Bahston!

Ok, I'm finally writing this blog about Boston. I went to Boston with all of the exchange students from CALS. The trip was organized by Christine Potter, our dependable exchange advisor who always has a friendly smile on her face. She prepared the trip for months. In the beginning, it turned out there was no hostel to accommodate the 30-ish crowd so she booked a four-star hotel in Cambridge. Yeah that's right, the hotel is on the Hahvahd and MIT side.

Taking a bus, the journey took us 6 hours from the backwater of Ithaca to the buzzing metropolis of Boston. According to Christine Potter, the drivers in Boston are insane. Most of the time when a car is trying to get over an intersection and fails, it ends up standing on the crossing, blocking the way for the poor pedestrians. The first night we went to a restaurant for dinner, Jonas ordered a German Guinness and got a pilsner, which was surprising cos pilsner should be Czech. Back in the hotel, me, Kedar, Jonas and Omar had to share the room and its two queen-sized beds. So we got both roomies and bedmates for the night.

On Saturday, we went to Harvard and MIT. Harvard Yard is such an oasis in the town. If you are lucky enough to get "The Hahvahd Tour"(Hahvahd is how you say it in South Boston accent), which we did, you'll get to know some interesting facts about the university. Our guide showed us the dorms where Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore lived. It turned out that Tommy and Al were roommates back in the 60s. When walking into the Harvard Yard, we never went through the main gate. The story here is for any Harvardian, you can only walk through the main gate twice: once as an incoming freshman, and once as an outgoing senior. Otherwise bad fortune will fall upon you, especially on the academic side. Matt Damon walked through the main gate too many times so he never graduated. However, if you get an Academy Award, you are pardoned from your failure.

Another landmark inside Harvard Yard is the Widener Library. It was opened following a solemn ceremony on June 24, 1915. The building commemorates Harry Elkins Widener. A 1907 Harvard graduate and book collector, he purchased and brought books from England to US year 1912. As you may've guessed, he took the fastest passenger liner he could find, and it happened to be RMS Titanic. Since Widener bought the first-class ticket, he was put onto a lifeboat when the disaster occurred. At that moment, Harry realized he had to go back and fetch some books from the cabin. By the time he made it back, all the lifeboats were gone and this guy became one of the 1517 casualties. Harry's mother, grief-stricken, donated $ 3.5 million to build a library after his son. According to the campus legend, three stipulations were imposed by the Widener foundation: first, the exterior of the library can never change, or its ownership will revert to the town of Cambridge. Second, there must be a reading room inside with a vase of flower, in memory of the late Harry Widener. Third, since Harry's mother never watched the Kate Winslet version of Titanic, she thought if her son could swim he could survive. As a result, all Harvardians have to take a swim-test before graduating. At Cornell we got something similar.

For more of my Harvard photos, please check out my album. We also went to MIT. If Harvard Yard is a garden, then MIT campus is an industrial complex. My first impression of MIT is that every student there is a tech-nerd. Another thing that MIT is known for is the hacks. Inside the campus building designed by Frank Gehry(the same architecture that designed the Dancing House in Prague), Stata Center, you can see the "police car" that was placed on the top of the MIT Great Dome back in 1994. That vehicle itself was actually a junked Chevrolet painted to match the campus police's patrol car. A similar hack was pull off on September 11, 2006. This time it was a "firetruck". I can consider MIT or Harvard as a place to get my PhD or postdoc, if I make it that far.

In downtown Boston we walked along the Freedom Trail and stopped at Quincy Market. Inside the market we found food from all over the world. Japanese sushi, Italian cuisine, Chinese stir-fry, and Boston lobsters. I bought a lobster roll for 15 bucks. But the day after, I found a 1.25 lb lobster for only $10! The lobster totally made my day. The lobster place, this Irish bar called Purple Shamrock is really good. If you have more time and money than I did, seek out Union Oyster House.

I'm off to Boston

Yo. Tomorrow I'm going to Boston with all of the exchange students from CALS. Since I won't be able to update my blog over the weekend, I decided to write something today, just so you know that I'm still alive.

Talking about life and death, Cornell has such a bad reputation. Earlier this week, Cornell Daily Sun reported the death of a PhD student, Lucas Wooster. According to the report, the police didn't suspect foul play or illness, which leads to only one logical conclusion: suicide. However, for a 32-year-old like Wooster who was scheduled to receive his doctoral degree this spring, a suicide attempt is completely irrational on the victim's part. At the end of this paper, a spokesperson from Cornell's health service urged students to seek support at Gannett's counseling and Psychological Service. The last line pretty much proved the point that Wooster committed suicide. Because Cornell is known as a place where students kill themselves, the school's newspaper purposely avoided using the word "suicide". For any of my beloved reader who may be reading this blog, don't worry about me. I'm not going to join the Club-of-No-Return.

Right now I kinda envy my exchange student friends who stay here for only one semester. They never have to worry about pre-enrollment, socializing or whatever. No matter how good or bad it goes for you, after one semester it's over. You can come here as a visitor, and after that, get back home and forget about everything. Lots of the things you see in the states are pretty fucked up compared to European standards. Having five students dying over one semester is something that never happens in Sweden. Things can get pretty hot around here.

Lately I encountered this smart-ass who kinda annoys me. Initially when we actually talked, he seemed to be a cool guy. I don't know what happened. Probably since I never had the time to talk to him again, or he considers me not "knowledgeable" for him, we grew apart. I for one, don't try to cram the whole wikipedia into my brain. If you don't know much about federal reserve for example (cos you are a foreigner from a non-English speaking country and never heard about it before), then the smart-asses take you as an idiot. Our smart-ass asked me once if I knew that Germany was number 4th on export, I said I didn't know but it won't surprise me cos Germany has advanced automobile industry. Guess what I found out the other day? Germany is the world fucking top exporter! He once claimed soccer has 9 players at a time. But the truth is, both American football and European football have 11 players on the field, I don't know where he got 9 from. He once said he knew Basshunter, when I showed him the video of "Boten Anna", the artist's major blockbuster, he said he never heard the song. For engineers and scientists, it's generally more important to get an understanding than reciting facts. A Swedish friend of mine who started off as freshman this year said he hated PSYCH 101 for its overwhelming factual content, cos "he came here to learn what makes sense, not becoming a walking database". The smart-ass talks with such a conviction as if he's never wrong. Anyway, he is quite unique, I've rarely seen anyone like him before.

Now to the conclusion. Recently I discovered some popular myths. They are not necessarily scientific ones, but related to the society. The Swedes generally consider Sweden as a high-ranked country in suicide rates. Statistically, however, Sweden is not even among the top 20. The prevalence of suicide is far worse in East Europe and Asia. Even in the developed part of Europe, Sweden is not that suicide-ridden. Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France and Denmark all come before Sweden. It might have to do with seasonal depression, that's why we think we are the most suicidal society on Earth. For anyone of you Swedes who hates Sweden for its mediocre economic impact, mediocre political influence and mediocre life, guess what? Now you'd better start hating Sweden's mediocre suicide rate!