I just came back from a dinner party. I met this Japanese guy in my philosophy class and he was really excited to be able to talk in Japanese with me. So he invited me right away to dinner chez soi. Laura and I came, and we met his French roommate and his Spanish friend. It was a great dinner (he's a good cook), but I also got into kind of a heated ( Read more... )

Follow me, won't you?, as I take you with me through my first day of school ( Read more... )

Yesterday I was finishing up a few errands around campus. After getting my student body card, the next thing on my list was to go to the library to get some books. I didn't know where it was so, naturally, I had to ask someone. Let me repeat that. I had to ask someone where the library was. In other words, I was finally going to be able to use one ( Read more... )

Soon after arriving in France, I went on a weekend trip to the Morbihan department, just south west of Rennes. Laura and I stayed at our friend Tangui's house ( Read more... )

T-minus 5 hours before leaving. I'm finally departing to France after weeks of delay, and yet in some ways, it still feels too soon. In other ways, I wish I were already there ( Read more... )

You may have heard about the controversy over Obama's speech to schools. He tells kids to stay in school and work hard but parents are worried that he is "trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas". A digg comment I found sums it up:

"You know who else said to stay in school and listen to parents?

Hitler."

This makes me mad. We need to regulate these guys. It might not be as bad as the other securitizations wall street was doing (many of which were instrumental in killing the economy), but it's the same type of thing. Basically, they want to buy insurance policies from people who are likely to die. Investors will continue paying the insurance ( Read more... )

The whole saga starts with me sending my application to the university of Rennes 1. On time. They lost it. In fact, I sent it with a tracking number, but they still couldn't find it. So I resent it (that is, I sent it again, though I resented doing it ( Read more... )

I saw "Up" with my family today. Even though I was already expecting great things from Pixar, it still surprised me in the best possible way. The wordless love story in the first half is just, wow. In fact, the whole first half is so economical and poetic that I don't think I've ever been so moved by an animation ( Read more... )

After finishing "The Future of Freedom" I find myself much more sympathetic to politicians.

If you guys care about health care reform, consider calling your representative. Or writing. It'll take 5 minutes. This thing might fail, but if it does at least we can say "I tried ( Read more... )