Jason’s Travelogue

No pictures today, and I apologize.I haven’t updated much recently mostly because I stopped taking pictures, and I know that no one wants to just read text. A picture tells a thousand words, and all that.

However, with an upcoming spring trip to North Africa, and another possible one to Dubai, that will change soon.

In the mean time, life here has been pleasant and busy. We met a group of other similarly-aged recent graduates from Georgetown, (one of the guys was the basketball coach, so I met him on the court during a match), and had a nice dinner. Another dinner party is planned with Atsuko hosting. It’s great for us, because of the rather stunted social scene here, and meeting new people our age was nigh impossible. The colleges here do not do a good job of reaching out to each other, Cornell especially. Apparently, Cornell here has a kind of a negative reputation among the other schools as having pretentious faculty/administrators and nerdy geeks as students. The Cornell name plus the medical track apparently puts a bit of a puff in our chests when we fraternize with other schools, or so I’ve heard. This is NOT a good thing, seeing that inter-collegiate cooperation is vital to maintaining the vitality of this whole project. We don’t get invited to events, and the Cornell administrators hold things pretty close to the chest and leave us minor-level faculty constantly confused and disorientated with what’s going on.

So that is why I am extremely happy to have met these new nice people. In terms of basketball, we beat one of our rivals, Qatar Academy, in the first round of the playoffs in a heated, foul-heavy affair. Our next match was with the unquestioned best team, Texas A&M, whose players (which include two or three grad students from America… unfair?) pretty much handed our asses to us. Our next match for the third place trophy with the College of North Atlantic was competitive, with the minute lead changing hands every few minutes. Unfortunately, our top scorer fouled out with some questionable (read complete bullshit technical calls) and while we tied the score at the buzzer to send us into overtime with an INCREDIBLE three-pointer that rattled in from our reliable captain, we fell behind in overtime as our center sprained his ankle as well. So, we got fourth place, though I believe we outplayed the other team for most of the four quarters. We really really wanted that trophy, as one of our beloved starting small forward was a fourth-year med student who was graduating and wouldn’t get another chance. This made me REALLY want to stay here for another year to help coach our boys.

I’ve been thinking about what’ll happen once I leave, and I arrived at the conclusion that I would really miss my job, my friends, and my students here. The students here are AWESOME, especially kids in my class. I think some of the other TAS don’t like this job and can’t wait to go back, but I firmly believe that if I could defer admission to dental school, or I didn’t get in anywhere, I would stay an extra year. I could live with one of my closer TA friends (who is staying) and we would have a blast traveling around and playing with students. I could coach basketball, keep diving, travel more, save some money, live a comfortable life. But life goes on, and I don’t want to be left behind. Plus, applying for school was REALLY expensive and REALLY tiring, and I don’t really want to go through that again. Stupid dental schools… med schools let you defer, why not dental schools? Pssh.

Anyway, I’m still cooking and trying new things, but I’m too hungry after cooking to take the time to take a good picture… someday I promise I will and post them.

For the few of you that actually take the time to read this, I just want to say I miss you all greatly and can’t wait to see you in the summer.

Signing off,

Good luck and good night.