Staying with your ex-boyfriend for a few days and hanging out with a bunch of his friends and his new girlfriend can be somewhat awkward, but it gets more awkward when he accidentally calls her by your name when they're saying goodbye.

And now for my next trick... a tour of Seoul!


Ex-boyfriend, seeing that his Japanese student has a pencil case covered in marijuana leaf designs: Do you know what that is?

Japanese Student: Yeah of course. Canada!

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Today I got up er-ry and went to the seben ereben and spent about eight dorrars. At filst I fert bad fol spending so much money, but when I rearized that I was spending dorrars instead ov dollars, I fert bettel. Today Toku and I wirr go to the parace.

see you ratel!

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Well, Japan is the most awesome place EVER. And I`ve only been here for 9 hours....

I think the best thing about it is that whenever you worry about a potential problem like getting lost or getting athlete`s foot or being late you have to start laughing knowing you would actually get rost or ������ afreet`s foot or you would be rate.

...

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Off I go to Japan and South Korea.

See you in two weeks.

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1. Dinner with Thalweg's parents
2. Terminator: Salvation with Christian Bale tonight at 12:01 am
3. Work like hell all Thursday until Friday morning
4. Campus Dance!
5. Get together all remaining things for Japan
6. Go to Japan
7. JAPAN! See Toku! See Ol' Neckbeard! See jinyu!
8. KOREA! See Daniel!
9. Start on my new "life plan" designed by my friend who is a MS in "performance psychology".
10. Roadtrip to Colorado with Thalweg / cat wrangling
11. Teach middle-schoolers about the Martian weather
12. Trip to NASA to learn about the atmosphere
13. Trip to France?
14. Trip to Wyoming for Phil's wedding
15. Ranor comes to visit!
16. TRIP TO ANTARCTICA
17. TRAVEL AROUND NEW ZEALAND


AHHHH I'm so excited that my head is going to explode!!!

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So many awesome things are happening at once I don't even have time to process all of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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We had a fancy dinner at the faculty club for the Mercury MESSENGER people, who were here for a team meeting. I gave a talk about volcanoes despite my bad cold which I was certain must be a strain of the swine flu.

I got to talking with Dr. Chapman, a senior researcher out at the Southwest Institute, and I learned that he's secretly a Trekkie and that it was secretly his birthday.

After dinner, Nikita Kruschev's son Sergei (who is a research fellow at Brown) gave a talk about the Soviet Union during the space age.

You see, after World War II, the Americans and the Soviets divided up all of the German rocket scientists and carted them off to their respective countries. At the time German rocketry far outpaced anything that the Allies had invented. These germans became major players in the development of US cruise and ballistic missile theory. The Germans in the Soviet Union were taken to a resort on a remote island in the middle of nowhere (better than prison!) and given the same task. However, the lead Soviet rocket scientist at the time resented the presence of the Germans. They would submit their reports directly to him. He would decide that their plans were "inferior" and put them in a file, only to steal ideas from them later. Soon enough Kruschev announced that the Soviets were turning out missiles "like sausages". Shortly after this, President Kennedy offered to start a joint space program between the Americans and the Soviets to go to the Moon. It was the early 60s. Kruschev declined, knowing that if they started working with the Americans on the space program, they would have to reveal that they only had three missiles, not the hundreds that they had insinuated that they had. Sergei hypothesized that this was one of the great mistakes made by his father.
In what is perhaps a great irony, the Soviet nuclear engineers gave the rocket scientists a minimum weight for the warheads to go on nuclear missiles that was many times what the American warheads weighed. The Soviet rocket engineers had to engineer a rocket that would carry this ridiculous weight, and to this day the Russians possess the strongest rockets. The US still purchases rockets from the Russians in order to send up their heaviest payloads.

After the dinner I downed my untouched glass of wine in one gulp and Zebo and the Welshman took me to the graduate center bar, where the Welshman made fun of me for talking to my "boyfriend" Dr. Chapman during the "entire dinner" while Zebo bought me a very tall Hefeweisen. The Hefeweisen and two Mike's Hard Lemonades later, the Welshman walked us home. We dropped off Zebo at her house and walked to my house, where I hugged him, walked away, came back, hugged him again, stifled my cough to save him from certain death by swine flu, exhorted him to get home safely, and then went inside and tried to figure out why the Germans were such excellent rocket engineers and how exactly it was that Madame Sobriety herself had become drunk on a Wednesday.

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In honor of watching "17 Again" with Zac Efron, I present a nostalgic high school memory:

It was the opening day for the new Star Wars Movie. You know, the one where Anakin Skywalker falls out of the window in Coruscant and a bunch of things totally in breach of physical laws ensue.

All my [nerd] friends [read: the boys from "Strategic Board Games Club"] were dressing up for the occasion. My boyfriend was Obi-Wan Kenobi on account of his most Obi-Wan like beard. I was way too cool for that kind of thing.

OR SO THEY THOUGHT.

My mom helped me get together some pieces for a costume, we even went to Michael's to get some bendable foam. She has always been good at things like that. My costume was amazing.

The next day, an Imperial Storm Trooper attended school in my place.

The day was filled with many small triumphs:

Guy: "Hey! HEY ! Storm Trooper! WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING ME?!?"
Guy's friend: "Don't you know? Storm Troopers don't talk, dick"

But none so sweet as when I encountered my boyfriend walking to class with his friend:

Boyfriend: "... who is this?"

Me, taking off my helmet in one sweeping motion: "... someone who loves you very much."

Boyfriend's Friend: "...THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED!"

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