A Comedy of Errors

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"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." -Morrow
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2003-10-29
Of the people, by the people, and for the people...

8:27 a.m.

All the way over in France, I have become hooked on a new American TV show, The West Wing, of which I watched four episodes on Sunday. I had never seen the show, but Mark kept telling me how good it was. (Mark is Canadian, by the way, and knows more about the US government and policies than I, who took several classes in the subject.)

So, finally, I watched it with him and Brooke. Of course, the very first episode that I watched, the finale of the first season (1999), turned out to have a side-story about Columbia in it. Of course, The West Wing dramatisized it somewhat, but it was 180ďż˝ from, say, Space Cowboys which was actually about going into space. Certainly, the news stations sometimes do not even do so much, with their reports of Columbia going 20 times the speed of LIGHT (not sound) when it disintegrated.

Although Mark pointed out that they had a 25% chance of picking the orbiter that eventually was lost, that was still kind of weird, especially since it mentioned Atlantis being on the pad just about ready to go, which was the situation in February. And, as I already stated, this was May of 1999!

Sarah wrote about things that amuse her and that she adores. I must say that she fits into both categories for me. (There are several other people, too, and Iďż˝m not going to go list all of them, but Iďż˝m picking her out because of her diary entry regarding this topic.) Being mentioned in one of my friendsďż˝ diaries is the highest level of fame to which I can currently aspire, and so I am doing the same to her. Also, congratulations to both her and Becca who had their intern pitches the other day and, not surprisingly, passed with flying colors.

The Chinese presentation went very well. They showed a video of the flight afterwards and I was particularly amused by the use of American movie soundtracks in the background: Dances with Wolves for most of it, but also Apollo 13, which was more fitting, I thought. They also showed some of the hazards of spaceflight and missions that had gone wrong. Fortunately for me, although they mentioned it, they did not show Columbia.

Apparently, my flashy red ski jacket is making quite a splash! Becca mentioned it in her diary, and Sarah sent me an email about it. =) I happen to like it, and there are several other EUROPEANS here who wear very similar jackets. Not that I care anymore about appearing American; all I have to do is open my mouth. (I canďż˝t even say ďż˝rueďż˝. One of the French guys is trying to teach me the proper way, but Iďż˝m afraid itďż˝s hopeless.) However, I donďż˝t think itďż˝s quite that obvious by my dress, as several times Iďż˝ve been mistaken as French by non-French, and once as German by a French woman. I do care somewhat and am not trying to be blatantly American, at least; I am dressing more feminine, wearing fewer t-shirts (although, I have worn my In-N-Out ones a time or two). I am not as bad as Nick, whose mood you can tell by the shirt he wears. Most of his t-shirts are A&M and he even wears his ďż˝Texas is Bigger than Franceďż˝ one around when he is feeling particularly American. Very nice.

Speaking of Nick, he, who didnďż˝t know a bit of HTML, has put together a pretty neat webpage. Me, I havenďż˝t even done anything with my ISU allocation, although I should because then I could put all of my pictures up there and not worry (as much) about space.

Will put up some glider photos from Sunday, and check back later as I'll try and put up a couple of others.

My aunt called me this morning at 7:30 AM from LA! I was very excited to hear from her. So I am in a good mood. Yay! Except that she was telling me all about the fires going on in San Diego and LA. Katie's sister, Kelly, is currently going to UCSD and she sent an email about how bad it was, with all of the ash falling down, and how they couldn't leave their building. My parents were in LA, and they couldn't fly out because of the fires and instead had to rent a car to get home.

This afternoon we are going wine tasting. Not to make you all anymore jealous of me than you already are, but how great of a school am I going to, huh??? ;)

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