We are too fat.

I just took an online IQ test, and I scored 127, which is 5 points lower than what I scored in high school. I think I got dumber in the last 4 years.


Two nights ago, while I was struggling to keep me asleep in unbearable heat, a phone call woke me up. It was Tiffany, an amazing @er from my home LC who used to share a house with me along with 4 other people. She gave me a shocking news: Pixie, Tiffany's pet cat that I used to take care of from time to time, has tripled its body weight while Tiffany was away for her traineeships and CEED and who knows what else. OMG! It used to be pretty big in the first place (see the picture above), and now it's three times larger!? If I triple my weight I'd be around 500 pounds (225 kilos) and I'd be ready to die. Pixie better get through some serious diet now and I'll make him (yes, it's HIM) run with me when I get back!

So, for the sake of Pixie, let me talk about obesity a bit. Most of the factual information are extracted from here.

Believe it or not, for the first time in history (on the record, at least), the number of overweight people rivals the number of underweight people. While the world’s underfed population has declined slightly since 1980 to 1.1 billion, the number of overweight people has surged to 1.1 billion. In the United States, 55 percent of adults are overweight by international standards. A whopping 23 percent of American adults are considered obese. Obesity cost the United States 12 percent of the national health care budget in the late 1990s, $118 billion, more than double the $47 billion attributable to smoking.

I used to think of the issue of obesity as personal problem. I used to believe that it's up to the individuals to decide what to eat, and how much to exercise. Well, is that really so? In the US, in general, we consume way too much sugar, beef, and unhealthy and nutrition-empty food (like ramen that only cost you a few cents). We choose to eat them because they are cheap, and more filling. When I go to supermarkets in the US, I avoid organic vegetables because they are more expensive. I have countless American friends who told me that Mac n' Cheese is the best food that they grew up with. Fast food restaurants are EVERYWHERE. Unhealthy diet is almost like a culture in the US. And culture is not very easy to change.

And guess what? even though we eat so much, some 40-50% of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten in the US. Furthermore, wasted food gets rotten and produce methane, which is a greenhouse gas far more potent than CO2.

People are expected to own cars. Except in the center of major cities, there are no side walk on roads, not even bike path. Public transportation is almost out of question in suburban areas. Hence, driving door-to-door is the only way for some people. Physical activity like walking is not necessary, or rather only gets in the way when transporting yourself.

These are just some snapshots of the issue, and who knows what can be done to resolve. And even more shockingly, recently I read a news about US's overweight population possibly being surpassed by China. So now the fattest country in the world is China??? People, we need to stop getting fat, and start giving food to the ones who deserve it more.

Reception weekend in Sibiu!

For the past few days I was in Sibiu, the cultural capital of Europe 2007. For the reception event, of course. This was their second annual, and last year they managed to host 35 trainees from all over Romania. Amazing! So I was on my way to Sibiu thinking that I'll see at least 15-20 trainees just like me. Well, this year I guess stars weren't in the perfect arrangement or something, and we only had 5 trainees, including myself and two trainees in Sibiu. That's ok, we still had some good times.

So my weekend started by waking up at 4:15 AM Friday morning (yes I took a day off from work) and going to Autogara of Galati at 5:00 AM. From there we (Catalin and I) took a bus to Sibiu, originally planned for driving duration of 8 hours. But on the way we were blocked by a few scenes of car accidents, and it ended up taking more than 13 hours. Nice. I was on that bus the entire day. And we had to switch buses at Brasov, which was very confusing because we all thought that it was a direct bus.

Then I arrived at Sibiu Autogara around 7:00 PM. From there with Catalin's help I safely arrived at the dorm that I stayed for the weekend. There I met Silvio from Italy and Cornelli from Iasi, Romania. We chilled until 9:30, and then we went out to the city for "Tour by Night." AIESEC Sibiu people gave us a short tour of Sibiu. The city was very nice, and very different from any other cities that I visited in Romania. After the tour we went to a cafe/bar called Melange and had some drinks. There was an old piano so I tried to play, only to realize how much I have forgotten. Even after considering that the piano was seriously out of tune, I still think that it'll take a while to get my skills back when I return to the US. So I stopped playing and started to mingle with others, we somehow ended up doing a pepper sniffing contest, my beer was knocked down by Ili at one point, and so on...we had some good time.

Then as we were on our way to our dorm room, Olga (trainee in Sibiu from Ukraine) came up with a wonderful idea to run through the fountain in Piata Mare. And we did. You can imagine what happened easily...we got very wet.

Then the next day started the Adventure. First we, the trainees, were given an envelope with a picture of a landmark inside. We had to find that landmark, and there we were supposed to meet our teammate, @er from Sibiu. My landmark was very easy to find, and there I found my teammate, Jacko. Together we went around the city to complete many activities, competing against the other 4 teams. The most memorable of those were "movie-guessing" and "miming."

Movie-guessing - One of us were given the title of a movie, and the other had to guess what the movie is by only asking yes-no questions. We struggled so much with this one. What I had to guess was Harry Potter, and I have not seen ANY of the Harry Potter series yet. I ended up asking questions like "does the first letter of the title of the movie start with an A?" and went through the entire alphabets. I asked this question until I finally got the word "Harry." Then Jacko had to guess the movie "Terminator," and he ended up using the same strategy. This game is way too hard for people like me who don't watch many movies.

Miming - One of us had to mime a famous phrase, and the other had to guess. So we chose Jacko to mime. The phrase was "Michael Jackson is the King" and Jacko ended up performing some Michael Jackson moves for countless times even after I realized what he was miming. I did not know at the time but this process was recorded, and was played in the slideshow at the end of this day. I wish I can show the video here, it was priceless.

After all events, we watched the movie "War Lords" in the @ office. The movie was ok, but it wasn't the best movie we could watch after a day full of energy-shedding activities. After we finished watching, it was 2:30 AM. My bus back to Galati was supposed to leave at 6:30 AM, so at this point I decided not to sleep. After we returned to the dorm room, I packed my stuffs, and went outside to prevent myself from sleeping. I ended up talking with Cornelli until 5:30 because he was leaving at the same time as I was. I don't remember exactly what we talked about because I was very sleepy and tired, but I'm sure Cornelli was bored to death by talking to me in that state sleepiness. Sorry!

Anyway, at 5:30 we met with Catalin who took us to our respective bus stations. When we got to my bus stop Catalin asked the bus driver if I had to switch the bus or not, and he said it was a direct bus. So I was relieved, because I did not have to go through all that confusion again.

Luckily there were no accidents on the way back and the entire transportation from Sibiu to Galati was carried out exactly as planned...except the part I had to switch buses at Braila. Direct bus my @$$.

Another weekend of traveling around the country. I like traveling, but at the same time it costs money. For transportation alone I spent 114 lei this weekend. With everything else combined I spent well over 200 lei in 3 days, so considering my salary, I think I need to start saving.

Yay for smoking???

I'm not really a smoker. I've never bought a pack of cigarette or tobacco myself. I only smoke when offered, and I must say I don't mind smoking (esp. hookah) at all, I actually like it sometimes. I know there are many @ers out there who are in love with hookah and how it helps to facilitate meaningful conversations. I never noticed a change to my health after smoking a cigarette or a round of hookah once in a while, but for some people, or better yet for entire humanity, smoking can be deadly. Here are some reasons why we should stop smoking.

First, let's start with the obvious. TOBACCO CAUSES HEALTH ISSUES SERIOUS LIKE CANCER THAT POSSIBLY CAUSE DEATH. Some people still try to argue against this fact, but it's true. In fact, it is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide. I think I don't need to embellish any further about this point. Smoking kills. Period.

Sadly, nothing seems to work when convincing a smoker not to smoke. It isn't too hard to imagine the difficulty, I know as a runner that I wouldn't stop running just because I'm told that running is bad for me. I've been hurt before, physically and mentally, because of running. But I know that tomorrow morning, I will go for a run before work even if I get chased by street dogs from time to time (they are more aggressive in the morning for some reason). I've heard of enough stories of girlfriends trying to stop their boyfriends from smoking, and vice versa, but it is rare to hear of a success. If the direct harm of tobacco is not enough to stop a smoker from smoking, try these reasons.

* Tobacco exacerbates poverty
* Tobacco contributes to world hunger by diverting prime land away from food production
* Tobacco production damages the environment
* Tobacco reduces economic productivity
* While the Tobacco industry may employ people, this can be considered an example of “wasted labor”, capital and resources.

Interested in reading more about this? Go to this great website to find out more about the effects of tobacco. You'd be amazed. Then you should ask yourself, if you are a smoker, why do I continue to smoke? And is that reason worth the harm it creates? If you are not a smoker, now you have enough knowledge to convince the smokers you know why smoking isn't worth it, or at least educate them of the possible consequences. After reading this article, I don't feel like smoking anymore, even if it's only on rare occasions.

So...yay for not smoking???

Pictures from Brasov

Pictures from the trip to Brasov are now posted on my Picasa album.



The trip had some good parts and bad parts, but I must say it was different from the trips I've taken with @ers.

Good Parts:
-Everything was paid for (almost...)
-Staying in a five-star hotel room by myself
-Free transportation

Bad Parts:
-Only 32 lei per day for food
-Colleagues don't really speak English (I need to learn more Romanian!)

For the entire trip we were trying to save money on food because of our generous budget. To me, it's simply ridiculous to save money on food like that while staying in a hotel that costs hundreds of lei per night. If I could plan this trip, I would have planned so that we stay in a three-star hotel, and have feasts every meal and buy some souvenirs.

But overall, it was a nice trip.

HERO

Last week, from Wednesday through Friday, I was on a "business trip" to Brasov. I'd like to make some updates on that and upload some pictures, but before I do it, I want to spit out some random thoughts before I forget. So wait for another post for pictures and stories.

Again, let me start by introducing some lines from one of my favorite song, "HERO", written by Sakurai Kazutoshi.

"例えば誰か一人の命と　引き換えに世界が救えるとして
僕は誰かが名乗り出るのを　待っているだけの男だ"

In translation, it means something like this:

"For instance, let's say the world can be saved by sacrificing a person's life
I am a man who only wait for the one to volunteer"

Today, we live in a world with so many problems. Pollution, energy, politics, war, poverty, you name it. Obviously just one hero isn't enough.

Who's gonna be the heroes?

@ Olympics 2008!!!

This post is quite long, so read when you have time!

AIESEC Olympics 2008, July 31 - August 2, in Complex Mamaia Nord

Three days of Awesomeness!!

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Last week I managed to get myself out of work for two days to participate in one of the best national conference that I have ever attended. It took place on the seaside of Mamaia Nord, and the conference was full of team-building activities that are perfect for the location. As it is called an Olympics, this conference is a competition; teams of AIESECers compete in unique, funny games to be a champ. We should do something like this in the US too, maybe regionally, because this is perfect for bringing LCs together.

However, my experience with this great conference started with an unexpected difficulty. There was some communication issues, and I was so sure that my ride to the conference leaves at 8:00 A.M. from the @ office, whereas the actual time of departure was 6:00 A.M. Well, not much more explanation is needed on this matter, I suppose. I called everyone I know to find my way to Constanta and finally reached Catalin, and luckily I managed to get on a bus at 8:30. It's amazing what you can do with a little bit of knowledge on Romanian language (knowing numbers helps BIG TIME), English, and body language. After about 4 hours of the bus ride, I arrived safely in Constanta bus station.

Here comes another challenge: getting to the actual location for AIESEC Olympics. I called Catalin again, and he told me that I need to get on a bus that goes towards Novadari (spelling is definitely wrong) and get off the bus at Complex Mamaia Nord. Well, I looked around for several minutes, but I could not find the bus. So I made a big, big mistake; I was caught by a taxi driver in front of a train station and agreed to get his service without completing the negotiation for the ride. He first told me that the ride to Mamaia Nord was 13 lei, which is pretty expensive to start with, but at that point I just wanted to avoid any further complication. So I asked him again "treisprezece lei, da?" (meaning "thirteen lei, yeah?"), and he said yes. So I put my stuff in the taxi, and headed to the conference...or at least that's what I had in mind.

The driver spoke very little English, but he tried his best to give explanations for the landmarks we passed by. As he was speaking, I noticed that he did NOT start the price meter for the ride. So I asked him about the meter, but he only mumbled in Romanian and tried to deter my argument. At that point, I realized that he was going to rip me off badly, and I started cursing the driver and myself in my mind.

Then we arrived at a beach, I got off the taxi, and the driver asked me for 30 lei. Yes, 30 lei! I tried to argue, but with the communication problem, I was only wasting my time. I was on the verge of getting physically violent at him (which is a rare occasion for me), but I knew that every traveler in a foreign country falls for this trick at least once, so I told myself to calm down and payed him 30 lei. He must have been singing and dancing in his mind, but I decided to let go of this matter and was glad that I finally arrived at the conference safely. Well, NOT YET.

Apparently the taxi driver only took me to a beach in Mamaia, but not to Complex Mamaia Nord. So I called Catalin for help again, and decided to walk to the location. He told me that it should be about 1 kilometer to the conference from where I was. So I started walking, realized that I was walking in the wrong direction for 30 minutes, turned back, and walked some more. Well, it's a long story with very boring plot so I'll skip on the details, but thanks to Vlad and Alexandra, I arrived at the conference safely, more than 4 hours after I arrived at Constanta. What a day.

When I arrived, delegates were playing games already on the beach, and since I had been warming up for 4 hours, I joined them immediately with maximum intensity. These games did not count for the competition, but it was still really fun.

It's simply impossible to explain every bit of the conference in detail, so I'll just give a highlight of my team.

Strangers - The name of my team for the Olympics. First place winner for baseball, unofficial second place winner for Egg-Head, third place winner for tug of war, etc. The team consisted of Tessa and Nisha from Netherlands, Chris from Mexico and USA, Konrad from Germany, Andrei from Romania, and Masato from Japan and USA (Frank from China took parts at some points of the conference too). What a diversity. I must say we were one of the most competitive team, and if the counting of points were done more logically, we would've been the third place for overall Olympics, I think. But the purpose of the conference was team-building, and I think we did helluva team-building, so the points didn't really matter. We spent most of the conference together and went through lots of challenge and good times, and it was my honor to be a part of this great team. GO STRANGERS!!!

The conference was full of competitions, dancing, laughing, you name it...my vocabulary is too limited to tell you how great it was. I wish to see some of the delegates again in Sibiu during their reception weekend.

Our way back to Galati was pretty chaotic as well, as we tried to hitch hike our way to the train station and all. I arrived home safely around 7:30 P.M., went to bed around 11:00 P.M., and I woke up this morning at 7:15 A.M. My ride to work leaves at 7:30, so you can imagine what I had to go through this morning. But it was all worth it.

Also, last but definitely not least, Frank Ho from Hong Kong, China is flying back home today or tomorrow, and I gave him a farewell at the conference since he was going straight to Bucharest from there. It's sad to see your friends leaving and not knowing when you'll see them again. But now I know someone in Hong Kong. I'm ready to visit him in his home country. So until then, Sayonara Frank!

Sayonara, Kai - Trip to Bucharest!!

"さよならは悲しい響きだけど 君とならば愛の言葉"

It's a verse in a song written by my favorite artist, Kazutoshi Sakurai. In translation, it means something like this.

"'Sayonara' is said with sad connotation, but between you and me it's a word of love."

OK, let's replace "Love" with "friendship" here and read on.

As the title of this post suggests, Kai Reimers of Germany finished his traineeship in Romania and flew back home this weekend. I met Kai last year in Atlanta while he was doing his study abroad in Jacksonville, Florida. He chaired our regional conference and it was great. And I still cannot believe the fact that he happened to be in the same place at the same time when I decided to take a traineeship in Galati. It was completely a coincidence! So I have no doubt that I'll see him again sometime in the future, so until then, SAYONARA Kai!

So on Saturday morning, Herman, Kai, and I left Galati with 1992 Dacia Supernova (again) to go to Bucharest. The trip was nice. The weather was perfect, Bucharest wasn't too far away, and we even had our first experience with Romania highway!



Normally the road in Romania is really bumpy, but this highway was really nice!

And then we arrived at Bucharest, met up with everyone else (Frank, Dirk, Dragos, Claudiu, and Martijn), tried to go inside of the Palace of Parliament but couldn't, so we visited a ruin. We payed 3 lei to get inside, and according to Frank, "there's nothing to see," and in fact he got that right. There wasn't much to see.



So we went on and walked around the city, walked around parks and drank some beer, went back to the hostel and drank some more beer, and we walked into the city again to eat dinner, drink some more and party. We met one guy from Whales and one guy from Canada, so we took them with us. I'm tired of pasting the pictures now, so go to my Picasa Album and see the pictures yourself.

We had a lot of fun but to make long story short, we went out clubbing and drank more beer. Club A was great although apparently it was too crowded for some people. When I got back to the hostel, it was past 5 A.M. and smelled like I was covered in tobacco for hours.

Then less than 4 hours later, Kai took off. We were sad, but I think were a bit sleepier than we were sad, so we went back to bed. Later we visited the Palace of Parliament and this time we succeeded to get in. The Palace was HUGE and gaudy. Many Romanian people don't like it for several reasons. And we got in for free, thanks to our student status.

After we toured around the city some more, we drove back to Galati. I ended up driving part of the way, and I must say that driving in Romania is different from what I'm used to. Fortunately, we all arrived home safely.

And here's the picture of the weekend. I'm tired of putting thumbnails now but this one deserved it.



Whoever ever drew this graffiti better be prepared to die at the hands of samurai.