Goo Goo Dolls Live

I have been back in the US for a month now. The summer has been hot after a cold Winter in South Africa. Since been back it has been back to work. Got to work on a project I dubbed Spyder Car with an intern in the lab and its currently a work in progress looking at some interesting topics. I also got a great opportunity to meet students from the Governors School of Engineering and Technology at Rutgers. The Governors school is a summer program for talented high school kids from all around New Jersey. I have also been able to do some summer travelling. I spent my 4th of July weekend in Philadelphia with another Fulbright student. It was a great way to spend Independence day and also get to experience it in the City that it all started. To make it even better I also got to see The Roots and The Goo Goo Dolls live by mistake (yeah it was by total coincidence it happened but it was a great  concert). Now after all of this and some other things happening I got an opportunity to go to Camp Rising Sun Redhook this past weekend.

Camp 2010

Welcome Back!!!

It has been 8 years since I attended camp. I am a 2002 alumnus and now I was back where I think another big part of my life was shaped. It was a 3 hour drive from New Jersey but it felt like 10 minutes. I took the trip with Agnes who was my journalism councilor in 2002. She is also an unbelievable dancer. She was also a councilor at CRS Stendis in 2001. We had met again last year for thanksgiving and now had 3 ours to burn an catch up with old camp stories and also talking about what camp really means at this moment and time. I had met with the new South African campus before I left SA and I was happy that a new season would begin with 3 campus (should have been 4) instead of the normal 2. The weekend was production weekend so both camps (The Boys and The Girls) were putting on their drama productions. The first was at Clinton (Girls Camp) on Saturday. There was a lot of dancing in their production and I think the heat on the day just made the production even more psychedelic . It was great(abusing this word now) again seeing the girls camp and also seeing some Alumni from 2002.

Lala, Agnes and Me

The Saturday evening was spent at the boys camp watching as they were rehearsing for the next day. The South African campers are all enjoying their time and I am happy as the new selectors have done a great job. Camp is  wonderful experience for young minds like this. Thinking back to how after I came back from camp my mindset on life had shifted. I have seen this with my own siblings on how these international programs in general just push you to explore more and also try to do more than you had ever believed. For me it was a time of introspection while also thinking of loved ones back home in South Africa. We go through so much in life but as long as our core stays rooted we cannot be shaken. Camp is one of my deep roots. It gave me the opportunity to really express who I was while at the same time honing some of my skills. At camp I was the journalism manager for a while with another camper. We put out a number of newspapers and that was a great experience. I have since moved this love to writing and also composing multiple online projects. Sometimes its so good hearing about past campers and how they have gone on with the loves they had while at camp and conquered their worlds, sometimes shocking when you here they have done a complete 180 and done something else. But hey thats live we do what we have to do so that we can do what we want to do. So this is my first post on Camp in a while and there might be one more to be pushed out. The best part of being back at camp was meeting up with Zsoka and Dave again. Councilors are awesome. Should be returning to camp again this weekend and cant also wait for my significant other to experience camp even just for a day next season.

Enjoying the Freedom

Me, Khwezi and the Liberty Bell

Going back to Independence day weekend. What a weekend. I had my first Philly Cheese-steak in Philly and also got to really take in the history of the independence of the US. It was also great having Khwezi around as we could then frame the theme of independence and freedom to the rest of the world. I love my freedoms and also am respectful to other’s freedoms. I think that expression of freedom is needed everywhere in the world. There were a number of protests around Philadelphia on the 4th of July, reminding us that there are still a lot of people struggling for their freedom and sometimes independence even in this day and time. Lets all continue fighting for whats right and necessarily politically correct.

Ha it seems I did not hit the 1000 word mark this time. Next time

I leave you with the Roots

The Roots - You Got Me

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a good time. It really is the beginning of the festive season in America. I spent it with an old friend (I guess I can say that now), Agnes and her family. Agnes was my art councilor when I was at Camp Rising Sun here in the USA in 2002. It was great to catch up with her, her husband (also met in 2002) and the great Quigley family. It was also a good time for me to take some time off school work. So took a train up to Newark Penn and then took a bus down to Forked river on that day. I studied on the way there but I had to kill 2 hours, shoot me. I spent the most wonderful day in Forked river. Had the best lunch I have had since I have been here and really relaxed. I am grateful for the new friends I made, even more grateful for my better half, my family, my friends old, new and still unknown. One more thing. Thanks to Bobby and his wife again for a second Thanksgiving on the Saturday. Headed out to meet new people and also have a second late Thanksgiving with some new friends I met at Rutgers. Weekend was long.

Camp

We never grow out of camp. Meeting Agnes again after 7 years was surreal. We got the stories about camp going again and I also go to know about how she experienced camp as a councilor and this had some contrast to how I experienced it as a camper. Its hard to explain to others what we went through when we were at camp and it is always so great to have others you can talk to about it who understand. I also an even more proud of the new team that is now working in South Africa also preparing for the 2010 camp season.

Le iPhone

For my birthday and also out of trying to stay sane while I am away from campus I got myself the dreaded iPhone. I have owned 2 iPod touches now and have used them extensively while here at Rutgers, mostly using some of the apps, web surfing and email. My problem normally came in when I left campus, no free Wifi and I had T-Mobile prepaid, so no love for the interwebs. It got really annoying when I went to Chicago mid November. I was disconnected and had a group project due. So on my return to New Brunswick I decided to get a contract and a smart phone. I first tried out the HTC Droid (Less than 24hrs) and actually returned it to the store, my fingers where too big and the keyboard really got annoying, maybe I should have stuck with it longer maybe not, well never know. I ended up at AT&T the same day and then got myself the iPhone 3G. Since then I have been happy. I have a lot of apps. The network coverage is comparable to Verizon in New Brunswick. Way better than T-Mobile (everytime I went into a building it cut off). So all in all it was  a good birthday present to myself. On that note thanks to David and Tarek for all the cool Rutgers stuff they got me, I wear the beenie everyday now. RU Rah Rah! Ohh before I forget, Apps I heavily recommend if you have an iPhone

• TIME Mobile (I dont get print anymore )
• Wikipanion
• Pandora Radio (Internet Radio and the Music Genome project never sounded so good)
• ShopSavvy (Great Barcode scanner that then checks for prices on the interweb)
• Dragon DIctation (Voice to text dictation, awesome app)

Windows 7, Linux Mint 8, and Google Stuff

I installed Windows 7 on my laptop replacing my Windows Vista and Linux Mint 7. Linux Mint 8 is now installed as a virtual machine in the Windows 7. I could not stay on with Vista anymore, it was falling apart. Windows 7 has been a life saver and has such a smaller memory footprint than Vista with the same applications installed. So far it has been a good revelation from Microsoft. Would recommend it to anyone. Linux Mint 8 is out. I run it at the moment inside Virtual Box. Its another solid release from the guys. Review hopefully soon in the future. Google Ohh Google. Well first big news, Firefox has now officially moved to number 2 on my browser list, I started using Google Chrome a long time ago and slowly started using it more than Firefox. Now it is also available for Mac OS and Linux and the extensions are GO! Firefox at the moment is just installed for some of its extensions but as soon as they are all ported thats it for me Firefox uninstall. Chrome is faster, recovers from faults better and is less a memory hog than Firefox. Then there is Google Voice and then there is Google … Well its been a great month for Google and December is not over yet. But there is still that question about privacy. Well that was a talking point during a seminar I attended and a class 2 weeks ago. Maybe I will write something on that.

Wow that was liberating. Now I have to get back to work. Last week!

Peter Maher was here visiting from Wits last Week! Good friend.

My first week in the US was spent in Miami. I was attending my first orientation that is connected to my scholarship. It was a good time even though this is when the disconnect with family was first felt. I am very thankful for all the other students I met there and all of the views and professions that were gathered there. We have billions of interesting people out there, believe me. except those who are not interesting (lol). I love Boolean logic. Everyone is male except those who aren’t.

Miami Dade 2009

I met people from all over the world (To people who know me, I know this sounds old, but I really did). Pakistan, Afghanistan, Chille, Puerto Rico, South Korea, China, Japan etc. From Miami I flew then to my final destination of New Brunswick, New Jersey. My new home for a long while. Small town it is. A student town filled with red. Rutgers Red. I spent only a few hours of the first day at Rutgers. The rest of the first weekend was spent in New York city.

Rutgers University

From my weekend in New York, things came back into size. America is all about how large it can be. We hit BJ’s to get some things for some friends. Its like a large wholesale place. Bigger than big. You can by 1 years supply of chocolate bars if you want. A small size in American Soda is a large size in South Africa. A large here is freakishly large. But that’s America. They do things big, very big. I cook for myself but campus has fast food easily available. I have not had McDonalds yet. We have a Burger King and some other ones (Pizza, Chinese etc.). The dining hall is unreal in terms of amount of food they have in it (at an unreal high cost as well).

Conney Island New York

International orientation at Rutgers brought things into perspective. Being an international student is not an easy feat. I respect all of the undergrad international students I met. It really is an eye opener. You have to do a lot to make sure you stay “legal” and on the right track with your studies. I am from South African universities, which mostly follow closely to a British university system. The US system is different and its differences are what makes it great as well as daunting. It’s very flexible, but what I have learned is that planning is essential. Talking to advisors and other students is even more important. I am making sure I keep my head above water while trying to juggle all the balls I have been handed. I am looking forward to my years here especially the chance to meet some of the great minds in Computer Science and especially AI and Machine Learning.

Rutgers Illuminating the Day

This brings me to a tough but inevitable end. This was a ramble. Not a coherent one at that. I did not read this post again and probably its very bad. I will in the next few weeks try to write something more concrete. At the moment I leave you with this. I do miss family and South Africa but I also am loving the new experiences that I am going through here in New Brunswick.