What kind of a life am I living? I really have no clue, but it doesn't seem to be a very typical life. Some might think I am living a wasted life. But I am approaching my life as an experiment, as One life in Many, of my own, to do with as I wish, and I choose to use this life to explore the depths of loneliness. Sometimes, I try to frighten myself by believing this is it, the whole shebang, my one shot at the miracle of life, that each second is precious, to never return. When I was a kid, I used to wonder how much I would crave one second of life, once I was dead for a thousand years. Lying there in the darkness of my coffin, how much would I wish to jump out and run my feet through the leaves? I don't think about those things anymore.

Well, I'm happy to say the whole Yahoo! pool phase of my life is over. In some sense it's reassuring to know that I have the ability to move forward, beyond my idiosyncratic ruts, even if it is only to stumble upon other inane, endlessly time-consuming activities, at least it's change, and change leads to evolution. If I continue to expand my ruts, I am bound to come across a ditch, a deep ditch flowing with torrential currents that will flood me out of the vast, arid, infertile wasteland of my heretofore life. At the moment, though, I am still lost and searching. Searching the internet is like a metaphor to my search for meaning. Certain common themes seem to arise in my wanderings through my usual contingent of website haunts. Take Elsie Lee for example - the exotic, mysterious, alluring direct-investor Elsie Lee with bare feet propped up on her computer desk typing away at the keyboard resting in her lap, looking up the latest stock quotes on Harris Direct, no doubt. She was one of those common themes. Well, now I see that she has taken up golf. She has changed. She had the courage and integrity to get off her ass and learn to putt, even if it means she will no longer be the mysterious, alluring Elsie Lee, direct investor icon of the internet. That takes guts, and I admire that. I still have hope.

Yowsas! The number of hits to my blog has exploded because I happened to mention yahoo pool auto aimers in one of my posts. Well, sorry to disappoint you guys, but I really don't know much about auto aimers except that they exist and you can download a free trial version called poolbuddy here: http://www.playbuddy.com/pb/poolbuddy.htm. The issue of auto aimer detectors on the other hand, is a lot more interesting. I'm pretty sure they exist because some people I played against seemed to know when I was using one and when I wasn't even when I would miss shots on purpose. My guess is that the aimer detectors are home brews passed on by e-mail only, but pretty soon I would expect one to pop up on the net for download. I think another way to tell if someone is using an AA that some AAs keep the cue stick immobile while one is lining up the shot. So the timer will be ticking away with no sign of movement and then with 3 seconds left, the cue stick will automatically line up the perfect shot and whack away. The sad thing about this whole topic is that I no longer enjoying playing yahoo pool because of the prevalence of auto aimers. I admit that I used it for the 7 day trial, and boosted my rating up to the high 1600s but then it started getting boring since I felt like I wasn't really winning with my skills. After I stopped using it, I started losing every game. My rating is now barely 1400, much lower than the mid 1500s where I used to be before auto-aimers came onto the scene. Since I've used it, I can tell when someone is using it and I'd say about 25-50% of the players in the advanced lounges are using them with an increasing number every day, as evidenced by the number of hits I am getting on my blog. So I'm hardly playing yahoo pool anymore. The same thing happened with yahoo spades with people using messenger to cheat. It just reduces the pleasure of playing games when the same rules don't apply to everyone.

Today, I made an attempt at those buns again and they were mildy better, though not nearly as good as I thought they would be. The dough is still kinda soft and spongy, not biscuity like the ones I used to get in China town. I did experiment with different sizes with humongous buns and little tiny buns, each with various amounts of filling. I found it pretty difficult to get just the right medium size. When I was finished, the whole batch looked liked franken-buns laid out on a plate. But nonetheless they tasted pretty good and I saved a good number for the rest of the week. I also made a stirfry with the same ingredients I used for the stuffing, plus chopped garlic and onions. The rice came out perfect. I have to say the improvement in the rice is encouraging because it means I am improving. The rice I used to make would always come out soggy, or occasionally undercooked with hard centers. After I cooked, I played some Yahoo! Pool which was pretty interesting because I played in a tournament and discovered a little underworld of cheaters and vigilantes in the Yahoo games society. The tournaments are run by people who are part of a league that is administrated with various rules and regulations. The host of the tournaments does not play, but organizes the standings and ensures fair play. This is where it got interesting. I made it to the finals in one of the tournaments and played against a dude who kicked my butt. He made an incredible last shot banking the cue ball off a rail to hit the eight straight on and into the corner pocket. I thought it was just a lucky shot, but then the host said that he had detected an auto-aimer, which is a software hack that allows one to calibrate perfect shots in Yahoo pool. Apparently, this program hacks into the Yahoo applet so that the aiming bars can be extended and a mathematically perfect shot can be lined up. I had no idea such a program existed, though I had heard rumors about it. Furthermore, I had no idea that even if such a program did exist, there was another program that could detect it on your computer. I checked the internet and found this entire community of cheaters and boosters (people who use other hacks to artificially increase their ratings) with their own websites, discussion boards, etc. It was pretty amazing. There is some kind of active trade of "rares" and high rating yahoo ids as if they were collectibles. There is also a high demand for "stars". There are also people who are "rippers" which as far as I could tell is a person who rips you off by agreeing to exchange ids but never follows through with his end of the bargain. I still haven't figured out what it is all about. The really curious thing about these websites is that everyone seems to speak like an eight year old. Anyway, getting back to the "auto-aimer" and the "auto-aimer detector" controversy, it is pretty clear that auto-aimers exist, but it is not at all clear whether auto-aimer detectors exist. The most informative website I found on the topic was the website selling one version of the auto-aimer and it vehemently denies the existence of an aimer detector. Even so, there are other discussion boards where people claim to have detectors, but no links to download sites. I doubt they exist as pure auto-aimer detectors but I'm sure there are ways to figure out what software a particular computer is running.

Unbeknownst to me, when I named this blog Grilled Mackerel, the number one draw to my blog would be searches for "grilled mackerel". I think this is the number one or at least one of the top five website hits for "grilled mackerel". Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't know a single thing about grilling mackerel. I do, however, since this afternoon, know how to make steamed chinese buns. I used a recipe I pulled off the web and decided to try to make my own steamed buns for the first time. The recipe I used actually made the dough kind of soft, not the firm white buns I am used to getting in Chinatown, but next time around I will use more flour and less water, or maybe use milk and add an egg. I also used yeast for the first time which was kinda fun. For filling, I cooked up some chinese sausage, bok choy and mushrooms in hoisin sauce. Although they came out pretty tasty I think the next time around they will be a lot better. I will cook up the filling with more sauce so there will be a little steaming hot pocket and so that the cavity wall can suck up some of the juices. I will also use more filling since I realized the bun wall actually increases in thickness during cooking and therefore it is very capable of holding quite a lot. Like I said I will also use a heartier dough, with more flour and milk instead of water. If it is still too soft, I will use an egg yolk. The only technical problem I might have is the size of my steamer which can only hold 2 regular size buns at a time. I may have to get one of those fancy stackable steamers, but I'm not sure it will be worth it. The buns I made didn't quite look like the ones I am used to, mainly because they flattened out during cooking. If the dough is stiffer it will probably keep it's upright shape better.

Well, lets see now. Today was not as productive as yesterday. I brought my bike to the bike shop for a 30 day tune-up and to have the clipless pedals installed. I can pick it up tomorrow. A lady in the store seemed to be eyeing my bike. I made the stirfry for the week, beef and bok choy with mushrooms and onions, and added a couple of slices of fried chinese sausage on top. I marinated the beef in Pilsner beer, soy sauce, thai hot sauce, sesame seed oil, corn starch, crushed sea salt and ground pepper. I added quite a bit of sugar to the sauce to counterbalance the bitterness of the beer. The rice came out especially nice this week probably because I used less water than the package recommended. I also fried up the chinese sausage beforehand and resisted the temptation to throw it in with the stirfry which would have sogged up the crunchy texture. Instead I kept it aside and used it as a garnish, although I ate half of them while cooking. And I still have the steamed pork buns, and half a rack of ribs from yesterday in my fridge, so I should be good for the week. After eating I had another cup of coffee made in my new coffeemaker. I have to remember to set the timer so that I will have a steaming pot of coffee waiting for me in the morning. I also "seasoned" my wok liberally with the sesame seed oil I bought yesterday from the Asian food specialty store. I did the dishes twice, once in the morning, and again after cooking. I played some Yahoo! pool and watched parts of various movies on cable. My plan was to do the laundry as well, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. It shouldn't be a problem since I have the 3 new shirts I bought yesterday. The last few weeks I have been going in to work on Sundays to preview slides for the Monday conference but apparently tomorrow's conference will be a lecture-type deal from a prospective faculty candidate. It's about 4:30 and I plan to spend the rest of the evening reading.

Okey doke. It's time to record yet another eventless day in the endless dramaless continuity of existence I like to call my life. Let's see. In terms of getting things in order I would have to say that today was fairly successful. I headed out to the outlets in Medford to pick up some cheap shirts and ties since my wardrobe is beginning to look drab, and the ties (which are the lynch pins of my wardrobe) have been accumulating some quite nasty, quite obvious, and quite embarrasing stains. I also picked up a pair of burgundy shoes to wear with my non-black/blue/grey slacks. As I was ready to pay for the shoes, the salesgirl told me I could pick out another pair of shoes for half price if I wanted so I also bought a pair of leather sandals, retail priced at 89.99, on sale for 29.99, and so with the 50% discount I got a nice pair of sandals for only 15 bucks. Overall, I bought 3 shirts, 4 ties, 3 pairs of socks, one pair of sandals, and one pair of shoes for $250. Then I drove like a madman back to Rochester for no good reason. When I got back to Rochester I checked out the Asian food store which stocked some nice items. I got some steamed pork buns, chinese sausages, dried pork, baby bok choy, sesame seed oil, and oyster sauce. Then I headed up to the Rochester Target and got me a programmable coffee maker, along with a pound of beef and a pack of mushrooms for my weekly stirfry. Then I got a haircut at a little place across the plaza from Target. Then I came home and cooked up some BBQ baby back ribs which had been sitting in my fridge for a week. Frankly, when I cut open the plastic package of the ribs, they were smelling very putrid, but according to the expiration label they were still good, so I blasted them on broil in the oven for 45 minutes, basting frequently with Dave's Famous BBQ sauce, spiked with some tabasco sauce. In the end they turned out deeee-lish. I chomped on them while watching Iron Chef Japan lose to some chef from the mainland. Let's see, then I played some Yahoo spades and MSN backgammon, watched s'more TV about snake charmers, and read about 2 pages of Catch-22. And now here I am recording and recounting my day's activities as if they had some meaning. Laleela. Whoopdedo. I would have to say my mood is chipper. It is windy outside. Must be some kind of front moving in or out.

Wowee. A whole month has passed since my last blog and what do I have to show for it? Not much. My life has pretty much consisted of going to work and buying stuff on the weekends. This weekend I headed up to the Twin Cities intending to buy an iBook from the Apple store in the Mall of America, but when I got there the salespeople kept ignoring me. I mulled around the store for a good 20 minutes and not a single salesperson asked if I needed help. People to the left and right of me were getting asked multiple times, but I was always skipped over. Don't know why. I think it had something to do with racism. Heh. Seriously, it's that lone Asian male social barrier thing I'm always talking about. But after I had a good look around, I decided I didn't want to buy one anyway. I was thinking about getting the bottom of the line 12" iBook advertised for $999, but as it turns out, that one only comes with a CD-ROM drive, not a CD-RW drive. The one with the CD-RW drive would have cost $1299 in which case I might as well bump up to the 12" Powerbook with the G4 processor and DVD/CD-RW drive standard for $1599. For that price, I could also get the little Sony which caught my eye at Best Buy, or an even better equiped, but less stylish, PC notebook. After feeling kind of down about heading all the way up to Minneapolis for nothing, I bought some folding wooden chairs for my dining table at Target. Then I bought groceries at the Rochester Target on the way home and cooked up 20 chicken wings, half of which I have eaten. Once I got home, I decided to restore my computer to see if I could get my internet connection hooked back up and it did the trick. I still don't know what went wrong, must have been one of those stupid freeware programs I couldn't resist downloading and installing on my computer. You know what I mean, like the mouse odometer, the rolling eyes, the cutesy screen saver, etc. So now that my high speed internet connection is back up I'm feeling better about my desktop even though it is now 3 years old. After restoring it it feels like new. The only thing that would make it perfect is to upgrade to Windows XP. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll also want to buy a drafting desk for my den so I can finally get some work done at home.

I guess I can't let this day pass without at least noting that it is the Fourth of July, the American Independence Day. I am considering heading down to the Spam Jam festival in Austin Minnesota, a celebration of everything spam and spam-related, but in the end I think I will just sit at home.

Neat-O! I just browsed through some random blogs on that "Fresh Blogs" list and got a glimpse of some stranger's lives, reading about their deepest thoughts and darkest secrets. Well not really, maybe. Most of them were about daily activities dotted with occasional reflections, but still it is all pretty neat. I'm impressed how earnest everyone is about blogging, creating neat little entries with morals, anecdotes, ironies, pearls of wisdom, to share with the blog reading world. And here I am just plugging away, typing letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, sometimes too long for the blogger server to comprehend, with no clear meaning attached to any of my entries. With my blog, what you see IS what you get. The amazing thing about all this is that I still continue to write, like a man who walks in the desert without will, I write without understanding why. Kind of like my life. The days come and go, nothing interesting to write about ever happens, but I continue to write, I continue to live. It is the walking that keeps the man alive, so it is the writing that keeps me alive. I guess I'm hoping to reach the point of exhaustion when I will start to hallucinate, and then I can write my great novel. But until then, it's just going to be this meaningless meandering.

This was originally a big post but somehow it got deleted and is now lost forever.

Hello Hello.
Bye Bye Bye.

Hey there,
How does the weather fair
Over there where the rare air
Bear hare after hare who stare
Into the the lair with nare a care.
But I am aware of the bear in there,
So please beware what you share.

Anyway, I'm not sure I should be keeping this journal anymore. What is the point really of writing this drivel? Even I lack the fortitude to sift through the mounds of shit on this website to catch the few posts which might be mildly interesting to myself of the future. The vast majority is pathetic and written horribly, including this post. Why why why? I have a headache. I think there is some kind of oily material coming out of all the pipes in my apartment and that I have been unknowingly ingesting this oil for the past several days and that that is what is causing my headaches.

I really wonder whether keeping this journal is bringing me any closer to my goal of becoming a writer. In some sense I'm sure it helps to just write down what I am thinking but the moments when I choose to write in this journal seem to the most mundane points in my life. When I have an inspirational moment I am usually not at home and there is usually no computer in sight or opportunity to sit down and write. If only I could remember what I was thinking at those times. But I can't. Maybe that's what I should be working on. My memory.

So I've been in Rochester for a little over a week now and things are finally starting to click. I drove out last week from NY and took many stops along the way including one night in Indiana near Amish country, then another night in Madison, Wisonsin. I arrived in Rochester on Friday the 13th and immediately called an ad in the paper for a furnished room that was near the hospital and available by the week. The room was in the basement of an old house right down the block from the Mayo clinic, kind of smallish and damp, but cool. The bathroom was a makeshift deal right next to the boiler and quite filthy. There was also no toilet paper so I had to remember to bring my own. I actually preferred to use public toilets rather than the one in the apartment. The shower was more like a dirty plastic box and I'm sure I would have seen cockroaches if I had looked for them. The room itself however was pretty decent and included cable TV. And the landlord seemed like a friendly honest guy so I would have had no problem staying there longer term (I actually got used to the bathroom after a few days). As it turned out though, I managed to see 4 places the next day and decided to take one of them before the day was over. By the end of the day I had filled out an application and signed my part of the lease. I decided to take a 2 bedroom in Byron which is a small town of 3500 about 10 minutes west of Rochester. The drive out is a pleasant and quick pass across mostly farm land on a 4 lane highway. The apartment complex was brand new and my building only had 4 other tenants so I had my choice of apartments. I chose an end unit on the top 3rd floor because of it's unique layout and the view of Rochester from the patio. The apartment also includes a microwave, dishwasher, free cable and high speed internet access for 1 year, and indoor heated parking. There is also a hiking trail nearby, a fitness center with whirlpool and an outdoor pool being built. By far it was the best deal I saw. There was a similar complex located closer in Rochester but they only had one second floor apartment with a balcony that looked out on an inner courtyard. My balcony looks out on miles of farmland with Rochester in the distance. That was really key. I realized from my experience in Buffalo that a 10-20 minute commute by car is better than a 5 or 10 minute walk to work in most cases, especially if there is no traffic. I need that morning and evening time to clear my mind and prepare for work or to plan my evening. Anyway, the manager of the complex has been incredibly helpful moving me in. I got to choose my own parking space which I changed 3 times. I've met 2 of my neighbors which is half the building. I bought furniture at Medford the other day though they won't deliver until next Thursday. Hopefully I will be free from orientation activities when they come, but the manager has offered to be here in case I am not. These are all the little things that make a huge difference for me and why I am reallly starting to like small town living. I bought a 24" television and some patio chairs as well yesterday so it's finally starting to feel like home. Now I am starting to get a picture of what my life will be like for the next 4 years and I think I will be very comfortable, though I will probably move back to New York after training.

I love Rochester, MN, errr.. well, I've only been here for 7 days so I don't have much experience to back up my exclamation, but so far I have to say I'm liking it alot. Today, in the span of 3 hours I took a computerized driver's test (passed, 94%), obtained a temporary license and arranged for my permanent Minnesota driver's license to be sent to my brand spankin new address, went to the vehicle registration bureau and obtained the forms and instructions necessary to register my vehicle and opened a checking account with all the perks I could want. I was dreading these bureaucratic formalities because back in New York it would have been a multi-day affair. In the afternoon I went shopping again and picked up a chair, toaster oven, rice cooker, bath mats and garbage cans for the bathroom. Then I came home and had a ham and cheese sandwich lunch and put together the computer desk and rolling chair I bought yesterday from Staples. I have to say everything seems to be coming together swimmingly. All I have to do now is talk to the manager about attaching the water to the dishwasher and confirming the address for the telephone line. Apparently, this address isn't listed in the phone company's computers probably because it's a new building.

I love NY! Nobody can surprise you with unsolicited generosity, scathing wit, searing political commentary, etc, more than a New Yorker, a real New Yorker, not a tourist or transplant, but one who is vital to the workings and misgivings of this great city, one who not only knows which things can go wrong when a billion things are happening at once, but also knows how to fix those things if at all possible. Yesterday, I arrived back in New York after my 8 week sojourn and took a cab back from JFK because it was late and I was tired. The taxi driver was a former motorcycle mechanic who now drove a cab 4 days a week. He explained to me the details of short hauls from the airport which allow the cab driver to cut back to the front of the line if he chooses to return, which areas constitute short hauls and long hauls, the strategy of staying in the city or leaving the city for the outerboroughs on the weekends. He explained his love of motorcycles, the speed, the power, the danger. All of this with almost no prompting. As I sat in the back of the cab, I relaxed and finally felt that I was finally back home where I belonged. I was so relaxed, I didn't even remember taking the knapsack off my back and placing it on the floor of the cab. Only after I had gotten out and walked 50 feet towards my apartment did I realize I had left my knapsack in the cab. How ironic. After taking so much care to mind my stuff during my trip, keeping my passport always on my body, keeping my europass always accessible but hidden, and doing a good job of it as I hadn't lost a single thing during my entire trip, how ironic that I should lose my knapsack on the taxi ride home from the airport. I panicked because the camera had all the photos from my trip. My europass was also in the bag although I didn't need it anymore I still wanted it as a memento. Thankfully, the taxi dispatcher at JFK had handed me a piece of paper with the cab's medallion number before I stepped in the car. One of those bureaucratic formalities, like a receipt, which one doesn't ordinarily pay much attention to, but which has the potential to be a most important piece of paper if something should go wrong. In my case, it was the only link I had to the cab. I didn't know the driver's name but I knew the medallion number. It was a start. I also knew that the cab driver was likely to go back to JFK since my ride was only a short haul. It was an incredible piece of luck that I had just learned that bit of trivia. I looked up the Taxi and Limousine commission website for a way to contact a driver for lost property, but all the offices were closed and would not open until Monday. So I called the JFK general number to see if I could contact the dispatcher, but a recorded message told me to call back tomorrow. I called information to see if they could give me a number for JFK taxi dispatch or ground transportation, but they could only give me the same useless numbers I already had. Then I saw a little footnote at the bottom of the webpage that said reports about taxi drivers could be made 24 hours a day at number 311. 311. That's it. Like 911. Or 411. I thought it might just be for emergencies and then I remembered that the Mayor had created 311 as a sort of screen for 911, for minor emergencies. I convinced myself that my lost knapsack constituted something of an emergency, and frankly I was getting nowhere with my telephone calls/internet searches so I gave it a shot. I did not know that by calling 311 I keyed myself into the network of true New Yorkers, the public servants who work through the night, the true New Yorkers who know how to fix things when they go wrong. The 311 operator calmly listened to my story and gave me a general number for JFK. When he started to give it to me I thought it would be the same number as the general number I already had since the first 4 digits were the same, but alas, the final 3 digits were different. I had gotten the "real" number for JFK, the one that people who need to know now know, the number that is scribbled in the margins of the directory next to the general numbers, the number to a telephone next to a living person, not just an indifferent operator whose job was to answer the phone and initiate a game of circular phone tag, but a living person who knew what he or she was talking about, a person who was responsible for things besides answering the phone AND who had the integrity and sense of responsibility to answer the phone. I called the number and instantly the man who answered the phone understood my situation as if he had dealt with this hundreds of times, which he probably had.
Operator: You have the medallion number?
Me: Yes!
Operator: Ok, I'll transfer you to the dispatch supervisor. Hold on.
Dispatch supervisor: What's the medallion number?
Me: XXXX
Dispatch supervisor: Ok, this is what we do in these situations. We will put a hold on his medallion number so when he gets to the dispatcher he will not be allowed to proceed without contacting me. We will ask him about the bag. He has to turn it in if he has it.
Me: Ok, but he didn't do anything wrong.
Dispatch supervisor: Yes, but the driver may not know the bag is even in the car and the next passenger may take the whole bag without the driver knowing.
Me: That's true. Should I leave my number so you can call me?
Dispatch supervisor: Sure. (Writes down my number and name). And here's the number for the taxi lot if you want to call them, 555-5555. I just spoke with them. Good luck. I hope you get your bag back.
Me: Thanks. I'll just wait by the phone.
So I waited a few minutes wondering whether I should call the taxi lot just to be sure. I didn't want to be pushy but I eventually decided to call.
Taxi lot clerk: Yes. The supervisor explained the situation to me. When he comes back to JFK we will stop him and tell him to call you. What's your number?
(I give her my cell phone and my land line phone). Ok, I just spoke to the dispatcher outside so he knows. Good luck.
Me: THANKS!
Now THIS is a city that never sleeps. I had spoken to 3 extremely polite, well trained people who knew exactly what to do. I was confident the wheels were now set in motion. And all of this had occurred around 11PM on a Friday night. Still I wasn't sure whether I would really ever get my bag back. Just in case, I kept my phone ringers on extra loud and right beside me at all times. I was exhausted though, having not slept for 36 hours and I eventually fell asleep. The next day I still hadn't heard anything and I had pretty much accepted the fact that I had lost my bag. I was dealing with it and had a million other things to do like donate my furniture to the salvation army, another organization that knows how to get things done. I managed to clear out most of my medium sized furniture which was a great relief and I went back to Queens to chill out for a while. I had my cell phone with me earlier, but I left it in the apartment before I went to Queens having mistakenly given up hope for a call from JFK. But alas, when I got back to Brooklyn around 10PM, there were messages on both my cell phone and my answering machine! They found my bag. The taxi driver had it with him and they gave me his cell number and name. I gave him a ring.
Me: Hello is this "taxi driver"?
Taxi driver: Yes, is this "Me" (He knew my name and was expecting my call).
Me: Yes
Taxi driver: Can you call me back in 3 minutes?
Me: Ok.
(3 minutes later)
Me: Hello?
Taxi: Hi. I have your bag. The next passenger found it and passed it to me. I have it right next to me. Let's see. There's a book, two europasses, a camera, a pack of cigarettes with a lighter, some mints, a half-empty bottle of pepsi, and some gum. (everything!) There's no passport.
Me: That's ok. I have my passport. Sounds like everything's there. That's great!
Taxi: Are you in the city?
Me: No.
Taxi: Oh that's too bad. I'm on duty so I can't drive all the way out to Brooklyn. If you come out to the city tomorrow I'll give you your bag. You have my number.
Me: Ok. I'll give you a call tomorrow. THANKS!
Taxi: Sure thing. Bye!
Wow! I never expected to get my bag back. I thought it was gone and I was pretty depressed about it. But now I'm ecstatic. I can't wait to have it in my hands. I will give the taxi driver a BIG tip! I wish I could tip all those people at the JFK taxi dispatch as well. There were awesome! I will write a letter or give them a call tomorrow once I have my bag back. The stereotype of indifferent, rude New Yorkers is wayyy off. Maybe the tourists and transplants are like that because they think that's how New Yorkers should behave, but real New Yorkers, the public servants in the greatest city on earth are some of the nicest and most helpful people on earth. Period.

Prague Prague Prague. Lovin it.

My favorite cities: Prague, Madrid, Vienna, Paris
Memorable meals: gazpacho with bacon and eggs, oxtail stew, beer (Cordoba); "salad sandwich" in the park (Nice); pecan pie desert with coffee on Thalys to Paris
Books read: Underworld - Delillo, History of the Templars - ?, The Third Twin - Ken Follett, Samurai William - ?, Passion for DNA - Watson, Matisse - The Sensuality of Color, "fetal" Robbins
Memorable reading moments: Nice beach, Cannes beach, In front of Notre Dame Paris, Nice park (with salad sandwich), by Zurich river
People met: people working at european parliament in Brussels; Mooccan on overnight train to Madrid; Ms Lopez at Hostal Lopez in Madrid; Scandinavian medical student in Barcelona hostel; "Scott"(?) on overnight train to Nice, then again in Rome several days later; Molecular biologist and English dude at Nice hostel; couple from Indiana at Interlaken hostel, then in Zurich, then in Vienna; Austrian born American at Vienna Opera
Best events: Bullfight in Madrid, Opera in Vienna
Museums: Louvre (Paris), Musee D'Orsay (Paris), Musee Picasso (Paris), Pompidou Museum (Paris), Museo Prado (Madrid), Musee Picasso (Barcelona), Musee Matisse (Nice), Vatican Museum (Rome), Uffizi (Florence), Rousseau Museum (Geneva), Albertina Museum (Vienna), Freud Museum (Vienna)

Alright, well since my last entry in Rome, I've been to Florence, Geneva, Interlaken, Zurich, Vienna and Budapest. All that in 6 days. I told you I was going to pick up the pace of my trip. In Florence I actually ran into a girl whom I had known in college only very briefly. She was more of a friend of a friend but surprisingly she recognized me and even remembered my name. Turns out she is in the exact same situation, having just finished med school and now travelling in Europe with a friend before residency starts. In Florence, I went to the Uffizi after waiting 2 hours on line. I can't say it was worth it. I also walked up the cupola in the Duomo early in the morning before it was crowded and had a nice view of Florence. By the afternoon I didn't know what else to do before my night train to Geneva, so I took the one hour trip to Pisa, which was surprisingly nice. It had become sunny so I sat out on the grass for at least an hour in the shadow of the leaning tower. Geneva was pretty much a dump, like Brussels. Dirty and disorganized. Somehow I had thought these international cities with organization headquarters of the UN, Red Cross, European Union, etc., would be very clean cosmopolitan places but actually they're quite dirty with lots of traffic. It was also ridiculously expensive in Geneva. I spent 30 dollars on a lunch at a Thai restaurant which wasn't even that nice. I also rented a bike and rode around the old city. I went to Rousseau's old home as well which had a nice little exhibit about his life. I have to remind myself to read Emile, and Reflections of a Solitary Walker, when I get back. After Geneva, I had planned on going directly to Vienna on the night train, but there were no seats or beds available so I stayed in Interlaken. At Interlaken I paid 120 dollars to take the train up to the top of snow-capped Jungfrau mountain. It was quite amazing to be that high up and very beautiful. It was worth the money. After Interlaken, I went to Zurich and spent the day walking around waiting for the night train. In Zurich I walked through the old town, went to the Zoology museum, and bought a pair of shorts. For most of my meals in Switzerland I ate sandwiches from the grocery to save money but I did have one great fish sandwich from a place called Nordsee near the train station. In Zurich I also (YAHOO, I JUST GOT CONFIRMATION FOR PRAGUE) ran into 2 people from the hostel in Interlaken. They were planning on stopping in Zurich overnight but couldn't find a room so they decided to take the overnight train with me to Vienna. I also ran into them at the hostel in Vienna. At the Zurich station they had converted a part of it into a movie theater and were showing Jet Li's Hero and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It was sold out though. In Vienna, I had probably the best day I have had so far. In the morning I went to the Albertina which had a neat exhibit on Edward Munch and another on photographs and drawings of Freud's old apartment. Then I went to Freud's apartment itself. In the afternoon I walked around a bit more and then I saw an opera for only 2 Euro. I had to stand in the balcony but I could hear the music and see most of the stage. It was fantastic and 5 hours long. I also met a woman who had been born in Austria but grew up in the states. She was standing next to me and went to the opera for 2 Euro all the time. She was dressed up in a strapless dress and wearing pearls, while I was wearing a sweaty tshirt and dirty jeans. After the opera I took a little walk around the cathedral and ate a chicken rolled in pita bread. Then I went back to the hostel. Today I am in Budapest for the day and will return to Vienna tonight. So far I have spent all my time in Budapest in this internet cafe but I am now leaving since I got confirmation for Prague. BYE!!!!!!!

Alright then, so I'm in the frenzied process of securing my accomodations in Prague and frankly it's looking a little grim. Every single hostel I called (at least 5) were fully booked out, and every cheap hotel/pension was booked up as well. Every place I called seemed incredulous that I was asking for a reservatoin for tomorrow as if reservations needed to be made weeks in advance. So ultimately in the end I had to use a travel service to book a regular hotel for about 60Euro per night. Except the only thing is that I'm still waiting for email confirmation from the travel service. If it turns out that the service can't find me a room either I may be screwed. That would suck because I'm supposed to be meeting 2 of my friends in Prague on Thursday. It's all very frustrating because I'm not sure whether I've committed to this travel service or whether I can still continue to look on my own. If I don't receive an email by the time this internet account runs out in 30 minutes I will start looking on my own and then if I don't find anything I will just show up at the hotel in the morning as if I had received confirmation.

Today was my second day in Rome and I went to the Vatican, St. Peter Basilica and the Vatican Museum, which took up pretty much the entire day. At the Museum I ran into two of the people who were staying in the same dorm room as me. And just a few minutes ago I ran into someone I had met on the overnight train from Barcelona to Nice. I guess the tourist world is a pretty small place. There are only a few places in each city where a tourist is likely to go, and with railpass travellers who have only 1 or 2 days in each city, there is a good chance that many of them will be there on the same day. Anyway, I'm starting to feel a little better about this trip even though it's not turning out the way I had expected. I am seeing quite a lot of Europe with relatively little trouble. Walking around instead of taking taxis or mass transit is saving me a lot of money and I get to see more of the city than I would otherwise. Thank god I bought these hiking boots before I left the UK. They were probably the single best purchase I have made in the last few years and they are serving me very well. Except for the blister I developed on the first day while walking through Paris, I have had no problems with my feet at all. In fact, I frequently think to myself how comfortable my footwear is in comparison to the brown shoes I was using to walk around the UK. The other things I purchased in the UK in preparation for this trip such as the blue shirt and the blue sweatpants have been pretty much useless. I dumped the sweatpants in Paris, literally, right into a garbage can and I am thinking about dumping the blue shirt since it is too large so unless I tuck it in I rarely wear it. The nike bag I bought has been useful in the sense that I have been using it every day, but in the same sense, it has not been useful because if I was going to use it every day I might as well have brought my regular shoulder bag which is more comfortable and handy. The whole reasoning behind the nike bag was that it was just a knapsack so I could fold it up and put it in my main backpack but I rarely do that since there is always a place to leave my main backpack, whether at the hostel or in the station locker. So today, I also sent out 2 postcards from the Vatican which has a more reliable postal system than Italy. One was to the Medicolegal center in Sheffield thanking them for the elective and the other was to D and A in Ireland. Actually I had written them both postcards from Spain but never sent them off. And I didn't think to bring them with me to the Vatican so instead I bought 2 new postcards and wrote new messages. I guess I will have to throw the old ones away since I pretty much said the same things over. It's too bad because I really liked the postcards I had bought from Cordoba. Tomorrow I am going to Florence to see the Uffizi. I have decided that I have to be more efficient with my travelling so I am going to spend only 1 or 2 days in each city from now on, taking as many night trains as possible. If I can see the Uffizi during the daytime, I will take a night train from Florence to Switzerland or maybe even Vienna or Budapest. Depending on how much of a supplement I have to pay it will probably be more expensive to stay on the train than in a hostel but I will be able to see more. I have pretty much seen all of the major cities that I really wanted to see, Paris, Rome, Madrid, so there is really no point in staying longer than 2 days in one place. Maybe Amsterdam will be the last place I go where I will stay longer.

I don't know why I'm writing these entries in reverse chronological order, but I want to fill in the gaps so let me just write briefly about my 1.5 days in Barcelona. Barcelona was dirty, and felt kind of strange, a little evil and decadent. The streets were narrow and plastered with dog shit. The main strip, Las Ramblas, was crowded and had more tourists than locals. The first night, I walked up and down Las Ramblas and didnt do much else. As I was going back to the hostel, I heard 3 or 4 successive explosions around the hostel and on the last explosion, a policeman on a moped dropped his vehicle and set off running into an alley. There were more sirens and police on mopeds circling around the area for the next 30 minutes, I guess they were chasing and looking for the people who set off the explosions. I got the sense that there was some kind of political upheaval going on I didn't know about. At the hostel, a guy from Australia told me he had his watch stolen off his wrist the first night he was in Barcelona. The next morning I went to the Picasso museum which was great and actually made the trip to Barcelona worth it. It was mostly works from his earlier period but it was nice to see that Picasso really was talented as a traditional artist. After the Picasso museum I went to the Sagrada Familia which is some bugged out Cathedral still under construction designed by this guy Guida who used a lot of esoteric symbolism to design the cathedral. His other works in Barcelona actually are quite nice in a normal, non-satanic way, but the Sagrada Familia was just a little bit weird for a church to have bizarre, esoteric symbols everywhere seemed to invite accusations of satanism. That was never mentioned though, and generally all the pamphlets I saw seemed to indicate that the Sagrada Familia is a beautiful, loved work in progress of a very devoted and faithful genius. After the Sagrada I went to the station and waited for the overnight train Nice. I took a regular train to France and then an overnight train from a little town. There was a guy from Texas who I met at the station who was kinda doing what I was doing, travelling alone with a railpass (and actually I think I saw him today at the Colosseum), and a couple from Australia. I seem to be meeting a lot of people from Canada and Australia, but very few from America.

The past 2 days I was staying at Nice, which was quite comfortable, although not as comfortable as Madrid and not as exciting as Paris. In the mornings I would take little trips along the coast, first day to Cannes and second day to Monaco, and in the late afternoon I would end up reading at the beach. The beach at Cannes was really nice and I spent a good day beach hopping. Didn't see any stars or really have anything to do with the film festival, but I didn't really expect to either. Monaco was also pretty cool because they were setting up for the Grand Prix in 2 weeks. I walked up to the Palais where the Prince stays and also went to the Musee Oceanographique, which is just a really nice aquarium once directed by Jacques Cousteau. On the last day in Nice I walked up to the Musee Matisse which was free and actually ran into two of the guys staying at the hotel who I had chatted with the day earlier. One was from Canada and the other from UK. I ran into them on my way out though so I spent the day on my own and I was leaving for Italy that afternoon anyway. So after the Matisse Museum I bought a great sandwich that was basically a tuna egg salad sandwich with onions, olives, lettuce, tomatos, tuna, and hardboiled egg all chopped up into little pieces and soaked with olive oil and vinegar. The bread was large and had a thick hard crust so the outside stayed dry but the inside was soaked with the salad dressing which made like a little pocket to keep the salad and the sandwich together. It was probably the best sandwich I had. I ate it in the park, drank 2 cans of ice cold coca-cola and finished the last 300 pages of the book I was reading, the Third Twin. I didn't realize it but I was sitting in the park for almost five hours in the same place. So that was my stay in Nice.

Arrived in Rome this morning on the overnight train from Nice. Managed to get a few hours of sleep even though I didn't have a couchette. I shared a seating cabin with a husband and wife from Thailand who were nice enough, but the husband's feet stank up the entire cabin, and he kept shutting the window after I opened it. The first place I visited was the Basilica of St. John Latera which was right next to the Roma Termini. It was 7:30 AM and there was hardly anyone out, but pretty soon people in suits on their work started coming in to pray before going to work. I found a dorm bed in a place near the station as well, although the manager made me come back 2 times because he was unsure of the bed situation. But he let me leave my bags in the lobby so I spent the morning walking around Rome, which overall I have to say is pretty disappointing. I went to the Colosseum which cost 8€ even though there really isn't much to see or do. The lady at the counter was also turning people away because they didn't have change for large bills. I only had a 20 bill but she must have felt sorry for me because she gave me the right change even though she turned away the people in front of me. Then I walked around the Roman Forums and visited the Palatine. Then I had lunch at a pizzeria near the Forum. I wolfed down the pizza in 10 minutes because I felt awkward eating alone. After that, I walked all the way back to the hotel, passing the Spagna stairwell thing and the Tervi fountain thingy, both of which I found tacky and crowded. At the hotel, they told me I had a bed so I took a shower and a 10 minute nap after which I felt much better. Then I went out to the Villa Borghese hoping to see the museum but it was closed on Mondays, so I just sat in the park and read for about half an hour. Then I walked back down past the Spagna and just kept walking for at least an hour until I got to the Vatican. By now it was around 8PM and starting to get dark, so I sat for 5 minutes and started walking back, but more directed. It only took 30 minutes to get back because I chose a path that was not necessarily the shortest but that would require the fewest street crossings, which are a total nightmare and a large part of the reason why I don't like Roma. It is definitely not a walkable city. A funny thing happened on the way back. As I was crossing the street where the Via Sistina turns into the Quattro Fortina an old man in a suit asks me for directions, which I somehow am able to tell him because it was the same way I was going. Then he starts chatting with me as we wait to cross the street and asks me where I'm from and whatnot. It all seems friendly enough, but then he asks me if I want to have a drink with him. He says he is a business man from Montreal who had just finished some business here in Rome and was now going for a drink at a bar someone told him about. The bar happens to be down a street right at the junction of Sistina and Quattro Fortina but its a dark, dirty street and there isn't a bar in sight. I tell him I don't drink but he says I can just have a Coke. Anyway, I'm not in the habit of having drinks with strangers who I meet at crosswalks so I was a little brash and just said I was going to go back to the hotel and so I started walking away. Maybe it was rude, but it was also a little strange, and the more I think about it the more strange it seems. Our conversation was totally initiated and continued by him and the invitation was completely unexpected. Then as I was walking up Fortina rather fast a cute girl who looked partly but not entirely Asian was handing out flyers and gave me one with a smile. I took it and smiled back and as I was walking away she said something to me in Italian I think but I just kept walking. I probably could have handled that situation better. Anyway, that was my day in Rome, nothing too fantastic to write about, and probably why I am writing at all, because I am back at the hotel early enough.

OK, so I was a little depressed this morning, but the inspiration to write something was nice to have again, something I haven´t had in a while. This entry will be more practical. Since coming to Madrid I have been to Cordoba, where I saw an incredible mosque-converted-cathedral, slept on a grass field for an hour, and had a great Spanish lunch consisting of tomato gazpacho with bacon and eggs and oxtail stew, fresh baked bread and a chilled cerveza. That evening I saw X-Men 2 at the theater by myself. I was surrounded by Americans who were quite annoying with their incessant chatting and laughing. One of them, or maybe they were Australians sat next to me, and noticed that I was alone which I think shocked her a bit, then I think she felt a little pity for me, which I think is what inspired that whole self-pity episode I had this morning. Overall, it was a great movie though, much better than X-Men 1. This morning I went to the Prado museum and say some nice Goyas, including many which I had studied during the Introduction to Art class at Columbia. For lunch I ducked into a cafeteria-bar for a not-so-great lunch of fried eggs, fried chorizos and french fries. It was combo menu so when the waiter asked me if I wanted a salad I thought it was included and said yes. The salad consisted of wet lettuce brown on the edges, tomatos and a few chunks of tuna thrown on top. The salad ended up costing as much as the rest of the meal, so I was a little peeved at that and didn´t leave a tip. It was clearly a tactic he used, because I saw him do the same thing to another couple of tourists behind me. After lunch, I went to an internet cafe (this internet cafe) and checked on the housing situation in Barcelona but was unable to get anything definite. My plan is to take the overnight train from Barcelona to Milan if I can´t get housing. After that I went back to the hotel room, had a smoke, and then headed out to the Bullfight at Ventas Arena. Definitely very cool and the highlight of my trip so far. I sat next to a Mexican doctor who was a true aficionado and explained all the general rules and some of the fine details to me. I will write about the bullfight at a later time because there are a bunch of annoying loud people next to me and I kind of want to leave. Anyway, that´s about it for now, except for the bullfight. Still no progress in meeting people and I don´t see much of anything happening while I´m in Spain since I´ll be staying primarily in hotels.

Madrid, Day 2, I wish I could say there is more to my unhappiness than a childish fear of being hurt. I wish I could say that my reluctance to engage in a meaningful life is rooted in a sense of artistic integrity or monastic ascetism - even simple spìte would more palatable than the ever more apparent realization that my life has been wasted because of an inability to grow up, a failure to learn as all children passing into adulthood learn, that an essential part of one´s existence lies in being a member of a community, be it work, school, family or friends. Somehow I failed to learn, failed to accept, or was not taught how to integrate into my communities, how to make acquaintances through small talk, a friendly smile, a fleeting moment of eye contact that signals to another an openness to friendship. I never learned how to contact those acquaintances to invite them to dinner or to see a movie or walk through the park on a Sunday afternoon. I never learned how to reveal little secrets about myself to build intimacy, to express my emotions through physical contact, to make myself vulnerable and open. And now a fully grown undeniable adult at the age of 27 I still find myself wondering why life isn´t the way I had imagined it would be, when the answer is so clearly staring me in the face. Part of the problem, though, is that to face the problem would be against my nature. That is, to face the problem, would mean to open myself to rejection, failure, self-contempt, pity, guilt, shame, all of which I know too well in the tiny increments I allow myself to endure at times. And for what? For romantic notions of love and friendship and family? None of which I know of, have never experienced, and have often doubted the sincerity of accounts. I could chalk it up to a cultural gap. I do find that describing myself as an Asian male in a western society is probably the best approximation of my predicament. I often find other Asian males like myself walking through the streets of a strange city completely alone, head bowed, eyes on the sidewalk, walking with apparent purpose but no direction. Loneliness seems to be the natural Asian male condition, unwanted, unadmired, crude, dirty, . Unwanted even by the women of his own race. The antithesis of the suave Italian gigolo, the French intellectual, the industrious German, the refined Englishman, the China man sits alone on a wooden stool outside a store shop window, legs crossed effeminitely at the thighs, sucking long curls of thick cheap cigarette smoke into smallish lungs hidden beneath an unmasculine chest, silent, unresponsive, essentially invisible to frequent passerbys and abhorrent to first passerbys. But the walking Asian male forces his existence upon the world. Look at me, he says, I am going somewhere. I have places to go, things to do, people to see. In that sense, my incessant walking is a form of protest, and yet it is also a form of submission, because in fact, I have no where to go, I am just walking, walking as I used to walk the hallways of my highschool every lunch hour because I had no friends to sit with in the lunch room, pretending that I was going from one floor to another, alternating and zigzagging my path so that my silly ruse would not be discovered by passing people repeated times. Such walking is not a protest at all, but an expression of lack of self-esteem. When I walk now, I walk with the purpose of seeing and being seen, I am in fact sight-seeing, even though I as yet have no direction or destination. And so that is what I do, I walk as a form of protest and as a way of seeing. I do not walk for fear of staying still. Although I have to admit that walking on a sidewalk renders one more invisible that simply standing there. So in the end, what does it mean?

Paris, Day 4, waiting for overnight train to Madrid at 7PM. I am sitting inside a cybercafe in front of the Pompidou Museum sipping an ice cold Coca Cola, the first soft-drink I've had in 4 days. I've been subsisting on a steady diet of evian water and various sandwiches bought at local supermarkets, partly as a measure of fiscal austerity and partly due to the fact that I don't have the guts to sit down at a restaurant for a meal by myself. I've been staying at a hotel called the Hotel Arona in a great location right by the Opera house. Its a tiny little room with a balcony overlooking some Japanese mall. Seems like I've been in Paris for a month, I've spent most of my days walking around. I developed a blister on my right little toe, but fortunately it didn't pop, and I placed a premptive bandaid on the bugger which has staved off the pain. Anyway, I don't really feel like writing much right now, it's a little embarrassing to be honest, sitting in a cyber cafe in Paris, writing a journal entry on a computer screen that other people can see. I'll just be brief and say that I left for Ireland on Saturday and was met by A and D at the ferry terminal. I've always felt I underappreciated the value of my friendships, especially the few that I now have, but after spending several days with A and D I have come back into touch with the importance of friendships. They were so kind and D even took a day off from work to spend a day with me in Cork, a day which I would otherwise have had to spend alone. Anyway, we explored the coast of West Cork, went to a bar/nightclub in Skibbereen where a techno band was playing. It was actually pretty good, great in fact. Euro techno even in a tiny little Irish town beats anything from New York. On Thursday or so, I flew from Cork to Brussels, Belgium and they saw me off. It was a little like saying bye to family. I arrived in Brussels after dark, around 10 PM and had to walk through some scary neighborhoods to get to the hostel. At the hostel, I met 3 people all of whom worked for the European parliament, which I had never heard of. One guy from Slovakia had just started his job and gave me a brochure about the Parliament. An expat American worked for the parliament for several years and said it was a big bureaucratic mess, moving its entire operations between 3 cities every few weeks. He also had some pretty severe criticisms of US policy under Bush. So that was all I saw of Brussels, and the next day I was off to Paris. In Paris, I first tried to go to the youth hostel, but the one in town was full, or closed, and I had to go to one on the outskirts of Paris, near the last stop on one of the lines. The neighborhood was ok, but the hostel looked like some kind of building in Somalia with windows wide open, music blaring, people leaning out windows throwing trash out. I actually made a reservation and paid because I thought that was my only option, but later I spoke to someone at the tourist office who booked me a room at the Hotel Arona, and so that's where I stayed the last 3 nights. Overall, I'd have to rate my experience in Paris as a 5/10. The highlight was probably sitting in the square outside Notre Dame at dusk. Tonight it's off to Madrid!!!

I always seem to be running out of time. Let's just recap very briefly on my doings this past week. Took train to Bath on Friday evening and stayed at Backpacker's Hostel, which was crowded and not very clean. The bathrooms were located in the basement and my bed was on the 4th floor. I met an American girl who was on an exchange-work program at the hostel. She had just found a job working at a hotel outside the city. Also met another girl from Australia. Walked around the city, Circus, Crescent, Roman Baths, all very beautiful limestone. Also lots of bars and young couples mulling about the centrally located park. Next day I took a tour bus to Stonehenge. Was impressed even though I thought I would be disappointed because I would expect too much. Really incredible. Also went to site called Avebury. Met and had a lunch and a pint with girl from Perth Australia also on the bus. In the afternoon we visited some quant little towns called Lacock and Castlecomb. As soon as the bus got back, I took the train to Oxford where I stayed the night at the YHA hostel, which was much cleaner but also had much less interesting and younger people. Single sex rooms. Teenager in my room was from Hong Kong and did not speak English well. He said he had to went to school near Oxford, presumably highschool because he was so young. Another guy in the room, older, balding, was reading a chess strategy book. He looked Russian and did not seem to want to speak. Walked around the city in the evening for a little but it started to rain so I went back to the hostel and took a nice hot shower and went to sleep. In the morning I had a nice breakfast, walked around Oxford campus which was old and impressive, bought some souveniers, then took train to Stratford-Upon-Avon. Stratford was less tourist than I had imagined. Went to all 5 Shakespeare houses, 4 of which made no sense. They included houses of Shakespeare's mother, granddaughter, son-in-law, and whatnot, all very tangentially related to Shakespeare himself. Only the birthplace house was interesting, because a lot of famous people had visited and scratched their names in a glass window. Was proud that I had gone to all 5 houses, and even had time to squeeze in Shakespeare's tomb at Holy Trinity Church at the last second, even though I had to run to barely make the train back to Sheffield. Overall, it was a packed weekend, and I learned that I can do a lot of things if I take chances. Most of the time, I will win. I had only planned on Oxford, but then I squeezed in Stonehenge, then I squeezed in Bath, then Stratford-Upon-Avon. At Stratford, I squeezed in the full tour, all 5 houses, and the grave, bought souveniers at the Royal Shakespeare Co. and still made the train. The highlight was the Stonehenge tour and having lunch with the girl from Australia. She was working as a Nanny for a year in the UK. It was interesting to hear her story. If I didn't have to be in Oxford that night I would have stayed in Bath and probably gotten to know her better. But as it was, I had the reservation in Oxford waiting for me, and I did not want to have to look for another place to stay in Bath.

Only about 45 minutes to write this entry before the library computer lab closes and I have lots to recap on. This past weekend was the 4 day easter weekend, which I had mistakenly assumed would be a quiet holiday, so I planned a trip to Edinburgh in Scotland. Unlike Easter in the states which goes by relatively unheeded except for maybe a visit to the church, the Easter weekend in the UK consists of Good Friday and Easter Monday making a four day weekend and one of the most travelled weekends of the year. So to my surprise, but no one else's, I was not able to find cheap housing in Edingburgh and ended up paying 50 pounds for a night's stay in a hotel next to a nightclub/bar. The city itself was beautiful, though, seemed haunted which maybe I mistook for old. The buildings in the old part of town called the "old town" were built in the 1300s said the bus tourguide, with some buildings as old as 1100. The "new town" as it were was built in the 1700s. The new and old towns are separated by a wide swath of depressed green land that was once the castle moat. The Edinburgh castle sits atop the rim of a volcano towering over the city and provides the primary defensive position for the city until tdday where an active Scottish regiment still resides. I spent several hours just walking around the old and new towns, taking a city bus tour and visiting the Edinburgh castle. The highlight of the trip was probably seeing the Scottish Crown Jewels and jumping at the loud cry of the protector of the jewels "NO PHOTOGRAPHS PLEASE. THANK YOU!" when a tourist tried to snap a photograph. The Jewels are only viewable after meandering through a series of wax-like exhibits depicting the origin of the jewels and their various adventures through centuries of strife. Apparently the Jewels were given to the Scots in the 1400s by the Pope, consisting of a sword and a scepter. I'm not sure whether the crown was also given by the pope or fashioned by the Scots. There is also the King's Stone, or something like that, that is purely Scottish and dates back to the earliest periods of recorded Scottish history that is basically a rectangularish stone upon which new kings were seated when anointed. That was kind of neat to see. All of these Crown Jewels were hidden from Oliver Cromwell who wished to destroy them as he had destroyed the English Crown Jewels, but two peasant women smuggled the Jewels out into the countryside where they remained safe. After unification of the Scottish and English parliaments, the Crown Jewels were locked away in a wooden box as remnants and reminders of a past era. However, some bloke in the 19th century got permission, from whom I don't know, to open the box and brought the Jewels back into light. During WWII the Jewels were again hidden within a wall of the castle just in case the Germans invaded Scotland. After the war they were taken back out and are now on display at Edinburgh castle. So that was my trip to Edinburgh and the Crown Jewels was the highlight. But the highlight of my weekend was not Edinburgh, but the trip to Edinburgh, during which a particuarly pretty college girl sat in the seat next to me. She was one of those women who cause men's head to turn when they don't even know why. Her figure and perhaps her scent can catch the periphery of your senses and force you to find the source. So she was when she walked onto the train, and it was apparent that every man on the train was looking at her. A middle aged man twice her age was ahead of her and smiled at her as she placed her luggage on the rack near my seat as if he was about to speak to her, but she didn't respond. Instead she sat next to me, without paying much attention to me at all. A blonde haired dude, probably another tourist/backpacker from the US, changed his seat at the next station so he could get a better look at the girl from the diagonal table seat across from us and he sneaked peeks every 30 seconds. It was quite obvious to me because I was sitting next to her and it must have been quite obvious to her as well. Anyway, as the train moves along, I'm trying not to be so obvious, and I haven't even seen her face yet, but I'm sure it would be perfect. I have seen her legs, and most of them, because she was wearing a skirt that barely covered her thighs. It was the kind of short skirt that looks like it might be a pair of short shorts, but when you look closely (and I did) there was no fabric between her legs. So there I sat shifting in my seat uncomfortably for 30 minutes, when I start to feel warm and achy so I stretch my back by turning around as if I wanted to see who else was on the train and I surreptiously took a glance at her face. She had a girly girl face with a mole on her cheek, a permanent smile and big blue eyes. I guess she had noticed me shifting about and when I turned, she accidentally invaded her space with my elbow and said, Sorry. She interpreted this to mean that I wanted to get into the aisle so she stood up. I was embarassed, but had enough courage to make eye contact and blurted out, No I didnt mean to get out, I was just shifting. She smiled and maybe thought my comment was more clever and flirtatious than I had really intended. I had meant it to be a purely explanatory statment, I had been shifting around. Ah, but WHY had I been shifting? In that moment of panic, I could not anticipate that question. So that was the end of the conversation for the next hour. After about an hour and a half I leaned over and said, Ok I really have to get out now. And she again got out of her seat and let me through. When I got back she had a sweater over her legs, so I thought this was a bad sign, maybe she thought I was some kind of perv who kept asking her to stand so I could see her legs. But a few minutes after I got back she initiated a conversation by asking me whether I knew where the train had originated. Apparently she writing a text-message on her phone to whoever was going to pick her up and wanted to let them know what train she was on. I thought this was a good sign, which it probably wasn't, a sign that is, but just a question, but I interpreted it as a sign and continued the conversation by asking her how much each text-message costs in the UK. She asked me whether I was from the states, and voila a real conversation was born. Of course every single person who was sitting near us was eavesdropping, wondering what this Oriental was doing talking to this babe, and the blonde American kid across the aisle was ready to scream it seemed. So we had a nice, albeit awkward flowing conversation about how she was from Edinburgh and I was not, and what I should do with my one day there. Nothing else came of it, but I was happy to have made a connection with someone for the first time in the UK with whom I had absolutely intended to make a connection with. That is, it was not one of those random encounters that just happen. This was something that I had planned and thought about every second while she was sitting next to me. Of course the fact that she was sitting next to me was purely an accident. Well, enough about Edinburgh, let's talk a little about Kinder Scout before I get kicked out. Kinder Scout is a large hill or a small mountain in the Peak District only 10 minutes away from Sheffield. It is the tallest peak in the area and has many hiking trails around it, one of which is called the Pennine Way which seems to be the English equivalent of the Appalachian trail. So I went to the little town of Edale on Monday, which is the starting point of the Pennine Way intending to follow it for a little tiny bit. Interestingly, the Pennine Way goes straight to Scotland where I had just come back from. But I only walked less than half a mile, but still it was quite beautiful to be out in the country amongst sheep and rock walls and hills and clouds. I met an old man on the train there who I asked if the train was going to Edale, which I pretty much knew it was. Again, the old stupid question trick. So we had a little conversation at Edale about what to do there and he told me how to get to the Pennine Way and other hiking paths that might be more interesting. He also told me about a bus that I could catch that would take me to Castleton and back, but why would I want to take a bus in a circle from a place I had just taken the train to? It didn't hit me immediately, but the old man probably wanted company because that was what he was intending to do. It didn't hit me until I had walked a bit on the Pennine way and realized that it was not suitable for old men, as it required the frequent and fun climbing of rock walls, navigating slippery muddy thin paths, and stepping up steep slopes. So while I was having fun, I thought of the old man and wondered whether he had wanted company on his bus ride, which I'm sure would have been very beautiful and had I not been set on hiking and been having such a good time on the Pennine trail, I would have turned around and waited for the bus at 1:40 which I said I would. I hope he was not waiting for me there at the bus stop. I hadn't promised to take the bus, and he hadn't even said that he was intending to take the bus, but in retrospect, I recall that he stopped off at the visitor's center and indicated he was going to stop there for a while when we separated. He must have been biding his time for the bus and he probably does this all the time. Wow, so that was another "almost" connection I made on Monday. I had 2 "almost" connections this weekend, which is pretty good for me. I'm hoping to build on the momentum and build up my courage and skills to start conversations. The "stupid question" trick seems to have worked 2 out of 2 times so far, though I know I have to develop more refined tricks if I am going to be successful and develop full connections. Hmmmm... things are looking better, not only personally, but also at work, and also in regard to my residency situation in Minnesota, but I don't have time to go into that right now. I'm signing off for now. Cheers.

Not much to report today. Arrived at work at 8:15AM and was surprised to see one of the forensic pathologists already busy at work. It was one who I hadn't worked with before so it was nice to see a different style of post-mortem. In the afternoon, I met another of the senior forensic pathologists at the center who had been on vacation last week. He is a specialist in forensic toxicology and asked if I wanted to go with him to Doncaster for a trial, but the trial ended up being cancelled so we didn't go. I did read up about the medicolegal aspects of drunk driving which I am finding very interesting. I could definitely see myself specializing in a laboratory aspect of forensics like toxicology and being at the Mayo clinic with its reference laboratory should be a great exposure, although I doubt they do much forensic testing. I think it is really the interface between science and the law that I am interested in. Actually when I think about it, I have always been interested in the impact and influence of science on a social, cultural or historical level. In college, it was really the history of science or relation of science to religion, especially with regard to eastern religions, that drew my interest. In medical school, I have always been interested in the relationship between science and medicine, which many now take for granted, but the two really have as many differences as similarities in my mind. And now, I find myself interested in the relationship between science and law. Hmmm, maybe that is the kind of continuity I have been looking for, which means I should focus on forensic pathology during residency. Anyhow, I still have a little time to decide, although I don't have much time anymore. When I checked my email I found that my residency director at the Mayo clinic had emailed me next year's schedule. This is all getting too real. It's no longer in th planning stages. I will start out with 2 months of surgical pathology followed by 2 months of autopsy, then a couple of CP rotations. All in all I will have a lot of exposure to CP in my first year with 2 months of microbiology, 1 month each of coagulation and cytogenetics and 1 month of cytology. I will also have 3 months of autopsy and 4 months of surgical pathology. Hopefully, I will also have time to do a couple of papers for the CAP meeting and maybe the AACR meeting as well. We'll see how things go I guess. I really shouldn't be worrying about this too much at this stage. I should be trying to enjoy myself since this may very well be my last vacation in a long time.

Overall I'd have to say this journal is working out pretty well. I can't think of a better way to keep a traveling journal.

It is now day 9 of my trip to England and I am doing swimmingly with regard to finances mostly because my accomodations are completely free at the hospital residences so all I have to pay for regularly is food. As far as experiences go, I would have to say I am doing ok. Most of my experiences so far have been through my observations at the medicolegal centre which is where the forensic pathology department is located. Typically, I arrive around 8AM and watch one or two post-mortems until noon, at which time, I may hangout in the coffee room and get lunch, and then spend an hour or two reading in the library before I head off home. Sometimes if there are coroner's inquests in the afternoon I may attend, or if there are post-mortems or crime scenes away from the MLC I may tag along with one of the pathologists. Yesterday, I went along with one of the pathologists to 2 post-mortems in Wakefield and Leeds which are 2 adjacent cities. They were interesting but I did not get home until 7PM. Still it was nice to see areas outside of Sheffield and to have spent some time talking casually with the forensic pathologist as we drove. This past weekend I took a trip up to York which is a little town 1 hour north of Sheffield that is somewhat of a historical tourist trap, but there is a beautiful gothic cathedral with magnificent stained glass of which I snapped plenty of digital photos. I also spent about an hour walking through the narrow cobblestone streets and along the York city walls which were designed as a defense against northern marauders, though I have no idea who those marauders were supposed to be. My guidebook, unlike Lonely Planet, is a little skimpy on historical background, but more detailed on practical matters. Anyhoo, it was my first "sightseeing" excursion since arriving in England so it was nice to get my feet wet and start to rid myself of that initial tourist anxiety thing I tend to get as a lone traveller. I only spent about 3 hours in total in York, though, but with the 1.5 hour train ride both ways, it turned into an all day affair. While I've been in the UK, I've also done quite a lot of reading. I read this novel called "Spy by Nature" about a 24 year old guy who is recruited into the MI5 of British Intelligence. Yes, it was trashy, but I needed a break from DeLillo's Undeground. I also read Coehlo's The Alchemist, which was a perfect book for this point in my life, because it is about travelling and taking chances and following one's destiny. I bought the book just as I was leaving the bookstore with the trashy spy novel in hand, because I noticed it's bright orange cover on a shelf and somehow it seemed familiar. I'm still not sure whether I've picked it up before, but I'm sure I've never read it before. Right now, I'm about 150pgs into another trashy novel called Executive Orders (I think), by Tom Clancy, but it's getting pretty boring and I'm becoming irritated by his stereotypical portrayal of asians so I may stop. The fact that the book is thicker than it is wide or long also makes it unwieldy. That reminds me off the Alchemist where the traveler buys a thick book so it will last longer, but also so that he can use it as a pillow. He never gets past the first couple of pages though. Fortunately, I have pillows in my room, but who nows I may use it as a pillow when I start traveling. I'm a little ambivalent about traveling right now. As I've settled in here in Sheffield, I don't feel like I'm traveling at all. In fact, I could imagine myself very comfortably living here in my current situation for quite a while. Ever since I discovered the shower down the hall, all of my basic living requirements have been met. The only differences now between living in Brooklyn and in Sheffield is the lack of a television in my room and the fact that I have stopped smoking. Suprisingly neither of those deficiencies are making much of an impact at all. Oh yes, I still have to find a place to do my laundry. I know there is a laundromat at the Student Union, but the place where you buy tokens for the machine closes before I get off work. Anyway, its a minor problem. Yesterday, I had an incredible pan pizza from a pizzeria near my home. It was baked fresh while I waited, crust and all with whole olives, onions and lots of cheese. One of those meals so vividly memorable you can relive them for days. Man, it was good. I ate the whole thing at one sitting. As comfortable as my life situation is right now though, I still don't feel like I'm traveling, and of course there is the social aspect that is missing but that was missing when I was in Brooklyn as well. I still have the prospect of returning home and moving all my stuff to Minnesota hanging over my head too so its a little hard for me to think about seeking real adventures in just these few weeks I have left. Oh well, maybe I'll lose all my money in Europe and end up on an entirely different path once I start traveling, like the traveler in the Alchemist. This weekend I'm planning to take the train up to Edinburgh just to see what's going on up there, though it will be Easter weekend, so I'm not sure whether there will be anything going on. I'm going to go anyway since I need to get my feet more wet and since my finances are holding up pretty well.

So that was an account of my first day in Sheffield, UK. I have now been here for just under a week and I have to say I am becoming much more comfortable in the city, which has almost all of the amenities I was used to having in NYC. The only difference was what I had thought was a lack of a shower in my dormitory so I had been taking regular baths in a tub, splashing myself with a towel and bucket filled with soapy water. It was an odd way to bathe and I often felt I did not get all the soapy water off myself when I had finished since I usually take a shower after a bath in the states, on those rare occasions when I do take baths. Today, I explored the dormitory a little more and discovered that there IS a shower right down the hall, which people have apparently been using since there are bottles of shampoo lined along the window sill. The bathtub I had been using did not look like it was being used for anything, and I suspect that it may not be a bathtub at all, but a wash basin for laundry! I'm still not certain though, because there is a toilet next to the wash basin/bath tub thingy. Anyway, no one had seen me leaving the bathtub room after having washed myself, so I have not gotten any strange looks. In fact, I have had very limited contact with the other people in the dorm which has been a disappointment, since I expected many other visiting students myself to be staying there. I had two contacts with other residents, both very similar, if not identical, in occurence and both very anti-social and involving the common room. On one occasion, I was sitting in the common room watching television and reading book simultaneously and a middle aged woman walked in. I said Hi and thought to introduce myself but she immediately asked how long I was going to be in the room. I told her I didn't know but she was welcome to come in and watch whatever she wanted on the television. She said that she would come back at 8 because she wanted to watch East End, with the presumption that I would have to leave by then. So I did. The second time, I heard someone in the common room and thought I would try again to introduce myself to whoever was in there. To my surprise it was another asian girl so I thought I had a good chance of making a friend. I opened the door and she just sat there ignoring me. Didn't even turn around. Then she did and asked me if I wanted her to leave. "No, not at all, I just didn't know there was a television in here." What I really should have said was no, I just was wondering who was watching the telly. Anyway, she then muttered something about having a television in her own room and literally ran out of the room, forgetting her drink. As she walked by I told her she forgot her drink, but she just ignored me. So I had no intention of watching television now and making it look like I kicked her out so I went back to my room. After I closed the door, she went back and got her drink. Strange... Maybe I'm not approaching this in the right way... Work has been a much more sociable experience though, which I will describe later, but I would like to have some social experiences outside of work on my own as well. I still have 3 weeks here in Sheffield so we'll see...

Sheffield, UK, the fourth largest city in England, the tourist book says, but I'm not here as a tourist. I'm at the University of Sheffield taking a four week course in Forensic Pathology, which is essentially the investigation of suspicious or unnatural deaths mostly through post mortem examinations. I arrived in London from New York last Sunday, spent the morning walking through the parts of London I did not see on my last visit, checked out the new Tate museum and then took the 2 1/2 hour train ride from London to Sheffield arriving around 4 PM. By the time I arrived I was exhausted because I did not get any sleep on the plane and the time difference deprived me of 5 hours of sleep time so I had caught a wink for the past 24 hours by the time I was trying to figure out how to get from the Sheffield train station to the hotel I had booked for one night near the university. Fortunately, I took the right bus, but got off at the wrong station and ended up walking at least half a mile with my heavy bags in tow. The hotel sat at the top of a hill, was made entirely of stone and looked like a Victorian castle. My room had a window that faced downhill so I could see the entire of Sheffield city which was quite larger than I had imagined. But I was so tired, I went to sleep before the sun went down and woke up around 5AM. At 7:30AM the porter had arranged to have breakfast ready which consisted of ham, eggs, mushrooms, toast, coffee and juice. It was a hefty meal and kept me going well through supper that day. Immediately, I went to the dormitory where a room was supposed to have been arranged for me and to me delight the room was reserved and had everything I needed, which was just a bed, sheets and pillows. In the room, there was also a closet, a desk with lamp, sitting and reclining chairs, and my own sink with a deep wash basin and mirror. And it was all provided free of charge so I was very happy about that. I tried to register with the medical school as I had been instructed but the woman who was to meet me was sick that day so I proceeded immediately to the forensic pathology department which I was surprised to learn was a 20 minute walk away from the hospital and my room. It was a pleasant day anyway, and an extremely pleasant walk, through Weston park, past several museums and old university buildings and down a very steep hill. I felt a bit like Jude the Obscure walking down the hill to my new workplace for the next 4 weeks. What adventures would lie ahead of me?

Ok, I know I said I know that my tendency to contemplate alternative life outcomes is annoying, but as I said even bore I said that, I am the only person who is writing and reading this journal, so I am going to allow myself to indulge in yet another trip through the twilight zone. As I was looking over my college transcripts which I sent with the other forms I received today, I noticed that it was very obvious I had no intention of going to medical school for the first 3 years of college. My courses at Chicago were all philosophically and scientifically oriented, and at Columbia I overdosed on East Asian studies courses with a bent towards film and art. I wonder, I wonder...if I had stayed the course where would I be now? One possibility is Law School just because it would have been the safe way out without forsaking the liberal arts education, but a far more interesting possibility is that I would have become a graduate student in East Asian studies, just finishing up my PhD probably at Columbia or maybe at Berkeley. I would probably be pretty fluent at Japanese, maybe also in Chinese and at least have a conversational grasp of French or maybe Russian. I would probably be eyeing an opportunity to go overseas and do some kind of field research for a couple of years maybe teaching a course at a foreign university. My dress would consist of tweed elbow patched jackets, blue collar shirts tucked into khakis, and worn brown shoes. My signature piece would be the shoulder strap leather bag. I would be aiming for the distinguished young professor look. In the course of my studies I would have fallen in love with a fellow graduate student studying Hinduism or Buddhism, fluent in French, Italian and Sanskrit, petite and elegant, shy and intelligent, who I would have married and we might be considering having our first child right about now as we figure out our next step. The salient difference from my current life situation would be the fulfilling personal relationship founded on a common singleness of purpose, cultivated within the warmth and safety of ivory towers. Medicine also has a singleness of purpose, but lacks the protection of ivory towers. If one is to find love one while engaged in medicine, it must be found betwixt the showering arrows of an invading army besieged outside the fortress gates. One must be able to fight and love at the same time, something which I have not yet figured out how to do, something which I do not think I am capable of doing, although I am very well capable of doing one or another at different times. Ok, this is just embarrassing. Like I said, I had nothing to inspire me today, so I am writing this drivel for the sake of writing, not for reading. Caput.

I finally received the information packet with my letter of appointment from Mayo. The mailman came around 3 PM today so my entire morning and early afternoon was pretty much a wash. The information they sent didn't really add much to what I already have, but it was nice to finally sign that sucker and send it off. That's a big check off my to do list. Once I had that settled, I continued the gradual process of dismantling my life here in Brooklyn and packing it up for shipping to Minnesota. I didn't actually do any physical dismantling so much as administrative dismantling, such as preparing to cancel my cable service, preparing to store my car, preparing to settle my lease, preparing my travel documents, etc, all of which I made some progress on today. I've also been trying to fix up little things around the apartment like the leaky faucet and a broken kitchen drawer. The leaky faucet was fixed beeeaaauuuuutifully, but the kitchen drawer will have to wait until I can go to the hardware store for a hanger/adapter thingy which I hope they have. Otherwise I'm pretty much ready to go. Just need to do my laundry on the last day, return the cable box, place my car in storage, give my keys to my neighbor, clean up my bathroom and clean out my fridge, and send off some last minute emails. What is worrying me is not my immediate departure, but my return and second departure to Minnesota which will require some carefully coordinated time management if I am going to make it out to Rochester in time to find a place to live and settle in before residency starts. In all likelihood I will end up taking a short-term lease for a month or so while I look for a permanent place to live. That should be fine because I am not going to have much with me anyway so a furnished apartment would be a nice luxury in the first few weeks. Whew, whew, whew, I'm looking forward to starting a new life, although I have to say its not nearly as exciting as the many other transitions I'd had before starting medical school, ie going to summer camp, going to college, transferring, going abroad, starting work and living in my first apartment, and starting medical school. I had a mini-crisis last night for some reason as I despaired over whether it was worth it to take that year off from medical school. Technically I am supposed to get residency credit for that year, but I am not getting any signs from the residency program that they would even consider granting me that credit. Fortunately, there is another resident starting with me who is in the same predicament so they can't so easily brush the matter under the rug. What I was despairing over last night was whether anything would have been different in the long run if I had just gone straight through med school. Chances are I would not even have received interviews at the places I interviewed at much less match at a great program like Mayo, but does getting into Mayo justify an entire extra year (assuming I do not get credit)? In all likelihood I would have matched at a program in NYC, most likely Columbia or possibly Cornell or even NYU, any of which I would be delighted with and would probably be very happy or at least comfortable about staying in NYC. I still would have a good shot, if not a better shot than from Mayo, at getting a fellowship at MSKCC or the NYCMEO from a NYC program, although my options for private practice would probably be much more limited. From Mayo, my impression is that I could go East, West, or even South for fellowship since it has more of a national reputation than any of the NYC programs. But since I have always imagined myself coming back to NYC I was wondering whether I didn't make a mistake by taking that year off. In the end, though, I figured that the fault in that line of thought is that I probably wouldn't even have applied for pathology if I didn't take that extra year. I would have settled for something like medicine or maybe even surgery, which in the long run, and I'm talking like 10-20 years down the line, I am certain I would regretted. I don't have those doubts about pathology which is something I am grateful for. Even in the short run, I'm sure I made the right decision. If I had done medicine, I probably would have ended up at a NY program, not Columbia or Cornell which would be out of reach, maybe NYU or Sinai, which I would be happy but not elated with, or possibly one of those locoregional hospitals on Long Island. If I had done surgery, there would be a good chance that I would have ended up back at my medical school for residency which would have been a disaster. That single realization, that my year off effectively derailed any possibility that I would have ended up in a medicine or surgery residency at my current school, completely justified in my mind taking a year off. Not that I think the training is sub-par, on the contrary, I think it would be excellent in certain respects, but the prospect of staying put for another 4 years, walking the same hallways, buying coffee from the same stands, parking in the same lots, would be enough to make me bolt, not that that outcome would necessarily be the worst thing in the world, but the rules of the match do not allow one to know one's fate until it is too late to change it. This is probably the most humdrum entry in this journal so far. I am seriously considering deleting it. It really has no value beyond revealing my neurotic preoccupation with hypotheticals. Yah yah yah. Nothing happened today that really inspired me. What a shame, another 24 hours lost forever. Oh except that this morning while I was browsing some online personal ads (yes, I admit I did scope out the situation even before I came up with my rank list) I saw this absolutely incredible Chinese girl in Minneapolis who recently relocated from Boston and is apparently a little lonely and lost, much like I will be. It wasn't just that her picture was breathtaking, which it was, a ballet dancer for 16 years she said, but also intelligent, graduated early from Brown, worldly, Chinese, Italian and French, and whimsically mysterious yet beguilingly honest, not sure why she went to Minnesota except that she was looking for a new experience. Hmm, somehow that gives me hope, that maybe Minnesota has some kind of mystical draw for wandering souls like myself and this ballet dancing babe from Boston.

Overall another uneventful day, although I did feel much better when I woke up this morning. I guess the neurochemical theory of depression really holds true. Thank god, my mind is able to reset after a good night's sleep. I woke up again around noon, but stayed in bed because it was so comfortable to be under my down comforter with the wind blowing through my open window. I was half-awake, half-dreaming for what seemed like hours and I was sure when I actually decided to get out of bed it would be 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon, but actually it was only 12:15. Somehow I had managed to have multiple dreams in the space of 15 minutes, strange, but interesting. And inspiring too because it just goes to show how relative our experience of time actually is. In the space of minutes I could live hours worth of experiences, so why not days and lifetimes? So for breakfast I had the left overs of spaghetti from yesterday which still tasted good but again I felt bloated for several hours afterwards and wished I hadn't eaten it. I watched a bit of news to see what is going on with the war. Some kind of terrorist camp was taken over by the coalition troops and they discovered what is believed to be the chemical laboratory that produced the ricin found in London some weeks back. That is good news and something I can believe. I am skeptical of generals telling me about #'s of sorties/day, #'s of cruise missiles launched, troop movements, air supremacy, blah blah blah, because what in the end does it really mean? Those kind of reports tell me nothing about what aims of the war are being achieved and whether any progress is being made. But the discovery of a chemical laboratory in Iraq with ricin residue that can be traced to ricin involved in a planned terrorist plot, now that's news, and that's pretty good justification in my mind for what the war has entailed so far. The question is whether this laboratory received any support from Saddam Hussein or whether it was somehow independently operated by terrorists. The news reports indicate that this was a "terrorist" camp and not an Iraqi factory, but why would a terrorist organization set up in Iraq of all places, if they didn't have at least tacit approval if not overt support from the regime. I hope the news focuses on this tonight. If I was a news editor, I would make this the lead story. Proving a terrorism link, moreso than weapons of mass destruction, human rights violations, etc, is what will shift the tide of international opinion in my mind. The whole weapons of mass destruction argument is so hypocritical and it is beyond my comprehension why no one in the Bush administration realizes this. Does it not seem outlandish that in order to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction we are dropping 20 ton bombs on the heads of Baghdadians and then proudly emblazoning those images on international television? I read somewhere that our military is considering using bombs so huge they would have the explosive impact of a nuclear bomb. Anyway, as far as I know such bombs have not been used, but the combined impact of the explosive ordnances used so far probably far exceed the explosive impact of a single nuclear bomb so we really have to ask ourselves whether we are not shooting ourselves in the foot. If or when this war moves into Baghdad I just hope we will have more justification for the war. So far, there has been nothing, no weapons of mass destruction, only circumstantial evidence of chemcial or biological weapons, no clear evidence of massive human rights violations (mass graves and such), only silly reports of wire bed frames attached to car batteries. And no clear evidence of a terrorism link, except perhaps this ricin discovery. I think the rest of the world would be more sympathetic if we could demonstrate that such things existed. They don't care about #'s of sorties, #'s of surrendered soldiers, etc. The UN, rather than simply demanding an end to the war, should insist on finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction or human rights violations. There should be a thorough investigation of the coalition controlled areas before the war proceeds into Baghdad. Invite the UN inspectors back and let them have the lay of the land. Saddam Hussein is not going anywhere, let him roast for a while. And the military threat to surrounding nations is effectively neutralized so why push this war when there is no longer an immediate threat? If we find undeniable evidence of an active nuclear, chemical or biological weapons program, or massive human rights violations, then we would have justification for removing Saddam Hussein.