Kai's Weblog

Random Nights, Job, Trip

Yeah, so… Two nights ago I took public downtown for once but nothing really was going on. I ended up meeting up with Thorsten, Oliver, Daniel, and a bunch of other people and going to Lukas and then Paddy’s. Daniel and I ended up stay until around two.

Last night I met Ardi at Merry Monk. I also met his friend Liz who’s from Syracuse, which is really cool. We went on to Paddy’s via Lukas and left shortly after midnight.

In other news, I got a job as a babysitter / English tutor and I’m going to Germany this weekend to visit my grandparents.

Stayed Home

I actually stayed home tonight because nothing was going on. I did some web site work instead. My rib area still hurts and I'm starting to become a pain reliever junkie.

Average Night

It was an average night tonight. I played some pool at Köö in Heiligenstadt with Oliver and Thorsten, went to Lukas and met up with Thomas, Jakob, Mirali, and Daniel, and then went to some outdoor thing where we met Lukas.

My rib pain thing is hurting more than ever right now despite the fact that I'm on anti-inflammatories. I might as well take some Bayer PM and get some sleep.

Prom 4

Last night was kind of a disappointment. I ended up not following through on my statement after prom last year:

I met Thorsten at Bermudabräu around ten, and we crashed prom at about 11:30. This was probably the best part of my night. It was fun talking to people I haven’t talked to in awhile.

I drove some people who got into the elevator with me to Scotch Bar, where I bought a cover charge ticket off somebody for €5 instead of the €10 I would have had to pay otherwise. I ended up having to buy a drink because they make you, but otherwise it was a cheap night.

Let me get a few things straight:

1) I don’t dance, period. Slow dance maybe, but nothing where I have to do too much with my feet.
2) I hate clubs that have loud music because I can’t have a conversation with anyone. And since I don’t dance, and since I didn’t have anyone to make out with, it was quite boring.
3) I don’t get the whole stay out until four in the morning thing. All right, prom night maybe, but it seems to me I’m doing it every night because my friends don’t meet up with me until midnight. Why not go out at nine and stay until two?

Anyway, at around 3:30 I left Scotch with Kenneth and a few other people and we drove to Lukas, where we stayed until nearly five. Then I drove Daniel, Kenneth, and Lukas home and then drove home myself.

I’ve been to four proms now (all mentioned in my weblog), and three after parties (last year I just drove a few friends home), and all three of those parties have been horrible. Probably because I don’t dance and I can’t lead a conversation at them. Then again, I have found that even at “quiet” places such as Lukas I don’t talk much.

So it was a disappointing night. I have a lot of junk to deal with today (bills, petitions, job applications, removing viruses from my dad’s laptop), and I was really hoping last night would be special. Unfortunately it wasn’t.

Pretty Good Start

I got home a little early tonight, which lets me keep this thing up to date…

Last night was a pretty good night. There were at least 20 people I knew at Lukas, spanning like five years in age, from the class of 2001 to like the class of 2006. I sat there for like six hours talking to lots of different people, so I guess it was a success.

Tonight was a different story… No one was out. Well, a few people were but it was nothing like last night. It was still worth it though, so I’m not complaining.

I have high hopes for this upcoming night… I hope I’m not disappointed.

In Vienna Again

Well, I’m in Vienna now. I guess I got to write about the past few days, so…

Saturday I went to Six Flags Great Adventure with Sergey. The rides were pretty good, but we had no luck whatsoever. First of all I had forgotten that it was a Saturday and had thought there would be no line because kids are still in school. The park was crowded beyond belief.

The first rollercoaster we got in line for, the Batman Chiller had a sign that said “45 minute wait.” When we finally got to about fourth or so in line we were told the ride was having some technical difficulties and that we could wait or “leave the way [we] came in.” We’d hear that line a lot that day. After about twenty minutes we decided to try something else. It turns out that it never reopened that day. Some park guy told me later that that ride “has been acting up lately.”

We tried another Batman ride, which also shut down for a short bit but then reopened. Afterwards we rode some in-the-dark ride, which wasn’t worth the wait at all. We then rode the cable car system to the other end of the park where we got in line for some modern coaster.

This was the worst experience yet. We waited for at least an hour, if not longer. The ride itself was probably the best of the day. It was actually a whole minute, unlike the earlier ones, which had only been about thirty seconds. Only problem was the ride turned out to be nearly thirty minutes for us!

This ride basically “shoots” the next cart out while the previous cart is about to enter. Sounds great, but there was a slight problem… The car before us didn’t leave. Reason: Someone decided they didn’t want to ride after all. Despite designing a rollercoaster that can go upside down at 90 miles per hour, the designers didn’t work a feature in for this kind of situations. Technicians were called and after another twenty minutes or so they figured out a solution. My back hurt like hell when we finally got out.

We were given a coupon that allowed us to access any ride we wanted from the exit side, which meant no line. We used it on a small side-spinning, looping, coaster that gave me whiplash. Then we quickly made it to the park’s wooden coaster and rode that before the park closed.

I spent all of Sunday “packing,” the quotes being there because I keep putting off the actual act and ended up wasting the day. So I ended up doing most of the packing on Monday morning before my flight.

My flight to Vienna was a free one, so they put me on some strange Binghamton-Dulles-Amsterdam-Vienna journey. When I got to Dulles I was pretty tired and actually confused Amsterdam with Brussels. (I know, I should know better) I took the shuttle to the “C” terminal where the Brussels flight would leave. I figured it out pretty quickly and walked down the endless terminal until it eventually became the “D” terminal, where the Amsterdam flight would leave.
I ate something and then got on the flight. I got stuck with a middle seat because I was unable to reserve a seat the day before because they decided to change the aircraft type. At least I was sitting in Economy Plus, so I had enough legroom. All the movies they were showing I had either already seen before or wasn’t interested in. I ended up watching “Love Actually” again, as well as part of “Along Came Polly.” I listened to some music and tried to sleep a bit, but wasn’t too successful.

The flight was late so in Amsterdam they put me on one of those cart things and drove me across the entire airport so I would make my flight. The Dutch are known for their masterpiece-gone-wrong airport in Amsterdam. The carts have no horn or beeping noise so the driver had to keep yelling, “excuse me,” which people often didn’t hear the first time. He then picked up a “hitchhiker” who was looking for the exit to the Hilton Hotel. He drove him there since it was on the way. When we finally got to the gate I ran down the jet way thinking I had barely made it. After sitting down in the half-empty plane the captain came out of the cockpit and said on the PA system, “I know I should be in there flying this thing but we can’t fly out for another thirty minutes because of air traffic.”

When we finally left the gate we had to taxi for miles because Amsterdam has six runways for some reason. We crossed two highways on the way until we finally made it to the one we were flying off of.

When I got home to my apartment I slept a bit. Then I nearly short-circuited some power transformer of mine, which began to melt and release deadly chemicals in the air. So, after dinner I used another one. For some reason I wasn’t able to dial up to the Internet and the body of my laptop felt like it was discharging insane amounts of electricity into my body when I touched it. Turns out this transformer was also heating up like crazy and sending bad power to my laptop, and somehow disrupting the phone signal.

I finally found a normal American-to-European plug, seeing that my power cable can already accept both voltages, that was all I needed.

So yeah, that was my last few days. I’m going to get some sleep now and then see how I can kill time. I might visit my former high school again or something. The upcoming night should be fun because Thursday’s a holiday (Ascension) so a lot of people should be out.

Aced Sex

Well ladies, I got an "A" in sex... Human sex class that is... Remember that! Hahah. Anyways, now all my grades are out. I got like a 3.3 GPA. One damn tenth-of-a-point away from the Dean's List, but whatever. I shouldn't have gotten that C- in "the easiest class on campus."

It's hot as hell out right now... It's 85° (that's 29.4°C for all my international readers) with a heat index of 90° (32.2°C) or something. Yeah, it could be worse, but still... it's mid-May.

For some reason, despite being ahead in many technological things, Austrians have not yet discovered residential air-conditioning. So I'll be sweating like crazy there once again this summer.

I also decided to finally develop my underwater disposable camera from my high school senior trip... That's right, that means nearly two years ago. The "process by date" was December 31, 2003, so I hope they'll still turn out all right. I had to get the one-hour development thing because otherwise they would get back when I already was on my way to Vienna. I hope to post them later this evening.

Still Waiting for Sex

I'm still waiting for my human sex grade. Since grades were due at midnight tonight, I should be able to see it when I get up in a few hours. I got a "B-" in economics, better than I expected.

I have some eye doctor appointment too, because for the past month or so my right eye has decided to stay more shut than my left one. I hope it fixes itself or I'll have to get plastic surgery or something.

I also had my left hip / rib area checked out today. My doctor prescribed me some anti-inflammatory drug. That area has been annoying me since February of last year. I was told to stop lifting. I don't think I'll follow that advice. Then again, seeing that, according to Ardi, ten gym sessions in Vienna cost €150, I doubt I'll be able to work out much this summer. No wonder Schwarzenegger emigrated to the U.S.!

Restarting Summer

Now that that math thing is cleared up I'm attempting to restart my summer vacation. Finding out that you failed math isn't exactly the best way to start a summer, and, as I mentioned before, it ruined my weekend. Now that I found out that I didn't fail it I can feel like I have a future and look forward.

Two more of my grades were posted today, those of my German classes. I got an "A" in both of them which makes the world a lot brighter. Now I just have to worry about economics.

I've been killing time sending out tons of job applications to places in Vienna and untangling the web of my former high school's bands (long story). The results can be found here.

Unfailing Math

So, to make a long story short, my entire weekend was ruined by this image that I saw Thursday night on S.C.O.R.E. (The Syracuse University online registration and grade report system):

I wrote an email to my professor since I couldn't understand how I had gotten this grade. Granted, I had failed two tests, but had an "A" in the lab section, an "A-" on another test, and was pretty sure I had done well on the final exam.

Anyways, I felt like crap all weekend. This morning I get an email back from my professor:

Kai,

Thank you for the inquiry.
I found out that there was a mistake happened in the process of transferring
your lab score into the course grade file.
Your new grade will be c-.
I am sorry for this.

Personally I would think that before you give any student a "F" you should double-check their grade. But that's just me.

Granted, I'm still embarrassed about getting a "C-" in "the easiest class on campus," but I know I didn't pay enough attention to it. I learned that with a low enough effort it is possible to do badly in even the "easiest class on campus."

Now I just hope I got at least a "C-" in economics and "A-" in my other three classes. That would bring me to the strived-after 3.0. So until Wednesday, when grades are due, or until all my grades appear, which ever comes first, I'll be a nervous wreck.

Vienna Trip VI

Vienna Trip VI is going to be May 17 to August 6.

The Last Day of Hell

It's officially the last day of working my ass off! My economics exam went a little better than I thought it would, although my grade depends on how everyone else does. My human sex exam was a little bit harder than I thought, so I'm going to an extra credit assignment to ensure that I at least get an A- in that class. It's writing six pages on any sex-related journal article.

Then I also have to study a ton for math and do a few German essays. Oh well... I'm almost done. At least I finally got a lot of sleep for the first time in days last night.