert. Dunno. Needs to be something nick-name-able, so Xander doesn’t really work. Suggestions? 😛

It occurs to me that Christmas passed and I once again managed to avoid really giving it much thought. No snow here in Hawaii, and I haven’t been watching enough TV to catch any Christmas specials, even in spite of the lack of TiVo. It is so odd to be back to channel surfing. I sit on the TV Guide channel to figure out what is on but its so slow moving it drives me crazy. Jessica and Shaina watch enough TV in a day for my week, so I have to keep trying to ignore bad Disney Channel movies and reality TV shows and such. Because I do so badly at avoiding constant annoying TV distractions, I find myself completely drawn in by the colorful picture box whenever it is on, and in a hotel room it is hard to get away from it. The same thing happens when I’m trying to talk to people and there is a TV on, I just can’t concentrate. Or when I’m at a gym with lots of TVs everywhere, I go nuts… So there’s something that Brandeis gym has going for it — no television.

So here is what I’ve seen that is memorable, meaning that I enjoyed it, at least slightly.

• The West Wing
  I stopped watching it a little while back but this episode about Hoynes’ memoir thing got me sort of intrigued. Add that to the promos a few weeks ago (“and did we mention the ASTERIOD?”) and I might just have to catch up on that show, due to the sheer silliness of it.
• Gilmore Girls
  I pictured it as something like the sisters from Charmed doing their own little Sex and the City, but it is nothing like that. I have no idea what, exactly, it is, but its enjoyable and cute, even if I am lacking all backstory. And the younger Gilmore is the kind of girl I wish I could have dated in high school… Wait, what was I saying? Oh, right. So a show that is certainly tolerable, although I doubt I’ll find myself going out trying to find back episodes. But you never know.
• Men in Black
  Yeah, it’s a movie, but it was funny to watch again, and it got me to thinking — whatever happened to Dennis Rodman? Did he up and return to his home planet or something? And remember when Will Smith was “up and coming?”

And that’s the extent of my TV for the trip.

Yesterday we took a car trip past some mile marker you aren’t supposed to pass, voided our car insurance or something, and walked a short but rocky ways down to something called the Blow Hole. It is a formation of lave such that waves pass underneath and water is funneled up through a rock opening to form a big ole geyser. I wanted to go find a waterfall, but this was a good substitute. We stood by it, took pictures, and I made sure to get thuroughly soaked before heading back. Much fun was had by all, although I did scrape my knee on some rocks and get blood on my shorts. Bye bye, shorts. Also got to walk on some lava and such.

Today we went in search of surfing equipment and spent the day on a beach attempting to surf on our own after our lesson of two days ago. The three beaches I’ve been to so far on this trip have been pretty shallow and rocky. This beach was still only about three feet deep even after we had gone a ways out, and there were lots of pointy rocks about. It was even more important to remember to fall flat on one’s back rather then attempting to step off or (worse) falling face first. If you were lucky, you’d fall smoothly in a normal patch, and get up before hitting anything, if you were unlucky you would smack into a rock or two. Best was to not fall at all.

The waves weren’t great but we all managed to score some, um, board time, if that’s the word. There were so many people, though, that it was difficult to get up without smashing in to someone which, I probably don’t have to say, is pretty bad form. Once or twice I rode a wave, stood up, and then the wave petered out to nothing, leaving me standing motionless on my board, trying to keep my balance (difficult!) and eventually falling over. By the end I had gotten some sun (cause we all know how much I love that), gotten some waves, and gotten all manner of bumps, bruises, rashes, cuts, and scrapes. For a non-sportsman like myself, it was pretty brutal. Reminded me why I like to stay away from contact sports. Also suggested to me that I need a lot more arm strength if I want to be good at this. All that paddling back out is very, very tiring, and my arms were quite sore by the end. Which is not to say that I am complaining, because I enjoyed it. I’m just pointing out some of the less appealing aspects of the whole thing and potential downsides. Buyer beware, and all that.

Not much more to report from Hawaii. Amazingly, every single meal we’ve had here has been good, probably a first for my family on a trip. I don’t remember all of the restaurants, but Cheeseburger in Paradise offered good cheeseburgers, even if they lacked barbacue sauce, Hula Grill had some yummy dinner, Aloha Mixed Plate was a filling (and cheap!) local haunt, Gazebo had some mean macadamian nut white chocolate chip banana pancakes (not on the menu, ask for them), Leilaini’s (owned by the same company as Hula Grill) had good nachos, and this place by the big tree was also tasty, plus they had blue rolls that have somthing called Poi in them. There was a general obsession with macadamian nuts and mahi mahi, but no spam to be found, which leads me to believe we never did find a truly local establishment…or we’re just on the wrong island. Everyone did seem to have Loco Moco on the menu, but I never tried it. And many places you would expect to find potatoes (like with your morning eggs) they would substitute rice instead.

Tomorrow we check out and hop a plane to Honolulu and then back to California. It’ll day pretty much a full day of travel. So I guess I’m signing off from Hawaii. See you on the other side of the Pacific!

I have been doing a lot of flying recently. I left Boston a little before 7:00am EST (GMT -5) on Wednesday and traveled about six and a half hours to Orange County, getting in at 11am Pacific (GMT -8), starving because the JetBlue snacks were not much substitute for, well, lunch. On Thursday the girls and I went to Yamashiro for dinner and Les Miserables for entertainment with Linda and Ercil, then spent the night in an LA hotel so that we could be up nice and early for our flight to Hawaii. Well, early is relative, and while we had time for a leisurely breakfast, a slow airport shuttle put us about twenty minutes behind where we wanted to be one one of the busier travel days of the year, and several long lines later we were the last ones on the flight. Another five hours of flying aboard a big old 767, this time with a (pretty terrible) lunch, and tada, we were in Maui (GMT -10) and my circadians were so far off track that recovery would take days.

Some may (well, have) joked that I don’t deal with time change well, but I beg to differ. The problem is two changes in the same number of days, and lots of waking up very early, pre-sunrise, to sit in big metal tubes for hours at a time with no physical activity, very little entertainment, and not much that passes for food. Add in the post-finals cooldown and you’ve got a recipe for lots and lots of sleeping. So that happened.

Friday morning in Maui and the weather was beautiful, in the high 70s and sunny and clear. Weather.com said it would be that way, but I didn’t believe it, so I checked the NOAA, which suggested scattered showers, more in line with what I had been hearing, but so far no showers have come along.

When we showed up at the Sheraton I had a strange feeling of deja vu, and insisted we had been here before. A little exploration later and everyone agreed, by sheer dumb luck we ended up back at the same hotel Discovery Toys went to for their (1998?) incentive trip. That time I sat in the room being bored, but this time I’m trying to enjoy myself a bit more. Still, there is only so much beach I can take. The problem I have is that I like water, but I don’t like salt water, and I don’t like chlorinated water. I also don’t have much love for lying in the hot sun for hours at a time, and while I find sand fun, getting it all over everything is slightly less so. And since Maui is, at this point in its existance, pretty much a tourist island, most of what there is to do consists of sand and salt water, and any remnants of real culture and uniqueness have been sandblasted away by McDonalds and the Gap, or are at least hidden enough that tourists (oh wait, I guess that’s me) won’t find and disturb them.

In my journalism class this (last?) semester one of the things we talked about was the part of Daniel Boorstin’s The Image that talked about tourism and the loss of place associated with it. As tourism becomes more obtaininable for more people, a few things happen. First, the sheer increase in population and money at a given location means that the natural beauty and wonder is going to be replaced by things that cater to tourists. Second, what tourists want, Boorstin claims, is what they see on TV — a sterile, fantasy world rather then the harsh realities they may encounter. Thus the paradox of Disney’s California Adventure theme park, a version of California, located in California, that can give you all of the “wonders” of California in one clean, shiny, happy place, in just a few hours of your time.

Savvy travelers who are looking for authenticity will pick up guide books that tell them about secret gems, but there are the same guide books that every other “savvy” traveler will pick up, and so the gems also end up being silly tourist traps. The best part of our cruise to Mexico is when we took a Jeep tour and our tour guide took us to an out of the way family restauran above their house, which overlooked a stream and a waterfall. It was the most authentic Mexican experience we had, and almost everything else about the trip was meant to cater to tourists. I don’t know how to duplicate that kind of experience here in Hawaii.

Anyway, so far we have spent some time at the aforementioned beach and pool, and visited the nearby Westin with its (fun but not highly impressive) waterslides. Today we went snorkeling for an hour, but when I try to snorkel I inevitably end up almost asphyxiating, so my snorkel tube stayed pretty much unused and I just stuck with trusty mouth breathing. Tomorrow morning, I get to (supposedly) learn how to surf, so we’ll see how that goes. We start at the ungodly hour of 9:00am, which to me sounds perfectly reasonable since I’m consistantly waking up around four. Which, I might add, is a perfectly good time to wake up — in EST!

Anyway, there is no internet access here so I’ll put this and whatever other blog entries I write up in a batch when I get back. In the unlikely event that anyone gets this far in reading them all, hi!