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!

Soccer, DPRK and Met

Four days after Sweden's defeat (one-nil) to Denmark at the FIFA 2010 qualification, rumors about Sven Göran Eriksson surged. Since Sweden was no longer a qualified team for the upcoming World Cup 2010, the Swedish soccer manager apparently turned his attention towards east, according to British sources. The journalists' focus is not just any country in Asia, this time, it's all about North Korea, who made it to World Cup for the first time since 1966. The day after, both Notts County and the former England and Mexico soccer manager himself denied that he ever got an offer from DPRK. What a bummer!

Talking about North Korea, I'll update you with some old news. Kim Jong-il is dying from terminal disease, but then again it can't be confirmed. Among his three sons, the oldest Kim Jong-nam(金正男) was the most likely successor, until he lost his father's favor when trying to smuggle into Japan's Disney Land with a fake Dominican passport using a Chinese alias, "fat bear"(胖熊) back in 2001. The autocrat passed over his throne to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un（金正云） while the middle son Kim Jong-chul（金正哲） kept a low profile. Let's keep an eye on this fellow. You'll probably hear his name a lot 10 years from now on.

When I was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there was this strange encounter. In the Egyptian Art Section, you find Temple of Dendur. That's right, the temple, is, in New York. It was given as a gift to the US government back in 1965. So the story is: right next to this temple there was a replica of a sphinx statue. I was just telling my friend Kedar how Napoleon Bonaparte placed a canon in front of the Egyptian sphinx in Giza and fired a shell into its nose, disfiguring its face. Before I could finish my story, this lady who was standing next to Kedar, turned around, looked at me and shook her head. So I stopped. She said "no, no that was complete urban legend". After completing her statement, she started to talk about the sphinx. First she tried to read the hieroglyphs on the statue, while me and Kedar was watching in disbelief. Next you knew it, a guy who works at Met came over and told us that the sphinx resembles the Egyptian pharaoh "Hatshepsut". The name turned to be exactly what she was trying to utter. From that moment, her image turned from an insane zealot to a female version of Robert Langdon. This lady told me: Hatshepsut was one of the few female Egyptian pharaohs in history. Her name was systematically removed by the ancient historians, who couldn't stand having a woman ruling the country. Hatshepsut married her half-brother, Tuthmose II and ruled the country before leaving the throne to her stepson, Tuthmose III. Still, having a statue of Hatshepsut right next to the Temple of Dendur is out of place, since Hatshepsut's own temple if way further to the north on Nile, while Dendur is downstream to the south. She kept pumping information with such an enthusiasm that it was unbelievable. Out of her bag she took out a small booklet and a map, showing places such as the Valley of the Kings and Temple of Karnak. After a while, taking in all the information was getting overwhelming for me. So I asked her to stop, and started to recite what she told me: she was a queen of the 18th dynasty, ruled alongside Tuthmose II and III, built temple of Karnak... After hearing me mentioning the facts, our mrs. Langdon got so excited that she decided to give away her booklet to me. She said "my husband got another one of these so you may have it. Oh gosh, I went to Egypt four years ago and I can clearly tell you, I have yet to come back". By the time I rejoined to my friends, they told me they've been waiting for me for 20 minutes, in what I felt like 5 minutes.

Small stuff

Finally, I have a confession to make......

My mom usually said that whenever I called home while living on campus, that's the time when I'm having a shitty experience. She had to listen to all my fml crap and took it all. Since I got to Cornell, she said: the way you update your blog is just like the way you make phone calls home. The reason I haven't updated my blog for the past month, is mostly because I nearly got screwed over by my school assignments.

Forget all the homeworks. I'm telling you: I went to Niagara Falls 4 weeks ago (or 5?). I spent the days of my fall break in NYC. Me and my friends visited about 20 famous tourist attractions during 3 days. I would say that was damn time-efficient. We went to: UN, Grand Central, Times Square, Rockefeller Center (ever heard about the ice rink?), Top of the Rock, Park Ave, Metropolitan Museum of Arts, Central Park, Columbia Univ, Broadway (and watched a musical), M&M's World, Ripley's believe it or not, New York Public Library, Bryant Park, Wall Street, the Bronze Bull, Battery Park, South street sea port, Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn, Ground Zero(site of former WTC) and... ah, that's all I guess. If you want to see my photos then please log onto facebook. Eventually I'll post the public link somewhere for those of you who don't have a facebook account.

My new directions of this blog is to turn it into a knowledge sharing center. If possible I'll just write down everything I learned about life and world at Cornell.


If you are a tourist coming to NYC, living in Upper Manhattan is not recommended. For saving money you can check out the International hostel at Williamsburg in Brooklyn, or some hostel at Upper West Side on Manhattan. Columbia University sets the border between the safer neighborhood and the notorious Harlem. Before Rudy Giuliani's time, about 4800 robberies were reported in 1990. Now the place is only mostly unsafe for a solitary wanderer late at night.


Raccoon roundworms are deadly. They are so evil that they kill their host by damaging the CNS, so the body can be scavenged by raccoons. During one mapping attempt where the abundance of the parasites was to be determined, every captured raccoon had roundworms in them, so the mapping turned out to be a failure. The even-worse news is: this survey was conducted in US.


James Earl Jones was the voice of Darth Vader and Mufasa; David Prowse, the guy in Vader costume was given a false line when shooting Episode V. The only people who knew the famous "Luke, I am your father" line before the premier was George, James, Mark and Irvin Keshner.


CTB stands for Collegetown Bagels, not Collegetown Beagles. Bagel is a donut-shaped bread while beagle is a dog breed. Bagle is a computer worm.


New South Wales is the state where you find Sydney. Melbourne is in Victoria.


Dont' forget to check out and comment on my photos on facebook.

Uppsala doesn't have 40000 students

I always thought Uppsala University houses 40000 students. Today, it became clear to me that I have been deceived for the entire duration of my years in Uppsala.

It started with me hanging in the computer room with my friend Kedar. One of his friends in Sydney is checking out Uppsala University as a possible destination for exchange study. Kedar asked me to talk with his friend and tell him more about my home uni, which I did. I was like: "hey, did you know that Uppsala has two universities? The city has 200k inhabitant, and it's the home of 40k students!" and he was like "Wow! That is a quarter, no, 20%!" Kedar was surprised, "Dude, that is twice as many students as Cornell!" To impress him further, I opened a wikipedia site on Uppsala Uni, to my astonishment, the only figure I saw was about 20k. The source of reference? An annual report from the Swedish Higher Education Authority. So there is no doubt about the credibility.

So where does the number 40k come from anyway? If you google with the search key "uppsala universitet 40 tusen", one of the result you get is from the university's home page. In other words, 40000 is what we are taught at school.

In order to figure out why 40k is mentioned in all the available media information, I checked out the number of full-time enrolled students at SLU, the other university in the city of Uppsala. They have about 4000 students. In other words, no matter how you try to manipulate the numbers, you don't get 40000 students in Uppsala, let alone 40000 students in Uppsala University.

The answer gives me another question: why have the Uppsalians always learned about 40000? One of many possible explanations is probably that UU once hosted nearly 40000 students. But now when that is no longer the truth, the school staff never bothered to change the figure to up-to-date. In the end, you can always say that it's about Uppsalian-chauvinism. Being Swedens oldest university, you can always boast yourself by portraying Uppsala as Sweden's Harvard. Now that I consider myself as a Cornellian, I don't feel my pride being injured by the revelation.

Music!

One of the many things I wanted to do in Cornell was learning more about music. Luckily, with the American course-selection system, and the absence of compulsory subjects like I had in my three previous years in Uppsala, I can do it easily here.

Before coming to North America, I chose four classes in Biological and Environmental Engineering major. In order to fulfill the 15-credit-requirement, I also applied Jazz Improvisation, MUSIC 3111. After attend the very first lecture, I realized that this class is nothing for me. Our instructor Paul Merrill (not to be confused with the stand-up comedian), a professional Jazz musician, gave us a list over hundreds of famous Jazz artists for us to look up. If you are not a big fan of Jazz, you are considered knowledgeable if you can recognize 5 % of them all. After an hour of dancing among the incomprehensible musical terms, I told the instructor that his class is way too advanced for me. He recommended another class: Tonal Theory 2101. I couldn't take this class however, since my schedule is tight. Instead I got enrolled in Introduction to Music Theory 1105.

The first time I got the chance of showing off was on the talent show during PREPARE. When slacking at my parents place in summer, I played a lot of the Elton John stuff. When Selina, our PREPARE coordinator asked us to perform on the talent show, I was high enough that day to sign up. It turned out well. Although I also realized from the moment that even if the bard stereotype is good for you, it takes more than a few songs on a piano to make you a people's magnet.

Well, since the semester started, I never had the time to practice any new songs. While keeping my old reservoir of music floating, I joined this a cappella group called FantAsia.

The person who told me about this group was Selina. She's been in the club for some time. All of the members are Asian, mostly Chinese. Usually, FantAsia performs Asian songs in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean. English songs are not common, but also included. Carolle is the club president. Her part is usually Soprano, but she had to settle with Tenor whenever the guys are gone.

In the beginning, Selina was in this group. She was also the lead singer on several occasions. The first Sunday after school started, Cornell organized a Clubfest where you can get to know the hundreds of student societies on campus. FantAsia sung Jay Chou's Simple Love, with Sonny as beatboxer and Selina the vocal solo. Sonny's beatboxing skill was magnificent. His signature move was waving his right hand in rythm with the beats. From there, you could clearly tell this guy is also an experienced drummer. Sadly for the rest of the FantAsia crew, Selina left Cornell to study in NYC this semester. I hope she's coming back after Christmas.

Jen, my neighbor in von Cramm was instrumental in bringing me into the gang. In USA, not all the student clubs have a "just for fun" basis. In order to keep a high standard of performance, new students must audition before becoming a member. This goes for most of the sports clubs and musical clubs. If you can't play soccer then the soccer team can't let you in. I went to FantAsia's audition. As I talked to the people, it turned out that some of the applicants couldn't even read notes. Jen, who has been in the club for 2 years, oversaw my tryout. After coming back to von Cramm I asked her about my odds of getting accepted. She kept telling me "I wouldn't worry". Two days later, I got the acceptance letter from Carolle.

The first song I'm learning with FantAsia is boyband Tension's Our Story, a Mandarin song. I got the bass part, which is the easiet one for a beginner with the suitable vocal register. After two rehearsals, it became clear to me that when singing in an a cappella group, the most challenging task is organizing the whole ensemble rather then memorizing your own part. On Monday when I left the Animal Bioreactor class, I asked my instructor to move the class into a different time since I had to go all the way from Riley-Robb to Lincoln Hall, which takes you 10 minutes if you walk fast. Her first reaction was:"Lincoln Hall! So you are a musician!" Yepp, Lincoln Hall is the place where you find music. As soon as you walk into the building, the sound from all the practice rooms can hardly deceive you. If you play anything, just by standing in the hallway and be on the right time, you can befriend anybody carrying your kind of instrument.

That's all for today folks. Here's some entertainment news for you: Lady Gaga and some fake blood on VMA. Her fame comes from her costume, not her music.

The honeymoon period of a cultural shock: Cornell >> Swedish Univ part 1

When I was an AIESECer in Uppsala, one of my many assignments was holding preparation seminars for the students who are about to embark on foreign internships. I still remember myself teaching about the W-shaped curve of cultural shock: in your first 4 weeks after arrival, you will consider everything about your host country wonderful. This is the so-called honeymoon period. The initial high of the new experience will soon be replaced by a period when you get accustomed to your new home, a time characterized by low self-esteem, isolation and even depression. Eventually, the psychological abyss will turn into a dale. Once you fully understand, master and embrace the culture of your host, things get better.

I am in the honeymoon period. Forget about the ravaging swine flu on campus (520 confirmed cases so far), and the fact that H1N1 has already taken one Cornellian from us. Forget about the social barrier between the exchange students and the American juniors and seniors who already formed their circle of friends. Forget about what people say about American idiots, the Christian fundamentalists, the hillbillies from Texas. Despite my sleep deprivation (common among Ivy League students), occasional up-and-downs of my mood, I can tell you: Cornell is the best place I've ever stayed since 2006. Why? Because I'm in the honeymoon period.

Coming to the states has opened my eyes to a wide variety of things about life. In Europe, we tend to regard USA as a country with neither history nor culture. American history is short, that's true. The common (mis-) perception on American culture is something I disagree with. The American culture is so diverse. The life of a NYer is so different from that of a TXer that you can even consider them as two different countries. I've enjoyed American country music while some people hate it. For me it is not only the music that fascinates me, it's the life style. Imagine living like a modern cowboy with steel horses, driving a motorbike across the desert from dawn to dusk. How cool isn't that?

Alright, back to the campus. And forgive me being an Americanophile, I'm in the cultural honeymoon after all.

So what is about Cornell that makes it superior to Uppsala? If I'm to expand to the full range of this topic, then you'll probably spend the next few days reading this text. So this time I only go for the campus culture.

US of A is a country where everyone is an immigrant. The first thing that surprised me when registering for the PREPARE orientation week for International students, was the percentage of Asians among the volunteers: it looked like 90%. Having lived as a minority in Scandinavia for too long, I kinda liked what I saw. In comparison, most of Uppsala students are white. If you are from Uppsala you may protest, but if you do so, please take my advice and STFU. When it comes to globalization, UU is way out of the league. Everywhere on campus you can run into Asians, Indians, African-Americans, Caucasians and Latinos. People simply don't talk about the "locals" and "foreigners" the same way you do in EU. Cos in this country, or on campus, nobody is more "local" than anyone. Concepts such as "svenne" versus "blatte" is unheard of.

Cornell promotes cultural diversity. Its faculty strives to adopt cultures from other corners of the world. It could be considered as unfair, since the school may compromise the talent of certain students when endeavoring to gather teenagers from all of the 50 states and beyond. The result is: the elite Cornellians develop a seemingly strong sense of cultural awareness. Like this Afro-American dude I met last week: majoring in engineering and minoring in music, president of piano society, he even asked me which tone my first name is, much to my astonishment. His horde of Chinese friends taught him a few tricks! Back in Von Cramm, or people's commune, the topics on the dining table could be anything from world events to art history. The kids here know their stuff! They are not that ignorant!

When it comes to commodities, US is a lot better than EU. In Collegetown outside the campus, there is a street full of diners. They all serve different kind of food. We have Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Italian and Persian restaurants, Starbuck is close to a tea house where you buy bubble tea of the prime quality. Since bubble tea is Asian, the plastic seal on the cups are written with Chinese. And you can't find it in Sweden. Yesterday I met a guy who lived in England. After a chat over some meal, it turns out that you can't find bubble teas in England either.

Do I hear a protest over there? Am I being to picky on the details? In my opinion, food is always the most important aspect of any culture. To accept another culture you should start by accepting the food. And I'm talking about real Chinese food, not sweet-sour-chicken or "four tiny cuisines"(fyra små rätter). I guess the diplomatic relationship between Sweden and China can enjoy a huge improvement once the Swedes start getting the stuff a down-to-earth Chinese eats. Has Carl Bildt even been to a traditional Chinese banquet?


So far, so good. It's getting late. I'll keep writing tomorrow. Post any comments you want.