MIT Sport TKD Blog

things i’ve been doing lately:

- maid cafe - pretty awesome. i went with some other interns in my department and their mentors to akihabara, and while we were there, we visited a maid cafe. there was a long line (maybe 20-30 minutes?) and the food was pretty expensive and pretty average, in addition to an entrance fee of 700 yen per person. but it was soooooo cute (if you’re into those kind of cute things, like cute japanese girls dressed as maids serving you food). i don’t have pictures of the inside of the cafe, but i did take pictures of the outside (like a can of maid butter inside the souvenir store).

- kansai trip - most of the MIT interns in japan went to kyoto/nara this weekend (just got back!), which began with a crazy night bus that left at 11 pm and arrived at 6 am. i couldn’t sleep, mostly because of some sort of ear pressure misregulation, and as a result, a significant part of the trip was spent with me napping or almost accidentally passing out. the scenery was amazing, though; i took a ton of pictures of famous shrines and temples in kyoto until my battery died. the weather was amazingly humid - my hair evolved from normal to afro throughout the day, both days.

- training - last week, i started biking to work, which is about 7.5 miles each way. after the first day, my quads were burning, and the past couple of days, i’ve been waking up with calf cramps at 6 am, but it’s pretty good training. i’ve also been practicing forms in lab, to the point that the main topics of conversation involving me are tkd and my commute to work (gossip travels at approximately c at work). speaking of tkd, i’m going to a dojang next weekend! it’s a kids class, but i’m expecting something like a bunch of teenage black belts who can totally kick my butt, so i’m pretty excited

time for sleep; waking up for work tomorrow is going to suck.

OHIO TOKYO!!! ^^

- here is my contribution… teehee

ps. i love summer!!!

I went on a trip to California this past weekend. It was only three days long and possibly my shortest trip back home so far. I went back to watch my brother get married to his girlfriend of seven years.

Anyway, my weekend was filled with events and excitement. I took a 8AM flight to SFO; my mom picked me up and off we went to Chinatown. Got a haircut and a dress! The dress was all right, but a little looser than I hoped. We rushed off to my brother’s wedding rehearsal. The two things I remembered were 1) it was hot 2) my mom was crying. My brother graciously paid for dinner that night. His friends (whom I haven’t seen for over 10 years) kept saying I looked like him, especially when I smile. I definitely get that a lot from people, but personally, I’m just glad I look like someone in my family (that way I know for sure I’m not adopted :P)

Saturday was the big wedding day. I got up around 8AM to get my face done - yeah the whole nine yards: makeup, eyebrows, lips, hair. Because everything took around 2.5 hours, we were late to the tea ceremony. Afterwards, we drove to the church. IT WAS HOT. I walked down the aisle with my grandma. It was pretty nervewrecking; everyone was looking at me and taking pictures. AHHH. My brother and his wife looked very cute up there though. The wedding was very beautiful (and hot).

The reception was American; personally, it was very awkward. Because I didn’t realize I could bring my friends, I had to sit at the head table. My other two brothers sat at a nearby table with their friends; lame. What’s worse was when we walked around for cheers. I didn’t know anyone there and was trailing around the couple. By the time they started cheers at one table, I just arrived at the table they left. So I awkwardly gestured a cheer to people and sipped on the wine. Family’s too big.

Sunday… I got my hair straightened in the morning because my mom said the curls yesterday made my hair messy. Afterwards, I went home to shower and pack. Then we went to the Chinese reception! I basically welcomed people in, and everyone said “ohhh, you’ve grown up so much! MIT! How smart” Blah. Chinese people. I sat at the head table again, but at least my bros sat there too. Because my family is much larger than my sister-in-law’s, I was forced to sit on the bride’s side. The in-laws mainly speak Mandarin, so my Chinese skillz was put to the test. After the dinner, I was so full I barely touched the cake. The restaurant was clever - rather than using wine for cheers, they put in tea. I was appreciate it because I really don’t like the taste of red wine.

I left around 10; I was already really exhausted, and my flight was delayed! Ugh. By the time I got on the flight, it was 12:30AM. Got to Boston around 9:30. I was tired. Really tired. But I got my butt to Bose and suffered through the rest of the day.

That’s my weekend - hopefully yours was just as exciting. Now I better pay attention to work. =P

hey everyone, for those who don’t know, Alicia, RDC and I are going to be competing at Senior Nationals one week from today. (No, not senior as in senior citizen.) We’ll be in Detroit on July 1st, weighing in and then pigging out, and competing on the 2nd. Others you might know will also be there - Jayson Grant, know for his on court dances, and Ana K from CW and some friday practices.

But that means this week we’re going to be miserable, because we are cutting weight. If you think dropping 6 pounds by next tuesday is impossible, you haven’t eaten Trader Joe’s High Fiber Cereal (yea yea that’s my real blog too. everyone and their mother has one). The good thing about it, i guess, is i will be beach ready next week. So Mary, plan a beach trip soon please!

If you’re around this summer, it would be awesome to bring some new people to the club. I’m having a great time teaching the beginners, and would love to have a large group of awesome new people like we did after last summer. And if you’re around, lets play more ultimate frisbee…even if i’m not just doing it to cut weight.

Dear MIT Sport TKD Blog,

So a little update about what I’ve been up to this summer, and I hope the rest of you can reciprocate here soon (as Omar, in the tradition of the Big Bad Wolf, says: “all the better to stalk you with!”). For those of you I’ve had the pleasure of having lunch with, you know I work at –

f***

f*** f*** F#$%

Sorry.

So, I’ve been using the f-word. A LOT (Omar, feel free to edit out that last part) *through no preference of my own*, I assure you. But really, since moving to Andover, where my parents now live, there is a broken screen somewhere in this god forsaken study that nobody can find out exactly where, because every night around 2 or 3 when I am typing away at my computer — again the slowest piece of primordial desktop crap you can find, or rather the MIT Tether dial up connection, even at this hour, going a zippy 50.6 Kbps. MIT has so spoiled me with wireless internet access, but I digress — and EVERY NIGHT the hugest frackin’ winged beetles, moths, little flitty insects are attracted to lamp near my desk.

Did I mention I don’t like bugs?

Do you know how disconcerting it is to be typing and trying (very hard) to say something intelligent when your brain is already half shot, and then there is this infernal, schizophrenic but even worse, sporadic and loud buzzing, no zapping, of wings against the walls near where you sit, and out of the corner of your eye, all you can see is this fleeting thing, some beetle with hard shiny wings beating against the light and throwing monstrous shadows on the walls. When it stops for a moment, it is enormous, black with a semi-elongated body, and all you want to do is to swat it or make it go away but you’re frozen because it’s so black and ugly and you have no idea where it’s going to fly next.

ZZZ. nothing. ZZZ. nothing.

there is a tapping sound as it repeatedly hits the hard bell of the lamp, then stops. crawls inside.

nothing. nothing.

you heave a sigh of relief (and I’m terrified of crawling bugs). But then it starts again.

ZZZ.

Then

Silence

And I don’t know when it will return. I already smooshed one tonight. Not sure if my nerves or karma could take another.

adios, good night. I think the story of my summer career development will have to wait for a, quite literally, more auspiciously sunny time. Like noon so that my usually low blood pressure doesn’t go through the roof.

And that’s definitely enough completely random blogging from me for now…

ZZZ

Shit, it’s back.

Now if you’ll actually excuse me…

Yours truly,

M

PS Please blog about your summer plans. We are all ears to hear them.

hey guys!

i’m in japan right now, working at banyu (the japanese division of merck) in tsukuba. i’ll probably also be blogging at my real blog (snix313.wordpress.com), if you want to check it out.

the coolest thing about japan: heated toilet seats. not joking. they’re everywhere. in the airport, at work, in my department head’s house. you don’t really think about how much of a pain it is to sit on a cold toilet seat until you don’t have to anymore. there are also other toilet options, such as washing after you’re done? not really sure how that works…

my apartment is huge (by japanese standards). all of the people in company housing (interns included) have a decently-sized kitchen, bathroom, and pretty big bedroom (about the size of my bexley room). i’ll be posting pictures somewhere sometime.

my japanese sucks. no, really. but i know just enough to usually figure out general topics, even if i can’t actually understand what people are saying. my japanese most of the time consists of “hai, wakarimashita,” “sou desu ka?” and “sou ’su ne,” unless someone actually starts a conversation with me in japanese (i have this habit of speaking in whatever language people speak to me in - this is usually english); the rest of the MIT interns have much better japanese than me. :\

japan’s rainy season is this month, but the weather is still a lot better than boston weather. it rains maybe an average of 1-2 times a week, and it’s never windy and cold and crappy even when it rains.

i really miss tkd and you guys. one of my mentors said that there was a tkd club at tsukuba university, which is nearby, but i still haven’t actually contacted them yet. i’ve been beating up on other interns as a substitute for actual training. see you guys in ~2 months!

-snix

first day of practice!! or it would be, if i were in boston right now, i guess. =/ even though i’m not, everyone else’s excitement has been so contagious that i can’t help but get excited myself. so where am i that’s so great that i’m missing out on all the fun? back home having fun with all my old friends and family? someplace nice and sunny? (although jihye tells me anywhere is nice and sunny compared to boston this week) perhaps somewhere abroad, seeing new sights and meeting interesting people? alas. no, no, and no.

instead, i’m out in the suburbs of the beautiful state of minnesota, doing software work for a company that compiles legal resources for lawyers and attourneys. the apartment i’m living in is unfurnished (this means there’s no bed, chairs, desks, microwave, or anything else vaguely resembling furniture), but my roomate and i are still doing all right. we have this setup where we took a couple crates he had, and stuck a shelf (came straight out of the closet) on top, making a rudimentary table. i’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty sweet. imagine one of those boards that’s set up horizontally so that someone can break it with their head. yeah. it’s like that.

getting around here isn’t that easy either, because like a lot of suburbs, things are spread out, but it’s okay because everyone has a car. everyone except us, that is. my roomate went to wal-mart and got himself a bike for $65. that’s a pretty decent price for a bike, but i figured i could do better, so i went on craigslist, and if everything works out, i’m going to be buying a boys’ mountain bike for $15. we’ll see if that still holds true after i see the bike in real life, but right now my attitude is, hey, as long as it will roll for three months, that’s good enough for me.

the biggest (no, literally the biggest) attraction here in minnesota is the mall of america, one of the biggest malls in america. it’s so big that in the middle they have a full blown theme park, complete with roller coasters and rides, which recently got rebranded as “nickelodeon universe.” it’s actually the largest indoor amusement park in the country, too. as if that weren’t enough, there’s also the aquarium downstairs with over 450 kinds of sharks, which, incidentally, is the world’s largest underwater aquarium. go figure. does that even leave any room for the stores? why actually, yes it does! in fact, most of the more popular chains have several stores located in different parts of the mall. it’s pretty ridonkulous, if you really think about it.

well that’s all the news i have from minnesota. someone update us on how the practices are going! i miss everyone! hope your summers are going well!

-mark

This blog site and album-posting goodness is so awesome! Thanks so much guys : )

<3 <3 <3

Now, people should start writing : )

Grrrrr Omar…this was actually Shammi’s idea. Enough said.

Yay! This blog works…

(Question: when you said keep it clean, does this mean we can’t mention where Gordon got chocolate ice-cream on himself yesterday at the Scooper Bowl? Or what Bobby and Rich offered at various times to do - to/for — don’t even know what the right preposition should be — each other? The random-*** game people started to play (Rich started it!)? Or Jordan’s perviness — I don’t even know how to spell this — as usual?)

Ummm, or did you just mean we should *-out bad words (see above)?

M

PART I

I would like to explain the motivations behind the creation of this blog.

As the cohesive group we are, a big family we proudly call ourselves, some of our club members [Mary] are feeling uneasy, and completely lost, considering the prospect of a summer disconnected from some of their TKD buddies. Didn’t you feel the stress of having to say goodbye to other TKD folks knowing you won’t see some of them until the fall term? That’s what I thought, tragic. Well, don’t stress, for this blog is here to bring some hope to your lives and help you cope with the situation. The main purpose of the blog is to keep each other updated about our super interesting summer activities *so Mary can easily stalk all of us*. Sharing your summer experiences with Mary the rest of your TKD buddies is a honorable thing to do, and something we’re all looking forward to.

What can you possibly share in this blog? Anything you want. Let your imagination fly, and reach new limits, and once you find that special thing you would like everyone else in the club to know about, use your magnificent writing skills to tell us all about it, through this blog. Topics can range from your current internship or research project (we’re all very interested to hear about it, I swear), to how much ice cream you ate yesterday and how much you’ll have to kick in order to burn those extra calories. There is simply no limit in what you can talk about, just use your common sense and keep things clean.

Now, some of you might have used the WordPress platform before and will be all excited to jump right in and write a blog entry. For those of you who don’t know how to do it, these are the easy steps to follow to publish your entry:

1. Register for a new account.
2. Send me and Mark an e-mail so we can set your account as a contributor.
3. Once your account is set as contributor, Login to your account
   
4. Once logged-in click on Write to write your post. [you can just use the link in this line if you can't find the 'write' button once you're logged in]
5. After your done, click on Submit for Review [a very cute button to the right]
6. Send us another e-mail, and we’ll approve it unless you said mean things about my cat.
7. Done! Mary can now officially stalk you more effectively.

• note that after your first blog entry you only have to repeat steps 3-6 for your following entries! easy, huh?!

If you think all of this is simply too much work for you, given that you are already dedicating your life to lab or something, you can just write your post in an e-mail or word document and send it to me and I’ll publish it for you.

PART II - Here we get graphical

There is another thing I wanted to share with all of you. We wouldn’t be able to effectively stalk each other only through blog entries… right? How often have you found yourself looking through other people’s pictures on facebook just to see how much fun they were having? Right. We have also set up our own beautiful TKD gallery. The concept is easy and clean, everyone can post pictures of what they’ve been up to for the enjoyment of the rest of the club! These pictures can be, again, about anything you’re doing this summer. To access the galleries to the following:

1. Visit the Gallery site [http://MITSportTKD.com/gallery/]
2. Register! [An error screen might show up at the end, but your registration should have been received anyways, don't worry]
   
3. Send Mark and I an e-mail to notify of your registration [we need to approve the account]
4. Login
5. Follow the instructions to add photos to your gallery! You can add albums and photos to those albums.

• If you don’t know how to add photos let me know and I’ll help you.

That is all for now, we have two beautiful stalking tools up and running and I’m eager to see what you all have to share. I hope you all are having an exciting summer and I hope to see many blog entries and photos soon!

-Omar