A bunch of us just agreed that we'd meet in a couple of hours to play actual, real, live, ruthless SNOWBALL!!!
Some additional pictures @ http://picasaweb.google.com/akovi2/SnowInSouthTexas#
12/10/2008
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...
Though I haven't asked them about this, I'd suspect that my Russian friends here are feeling more comfortable these days. Especially today. No, it's not snowing yet, but the National Weather Service predicts some light snow or a combination of light rain and snow for tonight.
And here I was thinking I wouldn't need a winter coat. This is supposed to a subtropical area afterall. I've seen the tropical part: excess temperatures (mostly close to or over 100 F [approx. 40 C]), choking humidity and even hurricanes. Apparently, now comes the "sub" part of subtropical. But noone warned me that this would mean "sub"zero temperatures! Today afternoon the highest was 39 F [about 7 C], while earlier this week (!) it was close to 85 F [about 30 C]. Talk about global warming! It closer to global freezing right now.
Lucky for me I developed sort of an obsession for school logoed hooded sweatshirts and not baseball caps or whatever. I have quite a collection by now and they sure come in handy.
And here I was thinking I wouldn't need a winter coat. This is supposed to a subtropical area afterall. I've seen the tropical part: excess temperatures (mostly close to or over 100 F [approx. 40 C]), choking humidity and even hurricanes. Apparently, now comes the "sub" part of subtropical. But noone warned me that this would mean "sub"zero temperatures! Today afternoon the highest was 39 F [about 7 C], while earlier this week (!) it was close to 85 F [about 30 C]. Talk about global warming! It closer to global freezing right now.
Lucky for me I developed sort of an obsession for school logoed hooded sweatshirts and not baseball caps or whatever. I have quite a collection by now and they sure come in handy.
11/28/2008
Thanks!
Yesterday was Thanksgiving day. So, thanks to y'all!
A family I got to know here in Houston invited me over for their family feast. I went there around noon and we all started out by watching the Tenessee Titans beat the c**p out of the Detroit Lions. Experts, that is to say my hosts and their football fan friends, said that this should come as no surprise: the beast team in the league was playing the worst.
So, after a while we thought that this meaningless pounding was not worth watching and went down to the kitchen to help out with whatever. Lucky for us, the kitchen was already crammed with family members eager to get close to the turkey, the two different types of stuffings, the countless number of pies and of course the cranberry souce. As I've come to learn, this specific dinner was an excellent sampler for different gastronomic ways and traditions associated with Thanksgiving throughout the country. The two different stuffings were representing Northern (Michigan) and Southern (Texas) traditions.
Since the turkey wasn't ready at the time, I thought I better not tease myself with just smelling the food I so looked forward to taste. I went upstairs again to see what's on TV and check my mail. I returned to watching football (the American version). The Dallas Cowboys were having the Seattle Seahawks over for what later turned out to be an equally unbalanced game as the other one was. Dallas has been known for its superb football team for decades and this time was no exception. The Seahawks were eating grass through the whole game and were punched out 9-34.
As I was watching the game, one of my hosts' grandchildren, Eleanor, who was about 3-4 years old, popped up right beside me in the armchair I was sitting in. This armchair was designed for one person, so this essentially meant that the kid somehow climbed into my lap without me noticing. We've never met before and she still thought she should show me a picture from last Christmas where she and her brother were climbing all over grandma and grandpa. I don't think I've ever seen such a friendly kid. Anyway, this friendship didn't last too long once her brother appeared with a wooden logtruck and some sort of loading vehicle. :)
I guess I owe a big thanks to my hosts, so this Thanksgiving, being my first, was truly a good reason to be grateful. Well, the coming exams and assignments will probably be less pleasant, but let's hope for the best. For now.
Since the turkey wasn't ready at the time, I thought I better not tease myself with just smelling the food I so looked forward to taste. I went upstairs again to see what's on TV and check my mail. I returned to watching football (the American version). The Dallas Cowboys were having the Seattle Seahawks over for what later turned out to be an equally unbalanced game as the other one was. Dallas has been known for its superb football team for decades and this time was no exception. The Seahawks were eating grass through the whole game and were punched out 9-34.
As I was watching the game, one of my hosts' grandchildren, Eleanor, who was about 3-4 years old, popped up right beside me in the armchair I was sitting in. This armchair was designed for one person, so this essentially meant that the kid somehow climbed into my lap without me noticing. We've never met before and she still thought she should show me a picture from last Christmas where she and her brother were climbing all over grandma and grandpa. I don't think I've ever seen such a friendly kid. Anyway, this friendship didn't last too long once her brother appeared with a wooden logtruck and some sort of loading vehicle. :)
I guess I owe a big thanks to my hosts, so this Thanksgiving, being my first, was truly a good reason to be grateful. Well, the coming exams and assignments will probably be less pleasant, but let's hope for the best. For now.
11/08/2008
Live from Houston: Tulane gets crushed!
A couple of minutes ago the University of Tulane football team (yes, the American version) suffered a staggering defeat by the University of Houston Cougars 42-14.
But let's back up for a second.
Like a number of people, I always found travel to space something really mysterious, something breathtaking, a tremendous enterprise undertaken in support of the human kind's endless curiosity. Today I finally managed to get a closer look, if not at space itself, at least the stuff they use up there. Who do the astronauts call if they have a problem? Yes, its the Lyndon Johnson Space Center's Mission Control Room down here in Houston. As you'd expect, it was truly fascinating. And it certainly reminds me of questions I had and what I think most people have when on a quiet summer night their mind goes on hiking (after a few, or not so few drinks) while watching a gorgeous sunset but I'm not going to burden you with those. Sure, reality is not always so cheesy, but show me one person who has never started wondering about whether there is something else, something more out there. Clearly, seeing the stuff made for and used in space does not give you an answer. Still, their magnitude and of course the magnitude of the efforts they represent can easily become overwhelming. Especially, if the "space industry" itself adds some Hollywood sappiness to it like showing movies about how one can become an astronaut starting with the first phone call delivering the good news of acceptance to the moment the shuttle lifts off from Florida. Interestingly, the facilities were built during the cold war and thus were designed to appear as if they were a regular college campus on enemy satellite pictures. Unfortunately, the designers did not pick Harvard as the standard. Instead the buildings look like as if those were in the Soviet Union in the seventies. Although the exteriors are rather disappointing, the projects going on inside these buildings are out of this world. At least the planet. See pictures here.
Also, today was Homecoming. In fact, this whole week was about Homecoming. I still don't get it. But it meant a series of great programs, most of which I could not attend because of a final exam I had this Friday. The peak of the week was the Homecoming football game against arch rival Tulane from New Orleans. They sure got pondered tonight by the ever great Coogs. This game did have all the features you can see in a cheesy Hollywood movie but without the drama. There were gorgeous cheerleaders (and to my surprise some guys were also part of the cheerleader squad but they only lifted the girls to their shoulders every once in a while and lead the yelling of the audience). The university presented this years homecomig duke and duchess (instead of king and queen for reasons beyond my comprehension) and of course there was a huge tailgating party (basically a thousand people barbacue right outside the stadium). Sorry, I forgot to take my camera but I'll try to hunt down some pictures for y'all who are interested.
But let's back up for a second.
Like a number of people, I always found travel to space something really mysterious, something breathtaking, a tremendous enterprise undertaken in support of the human kind's endless curiosity. Today I finally managed to get a closer look, if not at space itself, at least the stuff they use up there. Who do the astronauts call if they have a problem? Yes, its the Lyndon Johnson Space Center's Mission Control Room down here in Houston. As you'd expect, it was truly fascinating. And it certainly reminds me of questions I had and what I think most people have when on a quiet summer night their mind goes on hiking (after a few, or not so few drinks) while watching a gorgeous sunset but I'm not going to burden you with those. Sure, reality is not always so cheesy, but show me one person who has never started wondering about whether there is something else, something more out there. Clearly, seeing the stuff made for and used in space does not give you an answer. Still, their magnitude and of course the magnitude of the efforts they represent can easily become overwhelming. Especially, if the "space industry" itself adds some Hollywood sappiness to it like showing movies about how one can become an astronaut starting with the first phone call delivering the good news of acceptance to the moment the shuttle lifts off from Florida. Interestingly, the facilities were built during the cold war and thus were designed to appear as if they were a regular college campus on enemy satellite pictures. Unfortunately, the designers did not pick Harvard as the standard. Instead the buildings look like as if those were in the Soviet Union in the seventies. Although the exteriors are rather disappointing, the projects going on inside these buildings are out of this world. At least the planet. See pictures here.
Also, today was Homecoming. In fact, this whole week was about Homecoming. I still don't get it. But it meant a series of great programs, most of which I could not attend because of a final exam I had this Friday. The peak of the week was the Homecoming football game against arch rival Tulane from New Orleans. They sure got pondered tonight by the ever great Coogs. This game did have all the features you can see in a cheesy Hollywood movie but without the drama. There were gorgeous cheerleaders (and to my surprise some guys were also part of the cheerleader squad but they only lifted the girls to their shoulders every once in a while and lead the yelling of the audience). The university presented this years homecomig duke and duchess (instead of king and queen for reasons beyond my comprehension) and of course there was a huge tailgating party (basically a thousand people barbacue right outside the stadium). Sorry, I forgot to take my camera but I'll try to hunt down some pictures for y'all who are interested.
GO COOGS!
11/04/2008
Live from Houston: History!
Both CNN and Fox News called the 2008 presidential election for Barack Obama. Although in recent days the news was all over with this election being historical no matter the result. When Fox News reported John McCain's defeat, I became absolutely certain.
Well, apparently this will not be like 2006 back at home. Even a couple of hours ago, while constantly watching CNN.com for updates through my late night class, I cautioned people about what has happened in Hungary in 2006. Tables can turn in an instant. They didn't here despite many people's hope down here in Texas. What actually came as a surprise (at least to me) was that the county Houston is in turned undoubtedly blue.
You have no clue how many people asked me if I voted. I constantly told them: had I voted, I'd be deported the next day for election fraud. I CAN vote. Just not in this country. :)
Btw, residents of Houston start going into a frenzy: constant honking and fireworks stir up the night. (Side note: the neighborhood I live in is mostly populated by African-Americans.)
Well, apparently this will not be like 2006 back at home. Even a couple of hours ago, while constantly watching CNN.com for updates through my late night class, I cautioned people about what has happened in Hungary in 2006. Tables can turn in an instant. They didn't here despite many people's hope down here in Texas. What actually came as a surprise (at least to me) was that the county Houston is in turned undoubtedly blue.
You have no clue how many people asked me if I voted. I constantly told them: had I voted, I'd be deported the next day for election fraud. I CAN vote. Just not in this country. :)
Btw, residents of Houston start going into a frenzy: constant honking and fireworks stir up the night. (Side note: the neighborhood I live in is mostly populated by African-Americans.)
11/02/2008
What Politics Should Be About
If the campaign had been like this all the way long, maybe I wouldn't have been so fed up with it. Note to politicians of the world: you should replace your advisers with these folks. :D
11/01/2008
Touché
... or how to hit the nail on the head.
http://www.pointsincase.com/articles/we-drunk-chick-united-states-america
http://www.pointsincase.com/articles/we-drunk-chick-united-states-america
Only 4 days to go...
... until they finally close the polls for the elections. Believe me, I've had it with them. No matter what I do I somehow get tangled up with this matter I so desperately tried to avoid. Not that I wasn't interested at first, but enough is enough. The law school has a number of big screen TVs scattered around its premises, which should be a good thing (especially if they had some Xbox 360s hooked up to them with "The Force Unleashed"). The fact that they always have CNN on them may also be a good thing, normally. But not in an election year. No matter when I take a glimpse on these monitors I always see Wolf Blitzer on trying to shove some insignificant little piece of political news down my throat. [Note: not that Fox News would be any different.] You could say I always have the option of not watching (and believe me, I try not to), but they have all the vending machines and the in-house Subway deli right there. Going starving is simply not my style so instead of engaging in a hunger strike I simply snivel about it online.
The other thing people seem to have stopped bearing in mind (or they never realized it at all?) is that with the elections coming to a close voters no longer respond to sensible arguments. They've already picked their "star" and will under no circumstances reconsider their choice. Even if a candidate would admit to something like foreign policy should be decided upon how many Russians you can see outside your window or that neither of them were born in the United States, it simply wouldn't change a thing. What does all that remind me of? How about 2006. How about partisanship at its peak. How about the distorting effect of mass media. How about people simply being stupid. [Oh wait, its their constitutional right! But at least they should know when to stop arguing with each other.]
Bottom line: I've had it. Luckily, one of our professors was smart (?) enough to put a final exam 3 days after Election Day. This way I can easily get out of invitations saying I need to study. Which I really do. Even though constitutional law is a huge part of the exam, the U.S. election system is so complicated that they don't dare teaching it even to law students. So at least I don't have to study that. Not that I haven't heard enough of it already.
One of my professors said this in a class a couple of weeks ago about a specific legal principle (and it was of course intended as a joke):
The other thing people seem to have stopped bearing in mind (or they never realized it at all?) is that with the elections coming to a close voters no longer respond to sensible arguments. They've already picked their "star" and will under no circumstances reconsider their choice. Even if a candidate would admit to something like foreign policy should be decided upon how many Russians you can see outside your window or that neither of them were born in the United States, it simply wouldn't change a thing. What does all that remind me of? How about 2006. How about partisanship at its peak. How about the distorting effect of mass media. How about people simply being stupid. [Oh wait, its their constitutional right! But at least they should know when to stop arguing with each other.]
Bottom line: I've had it. Luckily, one of our professors was smart (?) enough to put a final exam 3 days after Election Day. This way I can easily get out of invitations saying I need to study. Which I really do. Even though constitutional law is a huge part of the exam, the U.S. election system is so complicated that they don't dare teaching it even to law students. So at least I don't have to study that. Not that I haven't heard enough of it already.
One of my professors said this in a class a couple of weeks ago about a specific legal principle (and it was of course intended as a joke):
There's no divestment here but we still call it a divestment. But isn't that dishonest? NO! Consider it a polticial matter.
10/15/2008
At The Movies
Today's discovery:
http://zskategoria.blog.hu
(Typical FBI agents in B or "subprime" movies)
http://zskategoria.blog.hu
A hatékonyságukat tuti a magyar közigazgatásban tanulták, mindehova tök sokan mennek, állandóan fontoskodva fel alá rohangálnak, de sose történik semmi. Csak beszélnek, meg terveznek, közben a fél várost széthordják a színesfémtolvajok a maradékot meg felrobbantják. Ha meg beszólsz, hogy lehetne már valamit csinálni akkor mindenki némán rád néz a főnök meg kidobat a teremből. Ezt egyébként imádják, mindig feltűrt inggel , hózentrogerban vannak az irodában és kávéznak. Komolyan mondom szerintem csak azért szálltak be a kolumbiai drogháborúba, hogy ingyen kávébabot lopjanak az irodába.
[They are as efficient as [any country's] public administration, they always deploy a truckload of people and cruise around as if they were important but nothing happens. They just talk and plan while half the city is taken apart by smalltime crooks and they blow up the other half. If you stand up to them demanding they do something, everyone stares at you and the boss has you thrown out of the room. They love this; they always linger around their offices with their sleeves rolled up and wearing suspenders and constantly drink coffee. I tell you they only got involved in the Colombian drug wars to steel free coffee beans for their office.]
(Typical FBI agents in B or "subprime" movies)
10/12/2008
10/11/2008
Random Run-ins
As you can imagine, the university itself is a huge park. It's of course full of squirrels. But it's quite surprising how these little rodents are not only not afraid of the giant humans walking around but try to play chicken with us. They lie down in the middle of the walkway and don't move until you almost step on them. Then they run like hell of course sometimes scaring me because I wouldn't even see them at first.
However it's not only the squirrels that are so brave. Apparently some people in this nation of cars were really persistent in using parking places they should have not. Thus the above sign.
And I guess now we all know what "good ol' G. W." will be up to after returning the keys to the White House.
Believe it or not, I took this picture in the University of Houston main library. Their DVD collection is rather small but still they found a way to honor the M4 under construction in Budapest. Or maybe they just loved the cover and wanted to see if the guy will actually be run over by the train. Anyway, they really have Kontroll on the shelf. (I wonder how many people have actually watched it so far... Probably more than L'auberge Espagnole, which they also keep on stock.)
10/04/2008
10/01/2008
Are you smarter than...
a 5th grader? I hope so. When it comes to law I quite possibly am. And this conviction has been confirmed when I got my first ever U.S. law school exam results back. This was in a class specifically for foreign lawyers trying to get a handle on the chaos they dare calling a legal system here, so I guess it wasn't as authentic as if I took it in any other class but still. It felt nice.
The troubling part was to see how much people have prepared and still ended up with a C or even C-. The prof constantly said everyone should prepare their outlines for each class in advance because it would be crucial when it comes to the test. (Of course we couldn't use them, as this was a closed book exam.) I suspect a lot of people have fallen behind with their outlines and instead of studying from the textbook they first rushed to finish their notes and then learned from those. In the meantime, I managed to read the book five times. They may have missed a whole lot of important parts in their papers and may also have misunderstood important concepts, which, in turn, they incorrectly studied from their papers.
I'm not much of an "outline guy" myself. I got through five years of law school with preparing no more than 3 outlines (as far as I can remember) two of which were for the final exams at the very end. (I simply didn't like the notes I managed to gather from other more diligent people.)
So, I'm anxious to see how many people will abandon their outlines. And how I will do on the REAL law school exams (and the one that I'll have at the business school with quite negligible background in economics.)
P.S.: I'll try to stop being such a nerd from now on. :)
The troubling part was to see how much people have prepared and still ended up with a C or even C-. The prof constantly said everyone should prepare their outlines for each class in advance because it would be crucial when it comes to the test. (Of course we couldn't use them, as this was a closed book exam.) I suspect a lot of people have fallen behind with their outlines and instead of studying from the textbook they first rushed to finish their notes and then learned from those. In the meantime, I managed to read the book five times. They may have missed a whole lot of important parts in their papers and may also have misunderstood important concepts, which, in turn, they incorrectly studied from their papers.
I'm not much of an "outline guy" myself. I got through five years of law school with preparing no more than 3 outlines (as far as I can remember) two of which were for the final exams at the very end. (I simply didn't like the notes I managed to gather from other more diligent people.)
So, I'm anxious to see how many people will abandon their outlines. And how I will do on the REAL law school exams (and the one that I'll have at the business school with quite negligible background in economics.)
P.S.: I'll try to stop being such a nerd from now on. :)
9/30/2008
Next stop...
Scotland. That's even more odd. Wonder when Hungary gets a tropical storm.
Update: Scotland is saved. (Lucky bastards...)
Update: Scotland is saved. (Lucky bastards...)
9/28/2008
Hung(a)ry
I just realized that I haven’t spoken Hungarian with anyone (except over the phone) since I left NY in July. Sure, some people wanted to learn how to say this and that in Hungarian or at least try to figure out if it’s similar to any language they know. Usually they couldn’t find anything similar. On exception was when I met a bunch of Kazakhs and we found one common word: “szakáll” (i.e. beard). That's a real conversation starter. What can you possibly say about beards? How is someone supposed to talk about them for more than 2 minutes? :) And also, people wanted to learn swearing in Hungarian. At first they asked how I would say certain four letter words and when I told them it depends on the situation and I could think of at least 5 different words for it just out of the top of my head, they agreed that it is a rich language indeed. 
Anyway, a couple of days after Ike hit us a friend of mine currently studying in Belgium sent me a link. I read the article, it was about a guy also in Houston who had some trouble with Ike. I sent him an e-mail asking which part of the city he lived in and we exchanged contacts. A week later he sent me a message that they are having a BBQ at his place and I should join, it will be only Hungarian ex-pats. So I went there this Friday and we had an awesome time. There were three guys, two with their wives, who are both gorgeous btw, and we had some old fashioned “shashlik” together.
It was so much fun speaking Hungarian again with actual people and not through the phone. They were really funny people, jokes kept flying around all night. Luckily, I was the only lawyer there so we didn’t talk much about work. Now I know that if I fly back home through Paris, I have to be ready to break my personal record on 400m flat run, because the layover between the Houston-Paris and the Paris-Budapest flight is quite short.
9/23/2008
Playing cards again
No, I haven't moved to Vegas. I just got my Texas ID card. Finally, I have a better chance to fool the bouncers at the clubs (luckily the ladies don't ask for an ID when you start talking with them once you're inside). Not that they had any problem with looking at my passport for my date of birth (=DOB on my new ID, which I think is funny because of its Hungarian meaning: drum). So far, even my Hungarian ID card was good enough to let me in at places where alcohol is served (remember: the legal age for drinking is 21 and they really care about it around here). But I can finally ditch questions about my home country, which is nice if asked by some random girl but pisses me off when bored bouncers hold me up with such cr*p at the entrance. Come to think of it, maybe I will use this new ID to play some of the old games I used to. At some places in Budapest I was better off posing as some guy from NYC. Now I have "proof" for "being from" Texas. :D
I also got a bunch of business cards. From the university. Try the convince the university that you need a business card at home. :) At first I didn't know why they wanted me to have them but then I realized that all these mixers, parties and conferences are good occasions to get rid of them. And I can also add them to my collection. I always keep some of my old cards just for fun.
Another somewhat surprising development of the day was that when I started writing this post, I heard yelling and screaming from a neighboring home. I pulled up the blinds and saw someone running around with something on fire in the dark. Then I realized that the voice sounds familiar so I looked closer. I turned out that one of the Russians tried to put out a birthday cake that was on fire. Since she is in my class I went over to help her when she told me I should join her birthday party. The guys surprised her with a cake and those candles that relight themselves once you blow them out. They couldn't stop the relighting. :)
I also got a bunch of business cards. From the university. Try the convince the university that you need a business card at home. :) At first I didn't know why they wanted me to have them but then I realized that all these mixers, parties and conferences are good occasions to get rid of them. And I can also add them to my collection. I always keep some of my old cards just for fun.
Another somewhat surprising development of the day was that when I started writing this post, I heard yelling and screaming from a neighboring home. I pulled up the blinds and saw someone running around with something on fire in the dark. Then I realized that the voice sounds familiar so I looked closer. I turned out that one of the Russians tried to put out a birthday cake that was on fire. Since she is in my class I went over to help her when she told me I should join her birthday party. The guys surprised her with a cake and those candles that relight themselves once you blow them out. They couldn't stop the relighting. :)
9/19/2008
Homework
Everyone, look up Jeff Dunham on Youtube. It's R.O.F.L.M.A.O (that is rolling on the floor laughing my a** off).
9/14/2008
Stranded
Finally, we got electricity back even though the water is regarded unsafe. So, we survived Ike "sheltered in place" as the administration called it. This basically meant that I went from my wooden cottage to a friend's brick house. I never thought I'd ever refer to the "three piglets' tale" as authority.
As the storm hit on Saturday evening... I slept like a baby. :) I didn't even hear a thing in that fortress I was staying in. It was bad that we lost power and tap water but sine we stacked up on bottled water and non-perishable food we had no problem with the survival part. I began to be really uncomfortable when I couldn't take a shower next day. The friend hosting me decided to fill up the bath tub with water the day before, so at least we could flush the toilet the old fashion way, that is with a bucket.
Once we lost power, all the hallways turned black and we lost cellphone coverage, as well. We found out the next day that if we went up to the second floor, the neighboring towers gave enough signal to phone, text or even browse the net from my Blackberry. You may remember that this part of town is pretty far from everywhere. And the wind stripped all parks like a bulldozer so trees were everywhere cutting down powerlines and thus almost all road were closed. So we decided to study for the upcoming mid-term exams. The professor told us we would have the exams on this Thursday if there are classes on Tuesday. Unfortunately, we will have classes tomorrow.
Anyway, the resident assistant supervising the building knocked on the door sometime at night and told us he just kicked out some looters so it was safer to go upstairs where the few residents gathered. When we went upstairs we found some 10 people dozed off from the tremendous amount of booze they poured into themselves. so after an hour of laughing at them we just went back down to finally get some sleep. Sometime early morning I saw water rising up just outside my window. Now that was really scary. Luckily, it drained by the time I woke up a couple hours later.
Today, we found out that some stores were open so we jumped into the car and went around town to see what we can find. Interestingly, traffic wasn't so tough except for one part of a highway. The funny thing was that the biggest mall was open, they had fresh food (I still don't like Chinese) and even some perfume shops tried to have people linger in. I actually bought a pair old jeans that were on sale. :)
I'll be able to move back to my original place tomorrow and school will resume on Tuesday, so I guess I better go back to my readings.
As the storm hit on Saturday evening... I slept like a baby. :) I didn't even hear a thing in that fortress I was staying in. It was bad that we lost power and tap water but sine we stacked up on bottled water and non-perishable food we had no problem with the survival part. I began to be really uncomfortable when I couldn't take a shower next day. The friend hosting me decided to fill up the bath tub with water the day before, so at least we could flush the toilet the old fashion way, that is with a bucket.
Once we lost power, all the hallways turned black and we lost cellphone coverage, as well. We found out the next day that if we went up to the second floor, the neighboring towers gave enough signal to phone, text or even browse the net from my Blackberry. You may remember that this part of town is pretty far from everywhere. And the wind stripped all parks like a bulldozer so trees were everywhere cutting down powerlines and thus almost all road were closed. So we decided to study for the upcoming mid-term exams. The professor told us we would have the exams on this Thursday if there are classes on Tuesday. Unfortunately, we will have classes tomorrow.
Anyway, the resident assistant supervising the building knocked on the door sometime at night and told us he just kicked out some looters so it was safer to go upstairs where the few residents gathered. When we went upstairs we found some 10 people dozed off from the tremendous amount of booze they poured into themselves. so after an hour of laughing at them we just went back down to finally get some sleep. Sometime early morning I saw water rising up just outside my window. Now that was really scary. Luckily, it drained by the time I woke up a couple hours later.
Today, we found out that some stores were open so we jumped into the car and went around town to see what we can find. Interestingly, traffic wasn't so tough except for one part of a highway. The funny thing was that the biggest mall was open, they had fresh food (I still don't like Chinese) and even some perfume shops tried to have people linger in. I actually bought a pair old jeans that were on sale. :)
I'll be able to move back to my original place tomorrow and school will resume on Tuesday, so I guess I better go back to my readings.
9/11/2008
Weather update
As Hurricane Ike is closing in on Houston, I just wanted to inform you that I may not be reachable during the upcoming days. I'm not under a mandatory evacuation order as of now, but this may be expected anytime. Therefore I won't be reachable on my landline phone and I try to conserve battery life and airtime on my cell phone for emergency calls, which I hope I won't have to place. So please don't try to reach me there. I'll try to continue monitoring all my e-mail accounts but don't be surprised if I don't reply soon enough. We were told to expect shortages in power services so I may lose electronic connection to the outside world.
The hurricane is expected to hit Houston in early Saturday morning potentially as a category 3 hurricane. So tomorrow, I'll move to a friend's place, which appears to be a safer location.
If you are interested in keeping track of Ike, check out updates on cnn.com, chron.com and at the National Hurricane Center.
I will post updates as the storm has passed and conditions have been restored to normal. But I guess I still have to study for my mid-term exams. :(
The hurricane is expected to hit Houston in early Saturday morning potentially as a category 3 hurricane. So tomorrow, I'll move to a friend's place, which appears to be a safer location.
If you are interested in keeping track of Ike, check out updates on cnn.com, chron.com and at the National Hurricane Center.
I will post updates as the storm has passed and conditions have been restored to normal. But I guess I still have to study for my mid-term exams. :(
9/08/2008
8/28/2008
Denny Crane! Never lost, never will!
In case you were wondering, I do go to classes. In fact, the most interesting and fun ones have just started this week.
One is called Energy Law: Emerging Markets. Now, I suppose it is fair to say that, at least to U.S. standards, I come from a country that may be regarded as emerging. OK, a lot of you who have lived there in the last 8 years would dispute that to some degree but I hope we have made some progress (again, it depends on the basis to which we compare). Anyway, an interesting feature of this class is the professor who teaches it. He is an of-counsel (i.e. a working pensioner in U.S. terms) at a tiny law firm. Also, he speaks somewhat slowly. Normally this would be a good thing, since a lot of us don't speak English as a first language and this makes the guy more understandable. But he speeks reeeally sloooow. Some of you may know a certain attorney in the Frankfurt office of Freshfields, who is about the same age (approx. 65), speaks really slowly and lost a considerable portion of his hair (probably due to the case we had involving a certain arbitration and its challenge). This is one fact I cannot put aside. This resemblance is quite distracting. Anyway, the class is more or less a historic study of how former communist command economis have been transformed into something else. When I took the class, I thought to myself, I might as well tell these folks what life is like in such a country. I wouldn't have thought that most of the people who actually took this course came from such countries and apparently the teaching process has been reversed. We teach the professor of some things he missed while he was practicing in Russia in the 1990s.
Another class I took is Oil & Gas Law. Seems obvious to take when I try to major in energy law around here. What I didn't know was that this class is solely and completely about Texan law. No international or even interstate elements of any kind. Well, I came here to study some real American law, so I guess I'll have to settle with that. The professor is a really funny person. He's not so young anymore but is as energetic as no other.
First thing he said after introducing himself:
Another example of his realistic approach:
He has a pretty innovative teaching method: comics. He draws little comics while he explains cases and makes the class really interactive. Today, for instance, we were arbitrarily divided into three groups: "strict fathers", "black letter lawyers" and "nurturing parents". The purpose was to look at some issues from these standpoints, like what happens if some drills an oil well and drains oil from his neighbor's land.
A constant line he drops every other minute, that is when he finishes a block:
Well, the main difference probably is the prof has no trace of arrogance in him.
One is called Energy Law: Emerging Markets. Now, I suppose it is fair to say that, at least to U.S. standards, I come from a country that may be regarded as emerging. OK, a lot of you who have lived there in the last 8 years would dispute that to some degree but I hope we have made some progress (again, it depends on the basis to which we compare). Anyway, an interesting feature of this class is the professor who teaches it. He is an of-counsel (i.e. a working pensioner in U.S. terms) at a tiny law firm. Also, he speaks somewhat slowly. Normally this would be a good thing, since a lot of us don't speak English as a first language and this makes the guy more understandable. But he speeks reeeally sloooow. Some of you may know a certain attorney in the Frankfurt office of Freshfields, who is about the same age (approx. 65), speaks really slowly and lost a considerable portion of his hair (probably due to the case we had involving a certain arbitration and its challenge). This is one fact I cannot put aside. This resemblance is quite distracting. Anyway, the class is more or less a historic study of how former communist command economis have been transformed into something else. When I took the class, I thought to myself, I might as well tell these folks what life is like in such a country. I wouldn't have thought that most of the people who actually took this course came from such countries and apparently the teaching process has been reversed. We teach the professor of some things he missed while he was practicing in Russia in the 1990s.
Another class I took is Oil & Gas Law. Seems obvious to take when I try to major in energy law around here. What I didn't know was that this class is solely and completely about Texan law. No international or even interstate elements of any kind. Well, I came here to study some real American law, so I guess I'll have to settle with that. The professor is a really funny person. He's not so young anymore but is as energetic as no other.
First thing he said after introducing himself:
"Oil and gas law was not biult on rationality. It was built on the notion of MORE OIL!"
Another example of his realistic approach:
"Law is all made up. All you need is a set of words and you can solve any problem."
He has a pretty innovative teaching method: comics. He draws little comics while he explains cases and makes the class really interactive. Today, for instance, we were arbitrarily divided into three groups: "strict fathers", "black letter lawyers" and "nurturing parents". The purpose was to look at some issues from these standpoints, like what happens if some drills an oil well and drains oil from his neighbor's land.
A constant line he drops every other minute, that is when he finishes a block:
"Questions? Comments? Outrage?"In any event, the best way to describe his way of speaking: Denny Crane!
Well, the main difference probably is the prof has no trace of arrogance in him.
8/26/2008
working hours
I just overheard a conversation of U.S. law students, quite possibly 3 year J.Ds, talking about their future plans, interview sessions they've done or plan to do for internships. It made me wonder. I never really thought about questions like "Do I want to work with a big law firm, or I'd rather be an in-house counsel or even a prosecutor?". Also, it's been severl years since I graduated and I suddenly feel really old amongst these folks. It's funny to hear about the ridiculous "personality tests" these people had to face before being asked even a single legal question in their interviews. I try to restrain myself from giving tips to them. They'd probably dismiss them at first saying I'm from a different legal culture. But is the culture of big international law firms any different on the old continent and in the new world?
8/24/2008
"You can keep your hat on..."
Just to take my fair share in battling against stereotypes, nobody wears cowboy hats in Houston. In the last two weeks I've spent here I've never seen a single person wearing cowboy hats of anything of the sort. Not even for marketing purposes.
(It seems the Californian surfer outfit is more popular.)
(It seems the Californian surfer outfit is more popular.)
8/23/2008
If you ever go to Houston...
and need to unwind, two of the best places we've found so far:
http://thedrakebar.com/index.asp
http://venuehouston.com/
http://thedrakebar.com/index.asp
http://venuehouston.com/
8/22/2008
I see cards everywhere...
Today I got not less than two cards in my mail. I finally received my university ID card, which doubles as a MasterCard debit card and also has a checking account attached to it (I can finally do my laundry! The landromats do not accept any other form of payment.). I also got my regular Visa checking card from Bank of America. So together with my temporary checking card, my temporary university ID card, my Hungarian debit card, my Hungarian ID, and my Hungarian drivers license I have 7 cards in my wallet. The interesting thing is that I can pay with 5 of these. Wish I had the money to use all of them... :)
Congratulations! You've found it!
Judging by some soundbites overheard around half past midnight from under my window I guess I need to be more cryptic about people mentioned here. Isn't that right, dear P & R? :P :D
8/18/2008
8/16/2008
How to become a shopoholic.
This place is pure madness. Correction. People are mad. They demonstrating frightening symptoms of fixation, retardation and Britishism. Ok, this latter one is not really a problem, it is something rather unusual around here.
Yesterday I (and some other fellow international students) finally moved in to our rooms for the academic year. Well, I thought these are college dorm rooms even if they are singles and we only have to share the bathroom with one other person but the first impression most of us had was... outrageous. So we decided to get go down to Wal-Mart to pick up some cleaning products so as to make up for the cleaning the apartment managers insisted they have had done. Clearly someone visited the rooms and tried to do something about them, but this was certainly not the best cleaning job I've seen. We tried to call everyone we knew had a car to give three of us a lift to Wal-Mart. They were either out of town or didn't pick up so I thought we'd do this the next day. But the one of the guys insisted he could not go to sleep until the cleaning is ready and he doesn't mid staying up all night long cleaning the toilet. But this was a FRIDAY NIGHT! Noone can be so needy on a Friday night. Except for booze and women. This guy was persistent. So we went down to Wal-Mart by taxi. $10 for each of us. Then we asked the driver for his cellphone number and begged him to stick around to pick us up later. (The charm of one of the girls riding with us helped a lot in that department...)
Now if you think girls can shop for a long time, you're wrong. This guy and the aforementioned girl together were just.... (I can't even find words for it. Slow is like lightning compared to these two.) Not that they didn't move around fast enough, it's just that they kept changing their minds about everything. And this guy, who has lived in England for the last 4 years or so, just wined about how awful his bathroom looked for almost one straight hour. It wasn't funny after a while even though his rather British accent and choice of words. (Like "This toilet is dreadful. I haven't seen anything so dirty in my entire life." "Oooh God, what am I going to do now?!")
Oh, and by the was, never dare to buy blueberry juice ever. I tastes awful.
Once finished with this shocking shopping I joined another crew for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in another part of town. Another guy and myself went out with two other girls (both magnificent if I may do say so myself...) and yet another Spanish speaking guy. We grabbed a cab and headed for Midtown. Luckily, the driver had absolutely no clue where the restaurant was, didn't own a GPS and was constantly looking at a map with a flashlight through the whole ride. But we got there and it seemed we made no big errands. The food at the restaurant was fabulous. We had real good time, one of us convinced a mariachi that it was a girl's birthday so he sang songs to her for almost half an hour. Her face went red in an instant and stayed that way through the whole performance. :)
We then went to a club next door. (In Midtown there is virtually nothing else but restaurants and clubs all over.) The worst kind of Ibiza style techno dominated the place. But the others wanted to stay (because the other option would have been to go home and nobody wanted that really). After some beer it wasn't so bad but I could only enjoyed it after so many tequilas that I couldn't have stood still.
Today, however, was different in some way but basically not that different. We decided that we want to check out the shopping mall Galeria downtown. Since neither of us has a car and we tried to avoid being ripped off by some taxi driver, we thought it would be good to try out the (not so dense) puboic transportation system. It took us over an hour to get there. We had to change buses three times. But once we got there, it was like Westend, Mammut, Arena Plaza and 5 more of these put together. This would not be such a big deal except that the first floor was stores like Ralph Lauren, Cartier, Dior and the likes, the whole ground floor was just restaurants (not necessarily too good) and the second floor was mid-level stores paramount to Springfield (Abercrombie & Fitch for those of you who know these). Since I didn't bring too many types of shoes (and I was fed up by having my basketball shoes on nearly every day) I invested in a new pair of tennis shoes, and also bought some T-shirts. The Swiss guy bought some watch for about $600 and various items, it was sales tax holiday in Texas after all. (This means that on this one day the State of Texas did not collect sales tax on certain items like clothing so as to assist families buying stuff for their kids for the upcoming schoolyear. This generally meant a nearly 10% discount on everything but most stores also added their own discounts or had clearence sales.)
So much for extending my closet collection. I guess now I need to find out how to do my laundry around here. :)
Yesterday I (and some other fellow international students) finally moved in to our rooms for the academic year. Well, I thought these are college dorm rooms even if they are singles and we only have to share the bathroom with one other person but the first impression most of us had was... outrageous. So we decided to get go down to Wal-Mart to pick up some cleaning products so as to make up for the cleaning the apartment managers insisted they have had done. Clearly someone visited the rooms and tried to do something about them, but this was certainly not the best cleaning job I've seen. We tried to call everyone we knew had a car to give three of us a lift to Wal-Mart. They were either out of town or didn't pick up so I thought we'd do this the next day. But the one of the guys insisted he could not go to sleep until the cleaning is ready and he doesn't mid staying up all night long cleaning the toilet. But this was a FRIDAY NIGHT! Noone can be so needy on a Friday night. Except for booze and women. This guy was persistent. So we went down to Wal-Mart by taxi. $10 for each of us. Then we asked the driver for his cellphone number and begged him to stick around to pick us up later. (The charm of one of the girls riding with us helped a lot in that department...)
Now if you think girls can shop for a long time, you're wrong. This guy and the aforementioned girl together were just.... (I can't even find words for it. Slow is like lightning compared to these two.) Not that they didn't move around fast enough, it's just that they kept changing their minds about everything. And this guy, who has lived in England for the last 4 years or so, just wined about how awful his bathroom looked for almost one straight hour. It wasn't funny after a while even though his rather British accent and choice of words. (Like "This toilet is dreadful. I haven't seen anything so dirty in my entire life." "Oooh God, what am I going to do now?!")
Oh, and by the was, never dare to buy blueberry juice ever. I tastes awful.
Once finished with this shocking shopping I joined another crew for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in another part of town. Another guy and myself went out with two other girls (both magnificent if I may do say so myself...) and yet another Spanish speaking guy. We grabbed a cab and headed for Midtown. Luckily, the driver had absolutely no clue where the restaurant was, didn't own a GPS and was constantly looking at a map with a flashlight through the whole ride. But we got there and it seemed we made no big errands. The food at the restaurant was fabulous. We had real good time, one of us convinced a mariachi that it was a girl's birthday so he sang songs to her for almost half an hour. Her face went red in an instant and stayed that way through the whole performance. :)
We then went to a club next door. (In Midtown there is virtually nothing else but restaurants and clubs all over.) The worst kind of Ibiza style techno dominated the place. But the others wanted to stay (because the other option would have been to go home and nobody wanted that really). After some beer it wasn't so bad but I could only enjoyed it after so many tequilas that I couldn't have stood still.
Today, however, was different in some way but basically not that different. We decided that we want to check out the shopping mall Galeria downtown. Since neither of us has a car and we tried to avoid being ripped off by some taxi driver, we thought it would be good to try out the (not so dense) puboic transportation system. It took us over an hour to get there. We had to change buses three times. But once we got there, it was like Westend, Mammut, Arena Plaza and 5 more of these put together. This would not be such a big deal except that the first floor was stores like Ralph Lauren, Cartier, Dior and the likes, the whole ground floor was just restaurants (not necessarily too good) and the second floor was mid-level stores paramount to Springfield (Abercrombie & Fitch for those of you who know these). Since I didn't bring too many types of shoes (and I was fed up by having my basketball shoes on nearly every day) I invested in a new pair of tennis shoes, and also bought some T-shirts. The Swiss guy bought some watch for about $600 and various items, it was sales tax holiday in Texas after all. (This means that on this one day the State of Texas did not collect sales tax on certain items like clothing so as to assist families buying stuff for their kids for the upcoming schoolyear. This generally meant a nearly 10% discount on everything but most stores also added their own discounts or had clearence sales.)
So much for extending my closet collection. I guess now I need to find out how to do my laundry around here. :)
8/15/2008
8/12/2008
Still Alive
For the time being I seem to manage in the not-so-ghost-town-anymore Houston. In fact, I need to hurry up with the administrative things before the J.D. and undergrad students find their way to crowd and block all possible administration sites.
This comes on top of some "light" reading we have been assigned: I need to catch up with 40 pages in Introduction to American Law (I only missed 1 lecture because of Davis) and have a new 70 pages to read for the day after tomorrow. Luckily, these are all topics I heard about in Davis, so at least the points are not completely new. In fact, I seem to know more of the case law at this point than the textbook discusses. I suppose this will not last forever...
Tomorrow I'm meeting one of my sponsors from Houston (as you may know I have multiple scholarships). She seems to be really excited since I'm the first person they've ever chosen to support. (Probably this fund is not too old.) I completely share her excitement.
Oh, and one of the surprising things was when I found a form in my University welcome packet asking if I wanted business cards. They will actually give me university business cards. Unbelievable! Geri, Petra, I think I'd still need some corporate ones, though. ;)
And now, a recent discovery:
(I hope some radio program managers also bump into this site.)
This comes on top of some "light" reading we have been assigned: I need to catch up with 40 pages in Introduction to American Law (I only missed 1 lecture because of Davis) and have a new 70 pages to read for the day after tomorrow. Luckily, these are all topics I heard about in Davis, so at least the points are not completely new. In fact, I seem to know more of the case law at this point than the textbook discusses. I suppose this will not last forever...
Tomorrow I'm meeting one of my sponsors from Houston (as you may know I have multiple scholarships). She seems to be really excited since I'm the first person they've ever chosen to support. (Probably this fund is not too old.) I completely share her excitement.
Oh, and one of the surprising things was when I found a form in my University welcome packet asking if I wanted business cards. They will actually give me university business cards. Unbelievable! Geri, Petra, I think I'd still need some corporate ones, though. ;)
And now, a recent discovery:
(I hope some radio program managers also bump into this site.)
8/10/2008
Ghost town
Today I met with some mates from the program here in Houston and went around campus to explore our possibilities. Since I was sleeping in till 10am I wanted to grab something to eat quite shortly. But everything on campus was closed. Even the ever-open Chinese restaurant. So I had to settle with Burger King oil soaked cheeseburgers.
At my permanent place (I can't wait to move in.) I was to meet a Swiss guy and ran into a Portuguese guy with whom we chatted on Facebook some time ago. So we decided that after forming a sort-of-European-alliance in this distant place to go around campus to see what we have. It a really big campus if toured on foot. I'll definitely have to buy at least a bicycle. But even if I have a bicycle, I'll still be locked inside campus because all the other places are miles away in every direction.
We then went inside the campus sports center. It's just fabulous. They have an Olympic size pool with diving ramps inside and they have a shallow pool on the outside, mainly occupied by children and adjacent family members charged with babysitting. The outside pool's water was rather warm, which proved to be not so comforting in the 100 F and rather humid weather. So after discovering that the indoors swimming pool had just the right temperature we only went back to the outdoor pool to dry and sunbathe a bit (I got burned even with sunblock on me.). I then tried out the hot tub they had inside. When these folks say hot, apparently they mean HOT. At first I couldn't go inside the water. After 15 seconds, though, it just felt right. I even had to explain to the Portuguese guy that Hungary is more or less a hot spring nation and I'm more or less used to such hot water.
Once finished with our deep end exploration of the sports center (it will be my second or third home on campus) we again were faced with the problems that come along with a ghost town. We had to find some place to eat. "McDonald's ist einfach gut." we agreed. Even though neither of us could be considered a fan. After such a long day my order was "The biggest Coke you guys have." and just to make sure I don't dry out completely "And a tall Iced Coffee." I said. Well, the biggest Coke was around 40 oz (approx. 1 liter) and the tall iced coffee was another 20 oz. I almost drank both instantly. I guess humidity is just on the outside. It's a different kind of hot weather here than in California. I had no problem with temperature in the 100s.
At my permanent place (I can't wait to move in.) I was to meet a Swiss guy and ran into a Portuguese guy with whom we chatted on Facebook some time ago. So we decided that after forming a sort-of-European-alliance in this distant place to go around campus to see what we have. It a really big campus if toured on foot. I'll definitely have to buy at least a bicycle. But even if I have a bicycle, I'll still be locked inside campus because all the other places are miles away in every direction.
We then went inside the campus sports center. It's just fabulous. They have an Olympic size pool with diving ramps inside and they have a shallow pool on the outside, mainly occupied by children and adjacent family members charged with babysitting. The outside pool's water was rather warm, which proved to be not so comforting in the 100 F and rather humid weather. So after discovering that the indoors swimming pool had just the right temperature we only went back to the outdoor pool to dry and sunbathe a bit (I got burned even with sunblock on me.). I then tried out the hot tub they had inside. When these folks say hot, apparently they mean HOT. At first I couldn't go inside the water. After 15 seconds, though, it just felt right. I even had to explain to the Portuguese guy that Hungary is more or less a hot spring nation and I'm more or less used to such hot water.
Once finished with our deep end exploration of the sports center (it will be my second or third home on campus) we again were faced with the problems that come along with a ghost town. We had to find some place to eat. "McDonald's ist einfach gut." we agreed. Even though neither of us could be considered a fan. After such a long day my order was "The biggest Coke you guys have." and just to make sure I don't dry out completely "And a tall Iced Coffee." I said. Well, the biggest Coke was around 40 oz (approx. 1 liter) and the tall iced coffee was another 20 oz. I almost drank both instantly. I guess humidity is just on the outside. It's a different kind of hot weather here than in California. I had no problem with temperature in the 100s.
8/09/2008
Houston, here we go!
This morning, after an excessive farewell party in Davis, I boarded my flight from Sacramento to Houston (through LA) at 10.40am. The airline was more or less nice (Southwest Airlines). At first I was worried that I won't make the transfer, as the layover was only 50 minutes, and once I made it I started worrying that my luggage didn't make it. Surprisingly, it arrived together with me.
When I stepped off from the plane, I was fairly surprised how different the real Southern accent is from what I believed. I understood everyone in California perfectly but here I really need to focus. Let's just hope that I'll get over it in a couple of days.
So I sought out the shuttle I arranged for myself previously and as soon as I stepped out of the air conditioned space at the airport, I started sweating like hell. I saw some high temperatures in California, sometimes over 100 F (around 40 C) but this kind of hot was different kind of hot (and unfortunately not the kind of “hot” I often found in Davis at night, if you know what I mean). It's really humid and at first it's harder to breathe. The air conditioning is overkill, they seem to like the temperatures in refrigerators. They must be penguins who couldn't find a better spot.
Anyway, I arrived at the campus where I had some arrangements to secure temporary housing. I won't be able to move in to my permanent place until August 15, so I could either book a room at the campus hotel (amounting to $1,600 for 10 days) or accept a temporary room in “Moody Towers”. These guys must have known something. If you've seen any part of the series “Californication” you know who Hank Moody is. He's the 40 something trashy (and probably smelly) playboy type of “writer” whose life is completely messed up from top to bottom and lives in a sh*thole apartment. Now this apartment represents perfectly what “Moody Towers” looks like. I expected something like that but I had no clue that because of some water pipe renovation the whole building would be torn into pieces. But that's what it looks like. “Under construction” to be a bit euphemistic. Needless to say that nobody at the front desk seemed to know that I was coming so (luckily my Russian classmate arrived earlier) joint efforts had to be made to convince security that we supposedly have rooms booked for us.
When I finally got to floor 17 where my room is I thought it would be nice to grab some food. Since the whole campus looked like a ghost town, I was a bit scared that nothing will be open and I'll die in the middle of a metropolis due to the lack of nutrition. Luckily, the doorman or security guy or whatever showed me that there's a Pizza Hut just around the corner. So I decided to go over, sit down and feel as if I was in a civilized place. Fat chance. First, the pizza place “just around the corner” was a 15 minute walk. Actually it really was on the next corner but the corner itself was really far away. And there were no other corners until that one. I got to realize that there is just NO WAY to live in this city without a car. Even if I wanted to go down to work out I'd need to have a car to go to the other side of the street. Literally. And that's just campus. The highway I-45, which seemed like a nice little 2x2 lane highway on Google Earth has actually 6 lanes both ways. Crossing it is a hike in itself.
Also, I promised a Swiss classmate that I'll join them for some soccer tomorrow. (Me and soccer. Imagine. I pause here for a moment for you to laugh out loud.) I wanted to call the guy from my cellphone and instead of a ringtone a mechanical lady reminded me that I have only 5 dollars on my account. So what? By 10 cents a minute it should buy me 50 minutes. They didn't let me make an outgoing call until I refilled. (SMS worked fine.) Weird.
I also don't have Internet access. Not just in my room, practically there's no terminal I could get to. Each one would require me to use my student ID card, which I won't get until Monday. I'm locked in. Not just in the analogue world but also in the analogue campus due to the lack of adequate transportation.
Clearly there's lots to iron out. I expected that I won't be bored for this year but apparently every day brings a new and harder challenge.
Correction. I just managed to crack my way into the digital world. :)
8/06/2008
Do U.C.? It is elementary, my dear Watson.
Tuesday was another day for a field trip. These things are getting better by the end of the course. Perhaps they should do nothing more than organize a bunch of these fields trips. (Maybe they should start a travel agency or something.) We went to visit the famous U.C. Berkeley and its law school.
As I later found out, the usual procedure would have been that we have the last week of classes at U.C. Berkeley. However, the constant campus constructions occupied almost the whole law school (even in Davis, so we had our classes in a different building), so they thought there was no point in shipping us down in Berkeley. I think they should have. It's a nice place. Generally. But when we arrived the scene looked like it was transported over to California from the Soviet Union. Ugly 70s buildings, which posed as "modern architecture" at their time. They are ugly. Plain and simple. Luckily, this was not true for most of the campus.
We started with a tour of the campus, conducted by 3 gorgeous undergrad students. They were a bit intimidated by the fact that the time was long one when we were high school students, they usually give tours for would be Cal undergrads and their parents. We got to see the tourist attractions: the Bell Tower, the oldest building on campus and the library with its "Harry Potter Room" or "napping room"(it really looks like as if it was taken out from Hogwarts).
Our guide
said the bell tower
was a replica of what stands on Saint Mark Square in Venice
except that it was not made of bricks and it was 3 feet shorter (out of respect for the original). Well, as you may see from the pictures they might need to update their guide preparation materials. :)
Anyway, the campus was fantastic, even though the law school was under construction. Having seen some parts of it, I guess they had a pretty good reason for renovation. (I didn't dare taking pictures.)
We also learned a bunch of funny stories about both U.C. Berkeley (Cal, as they call it, because it was the original University of California, which later expanded to multiple campuses, such as Davis.)and their arch rival: Stanford. Football (the American version) is really popular here. In fact, they plant the school spirit by giving the best seats on each game to freshmen for free so that they get to become part of (and soaked with) football. Every year sometime in October the Big Game against Stanford takes place. At one time, Stanford students brought a huge axe and started cutting down some decorations in the stadium. Cal students were so outraged that after the game they started chasing Stanford to get the axe and eventually they got it. Now Stanford started chasing the Cals to get back the axe through San Francisco (it's quite a distance, I might add) and even had the police involved. The police closed down all way to ferries through the Bay (which was the way home for the Cals), so the Cals found a butcher shop and cut down the handle of the huge axe. One student hid the head under his jacket and a gorgeous female student distracted the posting police officer at on of the docks, so they managed to sneak back to campus. Next year Stanford stole the axe back. Then the Cals stole the axe back. This went on for a couple of years and then the Presidents of both universities agreed that whoever wins the Big Game each year gets to keep the axe. By the way, the story started 1899. The story in more detail at Berkeley's site. And in the spirit of "audiatur et altera pars": the Stanford version.
As I later found out, the usual procedure would have been that we have the last week of classes at U.C. Berkeley. However, the constant campus constructions occupied almost the whole law school (even in Davis, so we had our classes in a different building), so they thought there was no point in shipping us down in Berkeley. I think they should have. It's a nice place. Generally. But when we arrived the scene looked like it was transported over to California from the Soviet Union. Ugly 70s buildings, which posed as "modern architecture" at their time. They are ugly. Plain and simple. Luckily, this was not true for most of the campus.
We started with a tour of the campus, conducted by 3 gorgeous undergrad students. They were a bit intimidated by the fact that the time was long one when we were high school students, they usually give tours for would be Cal undergrads and their parents. We got to see the tourist attractions: the Bell Tower, the oldest building on campus and the library with its "Harry Potter Room" or "napping room"(it really looks like as if it was taken out from Hogwarts).
Our guide
said the bell tower
was a replica of what stands on Saint Mark Square in Venice
except that it was not made of bricks and it was 3 feet shorter (out of respect for the original). Well, as you may see from the pictures they might need to update their guide preparation materials. :)
Anyway, the campus was fantastic, even though the law school was under construction. Having seen some parts of it, I guess they had a pretty good reason for renovation. (I didn't dare taking pictures.)
We also learned a bunch of funny stories about both U.C. Berkeley (Cal, as they call it, because it was the original University of California, which later expanded to multiple campuses, such as Davis.)and their arch rival: Stanford. Football (the American version) is really popular here. In fact, they plant the school spirit by giving the best seats on each game to freshmen for free so that they get to become part of (and soaked with) football. Every year sometime in October the Big Game against Stanford takes place. At one time, Stanford students brought a huge axe and started cutting down some decorations in the stadium. Cal students were so outraged that after the game they started chasing Stanford to get the axe and eventually they got it. Now Stanford started chasing the Cals to get back the axe through San Francisco (it's quite a distance, I might add) and even had the police involved. The police closed down all way to ferries through the Bay (which was the way home for the Cals), so the Cals found a butcher shop and cut down the handle of the huge axe. One student hid the head under his jacket and a gorgeous female student distracted the posting police officer at on of the docks, so they managed to sneak back to campus. Next year Stanford stole the axe back. Then the Cals stole the axe back. This went on for a couple of years and then the Presidents of both universities agreed that whoever wins the Big Game each year gets to keep the axe. By the way, the story started 1899. The story in more detail at Berkeley's site. And in the spirit of "audiatur et altera pars": the Stanford version.
8/04/2008
Houston? They have a problem.
For those of you who are watching weather forecasts: I'm not in Houston, yet. I'll have a flight on Saturday and see if there's anything left of the city.
8/03/2008
"If you're going to San Francisco; Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair."
I didn't. It would have made me look silly. In fact, I haven't seen anyone wearing flowers in their hair in SFO.
We had a field trip to SFO on this Saturday (Aug 2). We were dropped off at Union Square and had the whole day to ourselves, no specific program was arranged for us. So, I thought I'd follow my classic way of exploring a city: simply walk around.
At first, I went in the "wrong" direction, as I immediately found the worst part of the city: what I like to call "Queens" after the Queens part of NYC. (I didn't dare to check out the Bronx in NYC.) People on the streets looked like junkies and hookers (or both) so I tried to find my way back to the financial district and hoped that it was not the only decent part of the city.
So, when I found my way back, I went on up North. Suddenly, signs started to change. At first, I though it was just the beers I had yesterday evening but no, the signs really became illegible to me. I pulled out my map and saw, I reached Chinatown. It's just like in Józsefváros, except that it's an actual district and it looks way better. But just like in Józsefváros, you can buy just about anything. People have their stuff out on the street and there's almost a street full of barbers and hairdressers.
Then after a while signs returned to normal. Or so I thought. The letters became familiar again, but I still could not make much sense of them. The Italian quarter. Every pole on the street had a mini Italian tricolor painted on it.
Still going North I bumped into the Bay, namely the famous Pier 39 with lots of seafood. Interestingly, there were like a hundred seals sunbathing on some wooden establishments made for their enjoyment. Skipped the tour to Alcatraz Island, it was clearly a tourist trap. Not that much into prisons anyway.
It was 2pm already so I started to inch back towards Union Square for he scheduled pickup (scheduled for 6.30pm). On the way back I stopped at a nice little restaurant in the Italian district and had the most delicious pasta in modern history. :) Only their Tiramisu was better.
In the financial center I finally got around to shop for a new pair of jeans (the old ones were really worn down) and imagine that in the middle SFO, I actually bought a pair for less than $7 (!).
Photos are uploaded to the Picasa storage area, and here's some other guy's video which really captures the atmosphere of the whole city.
8/01/2008
court battles
Just came back from court. The "Supreme Court" that is. :)
We had to argue on behalf of the "Santa Fe Independent School District" that their policy allowing for non-sectarian and non-proselytizing (I actually had to look up these words...) benedictions and invocations does not violate the Establishment Clause and the Free Speech Clause in the First Amendment. I had 5 minutes. Wasn't enough obviously. They said we did a good job, with my co-counsel, Mr Eishi Takahasi. Even though the "presiding judge" was biased against us, he used to try civil rights litigation cases arguing for the plaintiffs.
Good exercise, though.
We had to argue on behalf of the "Santa Fe Independent School District" that their policy allowing for non-sectarian and non-proselytizing (I actually had to look up these words...) benedictions and invocations does not violate the Establishment Clause and the Free Speech Clause in the First Amendment. I had 5 minutes. Wasn't enough obviously. They said we did a good job, with my co-counsel, Mr Eishi Takahasi. Even though the "presiding judge" was biased against us, he used to try civil rights litigation cases arguing for the plaintiffs.
Good exercise, though.
7/31/2008
court games
Finally I'm starting to get the hang of this whole course. Or maybe I like the recent classes and programs more than those we've started with.
Yesterday evening was really exciting: they conducted a mock trial for us, where a defendant was accused of murder, a professor was sitting as a judge, a real district attorney (i.e. prosecutor) and a defense attorney acted for in the People of California v Walker case.
Twelve were selected as jurors in a procedure very much resembling the actual jury selection process, it was shorter, however. Even so, based on one question, a juror was de-selected and the regular clumzy guy, who just entered the room almost half an hour late as usual, was urged to the jury box, so that he would be replacing the juror they just lost to the audience. Luckily, this clumzy guy couldn't understand the question the district attorney asked him (which was: would he be comfortable convicting a defendant on the basis of one eye-witness testimony, if that seemed reliable enough) so he also got de-selected.
BTW, the hearing took place in the moot court room in the law school building, which was about to be taken apart and renovated, so we were the last people who saw it in its old form.
Anyway, two of our group volunteered for the roles of two witnesses and after some pretrial motions we finally began to see how these things are supposed to go around here.
The interesting part was that those of you who are maniacs of some American legal tv series would probably agree with me that this whole thing was exactly like on television. The tension, the way the attorneys were spinning the words and possibly the truth it was all realistic. Needless to say that they have been presenting this case to similar groups for over 15 years, but unexpected developments still came up. Suddenly, one of the witnesses, police office Eddie Murphy, made a reference to his partner, Mel Gibson (picture see below), who allegedly handed him a drivers license identifying the victim. Now Mel Gibson (see below) was actually sitting as a juror, but only the audience knew it. The professors and attorneys had no clue why suddenly everyone burst out in a huge laugh. Nevertheless the trial went on.
After hearing the witnesses, we arrived at the (in)famous closing arguments. Interestingly, the district attorney made a really big fuss about the speech, he argued using both of his hands, yelling, pacing up and down, it was almost like Alan Shore. :) On the other side, the defense attorney was very calm, organized and suggestive, it was obvious that he has been around for quite a while. But he was really spinning the facts, trying to confuse the jury about the testimonies they heard, giving them at least two red herrings to point them in the wrong direction. On redirect the district attorney finally exposed the "S.O.D.D.I:" strategy followed by defense counsel: "Some other dude did it." Now that's something they would not say in Maine or Massachusetts.
Then, we were informed that this mock trial will be a little different from the real ones: the jury has to deliberate in public. Probably the attorneys benefited the most out of this. In any event, it was fun to see that a trial here is not that different from what I expected.
Today was M&A day. Two attorneys from Squire Sanders & Dempsey gave us an overview of an M&A transaction. They were really good, except that the Japanese senior associate lady had a really weird pronunciation, it took me almost an hour to get somewhat used to it. Nevertheless, I finally got to see how a whole deal is structured. I only used to do specific parts of it back home.
Tomorrow will be Supreme Court day, that is to say teams of four (divided into sub-teams of two) must argue a case before the "Supreme Court" in a moot court setting. Probably I should start reading what the case is about. No rush. I will be the last to speak around 4.40pm. :)
Yesterday evening was really exciting: they conducted a mock trial for us, where a defendant was accused of murder, a professor was sitting as a judge, a real district attorney (i.e. prosecutor) and a defense attorney acted for in the People of California v Walker case.
Twelve were selected as jurors in a procedure very much resembling the actual jury selection process, it was shorter, however. Even so, based on one question, a juror was de-selected and the regular clumzy guy, who just entered the room almost half an hour late as usual, was urged to the jury box, so that he would be replacing the juror they just lost to the audience. Luckily, this clumzy guy couldn't understand the question the district attorney asked him (which was: would he be comfortable convicting a defendant on the basis of one eye-witness testimony, if that seemed reliable enough) so he also got de-selected.
BTW, the hearing took place in the moot court room in the law school building, which was about to be taken apart and renovated, so we were the last people who saw it in its old form.
Anyway, two of our group volunteered for the roles of two witnesses and after some pretrial motions we finally began to see how these things are supposed to go around here.
The interesting part was that those of you who are maniacs of some American legal tv series would probably agree with me that this whole thing was exactly like on television. The tension, the way the attorneys were spinning the words and possibly the truth it was all realistic. Needless to say that they have been presenting this case to similar groups for over 15 years, but unexpected developments still came up. Suddenly, one of the witnesses, police office Eddie Murphy, made a reference to his partner, Mel Gibson (picture see below), who allegedly handed him a drivers license identifying the victim. Now Mel Gibson (see below) was actually sitting as a juror, but only the audience knew it. The professors and attorneys had no clue why suddenly everyone burst out in a huge laugh. Nevertheless the trial went on.
After hearing the witnesses, we arrived at the (in)famous closing arguments. Interestingly, the district attorney made a really big fuss about the speech, he argued using both of his hands, yelling, pacing up and down, it was almost like Alan Shore. :) On the other side, the defense attorney was very calm, organized and suggestive, it was obvious that he has been around for quite a while. But he was really spinning the facts, trying to confuse the jury about the testimonies they heard, giving them at least two red herrings to point them in the wrong direction. On redirect the district attorney finally exposed the "S.O.D.D.I:" strategy followed by defense counsel: "Some other dude did it." Now that's something they would not say in Maine or Massachusetts.
Then, we were informed that this mock trial will be a little different from the real ones: the jury has to deliberate in public. Probably the attorneys benefited the most out of this. In any event, it was fun to see that a trial here is not that different from what I expected.
Today was M&A day. Two attorneys from Squire Sanders & Dempsey gave us an overview of an M&A transaction. They were really good, except that the Japanese senior associate lady had a really weird pronunciation, it took me almost an hour to get somewhat used to it. Nevertheless, I finally got to see how a whole deal is structured. I only used to do specific parts of it back home.
Tomorrow will be Supreme Court day, that is to say teams of four (divided into sub-teams of two) must argue a case before the "Supreme Court" in a moot court setting. Probably I should start reading what the case is about. No rush. I will be the last to speak around 4.40pm. :)
7/30/2008
photos
Due to some limitations on Flickr I moved my photos to Picasaweb and also posted some additional ones:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akovi2/
http://picasaweb.google.com/akovi2/
7/27/2008
good girls go to heaven, bad girls go wherever they want...
... at least that's what a fellow student said tonight when we shared some wine (who happens to be a law professor at a European university).
However, that's not how she behaved on the other day of the weekend. She either wanted to pretend as if she was a "good girl", or she was simply tired. Actually I've ever seen her go really wild. At least in my standards. :)
So, a field trip was put together for all participants of the program: we visited Lake Tahoe (for those of you who speak Hungarian, it is to be pronounced "tahó". Imagine when I explained this to some people). It was a fairly long bus ride, took about 2.5 hrs, so we started early on Saturday. Needless to say what Friday night was about. (Quite surprisingly, most bars were literally empty, even the most frequented ones. But we managed to find the one place where all Davis people were squeezed together. It was alright but not what I would call a great night out. The interesting part was finding a place called Little Prague. The doorman was a Ukrainian guy, and since we had one Ukrainian with us, everything went pretty smoothly. Not to mention that finally I got to drink real BEER. Not that cr*p they sell here as beer. Each one is "light", so has no real substance in it.) Mel Gibson (pictured below) joined us for the trip despite his heavy participation in last nights events.
Now, Lake Tahoe, and even the road to it, was simply marvelous. I tried to upload some pictures to the Flickr address below (do you still remember?) but it rejected them with some error message, so now I'm looking for a different space for my photos. Someone on the bus described the place as Southern Norway in the summer: loads of hills, pine trees and scary altitudes.
When we got to the actual lake, which is like five times the size of Balaton (I guess) it was funny to realize we were no longer in California. We passed the state border and stopped in Nevada. Probably the casinos on the way should have tipped me off. :) The shore was really amazing, some of us did a little excursion (I found the water was kinda cold) exploring the surroundings. Some rented boats or jetskis, but I didn't feel like drying my hair after a swim with the wind at 80mph. I was really amazed that driving a 12 person motor boat did not require a license. Not exactly the safest approach but our guys were pretty excited about it.
Today was merely about relaxing. Should have done a lot of reading for next week but I just don't care right now. Even though I'll have a simulated exam on Tuesday.
However, that's not how she behaved on the other day of the weekend. She either wanted to pretend as if she was a "good girl", or she was simply tired. Actually I've ever seen her go really wild. At least in my standards. :)
So, a field trip was put together for all participants of the program: we visited Lake Tahoe (for those of you who speak Hungarian, it is to be pronounced "tahó". Imagine when I explained this to some people). It was a fairly long bus ride, took about 2.5 hrs, so we started early on Saturday. Needless to say what Friday night was about. (Quite surprisingly, most bars were literally empty, even the most frequented ones. But we managed to find the one place where all Davis people were squeezed together. It was alright but not what I would call a great night out. The interesting part was finding a place called Little Prague. The doorman was a Ukrainian guy, and since we had one Ukrainian with us, everything went pretty smoothly. Not to mention that finally I got to drink real BEER. Not that cr*p they sell here as beer. Each one is "light", so has no real substance in it.) Mel Gibson (pictured below) joined us for the trip despite his heavy participation in last nights events.
Now, Lake Tahoe, and even the road to it, was simply marvelous. I tried to upload some pictures to the Flickr address below (do you still remember?) but it rejected them with some error message, so now I'm looking for a different space for my photos. Someone on the bus described the place as Southern Norway in the summer: loads of hills, pine trees and scary altitudes.
When we got to the actual lake, which is like five times the size of Balaton (I guess) it was funny to realize we were no longer in California. We passed the state border and stopped in Nevada. Probably the casinos on the way should have tipped me off. :) The shore was really amazing, some of us did a little excursion (I found the water was kinda cold) exploring the surroundings. Some rented boats or jetskis, but I didn't feel like drying my hair after a swim with the wind at 80mph. I was really amazed that driving a 12 person motor boat did not require a license. Not exactly the safest approach but our guys were pretty excited about it.
Today was merely about relaxing. Should have done a lot of reading for next week but I just don't care right now. Even though I'll have a simulated exam on Tuesday.
7/25/2008
Save the Cheerleader
The last week started as a really good one from at least one perspective. Literally hundreds of cheerleaders crowded the campus because of some convention they have here and at first it seemed as a really amazing thing. They were almost exact replicas of the image you may get from a lot of movies: uniform jerseys, pony tails and generally good looking.
However. This now turned into a nightmare. They really are a crowd and block access to a lot of things, like creating very long lines in the dining hall, causing congestion on bicycle roads (!), even if they are not on the road, since a lot of people stop to watch them. Second, they shout all day long for no reason. It would be one thing if they yelled their rhymes during their practice sessions but whenever 15 or more of the same team step out from a building they start to chant their lines really loud. They scared me a couple of times when they suddenly appeared behind my back. Also, if I were to ignore the first two things and if you would think that a lot of us guys are planning to hit on them, YOU'RE WRONG. They are high school (or even junior high school) teams. None of them (except for their instructors) are over 18. And under California law, as in most of the states, they cannot validly consent to ... you know. Nobody in their right mind would want to risk a criminal trial for that.
I was to take some pictures but then thought it would be rude to do that even if their instructors would agree. So, here's one from another site that should reflect the right age, as well.
However. This now turned into a nightmare. They really are a crowd and block access to a lot of things, like creating very long lines in the dining hall, causing congestion on bicycle roads (!), even if they are not on the road, since a lot of people stop to watch them. Second, they shout all day long for no reason. It would be one thing if they yelled their rhymes during their practice sessions but whenever 15 or more of the same team step out from a building they start to chant their lines really loud. They scared me a couple of times when they suddenly appeared behind my back. Also, if I were to ignore the first two things and if you would think that a lot of us guys are planning to hit on them, YOU'RE WRONG. They are high school (or even junior high school) teams. None of them (except for their instructors) are over 18. And under California law, as in most of the states, they cannot validly consent to ... you know. Nobody in their right mind would want to risk a criminal trial for that.
I was to take some pictures but then thought it would be rude to do that even if their instructors would agree. So, here's one from another site that should reflect the right age, as well.
7/24/2008
Correction
Having regard to comments received made via private e-mail correspondence, the following corrections are in order as regards the latest post:
The so called "Treaty of Rome on human rights" is properly to be referred to as the European Convention on Human Rights, which was signed in Rome in the year 1950.
My appreciation goes to those who recognized the potential of confusion between this and the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Community.
The so called "Treaty of Rome on human rights" is properly to be referred to as the European Convention on Human Rights, which was signed in Rome in the year 1950.
My appreciation goes to those who recognized the potential of confusion between this and the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Community.
7/22/2008
to ID, or not to ID
The strangest thing happened yesterday. I was believed to be older than a professor. Now, this can obviously mean two things. But no, it had nothing to do with the fact that I don't exercise regularly. And I also did not gain that much new wrinkles. So, lets back up a little and start with the outset.
I got to know a lot of interesting people here in Davis. One happens to be a professor, who is lecturing at a mid-size university in Northern Norway even though she is from Finland. We heard that there was going to be a party last Sunday evening where some Asian guys promised to cook for us. Certainly I didn't want to appear without proper equipment, so I decided to go to "Rite-Aid", which so happens to be a pharmacy and a convenient store at the same time, to grab some drinks (ie. beer). Since this professor and I sometimes end up having dinner at the same table, and this evening was no exception, she joined me in my quest for drinkable beer (it is not as easy to find, as you'd imagine at first). So we both went to Rite-Aid. When I wanted to check out the case of beer (12 pcs) at the counter, they asked for some ID. They usually do this to make sure nobody under the age of 21 buys liquor. I flipped my wallet open and gave my Hungarian ID card. I explained that the date on it is my birthday and it was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away when I was 21. Much to my surprise the clerk then asked for Anna's ID even though she wasn't buying anything. She had no passport or ID on her, so I tried to save the situation by telling that I am the customer here, she just happens to be around. But the clerk insisted and I couldnt buy the stuff. I said what if we go and then I come back alone. The guy at the counter said I couldn't buy the beer because now he knows that Anna was with me and if he sold liqour to me without having seen her ID first, he might be in big trouble. So then we decided to fetch her passport, because otherwise I might never be able to go back to that store to pick up some booze. Ever. So when we went back, they still had my stuff at the counter, so we simply showed her passport. Another thing. A sign below the counter said they ask for ID if the purchaser is under 27. It was long since Anna was 27. I still don't know how old she is because I never bothered to ask but believe me, she doesn't look 37 to me. For sure.
Oh, I stil have the bulk of that beer stashed away in a hidden place because we cannot have alcohol in the housing complex. At least I don't have to bother with buying more booze for the next party.
Another more or less interesting thing was that the coordinators of our curriculum here gave s two group assignments. In one a group of 6 had to review the constitution of a fictious country, which so happened to be identical with the original US constitution, and had to propose some amendments to incorporate fundamental rights. The writing assignment was clearly constructed in a way that they wanted us to adopt the US amendments. You know what? I know better. Since my group was kind of inactive, I decided to do the whole thing myself and let them debate over it. So I skipped a not so interesting class, took 2.5 hrs and wrote a memo (some of you know how I usually do this). But instead of the US amendments, I proposed to adopt the relevant articles of the Treaty of Rome on human rights. At first I thought I would spice it up with some provisions of recent African constitutions but then passed on that. Next day when we were supposed to meet with the group, I just handed out the stuff. Imagine what happened. They added some paragraphs and blended the whole thing with the Japanese constitution (!) but you know how persuasive I can be sometimes (or is it rather stubborn?)... Anyway, the potential of debate about the death penalty and the right to bear arms was quickly eradicated. I wonder what the professors have to say about that. I mean the contents of the whole thing. If they ask, I'll just probably tell them that some (ie. whole Europe) may argue that it is nice that their constitution was the first, but it is slightly outdated in a number of questions. Too bad.
I got to know a lot of interesting people here in Davis. One happens to be a professor, who is lecturing at a mid-size university in Northern Norway even though she is from Finland. We heard that there was going to be a party last Sunday evening where some Asian guys promised to cook for us. Certainly I didn't want to appear without proper equipment, so I decided to go to "Rite-Aid", which so happens to be a pharmacy and a convenient store at the same time, to grab some drinks (ie. beer). Since this professor and I sometimes end up having dinner at the same table, and this evening was no exception, she joined me in my quest for drinkable beer (it is not as easy to find, as you'd imagine at first). So we both went to Rite-Aid. When I wanted to check out the case of beer (12 pcs) at the counter, they asked for some ID. They usually do this to make sure nobody under the age of 21 buys liquor. I flipped my wallet open and gave my Hungarian ID card. I explained that the date on it is my birthday and it was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away when I was 21. Much to my surprise the clerk then asked for Anna's ID even though she wasn't buying anything. She had no passport or ID on her, so I tried to save the situation by telling that I am the customer here, she just happens to be around. But the clerk insisted and I couldnt buy the stuff. I said what if we go and then I come back alone. The guy at the counter said I couldn't buy the beer because now he knows that Anna was with me and if he sold liqour to me without having seen her ID first, he might be in big trouble. So then we decided to fetch her passport, because otherwise I might never be able to go back to that store to pick up some booze. Ever. So when we went back, they still had my stuff at the counter, so we simply showed her passport. Another thing. A sign below the counter said they ask for ID if the purchaser is under 27. It was long since Anna was 27. I still don't know how old she is because I never bothered to ask but believe me, she doesn't look 37 to me. For sure.
Oh, I stil have the bulk of that beer stashed away in a hidden place because we cannot have alcohol in the housing complex. At least I don't have to bother with buying more booze for the next party.
Another more or less interesting thing was that the coordinators of our curriculum here gave s two group assignments. In one a group of 6 had to review the constitution of a fictious country, which so happened to be identical with the original US constitution, and had to propose some amendments to incorporate fundamental rights. The writing assignment was clearly constructed in a way that they wanted us to adopt the US amendments. You know what? I know better. Since my group was kind of inactive, I decided to do the whole thing myself and let them debate over it. So I skipped a not so interesting class, took 2.5 hrs and wrote a memo (some of you know how I usually do this). But instead of the US amendments, I proposed to adopt the relevant articles of the Treaty of Rome on human rights. At first I thought I would spice it up with some provisions of recent African constitutions but then passed on that. Next day when we were supposed to meet with the group, I just handed out the stuff. Imagine what happened. They added some paragraphs and blended the whole thing with the Japanese constitution (!) but you know how persuasive I can be sometimes (or is it rather stubborn?)... Anyway, the potential of debate about the death penalty and the right to bear arms was quickly eradicated. I wonder what the professors have to say about that. I mean the contents of the whole thing. If they ask, I'll just probably tell them that some (ie. whole Europe) may argue that it is nice that their constitution was the first, but it is slightly outdated in a number of questions. Too bad.
7/19/2008
Birds view
Probably a number of you guys are interested in seeing what the real California looks like. So you can browse through some photos I took in Davis both on campus and in the city. Have fun. :P
http://www.flickr.com/photos/akovi
http://www.flickr.com/photos/akovi
7/18/2008
Yolo County
I guess I'm starting to fall behind with this blog, but believe me I'm pretty busy with what I first thought would simply be a paid vacation in California. Couldn't be more wrong.
The city of Davis is in Yolo County, California, that's where the title comes from.
So, after chilling in NYC for some 1.5 days and meeting and excessively partying with awesome people (yes, I mean you Annie, Brie and Phil) through an ex-colleague of mine, I finally boarded my flight to San Francisco on Sunday morning. Ticket was not too expensive and I never heard about the airline so I didn't know what to expect. I guess they just gained one loyal customer and probably a lifelong fan at the same time. I went for a ticket on the economy class and guess what, they have leather seats on economy class. Each seat has its own built-in in-flight entertainment system where I could listen to music, watch videos or TV, and if I bothered I probably could have surfed the net as well on my laptop. They actually had electric outlets and ethernet connections to plug these stuff in. Even their in-flight safety video was cool, which normally is a resentful presentation by flight attendants (i.e. stewardesses). See for yourself.
So after flying on such a cool and laid back airline, because the whole atmosphere was like that, for like a fraction of the price per mile as MALÉV, I didn't know if things are about to change for the better or worse. I got off at San Francisco International Airport, where my pre-arrange airport minivan was waiting for me (and some other people as I learned later on) to drop me off in Davis, CA. I took us about 2 hrs to get there, so I again got to appreciate the size of this country. Having arrived to Davis, I went throught the registration for the Orientation in USA Law program and finaly got my key to the room.
I wasn't expecting a five-star hotel, but they could have done better. Anyway, I'm set to live in a dorm in Texas as well, so I might as well get used to it. It later turned out that originally we were supposed to be in a neighboring complete with its own swimming pool and jacuzzi in the middle. That evening there was a small informal reception so that the participants could meet slightly before the classes started. A lot of interesting and fun people are here. Probably it wouldn't be that much interesting to go into details about each of those I got to know but there are a truck load of people from Central and South America (mostly Brazil), there is a guy from the Ukraine, a couple of people from Switzerland, Germany, there's a guy from Amsterdam amongst others. This Dutch guy happens to work for Baker&McKenzie along with four other participants and I just got to know that Baker sponsors a program for some of their associates to come here. Also, there is a practicing judge from Japan. And there is this guy from El Salvador who cannot accept that my first name is not "Otello". So much for diversity.
We have a whole host of lectures, which occupy just about every minute we have of the 24-hour day. Most days we have classes running from 9am to 8pm. All in English, you can imagine who exhausting it is. Yesterday when we finally finished around 8.30pm, I asked the French girl if you would go for having the wine with rest of the gang as we planned earlier. Normally, asking this questions would not be a problem. But inadvertently I asked her in Hungarian. It took me 20 seconds to realize that she looks at me with a surprised face because I wasn't using the right language.
I just got back from a jacuzzi we were not supposed to use. But the Dutch guy got us into a neighboring building complex through some girl he just met. It was awesome. Not only because of the jacuzzi but also because there was a wine tasting party going on around the pool. :) Not surprisingly we soon made friends with two girls marketing wines in the US. Even though we brought some beer to the pool not knowing that this party was taking place there.
Oh, and another thing. The whole campus is riding bicycles so I guess my fitness problem is solved. We go everywhere by bicycle. Even the off-campus parts of the town are made bicycle friendly with desinated lanes and lots of bicycle roads. They say that there are more bicycles in Davis than people.
Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to roll around campus and take some pictures. When I do, you'll all get to see the essence.
I finally got around to get a US SIM card for my cellphone. I was amazed that the guy in the AT&T store could almost get me a Texas number even from California. Some jam, however, did not allow the transaction to go through, so I got a California (Davis) number for now. Probably will change it when I get to Texas.
The city of Davis is in Yolo County, California, that's where the title comes from.
So, after chilling in NYC for some 1.5 days and meeting and excessively partying with awesome people (yes, I mean you Annie, Brie and Phil) through an ex-colleague of mine, I finally boarded my flight to San Francisco on Sunday morning. Ticket was not too expensive and I never heard about the airline so I didn't know what to expect. I guess they just gained one loyal customer and probably a lifelong fan at the same time. I went for a ticket on the economy class and guess what, they have leather seats on economy class. Each seat has its own built-in in-flight entertainment system where I could listen to music, watch videos or TV, and if I bothered I probably could have surfed the net as well on my laptop. They actually had electric outlets and ethernet connections to plug these stuff in. Even their in-flight safety video was cool, which normally is a resentful presentation by flight attendants (i.e. stewardesses). See for yourself.
So after flying on such a cool and laid back airline, because the whole atmosphere was like that, for like a fraction of the price per mile as MALÉV, I didn't know if things are about to change for the better or worse. I got off at San Francisco International Airport, where my pre-arrange airport minivan was waiting for me (and some other people as I learned later on) to drop me off in Davis, CA. I took us about 2 hrs to get there, so I again got to appreciate the size of this country. Having arrived to Davis, I went throught the registration for the Orientation in USA Law program and finaly got my key to the room.
I wasn't expecting a five-star hotel, but they could have done better. Anyway, I'm set to live in a dorm in Texas as well, so I might as well get used to it. It later turned out that originally we were supposed to be in a neighboring complete with its own swimming pool and jacuzzi in the middle. That evening there was a small informal reception so that the participants could meet slightly before the classes started. A lot of interesting and fun people are here. Probably it wouldn't be that much interesting to go into details about each of those I got to know but there are a truck load of people from Central and South America (mostly Brazil), there is a guy from the Ukraine, a couple of people from Switzerland, Germany, there's a guy from Amsterdam amongst others. This Dutch guy happens to work for Baker&McKenzie along with four other participants and I just got to know that Baker sponsors a program for some of their associates to come here. Also, there is a practicing judge from Japan. And there is this guy from El Salvador who cannot accept that my first name is not "Otello". So much for diversity.
We have a whole host of lectures, which occupy just about every minute we have of the 24-hour day. Most days we have classes running from 9am to 8pm. All in English, you can imagine who exhausting it is. Yesterday when we finally finished around 8.30pm, I asked the French girl if you would go for having the wine with rest of the gang as we planned earlier. Normally, asking this questions would not be a problem. But inadvertently I asked her in Hungarian. It took me 20 seconds to realize that she looks at me with a surprised face because I wasn't using the right language.
I just got back from a jacuzzi we were not supposed to use. But the Dutch guy got us into a neighboring building complex through some girl he just met. It was awesome. Not only because of the jacuzzi but also because there was a wine tasting party going on around the pool. :) Not surprisingly we soon made friends with two girls marketing wines in the US. Even though we brought some beer to the pool not knowing that this party was taking place there.
Oh, and another thing. The whole campus is riding bicycles so I guess my fitness problem is solved. We go everywhere by bicycle. Even the off-campus parts of the town are made bicycle friendly with desinated lanes and lots of bicycle roads. They say that there are more bicycles in Davis than people.
Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to roll around campus and take some pictures. When I do, you'll all get to see the essence.
I finally got around to get a US SIM card for my cellphone. I was amazed that the guy in the AT&T store could almost get me a Texas number even from California. Some jam, however, did not allow the transaction to go through, so I got a California (Davis) number for now. Probably will change it when I get to Texas.
7/14/2008
Flashback of NYC
So, I promised some pictures from NYC. I had to fly all the way to San Francisco, take an hour-long drive towards Sacramento and go into a pharmacy to get new batteries for my camera. Well, here we go.The main form of transportation I used:
It really looks like in the movies. And this specific line, running all the way from outer Queens to almost the tip of Manhattan, was sometimes even scary. But of course nothing happened, even though sometimes I was the only white guy in the car, and possibly on the whole train.
But some of the stations had artwork the BKV and Zalakerámia should envy.
I think most of you recognize this lady. This was as close I could get to her, I simply did not have time to take a ferry. So I tried out the zooming function on my camera.
When I turned my back to the lady, there was this giant eagle.
I have no idea who the guy is in the turquoise shirt. This was the clearest shot I could get. This was the inscription on the base.I suppose all of you have seen similar photos. This is simply to prove I was there and there is always a crowd. I accidentally went there around 1am and the crowd was just ad big as in daylight. Apparently too many vampires live in NYC.
I was offered to go to this university instead of Houston. I hope Houston proves I should have no regrets...
New Yorkers should finally decide what their city is called. Or they should at least decide what name they put on their City Hall.
Yes, I almost went across it, but realized it was just too long to cross on foot.
For those of you who are Sex and The City fans, Park Ave really exists, West Side Manhattan really appears to be a fancy place to live and Madison Ave is packed with stores like this.
But they didn't seem to have the infamous four hundred dollar slippers.
Financial Times must be really big over here.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority also poses as the parents of all its underage users. In case the parents didn't teach this at home, the MTA comes to the rescue.
But sometimes they can be pretty generous. They simply let objects be. In fact, they require objects to be.
I found this on 5th Ave right next to Central Park. Couldn't make any sense of it. Perhaps children often run away to play in the middle of traffic. Or perhaps passengers in cars should not play this game insider the car.
The US has recently committed itself to participate in the reduction of greenhouse gases. It seems they found the perfect solution. A car that runs on milk instead of gasoline and requires 740 units for 100 miles. :)
Again, for those of you who are Sex and The City fans, this is a picture that often appeared in the series.
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