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This is a gonna be a totally fanboy-ish and intelligence-devoid post, but I've spent the better part of the day without achieving much as I'm too caught up with the American Idol finale results show this morning.

*spoiler alert* In case you were living in a rock or planning to avoid all newspapers/radio and catch the show this weekend.

I was ecstatic that my favourite pick, Kris Allen won. Oh sure, he can likely never outsing Adam Lambert on flu day, but I liked his laid back manner and ability to connect emotionally to a song and convey it. Adam's octave range could probably give Mariah Carey a run for her money, but it always seems as if he's just showing off and putting on a show rather than just conveying a song.. Each performance, he'll have some tripped up lights, smoky effects, costume etc. While visually creative, it detracts me from enjoying the authenticity of a song. And oh, I don't like the tone of his voice too - too wavery, and for some reason he sounds really feminine to me.

So anyway, in the grand design of the cosmos, this is probably totally insignificant - the world economy is still tanking, I still have a proposal attachment to finish up, and a stupid brainwashing camp to attend. But this totally made my day.

ETA: Check out the new single from Kris Allen - the customary 'coronation song'. I usually think this songs are cheesy/sappy, but surprisingly this one is quite alright.
Disclaimer: Possible earworm. Shall not be held responsible for random hummings, or stuck melody in mind.

La fotos, episidio una

Ok, I lied. I got over jetlag a day after I got back, but procrastination and laziness got in the way. So anyway, there's a quite a few photos so I'm splitting them up two posts, in a sorta-chronological order in between my rambling narratives.

This was my first time venturing out for such a distance on my own, and not surpisingly, my parents were worried sick. But things pretty much went well. As the plane was arriving in the Frankfurt airport (around 6.15 am there), I was caught off-guard by the pilot's announcement that the local temperature was 8 degrees! Yikes. Landed on the erm, open landing (?) area, which was noticably windy and cold, before a bus took us to the airport. Inside the temperature is bit more tolerable.

It was a 6-hour transit, and man was things expensive there. A bottle of mineral water (500 ml) was around 2-3 euros (1 euro = RM4.8)! On the plus sight, coffee's widely available and cheaper there, relative to mineral water of course. So anyways, with my jakun-ness and all, I walked around the airport and took some pics. If you look real close at this departure information display, you can make out my flight - (Orange box), LH 4454 Barcelona.





No matter where you go in the world, you can always look forward to a warm, comfortable cup of coffee. A grande Caramel Macchiato here is 4 euros.



Cool to see some green steps taken by the airport. All the waste bins are like this:



Lots of shops there selling different kinds of shops - including this one which I'm not entirely sure but I think Fea and Alia would probably go ga-ga over:



Somehow, I find it amusing that travellers will just pop in and decide to buy an extremely (overpriced) crystals as they are about to board the plane:



Arrived in Barcelona airport around 1 pm. Took a cab to the hostel - La Residencia Campus del Mar. About 30 minutes ride, and the fare came up to 25 euros! (Double yikes). The rooms are really nice though, if a bit pricey:



Outside view of the hostel:



The hostel is actually within a residential neighbourhood, which is sandwiched between a large (assumably corporate) building and a park. It's also less than 10 minutes of walking distance away from the research institute where I would be heading to. It was really cool to walk around, as the weather there is really chilly, I'd say around 10 degrees in the morning, and bout 15 degrees later in the day. The daytime hours seemed to stretch longer too - 6.30 am over there is kinda like 8.00 am here, while 8.30 pm is kinda like 6 pm here.

I started out a bit earlier on Monday morning, and it was cool to see lots of kids walking around with their parents, presumably to school:



There also seemed to be lots of people cycling around, and later I saw people lugging their folded up bikes into buildings. I spotted many rows of bicycles, I kinda think they're sorta like a rent-a-bicycle service:




More pics and ramblings in the next post!

Home sweet home

Just a short update. I got home yesterday morning, jetlagg-ed and all. It was an awesome experience in Spain, with me never having gone to a western country before and kinda just making it out mostly on my own this time.

More updates and pix after I'm jetlag-ed free.

So...

Feeling a bit nervous right now - will be leaving for Spain in later tonight. Initially I was supposed to be going with my lecturer, but due to some scheduling conflict I'll be going there myself first.

Whew. My big adventure into the outside world. Alone. Can't help but feeling jittery - not to mention my parents giving me grief and also kinda worried bout dealing with my co-supervisor in Spain.

Oh, so just a head-up to you guys not to call me for the next week (like in the slightest chance of flying pigs that one of you suddenly decided to). Or else just in case you get landed with a big fat phone bill or watch your credit evaporate.

Adios!

World - 2. Me - 0

Apparently the forces that be are carrying some sort of grudge against me.

Today I was planning my labwork so that it'll roughly end around noon, so I can wrap up my work, go lunch and call it an early day.

So around 12, I ran a gel electrophoresis. Short description - it's a screening process to see whether I'm successful in generating the products that I want. Takes bout 1 and 1/2 hours, a no-brainer procedure.

Except that for this time after running a countless times for more almost 2 years now, it went kaput on me. To cut the story short - I couldn't find out if I was successful in generating the products I want. Even a negative result would've been better, I would then figure out what I should do next.

Now I have to run the gel again coming Monday. And I wasted around 2 hours in lab, almost starving for lunch while I waited for the gel in vain.

Sigh. I should better start hunting for a rabbit's foot.

Me against the world (and losing)

Today just isn't my day.

I woke up extra early today to go for class at 9 am, as parking's a nightmare there. A few minutes later, someone received a text message from the lecturer that the class's cancelled, with a replacement on Monday at 11 am.

To make it for that class,  I'll probably need to burn some hell money and sacrifice some chickens to get a parking at that time.

I wanted to transfer some money from bank A to bank B. At the Chancellory (2 minutes walk from my college), there is an ATM of bank A and cash deposit machine of bank B. Simple and convenient, right?

Turns out the ATM was kaput. So fine,  I walked to the next ATM at Pusanika (10 minutes) away to withdraw. Walked back to the same spot I started earlier to now deposit the cash for Bank B.

Deposit machine making weird noises; rejected all the cash. Tried putting in a couple of RM10 bills to see - also rejected.

Either that deposit machine's spoiled or I'm carrying a huge load of counterfeit cash.

My options now are 1. carry the extra cash around, or 2. walk back to Pusanika to deposit the cash back at the bank A.

Either way, I had just took an extra long walk to withdraw cash I don't need.

Understanding the US credit crisis

A picture's worth a thousand words, and this short video helps explain where billions of dollars disappeared to.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.