Looking For...

2009 starts

2009-01-06T17:38:00.003+02:00

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!!!

2008-12-30T19:19:00.003+02:00

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

2008-12-22T10:01:00.003+02:00

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

2008-12-20T11:26:00.000+02:00

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.

2008-12-15T21:22:00.002+02:00

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...

2008-12-10T14:54:00.010+02:00

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

2008-12-09T08:55:00.006+02:00

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...

Care

2008-12-05T14:35:00.004+02:00

Yesterday, when I came back from work, I found this in front of my apartment.

For those of you who doesn't know Romanian language (like me), this is basically a notice from post office telling me that I received a package from somewhere outside of EU (or Romania...I forgot), and I need to go to their office and pick it up myself. The best part of it is that the office is open only during the weekdays from 9AM to 2:30PM, so I have no choice but to sneak out of work. Since I've taken like 10 days off in the past 5 months already for conferences and such, I was really nervous about taking 2 hours off from work to do this. Luckily, I did not have any important or urgent task at hand today, so I went to pick it up.

I kinda had an idea of who sent the package before going there. There are not many people outside of Romania who knows my current address: my family and AIESEC GT. My family sent me two packages (at the same time) already in September, so according to my logic, it must have been my home LC sending me a care package. (note - Care package is a system that we have in our LC to send a package to a trainee abroad to show the support from home LC and make them miss home)

On my way to post office, I was thinking that it's a bit too late to send me a care package, since I'm only days away from going back. But now that I got it, I say it's helluva a lot better than never. Seriously, I could cry reading the messages in the box if I were a girl. The OGX team even made a short video message for me, even though half of the people haven't seen me in person yet.

For Masato from F K on Vimeo.

Laleh, my only request is that next time you should actually get on top of them to complete the pyramid.

I really love and am proud of my home LC.

They also included in the package more student newspaper from my university than I can read before going back, some American-quality candies (yummy), brain bogglers (it's basically puzzle made with two tangled metal chains, and you must untangle the chain to prove how smart you are), more soy sauce than I can use in months, and a harmonica...A harmonica!? Whoa! Finally music is somewhat back in my life!! Now I need to start practicing Christmas songs with it.

Thank you @GT, and I miss you guys too!!

Craving

2008-12-03T12:32:00.001+02:00

crave - v. - To have an intense desire for

Well, in fact I'm craving a lot of things right now.

1)Piano - there are so many pieces that I just want to sit down and start practicing. I can't even imagine how much of my skill has diminished in this 5 months.

2)Punchbag - I just want to hit something really really hard for really really long time without causing any damage to anyone, anything, or myself.

3)Good Noodle Soup - I mean a good, good noodle soup.

4)ICPS 2008 - well, I need a time machine for this :( Pap capsuni!!

5)2-3 hour long run through (arguably) beautiful landscape of Columbus, Georgia - Running by lakes, through woods...just thinking of it makes my calves tickle.

Yes, I AM saying that I miss many things at home, but at the same time, I'm NOT ready to go back home yet! Here is my tentative schedule for the next few weeks to come...

This weekend - Trip Iasi for the second time.

Next week - Last week of my traineeship! So on Monday I shall present my country at LC meeting.

Next weekend - ICPS faci team reunion in Bucuresti? Not everyone has confirmed yet, but I'm sure this is happening.

Week after next - Come back from Bucharest, move out of my apartment, and head back to Bucharest for my flight. The question is, how early? The slacker-but-cheap option is to stay in Galati until the 22nd, go back to Bucharest for connection flight to Amsterdam, and catch my flight back to Atlanta. The nomad-but-expensive option is to negotiate with the airline and fly to Amsterdam early, travel around the area with all of my luggage, and come back to Amsterdam in time for my flight.

By the way, outputs from NPS 2008 was posted on myaiesec.net

One way to contribute

2008-12-02T13:01:00.003+02:00

Have you ever wondered that you want to contribute to a world issue but had no idea how you can do that? Well, here's one way you can contribute...without actually doing the actual work yourself. All you need is a computer. It's called World Community Grid.

Image taken from Wikipedia

The idea of this program is to solve problems that would require thousands of years for one computer to solve by using thousands of computers connected with internet connection. This is completely a voluntary program and you don't gain anything from this (aside from the feeling that you are contributing to a cause), but you don't really lose anything either because the program works in the background using the disk space and memory that you don't use anyway.

In the end it does slow down your system a bit, and maybe you'll end paying a few cents for the extra electricity needed to run the system in order perform those calculations. But I think it's worth the trouble.

One of their project is called "Nutritious Rice for the World" and I say this project is definitely worth contributing!!

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T14:05:00.001+02:00

Today in US is Thanksgiving holiday. I noticed that this holiday doesn't exist most everywhere outside of North America, but it doesn't matter, let me thankful. And what am I thankful for? Everything, everyone, that makes me who I am.

I have a huge bruise on my left thigh that I got during NPS, and it's still there. Normally I don't get bruised, and when I do I recover very quickly. My body is good at recovering in general. But this one doesn't seem to go away, and the bad part is that I totally don't remember how I got it.

My traineeship ends on Dec. 12th, and my flight back home takes off from Bucharest on 23rd. I originally made that 10 days of free time to resolve any logistical or other unexpected issues that may happen, but now I need to sort things out quickly so that I can use those days wisely.

Things I want to do in those days are (though I might left some things out):

1) Visit Germany (wherever Kai is and some other places)
2) Visit Netherlands (and meet up with some friends if possible)
3) Meet my capsunicas (faci team from NPS) somewhere in Romania

Would 10 days be long enough for all this?

As a sidenote, I need to get a haircut. It looks really weird after running.

ICPS 2008

2008-11-25T10:36:00.002+02:00

As I mentioned before, somehow things worked out so that I can attend the biggest national conference in Romania as a facilitator. Last week, it happened, in an extraordinary way. As always I cannot write about all the stories from the conference and they are not meant to be, but let me just say that it was by far the best conference experience I've ever had in my 3 years of AIESEC experience (though I must admit that I feel like that at the end of most conferences).

After the conference, even right now, I feel like Neo in the movie "Martrix" when he first learns the truth about Matrix. Morpheus tells Neo that "You've been living in a dream world Neo", and Neo panics and says "No, I don't believe it...let me out!" And later he realizes that he can't go back to the world he used to live in.

I think I totally emptied out my energy tank AND my emergency energy back up at the conference, and because of that I caught cold...but even that's a good memorable gift for me. Thank you Adina, Alisa, Andreea, Dani, Eve, Marina, Marius, Sami, Shake, and Zakhida, for the greatest moments. We couldn't have done it if any one of you were not there for me, for us, and for the conference. Thank you all the delegates and OC members, everyone else who was there, you guys are the best.

Experience like this motivates me to do great things. I don't know why, it isn't like I want to accomplish great things to show off how awesome I am, but I want to show them and prove to them how they helped me to develop myself. So I beg you my friends, check this blog occasionally so that I can keep you updated of how I'm doing and where I am so that maybe we can meet up at some random places in the world.

Photos will be posted on our facebook group, as well as my Picasa album later. I could not take many pictures because the battery died after the first two days, even before the start of the conference. I assumed that it would last for the entire conference because it lasted through my entire 21 days long bike trip last year without any recharge, but because Zakhida was taking so many pictures during our faci meetings, my camera just gave up. Hell, even my laptop stopped functioning properly on the last day because I abused it so much for the week.

Japanese man without a working camera is like a hot dog without sausage, so I will make sure to bring its charger with me next time!

Oh, I made a post on my LC blog about this as well, if you are interested.

I call this Time Management

2008-11-14T09:27:00.003+02:00

Yesterday while searching for more physical fitness training variation, I came a across a method called Tabata. It was developed by Izumi Tabata, at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan. I tried this last night and I approve the effectiveness of this workout.

Just as a warning, before you try this workout, make sure you are in a pretty good state of fitness. I say this is some high level exercise.

The only time required for this workout is 4 minutes. You may be wondering, "4 minutes!? I thought you were a long distance runner who used to run for hours!" Yeah I thought the same when I first glanced at the idea. I could barely run 1500 meters in 4 minutes (much slower now I guess), and that's less than a mile! What can you possibly do in 4 minutes and effectively workout!?

Well, the concept is simple. Pick your favorite workout drill. Let's say for the purpose of this post, push ups. But it can be any full-body (or somewhere close) exercise. Start your clock, and do push ups, as many as you can, for 20 seconds. Rest for 10 seconds, walk around or stretch your arms if you can still move, and do 20 seconds of push ups as many as you can after the 10 sec rest, and so on, 8 times. The key here is "as many as you can" and you'll notice that the number of push ups you can do in 20 seconds will significantly decrease as you go. I did this yesterday with push ups, jump squats, and ab twist, and I was totally exhausted upon the completion of this 12 minute session. And my hamstrings are in great pain at the moment because I have not abused them so much for more than 4 months now.

So if you are whining that you don't have time to workout and get fit, this might just be your only option. In just 15 minutes, you can achieve more than what an average American do in a week. But like I said, you should have a good base before trying this exercise, because not only this workout is exhausting, you may not have a good idea of "as many as you can" if you've never done a sport before.

Some ideas for a drill: sprinting, dumbbell thrust, burpees, standing long jump, and endless possibilities.

While you work out, maybe a good background music can help you get pumped up.

To-Do List

2008-11-12T08:45:00.002+02:00

I had a talk with my manager yesterday, and I am forever grateful for my manager's understanding and virtue. He allowed me to take five days off from work in order to be a facilitator at NPS! I was actually invited by Kai to attend a regional conference in his region in Germany because he'd be able to pull some strings to give me a position in this conference, but I have to regretfully decline that offer. Flying to and from Germany just to be there for less than a week, come back to Romania to work for one more week just doesn't sound so efficient.

Now I need to get busy, because now I need to multi-task, which is something I fail miserably at doing.

To-Do List for the next few days...

1. Be prepared for my sessions at NPS - As Dale Carnegie once said, "Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident." My favorite professor at Georgia Tech that I took three courses with spends about four hours to prepare for one of his one hour lectures. Sessions are different from lecture in a sense that encouraging participation of delegates is more important than me speaking and presenting information without flaw for two hours. But I must spend a lot of hours into preparation regardless.

2. Endorsement Letter - A rough draft of it shall be completed today.

3. Planning my trip back - My internship ends on Friday, December 12th. My flight back to US from Amsterdam takes off on 23rd. I have more than a week to spare, so why not go to Amsterdam early, and travel around Netherlands and Germany for the first time? I'm sure there's enough out there to keep me busy for about 9 days.

And I may end up going to a global village in Iasi this weekend because I was asked to represent Japan, and was told that almost all trainees from Romania are coming for this event. The last time I was told that trainees from all over Romania are coming there were only 5 including myself, so let's hope that there are more than 5 trainees in Romania this weekend :)

Let's get busy!

Don't judge a book by its cover...or title

2008-11-11T09:04:00.002+02:00

I know I need to be doing something else right now, like finishing up an endorsement letter for my friend, or talking to my manager to see what I can do for going to NPS (national preparation seminar) next week. I received an email from an MC member last night if I'm still interested to be a faci at this biggest national conference with over 500 delegates, and I'm really frustrated over this matter right now because facis need to be there on Monday for pre-conference meeting, meaning that I'll have to miss an entire week of work. So I don't even know where to start, but I'll try my best in obtaining the week without creating any negative image for AIESEC or myself. Besides, as of right now, there's nothing planned for me to work on next week anyway.

I just wanted to get something off of my mind　and present my favorite book that I travel around with, because this is something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

Last year, I bought a book in a discount used-book store in Japan, titled "次の恋はもう始まっている" which can be roughly translated to "Your next romance has already begun." I wasn't really looking for a direction on my next romance, and the book is more about life than love. I find this book very inspirational, and I wish that it was translated into other languages so that I can recommend it to my friends.

An excerpt from the book, translated (by me).

"...Dale Carnegie said in many of his famous quotes about how you can reach success. But I am a bit upset with him, because he forgot to mention about sudden nature of success. The hardest part about pursuing a goal in life is that you can't see where you are relative to your goal. Life doesn't work like "OK, I did this much work today, so I must be this much closer to my goal." You don't know where you are until one day, all the sudden, you reach your goal.

Why was it so hard for Christopher Columbus to succeed in finding a new continent? Because no one, including Columbus, didn't know that they were getting closer to their goal (or the goal even existed). He had to make two separate travel journals, one of which was a fake to fool his crews, to convince them that they haven't gotten too far from home. He also had to fool himself into believing his theory. And everyday was a fight between himself and his fear, along with his entire crew's fear.

Let's say here we have 100 people who want to become a successful novelist. After the first year, 50 of them will give up. After five years, there will only be 10 of them left. After ten years, only one person will remain and that person will get to be the novelist. It's a matter of how persistent you can be, not how talented you are in the discipline.

When a prisoner is told that he'll be imprisoned for ten years, he can endure it. But if he is told to wait for one more day after that ten years, he will try to escape. If you know what you to expect in advance, it's easy. But when things are uncertain, it isn't. The hardest thing in life is to keep telling yourself everyday 'tomorrow I'll get there, tomorrow I'll get there' until you finally do..."

Don't you agree?

And I forgot to mention this for a week. Hooray for Obama's victory!

RTS - Regional Training Seminar

2008-11-10T12:59:00.002+02:00

For the past 4 days I was in Durau, Romania, for RTS. In AIESEC Romania, right after recruitment, individual LCs hold a local training seminar (LTS) for new members to get jump-started and for old members to further develop themselves in terms of @ quality. This year, three LCs (Constanta, Iasi, and Galati) agreed to hold their LTS at the same time, same location. Trainings were held separately, but parties were held together. Interesting concept. But even more interesting is the fact that the conference was held in a monastery. I think this is the first and last time that I see an @ conference held at a place like this, but who knows, maybe I'll be proven wrong.

On the way to Durau in a maxi-taxi (basically a van), delegates were told to form groups of three for room assignment. I was not familiar with people in the van because they were mostly newly recruited. But I was told to pick two people, so I said in reply "maybe someone else can pick me instead." In the end, I ended up staying in a room with two girls. What more can I ask?

What I didn't know before arriving at the conference was that meals would not be provided, period. A delegate must either bring enough food to last for four days or obtain food somehow from somewhere. It was a surprise for me but it makes sense. It is actually the same way in the US, regional conferences are not required to provide 3 meals a day (though most of them provide 1 or 2). So my diet became seriously imbalanced during the conference, but it just adds some fun to the conference and let you appreciate your regular eating habit.

I was involved in the old-member track, and I did much more work than I expected doing at this conference. On the first day of sessions, I was involved in a LC simulation session where everyone in the session became members of EB and planned every aspects of LC operations for a year, quarter by quarter. I was a VP OGX, which is something I have no experience in. I learned a lot about local realities in Galati during this session, and it brought me back some memories because it was exactly like LTR (leadership team retreat) we do at @GT...locking ourselves in a small room with flip charts to brainstorm about LC operations. We could only do this for two quarters (six months worth) because of time constraint, but if we were to continue planning for all four quarters without stopping, like how it was originally planned, I think I or someone else would have jumped off or thrown someone off the balcony. On the second day, I had some trainings on situational leadership and leadership qualities. Great sessions done by Ferdi and Klin, though I wasn't even in the recovery process yet from the wild night. I stayed awake through all the sessions regardless, sometimes I even impress myself.

I also met some guys I acquainted two weeks ago from Iasi, as well as many new members. The conference would have been even better if all the trainees from other LCs could come and push more international side of AIESEC along with the leadership side. But from the reactions I saw from new members, I can tell it was a great conference. I cannot express everything in words here or this post would become too long for easy reading, so tell me if I missed anything critically important so that I can be more inclusive.

By the way, here are some pictures I took, although I feel like my skill in capturing the perfect moment in still picture is diminishing lately.

Election Day

2008-11-04T11:33:00.005+02:00

It's Election Day. American citizens go vote NOW! Here's a picture of the day.

Recently, people started asking me "aren't you cold?" because I seem to dress lightly compared to normal and sane people. I think I spent too much time in American high school and college - where some people seem to magically go through the entire winter with just t-shirts, shorts, and sandals. I'm not that crazy, I normally wear two layers of clothes and a pair of jeans, but I guess I'm almost there. Let's see what happens in the coming weeks as it gets colder.

Spring 2009, here I come!

2008-11-02T08:50:00.002+02:00

I just finalized registration for the classes that I'll be taking next semester, spring 2009! This semester (hopefully) marks the aqcuisition of my mechanical engineering degree, though it may not be my last semester at GT because I'm seriously considering to go for another degree. I think this traineeship experience gave me the time and environment I needed to think about what I'm truly passionate about, and that's one of many things that I feel grateful of AIESEC.

Anyway, here are the classes that I'll be taking next semester.

ME 4053 - Mechanical Engineering Systems Laboratory
ME 4182 - Senior Capstone Design
ME 4210 - Manufacturing Process and Engineering
PSYC 2070 - Engineering Psychology (social science elective)
PHYS 2022 - Stars, Galaxy & Universe (free elective-2000 level or above)

I'm sure there are better options for electives that I don't know about, so if you know any interesting (yet easy) elective, please let me know. It's hard to believe that an Astronomy class is the easiest elective that Georgia Tech got to offer, so someone please prove me wrong. At many universities, there are always options like PE (physical education) to fulfill the requirement, but I guess GT ignores the importance of being physically educated.

Just as a reference, here is the course description for PHYS 2022.

"The objective of this course is for the student to acquire a working knowledge of stellar, galactic, and extra-galactic astronomy as well as naked-eye observational phenomena."

Sounds super exciting, isn't it?

NO ???, NO LIFE

2008-10-31T08:17:00.002+02:00

All of you patriotic Americans who cares about the future of our country, don't forget to vote next Tuesday! Unfortunately I didn't have enough time and resources to arrange my absentee ballot, so if Obama loses by one vote, it would be my fault. Watch the video below to encourage yourself to vote! It's actually a good strategy to make people vote for Obama...

Tower Records, a retail music chain based in Sacramento, California, had a great marketing success in Japan by using the phrase "no music, no life." It is a simple yet brilliant phrase to make people go crazy about music (and buy CDs from them). Recently there was an interesting internet-based survey done, asking people what they would put into this phrase instead of music. Here is the result.

1. No Music, No Life
2. No Money, No Life
3. No Love, No Life
4. No Internet, No Life
5. No Rice, No Life
6. No Sweets, No Life
6. No Book, No Life
8. No Coffee, No Life
9. No Trip, No Life
10. No Mobile, No Life
11. No Sports, No Life
12. No Pet, No Life
13. No Game, No Life
14. No Meat, No Life
15. No Curry, No Life
16. No Anime, No Life
17. No Ramen, No Life
18. No Karaoke, No Life
19. No Dress, No Life
20. No 2Channel, No Life (2 channel is an infamous Japanese internet forum for any topics that you can think of)

Personally, I am surprised by the fact that curry (15th) beat ramen (17th)...I would definitely vote for ramen in this case. For those of you who never even heard about ramen, it's an extremely tasty yet inexpensive Japanese noodle soup, which originated in China. Instant ramens sold in American supermarkets taste absolutely terrible, but the kind you can get from a good ramen restaurant in Japan is priceless. I'm even considering to go back to Japan for my future career only to gain an easy access to tasty Japanese food like ramen.

And it's kinda sad that Money took the second place over Love, isn't it?

Quick trip to Iasi

2008-10-28T11:43:00.004+02:00

This past weekend, I paid a quick visit to Iasi, where my fellow @er Kyle went for a traineeship last year.

Before leaving Galati on Friday night, I played some poker with my friends in Galati until 1:30 AM or so. Luck was not with me that night. I kept losing even when I had good hands, and on my last game, I had a full house with a pair of ace. So I went all in, and then I was countered by Liviu who had four of a kind and a pair of ace. I was totally KOed that night.

I went home after poker, slept for about two hours, and woke up to prepare myself for the trip to Iasi. After four month of working for a company with no designated lunch break and no where to eat around, now I have a habit of cooking my lunch in the morning to bring with me to work. So I effortlessly prepared my lunch for the day, which greatly helped me later since I didn't get to eat anything else after I left my apartment until 7 PM. I walked to the bus station to make up for the lack of running for the morning, and arrived there on time. With the help of Roxana and Adi, I found the right bus to Iasi and got on, but there was no seat left for me. It's truly like a workout when you are standing in a big bus running on poorly conditioned road in Romanian countryside with nothing to hang on. Luckily I was tall enough to hang on to the luggage storage above the seats, but an old woman in front of me was definitely flying around every time the bus ran over a bump or a hole.

Then the bus stopped at a cafe-restaurant place in the middle of nowhere to take a stretch break. Normally for a break like this there is a public toilet that you can use for free, so I followed other passengers to join the group effort to take care of business. What I didn't know at the time was that it was my lucky day to finally encounter the infamous countryside-style toilet of Europe: a rectangular hole on the ground with odor coming up from hell. I wanted to take a picture of it but I reconsidered because my camera may turn into a useless piece of metal after it is exposed to such atmosphere.

Shortly after the break, the bus arrived at its second stop where more than half of the passengers got off. So I finally got a seat to myself and a chance to take a nap. Well, apparently there was a group of enthusiastic musicians in the bus and one of them started playing his accordion right next to me. Great. Definitely not the kind of lullaby that I like to sleep to.

And just like that, the 6 hour bus ride was over and I was in Iasi. An energetic @er from Iasi, Alexandru, picked me up from the bus station. He told me that he has a surprise for me, and I asked him what it was. He said that there is going to be a training for high school students in Iasi (an exchange-based project called "Start Me", probably the one that Kyle participated last year), and he wanted me to help with the trainings. I said, why not. So about 30 minutes after I arrived in Iasi I was in a high school where I met the trainees of Iasi, Laura from Italy, Yasser from Morocco, and Ryohei from Japan. So I helped with the Japanese guy's session. Luckily for me, it was only the first session out of the series of training, so the session was about getting to know each other, which meant I did not have to know anything. I still believe that the quality of a session depends on the the amount preparation, so it may not have been the best session since it was all improvised, but I think the students still enjoyed it.

After all the trainings, we went to Moldova Mall for a drink (and quick food for me), where I got to talk with Ryouhei quite a bit. He sounded like he was having some hard time adapting to his surrounding after his first three weeks in Romania, but he was so happy that he finally found someone to speak with in Japanese. His English is pretty good compared to my friends in Japan, but it was a typical textbook English and was not really effective in communication. He was impressed with my English proficiency and asked me how I managed to learn it so well (though my English is far from being native). Well, if you are thrown into an American middle school where nobody around you speaks Japanese, you'd have to learn something in order to survive. Survival is essentially what is really needed for any kind of learning, I suppose.

At the same place I met Sami, an Egyptian trainee, and Phillip, a German trainee. And that night, I ended up going to a beer fest and a club with them (Ryohei isn't really a party-goer). It was a great night, and I got free accommodation in Bogdan's dorm room because both of his roommates were out of town. Free accommodation and company, that's one of many benefits of being a part of the global network.

The next day, I went to the same high school to see more of the trainings. The sessions were about country presentations from the trainees, and I helped Ryohei again to present Japan to the high school kids (I somehow end up representing Japan more than US here). Afterward Alexandru took me out for a super-quick tour of Iasi, along with Sami and two new members of @Iasi, Stephanie and Mia.

And then I caught the last maxi taxi to Galati, and got back to Galati safely at 8 PM.

I really liked Iasi. Great places, great people. I wish I get a chance to go there again before I leave Romania in December.

Again, no photos...

2008-10-27T10:51:00.002+02:00

This morning, I was out of time and could not prepare my photos to be uploaded, so I will make a post tomorrow (I promise) about my visit to Iasi this weekend. Let me just say for now that although the trip was planned at the last minute, it turned out pretty awesome.

This summer, on our way to @GT camping in Suches, Georgia, Kyle and I were talking about ecologically friendly ways to fuel cars. He mentioned something about engines driven by compressed-air, and since then it was like an itch in my brain that I could not get rid of unless I researched more about it. And today, I got rid of that itch.

These vehicles are called L'AIRPod, developed by a French company, MDI, whose research is supported by TATA. Amazingly, the only thing that comes out of them is air, cooler and cleaner than the incoming air. Air Cars are aimed to become available in 2009 for European countries, and 2010 for USA, priced around $17,800. Now I'm seriously considering.

And something else I found interesting...Chess-Boxing.

Apparently someone made up a new sport back in 2003, combining chess and boxing. Here's how the game works:

...competitors alternate between three-minute rounds of boxing and four-minute rounds of speed chess with one-minute breaks in between to get the gloves off and hunker down at the chess table. The winner is determined by knockout, checkmate, or referee decision.

Again, now I'm seriously considering.

Welcome to the real world

2008-10-23T11:16:00.004+03:00

This morning, as I was jayrunning (faster version of jaywalking) across a street by faleza, the riverside park that I always run in, I saw a dog crossing too only a few meters down the street. But the strange thing was that it was using a crosswalk and I wasn't. Then the dog stopped at the centerline of the street and looked at me, as if it was saying "use the crosswalk, dumb @$$." Ya know, Romanian street dogs are smarter than you think.

I don't use any king of planning tool to keep my schedule. I used to, when I was provided with a free planner and repeatedly recommended to use it by GT Athletics. But lately, I have made a mistake by not using planner. Last Saturday was my mother's birthday but I didn't remember until Tuesday...that's bad. I noticed a few times in my life that women are especially sensitive about days of celebration, and I know for a fact that my mother isn't an exception. Bad, bad Masato...

My colleague who works next to me rushed into our office this afternoon and told me that we have a problem to solve. Apparently our boss has a son who goes to a university in Great Brittain, and he had a problem with his homework. So I guess he sent the problem all the way to his mother, who then gave it to my colleague. Then it finally came down to me to solve. Luckily the problem only took me about five minutes to solve so I succeeded to maintain the reputation of Georgia Tech. The thing that I found interesting was that my colleague actually has a master's degree in that field of engineering (strength of materials) yet he had no idea where to start. I guess theories and textbook procedures don't mean much in the real world.

It's better to be prepared

2008-10-21T21:26:00.002+03:00

I must have printed over 500 pages worth of stuff at work today. I haven't heard much about recycling since I arrived in Romania, so I didn't feel so eco-friendly.

I had my first nervous wreck for the first time in a long time today. I was a "guest speaker" at a recruitment event, but I had nothing prepared for it because I didn't know about it until yesterday afternoon. There was no time to prepare, so I just decided to wing it on the spot, which was a bad idea. I was talking too fast, and noticeably stiff. Apparently I wasn't the worst speaker at this event because there was a lady who advocated against internationalism, use of English, and claimed that it's better for students to stay in Romania to learn and promote Romanian culture. I don't know who invited her to the event, but I think that was the last time for her to speak at an AIESEC event, or to attend such an event at all.

I haven't been able to post on this blog lately, mainly because I'm too busy to post anything during work. So here's a brief summary of what happened in the past week.

1.) Global Village - I hosted a table to represent Japan at the global village, which was a part of @12/60. I did have a flag for USA as well but I noticed that I don't have much else to represent America, plus there were American Mormon missionary guys invited to do the job, so I decided to just represent Japan. Everyone seemed to like rice balls and origami pieces that I made. As Vlad said, "we should do this more often to attract girls" (with slightly different wording). I guess people found my table more exotic than the others because the only countries represented there were Romania, Italy, Hungary, Ukraine, USA, and Japan (Hungary and Ukraine are neighboring countries, Italy is almost there, and everyone outside of US knows more about US than the actual US citizens), and others didn't much to offer...only some books and not-so-creative food options (local pizza delivery for Italian table and Lay's potato chips and Coca-Cola for American table). Soon we moved AIESEC info desk next to my Japanese table so that we can sell AIESEC more effectively. I am glad that it went well, at least for my table.

From AIESEC 12/60

Masato's rice balls are hazardous

From AIESEC 12/60

2.) AIESEC 12/60 Award Gala - This is very close to what we call "end of year banquet" at @GT. Giving out awards to our alumni and partners. The entire event was in Romanian so I was challenged to stay awake after a busy day of work, but I managed. Besides, the after party was a ton of fun.

From AIESEC 12/60

Food!

From AIESEC 12/60

Cake!

3.) Barbeque - we bbqed. Was awesomely awesome. One dozen of 2-litre Timisoreana. My jacket still smells like bbqed mici. End of story.

4.) Phone call from US - around 7:30 AM on Sunday morning after a great night of bbq, I got a call from Tiffany Curtiss of US. She was apparently at a gathering with other @ers at the time. I think her first question was "do you have a girlfriend yet?" ...oh Tiffany, I guess we never change. She also told me that she may run for MCP position for @US. That means I'll attend @US's Winter National Conference in December where voting for MCP is most likely to take place, to support the most amazing @er I know and my precious friend. Then it means on the 23rd I'll arrive in Atlanta, on the 24th/25th I'll celebrate Christmas with my family, and head to St. Louis on the 26th for the conference and stay there until the new year. That's kinda rough.

5.) GTT's teambuilding - GTT (Galati Trainers Team) had a team building night at my apartment for luck of better place, so I became a part of GTT for one night. We played the "mob" game, and it was great. Definitely something to take home to GT (Georgia Tech).

Right now my dilemma is to decide whether I should attend RTS (a local conference with 2 other LCs mainly for newies) or Romania's biggest national conference, or both. If I attend both I'd have to take about 5 days off from work...decisions, decisions...

That's Kinki

2008-10-11T09:03:00.002+03:00

One private university in Japan is considering to change its English name because its actual Japanese name written in English alphabet sounds a bit perverted. The university is called "Kinki University (近畿大学)", the word Kinki is just a name of the region. If you can read Japanese, you can go here to read the article by MSN. Or visit their website here.

According to the article, a girl who plays base guitar in the accompanying band for Beyonce asked Kinki University send her a t-shirt with their English logo so that she can wear it while touring around for concerts.

This isn't mentioned in the article, but there's a group of singers in Japan called "Kinki Kids" whose members are all from Kinki region. But if you are from English-speaking region, they sound like a group of perverted kids. Times like this I really hate and love the language barrier at the same time.

I want to punch the people who decided to build Tower of Babel.

Power of Google

2008-10-10T19:02:00.002+03:00

Yes, I do realize that I have not made a post for more than a week. I actually made a few attempts, but all of them ended up being "drafts" and did not make their way to public cyberworld. I'm planning on getting them out there soon. And I decided to upload pictures that I promised to my picasa later, since there are a lot of them.

Today I wasn't so busy (again) because I finished dealing with EIGA documents yet my manager just keeps disappearing. So I played around with Google Sketchup (again) to polish my 3-D CAD skill. I made a tire, though the idea of the design was mostly taken from designs that are already in existence. The logo in the center is just initials of my name.

Then I couldn't help but to install this to an actual model of a car.

Mazada 6
...with M.C.K. tire.

I didn't actually draw the car...it would take me more than a day to do that.

AIESEC Galati is holding a series of events called @12/60, celebrating 12 years of AIESEC Galati and 60 years of AIESEC Interational. There will be a global village, and I'll be responsible for Japan/US table (somehow I think they don't go together very well). I need to prepare some kind of food for this, because without it nobody would show any interest for my table. And there won't be too many tables I presume because of lack of diversity and trainees (I'm the only one at this point) in Galati, so if my table looks bad, it'll bring down the quality of this event as a whole. But what can I cook when there's nothing Japanese around me other than Kikkoman Soy Sauce?

I almost gave up on this, but yesterday I came up with an idea. In Japan there are numerous ways to cook rice, and there's one method called "takikomi (炊き込み)" which is a way of steaming rice with some ingredients to give flavor to the rice. I can make this into rice balls for easy distribution at the table. I made some last night with chicken, and it was pretty ok. I'm planning to make this one more time, probably tomorrow, to make sure it tastes ok when it's cold because I was too hungry last night to wait until it cools down.