Got Root?

I am now in Utsunomiya on internship and I am currently at the dorm leeching internet from some wireless access point that has no security setup. I managed to guess the IP of the router and after guessing at some passwords and login names, I gave up... then my browser spat out an error at me in Japanese (translated) "The login is root, the password is case sensitive." I try "root" with no password and bang, I'm in to fiddle with the connection settings -- I'm routing all ports to my computer to get some bit torrent action going.

Ha! These people at the company that I'm working for told me that I'd have no internet at the dorm... muah ha ha ha ha. Well time to get a compiler... I'm going to need it for work tomorrow. Turns out that I might be able to automate some equipment and save a few people 2 hours worth of work everytime they use some thermal expansion measuring machine. More details later... too many things going on.

Presentation Slides Complete

I have as of now, finished making my presentation slides for my in house lab presentation 3 weeks from now. My presentation weighs in at 40 slides and my goal is to do this presentation in under an hour. The material covered in each slide is not dense which should allow me to whip through them fast and concentrate on the results of my work. I have data from 4 sets of experiments I would like to discuss.

I still have to provide a hand out to the lab on my work. I will aim to provide 4 pages of material for the hand outs and leave it at that. It should take me approximately 2~3 days to do working at a moderate pace. I still have to make some images for the handouts which maybe a little time consuming.

Hopefully I'll have everything down by this weekend and can concentrate on my internship and fun on the weekends.

This will be a busy next 3 weeks

My objective for this week is to complete my presentation materials for my in-lab presentation this Saturday by Friday, 3 weeks in advance as I will be going on internship for 3 weeks in Utsunomiya at a department of Sumitomo Corporation. The objective for this presentation is to present my 4 months of work in under an hour.

Most presenters typically go for more than hour, though some people that don't have a lot to say might be faster. My goal will be to cover my matieral with people being able to understand the important parts of my reserach and what I have done. I'm already 30 slides into my presentation and I only worked for 3 hours today. I still will have to make more slides. Fortunately, most of these slides have lots of pictures.

As for my internship, I be working in a branch doing R&D on conductive polymers of Sumitomo Corporation. These polymers have applications in flexible displays. Though my real work is currently unknown to me, I will be looking forward to the opportunity to experience Japanese work life. Where I am based, is famous for having the best gyoza in Japan. I will, of course, have to verify this.

For the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of September, my plans are to scale Mt. Fuji and stay over to watch the sunrise. The following weekend I will either be heading into Tokyo to stay over there during the weekend or making a short return to Sendai to catch the Sendai Jazz fesitval. I still have to decide on which I would like to do.

I reutrn from my internship on the 15th of September, a Friday and will make my presentation to the lab on the Saturday, the day after. I have other annoucements to make for after the 15th and will have them posted when I have settled on the details.

For this week, tonight I will be catching a movie from the son of Miyazaki Hayao (the maker of movies such as Totoro, Laputa, etc etc), a dinner with friends is schedules for tomorrow and Friday and a beach BBQ is scheduled for Sunday as Mike's farewell before he returns to MIT.

Keeping busy... in a good way.

Arrgh, Sunburn! Itchy back!

In general, my body is typically very resistant to getting sun burn, in the sense that I don't have to wear sun block most of the time. Apparently on Sunday, it wasn't so and I got a little roasted on my back. Nothing really bad, just slight tingling and mild soreness, other then that it's all good.

Come today, I'd head out for a BBQ by the river with friends... which was great by the way. Went to a place called Akiu (which is well known for good hot springs) and BBQ'd by the river. After wrapping up, we hit the hot spring and I wouldn't be able to sit all the way in the hot spring because the hot acidic water would sting my back. It was allright though, I did my best to enjoy the hot spring and then left.

Came home by about 8 pm and now by about 10 pm, my back is insanely itchy... and if I scratch it, it stings! What horrible torture... it's either itching or the stinging. Ugh

One Awesome Weekend

I get an e-mail a few days ago from a friend telling me that there would be one big beach party happening in Yotsukura, Iwaki. Not knowing where that was at the time, and since said friend lived in Sendai, I assumed that it would be somewhere close by. I would be dead wrong when I told my roomies about it when I asked if they'd be interested in going. Kuni, specifically told me to check a map... I did. Turns out it is *150* km away from Sendai... and that it'd be happening on a Saturday, the day I have lab meetings that typically runs until 4 pm.

Sendai-->Yotsukura = 150 km

I nerfed the idea on the Friday evening thinking that it would be one hell of a ride out. The next day, during the lab meeting I decided "what the hell! A 3000 people beach party with 30 DJ's etc etc doesn't happen all the time now does it?" So as soon as the meeting was over, I scrambled home to drop off all my stuff and called Kuni to borrow his motorbike touring map book. After I told him what for, he proptly replied "are you freaking crazy?" and I told him "shouldn't you know that by now??" And then I was off... I didn't bring anything, except for my wallet, iPod and cell phone.

On the way to the beach party there were 2 things that I knew, the name of the beach and that I wouldn't have a place to sleep that night. Why? Because my scooter has a range of 70 km on a full tank of gas but all the gas stations would be closed past midnight-- I'd be sleeping on the beach tonight and that's exactly what I did.

I scootered without end for 4 hours to make it into Iwaki by night fall. The sun had set while I was scootering and the bugs came out-- I turned into a human bug screen running through the night at 60 km/h. I had to wipe my face a few times after a few good splats!

I arrived at the beach to the smell of BBQ smoke, flashing lights, lots of music and everyone in beach gear. I'm just going to say that I'm really sorry for you guys that I didn't bring a camera with me (come visit me next year in August instead)!!

There was a make shift half-pipe for skate boarders, a motor-bike stunt show, a row of tents with food and DJ's in everyone of them playing all sorts of mixed music. 1 big stage for live DJ performances, a Reggae booth for people to chill out and a couple of fire-dancers hanging out for the evening. There was even 2 beach volley-ball nets setup and a bikini contest, which I missed (unfortunately oh well, life goes on).

So what did I do? I milled about, bought food and drinks and took in the sights for a good hour. I came alone and the friend I was supposed to meet never returned calls or my e-mail (from the cell)-- so it would be up to me to have some fun.

The volleyball nets were open late at night to anyone; they finished a tournament so I hopped into a game over there and made friends with a bunch of JETs (English teachers) from around the world based in Ibaraki and with some of the Japanese people hanging out. Was great fun.

By late evening I crashed on the beach looked into the sky and caught a few shooting stars... until clouds... clouds of smoke from fireworks, that is, cover the sky at about midnight. I hung out with the international crew, went out for a midnight jog just for the hell of it chatting with a new friend and then crashed on the beach by 3 am. I would wake up (not that I really slept) by 4:30 ish to the rising sun... which unfortunately was obscured by the clouds and left at 5 am for Sendai by scooter because I had an appointment at 10 am!

I got a call on the beach, from a friend of mine. I knew that I'd be going to a beach BBQ the next day and was just waiting for the details on when... I got that call to learn that they'd be leaving in the morning to the beach to BBQ in the afternoon. WHAT? All my BBQs usually happened at night... but these people would be leaving at 10 am. Man, oh man. I'd be on a tight schedule.

I agreed that I'd make the BBQ. I got home by 8:30, showered and slept for 30 minutes before I was up again to change into a new pair of shorts and a t-shirt, then I'd leave home running to the subway station with sand still in my shoes from the last beach.

I arrived to meet up with Mari and a guy named Motomu (works at the local TV station) and his director boss (Kame). Who knows, I might be on Sendai TV one day, oh wait, I already was for an inpromptu interview nearly 5 months ago. There were 7 that were supposed to make it out, 3 bailed because they wre hung over from a party the last night. Turns out that I was the man of the day because I came scootering out of Iwaki on 2.5 hours of sleep to make it to their BBQ. A little hard effort really does pay off!

I didn't even bring a pair of swim trunks to the beach... didn't even think that far because I wasn't entirely there in my head at the time. But I went swimming anyways, setup the fire and gilled some meat on the beach. It was good. I got home at about 8 pm, fell asleep by 9 and woke up by 8 am. Slept 11 hours straight, but it was the best kind of sleep. The kind of sleep you get when you went all out, drift off exhaused and wake up the next morning satisfied with everything you did. I want more of those kind of days!

In Aizu for the Weekend

At first I didn't think that I'd be going anywhere for the weekend but it turns out that I was wrong.

Tuan (my Swedish friend) left Sendai on Wedensday back to Aizu to his host family in Japan. I had never been to Aizu before so I got a standing invitation to go visit him and his host family... whom are in the Fukushima region about, 160 km away from Sendai. Since I didn't have a lab meeting this weekend since it is the Obon long weekend, I decided that I would head out and visit him. Turns out the night before I left Sendai, the weather reports told me of an 80% chance of *thunder showers.* So, I thought the plan was moot and stayed up late on the Friday surfing the net.

I woke up late today at 10 am to find it just cloudy in Sendai and checked the weather report to find that today there would be no thundershowers and only a 20% chance of rain. I fired out an e-mail out to Tuan and by noon, I was out of the house and on my way to Aizu. Crazy, the day before Tuan told me that it probably it was fate that we wouldn't meet again before he left Japan. Turns out that fate was on my side.

After a 5 hour ride on my scooter (after taking a few pit stops to admire the scenery and check out random places) I would finally arrive at Aizu to be greeted by Tuan at the train station... whom didn't recognize me at first because I had my sunglasses on while I was standing right in front of him. Heh, what a shock he had when I took off my sunglasses.

We headed out around town to visit a local cafe to get a drink and headed out to Tsurukajyo, an old castle in Aizu to check out on the way home. Turns out that there was a Japanese drum performance happening that evening that we caught and had a great time.

We dropped back to Tuan's homestay family and had okonomiyaki (best description is "Japanese pizza/pancake" made by his homestay father who is from Osaka (the origin of this food), yum!

After having a living conversation about all sorts of things in Japanese and a shower... here I am typing away here. We probably aren't going to sleep early tonight and then we are going to spend the afternoon hanging out in town before I make my way back to Sendai late in the evening.

I am going to say that I am really happy to have made the trip on scooter instead of taking the bus (round trip bus is $50, scooter is $15), I pay for it in an extra 2 hours in round trip time --> it's a good deal for me because I can stop anywhere I like~ And I did manage to pick up some really nice peaches on the way in to Aizu which we will eat tomorrow.

So, that is that. More news and pictures when I get back to Sendai.

If the news only had a brain

How many of you are aware of why Isreal and the Arabs always fighting? I'll also admit that my knowledge of the origins of the conflict is rather sparce, all that I know is that ever since that I was young, that Isreal and the Arabs have always been in conflict.

I was poking aroung reddit just a while ago and came across this essay written by King Abdullah, the founder of Jordan in 1947. I am sure that many of you out there are following the current flaring of conflict (albeit war) occuring between Isreal and Lebanon as of this moment. War, like car accidents make for great news--something interesting to look at but you'd rather not be connected with.

This is one of the most interesting essays regarding the Isreali-Arab conflict especially since it dates about 60 years back and from the Arabic point of view which is so very unoften heard from. I was quite fascinated to fine such fine English, articulation and composition of thought which is something quite rare to find in common writing today. If you're reading this now, I suggest that you jump there and read it now. The essay is entitled "As the Arabs see the Jews."

I have noticed that it is always that Isreal is always portrayed as non-agressors when it comes to conflict. You read of stories of "Arab attacks" and then Isreal acting in "self-defence." Can you still call it self defence when 2 of your own people are taken captive and then you start making strategic attacks, then get attacked back and then go in for a full scale ground assult outside of your borders? If that was the case, Japan and North Korea should be at full scale war right now over a handful of captured citizens which were forced to train North Korean intelligence officers.

There is an incredible amount of white noise in the news, that it is almost not worth reading anymore. I have read so much, but so much is about nothing-- the news is incredibly thoughtless. If I were to make a bold prediction about the news, I will predict that the news as we know it will die in the next 20~30 years. Watch news parodies like The Daily Show and you will realize how ridiculus the news is, so ridiculus that it's comedy (John Stewart's impression of what's being said on the news about the Isreali-Lebanon conflict here). How can people take the news seriously?

I since moving out, I've never bothered to buy a TV. I did get one from friend when they left Japan and plugged it in for a little while but couldn't stand to watch anything for a period of time. There are better things to do instead of watching TV or reading "bad news."

End of Exams

Exams ended on Wendensday and it's great to be free... sort'a. My last exam was on Wedensday for my controls course. We had 90 minutes to write the exam but I was done in 30 and was the first one out! Boo yeah. The exam was open book too and I heard through out the exam the flipping of papers while people frantically looked for notes on how to solve a certain problem. Unfortunately, it was sort of a cute problem that needed some thinking to solve.

I have to prepare for my in-house lab presentation coming up in September. But the problem is that I will be away on internship for 3 weeks and my presentation occurs the day after I get back. Meaning that I need to get some results together and have the thing ready before I head off. There's always something to do... but I guess it's better that way.