Day 5;

Today was a very interesting day at the lectures. The executive director of S.E.I. gave a lecture that informed us about no-tillage crops and how plowing actually DECREASES land yield in tropical regions...he also told us about the use of urine as fertilizers and the separation of urine and fecal matter to use as composts.

After you've stopped grossing out, you should check it out. It actually looks quite feasible, and I see great potential in what he was talking about (among other things)...

I managed to find a place to practice, though I'll only get to go there 4 times while I'm here. Better than none, i suppose.

This hotel doesn't have a laundromat, and it costs an arm and a leg to ship out stuff! I guess I'll have to go down to the wire before I send my stuffs to get washed.

Other than that, just another slow day in Norrkoping. Check out some photos down below...the first is the view outside my old room (I switched rooms today because I had no good internet access in that old room). The second is me on the first day of lectures...the third photo is our main lecture room and some of my fellow participants, the fourth is the welcome dinner last night at the hotel, and the final is me at the welcome dinner letting my inner Viking loose :D

Day 3:

Much easier than day 2, in that we actually got more breaks and got to leave earlier. I need to leave earlier in the mornings to get the tram though, we got in about 5 minutes late and our supervisor was PISSED! Well, not like yelling at us, but you could tell she was upset. It wasn't our fault though...not really :) I guess Swedes really take punctuality seriously. I won't mess up next time.

Today after class, I went browsing/shopping. Lots of stuff here in town, but it's all kinda pricey. All i got thus far was a hat and a keychain light. I was looking at cell phones and iPods, but I'll get the Pod from the USA and the cellphone from the net at the right time.

Not much else happened today. I took some pics, will post 'em soon.

Day 2:

Man, these people aim to get their money's worth out of US...not that i'm complaining. Today was the first day of the course, and we were all at SMHI from 8:30 am to 6 pm. Lecture upon lecture, with lunch and social interludes...They were pretty educational though. It was mostly introductions to climate change and various issues like health, investigating models of parameters, etc.

I think I'm the youngest person on the course, and the only one from an English-speaking country. It's a very diverse crowd, with about 22 countries represented. The entire setup is very professional, and I am impressed.

I'm also TIRED. Tommorrow after classes, I'll go check out the shopping in town if it's not too cold. Tonight, I sleep and vegetate.

more later

Day 1: Welcome to Norrkoping!

I'm here!

And it's COLD!

Right now, i'm in my room at the Scandic Hotel in Norrkoping, Sweden. I flew in at 12 noon and came straight here with one fellow course participant from the Phillipines. I haven't met anyone else yet, and I think a good number of people haven't reached yet...I'm sure I'll meet more tommorrow.

Travelling down here was a long haul. The trip to Newark was uneventful, except that I saw an old classmate from 5th form on the plane. I had a long wait before the flight to Copenhagen took off, and that was a long trip. My legs still ache from it. Scandanavian Air is a good airline though, I likede how they have individual TVs in the headets.

Denmark was an interesting stay. Too bad the image I'll take from it is a really disgusting toilet. You don't expect to see that in a First-world airport toilet.

Right now i am jet-lagged, but I can't go sleep until nightfall. I'll write more tommorrow, along with pics.

off to Sweden

I'll be heading to Sweden early tommorrow morning for a course on Climate change. This means that I'll be blogging more often, even if it kills me:)

Check this out as well...

Love of money, the root of all evil

http://www.getipm.com/personal/cancer-racket.htm

http://www.ralphmoss.com/

I don't think that chemotherapy is the way to go. If you have to roll the dice, better to roll it towards the natural, not towards that which kills you in order to save you...

I have some thoughts on the power of "science" as practiced by today's scientists. They'll be forthcoming.

Don't mess with fruitcake.

It will kick your ass everytime.

To the Tuna lady

don't throw down no gauntlets to me, I'll pick 'em up :D

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B-flat Major

baaaaad piece of piano-work in this tune.

this is what I want, what I really really want

I need some generous soul to purchase me one of these babies right here :) and I mean the black one. Any takers? hehehehe

post relocation

I moved my year in review blog to a more hidden part of the site, since I had a lot of info therein. If you really want to be nosy and read it, good luck hunting.

The best national security plan any president can have is 4 words: "Get me Jack Bauer."

Daniella Cicarelli

I hear that she's Ronaldo's ex-girlfriend. Just goes to show what football skills can do for ya :) Anyways, there's this big hub-bub about this video of her having sex with her current bf that was making the rounds on Youtube, and how the Brazilian government was trying to get tha Tube to take off all those videos or be blocked in Brazil ad infinitum.

I saw the video (search for her on google and you'll find it. YouTube is the least of her worries) and my impression is that she and her guy have none but themselves to blame. Sure, whoever shot the video is a sleazy jerk, but my opinion is that she and the bf started to exhibit PDA's and then got turned on from that and decided "what the heck, let's go all the way." People were around them the whole time that they were kissing, and when they started to kiss in a way that you should never do in public...that's where I lost sympathy for them. At least they had the presence of mind to go into the water when they decided to actually have sex.

So, the lesson of this experience is: Get a room, you horny buggers!

The music of Alkan

Here's a story about how I made a spur of the moment purchase which led to various things happening.

I went down to Liguanea yesterday to go cash a check. Before heading to the bank, I went to this pharmacy in the plaza across from the bank, and discovered that they were having a sidewalk sale. In this sale, they had two thriller-type novels going for less than $10 US a pop. I haven't read a good story in a while, and they both seemed interesting so I picked 'em up for the heck of it. I started one of them last night called "The Book of the Dead" by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and am currently just past the halfway mark. While the story has engaged me thus far, I freely admit that it is a totally weird story. It's taking a while for the connections between 4 seemingly disparate plot lines to come together (right now I can see circumstantial connection but I'm still reading on to the grand reveal) and it seems that this novel builds upon events in previous novels which I never knew about. Lack of knowledge about these events isn't crippling me TOO much, but the characters are currently acting in a vacuum to me. I have an idea of WHAT the previous events are from dialogue, but I don't know WHY the events happened. Still, I've gone too far to turn around. I'll look it up on Amazon after I finish it.

However, the point of this blog post comes from a throwaway reference by the tale's chief villain. Think of a twisted cross between Frasier Crane and American Psycho, and that's him. In the book, he is full of high class tastes, drinking absinthe, reading all manners of books and authors I've never heard of because they'd be "out of my class and intellectual level". Snob to the MAX. I took a pause when he mentioned this composer called Alkan, the "forgotten musical genius of the 19th century" and said "few pianists are up to the challenge" of playing his pieces. I've never heard of the man, and if I hear "forgotten musical genius", i'm all over that. So I took a gander at Youtube (:drops on knees: "Oh Lord, thank you so much for inspiring whoever it was that created Youtube. May they truly enjoy the money they get from selling out to Google, because they've damned sure earned it." :rises from knees:) and searched to see what clips I could find.

I've heard Chopin's Revolutionary, and while it's difficult, I could play that with a whoooooole lot of practice. I did Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor on my own time, and did it pretty fairly. I can get back up to speed and finish it to performance level if I include it in my new practice routine, which I will probably do. I plan to try Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B flat in the near future; while it's just as hard as (or harder than) the Revolutionary, I like it more and that's enough motivation to keep me working at it when I get the score. But there is NO WAY, no way at all, that I could ever hope to play this fellow's work. A wise man knows his limits, and I believe I just met mine. Take a look at this, y'all.




I'm going to see what else I can find from the composer (and maybe the artist) on tha tube and on Amazon/iTunes. I suppose it's not surprising I never heard of him, since it's not everyone who'd be able to play this. You can't write music that no one can play, 'cause who will listen to it? On the other hand, we all should aim for the stars, eh :) Here's to Alkan, that forgotten virtuoso.

Fortunate Son

Creedence Clearwater Revival. One of the best anti-war songs from the Vietnam Era.

Bill Evans

I really really like this arrangement of this song.

Fantasy Basketball time, baby!!

yeah, it's time for me to lay a smackdown on some suckas!! Of course, I haven't yet won a league, but my time will come :)

I started playing fantasy bball on Yahoo's free leagues about 3 years ago, and I was immediately hooked. It took me a while to get the hang of it, and I am still working out certain things but I did pretty well for my first year. I came in second in one league (rotissiere), and while I missed out on the playoffs for my other two leagues, I did win the consolation league playoffs in both. My second year wasn't as good, because I made the mistake of having 6 teams on two Yahoo IDs, and trying to pay equal attention to all of them. Yeah, that wasn't a smart move...I placed no higher than 7th in all of them. This year, I determined to focus only on 4 teams on my main yahoo ID, and I wasn't going to get any more teams.

Then I said "bugger that, I wanna play."

Thing is, I've gone overboard. Right now, in addition to my main 3 leagues (the 4th league doesn't seem to be taking off), I've set up 4 teams on my secondary Yahoo ID, and I'm about to add an additional 4 on another ID for the heck of it. Yeah, 12 fantasy Bball teams. How will I manage it???

I won't :)

I'll just focus day-to-day on the main yahoo ID leagues, which are all head-to-head. The secondary leagues are all rotissiere, and as far as I can tell, those mostly need regular checking to make sure that the guys on the team are all playing up to par. The last ID leagues, well I'll probably just draft 'em and leave 'em. See if I can actually win without doing anything. That worked for me the one time I tried fantasy football; I came in second for that league and I didn't have a CLUE what I was doing.

So for next season, let me know if you want to take me on in fantasy bball. I promise I won't hurt you. Too much.

The Adama Maneuver (from Battlestar Galactica's episode 4 season 3)

Ain't no way the Enterprise could have done this :D

Oh Lord this one thing I beg of Thee,
Don't let me get hooked on Grey's Anatomy

Travelogue#2: Australia

In 2000, during my sophomore year of college, I became intrigued with the notion of studying abroad. Well, I was ALREADY studying abroad, but I began to think of doing it again for another semester. Heck, why not? Of course, I was limited by my language skills...I was barely holding it down in my mandatory Spanish classes that semester, and I didn't have the time or interest to learn a new language. So, if I wanted to study abroad, I was going to have to go somewhere that spoke English. Canada? Not exotic enough. England/Scotland? The UK has never really appealed to me. I should visit at least once to see my family over there, but I don't think I would like an extended stay. Ireland? Hmmmm, that could have worked, but for some reason it didn't cross my mind at the time... What did cross my mind was Australia and New Zealand. Exotic, but not unfamiliar (especially as they are Commonwealth countries like Jamaica), far away that I can really be out of my element, the ability to awe people when I say "yes, I've been to Australia, don't you know" etc. I chose Australia over New Zealand for a variety of reasons. Firstly, Australia admittedly has it going on over New Zealand. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that NZ is a beautiful country and it is definately on my "must see before I die" list...but if you've never been to either place, which place sounds more exciting, or has stuff you've heard about before? I also liked the schools I saw in Australia, but the main reason I chose it was because I had a "foster" mother of sorts down there, named Barb Loman whom I met on an Adventist email forum. She took an interest in me, and was very helpful to me when I was there, I'll never forget it (or her). She's also the reason why I chose Adelaide as my city of interest, as opposed to the expected Sydney or Melbourne.

So, between Jan 2000 and July 2000, I applied for and was accepted to Butler University's Study Abroad program. I chose this program on the advice of Dr. Klingelhoffer (W&L's INTL student advisor at the time) and I have no complaints about their program. I'm sure the others are good in their way, but I highly recommend Butler University's program for anyone who's interested in study abroad. I got my travel grant, started to save up for living expenses, got my student visa, and in January 2001 I went back home to Jamaica to visit for a month before heading out to Adelaide in February 2001. I left from BWI on Feb 6, and flew to Philadelphia, then to Los Angeles to meet with the rest of Butler SA students heading to Australia. We all got on the same 14-hour flight heading to Sydney, then broke up to head to our various cities. Our Adelaide group was split between two universities: the smaller group going to University of Adelaide and the rest (including myself) to Flinders University. We were together for Butler orientation with Cathy Romeo as our co-ordinator. I just have to give props to her, she did an AWESOME job with us! We arrived in Adelaide on Feb 6, and classes didn't start until Feb 21, so we had a lot of time to acclimatize ourselves.

For me to go into detail with what happened for the entire 5 month period would take a book to account, and maybe one day I'll write such a book. I will sum it all up by saying that that semester abroad was the best time I ever spent in college. To me, it was the right mix of people at the right time, and it all just clicked for the most part. It wasn't all perfect all the time, and I had some rough times there too...but the entire experience was one that I wouldn't have changed for the world, and one that changed my whole outlook on life and on myself. If I could go back and change anything, I wouldn't change a thing. Well, I probably would have spent more time hanging out than studying, especially this one time when I had to turn away a welcome guest in order to hit the books. I'm sure that I was under pressure from the books then, but in retrospect...damn, that was a dumb move!!! Still, who knows...

Things I loved about Australia:

1. The people. Before I left, someone was telling me that Australia was a racist society, akin to South Africa in some respects. I've read the history and I agree that all wasn't rosy in their history and there may be some grey spots here and there; but I didn't experience any racism when I was there. Based on the people I met when I was there, I say this without apology: Australians are the coolest people on the planet. Hands down, objectively speaking, they just rock. Friendly, funny, plain-spoken, no frills or airs, what you see is what you get. Aussies of the world, I salute you!
2. Adelaide. It's a big city with a small country town feeling. That's the best description I have of it. It's the third or fouth biggest town in the country, but it feels comfortable and home-like. I could see myself living there.
3. The environment: To have a kangaroo hop out of bushes to within 12 feet of you and watch you watch him is an experience to remember.
4. The people: I have to mention it again :) This time, I would include the schoolmates I met there, but that's for a separate post about my experience. This post is about the country.
5. Low prices. The US dollar was worth about $2 AU, but prices in Australia are numerically comparable (a meal that would cost $5 in the USA would cost about $5 AU in Australia.) So, if you go to australia, don't do what I did and keep some money in the USA. Take it all with you, change it all, and budget.
6. Danish Caramels from Balfour's Bakery. I would import that stuff to Jamaica if I could, in all seriousness. I never had a pastry like that before I went to Adelaide, and I've never had one since I left. I'm here remembering the texture and flavor, and wata come to mi eye. mmmmmmmmmmmm...yeah, I really miss those :(
7. The People (you see a theme coming out here? And remember I'm not really a people person either :D), especially those at Adelaide City church. Will say more about those experiences later.
   

Things I didn't like about Australia:

1. Lack of ice. Call me weird, but don't Australians ever use ice in their drink??? The only time I might have gotten any ice was if I went to a fast food store. Besides that, it seems that the only thing they drink that's non-alcoholic is cordial (aka syrup) and water. Their food is great, and the wine and liquor is very good if you do that sort of thing, but they need to step up for the "dry" people of the world.
2. "Neighbours" and "Home and Away." It takes a lot to beat "Dawson's Creek" for the title of Worst Show Ever, but these two manage to do so.
3. The cafeteria food. The caf workers were nice people, but God only knows what they did to the food, yo. I mean, how can you make RICE unedible? I ate what I could when I could stomach it. All of us on dorm lived for Tuesdays when they had an Asian cook come in for Asian night, because the food was then just a bit above mediocre. Interestingly enough, the Asian students on dorm HATED Tuesdays. Not only was the food borderline for eating, but the caf was closed on weekends, so we had to fend for ourselves those times. There were kitchens on dorm, but funds to buy food to prepare in said kitchens were limited. I had no luck in finding a part time job, and I found myself having to subsist on ramen noodles and cordial on Sundays and some Saturdays, if I was unable to hustle a lunchtime invitation from people at church. To this day, I refuse to eat ramen noodles unless it is the only thing between life and starvation.
4. "Live hard, party harder" seems to be the Aussie motto. I've never seen an official uni orientation where a pub crawl was the focal event, until I went to Flinders. Well, that's a plus for some people, but I'm a square :) besides, it's not healthy.
   
5. Hmmmm...that's pretty much it. Any other negative thing were experience-based. I told you it was a cool country :D

I was hoping to go back to do some further schooling after New Mexico Tech, but it didn't happen...if I ever return to school, I think I'll try to go down there. Highly recommended!