Shipping Up To Boston

Dear Followers,

This weekend I flew up to Boston with my family to pick up my brother Shray. He has been working on a project involving in vivo cardiological catheter imaging in Boston since June at St. Jude Medical. Because I have zero experience in a non-biological laboratory, I learned much when I asked him about his project and daily routine in the laboratory. Somehow the prospect of conducting experiments solely with computer values and mathematical programs seems much less appealing than hands-on work with cells, proteins, and chemicals. Then again, I had given up on being the classic Indian engineer after I had quit UMTYMP.

Going up to Boston for the weekend was really nostalgic for me in the sense that my family is rarely together in one place. My mom is generally out of the nation at any given moment dealing with Medtronic’s international branches while my dad spends most of his time in St. Paul, either finding the best deals on everything we don’t need or managing the apartments he owns with my aunt. For much of my childhood I had to rely solely on my brother which ended up being a very frustrating yet rewarding experience overall, making me a very independent person in regards to nearly everything except cooking. I really believe that if I wanted to that I could provide food for myself, but there’s no way I would ever devote enough time to cooking a decent meal.

There was a dramatic transition in regards to my relationship with my brother which became apparent after we moved to Plymouth. While during the Scenic Heights years I would constantly harass my brother by pushing him off of the couch, slamming the car door on his elbow, and throwing various objects at him on his bicycle without any chance of being reprimanded because my parents were far too busy making ends meet, a physical barrier prevented any further shenanigans in Plymouth. A combination of muscles, hair, and the new responsibility of watching me by himself after school switched the dynamic of our relationship. It would be a decade before a less polar relationship would develop.

Regardless, my brother is one of the people I hold the most respect for in the world. Not only is he one of the smartest people I know without even trying, but he has put up a monolithic set of footsteps for me to follow in. My brother has, for most of my developmental years, been the standard of excellence to which I had aspired. But I do not respect my brother because of some superficial semblance of perfection. Rather, I respect my brother because of his flaws and how he faces them. For obvious reasons I will not go into detail here.

This weekend helped killed two birds with one stone. I received a physical justification for prolonging my mental moratorium on working on school work and subscribing to CrunchyRoll’s premium membership 2-week trial on my iPhone (with 720p videos in 3G zones, I could even see myself paying for this service) while having the chance to spend a fun weekend with my family and take on the persona of the youngest child once more. Most of my vacation involved prolonged intervals of walking and driving from one tour to the next. While I disagree wholeheartedly, my parents believe a city tour is the only way to explore and enjoy an area to the fullest. What can you do when your parents hold the credit cards though?

We only really spent half a day in Boston, spending two days in New Hampshire and 1 day in Cape Cod. While I am embarrassed to say so, during my vacation I read my first newspaper ever, the August 19th edition of The New York Times, and was quite pleased with the quality and quantity of information. As such I have declared to keep up with The New York Times on a daily basis if possible, not only for the benefit of my debate season but to be a more engaged citizen overall. What I learned about the events in Libya in one page of newspaper completely eclipsed my knowledge beforehand.

That’s all I really got. I should be much more sleepy considering that I only got 3 hours of sleep last night before my mom whisked me off to the airport to take an airplane back home which was delayed for 1 hour and prevented me from napping for any continuous interval of time. Hopefully everyone is enjoying every last drop of Summer Vacation as school lingers around the corner. In case Ivan is reading this post, Gintama is a funny, but very repetitive show which I am planning to finish completely by next summer. Let me know if you find a download for Red Line as well.

Don’t Puck With Us,
Noel

Where Did My Summer Go?

Dear Followers,

When Summer Vacation began just a few months back, I had decided that I would push productivity to all new highs and accomplish a neat and organized list of goals I had typed out for myself. Not only did I happen to lose that list during the first week of Summer Vacation, but I can confidently say that my productivity has actually dropped to all time lows. Once again my sleeping schedule has become a dirty mess.

Once again I have made the mistake of leaving all of my work to collect dust until August. One again I have made the mistake of trying to learn two very different languages at the same time. Once again I have made the mistake of believing that I am able to control how long I watch anime on a given day.

But then again, Summer Vacation this year has definitely been one of the most enjoyable. Maybe my marginal increase in individual freedom from last year is responsible, but from APYC to Don Pablo's, this Summer Vacation has been full of new experiences. But that's not the purpose of this post. I just really don't feel like cracking open that Spanish 4 textbook and memorizing vocabulary words that I had already memorized in Spanish 3.

I can't remember the last time I blogged. Oh wait, I wrote that review of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 for Wes. Hopefully Lucifer has realized by now that I was joking when I wrote it. I guess for me blogging is my outlet for faking productivity when I want to avoid working on something that actually needs to get done. That would help rationalize my drop in blog posts with the onset of Summer Vacation.

I guess I just felt like making a new blog post because Rishi Sinha told me that he would appreciate it if I did. That's enough motivation for me. Sorry if my rants about essentially nothing aren't what you were looking for Rishi. The environment in Bagchi Lab isn't very suited to card cutting, so I can't cut the fantastic articles I found last night.

Today in the morning I went paintballing for my second time. The ride to Maple Plaine involved Avi dogmatically doubting the navigational capabilities of an iPhone and winding around the paintball building for several minutes. Unlike my last experience with paintball, the course in Maple Plaine was very open, containing only a few red and blue inflatable pieces of cover. Learning from my mistakes, I brought sweatpants and a sweatshirt to replace my dress shirt and khakis. My fatal flaw was not bringing a pair of gloves.

As you probably expect with a group of Indians playing paintball, much of our games devolved into a contest to see who could hide themselves the best. Keshav Mangalick was surprisingly skilled, easily taking down most of the other team and then passing it off as nothing with his usual humbleness. I decided to go balls deep and just swarm the other team once the opening crossfire was completed. Surprisingly I got hit significantly less when I charged individual players then when I decided to just play it safe. The only drawback was the experience of having my fingers devastated at point blank by paintball shrapnel. Now people will suspect that my parents abuse me.

Unlike my last paintballing experience I managed to go a whole hour and a half without betraying anybody on my team and then blaming it on Cameryn Luong. Overall, paintballing was definitely the best Hindu Mandir Camp experience yet for me. I didn't realize how much work running and shooting a paintball gun was until I nearly fell asleep on the car ride home. Even Sachin Mangalick was quiet on the way back.

I guess I should probably talk about Hindu Mandir Camp as a whole, but I really don't feel like doing that right now. That will probably be a post for the weekend. Hindu Mandir Camp is really the same as it has been every year, except this year I feel really detached from all of the activities, probably because I have had to miss so many. This year I was able to sleep soundly during the sleepover however, even though my laptop was laying out in the open the whole night. I don't feel safe in that auditorium. Not one bit.

Well, I am probably going to go to Dairy Queen to get an Oreo Cheesequake and reminisce about my days in June when I could get one everyday and not feel September creeping up on me. When scouring YouTube a few days back I came across the following Naruto ED. I really hate the direction that Naruto has taken, but this ED reminded me of my Wayzata East Middle School days when Naruto was way more enjoyable. Fantastic animation, colors, and music.

What's Going On?
Noel