Just a quick update for those of you who care. I'm on a parabolic flight campaign team and we are submitting an experiment to be flown on an airplane in zero gravity. If we are accepted we get to fly on it at the end of April.
Here's the website if you are interested: www.estec.esa.int/outreach/parabolic/index.html

Late Merry Christmas

Sorry, I haven't written much lately, we've been pretty busy.
Christmas we had our usual yummy breakfast and I opened my stocking - Santa found me here :) Then we decided to go for a drive and ended up in Baden-Baden in Germany. Nothing was open, but we did get into a coffee shop for a hot chocolate to warm up. Not a very exciting day.
Boxing Day we tried to go shopping in Strasbourg, but absolutely nothing is open. Apparently, it's the exact opposite of Boxing Day at home, nobody buys anything. So we just hung out and walked around the Marche de Noel as some of it was still open. We then went out for pizza, courtesy of Fabio. It was a nice dinner and yummy pizza. I think my parent's know that he is crazy but have at least seen that's he's a nice guy and not a pyschopath!
Saturday we got up early and braved Auchan at 9 in the morning. It wasn't so bad, we could actually park! I thought that the first day it was open in 3 days it would be crazy, but not so bad early in the morning. We were going to go into town to do some shopping, but by that point I was exhausted, so we sat around here until I had to go to work at 4. I went and worked the Irish Times for a few hours. It was fun again and lots of people I knew were in. My parents came in for a pint just before I got off work too and then we took the tram home together.
Today we got up at 4am to drive to Frankfurt to pick up my sister. I slept most of the way so it was all good, but I feel for my dad who drove 2 hours there, and turned around and drove 2 hours back. But Tina made it safe and sound and is resting now. I work again at 4 today and I think they will go into town to look around the market.
Tomorrow we are off to Switzerland - Lucerne and Basel I think.
These holidays are going by super fast - my parents leave in 3 days! Then just me and Tina for a few days, then she takes off and leaves me here all by myself to start school again. It will feel really lonely once everybody is gone. So Tyler, hurry up and get here!
Thanks to everyone for all the presents and cards - it's great to get surprises! I hope everyone had a very good Christmas and is still enjoying the holidays. Happy New Year's to everyone (in case I'm not back on before Tina and I head to Paris). Miss you all!

Merry Christmas Eve

So sorry to my Canadian/American/European/etc. friends, I have not written much lately. My parent's arrived safely Saturday night, although I didn't make it home in time to greet them. Unfortunately, they had to honk the horn outside and wake Fabio up to let them in. I was over at Mark's drinking "Special Pizza" wine and playing a horrible card game where people kept putting burnt cork marks all over my face. Anyways, I thought my parents were on a later flight than they were, so that was half the problem. But they made it, and Fabio didn't even scare them away.
On Sunday we slept in a little and then headed into town to walk around Strasbourg. We walked around the Marche de Noel, looked in the Cathedral and had some lunch. It was very chilly and windy outside. We had some yummy chicken for dinner at home and my parents met Will before he took off to Paris to meet his family. I had started to feel not so good at this point so we crashed and went to bed.
Monday, I felt even crappier, I was running a low-grade fever and had some serious stomach pains. But since I am so tough, we decided we would go on a road-trip to Germany (very far away). We drove through the Black Forest and ate some Black Forest cake, yummy. We went to Triberg, where they make tons of cool clocks. After going in about 5 stores, my parents decided to buy a cuckoo clock from an older German couple who ran a little shop. Pretty cool. And we were in the cutest little German town, it was snowing, it was perfect: winter wonder land. But I still felt pretty crappy.
We drove back to Strasbourg, ate dinner, and then decided to go see Lord of the Rings. We went to this massive Silver City type theatre that had 30 theatres!!!! It was crazy big and only cost 8 euros, or 4.5 if you are a student. Tres cool. Anyways, the movie was wicked, and long and I had my fever back by the end of it, but it was all good.
Tuesday I slept in like crazy and we didn't leave the house until at least noon. Ahh, vacation is great. We were attempting to find the IBM building in town for my dad to go into work for a bit, but we got lost and found IKEA instead. That was cool. But alas, we had to leave and eventually found IBM and left my dad there. My mum and I wandered around town for a while, while he slaved away at work. We made reservations at a cute little restaurant by the Cathedral to have Christmas Eve dinner at (tonight 7pm). Then we headed south, bought groceries at a new giant supermarket (Rond Point, I think is better and cheaper than Auchan, but unfortunately I need a car to get there), and found the Harley Davidson dealership, of course. My dad had to buy a t-shirt and I stood there drooling over some of the very cool Buell's. Some very nice paint jobs on some very nice bikes. However, but that time I wanted to die but I still had to eat dinner and work at 9pm until 2:30am. I ate something, slept for an hour and let my dad drive me to my doom. However, it was super dead at work and I was working along side fellow ISUer and Canadian Kelly so it went well. I basically stood around all night eating nachos and drinking a few drinks with lots of water. Not bad. Except my dad had to get up at 2am to come and pick me up - thanks dad!
Today I slept until noon to recover from last night, but I felt 100x better when I woke up. I was actually hungry and could eat food!!! And no fever, wicked! So we headed out to explore Alsace. We went to Mt. Ste. Odile, which is where we went as a class earlier this year for a field trip. And we drove through and explored some of the smaller older towns in the area. But it was damn cold. I was happy to get back to my warm house.
We are going out for our Christmas Eve dinner now, and I'm hoping that it will be good. It involves duck and traditional items, so it could be a little scary. But I hoping for tasty.
That's all for now, sorry it's so long.
Merry Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas Everyone if I don't get a chance to say it personally!!!!

DONE!!!

Well the exams are done and now I am at school at 3:30 in the afternoon and a tad wasted. I don't know how that happened as I only had two glasses of wine, but I'm super hot and it's a little hard to type. It's probably a combo of stress and not enough food though. But I'm glad it's all over and that my school feeds me wine after exams, does yours do that???
Anyways, off to see Lord of the Rings this afternoon and then some more drinking later tonight. Rents get here tomorrow so I'm pretty excited.
I'll update this later when somethine more exciting than exams has happened!!
PO

Boring

So my life has been absolutely boring the last few days. I haven't left the house since Monday afternoon when I went to school. I've been studying and working hard so that I can kick these two exams' asses. I've got a 4 hour 14 question exam tomorrow afternoon and a 4 hour one essay question exam friday morning. But then my rents get here and hopefully they will be bearing presents.
So I'm back to being boring but should party hard Friday night.

PS I hate that stupid dog next door, I think I may kill him.

Congratulations!

This is an official congratulations to Tina for stopping smoking. It's a good thing, or I would have to kicked her ass eventually. I wanted to make it official so that everyone knows and can be proud of her for quitting and kick her ass for me if she starts again.

Also, congrats to Ty for finally being done his horrid and hated degree! Well wicked.

ISU Christmas Party

So last night was the ISU Christmas Party. We were all absolutely exhausted after finishing our team project work (see below). I just felt like eating dinner and going home to sleep. But since it was a Christmas party we had to play all those silly games etc. It was actually pretty fun and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We had some of the fairly older professor's up there dancing with us. Prof Tolyarenko was up there full out doing the Jail House Rock. Man, I can't even move like that and I'm only 23! It was pretty crazy. But eventually the music started to really suck and I realized how tired I really was and how much studying I had to get done today before heading off to work again. (and you can see how much studying I'm getting done today, it's noon and I haven't even started yet, oh well)
It was a good end to our team projects, but unfortunately we now all have to get our asses in gear for the next 5 days, and then we can really party!
Happy Christmas All!

Thank you for the cards and presents Val and Rhiannon!!!!

Team Project - Human Mission to Europa & Titan

So we handed in our 200 page literature review on time Thursday morning. It was a lot of work and the editing team did a great job putting it together AND getting it in on time. We also were successful in our hour long presentation on Friday afternoon. I was a presenter for Human Aspects, and that's why I had to be at school so freaking early Thursday morning (see below). But overall our presentation was very professional and motivational. Surprisingly enough we didn't get nailed with extremely hard questions in the 30 minutes question period. We did pretty well. Go TP2!!!! Well done!

I'm now a bar star...

...Well, not really. But I had my first shift at the Irish Times on Wednesday night. I was waitressing. It was pretty fun, but the smoke just about killed me. Man, I love BC! Long live the no smoking laws. It took me forever to get to sleep that night as I was just breathing in smoke from my hair. I'll have to shower every night after getting home or I won't be able to stand it. The only problem was that it was 3am and I was at Bavs' house and I had to be at school at 9am. I just wanted to sleep. Oh and ya, I was fighting the flu at the moment too. Good times, good times.
But all in all, it's a good place to work. It's very international and the people are friendly. I even met a few Canadians and a Swedish guy who was moving to Canada in 2 days to be with his girlfriend, ahhh.
So, I am a working girl again - what was that? Almost 4 months without a job? Craziness! That's the most time I've had off since I was 14!

Travel in Europe

So I always wondered why people who lived in Europe didn't travel all the time because everything is so close. And the train system is so great and there are cheap airlines.
Oh was I wrong.
It is a nightmare to get almost anywhere in Europe, and you can be sure it won't be cheap. Even if you get a cheap Easyjet or Ryanair flight, it is impossible or very expensive to get to the airport that they fly out of. As well, trains are rarely on time and often you get charged a random supplement on the train!
I had an interesting weekend in Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Baden-Baden, London, and Bath - read below:

Luxembourg & England

So Friday we drove on a miniature bus for three hours to Luxembourg to visit SES Global, an enormous satellite and telecommunications company. If any of you have satellite, it is possible that you get it through SES Americom of SES Astra.
It was quite the crappy ride on the way there. I was sitting beside Femi, who is well over 6 feet tall, and he was having some major pain issues with the lack of room for his legs. I was even uncomfortable. I guess they just don't know how to make large vehicles here.
So once we arrived, we were welcomed into a crazy fancy room with drinks, coffee etc and handed security badges. The CEO, yes CEO, gave us a presentation about the company that lasted a good hour and a half. I even managed to stay awake the whole time. Then we had a nice little lunch sponsored by the company with little sandwiches and cute tasty desserts. After that we got to go outside and check out all the satellites - crazy. There were at least twenty 10 m dishes and probably quite a bit more. We got to check out the control room where the people can sit there and watch all the TV they want on a crazy wall. It was pretty cool.
Unfortunately though, we were running behind schedule and I had to be back in Strasbourg to catch a train at 7:40pm. It was a three hour ride and we hadn't left by 4:20 so I was starting to get a little concerned. So trusty Jill (who goes on all our field trips with us) forced people to stop asking questions and herded us into the bus. It was an interesting ride back as I wasn't sure if I was going to make it.
But I convinced Jill to drop me off at the train station, and I had about 10 minutes to spare, which is plenty in my books. So I bought the 8 euro ticket and double checked that I didn't need reservations. However, after I changed trains on my way to Baden Baden, I got nailed with an 11 euro supplement fee on a 15 minute train ride - sucky!!! Once I got to the train station in Baden Baden, I had to figure out how to get to the airport. I knew that Ryanair had a taxi/shuttle to the airport, but unfortunately I didn't know that I had to call ahead and book it. So I had to take a regular taxi which cost 25 euros. I was thinking that this was turning out to be a very expensive weekend.
I got to the airport in time to walk through security and wait no more than 15 minutes to board my packed Ryanair plane to London. The flight was all right, it actually left on time!! But I was super exhausted from all the travelling during the day, but it wasn't over yet. Once I reached Stansted, I of course had to take the 45 minute Stansted Express into London. I was smart and called my cousin Mark once I got to Stansted and left a message on his phone saying that I would be on the 11:30pm train. (The phones in Stansted take euros!!! I thought that was really cool and lucky for me as I only had British notes) Mark had been sending me text messages saying to go to his house as he was out partying and he would meet me there later. Well, first of all, he was sending them to my Canadian number that no longer works, and second of all, even if he had sent them to my French number, my stupid French phone had no service there!!! So I was almost in trouble, but it worked out as Mark was waiting for me at Stansted, although a little drunk. We took a taxi to his flat and I crashed, while he went back out to try and get into a club, but ended up going to McDonald's instead.
He got up early and drove me to the Paddington train station on the other side of London (he's great, he always gets up early to drive me places, I felt so bad again). So I was on the 8:15am train to Bath. I arrived only 15 minutes late (amazing for British rail) and walked to my dad's cousin Naomi's in the damn cold. I got to catch up with her and her husband Phil as well as their toddler Oliver, who has grown quite a bit since May. I went out for lunch with Naomi and had a delicious meal (hashbrowns, bacon, sausage, baked beans, toast, etc!!!) We then wandered around the Christmas market that they also have there. It was pretty cool too but ended this weekend. I bought a cool belly button ring, but succeeded in losing it somewhere between there and London. The rest of my time in Bath I just chilled with them and played with Oliver, it was good fun.
I took the 6:22pm train back to London and proceeded to find a pub that Mark had described to me over the phone. The Bedford somewhere in south London (zone 3 - I've never taken the tube to zone 3). I got off the tube and thought "what the hell kinda sketchy area has he got me coming to?" as there were cops everywhere. But I found the pub safely and eventually realized he was upstairs in the comedy part. It was a good show and I even got some of the crazy British jokes. I had a good amount of beer during the show and proceeded to have a good deal of everything else after the show when the comedy club turned into a dance floor club.
We had a most excellent night, and I can even remember some of it. I remember seeing a fox in a parking lot on the way to find a taxi, which I thought was totally crazy. I remember learning some dirty British words, but unfortunately I can't remember any of it now. Ahh, that's alcohol for you.
So I spent all of the next day on Mark's couch, watching British videos and TV as I couldn't do anything else. I was pretty damn hungover. But hey, that's what I came for, right? I didn't even get out shopping as I had hoped to. I can't believe I wasted a Sunday when stores where actually open, crashing on a couch, oh well!
So I eventually rolled off the couch and made it to the train station to go back to Stansted Airport. We gave ourselves plenty of time as my last experience trying to get to Stansted airport was horrific. The train was on time, but the line up to check in was crazy. I barely had enough time to run to my plane, and then stupidly got stuck in security with scissors! I had the sneaking suspicion that I had them in my make up bag, but since I hadn't been stopped on the way to London, I was pretty sure that I must not have had them. Oh no, I was wrong. So then the security lady had to go through all my stuff for like 10 minutes. I ended up having to run to the gate, still hungover, eating my sandwich (first food of the day) at the same time. The TV's said my plane was boarding so I ran like hell. However - once I got there they kindly told us that the plane had not yet arrived from it's origin and would not likely arrive for over an hour. Now how come they didn't know that earlier?? How the hell did they say it was boarding when the stupid plane wasn't even here??? I was very confused, but at least I had run off much of my hangover. So I called home and studied for an hour and a half before the plane arrived and we could board it. The pilot got us there in 1 hour instead of 1.5, which was super nice. But by that time it was 11pm and I was super tired. And poor Ollie, who nicely agreed to pick me up as no trains ran back to Strasbourg after 9. What sucks even more is the two of my professors were on the plane and were driving back to Strasbourg. If only I had know before I got on the plane I could have called Ollie and told him not to come. Oh well. He didn't seem too angry, even though I didn't bring him Irn Bru. But hey, he went to IKEA without me this weekend :)
So all in all, it was a great weekend, but I am paying for it now. I'm fighting a bad cold due to lack of sleep and exhaustion. And tomorrow night I get to work until 2:30am at a pub, fun for me!!

Good news

Sorry I forgot to mention that my friend Nick was successful in his return to the US. He got the moon rock there safely and his girlfriend accepted the rock that he gave her. It's a cute engagement story if anyone wants to read it. Go to Nick's blog.

Marche Noel

Wow, the Marche Noel (Christmas Market) here is so cool. I went into Strasbourg after school today to take my leather pants to get fixed (whoops - see Halloween). Anyways, after dropping them off I decided to wander around some more and check out all the stuff that's going on. I went to several markets all over downtown. They sell everything from spices to hot wine to children's toys to crepes to santa hats etc. etc. It's pretty cool, but basically a tourist trap. I could barely walk by the stalls because of all the people, and it's only Wednesday night! Imagine the chaos on a Saturday, or closer to Christmas. I think Christmas in Strasbourg may be a lot like Summer in Victoria - you don't go downtown! However, it is so pretty and makes me happy. There are lights hanging down every street. I even walked down a street today that had at least 10 giant chandeliers hanging from wire over the street - yes real ones with pretty glass hangy things and everything! WOW! Also, near the Cathedral, there is an actual ice rink outside for the Netherlands celebration this year. I had heard the rumours about a cool Christmas here, but this is unbelievable! Through it all, I resisted in buying everything in sight and only bought a Alsace backpack for my little cousin Oliver who I will see in England this weekend. Oh and a black shirt for me, but that's for work.
Work, you say? Well, yes. Since I don't have enough things to do, and I always enjoy being as absolutely busy as possible, I have gotten myself a job. I am now working at the Irish Times pub. My first shift is next Wednesday from 9 until 2:30 am. That's so late that the trams won't be running and I'll have to crash at a friend's house. Oh well. It should be an interesting experience, considering I've never worked in a pub before and I can't really speak French yet. But they are desperate for native English speakers over the holidays as all their regular staff is heading home. And, yes I know my family is coming over here. So I will try it and see. I think I will only work 2-3 times per week so that's not too bad. And they will be sleeping at those hours anyways, as long as they weren't planning on taking me anywhere away from Strasbourg. But it should be fun.
And I am done my portion of the team project, so I have it easy until exams. But they are only 15 days away so I better crack down. We have a field trip to SES Global, a satellite company in Luxembourg, on Friday and then I fly out to London to party with Mark. I'll be back Sunday night if anyone cares. Party hard at all the Christmas parties!!
PS If any of you Victorians have a strong desire to send anything to me, my parents leave next week, Dec 11 :)

Christmas in Strasbourg

Well now that American Thanksgiving has happened, we can officially get excited about Christmas - although as a Canadian, I was excited a month ago.
We had a very tasty Thanksgiving meal on Saturday. Although the meal was scheduled for 2pm, the turkey didn't show up until 4! But we had ham and lots of other great food, although not really traditional (there was definitely some Indian food in there along with all sorts of others, but very tasty). After eating and throwing the football around a bit, we decided we better get our butts in gear if we were going to make it all the way into town for the free hockey game. I was one of the first people to leave, and I got there a few minutes into the period (yes "period" Ruey, not "session" - we still have some Canadian issues to work out here, I need to see his passport). It wasn't exactly a good game as the Strasbourg team beat the other team down, 11-2. And even with that, there were no fights! But it was still cool to be at a hockey game and shout "Allez". We made signs with each letter for a person "ALLEZ OLIVIER GO". Olivier is our banker and he is the one who got us the free tickets, and is the team captain by the way. It was a blast. I want to head back out there to go skating one of these days.
After the game most of us headed into town to the Christmas market for some warm wine! It was tasty, perfect after a cold hockey game. The market is absolutely amazing, pretty much a tourist trap, but none the less cool. They have rows of decorations and lights for sale, nevermind the candy, chocolate, hot wine and orange juice, crepes, baguettes, etc. etc. It's great! And all of Strasbourg is lit up now. There are lights hanging between buildings down all the streets, coloured spot lights shining on buildings, creepy angels hanging from one building, and a massive Christmas tree in the main square about 60 feet tall. Craziness! It really is beautiful, I'm glad I'm staying here for it and am glad Tina and my parents get to see it too. I wish everyone else could come over here for the holidays too.
Well after all that excitement, we decided to head over to the pub "Irish Times", which is pretty much an English speakers pub. We hung out there for a while, chatted and drank. I even got Fabio to have a shot of Yagermeister (spelling?). It was fun. But unfortunately I had to come home as I had lots of work to do today. We have a Wednesday deadline for having our team project subteam literature reviews written up and handed to the editing team as they will have 150 pages + to edit in a week. And I've started studying too as we've got a giant pile of handouts to go through.
But nevermind all that. It's almost Christmas. The city is lit up, they are selling Christmas trees in front of my house, and everyone should be happy! I'll be happy once school is done but I'll be pretty busy over Christmas too, with everyone over here. And next weekend I'll be in London and Bath - partying with Mark for his birthday and stopping in at Naomi's.
Only 26 days left til Christmas, better start shopping :)

American Thanksgiving

Well, today is American Thanksgiving. And just to be truly Canadian and not celebrate it, we ate Indian food for dinner. No, just kidding (not about the food), we are celebrating with football, a huge meal, and hockey on Saturday. It should be tasty, but not quite as good as the good old Canadian one.
Today was long, we had a class in the morning and then time to work on our team projects. Although, I'm quite sure half the class was not there today. If the afternoon we got to go over to Louis Pasteur University and check out a biotech company after listening to a business lecture about "incubators". They appear to use that term here to talk about companies or departments of a university that help start-up companies. It's a very strange way to describe it to me, but they have a pretty sweet deal. Much better than at UVic. Then I worked on our contract assignment until handing it in, 20 minutes before it was due!!! Wow! Nothing too exciting.
But they did turn some Christmas lights on today. There is a wire lighted Santa at the end of my street, which is pretty cool. I'm hoping to get into town Dec. 1 as that's when they apparently light up everything. I'm getting pretty excited, they are Christmas crazy over here. But sorry, I was not organized enough to buy presents and send them home already. Maybe your present should be that you don't have to get me anything this year as I'm gone :) Oh, and no cards this year either - not enough time or money to pay for all that postage! But please don't be grouchy because of this, I still send my love. And maybe better present's next year - not likely as I will be paying off this year for the next 10!
All right, bed time - I'll catch up with everyone soon I hope!

Welcome a new member to the Hood that is Gorden Head

Thanks everyone, but my sister now has a new place to live. She is on Majestic, almost across from Jeremy and also very close to Tyler. But watch out, she is only allowed to have someone stay over 4 times per month - and it will most likely be her boyfriend, not YOU. She gets the place December 1st, so I suggest a Gorden Head party?!?!?

A New Toy!

So I made some yummy chicken Parmesan (with Emmental cheese) last night for dinner. But since Will was at school having a meeting, there were some leftovers. So when Fabio got home, he decided he wanted to try some of my yummy chicken. But I wasn't giving it away for free. So I made a deal with him. He was to buy me a Finding Nemo (the movie is just starting here) toy at McDonald's the next day. He tried to trade instead with a free sundae or fries, but no go. I wanted the toy.
So at about 1:30 he returned with his present. It it the purple scary fish from Finding Nemo. But it comes with a stick that once you wind it up and stick it in it's mouth, it wags its tail and fin. Pretty damn cool. I've just been running all around the school showing everyone my new happy toy! Ahh, life is great!

Anyone need a place to live in Victoria?

So sorry to say, but my sister's roommate is screwing her over. She wants to give notice next week to move out of the appartment. However that screws Tina over as she will have to find a new roommate or a new place to live in the next week. So if anyone wants to live with her - at Cook and Pandora - it's about $400 a month + utilities. Or if anyone knows of a cheap one bedroom that she could move into at Christmas or Jan. 4 please let me or her know. The second problem is that she will be here from Dec. 27 to Jan. 4 so it makes it pretty hard to move at that point. Any advice or suggestions will be gladly accepted by me or my sister.
Cheers!

Blank

Sorry, it published my Buy Nothing Day entry twice, so I'm correcting it by doing this :)

Buy Nothing Day

So today was Buy Nothing Day, and I succeeded at that, as long as a hot chocolate out of a vending machine doesn't count.
However, I did try to get my leather pants repaired (yes I tore the crotch on Halloween, that is how much kicking I was doing as Trinity from the Matrix). But since this is France, the store was not open today as its Monday. And since this is France, the store will not be open tomorrow either. And because this is France, stores are only open until 6pm weekdays that they are actually open, and from 8am until noon on Saturday. So I may never get them fixed. But hey, c'est la vie!
I had a good French class today - I wrote a poem en francais!!! We had another poem as a guideline. It's a sad and depressing one about a couple at the end of their relationship, and our task was to write one similar but about the beginning of their relationship. I'm posting them here, cause I'm excited that I wrote a poem, nevermind a poem en francais!
The real one:
DEJEUNER DU MATIN
Il a mis le cafe
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de cafe
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le cafe au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourne
Il a bu le cafe au lait
Et il a repose la tasse
Sans me parler
Il a allume
Une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumee
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
Il s'est leve
Il a mis
son chapeau sur sa tete
Il a mis
son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tete dans ma main
Et j'ai pleure.

Jacques Prevert

And now mine:
Il a souri a moi
A la plage
Il a venu a moi
Sur ma serviette
Il m'a donne les fleurs
Avec un autre sourire
Il a pris ma main
Dans se main
Il a baise ma main
Et il s'est leve
Il a mis
son chapeau sur sa tete
Il s'est incline
Et il est parti
Sous la soleil
Sans une parole
Sans introduction
Et moi j'ai pris
Mes fleurs dans ma main
Et j'ai souri.

Elizabeth Rogers

Pardon me for the lack of accents, but I don't know how to do them here. Hope that you can understand even just a little.

Lazy weekend -

So I didn't really do anything exciting this weekend - but since I know people actually read this now (Hi Grandma, hi Monica, hi mum!), I'll let you know what I did.
Saturday: went for a run, cleaned the bathroom (you're welcome Will and Fabio), and cleaned my room. Then started studying and got some serious work done. At 8pm Fabio came home with Brooke so that she could experience dinner with him. (You should probably read Brooke's site for her experience). She got to eat the milk, sugar, biscuits, honey and iced tea dinner (and breakfast) that he's famous for. I got it on film so I promise to send it or figure out how to post a 50 Mb movie on my school site. We just chilled the rest of the night, and I talked to my sister Tina for the first time in a long time.
Sunday: slept in a bit after waking up early. I then got lots of work done on my team project literature review. Then I caught up on the third and fourth episodes of 24 (wicked by the way). Had dinner with Will and then watched "Dude, where's my car?" with Will and Fabio. That was fun as they both hadn't seen it before. It's good for a laugh. Talked to my parents - they are getting excited about coming over here - and that's about it.
After Brooke's experience with Fabio Saturday night, she asked me why I'm not on here every night writing about the crazy things that Fabio does and says. Well if I wrote all the crazy things Fabio does, I'm sure this blog would be way too long and you would eventually get bored of it. But I'll write a few little things here. Fabio made me blow out my candles one day as it steals his oxygen. He owes me a shitload of flowers for telling me I eat too much and should run more (but he was doing it in a nice way, concerned for my health!). And the list goes on. But don't worry, Fabio is a great source of entertainment and a super nice guy (most of the time) who will always be there if I need him. Oh yes, but Canadians eat children and are chronically depressed due to the weather.
So there you go - a boring weekend, but a few laughs about Fabio for you :)

Moon Rock!

So I forgot another thing that made this week cool, and bearable since Tyler is gone.
I finally got to see the moon rock that has been at my school since the summer. It's the biggest rock that NASA lends out to schools and universities. It was pretty cool. It was collected by the Apollo 11 astronauts. It looks basically like a gray volcanic rock, but none-the-less, pretty exciting. It's absolutely priceless, and Nick had the fun job of carrying back to the States. I know I wouldn't have wanted that responsibility, but at least he works for NASA.
Last night was culture night, and we got to see presentations from Norway, Belarus, and Hawaii. Serina did a traditional Hawaiian dance, which was amazing. I want her to teach me now. We also got to eat Norwegian, Hawaiian, Indian, Scottish (specifically Orkney Islands) and Canadian food. I made poutine for the first time ever. It turned out to be very tasty and everyone loved it.
After the cultural event (with free wine and bread of course supplied by ISU), Kelly and I went back to Mark's for a traditional Canadian party. I'm not going to explain the details here, but I'm sure you Canadians know what I'm talking about. We just chilled, it was great. So I had a good end to a hectic week.
Oh ya, one other thing to prove how French my school is. We had presentations on designing an inflatable space habitation module and the winning team received, guess what?? A bottle of wine! Does anyone else go to a school that rewards you with alcohol???? Anyone?? Ya, go to school in France, it kicks ass.

The Best and Busiest Days!

So I've had some pretty cool days, although very busy. We had some really great lectures on space design and architecture. We learned about inflatable habitation modules, shoes that dissipate heat, and other cool things. It reminded me how much I like interior design - that was always my plan for my second career. So I talked to the professor, and I may be able to do an internship at his corporation in Venice, Italy. So that's exciting, but another choice.
As well, we had lectures today from the Japanese astronaut, Chiaki Mukai. She was a medical doctor first before becoming an astronaut. She was very excited and a great lecturer. It was fun.
Tonight we have a Culture night, and I'm making some Poutine for it. Yummy, actually gross, but some like it.
I went to Chris and Nicole's last night and drank some red wine, which was nice and relaxing.
I'm definitely looking forward to this weekend, yet I've got team project literature review to write, parabolic flight information to come up with, start studying for exams.....
But, its almost Christmas - and we are getting a tree Dec 13, so it will be a little like home.
Hope everyone is well!!!!

Crazy Fabio

Oh ya, I forgot to write about Fabio.
I was giving a quick presentation today about what our team had come up with as a governance system for a settlement on Mars in 2050. (Which was a computer/AI/robots making all the decisions, with humans being able to override it). Anyways, I was giving this lovely presentation, and dear Fabio who sits in the first row, held up a sign to me saying (you won't believe this) "Canada = Communism". Well I just started to laugh and had to stop, grab the sign and show the rest of the class. Well, I threatened that I would kill him tonight in his sleep, so he told me he was going to sleep at school tonight, and he's still not home?!?!?!
Or maybe I could just burn candles in his room, as they apparently steal his oxygen. Or maybe steal all his stockpile of honey and sugar and biscuits. But those are all too obvious. Anyone got some real good ideas?? Maybe Canada can take over Sardinia or something.
So if you ever think your roommate is crazy, just email me and I can give you an extensive list of how much crazier Fabio is. And if you don't believe me, please go to his site (and while you are there post on his guest map please, the more Canadians on there, the better) Fabio's site

Not Much To Say
Nothing much exciting in the last two days. We have had some pretty cool lectures on Futures Studies though from Dr. Dator from the University of Hawaii. It's all about thinking about alternative futures, which is super important for the space industry. I'm thinking about doing an internship there. My other options at the moment are Japan and a company called Paragon in Arizona. But I have to make a decision pretty quick here in order to get VISAs etc.
I've updated my links on this page so if you are bored check out all my friends' pages and even my team project page. I'm working on human space flight to Europa (Jupitor's moon) and Titan (Saturn's moon). Its cool as it has lots of biology aspects to it. We have our first status review tomorrow for that, and I'm working on a contract proposal for a satellite too at the moment. Then its exams in one month today!!! Wow, time goes fast when you are super busy.
Just wanted to give a shout out to everyone that I haven't talked to in a while and I hope you are still checking out this site on a semi-regular basis.

So now I am sad.
I sent Tyler off on the bus at 6:30 am this morning and it sucked. We had such a good time while he was here, its not fair that he had to go home. And he had to have a 3 hour bus ride, wait 3 hours in the airport, 10 hour flight, then wait 2 hours for a 15 min flight. That sucks ass. But I'm glad he did it for me :) Now, its all about getting him back over here in January. If anyone wants to contribute to getting hime over here, that would be wonderful!
We just hung out in Strasbourg that last few days and saw the city. A highlight was all you can eat tarte flambees (which are like pizzas). We got to walk through Petit France and saw a dumb American lady ask at a store if they took American dollars. Geez.
Today is gloomy and rainy. But I've decided to come up to the school to play some football to keep my mind off being sad.
The next few weeks are going to be super busy, and then its Christmas anyways!
Hope all you students had a wicked reading break and that everyone who is travelling is still having a wicked time. And as for the rest of us - don't work too hard!

Sorry I haven't posted lately, but I've been trying to spend all my time seeing Tyler, yeah, he's here!
I almost lost him when he first arrived in Strasbourg though as his bus got here way early and I wasn't waiting at the train station. We somehow missed each other - he was waiting inside, while I was waiting at the bus stop for him! But he found me eventually. We chilled the first night, then headed out to Zurich Sunday. We spent the night there and just kind of wandered around. We decided to come back to Strasbourg Monday as its super expensive there. So we watched a movie Monday night and then took a train to Baden-Baden in Germany on Tuesday. We went to the spa there and relaxed for a couple of hours. I was expecting like a giant hot-tub, but it was more of a warm bath. So it was a little dissapointing for 12 euros, but still relaxing. Unfortunately we ate at McDonald's that night as everything else was closed or would take too long and we would have missed the last train back to Strasbourg. But we survived.
School started again yesterday, which sucked. But I dragged Tyler there in the afternoon to meet some people. He sat in the library for an hour while I sat in the computer lab for a workshop. Last night, we went into town and ate kebabs and then saw the Matrix. Man, I miss the DTS surround sound and the big screens. I'm sure it was much better at Silvercity!
Tonight we are going out for dinner with my friends Chris and Nicole, and just chiling and getting some work done before then. Then, only two more days :( I will then be sad.
But its been great having him here. I feel like me again. But my parents will be arriving in one month, them my sister, and then hopefully Tyler will be back here in January. And I'm going to be mad busy with school until Christmas anyways. It will go by fast.
Let me know what everyone's up to! PO

Happy Halloween and Happy Hangover everyone!
I'm so sorry that I was not in Victoria this year to host my annual Halloween party, I hope nobody turned up and surprised poor Andrew. As it turns out, we had quite the party over here at lovely David Buck's house. I went as Trinity from the Matrix, and we had a whole crew of us. I even bought myself a nice pair of leather pants to fit right in. As usual for Halloween, I ended up getting pretty drunk and not having a very good November 1st. I stayed at a friends in town and slept in my leather! I had to get up early to have brunch with friends as one of the girlfriends, Arta, was going back to Latvia for 2 months so I had to say good bye. I barely made it through brunch, basically I just sat there. Then I came home and slept for 4 hours until it was time to host a dinner party that Will had planned the night before. It was good and I was over my hangover by that point.
Today I was boring and cleaned the house and did some reading. I want to be all caught up before Ty gets here :)
Yes, so I'm excited about that and trying to plan our trip to Switzerland while he's here.
Hope everyone had a great Halloween, and again I'm so sorry that the 5 year tradition had to come to an end!

This has been quite a crazy week. We had a law project to work on Monday morning. We had to design a satellite and make a 10 min presentation on it on Tuesday. Our group had opted not to spend all weekend working on it as our Prof said that it could be done in the 4 hours we had Tuesday morning. So we spent about 3 hours Monday working on it and then pulled it off in a few hours. We actually called a satellite company in England to get a quote for an "off-the-shelf" satellite. We ended up being the team with the median mark, ahead of some teams that unforunately spent quite a number of hours on the weekend designing a satellite. But Wednesday, we got the feedback on the assignment - a lot of which was fairly negative. It was a difficult assignment to pull off in a few days the objectives were kind of unclear. Most people were unhappy with the assignment as well as the comments, but we made it through the "hot pokers in the eye" feedback :) And then, we got our exam marks back. So it was quite the day. Fortunately we had a wine tasting session that evening that alleviated some of the stress. I am happy with my mark, and even if I wanted to resit the exam, I did well enough that I could only get a lower mark on the resit. So I have a nice weekend off!
Today, we had some lectures again - a couple on robots and some on Japanese launch vehicles. But the real fun was the student meeting we had to determine what type of student representation that we want and who will be these people. Actually, the meeting took less time than I thought, only 1.5 hours! We had to argue about the structure: one president, a council of people with different positions, 2 people, 3 people, etc. Then we had to argue about the positions and vote on people for each position. It really wasn't a big deal - these people will only be points of contact and anybody else can get involved. But it was turned into a huge deal. So it was quite the afternoon!
After venturing to Auchan to try and find a Halloween costume - actually they had exactly what I need, leather pants to be Trinity from the Matrix but I couldn't bring myself to spend 60 euros, but there's always tomorrow :) - I went into the city centre and found the student gym. I actually did a step class in French, and I was one of the few people who could follow it, weird! But it was nice to do some excercise besides running. And I think it will help me improve my French too, well at least, "right, left, up, down"
No plans for this weekend yet besides a Halloween Party tomorrow night. Some people are taking off to Switzerland but since Ty and I are going there next weekend (yes, NEXT weekend) I may pass. It would be nice to have a weekend to explore Strasbourg a bit more!
So ya, 9 more sleeps!!! Can you tell I'm excited?
Oh yes, I have to wish everyone safe travels to Spirit River where my cousin is getting married. I hope everyone makes it there safely through all the blizzards, and has a wonderful time. I'm sorry I can't be there. Congratulations!!!
That's it for now, PO (that's for Jer)

So now I want to get my pilot's licence. Well, not really but it would be pretty cool. We went to Kehl, Germany this morning and went gliding. It was super cool. The glider is attached to a metal rope with a parachute and it is cranked in very fast to lift the glider off the ground. You are in the are in 30m and are going pretty much straight up. We got to see a beautiful view of the surrounding area. And since we were so close to Strasbourg, we could see the Cathedral downtown. It was very cool. We did some parabolas, but not nearly enough. The crazy thing was the bridge that you normally can take a train/bus/taxi across to Germany was out of commission today. And why was this? Because they were digging up old amunition from a target range and didn't know what they would find so everything within a mile or so is cleared out. So, it took some people several hours to get there - which is only a 30 min bicycle ride away. And then we had no way to get home. However, the nice Germans at the flying club offered to drive us back to Strasbourg. They were really cool. I totally want to go back, preferably on a day when they aren't searching for WWII ammunition!
Now, I am looking into skydiving in Switzerland or Germany while I'm here. Yes, everything I do is crazy now!!!

Yummy, yummy!!
The International Food Tasting at ISU last night was really cool. Each country had to bring at least one item of traditional food, and ISU supplied the wine, beer and juice as usual. (What a great school!) It was all totally excellent and there was so much I couldn't even taste a little of everything. Here's a summary for those of you who are gourmands:
Canada - we made pancakes with maple syrup and Nanaimo bars
USA - mac & cheese, rice krispie squares, P&B sandwiches, nachos and queso, pecan pie, Californian wine
Norway - yummy walffes with goat's cheese
Haiti - all sorts of rice with traditional dishes, my favourite was the spcied mangoes and the pudding in the coconuts
UK - strawberries & cream, clootie pudding?, trifle
India - can't remember the names of the stuff, but really tasty
Greece - didn't get the chance to have any
Japan - apparently there was sushi but it disappeared before I saw it
Ireland - bread and something else on it but I can't remember
Italy - Fabio bought pizza from Auchan
Spain - omellete like food but they were late so I couldn't fit anything else into my stomach
Germany - cheese and noodles
China - I think I missed that food
Singapore - I think I missed it too - see I was busy making pancakes in the next room
France - cheese fondue, escargot, frogs legs
I'm sorry if I forgot something/someone! Everything that I had was very tasty and I think we should do it more often.
And yes, I ate frogs legs and escargot. The frogs legs are kind of useless as there is hardly any meat and they don't really taste like anything. But the escargot was very tasty.
Oh and our professor, Nikolai Tolyarenko from Russia, brought some Vodka and did shots with the students. Somehow I missed that too. Apparently it was very tasty and smooth Vodka.

After all the food, we came back to my house and had a bit of a party. We had a laptop playing different music in each room, which was kinda cool. We had all sorts of food leftover plus what Will and I had bought for the party. And since everyone was totally full, we have a shitload of popcorn, pretzels, chips, Haitian food, pancakes, pecan pie etc lleft at our house! We don't need to buy snacks for quite a while.
Anyways, the party was good, just ended early as almost everyone lives in town and had to catch the last tram back just after midnight. But that was fine with me, I was tired and fell asleep.

Tonight is girls night. We are watching Bad Boyz II and ordering pizza! Then tomorrow we are off gliding in Germany. Pray for me!!! Hopefully I will make it back alive, you never know with those crazy Germans:)

Hope all is well. My web site for school should be almost working now. Sorry about the mix up, it was the program I was using to make the thumbnails. Eventually I will make the site prettier, but at least its up for now.

Good news everyone!
I have finally got my web space at school and created a web site with pictures. It is not the fanciest, but I was able to do thumbnails of my best pictures. I will try to update it as often as possible as well.
The site is:
mss.isunet.edu/student/Elizabeth.Rogers/www

Take the time and look at my pictures. I spent a lot of time in class today working on it!!!

My plans for this week include international food tasting on Friday and gliding at a German flying club on Sunday!

Love and miss you all!
Beth

Sorry for no update in a little while, but I've been quite busy...
We had our Module 1 exam last Thursday so I was busy studying for that. It turned out to be okay, I'm pretty sure I bombed one question for sure but definitely passed the whole exam. So of course, that night we went out and partied. My wine tolerance is definitely increasing! I also saw Mystic River and went shopping that day to relieve stress :)
So Friday morning I woke up with no plans for our long weekend. But Fabio, Will and I decided to go to Normandy. So I booked a car in Paris and we got on the 4 hour train ride there. However, it was Friday afternoon and the train was filled with teenagers on a school trip so there was nowhere to sit. We sat on the floor for the whole 4 hours. But we made it to Paris and found the car rental place AND even found our way out of Paris in Friday night rush hour!!!! I'm just glad Fabio was driving and not me.
Well actually that's not true. He was going double the speed limit most of the way (170 in a 70km/h zone). It was a little unnerving. The speed wasn't what bothered me the most, it was the driving not in one lane, but over both lanes - and also the lack of blind spot checks. In the city, he stalled quite a few times and even hit a few curbs. But it was all good, we survived. I got to drive for about 5 minutes so Fabio could eat his McDicks - but he yelled at me as I used too much gas. Apparently, gas comes before safety!!!
We spent Friday night in Caen, a good-sized city near the coast. We then spent all day Saturday driving to all the D-Day beaches. Obviously, Juno Beach was the best. It was very beautiful all along the coast, and it is strange to see such horrible remains of war in such a beautiful place. There were numerous tanks and bunkers and huge valleys in the ground from explosions. Pretty amazing. We also went to the American cemetary where 9000 soldiers are buried. The crosses go on forever. But they have the best view you could imagine, over the sea.
Saturday night we headed back West and stayed at a little B&B on a farm near Deuville and Honfleur, both of which are little coastal towns where the rich french go for vacation. Then we drove back to Paris and had time to go up the Eiffel Tower. Man, its high. The weather wasn't so good so we couldn't see that far, but still pretty amazing. (Almost space!!!)
All in all, it was a great trip. I almost killed Fabio for the requirement of finding a McDonald's before getting on a train to go home though. And he has some interesting political views as I'm sure those of you who come to visit will find out.
Started Module 2 today, so I'm back in the school mode. Love you and miss you all!!!

We were all exhausted after the trip to Bremen and we had to come home to an orbital mechanics assignment due yesterday. So I spent most of the weekend working on that (contributing as much as I could as I'm not an engineer). So its slightly back to normal now, except that we have our first exam next week - a 4 hour exam on everything! So I should really start studying for it. But this weekend we have a field trip to the Voyeges mountains west of Strasbourg to do a GPS and remote sensing assignment and on Sunday we are doing Canadian Thanksgiving. It was a little tricky to find a turkey but supposedly one will be arriving on Friday afternoon! But we are all looking forward to a tasty meal shared with the Americans and others who are interested in learning about Canada's one cultural event.
Hopefully they will set up our web pages soon so I can post all my pictures. If not, I will probably send a CD home soon and I'm sure you can borrow it from Ty.
Back to school for me - have feedback on an assignment and a lecture on the ISS.
Miss you all!
PS Only 1 month until Tyler gets here so you won't have to put up with his lonliness for too much longer (but it will be worse after his visit :( )

Sorry everyone for not writing more frequently - I have been super busy with school. One of our assignment was to write up a report on our trip to Bremen so I will include it below (sorry its a little long).
Sunday Sept. 28
We had an unnecessarily long train ride to Bremen. Margot ended up missing the train and luckily got on a train that left much later than ours did but arrived slightly after ours. I think most of us would have been happy to pay a little bit extra for a little more sleep in the morning, especially since we had an ISU event late the night before. For next time, it would be better if there were options for transportation as several people could have gone by car as well. However, I took the suggestion of bringing a pillow and was able to sleep on the train despite the partying.

We had a very enjoyable dinner at Paulaner’s that was sponsored by ISU. We all enjoyed the local beer and food, and there was so much of it. Kelly, Anne and I each ordered different meals and shared to get a taste of a variety of foods. We had the chance to talk to Tibor Balint, an ISU alumnus, and he informed us that he would be presenting two papers, one of which discussed sleep disorders and snoring in space, which tweaked my interest. It was a very successful and filling evening.


Another logistics aspect to mention is the accommodation. When we arrived we discovered that there was only one bed in each room. I had signed up to room with Fabio and that would have been slightly uncomfortable to have to share a bed. However, David Buck arranged for us to move into a room with two beds (although pushed together!), so we were a bit more relaxed. It was not a big deal as Fabio and I are roommates, but it could have been for others. I know several of the guys were quite uncomfortable with this arrangement. Next time, maybe it should be mentioned prior to choosing your roommate as most people are not used to sharing a bed. However, I suppose it was a good cultural or new experience for many people and that’s what this year is all about.

Monday Sept. 29
The opening ceremony was pretty spectacular; however my translator did not work properly so I missed the majority of the speeches. I’m not sure how Vancouver is going to top it next year. I suggested that the IAF contact the Olympic 2010 committee to share their ideas for the opening ceremony and perhaps use it as a promotion for the Olympics. I was discussing this with Bob Richards and he said I should definitely pass this idea on.

During the opening of the exhibition, I went straight to the Canada display right away with Mark and Ruey. We talked to Bob Richards and Daveen from Optech again. I also got information about the IAC in Vancouver 2004. I offered to volunteer there if I go back to the area. Mark introduced us to Geoff Langrudoc from the Canadian Astronautics and Space Institute (CASI), and we found out that Mark founded a student conference in Canada! We also met Mac Evans, the VP of CSA, and talked to him about Vancouver. We talked to MDR about future job prospects, but unfortunately there is nothing in Life Sciences at MDR.

I walked around the rest of the exhibition hall collecting various pins and pens, and met some previous MSS students. Mr. Arthur Dula approached us at one point and informed us he was the trustee for the Heinlein Prize and invited us to an announcement of the prize and reception later that day at the Park Hotel.

I attended the afternoon Plenary Event entitled Space and Society; however none of the name participants were present. The presentation was fairly unentertaining, but I did get the message that we can or need to use space technology to solve many of the world’s problems.

Next were the first technical sessions. I attended the Space Station Symposium on the Overview of the Space Station. I learned about Zarya, the Russian built ISS module, and the first component of the ISS. The presentation from Dr. Bartoe from NASA was quite interesting as I was unaware of the number of missions that have been up to ISS as well as all the components and structure. The ULF-1 may go up next summer to continue with the construction by adding more solar panels.

I then left the technical sessions to attend the Heinlein Prize announcement. We arrived late as we were given poor directions and got lost. However, we made it in time for the reception and had the chance to talk to the Trustees about the project. The idea is to award a prize every year for some sort of practical accomplishment in commercial space. The prize can go to an individual or individuals and is up to $500,000. It certainly gave me something to think about and it was good to see the number of ISU students there.

I tried to get to the Highlight Lecture on the HST but it was too full. Instead I stopped by the Canadian booth again and talked to Nelson Kalil, a communications manager from CSA. We learned that he Canadian call for astronauts will likely be next year. We then headed to the Netherlands exhibit for Happy Hour. We chatted with ISU students until the Welcome Reception.

The reception was very cool. We all thought that the food would not be included, and we were pleasantly surprised. Once again, I stuffed myself with good German meat, potatoes and beer. I took part in the cherry spitting contest and attempted to blow the German horn properly. It was great fun!

Tuesday Sept. 30
I went to the Life Sciences symposium in the morning technical session. I decided against going to the session on the results of the Columbia investigation as I decided I could find that information on the NASA website. The Life Sciences session had several very interesting presentations, including ultrasound for medical use in space, sleep disorders and snoring, and osteoblast response to mechanical stress. However, the best aspect was the contacts that I made. I met several Canadian students, some of which are ISU alumni, and got their email addresses. Chris and I also made an important contact with Dr. Inessa Kozlovskaya from IBMP in Russia. She was very interesting and helpful. We asked her about possible internship opportunities and she seemed interested and willing to help us.

We went for lunch in a restaurant below the Rathaus in the centre of Bremen. It was very historic and ‘typical’ German. We also got to wander around the street market there and buy some goodies.

I went to the Plenary Event: Status and Outlook of the ISS Programme. This panel included Dr. Marc Garneau and Sean O’Keefe. They discussed each country’s contribution to the ISS, particularly in the absence of Shuttle flights. The CSA is focusing on utilization of the ISS for human health and industrial purposes. There are a lot of life science implications for long duration space flight, so it was encouraging to me.

I then split my afternoon between two technical sessions: Lunar Exploration and the ISS symposium. Ricky Lee made a presentation about mining rights in the Lunar Exploration symposium and it was great to understand all the terms used and what the Outer Space Treaty and Moon Agreement entail. I also enjoyed hearing about the Lunar-A and Selene projects from ESA. In the ISS symposium, the most interesting lecture was the one on the NASA research on ISS and included a lot of biology.

The Highlight Lecture on Beagle 2 and Mars Express was exciting as the project is much more important then I knew. However, the presentation was less technically sound and up-to-date than I expected for a public lecture in 2003. The videos and presenter were great but the presentation details could have been much better. Actually, I found that with the majority of the presentations the quality was very poor. I feel that our first two assignment presentations were more professional than most at the IAC. This lack of professionalism and quality was not due to language barriers as some speakers spoke English very well but yet had poor presentations. The younger presenters were definitely the most professional and had the most interesting presentations due to their organization and set up.

Wednesday, Oct. 1
I went to the Life Science symposium on Integrative Human Physiology. I learned about Russian countermeasures and how different they still are from American ones, even on the same vehicle. The space motion sickness presentation showed how virtual reality can be used to train astronauts to prevent sickness and survive better in zero gravity. However, I was very surprised to discover that virtual reality of this type was not already being used to train astronauts. Dr. Peter presented the ISU results on microgravity in parabolic flights on vision and mental rotation of objects. The other presentations were also very informative.

At the exhibition hall I read the student posters, none of which really grabbed my attention. I then went back to CSA and talked to Nelson Kalil for quite a while over coffee. He introduced me to his boss and other important members of CSA to try and find out more information about life sciences there. He turned out to be a very good contact as he said if I emailed him he would find out all the information I needed. This was time well spent.

The Plenary Session on Mars was great as it focused on life sciences. However, it did not introduce any new information or topics. The participants just gave presentations on their individual agency interests: closed ecological systems, telemedicine, modeling and simulation in physiology and medicine, and ESA initiatives.

I did some additional walking around the Bremen town centre and did not attend any technical sessions in the afternoon as nothing really interested me. Before I left I stopped by the Canada stand once again to pick up a DVD on Canada in Space from Nelson and to say good bye to him and Daveen from Optech. Great contacts!

Overall, it was great to be at a conference. I learned a lot and met some great people. However, I think we all noticed the poor quality of many of the presentations and that the younger presenters were the best. As well, some of the older generation in power positions, seemed to have a negative outlook on new ideas. The space industry needs thing like the X-prize to get people to think outside the box and encourage new thoughts, ideas and adventures.

It would have been a much better experience if we had been able to attend the ISU function Wednesday night. We were all very disappointed at having to miss the opportunity to meet many ISU alumni. Isn’t that one of the main benefits of ISU? It seemed like a waste not to have had a formal session to meet them. We should have stayed an extra night or had the party earlier in the week. Or at least, ISU could have arranged an informal ISU get together for lunch or something while we were there.

We need to help each other just like the animals in the famous story from Bremen.

Hello faithful blog readers!
I have had quite a busy life lately. I went to Paris to go shopping on Saturday - 4 hours on the train there, 5 hours in Paris, and 4 hours on the train back. Now that's die hard shopping. And as it turned out, I didn't even get shoes! I got brown pin stripped pants, three shirts and a sweater for less than 100 euros though! And I bought a pair of black dress shoes at Auchan yesterday for 15 euros, so not too bad!
Sunday, we all went to the beach. Yes that's right the beach. There is a lake called Baggersee behind Auchan (yes it is confirmed, Auchan has everything - imagine a Walmart with a lake and sandy beaches behind it). It was super hot - I sun tanned and went for a swim and we had a pretty damn good picnic too. It was great.
But then yesterday was back to reality and all the hard work. Our team is putting a lot of work into this latest project, and its starting to drain me. Thank you to everyone who completed the survey, by the way, it was great. So our paper is due Thursday and its almost done and the presentation is Friday. We are doing a Regis and Kelly style show so it should be cheezy.
Then Sunday we are off to Bremen in north west Germany for a Conference of the IAF - space people. I'm going to have the chance to meet all sorts of space people. The Japanese professor at ISU is setting up a meeting for me with the female Japanese astronaut who also has a biological background. So that should be good.
In the meantime, we get two more assignments this week: one is on calculating orbits and the other will have something to do with the conference next week. This is the web site of the conference, if anyone is interested: http://www.iaf2003.org/
So I should have a pretty interesting update the next time I get a chance.
Hope all is well at home - have a great wedding Andrew and Nikki, I'm sure it will go well!

Bonjour tous mes amies!
Yes that's right, I started French class yesterday. We had to take a test on Friday to see what class we would be placed in and I got put in beginners! (way to go Canadian education system, 7 years of french = beginners) But it was super easy so I changed to intermediate and I think I may actually learn something there.
We have our first presentation today on the space policy and law of Brazil, so hopefully it will go well. And our next one is due next week. (And I may involve you guys in some surveys for that).
Last weekend, Will and I were planning on going to Brussels with some other people, but ended up staying out too late Friday night at dinner to get up at 5 am. So when we woke up Saturday morning, we decided that we would go to Zurich instead. We got there at about 6, so all the shops were closed - and of course everything is closed on Sundays too. But we wandered around the gorgeous city - on a cool lake with hills and mountains! We got poured on in a freak thunder and lightning storm and then ate dinner for $30 each - just pizza, soup and water. Yes this is Switzerland. Sunday we got bicycles from the city - for free! - and biked around the lake for a few hours. We came across a crazy Christian rock concert and did some serious window shopping: Gucci, Chanel, Armani, Hugo Boss etc etc. If only I was rich. But I am definitely going back there, hopefully drag Tyler there. And everything is so green there too. As soon as you cross the border back into France the grass turns brown, I swear, its crazy! I think they spend all their chocolate and riches on watering the grass.
This Saturday I'm going to go to Paris to do some shopping - I have yet to buy any clothes, aren't I good? Some of the other girls are coming and girlfriends of some of the guys. It should be fun, but a long day - 8 hours total on the train with shopping in between!
So far, everything is good. I'm a little frustrated with my internet at home, it only sometimes works, and with my washing machine - my clothes all got stained all weird and the only way it comes out is with hand washing. So that's what I'll be doing every night this week - hand washing clothes.
Hope everyone is doing well and getting ready for the wedding!
Love Beth

Hello Everyone -
If you haven't already talked to me, I finally have internet at my house. So I will be around on messenger in my evenings - your mornings and early afternoons.
Today we did a boat tour of Strasbourg. We got to see Petit France, which is a really old and very touristy area with very cool buildings. We got to go in a loch (which I've never been in and I don't know if that's how you spell it) so that was cool. We also went by the European Parliament, which I hadn't had the time to check out yet. It was an hour and ten minutes though so I was tired by the end of it. Then we went inside the main cathedral - which is definitely one of the best I've seen in Europe. It has so much stained glass; very beautiful and unbelievable. We then had to do this treasure hunt thing around downtown with teams of people from our first assignment. We had to go to certain buildings and see what animal was sculpted on it or what initials were on it, etc. Our team went super fast because we thought we were behind everyone else and ended up finishing first. However, we got the least number of questions right, so we lost the competition. The winning team got t-shirts and a book on Strasbourg. After the treasure hunt we had drinks at a little cafe, courtesy of ISU. Then we headed to the town hall and had a reception and welcoming from the mayor of Strasbourg. Again, we had free drinks (I've never been given so much free alcohol in my life - these last two weeks have been crazy) and some food. It was cool to be welcomed by important people as important people! I'm actually pretty important over here - I'm somebody!!!
I am headed to Belgium this weekend, just for something to do - how cool is that? Although, I have a ton of work to do on the train there. But I'll be sure to eat lots of chocolate for you all!
Oh ya, this is cool: my roomie Will went to Germany tonight to watch a football match as all the pubs in France are showing the France game instead of the German game. Downtown Strasbourg, we were closer to Germany (6km) than to my house! Crazy eh?
Beth
PS My school email is actually elizabeth.rogers@mss.isunet.edu, sorry.

Bonsoir!
I have just finished a long day at school, it's almost 6pm and I've been here since 8:30. I think most of my days will be like this. Still no internet, so I've been using my computer at school for an hour or so to check out possible sites for my internship in April - July. I may end up in the USA just because there is so much more biochemical research going on there. But California in the summer wouldn't be so bad!
I got to learn about space economics and more space law today. We also got our second assignment. The first was to write a 10 page report and do a presentation on the space policy and law of Brazil as a group of 9 people. Our assignment today is to watch 4 movies: 2001 A Space Odyssey, Mission to Mars, Apollo 13, and Space Cowboys - and to assess the scientific merit of them. We are in groups of 6 to do this, and even though it sounds cool, it will be a shitload of work. We have to spend 10 hours just watching the movies! So I will be a busy busy girl over the next 8 months.
We were planning a trip to Prague this weekend, but I think we've cancelled it for now as some Canadians can't go as we need a VISA as Canadians (fortunately I'm also British so I'm good for Prague). So I may go to Paris or something for a day as I still have 3 days left on my France rail pass that run out Sept 27. I'm trying to plan to go to England next weekend to pick up my suitcase there, but its going to be super expensive. Even though I already bought a Eurostar pass at home, they want to charge me $130 extra just to go on it! Crapola! And Ryanair flights are either $60 or $250, and the cheap one is at 6:50am! You would think it would be easy to get around Europe!
Tonight I think I'm just going to chill out and do some much need reading of my text book. Last night, we all went out for a fellow Canadian Mark's birthday so I didn't get home until late. I need to store up some sleep for the months ahead I think.
And sorry, still no internet. Apparently France Telecom is the worst service provider on the planet and they tell you it will be ready one day but its not for like weeks later. Mark has been waiting one month for his service, whereas another students, Bavs got hers the day after she ordered it! So who knows when I can chat with y'all (I'm living with a southern American). And no chatting at school because of the firewall :(
Well that's just about all I have for a daily update. Please email me and let me know what's going on in your lives. And girls, come on and get your acts together for a bridal shower for Niki!

Luv Beth

PS My email at school is rogers.elizabeth@isunet.edu and I have 50MB storage so you can send me pics there.

Bonjour everyone!
I have finally got the chance to add a little to this blog. It is Monday afternoon here in lovely Strasbourg, and I have finally settled in. I had a horrible time getting here. I missed my flight from London because of the poor British rail system and then couldn't get back into London from the airport due to the power cut that day. I ended up paying $130 on top of my $400 rail pass to take the Eurostar to Paris! I then took the 4 hour train ride to Strasbourg and ended up at my house by taxi Friday evening. I went to see Phone Booth that night with some students from ISU and then saw Pirates of the Carribean the next night with about 20 students. I was still really tired and jet lagged so spent most of Sunday chilling and sleeping.
I live on the main floor of a house with 2 other students. One is Will from USA and one is Fabio from Italy. So far its been good, Will and I have been making dinners while Fabio eats McDonalds everyday in between studying.
Monday was registration day, Tuesday was the opening ceremonies. I got to wear my suit and we had catering from the Hilton Hotel at the school. We started classes on Wednesday and then saw the presentation of the summer student team projects on Thursday - very impressive. There was a BBQ Thursday night during which time the 4 of us Canadians had a good chat with one of the ISU founders who is Canadian as well. Friday we had more classes - introduction to business and law! Then it was the closing ceremonies of the summer students. The had people from ESA (European Space Agency) there and the VP of Boeing! In the afternoon we got to talk to both of the founders of ISU for quite a while. The other guy is American, Peter Diamenta? and founded/started the X-Prize! That was very cool. After the graduation ceremony, we went out to a pub then to a bar. Peter, bought us a round of drinks and asked ME to dance! I was standing there dancing with the guy who started this school and has put up 10 million dollars for the x-prize!!!! It was unbelievable! At 2:30 we left the bar and were going to walk home - about 1.5 hours. But we ended up going the completely wrong direction and getting lost. So we headed back downtown and took a taxi, whose drive just made up a fare to charge us! Got home at about 5 am!
I slept in til 1:30 Saturday because there are these cool wooden shutters that go on the outside of the window so my room can be totally dark! Went to the Auchan (which is an enormous Walmart) and waited 30 minutes in line to buy stuff even with 50 tils open, yes 50! Chilled Saturday night and went to a cool little street/hops festival in a small village north of here yesterday.
I was supposed to get internet at my house Friday, but the French suck at doing things on time. So maybe tomorrow, who knows. Once I do, I will post some pictures and keep in touch more regularly!
Miss you all - keep in touch!
I'm loving it here - so cool!