My Home in Budapest

I went food shopping for the first time today at Kaiser's (a large grocery store). I figured out all by myself that you have to weigh the fruit and veggies and then press a button to let the scale know what you're weighing and then the scale spits out a price sticker that you stick on your bag. Pretty high tech - nothing like the russian and chinese grocery places in Brooklyn.

The bank I went to was pretty high tech too - no lines of fuming customers. You walk up to a machine, click on one of 7 or 8 buttons depending on what you need (deposit, withdrawal, exchange currency, etc.) and the machine spits out a ticket with a number on it the first digit of which was your choice. (I clicked 7, for currency exchange, and I got number 704). Then you sit down on soft comfy benches and wait until your number comes up on the screen telling you which teller to go to. Pretty smooth...

Airport Post #2

(Written Sept 7th 7AM, Swedish time - or 1AM Eastern time)

I’m in Sweden! Well, in a Swedish airport anyway. I’ve got about 3 hours until the second part of my flight and I have a hunch that this is going to be a pretty small plane.

It turns out the damn Swedes are more tech savvy than us Americans – they’ve got the whole airport hooked up to high speed wireless internet. It’s not free of course, and since I have no idea what 70.00 SEK is translated into US dollars I’m not about to pull out my credit card and pay for it. If I get bored enough I might wander over to the info desk and ask them to convert for me.

I’ve also found out that the chatty family sitting next to me in the waiting room at Newark was Italian (sneaked a peak at their passports). That explains why it sounded close to French, but I’m surprised I didn’t recognize it. I guess I was concentrating too much on the fact that we were flying to Scandinavia and Italy didn’t even cross my mind.

The flight to Stockholm was pretty normal. The plane was only half full so I lucked out with two seats all to myself – both a window AND an aisle! (And I was worried….) We were fed well – 2 meals and a snack. I watched the first part of “Guess Who” and most of “Hostage”, played some backgammon, battleship, and even a lame version of that worm game. Popped two Tylenol PMs at the beginning of the flight and slept pretty well between those two movies.

Among the first voices I heard upon leaving the plane were these two guys walking towards a different gate and speaking in Russian! Russians are everywhere….

Airport Post

(Written Sept. 6th around 4pm)

Here we go. I’m at the airport now, awaiting my 13+ hour flight to Budapest (through Stockholm). Thirty minutes left till boarding, and the plane should be off at 5:20PM. This trip brings many firsts for me – my first flight by myself, my first time staying in a foreign country for more than 2 weeks (not counting moving to the US of course), my first time spending time in a country where I don’t know the language.

I’m nervous, but also tired which tends to cancel out the nervousness. I didn’t get to bed till 4AM yesterday and was woken up around 7:30 by my mom to say goodbye. I finally got up shortly after 10 and got myself ready. Spent over an hour at a bank in Bay Ridge trying to make a deposit – one teller, 30 people waiting… how dare people take an extra long weekend after Labor Day, ya know?

Corey and Leon (my bro) took me to the airport with all my bulky luggage, that wasn’t too eventful. I said my good-byes and off I went to pretend to be all independent and responsible. The security checks weren’t any different than for any domestic flight I’ve taken, kind of disappointing. Why come to the airport a whole extra hour earlier if they don’t even frisk you any more than they normally would?

Well, what else can I say?

There’s a family sitting next to me speaking some language I don’t understand. It’s not Hungarian, but sounds close to French and close to Hungarian at the same time. Maybe it’s Swedish or Finnish? Whatever it is, they’re chatting away right over all the super important announcements from our flight’s gate.

It looks like I won’t be in an aisle OR window seat – 46B, doesn’t sound promising.

Well, I don’t know when I’ll get to post this, since I sure as hell ain’t paying airport prices for an internet connection. I’ll be in Budapest at 1:35PM Sept 7^th (Hungary time). That’s 7:35AM for you East Coast people.

Viszlat!

Meet Baldy

That's right, I finally did it. I chopped off my hair on my 20th birthday (this Thursday).


Before:



After:


And it's not over yet, just wait until Monday! Muahaha.

I'm scaring myself.

High On Sleep Deprivation

I never did write about TKD Summer Camp after I got back, but that's nothing new coming from me. It's too late to write about it now and still do it any justice so if you want to read about it in detail go check out the Dartmouth TKD blog and the Blue Wave Forums (Pictures). I did have a great time and couldn't believe how much was accomplished in a mere weekend - it really felt like it lasted much longer. When I'm feeling nostalgic and missing Blue Wave I might write about it some more.

Speaking of nostalgic, I bet I'll be feeling a lot of that in the coming month. As of today there is ten days left before I'm off to Budapest. I haven't had much time to be nervous, which in itself makes me a bit nervous. Go figure. That leaves me with 2 more days in Hanover, then a little over a week at home in NY.

I'll try to be better about updating this thing while I'm away, considering I won't be making lots of expensive phonecalls to the US. Plus the time difference will complicate things some more.

Ahh... I'm excited. I think.

I'm also overtired. Maybe I should do some packing, since I'm not about to go to sleep and working on my math final just won't go over too well with my brain right now.

A more sensical and possibly entertaining update to come once I'm done with finals, and my brain is decluttered.

Procrastination

LMAO!
Urban Dictionary's definition of my high school: Stuyvesant and Stuy

When I was a boy...

Reading this article made me realize why it was that I stuck it out in math and science - because I was a boy in middle school.

Not literally, but socially and physically I did not begin to gain feminine qualities until the 8th grade or so, maybe even later. I wore baggy clothes, I hadn't hit puberty, I played sports, and I hung around with my brother and his friends. Until the 8th grade I refuuuuused to shop in the girls section. I despised all things feminine and prided myself on the fact that my brother's friends all used to tell me how much like a boy I was.

Now you might ask, what the hell does that have to do with math and science? Well, just think about it - my female middle school counterparts entered the phase of lip gloss, skin tight jeans, boyband obsessions, and crushes. Suddenly, they cared about their image - they wanted boys to like them. Did I want boys to like me? Sure, but I wanted them to respect me in a different sense - as an equal. I hated girly girls - I thought they were boring and stupid. I prided myself on being able to do more push-ups than my brother, on my basketball skills, my bruises from climbing trees, and all other unfeminine things.

In fact, until I met a boy at sleepaway camp the summer before 8th grade, my parents were afraid that I didn't like boys at all - that I'd grow up to be a lesbian. (Now, I don't know how they would get that idea - I despised girls!)

By the time I hit puberty I was at a math and science high school surrounded by a very non-judgemental atmosphere. Everyone there was a nerd in one sense or another, everyone was smart - I didn't have to try to fit in.

I remember this one girl in middle school who was every bit as smart as I was (her final average was only 4 tenths of a point below mine, something she would never let me live down). She had an obsession with Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys and spent lunchtime chit chatting with her girlfriends about boybands and lip gloss. She was real smart, but she never spoke up in class. The teachers only knew her from her great exam scores and stellar papers. And that is what made the difference.

I really believe that my late-blooming saved me. If I had thought of myself as a female in middle school, I would have taken cues from everyone around me as to what was feminine and what wasn't. Speaking up in class was not feminine, answering and asking questions was not feminine. Doing well in math and science sure as hell wasn't feminine. The expectations were there, I just ignored them because I didn't associate myself with girls. So maybe I was a little bit of a "show-off" in middle school. Not too much, but enough for me to gain the confidence I needed to believe in myself. People told me I was smart and I started to believe them. (And don't tell me that people don't have to be told they're smart to know that they are - it's just not true. People form an image of themselves first and foremost through the reflection of themselves in the eyes of others).

And that's the story.