Time (?) Travel

Zdravo!

I´m not sure how it happened, but somehow I have found myself in Bosnia as of late, where the ˝y˝ and ˝z˝ letters are switched on the keyboard and apostrophes are more hassle than they are worth. I left San Francisco at 11AM on Wednesday and arrived in Sarajevo at 12PM on Thursday, but it felt like the longest day ever, as it included stops in Chicago and Munich.

Thus far, I have learned that Bosnians eat ketchup on their pizza. Though seemingly insignificant, I was very taken with this idea (at the time I was severely dazed after not sleeping on the plane).

Lilia (the other Amherst student) and I are living in an apartment in a very Soviet-feeling building. It is situated in a neighborhood of like buildings that surround a grassy square with basketball courts, a fountain, and old people putzing around plazing chess on a giant chessboard. I went to the grocery store today and there was an entire aisle devoted to candy. This aisle abutted a half aisle devoted to pudding mixes. Shocking.

In other news, I wore a full suit for the first time ever today as we visited a school to promote our summer institute. I am not sure if the students were impressed.

Certainly not as impressed as I later was with myself after navigating a series of security questions on Facebook in Arabic.

Excusing the stilted English and horrifying lack of apostrophes, I shall sign off now. Until the next time!

Do videnja!

P.S. Dylan, the computers at this ˝Computer Club˝ have Chrome!

Brain Scrambled, Blog Must Go On

Hello all,

I know it's a tad late in my appointed day, but I've been at Cedar Point with some friends since this morning. I'm high off of roller coasters right now.

It was the perfect day to go: not too hot, but still warm and bright outside. There was no one in the park, so we skipped all the weak, pathetic rides and went straight to the Millennium Force. For those of you unaware, this is the greatest roller coaster ever. It takes people who aren't roller coaster people (like me) and turns them INTO roller coaster people. It has, in fact, been described as life-changing.

Don't believe me? TAKE A RIDE

Once was not enough - we rode it three times. And then tried some other stuff but it all sucked.

So we rode the Millennium Force again.

And then ate dinner in Oberlin. And that was my day.

In other news, the Herts fam is going out on our friends' boat this weekend so that should be fun - water sports, grilling, and general laziness. After that, I do have to pack for Explo and come to terms with the fact that I have a job and cannot just slack off for the next few months (which is a good thing).

Blog is going strong, and I love it. Miss you all!

Hello from Chicago!

Hi Everyone!

I delayed this post for as long as possible in case something interesting happened I had to share with all of you, but since my life has been pretty ho-hum since I've been back, I thought I'd start anyways.

Since being back home, I've played a bit of golf, babysat the smaller Hickeys for a few days since my parents were out of town, seen lots friends, and started caddying. I'm sufficiently sunburnt already despite applying SPF 70 regularly. Exciting thing to forward to is that I'm making a trek to Granville, OH next weekend to visit one of my best friends from high school. Also, since there has been a fantastic amount of thunderstorms lately, I've bummed around my house enough to have time to watch 3 1/2 seasons of How I Met Your Mother. Yay for finally understanding all the references you all make!

In exciting news, I did caddy for an Olympian today. Yes, I caddied for a current member (and in her 18th year, mind you) of the US National Women's curling team. Although I have to admit I have mocked curling in the past, I have to respect this woman, who probably could have beaten me up in a matter of seconds if she tried. (She did tell me all about her off-season weight training program...terrifying).

Enjoying all the posts...keep them coming!

Missing you all dearly,

Irene

Hi All-
I finally located the email with my summer address in it, so I thought I'd share it with all of you; this was slightly hindered by the fact that it took me a really long time to find the "new post" button on the blog. But then I figured it out. I guess two years of spending time with Dylan's wealth of technology is starting to rub off. So, here's my address:

Hannah Gendelman (duh)
Turner Lab
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
1 Bungtown Road
Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724

I'll be there from June 7th- August 12th

It would be excellent if people added their addresses and relevant dates somewhere on the blog so that I can send you post cards, either from the city or with my dead flies taped to them. (I'm studying flies and scent receptor coding!)
In the mean time I have been baking, reading, pimping out my ACEMS fleece and generally being a bum. My little brother finished school today, so I get to add harassing him to my list of activities for the next few days! SO MUCH FUN!

I'm going to counter Jenna's sign-offs by using a Monty Python reference:

NI!
Hannah

Preparing for a Nomadic Summer

Commencement and reunion was a grand old time: my boss taught me some Cambodian, I watched a bunch of movies, practiced my French with Professor Uhden at Amherst Coffee, caught up on a bunch of reading, and most importantly there was free food all the time (not just your normal cheese plates, like lobster dinners free food). Plus this campus was just swimming in unwanted alcohol.

Now things have temporarily taken a turn for the pathetic- my housing ran out so I'm camped out in the common room of Marsh surviving off of granola and perusing the Marsh library, which at this point mostly consists of anthropology textbooks from the 1930s.

I leave for France this Thursday!

Briefly: Study Abroad Fail.

Lately, I've been waiting to hear back from King's College, London about my study abroad application. It's been two weeks and I've been getting anxious.

Randomly, I decided to check my spam filter this morning. Apparently the email with my application didn't go through because of oversize attachments.

Thanks for letting me know, Gmail.

I'm So Sticky...

Well I guess it is my day to submit a blog post, so here it goes!

After working a combined total of 32 hours and 3o minutes this entire weekend (Friday-Sunday), I find myself delirious and $700 richer. Reunion work was tiring to say the least but I am sure that I will definitely sign up again next year. Though not as fun as the 20th year reunion for the class of 1990, the class of 1991 did throw down.

I'm using this post as a source of procrastination from packing up all of my stuff. You never really think you have that much stuff until you have to fit it into two bags and a backpack... Anyways Amherst is sweltering and there is really no way to escape the heat. Luckily or unluckily, the college shut off the hot water to the entire campus so showering is the only way to escape the heat. Looks like those James Bond showers finally paid off!

After finishing up clean up for reunion and walking around campus and the town, the fact that I will not see this place for the next five months has really set in. Although this saddens me to certain extent, I cannot help but feel a sentiment that borders on relief. Without a doubt I miss and will miss you all, however living in the bubble that is Amherst College has definitely put its strain on through this past year. My time away is bittersweet in the way that it distances me from the root of my distress yet it also distances me from the people that have gotten me through the rough times, you guys.

So that's all I really have for now. I realize that it is actually 1:15am and no longer my day to post so I'll wrap up tout de suite. I have to catch a bus in three hours so there is no reason to go to bed so I'll be up. I look forward to hearing all about what everyone is doing. I get so giddy when I get email notifications that someone has posted on the blog! Until next time family.
With all of my love,
-Josh