Photos

I am now using Picasa for posting photos. So far there are only photos from last summer and they can be found here.

Mathematics Genealogy

Because my friends are also nerds*, when we got distracted while working on our security project today we started looking through the Mathematics Genealogy Project. This project is like a family tree, except the links are based on the "is the PhD advisor of" relation instead of "is ancestor of". It may interest you to know that most of the famous Cornell CS professors trace back to the likes of Poisson, Fourier, Lagrange and Gauss.
We decided to include the path from my security professor to Gauss at the end of our PowerPoint presentation. We are presenting tomorrow, so I'll keep you updated on the response.




*Only with respect to the general population - they're the cool kids in the CS department. ;)

It's finals time

I've been very busy with finals and final projects, hence no updates. Mainly I've been coding - trying to finish up my projects. We've been having regular 6 hours meeting for my security project in now empty classrooms on the engineering quad. I've also been reading xkcd. Here are two comics from there that describe my life right now: one and two.

What's in a name? III

Located on Olga Rd. in Olga, WA which is on Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands. [Picture courtesy of Siggi.]

Amusing comic

NERD-SPEAK ADVISORY! If you are allergic, please refrain from reading further.

Working for Google. I guess he doesn't get to be a Noogler.

On another note, I think I am going to embrace the philosophy of intelligent design sort [courtesy of Jon's facebook profile].

Fact(s) of the day

As a child you were taught that wolves live in packs, lions - in prides and fish - in schools and perhaps in middle school you learn that a group of bacteria is called a culture. Here are some interesting ones that I learned at the puzzle challenge. I don't know who came up with this stuff.

• an AMBUSH of TIGERS
• an ARRAY of HEDGEHOGS
• a BAND of GORILLAS
• a BLOAT of HIPPOPOTAMI
• That's just unkind.
  
• a CRASH of RHINOS
• a CROSSING of ZEBRAS
• Ha, that's clever.
  
• a DESCENT of WOODPECKERS
• a HOVER of TROUT
• a KNOT of TOADS
• a PARLIAMENT of OWLS
• I actually knew this one.
  
• a PLAGUE of LOCUSTS
• a PRICKLE of PORCUPINES
• Another clever one.
  
• a RAFTER of TURKEYS
• a RHUMBA of RATTLESNAKES
• Let's RHUMBA!!!!
  
• a ROOKERY of PENGUINS
• a UNKINDNESS of RAVENS

6*9

Google's answer to life the universe and everything.

It is meant to be.

More puzzles!

Thanks to grande, this has taken up a good amount of my time last night and today. So now that I've completed all the grow puzzles, I'm going to get some useful work done. I hope it wastes as much of your time as it did of mine :).

Guess what I discovered today... II

Today I didn't discover a new button on my laptop, but I discovered my cat under my desk when it started purring. And my cat's Russian name means thumbtack, which is also a homonym for button...

Guess what I discovered today...

...a new button on my laptop, well technically it's probably a switch. It was exciting. It turns on and off all wireless radio signals!

What's in a name? II

The Olgas - Mountains in Northern Territory, Australia.

Solid like a rock.

It was sooo nice and warm in Thailand...

That even J.R. wore shorts (or at least on one occasion!)



I've spent all day dreaming of the Thai weather, since it's yet another gray, rainy day in Ithaca. 

Archers and knights and wizards, Oh My!

Check out our graphics for Lambda-Craft (some of them courtesy of War Craft 2). This is just a mock up and not the actual GUI, which is currently under construction. And we'll probably make them bigger, but they're still pretty awesome!

Puzzles!

Today I'm buried in work. This is probably due to the fact that I spent literally all of yesterday, from 11am Saturday morning to 1:00am Sunday night, on the Engineering Quad participating in the Microsoft Puzzle Challenge! (Beware: if you value your time and like puzzles, you probably shouldn't click on the link.) It was a lot of fun, though 3 of the 4 people on my team (myself included) have never done this before so it took us a long time to get the hang of it, but we warmed up towards the end. In any case, it's 11:30pm on a Sunday night, I have 2 problem sets due tomorrow morning so I have to go and finish those...

Maybe next year

Maybe next year, if I pass the naturalization interview that is, I'll be allowed to vote. But for now, I can enjoy the simple freedoms of living in the US like seeing 'Borat' in movie theaters.
So all you Americans with your blue passports, would you be able to answer the interview questions today? I'm just kidding, of course you could, I don't let stupid people read my blog. But let me tell you I remember learning about these topics in middle school and high school, but the time to access the answers to some of the question from the depths of my brain probably exceeds the patience of the interviewer. Though, I'm proud to say that I've got the answer to all the flag questions down!

• What are the colors of our flag?
• What do the stars on the flag mean?
• How many stars are there on our flag?
• What color are the stars on our flag?
• How many stripes are there on our flag?
• What do the stripes on the flag represent?
• What colors are the stripes on the flag?

Some questions are very philosophical. For example what would you answer to: "What is the Constitution?" Apparently, it's simply "the supreme law of the land". Probably not how I would have answered. Or what about: "Where does freedom of speech come from?" I need to ponder that one for a while...

Some of the questions are trick questions, like "How many times may a Senator or Congressman be re-elected?" Well take the upper limit of the life expectancy of humans and divide that by the number of years in a terms, that comes down to about .... 42?

And maybe this Thanksgiving over a filling Turkey dinner someone will finally explain to me why the pilgrims really came to America!

I haven't forgotten...

...about my blog, but honestly there's little to write about between classes, homework and yes, trying to get a job. But to catch everyone up to date, here are things I've been busy with this semester:

• countless interviews on campus and a few in NYC (another one coming up this Friday)

• thinking and talking about, but not actually implementing (yet), a secure bulletin board service that is highly available (i.e. many servers)

  • a lot of the talking has revolved around the most important feature of the system – its name. Specifically whether or not k will come up with a good acronym so that I'll consent to naming it O.L.G.A. So far he came up with: OnLine Guaranteed Availability. Our other candidate is Mythos.

• solving hard data structures and algorithms questions, including proving a problem is NP hard during an on campus interview.

• doing a little decision theory economics here and there, which made me realize how many CS terms and definitions I take for granted.

• working on the satellite, which so far has involved lots of meetings and lots of arguing about design.

• designing "LAMBDA-CRAFT!" - the final project for the class I'm TAing. Two armies, the Red and the Blue, each with an all powerful wizard that can freeze his opponents, archers that can shoot arrows and knights that ... well ... they just sort of ram into other army units. The point of the game is to capture the enemy wizard, where 'capture' means 'walk into'.

• this has also involved a lot of arguing, all in good spirit of course and mostly with the professor about how many types of army units we should have. Now I want to see how many people agree with me on this: from the point of view of the students, would you prefer one type of army unit (i.e. only archers or only knights) or both?

• I'll post some graphics when we have those.

• and finally, being sick for most of last week. The story goes like this:
• JR's mom: "Do you want to go see your newborn baby niece on Thursday?"
• JR: "No, O is going to be sick."
• A couple days later, surely enough I had a fever and conveniently enough for JR he was quarantined from seeing his niece.
  

What's in a name?

As some of you already know (since I am no longer abroad and don't have to resort to providing you with information through my blog), I am applying for US citizenship (or naturalization). The interesting thing about the application is that it allows me to legally change my name. (The uninteresting part is that it costs around $400.) Suggestions are welcome!

Computer Security II

Some advice from my Systems Security professor:

Don't confuse pseudorandom and random, when it comes to keeping your spy safe.

So for our project, my group decided that we should procure some Uranium (or some other radioactive element) to produce truly random numbers. The system we're currently planning to implement is an anonymous chat, GABS. GABS is a clever permutation of the first letters of our last names.

The plan is that GABS will be resistant to traffic analysis. In other words, if two people are talking over the network, no one will be able to tell that they are talking to each other. This is useful for two spies talking over a network. Moreover, a user can talk back and forth to another user without the latter knowing the identity of the former. This is of course highly useful to police informants who wish to remain anonymous to the policemen they're supplying with information (think Law and Order or CSI).

Things that should go onto my resume

Hair cutter. I gave JR a hair cut earlier this week and granted I am no Pete, but it looks pretty good.

And the ability to effectively work on a laptop that overheats and freezes regularly (for four years and counting). The battery to my laptop quietly died about a week ago. One day I was using it just fine and the next time I pressed the power button no lights came on and I was very confused. My response was of course to try the power button about five more times for good measure to make sure that I didn't forget how to press buttons.

Come to think of it, sometimes it seems like computers are against me. Computers and right-handed people! All my lecture halls this semester have no left-handed desks.

Also, Cornell classes are in session tomorrow. Actually, I have to be on campus from 10am - 7pm. Classes, office hours and meetings aren't so bad really, but it's this microteaching from 5-7pm that I'm dreading. First of all, it's my fourth semester teaching. Second, there will be 5 TAs in training there, each of us has to teach a 7 minute mini-lesson, which is VIDEOTAPED. Not only do I have to give and receive constructive criticism for 2 hours, but I also have to watch myself on tape. So enjoy your Labor Day!

Computer Security

I'm getting back into the swing of things at Cornell. Being a grad student is only slightly different from undergrad. It's a little more relaxed in terms of degree requirements and I'm taking all computer science related courses. I feel like my brain is finally turning on, probably working at about 65% of its capacity, but at least I can now pay attention through a full lecture and not feel like I'm daydreaming.

My professors are all great this semester and of course, there is no avoiding nerdy jokes. For example, my computer security professor was telling us that we have to do a group project, but that the topic was up to us. So some smartass asked:

Does that mean we can write a virus?

And everyone laughed... Silly computer science majors.

Other than that, I’m starting to actually look for a job. So anyone want to finish my resume? Really, it’s almost done. I just need an objective…

"Soften the contents of your skull,

soften your eyes, soften your nervous system."

Advises Baron Baptiste, a fairly famous yogi, on his Putting Posture to Your Prayers CD where he aims to “push you, poke you, prod you, challenge you” with phrases like:

Gently walk the fingers of your mind up the backside of your calves and knees.

My yoga teachers have had their funny moments. Most of these involved leading us into a posture and calmly saying: “Now we’re going to hold this for seven minutes” or, even better, “try to relax” as we’re bound in eagle posture (left) and desperately trying not to fall sideways setting off an avalanche of flailing limbs across the whole classroom.

But Baron Baptiste topped all that in his instruction for a proper downward facing dog.

Lift your pubic bone to Pluto, your sit bones to Saturn, press your hands to the earth, work the planets. Now breath, mind in the heavens, get your body well rooted to the earth.

By the way, yogis lovingly refer to downward facing dog as a resting pose and after three year, I still fail to see the humor.

Hi stranger...

And I mean the title literally. After my one and only 2:30pm Friday class I was walking to my car and a man about my father's age said "hi" as he walked by me. It caught me completely off guard and I probably gave him a weird look. But a bit later another person did the same thing. I'd completely forgotten this quirky custom of saying hello to strangers.

Back to I-town

It seems that the only change in Ithaca is that construction has migrated slightly to the left. In other news, jetlag isn't fun and I've been freezing since I got back.

Goodbye Bangkok!

Well, my summer has almost come to an end. Just a 17 hour flight ahead of me. I'm sitting in the restaurant of my apartment building and browsing the internet as a dessert after a good Thai dinner. In case you're interested I had chicken in sweet chilli paste with cashews, a fried egg, rice and a banana milk shake. In about a quarter of an hour I'll catch a taxi to the airport. This time I thouroughly pampered myself before the long flight with a Thai massage and a manicure/pedicure. It's sad to leave, but it's been a great summer seeing knew places and observing a culture quite different from my own. Soon enough I'll be back in Ithaca where people won't be staring at me as I walk by. And then it's back to lectures and teaching and Yoga. But now candy and Neuromancer await me.

Ayutthaya

Tuesday we went to Ayutthaya, which used to be the capital of Thailand. The photo below is from Wat Yai Chaimongkon.
We biked around the ruins of the ancient city and saw many Buddha statues, both with and without their heads and saffron robes. The old part of the city is on an island, so we had to take a cross river ferry to get there. This involved carrying our bikes down stairs onto the boat and once across the river, off the boat and back up a flight of stairs. That wasn't so much fun and my arms are still sore. However, the bikes ended up being a faster form of transportation that the elephant that some tourists we riding.

Mother's Day

Last Monday afternoon I was enjoying a peaceful free period and doing what I usually do to pass time: browsing online and probably reading about something nerdy. All the sudden I heard the girls screaming in the high-pitched way that only teenage girls are capable of and running out of the classrooms. After things settled down a little, I felt safe enough to go investigate.

It turned out to be not one or two or even three, but FOUR Thai teen stars: two actors and two actresses. Later, I found out their names - Pare, Au, Kung and Kwong. They came in to the school to get the girls excited for Mother's Day, though the girls were more excited to take pictures of the superstars and scream after either of the guys said something cute or did something cute, which in their opinion was just about everything.

Mother's Day is celebrated on the same day as HM the Queen's birthday, which was this past Saturday. The school celebrated on Friday with an extended assembly.
Followed by singing and traditional Thai dance performed by some of the older girls.
Some of the dancers claimed they are in M6, but in their costumes and makeup they look so much older and completely unrecognizable.

My going away tea party

Last Friday was my last day teaching. So one of the English teachers decided to have a going away "tea party" for me. I had a very nice time, though I ate way too much! But I got to try many Thai dishes that I hadn't tried before. Here's what was on the menu.

• Fruit: guava, little bananas, rambutans and longan
• coconut sticky rice
• deep fried fish paste in dough
• two tapioca desserts
• cured pork
  
• pad thai
• hot green tea
• soy bean dessert with some sweet sticky stuff to hold the beans together
  

Left Hand - Right Hand

People constantly forget this, but I am left handed. Well, actually I'm sort of mixed handed (or a weirdo if you prefer). I write, paint and do other things that involve delicate movements with my left hand. I play sports, eat and perform other feats of strength with my right hand. And I always enjoy reading about the differences between left-handed and right-handed people.

On Wednesday there was a post on Greg Mankiw's Blog called Lefties' Leg Up. One of the comments to this post lead me to a site called Right Hand Left Hand that has a couple of test on it.

The first test is called Line Bisection Test. Here are my results:

People with damage to their right parietal lobe often show neglect of the left half of the visual world, so that the rectangle will be bisected far to the right of the centre. Normal people without parietal lobe damage oftern show the opposite effect, so-called 'pseudo-neglect'. The rectangle typically being bisected slightly to the left of the centre.

Neglect
Pseudo-neglect
On average you placed your centre 50.52% of the way along the rectangle, 1.03% to the Right of the exact centre.

The second test is called Attentional Test. This is a timed test where you see a picture of a bunch of stars and have to find the small one as fast as you can.
I took the test 5 times and calculated my average over the trials.

People with damage to their right parietal lobe often find it difficult to pay attention to the left half of their visual world, a condition called 'visual neglect'.

People without brain damage often show the opposite effect, a slight tendency to pay more attention to the left half of the visual world, so-called 'pseudo-neglect'. As a result they are a little faster at detecting objects on the left than on the right.

Your average reaction time was 1.83 seconds for stars on the left and 1.61 seconds for stars on the right.

I guess that means I have slight damage to my right parietal lobe. Luckily, I don't know what the parietal lobe does, so I don't miss it. But I think I know a certain someone who dropped me on my head...

M6 asks for advice

The last lesson I taught for M6 was about advice. An activity I did with a few of my classes was having them write anonymous questions asking for advice. I then read the questions out loud and we answered them together. What follows are some of my favorites (sorted by category).

Beauty, body and image:

I'm fat! What should I do?

My problem is I'm a short.

If you fart without sound but has smell, what should I do?

How can I do to be as beautiful as you?

Yin and Yang:

I have black skin. What should I do?

"My problem is I'm white face"

Embarrassment:

I always make something stupid in the public place. That make me shy and worried. And I always forget everything that I do. What should I do?

Matters of the heart:

Now, I'm in love with someone. He's very handsome and he told me that he loves me. The problem is... He's thirteen years old. What should I do? (I'm 17)

Smart-ass:

What should I do if I didn't understand this question?

*Note: The questions appear here exactly as they were originally submitted to me.

Done

Remember this post? Well with two weeks left in Thailand let's see how I did.

1. √ Press release
   
2. √ Thai massage - though I'll get one more before I leave.
   
3. √ Monks - I see several each day actually.
   
4. Meditation
   
5. √ Island - Koh Samet
   
6. √ Weekend and night markets
   
7. √ Elephants, tiger and monekeys - does the zoo count?
   
8. √ Fruit - minus the Durian, but there's still time during which I plan to keep resisting JR's attempts at buying it. That fruit really stinks!
   
9. Learn kickboxing - there's still time to attend a match
   
10. √ Really hot local pepper - no, it's never on purpose and it's usually not funny.
    
11. √ Find a squirrel - JR claims the animal we saw roaming free in the zoo was a squirrel; I thought it looked more like a furry rat.
    
12. Buy a bootleg DVD - I would never!
    
13. Wrestle a crocodile- does this count for a crocodile and does running away count as wrestling? What about a 2 inch gecko I scared away from my living room?
    
14. Visit Phuket - there's a chance for this weekend, but the rainy season is a little unpredictable.

Gold Star Award

Congratulation grande! You win a GOLD STAR!

What do you plan to do with this prestigious award?!?

Things I will miss

Now let's think about the things that I will miss.

1. The fruit! Oh the glorious rambutans, mangosteens and pomellos... and other random new fruits...
   
2. Getting to school by boat and looking at the scenery. My favorite is Wat Arun (or the Temple of Dawn).
3. The girls... specifically:
   
   • Their funny mistakes. For example, today I taught an M2 lesson about pets. The girls had to write down answers to question about their pets. One girl wrote that she has a pet "taltel". I'll give a GOLD STAR to the first person to figure out what animal she's talking about.
   • The ooh's and ahh's I get when I lift a chair above the desks to bring it to the front of the room. They think I'm strong!
   • And their endless smiles.
4. The 5Baht "pudding" from the cafeteria. By pudding I mean jello pieces cover with shaved ice and hot pink syrup. (And also the sweet and spicy sauce that I get almost daily.)
   
5. The weekend and the night markets.
6. The consistently warm weather.
7. The prices and the 7-11s.
8. Different countries being only a short plane ride away.

Things I will not miss

First, let's list some things that I will most definitely not miss when I leave Bangkok. In no particular order...

1. Getting up at 6:20am each morning.
2. The various city smells, especially exhaust.
3. The smell of some of the foods being cooked in the Wang Lang market that I walk through on they way to school, especially cilantro.
4. The smell of the various sea inhabitants in their tubs of water being sold between the school and Wat Rakhan. Tiny turtles, big turtles, fishes and snails (which I suspect may be dead, because they're the only ones not moving around). Furthermore, I won't miss the fact that the street is constantly wet there.
5. The smell of the exhaust from the boats.
6. Getting up at 6:20am each morning, oh wait, did I say that already? OK, then how about the vicious cycle of getting 6 hours of sleep at night, taking a nap for a couple hours when I get home and going to bed late again because of it.
7. Spending over an hour getting to and from school.
8. Not being able to drink the tap water or even rinse my toothbrush in it.

School photos

8:10am - Some of the girls practicing a new song before classes begin.






Playing badminton during gym class.










These photos and more here.

1143

…is the number of students I teach. I could never remember all those names or faces. I'd say it's a lot easier for them to recognize me, though I have been compared to two 'people' and well, you be the judge... I think it's hularious!

Two Thai teachers have told me (on two separate occasions) that I look like Natalie, as if I was supposed to know who this Natalie is. Well, it turns out they meant Miss Universe 2005 - Natalie Glebova.

My boss came into the school today and said:

[The vice-principal] told me the girls say they like you because you look like Barbie.

Some observations from work

It is definitely interesting being a high school teacher for the summer. Had you told me that I'd be teaching English to high school girls in Thailand the summer after I graduate college, I would never have believed it and yet here I am. Experiencing things from the other side of the equation.

Class begins:

Class leader: Stand up, please!
The class stands up.
Class: Good morning teacher! (or: Good mor - giggle,giggle, giggle - afternoon teacher!
Teacher (me - usually into the microphone): Good morning! You may sit down.
Class sits down.
Teacher: How are you?
Class: I'm fine, thank you! And you?
Teacher: I'm good too.

The teachers:
They are all very nice, judging only from my limited (by the language barrier) encounters with most them. An encounter is usually confined to a friendly wai (bow) with an accompanying sawat-di-kaa (which means both hello or good-bye).

The girls:
They're all smiley and happy (seeing an unhappy face is unusual). They run around laughing and joking, occasionally playfully hitting and racing through the halls. They respect the teachers, which is useful. Many wai or say hello to me. When I first got here, many girls would stop me and ask me my name. They're very friendly! And some actually like to practice their English.
Since there are so many of them, I have found that the best way to make it through the hallway between classes is to walk against traffic. That way, they are more likely to see you and get out of your way. They do so also if they notice you walking behind them. This is true even if they're not walking any faster than you are. Likewise, I get to budge in the lunch line!

The cafeteria:
The food is mostly Thai. There are many little stands that serve different dishes, not unlike the couple we had at IHS. And each stand serves several different foods. Various kinds of meat, fried and hard boiled eggs, rice, noodles, bamboo shoots, soup, some cooked veggies, fresh fruit juice, little pieces of cake, and ice cream among others. The food is good and very cheap.

The customs:
When coming into the teacher's room the girls take of their shoes and line them up neatly by the door. If there are no chairs for them to sit on, they kneel or sit Indian style. The normal uniform is a blue skirt down to the knees, a white blouse, white socks and black shoes, and the gym uniform is a yellow collar shirt, blue sport pants, white socks and white keds. Moreover, all the younger girls have the same hair cut - hair length to the earlobe and cut straight across. The older ones can grow out their hair and usually tie it with a blue or brown ribbon (all ribbons alike of course).

The chores :
The younger girls are required to do a certain amount of little tasks to help the teachers for which the teachers sign in their little green or blue books. This means I never have to bring my dirty dishes to the cafeteria, fill our empty water bottles or wash my glass. Two girls actually just came in as I'm writing this and did the latter two. Though many of the girls are very nice and helpful outside of having to get a set number of signatures. They wipe the board or help carry my CD player back to my room.

The punishments:
I have seen two types of punishment. Entering the school gate one morning some girls, whose hair was too long, were getting it cut right there in front of everyone. A couple were crying. And walking by a classroom today, I saw that half the class was standing facing the back wall. Apparently, they were real bad!

Class ends:

Class leader: Stand up, please!
The class stands up.
Class: Thank you teacher! See you again next time!
Teacher: See you next time! Have a good day. Bye!
Class: Bye-bye!

Pop Quiz

Another example of how I entertain myself at work:

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

I failed 8th Grade US History and since we didn't have US History in 8th grade, I feel this is justified. Thanks to the M6 listening test, I just learned the capital of Australia last Wednesday and thus passed 8th grade geography with 7/10.

Where did my summer go?

Somehow July is over and there are only three weeks left until classes start. And why does 3 weeks all the sudden seem like a really short time? Am I getting old?

Also I'm starting to appreciate (for the second time) the many ways college is better than high school.

Yuck!

What's the best way to ruin Gooseberry sorbet or Chinese Plum juice? Put salt in it! Apparently one also has to watch out when buying orange juice, which can also contain salt. So far I've been lucky with the orange juice.

Field Trip

Walking to school from the pier today, I crossed paths with all of M4 (all wearing their yellow uniform shirts). They were walking in an orderly fashion, being lead by a few teachers. As I found out from the head of the English department, and then again at the end of the procession from the Vice-Principal, they were going to pray for HM the King. HM is currently in Siriraj Hospital, which is very close to the school, recovering from spinal surgery.

More on pronunciation

So the interchange between 'l' and 'r' is infamous. But another quirk I've noticed is 'v' being pronounced 'w' after countless students answered:

I watched telewision.

to my question of "What did you do last weekend?" I tried to get one of my classes to say "wet" and "vet" to no avail. The other English teacher said: "Don't even bother."

If I were a giraffe

This is what I would do all day:

Well maybe only if I was a giraffe in a zoo. If you haven't guessed, we went to a zoo yesterday. Many of the animals' habitats are surounded by an electric fence. There must be a smart animal that can cause chaos during a power outage?! Otherwise, the zoo is nothing too special really: some lions and (white) tigers and bears, some hippos and elephants, one albino deer and oh, my first KANGAROOS!

They are silly little creatures really and I wasn't expecting to see any until I actually get a chance to go to Australia...

Inhalers and not the asthma kind

Gold Mints Procducts Co. Ltd manufactures inhalant products. A chap-stick size container I see many locals pull out of their purses or pockets and sniff. Once in one nostril, once in the other. Maybe twice or three times if the air is real stinky.
The company's website reads:

We are determined to manufacture the highest possible quality, strictly hygenic products, ensuring users safety and comfort at present and in the future.

Primarily, the stuff just smells good (I suppose that's one way to balance out pollution), but it's also supposed to relieve fatigue that inevitably comes with living in a city. The list of active ingredients printed on the container:

Eucalyptus Oil 8.5%
Menthol 42.0%
Camphor 16.4%
Borneol 6.1%

From my experience eucalyptus oil and menthol are harmless enough. Camphor (and borneol, which is chemically related to camphor) I am not so sure about. My only encounter with it was in Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog, where Sharik was injected with it while undergoing his operation. Hmm...

At first I was skeptical. But after being exposed to pollution and various other city smells in the first month of being here, I decided it was worth a try. So JR got me some for my birthday. One is even a double so you can put it to both nostrils at the same time! And at the very least, the inhalant smells very nice.

Russian Lesson from "Idoru"

Indispensable lesson of the rich Russian language from William Gibson:

"Yob tvoyu mat," said the Russian, soft syllables of surprise.

Personally I would have written "Yab". To clarify, the Russian is part of the Russian communist mafia called Kombinat.

Obsessions and a Fear

It's Friday and I'm in a good mood. You know that feeling you got on Fridays at the end of a school day. Here are some little sweet nothings (some may call obsessions) from my life:

0. Llama llama duck

New things are well forgotten old ones. --Russian saying

I was obsessed with this a few months ago and I have just rediscovered it. I can listen to it for many times on end and still be highly amused! The randomness, the voice, the photos and rhymes are perfect humor.

1. Pomelo - a citrus fruit that tastes like a grapefruit, but without the bitterness and is about the size of a canteloup. It's sold already pealed and sliced at the grocery stores for about $1. Fruit is amazing!

2. I started reading Idoru by William Gibson thanks to Jon's recommendation (unfotunately they didn't have Neuromancer at the store). He's been writing computer science fiction books for a while and is credited with inventing the word cyberspace. (I know I'm a dork, yadda, yadda, yadda.) But he has a really great way of revealing information to the reader even within a single sentence that very much appeals to me.

3. Why is it always sunny out when I'm at school and by the time I get home it's grey and cloudy so there's no point in lying by the pool?

And as for my fear... I'm well adjusted to the consistency of the weather here. Even the warmth and the rain, as it always rains at a predictable time - either around 4pm or 7pm. I'm afraid of being cold back in I-town.

Back from Nam

I promise that this is the last time I say Nam even though it's still funny to me.

It was great to get away from the largeness of Bangkok and flee to a smaller and greener city for a few days. I was hoping for cooler weather, as anything more hot and humid seemed impossible. But boy was I wrong. Going to work today I was thinking that Bangkok isn't so hot after all.

Ho Chi Minh, on the other hand, is comfortably resting in his air-conditioned mausoleum. He looks as fake as Lenin, though pale in comparison. The mausoleum itself is pretty impressive. The reason this fascinates me so much is that this whole embalming procedure was developed solely for Lenin. A leader dies, the people decide despite his wishes that they want to keep his body forever and on public display nonetheless. And so they order a scientist to figure out how to do it. And he does! And then, they proceed to embalm other communist leaders.

Some highlights:

Gazing into the well of heavenly clarity at the Temple of Literature: It had cute little fishes swimming in it.Being scared by a mannequin in a dungeon of Hoa Lo Prison (also known as “The Hanoi Hilton”): In my defense I was completely alone in the dungeon section of the prison and it was a little creepy… I decided, I wouldn’t want to be locked up in there with my feet shackled to the bunk.Hanoi is definitely noticeable poorer and less developed that Bangkok. And as soon as you get outside the main touristy area people stared at me as if I was a circus freak, though I'm pretty sure I still have the required number of all body parts... no more, no less.

Embalming Communism II

"In [Lenin's Theses on the National and Colonial Questions] there were political terms that were difficult to understand. But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy. Sitting by myself in my room, I would shout as if I were addressing large crowds: "Dear martyr compatriots! This is what we need, this is our path to liberation!" Since then (the 1920s) I had entire confidence in Lenin, in the Third International!" -Ho Chi Minh

And he has the same confidence to this day:

Ho Chi Minh's embalmed corpse gets a three month holiday to Russia for yearly maintenance, so the mausoleum is closed from September through early December. - Lonely Planet: Southeast Asia

But embalmed Ho Chi Minh should be careful in Moscow as there have been four attempts at destroying embalmed Lenin.

1. March 19th, 1934: a man tried to shoot embalmed Lenin, but the guards' quick reaction resulted in the perpetrator shooting himself.
2. March 20th, 1959: a man threw a hammer at Lenin. The hammer broke the glass encasement, but Lenin's body was not harmed.
3. July 14th, 1960: a man broke the glass encasement with his foot and the shards damaged Lenin's skin.
4. September 1st, 1973: a man detonated a homemade bomb in the masoleum killing himself and injuring several visitors, but not Lenin.

So shot at and bombed... it's not easy being embalmed and on display in Russia. But who throws a hammer? Honestly!

Better Late Than Never

For the last month I have been operating under two (logical) assumption:

1. The refrigerator is meant for preventing things from spoiling.
   
2. Food spoils in the hot and humid climate in Thailand faster than back home.
   

Thus, every single food item I'd buy would go straight into the fridge. Lately, I've been surprised at how quickly my fruit goes bad, until JR explained that tropical fruit is just that and does not like cold temperatures. So maybe Thai chickens are tropical chickens that lay tropical eggs, since the eggs in the grocery store are never in a refrigerator.

Lesson in Russian History - Poltava Battle

The above picture and quote below are from Mail.ru.

Праздник установлен в честь победы русской армии под командованием Петра Первого над шведами в Полтавском сражении в 1709 году. Является одним из дней воинской славы России и отмечается 10 июля.

Translation courtesy of AltaVista's Babel Fish:

Holiday is established in the honor of the victory of Russian army under the command of Peter pervy above the Swedes in the Poltava battle in 1709. It is one of the days of the military glory of Russia and is noted on 10 July.

/* To be honest I underestimated the abilities of Babel Fish and was hoping for something more humerous... maybe next time. */

According to Russian wikipedia:

Swedish forces:

• 8200 soldiers of infantry (18 battalions) of 4 instruments
  
• 7800 soldiers of the cavalry (109 squadrons)
  
• 1000 riders - Valashskiy regiment of the irregular cavalry

Troops in the convoy and the strengthenings:

• 200 soldiers of the cavalry (25 squadrons)
  
• an unknown number of cossacks
  
• 1800 riders in the lower reaches of the river Vorskly.

Russian forces:

• 25 000 soldiers of infantry (51 battalion)
• 9000 soldiers of the cavalry (85 squadrons)
• 4000 soldiers of infantry (8 battalions) and 16 instruments on the line of strengthenings
• 1000 infantries and 1000 cavalries under S. Yakovtsy.

Poltava garrison:

• 4000 infantries and 28 instruments

The summary of the battle is that Peter the Great kicked Charles XII ass (and by kick ass I mean wounded) and completely destroyed his army. According to the Russian wikipedia: 1345 Russian soldiers dead and 3290 wounded compared to 16,000 Swedish prisoners and at least 11,000 casualties.

The bottom line is there were at least 8,000 cossacks.

Wishes...

...may they all come true, even the взбалмошные ones.

From a person who already knows:

I think you'll find that being 22 is sorta like being 21, except with more 2s.

From a student:

Happy birthday Miss Olka!!! Have a nice time and have a nice day!!!
--Petch 4/7

Much like the 'r' and 'l', I have also seen people interchange 'g' and 'k'. For example, I've seen the Thai word for chicken written both as gai and kai.

Thai Massage

I had my first ever professional massage today at a little massage parlor in our apartment building. And it was glorious... by the end of the hour I had even forgotten that it was my birthday!

The masseuse used all sorts of body parts to perform the massage - including her feet, forearms, elbows and knees. The only problem I had was resisting from laughing because my quads and my upper back were really ticklish, no matter how hard she was pressing. And the only painful part was my neck, though it was a pleasant kind of pain (call me masochistic), which is similar to that experienced during yoga and referred to by my yoga teachers as 'sensation'.

Thai massage is O approved!

Getting ready for Nam

Preparations include:

1. Watching Apocalypse now - so far we've watched about 1.5hrs.
2. Familiarizing myself with the local culture and customs through the powers of the internet. The transport section of LonelyPlanet online explains about car rentals:

All car rentals come with a guide, which is not a bad, or even particularly expensive, thing. Uncomfortable but rugged Russian 4WDs are the least expensive, while Japanese luxury cars are available for a higher price.

What is the first Russian automobile plant that comes to mind? Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod and its GAZ-69:
I'm just hoping we don't see any BA-10's driving around:

Fork this

Three AMAZING fark links from this Monday...

3. Magnetic Floating Bed. Papa, any ideas on how sleeping in a strong electro-magnetic field would impact ones health?

2. The Ithaca Journal was on fark yesterday in the DUMBASS category with a caption:

Fly your flag upside down this Independence Day

Is Ithaca the City of Evil? Nah.

1. And the winner is Miraculous garlic vodka that treats diabetes and cancer. Eto pravda?!

Sore throat, a cold or the flu my mom says "Eat a clove of garlic." And for sunburn rub vodka on your skin. It's no wonder that combined these two natural remedies can treat the uncurable.

Honorable mention: Mario Desktop. Apparently, it's not finished and I haven't checked it out. But still, the idea is spiffy!

Random Rambling

Maybe you've read J.R.'s post about flied lice. Well, I've just experienced the interchanging of the 'l' and 'r' sounds first hand. A woman came into my teacher's room to give me a sheet to sign and my name was written "Miss Orga".

This week I have been busy giving oral tests to the girls. I call them up one by one and ask them a few questions. For example: "What time does school start?" for M2, "What did you do last weekend?" for M4 and "What's important in a friendship?" for M6. And then I give them a grade on a scale of 1-10 for each of Fluency, Accuracy, Pronunciation and Participation. Work's easy at the moment :)

Embalming Communism

Lucky for us, these four communist leaders have been embalmed and put on display in mausoleums against their wishes. Last summer we visited Lenin, this summer we hope to see Ho Chi Minh.

1. Lenin - Moscow, Russia - July 2005

[The] Politbiuro decided - against Lenin's own wishes and those of his family - to embalm his body and place it in a sarcophagus inside a mausoleum for public viewing. --Seventeen Monuments

2. Ho Chi Minh - Hanoi, Vietnam - July 2006
Status: in production

He wished to be cremated and his ashes buried in urns on three Vietnamese hilltops, each in one of the three main regions of Vietnam (North, Central and South). He wrote, "Not only is cremation good from the point of view of hygiene, but it also saves farmland." --Wikipedia

3. Mao Zedong - Beijing, China - July 2007

His body was later placed into the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, although he wished to be cremated and had been one of the first high-ranking officials to sign the "Proposal that all Central Leaders be Cremated after Death" in November 1956. --Wikipedia

4. Kim Il-sung - Pyongyang, North Korea - July 2008?

Remember the School Bell

When was the last time you heard one? And if you went to IHS (or maybe it was still at Dewitt), do you remember when they were trying out a bell that sounded like a train tooting? At the school where I teach they play Edelweiss at the end of every period. Every fifty minutes I hear:

Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Every morning you greet me
Small and white,
Clean and bright,
You look happy to meet me.

Except the singing is only in my head. And still, it's less annoying than the Cornell Bell Tower chiming every 15 minutes.

Compare and contrast IV

This is the view from the window of my teacher's room. And since the three computers in the room face this window, now you know my inspiration when I blog from school. Notice the Grand Palace on the right.
This is a little boy who is brave enough to swim in the Chao Phraya river. Perhaps he's just showing off in front of the girls at the school.

5'6 and 3/4''

For those members of my family who make fun of me for being the shortest one (I'm talking about everyone except my cat) I want you to know that when I ask my M2 students "Can you name something that is tall?" they answer in unison "TEACHER!" (pronounced: tee-cha)

I am Wonder Woman!

But more specifically, I am:

92% Wonder Woman
87% Supergirl
85% Spider-Man
85% Green Lantern
70% Superman
64% Robin
50% Hulk
45% Iron Man
45% The Flash
40% Catwoman
40% Batman

for a total of 703%.

Which Superhero are you?

However, I was thinking about which superpowers I would want (because I had a free period and I was bored) ... and today I would like to have:

1. Inivisibility - maybe because I stand out so much here...
2. Superspeed
3. Ability to make fire with my right hand and ice with my left

Tongue Twister

NERD-SPEAK ADVISORY!

I was looking up tongue twisters for my Matyom 4 (from here on referred to as M4) classes, as this weeks lesson included a tongue twister and they seemed to enjoy it, and this beauty was the third one I read:

IF IF = THEN THEN THEN = ELSE ELSE ELSE = IF;

programming language PL/I by Bruce Walker

HOWEVER, while it is beutiful, it's misleading (for lack of a better word) enough to bother me... If CS100 taught me one thing, wait no, if Introduction to Programming with Pascal that I took junior year in high school taught me one thing it was how to swap variables!

Teaching English in Thailand

Many of you don't know that my internship was cancelled, if you will, due to problems with the project AFTER I was already here in Bangkok. (That was special.) Well since then, I found a fulltime teaching job at an all girl public school.
Today my last class ended at 2:10pm and right now it is 2:43 and I am still stuck at the school due to a downpour. Yes, I do have an umbrella and no, it wouldn't help. I am sitting in a teacher's room where I have my own desk (yea, that's right, I'm important). Luckily the teacher's room is airconditioned!

Anyhow, the view from my window here is marvelous. As the school is right on the river bank, I see the river and the other bank with Grand Palace right infront of me. I have to take a boat in order to get to the school from the Skytrain.

I teach three grade levels Matayom 2, 4, 6 which are equivalent to grades 8, 10, and 12 in US high schools. Here's what a couple of 13 year old girl accomplished during one of my lessons (as opposed to actually paying attention):
And yes, they wear uniforms.

Clarification

Which fruit is which?
Sign the photos!

Too lazy to sign the photos, but ... the rambutan is the hairy red one. The mangosteen is the spherical plum colored one with a center shaped like a pealed tangerine.

Experiments with Fruit

Since I was less than satisfied with the guava and dragon fruit experience, while shopping for an iron (which I bought for $6, yet to see if it actually works though) I decided it was time to try some rambutans and mangosteens.
This fruity experience was a lot more pleasant - they're both delicious! The rambutan taste a little like persimmons. And the mangosteen is vaguely reminiscent of mangos, which is partially due to the texture, but mostly just the name. And the 6 rambutans cost 4B, which comes out to about 1.7 cents a piece. The mangosteens are 5 times more expensive.

Compare and contrast III

This is the view from our apartment, perhaps the last compare and contrast from Bangkok. But don't worry; we're planning our first trip so there's more to come. You can see the pool, which proudly says Boss Tower on the bottom (coincidentally that is the name of our apartment building). We are on the 11th floor and getting to it involves two different elevators separated by a lobby (L). The first elevator passes by the 7 stories of parking (P1 - P7), which makes so much sense for making parking available to tenants. The second elevator passes by floors with apartments and one may notice that there is no floor 13. This was one of our criteria for finding an apartment.

To do list

1. Go to a Black Eyed Peas concert press release – DONE
2. Get a Thai massage, can I take it for a whole hour?
3. See some monks. (currCnt == 1)
4. Meditation session at a wat. (Buddhist temple)
5. Explore an island.
6. Explore the Chatuchak weekend market, while there avoid the livestock section.
7. See various animals:

• Elephant – DONE – we randomly saw a little elephant being walked by a restaurant. He had a tail light.
• Tiger
• Monkeys

8.Experiment with eating exotic fruits:

• Guava – DONE – meh. Guava juice is better.
• Pitaya (or Dragon fruit) – DONE – tastes like kiwi, but kiwi is better as it is more flavorful.
• Durian – I don't know about this one, it is really stinky. It's reputably an "acquired taste."
• Rambutan
• Mangosteen
• Lychee – I’ve had canned lychees, lychee candy and lychee yogurt, but I’d like to try them fresh.
• to be continued...

Did I miss anything? Suggestions are always welcome.

Green Tea Japanese Style

JR has been fascinated with this Japanese OISHI green tea that is sold all over Bangkok. And by fascinated I mean he gets very excited every time we discover a new flavor, at which point he promptly buys it, takes a few sips while making a mildly disgusted face and says “Now you try some.”

The flavors we have discovered so far:

Honey Lemon – green tea with an unidentifiable, vaguely medicinal aftertaste (though JR says he can’t taste it)

Strawberry – children’s Amoxicillin

To me the strawberry green tea taste very much like my mom’s homemade strawberry jam mixed with … green tea.

Genmai (or Winter Melon) – soggy Corn Flakes

To make sure that the winter melon indeed tasted like soggy Corn Flakes, JR proceeded to purchase a winter melon juice. Suspicion confirmed.

Interestingly enough Crysanthemum juice has a very similar cereal aftertaste.

The Heat

Yes it is really hot and humid day and night. (Right now I am sitting two feet in front of a fan set to full blast.) I have been showering and swimming 2-4 times a day. Moreover, there are varying types of “hot and humid” in Bangkok city. There are briskly walking through a sunny spot - get out of my way to the shade, oh no it’s hot even in the shade, walking by a side street which channels a breeze = another layer of sweat drying on my skin, and the worst of all walking by a street vendor who is cooking on burning hot coals – how can he still be alive?!

Crossing the Road

In Thailand people drive on the left side of the road. As a pedestrian this took a little bit of getting used to. There are three stages to this process. The first couple days you keep looking left first until you realize that you are looking “with traffic” and, as you don’t actually have eyes on the back of your head, it isn’t helpful. The next few days your disoriented brain orders you to turn your head left-right-left-right then right-left-right-left as quickly as possible, until the traffic pattern finally sinks into your subconscious.

The Bangkok Sky Train (BTS)

Thais have an amazing ability to line up in an orderly fashion while waiting for the BTS, which in turn arrives in a timely fashion in approximately five minute intervals. The platform’s tiled pattern hints (and at some station blatantly points with yellow painted arrows) at the locations of where the doors of the stopped train will be and the locals line up in two single-filed lines at the sides of the doors, as if trying to convince the passengers that their air-conditioned, scenic journey has come to an end and it is now time for them to get off the train. Even more impressive are people wearing yellow shirts while lining up for the BTS!

Compare and contrast II

This is a view from the balcony of JR's friend, Tess', apartment where we stayed through last night. This view is particularly interesting because you can see the mixture of well kempt apartment buildings that are towering over the shacks of the poor. When walking on the street such barracks are blocked off from view (in some cases by fence-like dividers, which sometimes are falling over).

Greetings from Bangkok

About a week ago we landed in Don Muang International Airport. We took an air-conditioned Toyota Camry taxicab into the city. Riding in the taxi was very much a surreal experience (partially due to the 16 hour flight and lack of sleep). Even though part of me recognized that I have traveled literally half way across the globe, looking out of the taxi windows it still felt as if I was watching a show on the Travel Channel.

Visited Countries

This is a neat tool I found through Google, though I would prefer to have a visited cities map (so someone please get on that). The ones in red are the countries I've visited. Don't miss Vatican City!

Now here's a map of Thailand, not Taiwan, which is where I'll be this summer. (Taiwan is where my dad is now for a conference.) I hope to add another red blob to the map above at the end of the summer.

Left and Right Unite

A few days ago the gay parade held in Moscow resulted in the arrest of 120 people (not surprising). However, it managed to bring together (for the first time in history?) the communists and fascists. The Left and the Right "voluntarily united to clean the center of Moscow of gays and lesbians" Pravda reports.

Chicken and egg

NERD-SPEAK ADVISORY! If you are allergic, please refrain from reading further.

Well I am glad to know that the very important question of what came first is answered for the chicken and the egg. And all for promoting "Chicken Little".

A Slashdot reader asks "So, does this mean we can now solve P=NP?"

Well I think it could. The Cornell CS312 course staff has long argued that this question should be posed to students on an exam, but professors (in fear of being outdone by a student?) inevitably reject the idea. I believe that given the success of the chicken and the egg problem, posing this question in a high-budget promotional framework will quickly produce a solution. Now the question remains, what should be promoted? That's easy: 24, which instantaneously solved many a hard problem, rendering the research of several of my professors obsolete.

Compare and contrast

SUBJECT: yards

This is the backyard of my home in Ithaca.

This is a photo of me and my mom's first husband in front of my apartment building in Novosibirsk. Though I lived in about four different apartments, those were the days of communism and all the buildings looked the same. Many a time I accidentally wandered into the wrong building on my way home from school.

A Look into the Future

In order for you to recognize me upon my return from Bangkok, I wrote a simple program to project the effect of the Thai climate on my appearance. With input lenOfStayInDays = 60 and avgTempInF = 86, the simulation predicts that with probability 0.67 this is what I will look like at the end of the summer.

Meet Zita the Ligress

This is a picture of Zita from last summer when I met her and she was only one year old. I don't know about feisty... But “it is hard to say, whether Zita is more of a tiger or a lion. She is just a huge cheerful kitten, playful and sociable" according to the deputy director of the Novosibirsk Zoo, where Zita lives. Just a sweet, adorable, little kitten... don't you want to take her home?