Roughing It: What Happens Outside of Pittsburgh

I'm going to do something along the lines of combining two posts into one, since I didn't blog my adventure last week.

Well, on Tuesday, I traveled out to the mysterious boondocks of West Newton with some friends. Some friends who happen to be gun enthusiasts. (Did I ever tell you about that time that Khaled and I had a great long conversation about how dangerous America was because we had all these guns and Qatar doesn't?)

Anyway, we spent a good hour or so shooting guns. I got to shoot two different rifles, and like half a dozen pistols. Including one that belched fire!

Well, that weekend (this last weekend), I joined those guys and about ten other people headed to the Finger Lakes for some camping and wine tasting.

Yeah, a bit of a juxtaposition, waking up outside, not showering, then trying to be all high class and drinking wine and such... but it was awesome.


We had a fire, and greasy bacon, and delicious breakfasts, and a little hike to the lake. A friend of a friend is from somewhere with really cold water, so when he tested the lake, he decided to take off some clothes and hop in...


Well, the water was really warm!


But now I'm back to being a "city" girl again. Which means eating at cute little health food joints and walking to the library.


Speaking of books and libraries, I can't help but give a shout-out to the latest book I just finished. It was "The Ghost Map", by Steven Johnson, and was a fascinating look at the way that cholera spread in London in the 1850s. But, more than that, it was a full look into the effects of urbanization. For example, urban centers have a much lower birthrate than rural areas. And a lot of people are moving to urban centers. (He was describing how eco-friendly they were, compared to how many people are there.) But his thought was that in 2050, when there is an estimate of 80% of the population living in urban areas and the population being at 8 billion... that is when our population will start to go down. Fascinating.


Did I mention that he also predicted H1N1? Yeah, check out the book.

363: Recollecting the Semester Abroad Blog

As many of you might know from my Facebook update, I recently printed out 363 pictures from my months abroad.

And since I am the math fiend I am, I'm going to do some statistics about my semester abroad.


My blog during the semester had 459 pictures on it. There were 172 posts spanning from November 18, 2009 through May 28th, 2010. There were posts daily from December 29 to that May 28. That's just shy of five months. (I mean, it's nothing compared to my sister who has written in her journal daily since, like, 6th grade. And I'm not even exaggerating that much. And she's out of college now. She has been journalling daily for, like, nearly half her life.)

Anyway, I wanted to do a word count analysis, but Google Analytics had this to share. It's a pdf of all of the site visits, where they come from (mostly the US, but Qatar is in second!), and how many from Dec. to May.  (That's right, over 2,420 visits. 2,421 to be exact.) 

My most popular posts were Don't You Wish You Had A Dial, or Day 21, I'd Like to Buy That, or Day 12, and Keep Away, or Day 88. Now, why those posts had more views, I can only venture some guesses (the first referenced a Kuwaiti politician and a new restaurant people want reviews on, the second and third I think I put a links to on Facebook).


Search terms was another interesting one that Analytics put in a different report. Now, who in the world searched "corriene's semester abroad" 6 times and kept finding me? I guess the good news is that "corrine's semester abroad" (7) eventually got them to me.


Now, what am I going to do with all this data? Well, for the most part, I think it is interesting, but that's all it is going to do, is be interesting.


For some of my blogposts, however, some of the memorable and well-written days, they will be printed out and put in a scrapbook. That's were the 363 pictures come into play.


If you want to see some of the pictures I chose, you can go to my album. They aren't all there... so I guess sometime after this summer is over, you can ask to see my scrapbook to see them.


By the way, anyone seen a small herd of large white envelopes? It appears that my best laid plan of sending papers home through inter-campus mail (yes, it works campus-to-campus too!) might have been thwarted by mail forwarding from Pittsburgh back to Doha. They are currently... in the ether.

Go Research!: Back in the Burgh

I am working with an organization over the summer called the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. I'm downtown, at the historic Frick Building, working with Carnegie Learning on doing studies with their math-learning software.

And I'm back in the same dorm I was during freshman and sophomore year. And I'm pretty sure the rooms got smaller.

It's been a good first week back here, with some rain, some sun, some friends, some art... the Three Rivers Art Festival is going on, and I've seen a few exhibits in my time downtown.

So, a good start to the summer. Been busy and doesn't look like it is going to slow down anytime soon. Which is how I love it.

Guilty!: Jury Duty

I spent two of my precious days at home doing jury duty. They drew me about two years ago, however, each time I returned the card saying that I was away at school. This time, they denied the request and told me to report on July 21st. Or else.

Well, since I'm currently in Pittsburgh, that didn't quite work for me. So my parents kindly called, explaining the situation, and they said for me to report on Tuesday, the first day of the work week (since Monday was Memorial Day).

So I go in on Tuesday, and I'm called in the group heading over to the municipal court next door (instead of the county court).

Well, the trial, with its six witnesses (yeah, it was an actual criminal trial with all the trimmings), lasted all of Tuesday, and we finally went into deliberations Wednesday at about 3:30pm.

The defendant had been arrested for reckless driving and 4th degree assault (meaning that he didn't necessarily injure the guy, but he "intentionally touched with intent to harm or offend"). All of the stories basically lined up. A crashed car because he couldn't make a corner? Yup, guilty of reckless driving. Even if he might have been provoked, he had a choice to pull over.

And the assault? The victim of the assault had had a cellphone kicked out of his hand, with the foot possibly continuing up to kick his forehead too. Well, one juror wasn't sure that a kick that might have been aimed for the cellphone and happened to kick his hand was an "intentional touching" of his body. I mean, the defendant could have accidentally hit his hand... according to her.

The rest of us didn't have the same feeling, but it turned into a hung jury.

If you want more details of the whole situation (that involved racial tensions, a BMW, and a Risk game), strike up a conversation sometime. But that was my civic duty, so I can remain a citizen of Washington State. And with no income tax, who wouldn't?