At JFK

It's about 10 now and I'm at JFK. I am EXHAUSTED. I slept a little less than four hours last night, and about five hours the night before that. But I haven't been able to fall asleep here at the airport. I got here really early, and the Japan Airlines people tried to put me on an earlier flight, but I told them I'd rather just wait. On the bright side, because I got here insanely early, I got a really good seat -- I'm on the top deck (it's a 747-400) on an aisle seat, near the separation between economy and executive class. Or business class, whatever it's called.

Anyway, since I'm here a long time and I can't sleep, I've been working on my assignment, which has been making people look at me really oddly, since I'm taking pictures of signs and whatnot. The security guy keeps giving me weird looks. In fact, he's giving me a weird look right now. There's no many people at the gate yet -- I don't board until 11:45, and all the people at the gate seem to be Japanese anyway. Japanese is an intereseting language. I'm getting the feel for a mini-Asia right now, but I think there's still way too many Big Noses. Man, my nose is big. And judging from the Japanese I see, they are really skinny in Japan. I must look like a monster. A really fat monster.

But yeah, I don't know if I'll make another post from Narita. I might be too dead. Oh, I did hear the JAL people talk about a group of 9 american students, which I assume includes me. So 9 CET people -- doesn't sound too bad then. Hopefully, I'll be sitting with them. Or someone who speaks English. Then again, I indent to do a lot of sleeping on the flight.

I feel sick to my stomach right now. I think it's because I haven't been eating anything. Can you tell I'm bored? I keep yammering on. Okay, this is it then. I'm going to walk around a bit, maybe take some more photos, call Connie, and then get ready to go on a hellish 14 hour flight. Yay! So the next time you hear from me, everyone, I shall be in Asia. Zai jian! And I'd say it in Japanese too, but I don't know how to.

Leaving tomorrow (in Purcellville)

I'm getting up at 5 tomorrow morning to go to Dulles, so from there to Beijing shall be a, oh, 27 hour ordeal. Er, adventure. At the moment, I'm not that nervous -- I'm probably just really tired since I went to bed at 4 last night. It'll probably hit me after a nap on the Japan flight and I'll be like, "Shit. I'm going to China" or something like that. Hey, give me a break, it's late! Anyway, my next post will probably be from China, but maybe I'll send one from JFK or Tokyo too. And with that, good night and good bye everyone!

Oh, America

In about seven hours, I'll be leaving North Carolina for Virginia, then Virginia for New York, New York for Tokyo, and, uh, then China. Quite frankly, I'm getting pretty scared about it. It's late now, so I'm not as bad as I was earlier (I had caffeine also, which certainly didn't help), but I'm still a bit apprehensive. Haha, okay, that's kind of an understatement. Right now I'm thinking, "What the hell have I gotten myself into..." But I've been having weird nervous mood swings, so who knows, tomorrow morning I may be fine.

I've been having to say goodbye to a lot of people today (all of whom will probably read this). So I wanted to say, Lara, Jared, Sarah, my parents, Ben (yes, even you :)), and especially Connie, I had a really good time with all of you this winter, and I'll miss you all a lot when I'm in China, and I can't wait until this summer when we're all together again and whatnot. That goes for all my other friends too. Remember to e-mail me! (or you can post here, whateva). And as long as I'm being all sentimental and cheesy, I'll thank Connie's parents, who were really helpful (and really nice!) to let me practice Chinese with them. Because, God damn, I am going to need that. So yeah, saying goodbye was easier than I expected, which is probably good. But you know, I hate being sentimental, and I'm also not very good at it, so this is the last that this'll happen :).

You can probably tell I'm writing quite late. I imagine I sound rather out of it. Anyway, you can see photos from the past few days (including my birthday) in the photo album. These'll probably be the last American photos -- soon come the China ones! (airport ones first, since my first homework assignment is to, uh, take pictures of airports -- awesome). My 20th birthday was really fun -- probably the best birthday I've had since a little kid, and I got some really great presents (thank you especially Connie and Lara). And the compass will come in handy in case I, uh, you know, get stranded in the Gobi desert or something.

Also, I now have a Gmail account, predictably adam.rodman@gmail.com. I don't know how often I'll be using this (or even if I will at all). I'd suggest just using my UNC account for now, and unless there's some problem accessing it in China, I'll continue using it.

And finally, my flight information! In case anyone was wondering:

Depart from Washington-Dulles at 6:35 AM (2.15) on Independence Air Flight DH 1072, arrive 7:45 at JFK.
Depart from JFK at 12:15 PM (2.15) on Japan Airlines flight 5, arrive in Tokyo-Narita at 4:25 PM (2.16)
Depart from Tokyo-Narita at 6:10 PM (2.16) on Japan Airlines Flight 789, arrive in Beijing at 9:15 PM.

And that is it! My next post will probably be from my aunt's, and then, well, China. Goodbye everyone! I love you all. Especially Connie :). Bye!

Adam in China Tomatohead

Okay, so Connie has drawn a really nice picture of me, which is now preserved for eternity in its beauty on my sidebar (but it's a little smaller). So, yeah, to understand it fully, ya gotta know a few things. I'll number them so they'll be easier to understand.

1) Connie's a little weird (and little too, but that's beside the point).
2) She makes a habit of drawing what she calls tomatoheads, which are pretty much tomatoes with faces. They're pretty freakin' awesome.
3) Connie's mom told me, only half jokingly, that the Beijing girls were going to flock around me because they would wants green cards.
4) So there we have it -- freakish tomato women pursuing the tomato Adam. Notice the sweat (so says Connie) on poor tomato Adam. He's so terrified!

By the way, I am playing Scrabble right at this moment. Jared is in the lead, Connie and I are TIED, and my dad is in last place (poor math major). Anyway, I have some photos from Connie and my anniversary that I will put up tonight or tomorrow.

And Lara wants me to type something: "Laughter is the fuel that powers this world". She's just angry I didn't mention her in my entry.

So yeah, I'll put those photos up, and then the next photos should be from China. Or, well, from my birthday, which is tomorrow. Okay, that's it. I am done.

Bug Adam Attacks! And more photos

Okay, so that last post was a bit weird. You can ignore it or something. Unless you are actually my armadillo boo. Then you don't need to.

But I added more pictures, which you can see here, in the Winter Shenannigins section, on the last two pages. You'll notice the frames of Lara's newest feature film "Bug Adam Attacks!" But Webshots won't let me upload animated gifs, so I am forced to put this wonderful picture up on my blog. A warning though -- it's half a meg, so if you have dial-up, hopefully this won't kill your machine. If you just want to stop the transfer and see it in another page, you can download it here. But for the rest of ya, here it is:



Beautiful, isn't it? Anyway, I imagine I have a lot of shopping to do this week, on top on Lunar New Year Tuesday with Connie and her mom and then mine and Connie's two year anniversary on Wednesday (and my birthday Saturday). Which means a) I'm going to be busy and b) There will probably be plenty of photos to add. If I'm taking this many before the trip, how many will there be afterwards? The thought of it is scary...

And mah armadillo boo goes "eeeee"

Okay, so no one probably will understand that (God, I hope) other than Connie. But it's from my new gangsta rap single, "Mah armadillo boo", released on Death Row Records. Pretty awesome, huh?

I don't have a whole lot to say really. The Super Bowl is today, and apparently it's some rape metaphor, or some phallus contest, according to anthropologists, so says the N and O. And I got my first homework assignment for China. I have to observe the airports or something. Which should be really exciting, because there's nothing more exciting in this world than observing airports. And that wasn't a funny joke, or even a joke really. So yes, want I really wanted to say was that Connie was awesome, because she is. And I'll be going now.

Photos, photos, photos, and more photos

I've put a bunch of photos up in my album of the past week or so here. There's some classics in there, like the (already mentioned) Condam, The Sarah Chronicles, and mine and Connie's rendition of Double Fantasy. And other miscellaneous photos. I tried not to put too many cliched, "Wow college is cool, I'm SOOO wasted" photos up. Except for Sarah, who's not in college anyway. Right. And this is not related either to Chinese, except that now I'm leaving to study for it. Good night!

NOTE: I fixed the broken links on 2.1.2005.

Dig it up, dig it up, my children

Okay, I'm listening to the Get Back version of "Dig It", and this really has nothing to do with the song. But, well, Connie and I did a little experiment today. We have discovered, through amazing scientific methods, what our child will (if there is one) look like in the future. And I must say, he (or she, who knows) is going to be one hot motha. Anyway, you can click on the photo for a bigger version -- but a warning, it's a big 'un.



Wow, my kids are going to be sooooo lucky. And in the meantime, I'm off to dig a pony, and the FBI, and the CIA, and the BBC, BB King, and Doris Day, Matt Busby, dig it. Right. I'm not clever. But I just watched one of the Beatles videos with Sarah, so yeah. I've got some interesting photos to put up from our, uh, party last night, so you might want to see those. This has nothing to do with China, but, yeah, I'm rambling now. Oh well. That dirty, no-good lovin' Maggie Mae.

Maybe I'm not in such bad shape

Connie wants me to tell everyone that I now can understand most of my title. So yeah, maybe I'm not so screwed.