blog.zgraggen.name  All-day insanity or I have a blog too!

When I left the IFS my colleagues at work gave me tickets for a Pirates game. They called it “Kultur für Guido” but I am not sure if they meant the Baseball game experience or the “All You Can Eat (AYCE)” part.
Finally, the day arrived to use these Tickets. When we (David and I) entered the stadium we received a “Willie Stargell Collectible Plate” to honor one of the best Pirates players.

Dominik had done a good job; we had maybe the best places you can get in the AYCE section. The rest of the game is told very fast. Unfortunately the Pirates lost. But at least they did one homerun and therefore we saw some fireworks from a local firework company which uses these possibilities for tests. The funniest part of the whole evening was a wave which made about eight rounds in the stadium. This wave was started by some college guys und it lasted for several minutes (yes, it was a slow one).

For all those who are interested how much I could eat here is the list:
- A salad with farmer dressing.
- 2 Hamburgers
- A Hot Dog
- Tacos with cheese (it is more a spicy cream than cheese. Definitely not my favorite)
- Some Popcorn
- 1,5l of Soda
- No Ice Cream (They ran out, before I could start with the Ice cream )
=> Not too bad for 3 hours

THANK YOU IFS!!!

Firefly / Glow fly
While walking trough Pittsburgh at night David and I discovered several Fireflies. It was the first time in my life to see fireflies therefore it was a very exciting experience.
Unfortunately it is very hard to catch them on a picture =)

Iced Chai Tea
Last week I discovered that many food stores sell “Iced Chai Tea”. I drank chai tea a few times at goa parties in Switzerland. But last week I had my first iced one. And it was definitely not the last… I love it!

Geek Shirts
In Squirrelhill at the Walnut Street there is a fascinating book, shirt, fancy-stuff, geek shop which we discovered last week. Of course I had to buy some more geek shirts to expand my collection

Once more David was way faster then I in posting the news…

Yesterday, I attended the first pre-screening in my life. The Movie was called “The Great Buck Howard” and will not be shown in the movie theater before January 2009.
For more details read David’s post: http://pratchettfan.blogspot.com/2008/08/great-buck-howard-pre-screening.html

Everybody mad jokes about how I will look like when returning to Switzerland. Some even said they will not recognize me anymore because I will be so fat.
I arrived three weeks ago in America and I had already some serious weight changes. Most of you will expect now that I gained some kilos. You are wrong!
In the last three weeks I almost lost 5 Kg even though I ate “normal” American food. I really have to watch out, that I not lose any more weight.

I wonder how this will develop…

I was not so busy writing posts in the last few days but thanks to David you can read what we/he did:
International and Graduate Student Orientation @ CMU
The Fence and Tropic Thunder
Davids own Apartment

Yesterday I attended the first day of the MSE Orientation. After the general orientation from the CMU, I am now used to the information flood.

I would like to quote a few things our faculties told us during this orientation.
Mel Rosso-Lleopart:

There are two kinds of mentors:
- One which waits at the cliff: “You have to stop now, one step more and you will fall.”
- The other mentor will wait at the Bottom.

You can make a guess which kind of mentor we will have They told us it is okey to make mistakes, as long as we can explain what/why it went wrong.

General comment about the MSE program:

I do not know why people sign up for such a torturous program. I would not do that.

Dave Root:

You pay a lot of money for this education so come into class everyday it does not matter how sick or tired you are or if your dog just died.

Concerning the different cultural backgrounds and egos:

The brain is like a parachute, it works better when it is open!

Today, the five studio projects were presented to us (25 MSE Students). Afterwards we had to hand in our prioritized choices. Of course our advisor will make the final decision depending on the work experience and lot of other factors besides our choice. One very important thing is that we do something new otherwise it would be to easy =)

Besides the courses which start next week. We will also start a boot camp for our studio projects. That is a “new” idea to get started in a team project with people which have different background. It looks like I will be very busy in the upcoming semester…

Another leftover is the last book I read as preparation for America.

There are many useful tips in this book for traveling/studying/living abroad. I had to skip certain parts of the book because I did not address my concerns. I would recommend the book anyway to everyone who wants to go abroad for a longer time.

On Monday, I went to Kennywood a rollercoaster park nearby Pittsburgh. It is so near that I could travel there by bus which is free as CMU Student. Therefore, the only thing left to pay was the entrance fee. This park is comparable to the “Europa-Park” in Rust. The biggest difference is that it has open till 9 o’clock in the evening. I had a lot of fun the whole day.
As a side note I have to mention that a cheerleader competition took place in the park with loads of different teams. So besides the rollercoaster’s there were also good looking cheerleaders all over the place

Even thought I went alone, it was a great day and I had a lot of fun and I met many nice people. But queuing in a line alone could be boring so I was really glad I brought a book along. This is maybe a good tip for anybody going to entertainment parks on your own =)

Pictures can be found on my picasa webgallery.

It is been a while since I moved into my apartment but I think you are still interested in some details about it. After we received the keys on Wednesday David rented a car from Thursday to Sunday to go on a road trip to St. Louis. (I am sure he will write about it soon). But before he left we went together to IKEA, which is located about 16Km outside of Pittsburgh. There we bought all the small things needed for a comfortable living in an apartment. This starts with stuff for cleaning goes over to kitchen material and also things which makes living more comfortable such as a comforter and a nice pillow.
Back at the apartment we started cleaning, after more or less 4 hours David decided to leave for St. Louis. I carried on for another 2 hours. Over the weekend I invested another 4 to 5 hours of cleaning and organizing my apartment. Finally, I live now in my very first own apartment!
What a feeling

The apartment for David is not free yet so he is staying at my place. As soon as David has moved into his own apartment I will upload some more pictures.

btw: The reason I did not accompany David on his road trip were the third semester presentations from the current MSE students. They were so kind and invited me to attend. Now I have a better understanding what the faculty members will expect from us.

Today, David and I met our future landlord. After a negotiation marathon of 5 hours we finally got our keys to the apartment. I think we should have received 2 credit points for the arduous and long lasting negotiation with three winners at the end (the landlord and both of us). Just for information the landlord is about 84 years old and a little bit weird but in a nice way.
To calm down a little after that we took benefit of the free squash court with the free provided racquet from CMU. Thanks to David to explaining the rules to me (I was a squash-newbie). After this exhausting day we relaxed for 10 minutes in the spa pool (100° Fahrenheit) which is free as well.
Tomorrow we will rent a car to buy all the stuff we need.

Yesterday we paid the downpayment for our apartment. (David or I will write more about it as soon as we moved in…) We thought we could celebrate a little… So we planned to go to the Kennywood (Amusement Park)… But things were meant to come different then we had planned…
When I got up this morning for my morning run I noticed that it was raining (in contrary to the weather forecast). As much as I had wished it, the rain is not an excuse for not running :-). 30 minutes into the run it started to rain cats and dogs… so I relieved myself after 40min and enjoyed the shower.

But what should we do now? The Entertainment Park is not much fun when it is raining. So David and I decided to finish some administrative work and go to the Waterfront (Theater and lots of shopping) to celebrate at least a little. We started with a movie: Wanted featuring Angelina Jolie.

It is quite easy to describe: Nice action movie. After 3 hours of shopping (clothes and some other small stuff) we enjoyed another movie: WALL-E. The beginning was a little bit long winded because no one was speaking but after a while it was quite amusing.

Now we are back on campus and looking forward to move in tomorrow.

Some side notes:
Movie entry (each) 5$
Large Cup of coke 1.3l
With one refill that makes 2.6l of coke