People I Am A Huge Fan Of At The Moment

I tend to do a lot of complaining about the state of the world and some of the people in it, so I felt it was time to talk about some of the humans who, at the moment, I think are freaking awesome.

-BILL GATES: The world's most famous computer geek is using his fortune to almost exclusively improve the world we live in. Earlier this year, he announced he was donating five billion (yes BILLION) dollars to fund malaria research in Africa, thus single-handedly contributing half of the annual funds used to eradicate the most deadly disease on Earth. This amount is equal to the entire contribution of the United States Government over the next five years. And last month, Mr. Gates donated $22 million to the Chicago Public School System, money that is greatly needed to fix some of the worst schools in one of America's best cities. He has also written that, upon his death, his children are only to receive 1% of his earnings, the rest will be donated to various philanthropic causes around the world. And, unlike so many other wealthy and/or famous celebrities, he and his wife actually appear to love each other. Big ups to that.

-B. JOSEPH WHITE: The President of the University of Illinois is living up to all his hype. I liked him from the day he took office, when I saw him spend his first 12 hours in the Illini Union talking to students about their life at the University. While Dean of the School of Business at the University of Michigan, he increased the school's endowment by 700% over a ten year period, which is a ridiculous amount. In only his first year at Illinois, White has increased private sector donations to the University by 10% - including a $30 donation from your truly. Next year, he will launch a $2 billion fundraising campaign which, if successful, will make great strides in helping Illinois achieve national prominence. Tied in with this goal is White's active recruitment of out-of-state students. Illinois has the highest percentage of in-state students of any Big Ten school, and White has realized that out-of-staters not only bring in more money because they pay higher tuition (and thus make the University wealthier), they also add to the diversity and intellectual atmosphere of the campus. To that end, White has also stated his goal of donating more campus funds to the Liberal Arts and Sciences, since the College of Engineering recieves plenty of money from private donations as it is. A better LAS school means better graduates which means more donations, and then the cycle continues. I love my school, and I am glad it has a President who is as committed to seeing it succeed as I am.

-BRIAN GREENE: The Harvard- and Oxford-educated Professor of Mathematics and Astrophysics at Columbia University could be the most pretentious person in the world. But instead he writes completely readable, down-to-Earth, even sometimes funny books about relativity, quantum mechanics, and superstring theory. I am glad there are absolutely brilliant people in this world who choose to share their brilliance with the rest of us while still managing to be humble and human.

Transience

Meditate on this.

Tales From Germany Part 8: Our Unexpected Day In Frankfurt

Our first goal in Frankfurt was to acquire international calling cards to inform our parents that we would not in fact be on our scheduled flights. In the case of my family this is particularly important, since the last time I was ten minutes late for something, my mother threatened to start World War III looking for me. Luckily, there were cheap phonecards readily available for purchase inside the Frankfurt airport, so we purchased one and went on our way into the city for some good old-fashioned adventure time.

We took the Deutsche Bahn into downtown, and when we got off the train and exited the station, we quickly realized that this was an area of downtown reserved for the more adventurous pleasure seekers in the city. The street had a seemingly endless supply of specialty stripclubs and sex stores, so we both made a mental note to avoid this area should we be forced to return after sundown. Not really out of fear, but more out of consideration for our own sanity. At the end of this street we encountered a large open square, in the center of which stood a 30-foot tall neon blue and yellow Euro symbol; a sign whose function was assumed by us to act as some sort of propaganda to get Germans to buy into the new Euro system following the abolition of their history-laden and beloved Deutsche Mark. I found the "The Euro: It's OUR Money" campaign to be rather ironic, since it isn't really anyobdy's money, and even if it was, it sure as heel isn't Germany's. Belgium maybe. Or Switzerland.

Turning right from the square we hit the banks of the Maim river (Frankfurt's full name is "Frankfurt am Maim") which cuts through the center of the city. By this time it was moderately pleasant and sunny (a rarity on our trip), so we decided to stroll across the river to check out one of the pointy churches on the other side. We crossed a large bridge, complete with a sign in Greek letters (confusing to me as well) and ended up at the footsteps of a church that looked a lot more interesting from half a mile away. We peeked inside, saw nothing of any more interest than my normal suburban Chicago parish, and decided to sit on the church steps and consume the Brie cheese sandwiches we had so intelligently constructed earlier in the day. While we sat eating our lunch, we took an increasing interest in the sights and sounds of the very large flea market going on just to the south of the church. After finishing the sandwiches, we walked down toward the market (since I am always up for a bargain, especially on pointless old German things) and found, after half an hour of searching, decidedly nothing of interest. I was quickly growing disappointed by Frankfurt's visual promise of fun-itude only to take it away a few seconds later, so we walked back to the other side of the river to see if it would provide us with a little more luck.

This was a good move as it turned out. The other side of the river provided us with, first and foremost, a small telephone booth with which to inform our families of our current situation. I can't remember exaclty what I said, but I think I ended up blaming the Deutsche Bahn more than my apprently expert sleeping abilities. Shewara called her family too, with much the same result. After the phone calls we headed over to my favorite attraction of the day, which Shewara would creatively name "The Man Church." The fact that it was called a church to begin with was interesting, since from what we could tell no religious services were actually ever held there. The circular building's first floor exhibited a large mural, presumably illustrating the history of Germany, complete with many nude women and lude old men with glasses and whatnot. The upstairs made even less sense: a large circular room decorated with - nothing. Blank silver walls, 100 identical black seats, and a solitary podium standing watch over the space much like a dictator inspecting his troops. The only color in the room were the long banners lining the walls, each one representing a different German state. We really didn't know what to make of this place. Normally you can't talk in a church, but at the same time this didn't really seem to be a sacred space. It was almost anti-sacred. I mean, it really was the church of THE MAN. We left very quickly since there literally was nothing to see. (There was really no signs to explain the place either.)

After the Man Church we headed back to the main square, where we tried to enter to Romer (City Hall), but were quickly turned away. The pretzel-shaped golden doorknobs were what initially attracted us to the building, but the evil people behind the doors they opened weren't nearly as visually appealing. So whatever. Turned away from the Romer, we went over to the Modern Art Museum. It was far too expensive to go in (like 10 Euros or something) but luckily the gift shop was free admission. I was shocked to see inside a book dedicated specifically to the art of one of my favorite central African peoples, the Chokwe (they make really awesome wood masks and figures). I decided to purchase it later, after we had returned from the rest of our day.

We remembered that while we had been back by the flea market we had noticed a long string of little museums just a few blocks north of where we were. We decided to head back over that way, to investigate what they might have to offer. The Technology Museum intrigued us, but turned out to be rather expensive and rather full of scores of little kids ready to smack me with sticks. I didn't feel like dealing with any of that, so we continued to explore down the street. We passed the Anthropology and Ethnology Museum (basically for the artifacts of "primitive" peoples), which normally would interest me, but I felt I had seen enough of these and they were starting to all be the same. Next we came to the Film Museum, which I know is one of Shewara's favorite topics, so we went inside to check it out. As luck would have it, they were staging a large exhibition of Greta Garbo's personal portraits. Garbo is one of Shewara's all-time favorite actresses, a Swedish-born star who subverted all the gender roles of her day before people had even come up with the concept of gender roles. We're big fans. The exhibition was very well presented, complete with original magazines and newspapers, tons of portraits (arranged chronologically), as well as a good selection of film clips. Even better, all of the descriptions of the bojects were in English as well as German. I felt very informed after leaving the exhibit, which generally means that I liked it. The only bad exhibits are uninformative ones, and the more informative ones tend to be prettier as well. These people did a good job. We left the museum feeling rather satisifed, and walked out into the suddenly cold and sleety Frankfurt afternoon. Cold and tired, we quickly went back to buy my Chokwe book, and wandered around in search of food.

We ended up stopping in to Cafe Metropol, a rather large and upscale cafe with a very diverse clientele. We were seated over in a corner at a small table for two, just how we liked it, and chatted for an hour or two while sipping our hot chocolate and chai tea, pausing every few minutes to play with the wax melting off of the candle at our table. It was very relaxing and invigorating, so by the time we left we were ready to takcle the long walk back to the train station. Our walk back, though full of the sketchy characters that seem to populate the nightlife of most major urban areas, was uneventful. The only note of interest was our discovery of the State of North Carolina's European Office, located directly across from the aforementioned neon Euro sign. Most of my readers know of my great dislike for North Carolina, so I can only assume that the pluralty of evils that exist in Germany today have something to do with this particular establishment. Did Europe have as many problems before North Carolina existed? Both World Wars occurred after NC's founding. Coincidence? I think not.

In any event, we made it back to the train station in plenty of time, and arrived at the airport just before 10:00 PM local time. It would still be another twleve hours until our flight, and we would be forced to spend it in the terminal with nothing to do.

Next time: The Conclusion (or, how my digital camera became an imminent threat to national security).

Tales From Germany, Part 7: How Part 7 Was Supposed To Be The Last Part, But Actually Wasn't, For Reasons That Are Sort Of Our Fault, But Not Really

At 5:38 AM every Saturday, a single Deutsche Bahn train bound for the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof departs track 3 of the Tuebingen train station. From Stuttgart, passengers can connect to any number of alternate destinations. On this particular day, two young travel-weary Americans on the Tuebingen-Stuttgart train would plan to then connect to Frankfurt to catch their 10:00 AM flight back to Detroit, thus ending their satisfying German adventure with a relaxing flight and plenty of sleep.

But the Americans didn’t make the train.

Oh, they had planned on it. They set their alarm for 4:45 AM, packed their belongings the previous evening, everything the good traveler should do. Except wake up. And this tiny mistake would result in a seemingly never-ending series of misadventures that would constitute one of the most eventful 24-hour travel experiences of their young lives.

Shewara and I can still vaguely recall the alarm going off at its scheduled time. We had been up rather late the previous evening (11PM? Midnight?) making conversation with our friend in Germany. We still argue about who shut the alarm off – she says me, I say her – but what we do know is that at precisely 5:41 AM (three minutes after our train left) the voices in my dream were telling me that for some ridiculously urgent reason I HAD to wake up. And I did. And stared at the alarm clock in horror.

We missed our train.

I practically pushed Shewara out of the bed, who then understandably woke up, and to her credit she was quite calm. “It’s OK, we will make the next train,” she said in a calm yet worried voice. Which was true. We gathered our things and ran to the train station, when we managed to board a train at 6:05 AM labeled “Stuttgart.” A 6:10 departure time would still allow us to make our connection to Frankfurt, but for reasons we could only scream about, this train didn’t budge (or even have its lights on) until 6:37. We missed our Frankfurt connection by five minutes, and then had to wait a gut-wrenching fifty minutes for another train to arrive. Still, operating at this schedule, we would arrive in Frankfurt just over an hour before our flight was scheduled to leave, which we assumed would work just fine. When we finally arrived in Frankfurt, we calmly exited the train, and then discovered, much to our dismay, the train station was in a different terminal than our gate. In the US this would not be such a big deal such all the terminals are usually connected. But in Frankfurt, one can only get from Terminal A to Terminal B by an unnecessarily tiny bus which runs every ten minutes. We boarded this bus, which then didn’t budge for the next ten minutes (meaning we had missed the previous by only a few seconds) and then ran into the terminal when we finally arrived. Our flight was at 10:00, and the current time was only 9:10. The ticket lady looked nice enough. She was a KLM representative, however, so I should have seen the Dutch/American animosity a kilometer away.

“You can’t board this plane.”

"Why not?” WHY THE F**K NOT????

“Because you must check in one hour before flight time. We stopped checking in for this flight ten minutes ago.”

“But the flight doesn’t leave for fifty minutes! You are telling me there is no way we can board our plane?” LET US ON THE PLANE, DAMMIT!!!

“No. I can put you on alternate flights. Let’s see – you’re going to Chicago, so I can re-route you through Paris and get you there at the originally schedule time, but she is going to Philadelphia….”

“And?” AND?

“I can not get her there until tomorrow. So she will have to spend the night in the airport. That will be 150 Euros each for the change of tickets.” ($200.74 each, as my credit card bill would later tell me.)

We were in shock. We didn’t want to go back to Tuebingen just to possibly miss our alarm again the next morning, but we really didn’t want to spend the next 24 hours in the Frankfurt airport either, considering our already negative opinion of the place. Plus we had just spent $200 each on a new plane ticket which didn’t make us particularly happy. We had no place to stay, nothing to do, and $400 less than we had ten minutes before.

And then Shewara had a plan that made us, at least for the moment, moderately happier. We were going to store our luggage in the airport, head out into the city, and explore Frankfurt for the next day. One of the most historic and interesting of German cities would be our personal proving ground for the next 12 hours. It would be a day of highs and lows, but we didn’t have much of a choice, so we went back to the train station to hop aboard a transport out into downtown Frankfurt.

The contents of which will be the subject of my next post.

I Went Apartment Hunting in Madison Today

This was good, because I wrapped up my final loose end regarding grad school, and I managed to take a nice break from my new archaeology job. My job is actually sending me to Mason City, Iowa, next week. The city is basically in the literal meaning of "middle of nowhere," but my fellow coworkers tell me they have a good Mexican restaurant. So yeah.

But I digress. I got a cool apartment for the 2006-2007 year: it comes fully furnished (everything but a microwave) and is close enough to campus so its accessible, but far enough away that I don't have to deal with the nightlife of America's #1 Party School unless I really really feel like it (and I really really feel like I never will. 'Cept maybe Halloween.) I am excited to move in next August and just get acclimated to the town: I'll explore the parks and cafes, check out the performing arts scene (which thrives in Madison), go to a football game, and take a tour of the state capital (which seems oddly out of place in downtown Madison). I actually even felt good enough about my current situation to buy a Wisconsin hoodie as well as a small car sticker.

I am just relieved that after a few weeks of stress, everything is straightened out and I can start concentrating on the more important things in life. Like my blog. Speaking of which, my next post will be my final post about my trip to Germany (I know, I know, it ended a month ago, blah blah), but it will be the best post thus far, full of hilarity and drama.

WISCONSIN SHOCKS THE WORLD!!!

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has won the MGSP2K6 in dramatic and thrilling fashion. For those of you who haven't been following the battle, Wisconsin, the school which had been ranked #1 for six months, before I even began applying to schools, was on the verge of losing to Maryland, which came in seeded 5th. As other schools fell by the wayside, Maryland worked its way up to #2 on the list, right behind the Badgers. This very week, both of my scholarship applications to Wisconsin were rejected, while at the same time Maryland put an offer on the table of a tuition remission, hefty stipend, and Teaching Assistantship renewable for four years. Maryland took the top spot from Wisconsin for the first time in half a year, with only a few days left in the battle.

But on this very day, as I was mere hours away from accepting Maryland's offer, Wisconsin emailed me with an offer of a TA-ship almost identical to Maryland's. This is especially amazing, since Wisconsin almost never offers TA positions to incoming students. Just as Maryland was getting ready to shock the world, Wisconsin comes back and wins on a last-second miracle shot.

And the crowd goes wild.

Thank you to the University of Maryland for your confidence in me and your eagerness to accept me into your program. I have the utmost respect for your program and your university, and I am sure we will meet again at some point in the future. Plus, I cannot get enough of the turtle mascot. Love it. Might even buy a "Fear the Turtle" t-shirt.

To the University of Wisconsin, thank you for a life-changing offer to the perfect school for me. And keep losing to schools from down south who wear orange.

YAY!

Tales From Germany Part 6: Tuebingen (again)

We were feeling rather tried after all of our daytrips from the previous few days, so we decided to skip our previously scheduled outing to the Black Forest town of Freiburg and just chill back in Tuebingen for the day. Apparently I was feeling so tired that I didn't have the strength to take any photos from the day, as you can tell by the noticeable lack of visual elements in this particular post. You'll have to deal with it :)

We started our day by sleeping in for an ungodly long time (like 11:00 AM, a good four hours later than the previous few days). We had been staying in the room of someone named Gis (sic, pronounced "Geese") who had just up and disappeared from the dorm the previous week. The rumor was that he had stolen a car and was now conducting his own personal Odyssey through France, which was just fine with us since we got to use his bed instead of sleeping on the floor. Gis' room was interesting to say the least: Bob Marley and PACE flags hung from the ceiling, while an eclectic mix of music books and Buddhist texts occupied his bookshelves. And how I can I forget the marijuana paraphernalia. The only item we cared about, his bed, was small but comfy, so it served our purposes just fine.

After waking up and taking a shower, we decided today would be a food day. We went to an awesome Asian grocery store filled with exotic and interesting items. We were there to gather ingredients for chicken Pad Thai, a specialty of Shewara and I's that we simply cannot make without crushed peanuts, bean sprouts, and a bit of cilantro. The peanuts and bean sprouts were relatively easy t come by, but the cilantro was strangely absent when we asked for it. Luckily Shewara, knower of all things, said the word "coriander," the rest of the world's name for the popular herb (often used in Italian dishes, hence the name "cilantro"). The nice store owner quickly produced the desired plant, and we were on our way to the larger grocery store to fetch some chicken.

And cereal. I consider myself something of a cereal connoisseur, and when I saw a box of Kellogg's Toppas Choco, I new I had to buy it. Toppas Choco are essentially chocolate mini-wheats filled with chocolate filling, making it one of the greatest cereals in the world. Only sold in Germany, but Kellogg's can be expecting a letter from me telling them to sell it in the United States. That and Strawberry Mini-Wheats, the now discontinued greatest cereal of all time. Also purchased in the grocery store were Kinder Eggs (Kinder is a popular chocolate company, like Hershey's here), awesome things that contain little toys you can put together. Shewara bought some Kinder Buenos, solely based on the name, but they actually turned out to be very good, not unlike Twix. And we got our chicken, so we went back to the dorm to drop off our food, then continued our journey through the city.

After the grocery store we visited the Tee Hus (Tea House), which had a variety of teas from around the world. Shewara and I bought a sampler box of popular German teas which contained awesome varieties like "Hildegard's Monastic Power" and "Good Fortune Herbal Morning." I drank both of these, and didn't feel very fortunate or monastically powerful, but they still tasted good. After our short trip to the Tee Huss, we visited a nearby gelato shop. Italian food, especially gelato, is very popular in southern Germany, so I was exceedingly delighted when I found I could purchase a scoop of chocolate mint. It really made my day to be able to purchase some of my favorite ice cream so far away from home.

Our last stop before dinner back at the dorm was a fantastically amazing antique and bookstore called "Heck," just across the street from the dorm. It was filled with literally thousands of books, statues, paintings, and knick-knacks in a seemingly endless labyrinthine series of rooms and hallways that extended underneath the building. I decided on a small group of century-old European coins, mostly German and Russian, but one from Bavaria in the 1750s as well. Shewara was eyeing an intricately carved miniature stein, which the store owner offered her for only five euros. When the store closed, we went back to the dorm's entrance across the street, and I noticed that Shewara didn't have her stein. She said she didn't know if she really wanted it, but she had that look in her eyes that she gets when I know she really wants something and will probably regret not getting it later. I knew she didn't yet have a real souvenir from the trip, so I grabbed her hand and we ran across the street back to the store entrance, now covered by a gate. I yelled inside to get the attention of the owner, and I told him we had forgot to purchase the stein. He quickly grabbed it from the front table, I handed him a five-euro bill, and Shewara had her stein. It is ridiculously cute, and I am glad she got it.

Our food day and antique complete, we went back to the dorm and made our pad thai while having an eclectic intellectual discussion about university life, family relations, international politics, and Kanye West's music. Our plane back to the United States was leaving the next morning from Frankfurt at 9:40 AM, so we had to catch a 4:45 AM train from Tuebingen. After a good, full evening, we headed to bed around 11:00PM, set our alarm, and fell asleep.

It was there that the real fun began.

Accepted To Maryland!

This makes me very happy. I actually had a great conversation with the graduate advisor there, and she said the entire faculty was "very excited" about my application, and gave specific examples of people who wanted to work with me. She even said I have a chance to get funding through the form of a fellowship or Teaching Assistant position.

So the situation is this: Wisconsin is still in the top spot, but Terps join the Badgers in the final round. If either of my applications for funding at Madison are accepted, that is where I am going. If I get two equal funding packages from both universities, I will probably still go to Wisconsin. Going to Maryland is only likely if they give me a funding package while Wisconsin gives me nothing. This scenario seems unlikely. I must make all of my decisions in the next two weeks - stay tuned!