So, Thanksgiving break! Greatest thing even invented if you ask me. Just when you're so stressed you're gonna explode, you get a 5-day weekend and lots of delicious food, all because Elijah's ancestors made friends with the natives, and the natives made Friends with Elijah's ancestors, and good things are still happing to most people. How awesome is that? I like it
I had 2 thanksgiving dinners, and both times I ate some wonderful pecan pie the day before, then dinner, then more pie. That is perfect. My first dinner was with Elijah and his family. We were going to eat at the Hard Rock Café, we had reserved a table ages ago. So we drove down and went in, but they said, today they are not open for normal business, today they are feeding the less fortunate who don't have anybody to celebrate thanksgiving with. And we like: Awwwww that is so nice of you, and ohhhh where are we going to eat? They offered us free thanksgiving dinner because of the mixup, but we said no thank you, we really couldn't just go and steal the dinner from the homeless people right. So we went next door, to Bucca de Beppo, and they had this thing where you order a small for 2 or 3 people, and a large was for 5 or 6. So we ordered large turkey and several large sides, and the stuffing was sooo goood! And the apple salad was sooo gooood! And everything was sooo goood and it was awesome! Yum. And Elijah's family is the best, and I felt right at home with them even though I only met them the day before
Then I took the Greyhound bus to NJ to see my own family, and they were as awesome as ever We ate Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday at Aunt Susan's. Yum! Grandma is awesome
I love pie!
Yay Danny
Yay Emmy
Now we're going to go to New York and spend a few hours there, before I take the bus back to Pittsburgh and more tests (but also a lot of the awesome people!)
I already voted, before I even left Norway... I guess I've been here for a month, but it does seem like an eternity since I saw you last... I miss you people! My parents are coming to visit me in a month, I'll show them my whole new life, how I actually do (most of) my homework on time, how funny my physics professor is, how awesome it is that I an run to my classes in 7 minutes if I have to, the fact that I've randomly decided to be a vegetarian for a month (not including sushi, I crave it). Anyway... they'll see all of that. And they won't understand any of it. Whatever
Oh yeah: Election... all I can do now is cross my fingers.
The most important thing for me is that people I love can be happy and have the same opportunities as everybody else. Incredibly enough, such a distant and impersonal act as voting can help keep my home keep being one of the good places to live, where people are treated fairly. Of course i'd like to contribute in closer ways to their happiness, by.. you know... being there, seeing them, more than twice a year, etc. But I can't and that's life, and that's why I vote, because its the only thing I can do, for Norway, and for everything I love about that place.
So I got my new macro lens the other day, and have been running all over the place taking pictures of flowers and whatnot
I am very proud of some of them, awesome awesome awesome stuff:
Now THAT is awesome
Life otherwise:
Homework is being done, parties are being attended, people are being met, more and more and more of them. Skibo Coffehouse is becoming our Central Perk, and Monica won't let me clean up my own mess I found a norwegian flag, and it made me very happy I went to the gym the other day, for the first time ever, it felt awesome, and I magically stretched so well that I'm not even sore. I DO have a cough though, which has been here for a week and its getting kind of annoying. But soymilk makes it better
Happy labor day!
Tata for now, I am off do do some homework
Well, I have met a whole new bunch of friends. They are all super awesome, and I love them just as much as the card in the last post illustrates.
I went for a walk with two of them, the other day, and we took some pictures of the Pittsburgh skyline (and us), after wandering around campus to secret hidden places, and finding funny stuff in the hallways Elijah! (Awesome)
Couch, Free, Or Best Offer...
Hamerschlag Hall. One of the absolutely gorgeous buildings on our campus...
This is a flash in the beginning of a 2 second exposure, with an Aperture of 3.5 and an ISO of 400. Just in case you want to replicate.
But you can't replicate joy, which is why this picture is my favorite of them all!
Elijah showed me his awesome macro extension lens, which is dead cheap but produces verrrry nice macro pictures: Like OMFG that is gorgeous, guess how much the lens costs!
So I have discovered the magic of Ebay, and bought a printer while I was at it.
Funfunfun! Still have to buy my textbooks though. Am kinda late with that. Wooops...
Now we were walking around yesterday, and saw a geyser in the middle on the lawn (between the 4 buildings I have most of my classes in), which is fairly interesting, I have never seen a geyser before and I had no idea we had one on campus. Turns out, they were pulling out some tent stakes from the big tent that had been there for Orientation, and one of them had punctured a waterline. Fun for us, but I guess fixing it was a lot of work for someone
The painters in the TV room decided to paint over chewing gum, instead of removing it... Grosssssssss.
An inspiring little text. Maybe I'll take that class next semester
Here comes Margaret Morrison, another one of the gorgeous buildings on our campus:
That is where the architect students get to sit. Lucky... Well I still get to walk by it many times a day, so I'm happy
I went to the wrong physics recitation today, woops... I went to the one at 8.30 when I was supposed to go to the one at 9.30 (in the same room with the same teacher exactly an hour later). So, happy happy, I get to wake up an hour later than I thought, on Thursday, and every Tuesday and Thursday after that!
So we were woken up the normal way, with Meghan and Scottie banging way on our doors yelling "10 minutes!". They have been doing so for the past week, as it has been orientation and we have all gotten up at the same time to do various activities. I think this is the last day they will do so, because now we have the weekend and then classes start on Monday, but we don't all have classes at the same time so there will be no door-banging.
During orientation we have done LOTS of different stuff, including:
Motivational Speeches
Information talks
Board games /tile games
Meals, one of which some of our prfessors attended
Parties
Stuck in the rain under the awning of trucks selling asian food
Playfair: all 1400 of us in one place, meeting as many ppl as possible in a short about of time
Funfest: Four hundred and something CIT (Carnegie Institute of Technology) students going bowling/laser tag/pool/etc.
So basically it had been a LOT to do, and it has been very fun. Today we were dragged to a big hall full of people with no idea why we were there, then we signed up for various charity events, and I chose to make cards for children in hospitals. I made five, I think, this was the nicest one ...
Cuteness Hope it makes them happy Later today I am going to an Allies gathering/event/thing, I don't really know what it is, but I'm going. Will be fun
So, to make sure we are allowed to live in these dorms, we have to be vaccinated against a whole lot of different stuff, and have proof that we are not infected by tuberculosis. I was vaccinated all right for most of the stuff, just missing Hepatitis B, Meningitis (hjernehinnebetennelse), and the not infected by tuberculosis part. So I asked my nurse (over in Eidsvoll) , and she got me started on the Hepatitis series (not before I had a blood test that proved I was negative though). She also gave me a letter saying as I have the BCG vaccine, I will not need the skin test.
So I get here yesterday, get my temporary room key until I get all my vaccinations sorted out, and then today I get in line for my meningitis vaccine. She gives me the meningitis vaccine, (it hardly hurts at all, the hepatitis B vaccine was SO bad but this was OK) but then she says, I have to take the PPD skin test to test for TB anyway... And I show her the letter, and I show her the scar form my BCG, and she says no that is not good enough, I will need to take a skin test. Which is annoying cause that skin test is gonna be positive because I am vaccinated, so then I will need to take a chest X-ray to make sure I am not sick. Although she said it would be good enough with "some blood work", hopefully meaning just a few blood tests. Super annoying anyway. Why can't they just realize I am not sick, I had the vaccine? Grrrrrrr.
So far though, the skin test is doing very well, and not swelling at all So hey maybe I am one of those few where it doesn't turn up there even though I am vaccinated. That would be really nice
On the brighter side, this is my dorm! Katie isn't here yet, she'll be coming tomorrow
I bought a new toothbrush today! It is the Colgate max-fresh with a scented handle. It smells of mint, yummy. At first glance it is quite simple, but stop and take another look. It is half made of hard blue stuff, and then the white mint smelling rods in there, and then some soft green stuff where I would be gripping it. There are also white areas in the border between the blue and green areas. They have a special bumpy area of green stuff for where my thumb goes. It has loads of parts all put together, it has multi length bristles, bendable neck, et cetera.
According to Wikipedia, people have cleaned their teeth for millennia, using mostly plant fibers or animal hair. The first toothbrush that looked like a toothbrush was made in China more than 600 years ago, from hogs hair. Then, wen the toothbrush was mass produced for the first time in 1885, the hair used was from siberian boars. That's not too much development for half a millennia of toothbrush design, do you think..? The handle had however evolved from bamboo to animal bones. I would have preferred the former. The plastic fibres were first brought to the toothbrush in 1938, so they have been around for less than 100 years, and a lot of development has occured in that period. So fast compared to the 500 years of pig hair. By the way they made pig hair look quite awesome as well, somehow:
And look at all these different toothbrushes from long ago (but after they started with plastic fibers)
I actually find the whole subject very interesting. And I wonder how many people make a living out of designing toothbrushes... Then and now. they vary them so much now adays, although not as much as the above picture, but still they have so many different qualities and finesses. Who thinks of all this? Now wiki again tells us that Colgate-Palmolive (since when were they the same company?) has 36 thousand employees, but they don't just make toothbrushes, a whole lot of other stuff as well. And I would think that most of the people working for them work in the factories or in advertising, and not so many in research (finding a newer cleaner hand soap, or toothpaste) and design (the toothbrush, the bottle of soap, etc.) But this is just speculation. Apart from Colgate you have dozens of other companies also, I guess, doing the same stuff. My conclusion is it must be a lot of people alltogether. What an interesting job it must be. And the sad thing is people don't really appreciate it. Toothbrushes are completely awesome, but nobody stops and thinks over how much work is put into the design of them, how many smart people are thinking hard to come up with ways to make them even better.
So remember that, when you brush your teeth in the evening, that a lot of people have worked to give you this dental privilege.
I had 2 thanksgiving dinners, and both times I ate some wonderful pecan pie the day before, then dinner, then more pie. That is perfect. My first dinner was with Elijah and his family. We were going to eat at the Hard Rock Café, we had reserved a table ages ago. So we drove down and went in, but they said, today they are not open for normal business, today they are feeding the less fortunate who don't have anybody to celebrate thanksgiving with. And we like: Awwwww that is so nice of you, and ohhhh where are we going to eat? They offered us free thanksgiving dinner because of the mixup, but we said no thank you, we really couldn't just go and steal the dinner from the homeless people right. So we went next door, to Bucca de Beppo, and they had this thing where you order a small for 2 or 3 people, and a large was for 5 or 6. So we ordered large turkey and several large sides, and the stuffing was sooo goood! And the apple salad was sooo gooood! And everything was sooo goood and it was awesome! Yum. And Elijah's family is the best, and I felt right at home with them even though I only met them the day before 
I found a norwegian flag, and it made me very happy 
WIDGETIZE