Natural History Museum Today, Italy Tomorrow!

Fall break is officially upon us.
After tomorrow's Internet Psychology of course...

Today, I took my last midterm in math class and following the normal Wednesday schedule, I would have gone to my computer science class to learn more about routers, packet switching, cyborgs, wikis, and the lions, and tigers and bears (oh my!) that computer science is all about. However, as part of our class interaction with technology, Dr. Lenox arranged a class field trip to London's famous Natural History Museum to examine the interactive technologies used in the exhibits - especially in the newly opened Darwin Center.

I must tell you, I was not all that excited to walk through an exhibit center about a scientist so controversial like Darwin. However, it was a nice change of pace from computer science (which we took the final for on Monday) so I approached the museum with an open mind and even more open arms...

Before going to the Darwin center, I went through the dinosaur section (which is one of the world's best dinosaur collections) and probably bored Alyssa to death with my geeky science knowledge about dinosaurs that I gained from my childhood dreams of becoming an archeologist. Needless to say, I was very pleased with the dinosaurs despite the lack of interaction on the exhibits.

Next I went to the Darwin center which is a brand new section of the museum. It started in "the cocoon" which also serves as a state-of-the-art lab for over 100 leading scientists in insect preservation.

Walking through the cocoon was very interesting to say the least. I've never been a big fan of bugs - in fact, I'm terrified of bees (especially bumble bees), and I'm a posterchild candidate for arachnidphobia. I ended being a big boy (and also trying to impress Alyssa, although I think my fear of bugs may exceed her own if possible) and braved the exhibits of bugs and stuff.

One of the first things I noticed were the walls. They were filled with electronic tv screens of "experts" talking about the nearest exhibit. Some walls contained picture slideshows of nature while others portrayed images from a projector. Overall, wherever I went, I could count on being informed simply by staring at the walls.

The other main technology I was impressed with was the Nature Plus Card. Basically, what this card did was remember what exhibits you interacted with by a simple scan. Near every station, a fancy-looking touch screen interactive booth was present. One would simply touch what categories they're interested in learning about what was related to the exhibit. After the screen ran its course, you scan your card and when you go home, you can actually enter your card number in on the website and learn more about those topics on the touch screen. This was a very sophisticated technology because children can impress their parents by gathering their information online from the museum website.

Overall, I, as a bit of a natural science myself, rather enjoyed the majority of the museum. I was not a fan of the Darwin center but that may be because I don't like insects or some of Darwin's theories...however, I got to get a future look ahead at what all technology is coming to. I can only wait and see when even more sophisticated stuff makes its way into museums and such.

That's all I have for now. I'm still writing my major "catching up" blog from the past couple weeks and I will try to post that before I leave for Italy tomorrow.
Believe me, I'll have a blog posted for that one as well.

until next time,
Ciao!

Ahh Barthelona!

I am sunburnt.

Yes, in this October season of overcast skies and changing leaves, I am sunburnt. Never in my life would I have imagined getting sunburned well into Autumn. I'm still sunburnt. Get the point? ok good. I'm sure you have already figured out that I did not catch those skin-damaging rays on this little island called the UK that is roughly the size of Montana. As you probably guessed from the post title, I was in Spain this past weekend.

It was quite an eventful trip let me tell you. We started off on the wrong foot to begin with by not actually looking up where the Reus airport - which ryanair misleadingly labels as "Barcelona" - is. It turns out Reus is a solid 60 or so miles away from Barcelona, in travellers terms, an approximately 155euro taxi ride. I'll take the heat for this one. I booked the flight and advertised it to the rest of the group who followed my lead. In my defense, I confess it was a rookie mistake before I became the experienced travel-booker that I am now. Luckily, I Alyssa, Mike, and Lauren decided to go the economic route and booked the cheapest lodging we could find. The catch was we were placed in the town of Villanova - halfway between the airport and Barcelona.


Anyway, we arrived on time to the very tiny town of Reus. After some confusion, a Spanish phrase book, a busride, train ride, and taxi ride later, we arrived at...our BUNGALOW!
This place was something else. For 12euro a night, I was expecting nothing more than a hut with straw roofing and a couple hammocks inside to sleep in. It turns out that this place normally books for over 100euro a night and was basically a resort with 3 beautiful swimming pools, a restaurant, a grocery store, and gift shop. It also had a "discoteca" which sounded interesting but was quite anticlimatic when we got there, I thought I was back in daycare because the average age must have been around 5 - except for this guy who looked, dressed, and danced, like a cross between captain jack sparrow and obi wan kenobi.

So Friday night we went out to Barcelona and ate a deliciously spanish dinner. I ate this spanish panini looking thing with pepperoni-looking meat and mozzerella cheese. Sadly, the last train to Villanova left at midnight. Not liking the sound of an 80euro taxiride back home, we left Barcelona, or BarTHelona as the natives say, and returned to our bungalow.

Saturday was beach day and we couldn't have asked for nicer weather. It was around 80degrees and hardly a cloud in the sky. The Villanova beach was very uncrowded, yet the sand was nice, clean, and the mediterranean water was warm once you stayed in it long enough. We pretty much spent all day laying out under the sun, attempting to body surf 6inch waves, and just relaxing at a day on the beach.

Our main excitement of the day hit caught us by surprise. There was this spanish guy roaming the beaches with this little box-tray of sunglasses. He was trying to sell them to everyone on the beach. You can see him in the backround triumphantly marching off after he somehow conned Mike, Lauren, and I into buy his shades. He didn't speak english and we couldn't understand his spanish so you can imagine how negotiations went with the sand drawing and foreign language counting to establish a price. I was more of a pushover and got my shades for 6 euro (his starting price was 15) whereas mike and lauren got theirs for 5 euro. Although I look like I traffik women and deal drugs when I wear those awful aviators, I must say it was rather hilarious to haggle with a salesman over sunglasses on the beach in 2 different languages. I think Alyssa caught some of it on video so if you want to actually see it, let me know and I'll hook you up.

After the beach we returned to our bungalow where we cooked our own meal of thick bacon, fried tomatoes, and mozerella cheese served on baguettes. It was delicious and more cost efficient. It would have been nice to visit Barcelona again but as it was already dark and we would have had limited time again, we decided to stick around and explore our bungalow resort.

Sunday came and our plane ticket left Reus at 10:30am which was a bummer because that was the only fligh to London all day. After a hectic morning and a little bit of jogging to get to our terminal, we made it.

I'm almost glad I didn't go into Barcelona again because I found out that of our other group of friends who actually stayed in Barcelona, two got pick-pocketed, one lost a credit card to an over-ambitious ATM, and another got conned into losing 100euro over a betting game in the streets.

Overall a satisfying trip. I don't know if I would bother returning to Barcelona for anything more than the beach but I did have a positive experience not doubt. Now I have two unplanned weekends before my 10day fall break in Italy. I'm looking at day trips but for now I'm just playing it by ear.
'til next time!

A not so exciting science museum...

Well let me first tell you that science was once a favorite subject of mine. However, it is museums like this science and technology museum which scare off science fans such as myself. For starters, the entire 2nd floor (or third whatever you would call it) was closed for "improvement works". Secondly, the exhibits we were supposed to find were quite difficult to locate. After searching quizzically for a couple hours and asking more than a few staff members, I was able to kind of sort of find a few of the exhibits I was asked to include in this blog. So here we go...


The first exhibit was the Mind Your Head exhibit. This was located on an awkwardly placed third floor. It basically gave a 100 year breakdown of British psychology. After reading through the majority of the stuff, I couldn't find W.H. Rivers. Dissatisfied, I left the exhibit in search of another on the list hoping to find better luck.


The next exhibit we were able to finally find was the Antenna exhibit. The problem was, this exhibit wasn't open. so I decided to write about the adjacent exhibit about the Genetically Modified food (GM). In short, both the steroid foods and the regular foods claim to use fewer fertilizers, feed the world, fight pests, and protect the climate. Seeing as how this exhibit didn't have much to do about anything except the rice fields in third world countries, I moved on in search of some more difficult-to-find places.

The next place I found was the "who am I?" exhibit. I found this exhibit most interesting. It was rather disappointing that half of the little machines weren't working. However, the exhibit still offered the most potential learning experience. I learned that this very psychological exhibit was focused on much of what we cover in the my psychology class. It showed how the face, gender, and age are crucial to one's identity. It also gave examples of how one's personality is determined partly by your emotional reactions to certain situations. There was one little thing there called the "terrortron". Basically what you did was stick your hand in one thing and your finger in a pulse reader. As you feel around the hole, you start to imagine your worst fears inside this (in my case, spiders and mushrooms) and then you touch something of similar texture to your worst fear and your pulse rate skyrockets. I swear they had an actual spider in there. That would explain why I jumped back, yelling as I turned and prepared to run. Needless to say, I got a few stares from the other museum visitors.

So there you go. Class field trip to the Science Museum. It honestly wasn't too bad, but I really was expecting a friendlier museum.

In more exciting news, my trip to Barcelona went very well.
Check my blog for more updates!
Cheers.

Oh the Places They'll Go...

Back at Westminster, I'm pretty involved in a variety organizations. I still hold membership to these organizations but on a leave of absence type of deal. However, one group that has stuck with me is being a staff writer for the school newspaper - the Holcad. I'm assigned to report on basically whatever it is I want to write about as long as it has something to do with being abroad. I chose my article topic because it basically previews what all the future articles will be about. I could go on and on about journalism and the like but I will just let the article (and its many quotes), speak for itself. Enjoy.

London, 2009: WC Students are making big plans to see the world by Christmas time.
The WC at London study abroad students have already explored the majority of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) and are now looking forward to even more adventurous trips during their stay in Europe. It is not to say that the UK is a disinteresting place, in fact, the students love living in London.
“The UK has an array of differences in the culture, diversity, food, architecture, history, and people.” Nikita Madhyani, sophomore biology major, said. “To live and immerse myself in the rich culture of London is a dream come true.”
Each student has visited at least one other country in the UK by bus, coach, or train. Cultural differences abide even within the UK.
“The Welsh don’t like the British.” Kristen Edwards, sophomore elementary education major, said.
“The Scottish are a lot nicer than the Brits, they actually give directions and will spend time with you.” Shane Swagart, sophomore international politics major, said.
Now that the local areas of the UK have been explored, bigger trips are the talk of the London student body. Plans have been made for trips ranging everywhere from Ireland to Spain to the Czech Republic to France to Germany to Italy, to Greece, to Africa, and even to Bethlehem.
Steve Fawcett, a sophomore political science major, has some high expectations for his upcoming trip to Munich, Germany for the world-famous Oktoberfest.
“I’m expecting an insane party the entire weekend.” Fawcett said. “I’m also nervous. I don’t have a place to stay because all the housing is booked full.”
Alexis Wojcicehowski, a junior english major, is very excited for her plans to visit Italy and Greece.
“This is a great opportunity for me to see and feel the other cultures.” Wojcicehowski said. “You can read about these places in books and see the pictures but it does not compare to actually being there.”
Michael Crawford, sophomore history major, has plans to visit Morocco, Africa.
“I really don’t know what to expect but hey, it’s Africa.” Crawford said.
Alyssa Hanna, sophomore broadcasting major, will be traveling from Athens through Cairo, Egypt, and then to Israel and Palestine at the end of the semester.
“I’m a little nervous considering how far away Cairo and Jerusalem are from home but I’m also really looking forward to being in Bethlehem for Christmas.” Hanna said.
The students aren’t the only ones with big plans to see the world. Dr. Terri Lenox and her husband, Dr. Woratschek of Robert Morris University, are traveling to Paris for the week-long fall break. However, these two computer science professors will be culinary students while in Paris.
“We are very excited to be in Paris, one, because we’ve never been there before, but I’m especially excited for the French cooking class we’ll be taking there.” Dr. Woratschek said.
Dr. Lenox’s WC faculty counterpart, Dr. Jamie McMinn, will be traveling to Germany for his fall break.
“I’m especially eager to travel to Germany because I’ll be visiting my best friend who I haven’t seen in a long time.”
Dr. McMinn is not the only one who will see familiar faces while abroad. Several students have made arrangements to see their family members while in Europe.
“It’s really nice to get to see someone from home, especially my brother.” Emily Winn, junior english major, said. “It’s exciting to get to travel with him to Ireland and also show someone from home the places in London that I’ve become used to.”
“I can’t wait to celebrate Thanksgiving with my younger brother.” Miles Casey, sophomore psychology major, said. “It gives a really unique opportunity to bond with family in a special way. Just being able to study abroad in general has already been an awesome experience. The best part about it is that the best is yet to come.”