Another turn on the hour glass - Good luck my friend

I met up with an old high school friend (on the net) a couple of days ago. First of all I think it's strange (well a good strange anyway), that the net can really bring people together, since we were never really good friends in high schools, but ever since I started using these chat programs (from those times using icq, and now msn), we started to keep in touch once in a while. I don't meet her on the net that often, and we don't always talk, maybe once in a few months or so, just enough to know how each other's lives are progressing.
The conversation started simply enough, it went something like this:

her: Your picture looks so mature. How are you doing?
me: ha ha ha, you mean I look old. I'm doing fine, been busy. And you?
her: No I meant that you face always looked younger in high school, now you just look like your age. I've also been busy.
me: It's been 7-8 years, ofcause I look older! So how are you doing?
her: I've been busy preparing to get married. So what are you, up to now?
me: You're getting married? Congratulations! Is the person in the photo your boyfriend?
her: Yes, that's him. We will be going back to Thailand soon, maybe we can meet up.
me: I'm in Japan right now.
her: You're in Japan? Where? Tokyo or Kyoto? What are you doing there?
me: Tokyo. I'm a research student now, I'll be taking the Phd entrance examination soon to get into the PhD program.
her: Why did you go there? You're going to take the PhD course?
me: Yeah first I thought I would continue in Sweden .......

me, her: blah, blah, blah,

her: I will be going to Japan soon, maybe we can meet up.
me: You're coming to Japan too?
her: Yeah, we're missionaries we travel to many places to .....
me (thinking) You're a missionary!?
me (what I actually said) : That's good then we can meet up, I can take you and your husband around Tokyo...

blah, blah, blah
.......

Yeah, as you can tell we haven't talked in a while. It's been at least half a year since I last talk to her I think, and I'm not even sure if she though I was still in Sweden or Thailand or not. In any case, the point here is that we were both supprized at how our lives have changed. Life goes by day by day, and you don't even notice the time passes until a conversation like this makes you realize how long it's been. I would have never ever even considered that one of my high school friends would be off to UK, getting married in the UK, become a missionary and travel the world (preaching? Or doing missionary stuff). It's a strange feeling really, and really wakes you up to how fast the time has passed, and how the streams of life can carry us same high school friends to different sides of the world doing totally different things. She probably would have never though I'd be in Japan for a PhD either after talking to her a year ago when I was in Sweden (well to tell you the truth, I didn't think so either). In any case, it was nice to meet her online, and get to know how she was doing.

Good luck to you my friend, very best wishes to your future marrage life. Who knows where you'll be or what I'll be doing next time we meet....

Please try it out - A simple system that can save a lot of chaos

In the case of the recent Sumatra earthquake, a lot of people has been trying to find out about their love one's where abouts and safty. This has become difficult due to the fact that no officialy recognized database is avalible for people to register and search for their loved ones that enables search and registeration and can handle a large traffic in a small time frame.

In fact, such a system already exists, and has been in research since 1995 though few know of it. For a period of one week starting January 17th the system is being put to test by having a large traffic access and register on the site. Please help out by testing the system.

http://www.iaa-alliance.net/en/activities/WWIAA-test.html

The Cafeteria

Our university has two cafeterias. The main cafeteria is located at some, what I’d say, a rather odd location, tucked away on one corner of the university’s inner building wings at the end of a small slope from the main entrance. The second, smaller one, is located right on the main building and is easily recognizable during lunch time as a major road ,which cuts in front of the main building, is always buzzing with students during lunch time. Both cafeterias are packed with students during lunch time, and has a capacity much lesser than what is needed. My own ,rather rough estimate, would say that the main cafeteria could hold no more than say 250 seats at any one time, and the second can hold probably no more than 150. This is way too small, and it’s rather annoying trying to find a seat during lunch time, as most of the time they are filled.

Due to the fact that I normally take my daily Japanese lessons near the main building, I always ate at the smaller cafeteria located at the main building. It’s a rather regular looking cafeteria, at first glance, with a slightly high ceiling, and square tables fitting four per table. It's not very big though, and looks more like a large room in the building converted into a cafeteria. The main cafeteria is divided right down the middle with a partial wall that extends ¾ th of the way in from the back of the cafeteria, and leaving a large area for where students buy their food - rice set on one side, and ramen (Japanese noodles) on the other. It’s rather annoying when you’ve got a limited lunch break, and can’t find a seat, and my Japanese studying class mates and I often find ourselves either buying ‘bento’ (Japanese lunch boxes) to eat elsewhere, or carry our cafeteria food out and eat on a near by grass slope when the sky is clear, and the sun warm.

I stay till quite late at night at the university most school days, and also take my dinner at the same cafeteria. The truth is that, the cafeteria food isn’t all that special, the price is not as cheap as you would expect, and the menus rather unchanging. Eating there can really be boring sometimes, except, that at night…

The cafeteria is much less congested during the night, and there are plenty of seats for everyone. To say the least, there are quite a few not so expensive small shops near the university serving quit decent food. However, besides being lazy to walk to those shops, there is another reason why I usually take my meals at the university. Located on one side of the right side of the cafeteria, stands a small piano. Every night, some student from some musical university would come, and recite some songs at our university cafeteria. Being a big fan of instrumental and classical music I find this addition a very pleasing one. With the hassle and bustles of the lunch atmosphere gone during the night, the cafeteria really becomes a pleasant place to dine. Coupled with an atmosphere in the cream color and ceiling of the cafeteria that, at least, I don’t notice during the day, it accents a slight feeling of warmth, hardly noticeable during lunch time when everyone is scavenging for a place to sit during noon time. Coming from the lab working late, I really enjoy myself eating, and listening to the piano during my dinner. This small addition to the cafeteria has made our cafeteria one of my favorite places to dine, despite it’s questionable pricing of food (for a university), and rather plain standard menu and plain flavored food. Dining with music really does relieve a lot of any stress in my work, and at least, just that 40-50 minutes at dinner time I really become relaxed by the sound of the music. It’s good to know that at least they did something right with this cafeteria, and I often wonder who had the idea to make this possible… Who ever it was, I must thank that person, for making our cafeteria that much more pleasant to dine at night….

Tsunami help Blog

Got it from a friend's blog, and passing it on, the tsunami help blog with a gathering of tsunami help info gathering

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/

A Happy New Year 2005?

Needless to say that this New Year has been different than the others. Though the country that I'm living in is one of the least affected by the tsunami (only a few Japanese were in the area at the time), celebration went on as usual, my home country was. Thailand has suffered great losses, in terms of casualties, and livelyhood. No doubt many people's lives will never be the same again. So it was a strange feeling, I didn't know weather to be happy or sad as we had our little new year gathering at the dorm, eating and watching TV. Sure the atmosphere was great, but there is something at the back of my mind that says that something was not right. Maybe it was guilt, I couldn't really put my finger on it.

But without even thinking why, I decided to call home. I don't think I'm one of those people who would usually think of my family at home in Thailand, while at a party, but I guess this time was different. Somehow I just wanted to talk to them, see how they are doing, know that they're okay, though I already knew they were. I didn't even think about it, it was instinctive. It even supprized myself.

New Years have always been a time that I usually thought about how things have been going on in the past year. It's another year already? That's always something I have always been prone to doing sometime after the initial celebration. A lot of things have happened this year for me. I've moved to a new country, met new people, many things have happened over the world. Japan had several earthquakes and typhoons, and Tsunami in Thailand, and the Asean and Indian ocean countries. Election next year in Thailand. Um, many things have not turned out as I have expected, I've felt joy and disappointment. I'm a year older, and life goes on...

A time to reflect? Well, you can reflect any time I guess, but at lest for me, a new year does have meaning. It's the end of a time unit, though abstract it may be.

I will visit a shrine tomorrow, as Japanese tradition goes. It should be an interesting experiance, a start to the new year. But maybe I won't be there really for the new year wish. But just the atmosphere, some more time to reflect, while I wait for my turn to stand in front of the shrine. What ever it is that I wish for tomorrow, once I get up on the stair in front of the wishing box, I hope it will make me understand myself a lot better about my choices of what is important, by seeing what I would think of at that moment. From that point on, I will hopefully understand a little more of myself, and what I should do to improve myself, weather it is phychological or physical.

A New Year to all, hopefully those of us who can be happy during this time, will appreciate it more, for those who can't..