Packing Axiom

A traveler knows they are done packing not when there is nothing left to squeeze in, rather when there is nothing leave at home and still survive.

Of to Berliner

Yep yep… I leave in about 2 hours. 2 full days in Berlin. I’m hoping ot have some fun, although little is planned at the momment.

What sucks is that my camera battery has died, and I left the dock at home. Looks like I’ll be on the disposable camera, mad old school.

But you know, as the French say, such is life…

Galvanize, by Chemical Brothers

That song has played in each and every club/party I’ve gone to. Today I heard it in the gym, had to download it. Chemical Brothers, they’ve got some good stuff. You know what that means…. discography.

Phsychologists scare me…

Just watched Basic Instinct. Man, phychologists scare me. I don’t want people all in my head, toying with my thoughts. Ah man, I’m scared of them now, really scared.

Let your inner gangsta out…

Yeah, someone said that to me. It’s not that bad. Just the subtle stuff that sits in the back of people’s mind. Why do I have an inner gangsta? I gre up in Canada!

Back in blogging

Finally got around to tracking down a dashboard widget to post to the blog. THEY NEED TO ADD EMAIL BLOGGING! So hopefully new posts will come. man, i’m talking to myself. no one reads this crap, lol.

And I heard em say…

Far too many times have I heard… “But what can I do, I’m just one person.  Sure,  what’s happening is horrible, but I’m just one man!”  Seems a bit weak to me.  Just a cover.  If something were really wrong, there’s plenty you could do.  if it were your own sister or brother, you could do something.

I’m talking about alot of cases.  Starvation around the world… mass killings around the world… I don’t know what else.  There is something all of us can do.  But americans, maybe the west, maybe everyone is really just too lazy.  But I single out Americans, cause we are rich.  “I once complained because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.”  There’s always someone worse off.  And there’s always something that can be done.

Granted, I must admit that I am a hypocrite on this.  I could be in the peace corps now.  I could give away all I had to feed the hungry.  Here’s my vein attempt to justify partially.  Doing so right now would lessen my future value.  Yes, it’s possibly to save a child right now, save 100 people.  But if I do that now, that’s all I might be able to do.  but if I graduate form MIT and do great things, then I could save 100 milliion people.  Deep, isn’t it.  Of course, it’s hard/impossible to weigh letting someone die not to save 100 in the future.

As Dilbert put it… if you were truly moral, you couldn’t justify buying/having anything as long as there was still 1 person starving.

Where are all the black people?

First off, that’s black in the Cambridge sense, which officially means “people who self define as Black.  Black shall be an embacing term covering those students who, by virtue of not being white, are at risk of racist discrimination and prejudice.”

So today I attending my first general meeting of the BAC (Black Student’s Campaign).  They discussed and made action plans for quite a few issues that face them on campus.  They ranged from how to get colleges to server Halal food for Muslims in the dining halls, to outright racism on campus.  I must say, I was surprised by what I found.

They spoke about how only 3% of non-white students receive A averages, vs the 21% of white students that receive that grade.  Tha’s fairly shocking.  Then I find that only 3% of the undegrads are non-white, and there are literally only a handful of non-white profs.

This raises atleast one question in my mind.  Is England a”white” country?  Certainly not every country is as diverse as the US.  Probably none other.  But is Nigera a “black” country?  And if you go to london, you will surely see tons of minorities.  So should the higher end schools like Cambridge reflect this?

Also, apprently muslims go through alot here.  I don’t drink.  So I miss out on alot of the bar stuff, I guess.  But when you can’t go in the bar, and hall is cut off because they won’t serve Halal food, that cuts off most of your social interaction.  Add to this, fresher’s week (read orientation for you yanks) is all about drinking.  Once again cutting them out.  This really blows.  But the BAC is in action and made some good proposals today.  Hope to see things get better.

Rugby rocks

Maybe I’m just easily swayed by my surroundings, but rigby is cool.  The game just keeps going.  And these guys are powerhouses.  All build like trees looking like they are ready to rip someone’s head off!

Yo, you can pass the ball to yourself!  That’s mad hot! You kick it forward and outrun the defenders to get by them.  It was crazy!

What else?  These guys just run through people, and move other players at will.  Picking people up and crap.  I saw a man get run over.  pure power.

Don’t get me wrong, football is also fun to watch.  Despite the fact that it stops every 5 seconds, there are tons of really nice plays.  You get people jumping and the air and doing crazy catches.  But the game is geared towards that.  People make beautiful catches and what not.  That is something to like about football.  Score one for football.

Last thing about rugby, when they throw the guy in the air to catch the throw in… it doens’t get any better than that.

Back in the swing of things

I must say, i’m having fun here.  That wasn’t so much the case last term, but I guess you just have to find the stuff that fits.  Before, I was trying to do stuff like house 2, and the other option appeared to be drinking.

But now it’s cool.  I talk to the people around me all the time (I don’t know why I didn’t before).  The secret to clubbing is going before 10pm.  Get in free.  You just have to burn an hour or so until it fills up with people.  And I’ve all but given up on finding other americans to go with, but I had a great time there last night.

Today was lifting and watching 6 nations rugby.  I’ll hopefully be starting a workout log/blog, just to keep track of things.  Why put it on a blog, just cause I can.  Yeah, I know it’s relatively pointless, lol.