So here I go with my second attempt to update my stagnant blog. In no real order...
1 - It's Cool to Still Eat at School!
Yes, despite the fact that I gradauted from high school back in June 1999, I am still in college and still working for my undergraduate degree. However, on a positive note, I'm basically there. I've completed all my course work, gotten enough credit hours, and satisfied all my requirements. So what's the hold up? Well besides my bouncings from CS (Cornell) to ORIE (Cornell) to nothing (TCCC) to Math (Cortland), I've once again pushed off graduation in order to do a semester abroad in...
2 - Beijing, Here I Come!
I figured this was my last and best shot at doing something like this, so I've decided to spend the Fall semester at Capital Normal University (yes, that is what it is actually called) studying what else, Chinese! I know many of you may have known about my Japanese coursework at Cornell, and how much I loved that (and I still do hope to someday continue with that and become at least semi-fluent). However, when I transfered to Cortland I didn't have that option anymore. That wasn't much of a surprise really since it is only a state school. What was surprising though was that while they didn't even offer introductory Italian (for all you future Cortland students they now do have Italian 101 and 102), they did offer Mandarin (Chinese). So I figured I've give that a shot since as much as I love math I did need something to help break up my schedule. So to make a long story short, I took to Chinese quite well (the whole tone thing still gives me some trouble) and after seeing a presentation about Cortland's fantastic connections with China (yeah, beats me too how that happened), I decided to apply for study abroad. So now to answer all the standard questions I get:
-I leave at the end of August (27th to be exact)
-I get back in mid to late January (that date hasn't been officailly settled yet)
-I am studying purely Chinese over there, from 8 to 12 every day (with some possible electives in Tai Chi and/or art)
-yes, it is a hard language, but not quite as bad as most people think since the sentence structure is almost identical to English (although the whole reading/writing part does take some effort since I', forced to learn an entirely new character system)
-no, I'm not moving there, yet (there is always the possibility after this is all over, but who really knows at this point)
-I'll be staying in a foreign exchange "dorm" at Capital Normal, with other exchange students (mostly from Korea)
-yes, it is scary and exciting at the same time
I think that about covers it for the whole China experience, so onto...
3 - Snap! I've Got a Digital.
After years of talk, and months of deciding, I finally got a digital camera. This means I'll now be able to share all my life experiences over the internet with visual aids! I plan to set up a photo posting site in the near future, and I'll let you all know where to find it at once it's all set. This means that all of you that I don't see that often will get to feel like you're more in touch with my life and my ever-changing style. Plus, this way I'll be able to show off how what I learned in my 2 black and white photography courses does not apply at all to my digital-color skills, as will probably be blatently obvious in my early pictures. Hopefully over time, as I adjust to the camera, I'll be able to produce decent quality pictures, but until then...it may be ugly.
4 - You Look Happy, Did You Do Something Slutty?
It has been quite a while since I last posted here, so I don't believe that I've made any mention of Steff, who I met back in January, and our, let's say, unique relationship path. I met her through means which she likes to forget about, so I won't mention them here, but needless to say it's a little geeky and such. On our first date (which like most of my first dates I thought went terrible, and I half expected to never see her again), I met her ex...girlfriend. So right there I should have realized that this wouldn't be a normal relationship. In any case, we went on a couple more dates, and eventually worked our way into a relationship (with the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing). Naturually, I screwed that up with my inferior boyfriend skills, so we decided to just revert to dating, since we both enjoyed each others company so much and didn't want to break it off completely. And yes, there is a big difference between dating and being in a relationship, and I will debate this with anyone who wishes to. So that's about where it stands at the moment, or at least for the next couple days. Saddly, Steff will be heading down to NYC (which it seems is where everyone is heading) for gradschool, and the promise of better things than Ithaca. This means that the whole dating thing might be thrown off a little as we'll be about 200 miles apart. However, all is not lost, as we plan on remaining good friends and staying in regular contact. Plus, this gives me even more reason to head down to "the city", and down to both Atlantic City and Foxwoods (oh, did I mention that she's a big poker player as well? Always a nice plus). Which brings me onto the final topic...
5 - Unemployed? I Prefer Self-Employed
After a whole 4 hours of training stocking shelves at Price Chopper, and then a whole 3 hours of "training" delivering food at a local eatery, I am once again without a job...sort of. I've decided to spend this summer trying my hand at the life of a professional gambler (or professional poker player to be more exact, I'm dumb enough to think that I can beat Craps or Roulette or anything like that). I've had a good amount of success so far this summer, turning $200 into about $800 in the course of a couple weeks, and I'm going to try to keep that going. So far I've officially been a "professional" for 3 days now, with mixed results. Battling through nerves on my first day as a pro (true I had been on a good streak up til then, but now this was my livelihood), I managed to walk away up $75 for the first night (Saturday), only to hit an extremely bad run of cards the second night (Sunday), and walk away $200 to the negative. Today I decided to recoup, regroup and rest, so I'm even for my third day as a pro, leaving my current total at -$125. I'm more than confident this will right itself and start climbing back into the positive numbers with my trip(s) up to Turning Stone this week, and my scheduled trip to Niagra this weekend.
So that's about where I stand at the moment. I've also had a couple of really nice visits over the summer (Dan and Katie were in town a few weeks back and I got to catch up with them, and then Gil and Josh were here just recently and I got to hang with them as wel), and I plan to try to hit a couple of areas (namely NYC, Vermont, NJ, Conn, and/or Boston) in the near future. If any of you are in those areas, let me know if/when you want to get together. Or if you're not on any of my scheduled paths, and you want to be, let me know. If you can give me good enough reason to come visit you (good casino nearby, your town has the world's largest merry-go-round organ, or you just miss me) I just might have to make room for you.
So I think that is where I shall end it for now, but stay tuned for movie reviews (I've got a couple things to say about both Starwars and Batman), current music trends I'm on (I have a new #1 album), and all the other happenings and updates from my life (I promise at least a weekly, if not bi-weekly update schedule). Until then...