Atlanta, etc.

Monday we went to Six Flags in Atlanta and I couldn't take the heat or the crowds. It would've been okay if it wasn't about a hundred degrees, but as it was, it wasn't great. That's okay because I wasn't expecting much.

The following day was a lot better because we went shopping. I LOVE shopping. I ended up buying a dress to wear in Japan at the dinner where we meet our host families.

(It's not so drape-y on me but then again, I don't weigh 100 lbs at 5'9" )

Anyways, speaking of host family things, I still don't know who they are. AKP hasn't sent us any information since we chose our gateway cities about a week and a half ago.. I'm getting really impatient and antsy. I keep checking the facebook page about 2 times a day to see if anybody has posted anything. Nobody has. We should be getting info soon. I looked at the old AKP facebook page and people posted about getting host family info around early August. That's a week away so I should know soon.. OooOooOOoo it's exciting.

Wednesday night I went to a club/ bar with some of my friends. It was totally lame and totally not like Smith parties. Smith parties are lesbian-tastic and whorey in a unique way that I've come to enjoy, but this place wasn't like that. While Smith parties have their share of girls grinding against other girls and guys in a dark room, it's also a place where you can actually dance without being booty-licious. Basically, the night made me miss my Smith girls ..

We took the Japanese students to club-bar with us and they were overwhelmed. In the middle of the dance floor, Ayako leaned over and whispered into my ear, "Major cultureshock." And I wasn't surprised. Maybe youth at Japanese bars aren't so frank with their horny-ness. I guess I'll find out in a few months ..

The rest of the week was a sucky blur of not enough sleep. Thursday and Friday we had to be up early (5:30am) for work. Since I'm finally certified to drive the school trucks, I took one out to Lake Martin so that we could clean up our experiment. We had to pack 44 big trash cans and frames into two trucks and a boat. Once again it was so bootleg. Patricia and I spent the rest of the day power washing trash cans in the 95 degree heat. TGIWeekend :D

Burger Meat

Pounder Challenge: One pound of hamburger + bun + toppings.

Yesterday I went to Cheeseburger Cheeseburger with some of my friends so that Ayako and Yuka could take the "pounder challenge." They had as much time as they needed to finish a pound of burger plus everything that goes with it. Ayako finished hers in, like, 15 minutes. CHAMP.

(Pounder on the Left, Normal on the Right !!)

They got their pictures taken and put on the wall of the restaurant. Lots of people have done it so there are a bunch of pictures everywhere. Cynthia and I will probably try it sometime next week. I just have to fast for about a week beforehand ..

After dinner, we all went bowling at Auburn Lanes. I lost the first game. Yuka won both times. None of us scored over 100 bahaha. It was a lot of fun, though. I don't think I've been bowling since senior year.

Today, Patricia and I are going to Atlanta and we're staying at Alan's aunt's house. We're gonna go to six flags and go shopping. I'm probably gonna spend a lot of money. It'll be great. We leave in about an hour and I still have to go pack ..

Dean's List

academic success ;0

Butt Fade

I've been spending a lot of time at GAP recently. I'm thinking that if I get sick of the clothes I can resell them in Japan. My Asian friends told me that GAP is really expensive in Asia. heh heh. I bought a pair of pants and a cardigan and it wasn't cheap. I didn't realize until I got back to my room that the pants have some odd but slightly exciting butt fade.

ちかん. AKA Creeper.

Bahaha so this weekend I went out to eat with some Japanese girls in my dorm and they were telling me all of their "chikan" stories, and it seems like everybody has one. THE CHIKAN IS EVERYWHERE.

Sampling at S1

S1 -- The nastiest pond you will ever lay eyes on ^^^ Alan added about 7234398 gallons of fertilizer to the pond and it bloomed like crazy. It smells.. interesting.

Alan sampling from his enclosures

Nasty green water. ick.

So as you can see, the morning was spent sampling and the rest of the day was spent filtering. It wasn't too exciting. I also made a flier to advertise the REU program for next year. It's STELLAR.

This past weekend I went for Indian food with Cynthia and Joycee and later in the evening we watched a movie called The Beach. It was weird..

BORING. I'm boring.

O GOD. My blog is so boring. I wish I had a more intense life.. or better I probably just need to be a more interesting writer, or something. My blog is most likely boring because I'm always writing things like thiiiissss:

IT IS ALMOST THE WEEKEND aand I've decided that it'll be fun. Cynthia and I have already agreed to hang out and I've already told myself to go crazy watching dramas.

JELLYFISH (!)

Today while out in the middle of Lake Martin, Patricia was like, "What the hell, is that a jellyfish?" and I was just about to be like "Heck no, how could that be??" But I turned around and sure enough there was an itty-bitty jellyfish in the water. Then we looked around some more and noticed that there were tonssssss in the water.

They were really cool so we brought them back to lab to show Alan. I looked them up on the internet and found out that they're Craspedacusta sowerbyi which aren't REALLY jellyfish but look like jellies. OMG SO CUTE.

SNFARTTTtttt. The FOURTH.

One word. AWESOME-TASTIC. The fourth of July weekend was super-fab, not only because it was a 3-day weekend, but because it was great.

First of all, on Saturday I went to Callaway Gardens with Cynthia and her friend Joycee and hung out at the beach and saw a CIRCUS. So fab. I definitely haven't seen a circus since elementary school.

On the way back to Auburn, Cynthia and I stopped for ice-cream and then at the fireworks store we bought dangerous things like sparklers and poppers. There were so many sketchy old man-hicks buying hardcore explosives..

On the Fourth, I sat around all day watching dramas. They're so incredibly addicting.. Then I went to GAP.

Later that evening I met up with Ayako and went to this girl, Pam's, house for dinner. She lives down the road in the upper floor of this older house. It's a really neat room but it didn't have any air conditioning. It wasn't bad because she had a big fan on but I don't know how she can stand living there in the middle of Alabama's summer where 95 degrees is the average temperature.. Anyways, she's really cool and the dinner was really good. Another cool girl named Ann also joined us.


Afterwards, a few more people that I don't know met us at the apartment and we headed over to Winn Dixie to watch the town fireworks. They were OK. I've seen better ones at Schroon Lake, but it was still a bunch of fun.


On Monday I went out to dinner with Ayako and her friend Chie. I guess all the Japanese students in the Cambridge dorm have a deal with this Chinese restaurant down the street: The owner will pick them up whenever they want to eat there. And so this old Chinese man picked us up and drove us to his restaurant and Ayako ordered food for all of us. When she ordered something called "cho," I was like, "O God," because 'cho' is a word I know from the little Japanese I learned in high school. So I wasn't surprised when a bunch of pig intestines showed up on our table. Ayako had Chie and I try some but they smelled really funk and tasted even funker so I stayed away for the rest of the meal ..so did Chie haha.

It wasn't until yesterday that I learned that intestines aren't a big deal around here and people eat them all the time in the south. I was eating with Patricia and Ayako at lunch and Ayako had her leftover intestines and goes to Patricia, "Want to try some," and I was like, "Patricia, you don't want that," and Patricia was like, "Mmmm intestines," and took a few. I stared at her and she explained that her mom used to make them all the time IN HER HOUSE. And I secretly gagged a bit as Patricia explained that it made the house smell but you'd be attracting all the flies in the neighborhood if you cooked them outside. Thank God I was born in the north where the average Joe doesn't eat things that poop moves through.

Later in the day we did fireworks at Cynthia's house. IT WAS RAD. Samir was there and he was kind of scary with the bottle rockets. We had to talk him out of lighting one off in his hand. In the end, nobody died or lost fingers so it was a pretty successful evening..

Half Waaaaaay

Half way. Just five more weeks and only four of them in Alabama. It's incredible how fast my time here is going. I'll be in Japan before I know it.. That's kind of scary since I STILL haven't started studying. Also, I'm super bummed that I have to miss out on stuff at home this Sunday.

This week was pretty cool but it was also depressing. Tuesday we went to wing night again and it was EPIC. A ton of us went this time: 9 of us from the Cambridge, the lab and a townie. Some of the Japanese people from the dorm went with us because I challenged Sho to do the "Blazin Challenge," where you have to eat 12 extremely hot hot wings in 6 minutes without drinking any water or anything. It's crazy. Both Sho and Nori did the challenge and they looked like they were in so much pain haha. They did it though, and because of that they got their wings for free and their picture on the wall (!).

A lot of time this week I bummed around my room and watched "Yankee-kun to Megane chan" (heh heh Kaguru thanks). It's pretty addictive and funny I think. Also, I'm just about finished with "Personal Taste," which made me a big fan of Lee Min Ho. I only have one episode left. Maybe I'll review it after I'm done, heh.