Panic starts to set in

I have 14 hours remaining on my Math final, and I have less than 72 hours remaining before I leave Swarthmore for 8 months. I have not started packing, I guess I am frightened of how that will work out.

Here's a song that I have come to like very much in the last day: Lykke Li - I'm Good, I'm Gone. The artist is Swedish (oh, all the good things that come out of Sweden), and she's awesome.

On aging rapidly

Hello there,

I have just one exam left to finish, and I am actively working on it at this very moment (erm, I *should be* working on it). It's the take-home for my Modern Algebra 2 seminar, which I have to turn in after 62 hours and 2 minutes. Fun stuff!

Yesterday Swarthmore's Daily Gazette, the online newspaper, featured one of my photos on their front page:



All these exams have made me remember a saying in Latvian. When the questions noisy children ask are too plenty, too noisy or just too inappropriate, the usual response is "Daudz gribēsi zināt, ātri vecs paliksi." (The more you want to know, the sooner you'll get old). I find this saying somewhat funny, especially since right now is the time when I suddenly realize there are so many questions to ask, and not enough time left before the exam. Questions like

"What exactly is the difference between とは限らない and わけではない?" (the short answer is that there is no difference. The long answer is that the nuance is too small to explain to a non-Japanese person)
"What is the advantage in the distinction between the conscious/unconsious?" (Doesn't have to care as much about unnecessary details that are taken care of by the unconscious.)
"How exactly do you arrive at a character table for a big group?" (Still trying to figure this one out.)
etc...

I truly want to know the answers to these questions, and, according to the saying, that means that I should be getting old soon. yeah...

Ok, back to my math. Only 61 hours and 40 minutes remaining.

Ice Hockey

Hello there!

So apparently there are some people who are reading this blog. I am, frankly, quite surprized.

I have my Japanese final tomorrow. I've been trying to study as hard as possible, and while doing that I have found many ways to procrastinate. One of which is following the scoresheet for the Latvia vs. Germany game at the Ice Hockey World Championships. You have to understand here that I am not very interested in Ice Hockey, or any kind of sports for that matter, but today's results suddenly seemed very interesting (remember, I have a Japanese final tomorrow). The game was cruicial for the Latvian team to get into quarter finals, but they lost with 3-5. That is not very surprizing, as the Latvian team usually finishes somewhere between 9th and 12th place. Maybe next year.

I was also shocked by the latest news on the inflation rate in Latvia. The yearly inflation rate for the month of April was .... 17.5%. Yes, 17.5%. Isn't that crazy? I remember last year people were freaking out about a 8-9% rate, but now it's 17%. I don't really know what to say, expcept I hope things start to get better soon.

Ok, back to Japanese.

Sniegkritis

One day I was talking to myself as usual, and realized that Latvian has no word for "snowfall". You can try to substitute that with "sniegputenis" (snowstorm), or you can say "snieg sniegs" (it is snowing), but neither of these have the precise meaning. "Sniegputenis" has a connotation of there actually being a snowstorm, while "snieg sniegs" is not a noun. So I propose the word "sniegkritis". Latvian already has "lapkritis" (leaf/falling - falling of the leaves), which describes the process in which tree leaves fall down. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to change leaves to snow.

A quick google search confirms that there are four documents online that use the word "sniegkritis", two of them Latvian, the other two Lithuanian. I think the time has come to unleash the real power of Latvian and start using "sniegkritis" as often as possible. For example:

"Man pietrūkst sniegkriša" (I miss snowfall).

flickr or Zooomr, which one?

Let's start off right away.

As a preparation for going abroad, I have been looking into ways of sharing my pictures with the world. Since I am connected to people through two entirely different online communities (draugiem.lv for anyone who knows me in Latvia, and Facebook for anyone who is a student at Swarthmore College, or knows me in any other way and is on Facebook) I figured that it would be too bothersome to upload all the pictures on both sites. Besides, this option is complicated by the fact that draugiem.lv asks Ls0.35 ($0.78) for any 35 pictures. It might not seem much, but when you have the possibility of taking tens of photos every day, that just does not work well.

I have tested flickr for almost a month now. It certainly seems like a very nice option at first. The upload tool for Windows is easy to use, the site looks nice, I can submit my photos of Swarthmore's campus to a special group so that instead of idly sitting in my photostream, other people get a chance to see them, etc. I wasn't even worried about the 100MB upload limit for every month. But then, after uploading another batch, I was surprized by an apparent limit of 200 pictures and 3 sets. Flickr tried to convince me that these photos were not deleted, I just wouldn't be able to see them. Really? Well, if this is true, I might as well assume that the photos might be deleted. That would not work.

So I considered the option of getting a Pro account, but I can't imagine paying any amount of money for a service online. I have made it a promise not to give my money to anything online if there is a free alternative available. Thus, I have embarked on the quest of finding the best and freest service available. What I am looking for a service that is free and applies the smallest amount of limitations possible.

One such option is Zooomr. It claims to be unlimited and free, and seems to mirror some of the features of flickr. It does not, as of yet, have a standalone upload application, and a quick Googling revealed that due to this project being run by a small amount of people, there is always some amount of bugs that have not been worked out yet. I am willing to suspend my scepticism for some amount of time to see if this really is a better option than paying $25.

On an exit, here is the result of 3 hours of procrastination during the final (and, undeniably, the most stressful) week of classes. A composite of approximately 15 images, showing Swarthmore College's Parrish Hall in all its beauty.

Intro

This is just the start. I am going abroad to Kyoto, Japan next semester, so I thought it would be a good idea to start writing a blog. Hope this works out well and I don't stop writing because of general laziness.

Enjoy!