Mid Spring Break

I like to write a blog once every 7-8 days. This time I’m a little late, I know, but it’s been a very busy week and a half. Last Tuesday, Angie, Clara, Ethan, and I went to see La Bohème at the Hungarian State Opera House. The opera is, of course, in Italian and the subtitles were in Hungarian. So, we all did a little research beforehand so that we could figure out what was going on during the performance. I had never been to an opera before. My favorite part was listening to the orchestra. It was definitely an experience that I am happy to have had.

My Spring Break technically started on Thursday after my combinatorics class let out, since I have no classes on Fridays. So Thursday night, my roommates, a few others, and I went to see “Kings on Ice” in Budapest. We got to see a variety of ice skaters including Evgeni Plushenko! It was fantastic! I must admit that watching some of the performances made me nervous. There’s no way I’d be brave enough to do a back hand spring on ice.

Yeah… this either. ^^ I mean come on… that takes serious skill. It was an amazing night and a ton of fun.

Then, as if my week wasn't awesome enough already, Friday and Saturday, Keith, Francisco, and I went to Lake Balaton in Hungary. We biked about 30 miles on Saturday around a part of the lake. And let me tell you, it was worth the pain I was in after it was all said and done. The lake was so beautiful!

Now, it’s Wednesday of my Spring Break and I’ve been doing little things around Budapest: taking the metro to new parts of the city, going out a couple of nights with different friends, etc. I went to this amazing hot chocolate place with Michael last night and tried a mint hot chocolate. It was real mint and it was delicious. Plus, this hot chocolate isn’t like hot chocolate that you normally think of. It’s literally liquefied chocolate. I’m pretty certain that having this molten chocolate drink has ruined all hot chocolates for me after this.

So that’s how I’ve spent the last week and a half and a good chunk of my Spring Break. I still have another 5 days too and I’m definitely looking forward to them.

Live and Let Live

You would think that having only 4 classes and school Tuesday-Thursday would be a blast. Let me tell you... it gets old. When everyone else is still in class AND you've already gotten caught up on all of your regular tv shows [and started a few new ones], you can get a little bored. Thankfully, however, I found many things to take up that free time and keep this week from being a total drag.

Angie, Clara, Melinda, and I had coffee with our topology/knot theory teacher from the summer math program that we did last year. She was visiting her daughter who is also in this program and took the time to hang out with us for a while before she went back to France. I restarted a sudoku puzzle 4 times. Normally, I would have moved on to something else by now, but I don't exactly have that option this time. Michael and I went to the only Starbucks in Budapest that we've been able to find and I had a most delicious raspberry mocha frap. Francisco, Nikole, Keith, Angie and I went exploring a park near our apartments. We found 2 playgrounds and had fun acting like little kids again. Clara took me and Angie (and a few others) to a Thai place. Thai was a new experience for me and I absolutely loved it! Finally, a huge group of us climbed up to Gellert hill at night. It overlooks the Danube and the city. We had a blast just forgetting about math for a while and enjoying the view and each others company.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty fantastic and unboring week. Hopefully, next week will be as good.

Life is no Nintendo Game

Midterms are officially over! Well, for me they are. Some of my friends still have a few to freak out over. What can I say about these past two weeks of stress and sleepless nights? They were terrible. Studying is not only boring, but when you finally do see something that you have no clue how to even start, you panic, at least temporarily. But it’s a necessary evil if you want to do well, I suppose.

Which I did, or so I think. My film midterm was amazingly easy. It was like “Do you listen to what I say in class? Prove it and you’ll get an A.” My philosophy midterm was two short essays, one on Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty and the other on Plato’s Gorgias, so that wasn’t particularly stressful. Also, I think I rocked my dynamics and bifurcations midterm. I definitely had the major concepts right, but I probably messed up little details. Finally, my combinatorics midterm killed me, but I suppose you can’t win everything. Good news is extra credit is being offered.

But now that period of stress is over and I can move on to goofing off and being unproductive again. Last night, to distract Angie from studying for her midterm, (I know. I’m a horrible person.) she and I did a little karaoke and then decided to make our own music video. Oh yeah. This is what we nerds do when we get bored. We rap/sing to Eminem and Rihanna’s Love the Way you Lie.

Guess who was Eminem...