Our school paper does a section every week where they print funny quotes students have heard their profs say. This one was funny enough to get me to post.

“When I’m stressed, I eat more to increase my cross-sectional area.”

— Dr. Stienstra, explaining why McDonald’s is

Kudos if you get the joke. :)

Also, I'm graduating on May 30th! *blows confetti* I'll have a B.S. in biomedical engineering and a minor in Japanese. There'll be a live webcast of it here, if anyone's interested: http://www.rose-hulman.edu/Gradcast/

So hey, I still exist on LJ. Isn't that exciting. I actually read my friends list every day, but I usually find it repetitive to post things to LJ when I've already informed my friends about them over IM. Sorry for never uploading the rest of those Japan photos; if anyone really wants me to I can. >.>

Anyway, Nox prodded me into posting this quiz, so here you go.

My Political Views
I am a left moderate social libertarian
Left: 5.32, Libertarian: 2.33

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -7.03

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Culture War Stance
Score: -6.76

Political Spectrum Quiz


In other news, it's my birthday tomorrow. I'll be 22. :D

On July 27th I returned safely from my two-month stay in Japan. It was the culmination of two years of Japanese classes, and of my minor in the subject. Six weeks I spent in Kanazawa, taking classes at Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT) through the KIT-IJST program, while the last two weeks I spent traveling with seven of my Rose-Hulman classmates to Kyoto, Hiroshima/Miyajima Island, Himeji, Nara and finally Tokyo. While I'm glad to be back home, on the whole it was a very enlightening experience that gave me some more perspective to think about in the future. I took upwards of 700 photos while I was there, but I'm going to narrow them down and comment on them in sections, this being the first. Hope everyone enjoys. :>



In front of a Giant Panda at one of the JR stations in Tokyo

I feel so accomplished. I strapped my wifi antenna to my neighbor's clothesline and picked up one lone unencrypted signal with it at like 10 or 15% strength. I now have an apparently stable internet connection in my room. ^V^

For those not in the know, I flew into Tokyo two nights ago, and am now in my current destination, an apartment room in Kanazawa, Japan. I'll be staying here for the next six weeks going through an exchange program at Kanazawa Institute of Technology. And for the two weeks following, I'll be travelling across Japan before returning home in late July.

I'll update more later, but for now, message me to hear more about my antics.

Another seemingly accurate test. The questions seemed pretty well-worded and easy to answer.

I bought my first car today. ^V^


( It's a 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid. )

Whew...and Auspex is back. I've already talked to most of my friends about my experiences at Furry Weekend Atlanta, my first furry con, but for posterity's sake, I'll sum up my comments about it on here.

*prances and trills* Hey everyone, it's Aussy's birthday! I'm turning 20. ^V^

For those who aren't aware, I'll be heading to Furry Weekend Atlanta (my first fur con) on February 16-18 with my friends Sookta, Kiro and Rew. I'm so excited! Hopefully we'll have a nice celebration there to commemorate our birthdays (which all happen to be in February). :3

I shall write up an entry when I get back with experiences, photos and the like.

Oh, and by the way, my posts have been more sparse lately because I've come to prefer relating my life person-by-person individually and getting more feedback. As such, feel free to get a hold of me on AIM/YIM if we haven't talked in a while. I'd love to chat!

I was coming back from dinner tonight and saw some people loitering around, looking at the sky. I turned to look with them and saw an excellent picture opportunity.

Your Ideal Relationship is Serious Dating

You're not ready to go walking down the aisle. But you may be ready in a couple of years. You prefer to date one on one, with a commitment. And while chemistry is important, so is compatibility.

Yup, that seems about right.

In other news, for those who aren't aware, I'll be home from Dec. 23rd to Jan. 7th. Get a hold of me if you'd like to get together then.

Even though I've kept most of my friends up to date, I felt like I should update my journal for posterity's sake. I spent some time making it actually look good now, too, so check it out. ;) Thanksgiving break was - *thinks for a moment* - bittersweet and underwhelming. I had a number of events planned, both online and off, and most of them fell under my expectations or never happened. That's the way it goes, though. It seems like my predictions for the future can't keep up with the twists and turns in my personal life these days.

I had intended to meet two local furs around here, and for unintentional reasons on their end neither ended up really happening. Thanksgiving itself was pleasant and filling. My mom made some tasty cheesecake, the turkey was fantastic, and I got along rather well with my relatives this time. I beat Gilgamesh in FFXII, and I suppose that's worth mentioning. The highlight of my week had to be watching BSG season 3 with most of my old buds from high school. It was a joy to see all of them (and play a game of hacky sack with them) again in one place.

I spent quite some time chillaxing at Armand's apartment like I planned, but - and I know you're reading this, Armand. It's so difficult to reach you online now anyway - I can't help but feel rather drained there; I feel that our close friendship is growing rather distant, despite my continued attempts to support it. My requests for some physical comfort were met with apparent apathy, and the birthday gift of our fursonas I felt so strongly about was given relatively little enthusiasm.

Despite that, these recent events have made me proactive and confident about finding companions; I've been making a lot of really good ones online lately, ones that I can be honest and open with. I know I will never be satisfied emotionally until I can find someone who I can devote myself to. I have a lot of love to give, and it desperately wants to find a home. Thankfully, though, I get the feeling that hitting bumps in the road isn't something that upsets me nearly as much anymore. I have a much wider support structure now, and don't have to look far to be valued and value in return. The bottom line is opportunities are starting to line up for me, and I am fostering them as best as I know how. I just need to be patient (as I usually tell myself I am), and give them time to develop.

Anyhow, a new quarter at college is a new chance to begin again, and I'm trying to extend that to all facets of my life. I want to make it clear to all those I correspond with, old and new, that I appreciate their continued support. *smiles and bows*

Not at all surprising. For those who I haven't ranted about this to before, I am constantly amazed at how parents can give such boring, unoriginal names to their children, knowing full well they will run into many others with the same. I can come up with all sorts of names that would sound pleasant and stand alone. If I end up fathering a child in one way or another, I'm going to give them a name they can be proud of and be remembered by.

----

In other news:

"Date Type Bytes Sent Bytes Received
2006-10-18 1 day 3,119,559,800 164,537,115
2006-10-11 1 day 56,049,389 3,213,844,631
2006-10-04 1 day 58,889,738 3,221,440,109
2006-04-18 1 day 53,478,169 3,093,377,617


The current limit is 3 GB during a 24 hour period and 5 GB during a 72 hour period. You have exceeded these limits repeatedly which violates established network policy. Steps have been taken to directly limit your available bandwidth. Both your incoming and outgoing internet traffic have been limited to 56Kb/sec until 2006-10-25."

I even went to the trouble of spacing out my big downloads/uploads by nearly a week, and they threw in some petty violation from last school year. Fuck you, IAIT.

I finally remembered to bring my camera with me to lunch today. Weekends tend to have the worst food here, though, so don't be expecting much. :)

For just one dollar, our floor was treated tonight to the most ginormous sno cone I've ever had the pleasure of eating with a spoon. XD



I got tiger's blood, guava and lime. Since there's not much to compare it to in the picture, that's about five or six inches tall, and a four inch diameter.

I finally finished my first round of exams today. I'm fairly relieved about that; I can semi-relax for 2 or 3 weeks now. I couldn't help but notice all the sidewalk chalk around the quad today. It's that time of year again, when the school provides chalk for students to draw everywhere with. I thought I'd take some pictures to share with everyone before it all gets erased or smudged.

It's past 1:30, and I just got done with the homework I've been doing for the past seven and a half hours, after coming back from class during the day. x.x

I'm gonna get some sleep before I have to wake up again at 8 am for chem lab. :/