2009 starts

A professor didn't show up for his lecture this morning. For his first lecture of the semester. He must be a highly motivated teacher for sure.

I'm going throgh a big-time reverse culture shock these days. It's amazing how much a half-year long traineeship abroad can change you. The difference between Georgia Tech and universities I visited in Romania is vast, in terms of EVERYTHING. I was so shocked when I went into my Senior Design class and saw that the classroom was filled with 30+ students, and only two were females. Then we introduced ourselves in front of class by saying one thing we like to do other than studying, and I was shocked again that quite many of them said playing video games for what they like to do. Welcome back to Georgia Tech.

I also saw so many people jogging/running on campus or in Piedmont Park yesterday when I was on my run. I guess they are dong their best to stick to their new year's resolution. I don't make resolutions, I just make goals. So here are my short term goals for the semester:

1. Win the design contest for my senior design
2. Win Pi Mile road race in April
3. Get back into boxing and start sparring again
4. Add at least 2 songs to my piano repertoire

And of course, I need to figure out what I'm going to do after graduation. I don't want to just "get a job" because I don't want to just join the workforce without set direction and purpose. I'm looking into pursuing Biomedcal Engineering, so most likely I'll apply for graduate school. I'm planning on talking my advisor and some professors about this in the next few days.

I really miss Romania and the people I met, but I need to move on. Now is the time to work hard, so that I can make them proud.

Omedetou!!!

I've been really REALLY busy for the past week. Namely, I had to come back from Romania, spend Christmas with my family, and drive all the way to St. Louis, Missouri for Winter Conference 2008, the biggest national conference in the US!

The conference has been great so far. I mean, it's chaired by the PAI (president of AIESEC international) and all. The greatest moment thus far: MCP election. I probably mentioned something about my friend possibly running for the position a few months ago. She did. AND SHE WON.

Tiffany Curtiss: MCP of AIESEC US 2009-2010.

I don't know how to express the excitement and pride I feel about this in any of the languages that I speak. It was almost four years ago when I first met this amazing girl on Georgia Tech track when she was trying out for GT track team, which I too was a part of for the majority of my college career. I guess I can safely say that it was one of the most important event in my life...I can't imagine how uneventful my life would have been without it. And I have no doubt that she will take our organization to the level we couldn't even imagine achieving in the past.

Congratulations Tiffany, you are the best.

Farewell

In a few hours, I'm gonna say good-bye to Galati, go to Bucharest, and somehow get to the airport. Then early tomorrow morning I'll say good-bye to Romania, and three hours later I'll say hello to Amsterdam. After 2 hours and 20 minutes in transition, I'll say good-bye to Amsterdam, then I'll be in air for 9 hours and 40 minutes, and finally say home sweet home in Atlanta.

It's so hard to believe that I'm leaving. When I first in Romania, I thought it was going to be a LOOOONG six months. Well, it was, so many things happened in the last six months. So many. And I'm not tired of it yet. It isn't like "I don't wanna go home", because I do. In the last few days I've been dreaming about the luxury I'll regain when I get back, like being able to choose clothes out of my closet rather than suitcase, musical instruments, boxing, being able to understand everything around me in terms of language, and so on. But I'm really going to miss the lifestyle that I'm leaving behind.

At my last and final LC meeting, I told everyone that Romania may not be the most exciting place to visit for tourists, especially Galati compared to other cities. If I were a tourist in Galati, I would have hated the place because I don't speak the language, people mock me on the street because I'm an Asian, and infrastracture like public transportation sucks to what I've seen in the past (though comparing to the system in Tokyo is not really fair). But because of the people I met through AIESEC, my stay in Galati, and therefore Romania, was well worth the time, money, and effort I spent to be here. It was the people that made the difference. I'm not really going to miss things like riding on maxi taxi driven by crazy drivers, but I'll surely miss EVERYONE I got to know here.

I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again. Oh babe, I hate to go...

Update

I hope everyone who is reading this post is having a nice holiday season. I see people in Galati going home to their parents, and that's my plan as well. Although my faith has dropped to the ground level recently, holiday season still has the special atmosphere that I enjoy. Besides, who doesn't like giving/getting presents?

Despite the holiday season, my last few days have been a little hectic, for nothing. Let me explain why.

If you are an American citizen, you can enter and live in Romania without a visa for 90 days within 6 months. If you are staying for over 90 days for whatever reason, you need to obtain a overstay permit from the Immigration Office in order to avoid penalty. If you overstay without a permit, then prior to exiting the country you need to obtain an exit permit in order to leave the country. (Information taken from the Romanian Embassy in the US)

I actually knew about this all this time. I have made many attempts to resolve this issue with help from my host LC, but the local officials here (Immigration Office, Police Department, etc) never made a clear explanation of what I REALLY have to do legally. Obviously, they didn't know the law, so they did what they always do: deter the responsibility to someone else. And all I heard them saying all this time was, "if you are an American, you don't need a visa to stay in Romania, and when you leave the country, you'll be subjected to some penalty for overstay."

I didn't want to risk being without a permit and unable to leave the country upon my day of departure, so this week I finally decided to go to the immigration office in Bucharest to clear things out, hoping that they'd have a better idea of what's going on. With an extensive help from Marina, I managed to figure out my next step, after going around a few places in Bucharest. However, the problem had to be solved back in Galati. Good, now I'm back on the starting line.

Yesterday, Mihai called the immigration office and the border control to finally figure out exactly what I'll have to go through at the airport when I leave. Well, it turns out that I won't need a permit, but I'll be subjected to a fine, up to 400 EUR. GREAT. My last month's salary, GONE. But I can live with THAT. What I can't live with however is the TIME wasted in order to reach this conclusion.

I wanted to visit a city called Cluj-Napoca this week. I have not visited the city yet, and I heard it's a very nice place, so I wanted it to be my last trip in Romania. So far, I have been to the following places in Romania:

Galati (duh)
Danube Delta
Piatra-Neamt
Iasi
Durau
Amara
Constanta (Mamaia, Mangalia, Neptun)
Brasov
Sibiu
Bucharest

It would have been nice if Cluj could be on this list. And I really wanted to see Andrea there from my faci family before I leave the country. But I guess life is tough, and I never seem to learn that lesson despite everything I've gone through in the last 23 years.

But I am grateful and happy about one thing: I had friends to go through all this with me. Looking back, there was NOTHING that I could do because of language barrier, I was just a passport holder and everyone else did the job for me. Mihai the VPICX, Roxana my trainee buddy, they had to go through a lot frustration dealing with the local officials. And Marina, she transported me around Bucharest and talked to the officials for me, even though she had to be late at work for helping me. Thank you so much guys, you are the best!

And now I'm sitting in my apartment, eating mici and "getting ready to leave." I'm experiencing a mixed feeling right now, because I'm happy that I'm going back home, but sad that I'm leaving Romania. Ying-yang. We need to start uniting the world so that traveling around does not have to be so complicated and expensive.

Pap capsuni.

My internship has now ended. This morning I woke up at 5:30, only to realize that I don't have to go for a run before work today, and I didn't even set the alarm! It's funny how systematic I can be sometimes.

Friday, I went around the company and said farewell to everybody that I had any kind of interaction with in the past 6 months. Some people thought that it was my birthday because I was offering chocolates to them (what Romanian people typically do for their birthday). I told them in Romanian that I am thankful for what they have done to help me and it was truly a pleasure to be here. Everyone loved it and the origami crane that I gave them along with chocolates. As soon as I got out of the company building that day I quickly turned nostalgic about the whole experience, and I realized that I didn't take ANY picture of me working or anything in the company!! What kind of Japanese am I!?

After work, I had to get ready to leave in like 30 minutes to go to Bucharest for the weekend...for ICPS 2008 Faci Team Reunion!! The best faci team ever!!! I was truly sorry that Shake and Marius could not be there, because it's simply not the same without them. But the rest of us made it, and I was so happy to see them!

Friday night, we went to this club called Salsa 3 to attend a party called BAHA Party. One critical thing about this party was that the cover charge was 30 lei for female and 50 for male, and inside the party, it was "all you can drink". BAD IDEA. I don't go into details about what happened, but let's say that I had the second worst hangover in my life (the worst being my 21st birthday). For the entire weekend I was trying to analyze scientifically why I had to behave the way I did. And I finally came up with a solution in the train going back to Galati.

Amount of drink I consume = How happy I am / The price of drinks

So for this party, it was simple. I got to see my family of facis again plus I just finished my traineeship, so my happiness level skyrocketed out the ceiling. And because it was "all you can drink", the price was practically zero. And you know what happens, my techy friends, when you divide something by zero. UNDEFINED.

But it was a good party, after all.



For the rest of the weekend, due to the weather (and my) condition, all 9 of us just chilled in Marina's apartment. We cooked, ate, cleaned, watched a movie, and slept, all together in an apartment that normally house only one person. And what I love about being with these people is how natural and comfortable I feel around them. How can a group of an Egyptian, an Ukrainian, a Japanese American, a Spanish, and 5 Romanians make me feel so comfortable? Maybe nationality is not the factor, because there are no borders between us. I'm still looking for a good answer to this question, other than "it's a beauty of @".

After I go back to the US, Zakhida going back to Ukraine, and eventually Sami going back to Egypt, I know it's going to be difficult to have a gathering like this in the future. Shake and Marius just proved to us about the fact that it was almost like a miracle for all of us to spend one whole week together at the conference. But I say we should try holding meetings in the future. Somewhere, Someday. I think the first one to get married out of us has the right to invite everyone to his/her wedding (sorry Zakhida, think of other ways to invite all of us to Ukraine :))

Capsunicas, forever.

I've been thinking...

I like Christmas season. Now I play some Christmas songs with my new harmonica after work while cooking spaghetti.

I have a feeling already that many people are not going to like what I'm about to say. Please keep in mind that I am not criticizing or being offensive to any particular group or people. This is just my honest opinion about one of the most controversial topic - religion.

On my facebook profile, my religion is listed as "Confused Catholic". My family is Catholic, I was raised Catholic, and I must say my family is very faithful. Well, my uncle is actually a bishop in South Korea after all. But what about me? I used to go to Sunday schools, attend bible studies, and be like a machine when it comes to recalling lines from Gospel. I used to pray because that's what my parents told me to do and it seemed to be the right thing to do.

Then my faith started to diminish in the last few years of my life. Catholicism just stopped making sense to me, probably because it does not accord with natural science that I eat and breath through education. Many religious beliefs were proven wrong in the past by science despite the oppression by the church or other similar entities, yet many people still believe and pray blindly today.

If God (or Gods) really exists in the sense that Christianity or other religions claims, then HOW does praying to that superior existence improve our life? Does praying to God help and feed billions in the world who suffer from poverty and starvation today? It used to bother me a bit when I go to church and at the end of mass, monetary donations are collected for world hunger, etc. Of course it is good to collect donations, but what were we doing for the previous hour during mass? We were praying so that everyone in the world will be saved, and at the end...money comes in. Religion is not providing any realistic solution to the problems we face today, and that's what I feel illogical about Catholicism, Christianity, or religion itself. It almost never provide realistic, tangible solutions to anything.

This is one of the reason that I support the Zeitgeist Movement, since it points out the destructive and obsolete nature of religion. Religion had its place when science and technology weren't advanced enough to understand nature. Today, many aspects of religion is irrelevant. Now we understand many natural phenomena that were believed to be caused by God's will or something similar. So why do we need to keep supporting outdated thoughts today?

I wish I had the balls to tell my parents, not argue, what I stated above... maybe I should wait until I gain complete financial independence from them.

Tomorrow, my internship will be over with!

Eye-opening

This past weekend, I made a trip to Iasi for the second time. Not for any particular reason, just to see my international friends and have fun. And we sure did have some fun! (Sorry Kyle, I could not get in touch with Anca to retrieve your stuffs...)

There was a Japanese trainee in Iasi, Yugi (his real name is Ryohei Oonishi), so we were talking with each other in Japanese most of the time. And I love people's reaction when they hear a language that they've never even thought that it's actually possible to use it for communication. It was cool when we were talking in four different languages on one table at one point (Yugi and I in Japanese, Sami and Yassin in Arabic, and of course Romanian and English). Yugi is from Kobe, Japan, so when I go back to Japan next time, I'm definitely visiting Kobe to see him and his home LC! Note: Kobe is pronounced as KO-BE like KO as in "cold" and BE as in "bend." Please do not pronounce it the same way as Kobe Bryant the basketball player, because it would mean "mating" in Japanese.

I also had a chance to watch a great documentary film called zeitgeist on Sami's computer on Sunday morning (I slept at Sami and Philip's place for the previous night). What we watched was the second part of it called "ZEITGEIST: ADDENDUM." In the movie, a project called The Venus Project is introduced. The idea of the project may sound totally impossible and ridiculous to realize, but I must say I was hooked by the idea...it really blew my mind. I recommend everyone to at least skim through the pages that explain what their project is about on their website. Also these movies are available on Google videos or Youtube, as well as for downloading via torrents utility, which are linked from their website.

My favorite question to ask people at random occasions is "what would you do for living if money is not a concern in your life?" And the answer is almost never the same thing as their actually work or what they plan to do for work. Why is money such a big factor in our lives? Won't we be much better off without it? I've always wondered about this topic, and now I see a possible solution: resource based economy. I have been sending emails with a quote by Mahatma Gandhi at the end, "There's enough on this planet for everyone's needs but not for everyone's greed." There's enough for everyone. We just have to figure out how to distribute them evenly.

I'm going to dig into this project a bit more now to enlighten myself. Maybe you'd say that this is too idealistic, but I see nothing wrong with dreaming. We all know that something needs to happen.

I hope I didn't just give people in the US who are supposed to be studying for final exams an excuse to spend their precious time on browsing these websites and watching these documentaries...