Brief Respite

Finished Engineering Innovation two days ago. Been real tired since, especially because yesterday I had to stay up late for this sleepover/preparation thing I had to attend for this trip I’m about two take in the next three days. Not only had to stay up late, but also needed to get up early to prepare pasta for parents of the other kids who are also going on this trip with me. We’re going to Taiwan to help out less fortunate kids, and this pasta thing is preparation for what we’re about to do there. Just one of the many things, of course, we aren’t just there to cook pasta for two weeks.

Anyway, EI was pretty fun. Lot of work, but I got through it, and it really wasn’t bad work at all. Had some mishaps at the airport (delays, forgot to place knife in check-in baggage). Was my first time flying alone, but it wasn’t so bad. I know this post seems stunted, but I’m just too tired to really care. I need more sleep. I’m not thinking very straight.

Oh yeah, just downloaded a shitload ton of free music. Will be listening to that the next few days.

Hershey Park

Fun times today. Took a two-hour bus ride all the way to Pennsylvania from here in Baltimore, Maryland. Pretty nice rides at the amusement park, but like all parks lines suck. Basically tried to get on the most intense rides. Not much else important. Actually, won a bet that we would get on a ride before a certain time, so now I get to play as much as I want on someone else’s computer. Yay.

Why am I here.

I’m not doing anything except entertaining myself. Today, I just watched The Dark Knight Rises and beat Bastion. Both of them were wonderful. Gonna try to 100% Bastion tomorrow.

What program?

Been playing too much Bastion. Not enough time to do anything else. Also, we’re currently in a game of Assassin. I have a target who stays in his room all the time. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh-

To DC

Went to DC today. Past few days, had to turn in a few lab reports, so I didn’t really have time. Anyway, we went to DC, not to visit the White House, not to visit the Washington Monument, but to watch a movie. And what movie to watch but Ted? Yup, we watched Ted, the talking teddy bear, and his man-boy John. Almost did a dine-and-dash at the Hard Rock Café, but the waitress remembered our bill, so we paid. Then we screwed around in the museum store in the Smithsonian American History Museum. We wanted to try the ride simulators, but those cost money, so we left. Went to the store, bought some space food and a Capitol Building 3D puzzle. Will be building that when I get home. Eh, tired, going to sleep. Final verdict: good trip, boring place.

Trusses

So recently we learned about statics in engineering. That means we were taught about how forces interact within a static structure. Then we were assigned homework on trusses made of spaghetti. Really tedious work, since it involved three dimensional vector projection, buckling, and tensile forces. Spent five hours on the one problem. Pissed me off so much, since I should have been able to do it within an hour, except I didn’t like the work, and basically did not want to put my mind into imagining three dimensional structures in my head. It’s not hard, I just didn’t like how much work I needed to put into it, and so I was lazy and spent most of my time lazing around and chatting with other people. Also tried to teach others WHILE I was doing the problem, which made it even harder since I had to talk through my work while I was developing the solution in my head. The problem should have spent one hour at most. And now, I need to work on the two other projects we have (read: watch another hour or two or twenty of video on YouTube).

Can’t Catch a Break

I know it’s been a week, but I still have yet to completely catch up on my entertainment fix. Baltimore’s still hot, but I’m learning some stuff actually, unlike at COSMOS. If I hadn’t mentioned, I’m at JHU, doing this thing called Engineering Innovation. It’s stylized like a college course, and the classes take up about 4 hours every day, and we’re basically allowed to do whatever we want for the rest of the time before curfew (on dorm floor by 11 PM, in dorm suite by 12). Lotsa events have been happening, and I can’t cover them all. I just don’t have the time. There’s quite a bit more work in this program than in COSMOS. Been spending most of my time with the others, going different places, playing random card games. Also, we’ve had a movie night every night so far. We…really like our movies, apparently. Anyway, I still have more content to get up to speed on. Again, posting updates whenever I have time/feel up to it.

Tired Today

Will attempt to update whenever I feel like it.

Crappy Hotel Internet

=no update today. Hopefully I should get better internet tomorrow.

In Baltimore

Guh, it’s so hot here. It’s like Taiwan, but Taiwan’s usually worse ’cause it’s so much more humid. These days it’s apparently gonna be at least 100 degrees every day (Fahrenheit, we in the US still use the stupid Imperial system). Really, makes me want to do nothing at all. Thank who/whatever-it-is-you-believe-in for air conditioning.

Anyway, here for a summer camp/course thing. Engineering Innovation. For some reason, everyone I asked has no idea what it was. My parents decided we should come a few days early, see the sights around here. We arrived yesterday, but the day before that and yesterday has sort of melded together in my mind. Plane trip sucked, had to transfer once and suffer a delay due to maintenance or some shit other excuse. Tried my best to sleep on the plane, but then woke up and somehow the whole left side of my body was all fucked up not working correctly. Jaw hurt, abs hurt, my foot kept turning inwards. Not sure what position it was I slept in, but whatever it was it wasn’t good. Somewhat better now, but there’s still a bit of residual damage.

So yesterday, we walked around the Inner Harbor a bit. Not much to see, mostly just shops and restaurants. I tried to stay inside Barnes & Nobles (yeah, totally the place to visit in Baltimore) and read a volume of manga (Ultimo vol. 6, to be exact), but then my parents said it was too cold, and so I had no choice but to buy a light novel instead (Vampire Hunter D, vol. 1). Just finished the novel today, it was pretty good. Basically, D is a badass, and everyone else is just dumb, weak, or overly sexed up. After buying the novel, we went for lunch: the nearby Panera Bread. Also totally the restaurant to eat at in Baltimore. Once done, walked around a bit more along what’s apparently called the Heritage Walk. It was labeled as so with tiny plaques embedded in the ground. It was also translated into other languages, such as Korean, Arabic, and Chinese. Strangely enough, the labels were different for traditional and simplified Chinese. Traditional said “遺產散步” while simplified was “遗产走路”. Both…don’t make sense. Probably they just plugged into Google Translate and those were the first translations that popped up. My dad suggested it be replaced with “遺產步道”. Much better.

It got too hot out, so we went to get checked into our hotel. We’re staying at this small little thing called Hyatt Place. Not as good as the regular Hyatt, but at least it’s not bad enough to be called dinky. Seems fine, mostly. Internet, like all hotel internets, sucks shit is super fucking slow. If you couldn’t tell (which you can’t, right, since the bad stuff’s been removed), it really pisses me off. Can’t catch up with all the daily updates the internet makes. Hope the JHU internet is much, much, MUCH better. Fingers and toes and arms and feet and head crossed.

Then, dinner. Not a single cheap place that was halfway decent. At first, we were gonna eat at this place called “Phillip’s Seafood”, but the wait was 45 minutes. Way too long. Instead, we went to a Japanese restaurant. Yay. Really, it’s like we weren’t at home (or in Baltimore). Still super god-fucking-damn expensive. We paid upwards of $120, for one appetizer, one platter, one caffè latte, one Ramune, and one cup of hot tea. Anyway, due the price, the waitress suggested us taking some pictures, so here you go.

Smoked White Salmon…or something like that.

Party Platter. Definitely not the real name.

By the way, the waitresses were Taiwanese, as was the boss of the restaurant. Chefs were American and Mexican, I think. Yup, greatest Japanese restaurant ever. I mean, if they wore real Japanese garb, it must be legit.

So after all that, I completely crashed yesterday, which leaves it for me to catch up today. Now for today’s chronicle.

Since it was more than 100 degrees out, we visited the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA, but I really want to refer to it as BAM!, exclamation point included). We saw only part of it, like what usually happens when we visit museums. I don’t really hate museums, but I always dislike how it takes more than a day to fully appreciate the collections. In this day and age, we don’t have the time to see everything a city has to offer in merely three days. We viewed a few collections, I liked the sculptures and the miniature rooms but I also realized just how much I disliked Matisse (a whole wing was devoted to him and his ugly (my views, doesn’t have to be yours) portrayals).  We had lunch there, also fucking expensive, then tried to see as much as we could before it was time to leave. Unfortunately, only saw a floor and a half. My dad missed out of most, since it was too cold inside for him, and he stayed outside. He said he slept, then was woken up by the heat. Me, I can’t believe he even fell asleep in the first place. Anyway, once closed we came back, and my parents just slept the afternoon away, heat wave and all. My mom really hates the AC, so she keeps turning it off, and I was like, really? You expecting that I can be baked or something? Well, you be sure at least that I was simmering, if not with the heat then with anger.

Later today, had pizza at this Italian cafe, was pretty nice, and guess what, decently cheap. Was like a regular meal for us back home, where we generally spend $30 bucks for dinner, and that’s for the comparatively expensive places. Before that place, I was expecting the whole goddamn city to only give us good food by extorting our money. After we finished, came back, and here we are now.

Whew, that was a giant chuck of text. As a side note, I wish I could take night pictures, but my phone-camera-thing isn’t good enough. Oh well.

Oh yeah, I think my dad is beginning to really hate Baltimore. List of things that have been pissing him off: the heat, the retaliating AC, the one way streets, the terrible drivers, the multitude of blacks, and the one thing that pisses him off most, Gay Street.