COMICS
I've read up to Ultimate Spider-Man volume 8 (that is I read 5,6,7,8). They have been great, the way they introduced Venom was great and I really like any arcs that have the Kingpin, the writer deals with those stories very well. This comic is great and I am glad I gave it a shot. On the fifth volume, there is a wonderful panel between Peter and Mary Jane, it was just a beautiful drawing and it explained everything with words not being necessary.
Thor by JMS. I had heard great reviews about this, so I was expecing more than I got, but it was still a great read. I'll definitely buy the second trade when it comes out (about 4 months from now).
Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan. This is a wonderful graphic novel. Vaughan is my favorite author in comics and once again he delivers a wonderful book. It is a story about four lions walking in Baghdad after the American bombing in 2003 released the animals form the zoo (not on purpose), it is based on a true story, but of course any dialog between animals is made up. It is a very heart warming book with beautiful art.

MOVIES
Twelve Monkeys I saw this movie with Yuliia and Roma. This movie is one of my favorites, I've seen it about ten times and I enjoy it every single time. We watched it on the math department to take advantage of the big screen projectors. I keep enjoying the connections to other movies (i.e Vertigo). One different thing this time was that after watching Ledger's Joker, Pitt's acting doesn't impress me as much as before.
Pineapple Express I went to watch this movie with Sid, it was very funny, I think he laughed almost every second of the movie. I don't know if I would recommend it as I think a big part of the laughing experience was watching it with Sid who also laughs a lot, it is hard to judge how good some comedies are as I believe they greatly rely on how one feels at the moment.

SALSA
I went salsa dancing on Thursday and on Saturday and I had a lot of fun. Thursday was the usual Thursday Night Salsa fun experience, while Saturday was a bit different as it is only every second Saturday of the month when Gusanoz (mexican restaurant) has salsa. Sid filmed Yuliia and me dancing a couple of songs and it was very fun to see me dance with her on a video, it is nice to see how happy we are when dancing and to see how good I look dancing, I definitely have a lot of style.

BOSTON
On Friday, Yuliia, Roma and I went to Boston. Yuliia and I went to get her the visa for her trip to Mexico and then we walked around Boston together. We saw the public library, the Trinity church, the Christian Science Church (which I think is a beautiful building and has a really beautiful pool outside), walked the Harvard bridge and walked around Cambridge. I had a wonderful day with Yuliia, my best time in Boston.
Met with Sid at night and he joined us on the trip back to the Upper Valley. Sid stayed in my house for a couple of nights (Friday, Saturday).

HIKING & SWIMMING
Sid and I went to Stowe to meet up with Greg and Kristin and we went to hike Pinnacle in Stowe. the hike was fun 1.6 miles, it has some pretty steep parts. The view from the top is wonderful and it also had a very pleasant breeze. On the way down, we all ran and at some point Greg and I were going extremely fast, it was dangerous but it was so fun. Another cool thing about the hike was that there were no mosquitoes.
We went to Huntington gorge one of the stops planned on the Swimming hole tour but we couldn't do it. Here there was a nice little jump. I jumped a couple of times and dived once (it wasn't that big a jump and it was super deep, so no risk). The water was very refreshing. The problem with the place was that it was very slippery and walking around I fell four times (or five). There was some mini rapids that Sid accidentally rode for a bit and since it looked fun, Greg and I did them in their entirety and it was super fun, albeit a bit scary. There was another set of rapids, much more powerful and scary and we inflated a raft to ride them. Once we were there nobody wanted to do it as it looked super dangerous, but I rode it and almost fell. There's a wonderful picture which I plan to post someday which illustrates just how close from falling out of the raft in the middle of intense rapids I was. After seeing me survive, Greg did it himself and he rode it in a much more intelligent manner (putting his weight in front instead of on the back) and it looked easy and safe. It was extremely fun to raft on those rapids.

DINNER
Yesterday I had dinner with Yuliia and her hosts Tim and Janet. It was Janet's birthday recently and Yullia and I had bought an ice cream cake to celebrate so we had dinner. The dinner was delicious, corn, pasta and a lot of tasty vegetables that they grow on the farm (zucchini, tomatoes, onions, mescaline, spinach, lettuce). It was really really tasty. It was also interesting to get to know more of Tim and Janet, how they started the farm and stuff. I had a wonderful time.

IN LOVE
I usually don't like to write about personal relationships on my livejournal, but in this case, I just feel too happy and too much in love to not put in the livejournal. I have been having the best time of my life with Yuliia, traveling with her, dancing with her and just spending time together. I am really excited about our upcoming trip to Mexico that starts Wednesday morning.

Picked up Yuliia and Roma at 7:15am and started the journey to Boston. Roma is another Ukrainian that lives in the area where Yuliia lives, he studies medicine in Ukraine and is here for the summer to work and get to see the USA. It was fun to talk to Roma on the way to Boston, interesting stuff.
In Boston, we went to the Mexican Consulate first to get a visa for Yuliia and we waited two hours unsuccessfully as there was a problem with the computer and couldn't take the picture for the visa, plus Yuliia needs a signature from somebody. We'll have to go back in two weeks.
After the visa thing we did part of the freedom trail. Yuliia wanted to go to the aquarium and Roma continue on the freedom trail, so we split up. Yuliia and I went to the aquarium and it was very fun. The aquarium is full of interesting animals, I love looking at stingrays. It was also nice to sit down at the harbor, enjoy the breeze and talk with a good friend. Also, the view of the city from the aquarium is impressive, specially on such a beautiful day.
On the way back to where we would meet Roma, we got semi-lost and arrived one hour late (getting lost only cost us 15 minutes, so I would have been 45 minutes late in any case). There was a free theater thing in the Boston Commons and we watched 15 minutes of it. Then it was time to drive back, I was surprised I didn't get lost going out of Boston, given that I lucked my way into Boston Commons from the highway, I managed to luck my way back out. I did make a mistake on the highway that lost us 45 more minutes.
It was a great day, I saw many things in Boston that I hadn't seen before, as I usually just walk around Cambridge and not in the Boston side. I feel like I should have shown this side of Boston to my mom and sister when they visited me.
Lovely day.

The day was very rushed yesterday. I went to class at 10am, then I left at 11:15 am to be back home to do laundry. I missed my bus, so I rode my bike home. I did everything in a hurry and then made it to the bus station in Lebanon at 1:19pm when the bus leaves at 1:20pm. I was scared I would miss the bus because I saw a bus leave at 1:10pm while I was on the road biking towards the bus station.
I got to Boston and Sid and I went to eat at an Indian restaurant. We ate a lot. We ate fish with some tasty sauce, chichen tikka masala and an interesting vegetarian dish called "Malai Kofta". We also had three types of Naan (coconut, garlic, plain) and it was all delicious. I am much better at eating spices now.

The reason for the trip to Boston was to see a lecture by Neil Gaiman at MIT. The lecture was sold out (1200 people) and it consisted of a 15 minute talk on Julius Schwartz by an MIT faculty (the talk by Neil Gaiman is called "Julius Shwartz Lecture") and then Neil Gaiman took the stage and gave a 50 minute speech. It was very good, it was about genre. He said genre was something where the story is about leading to certain things and if you take them out people feel cheated. He made the analogy in similarities between hardcore porn and musicals. It was quite funny. His speech also talked about a recent trip to China where he was impressed by the size of a sci-fi/fantasy Con considering sci-fi used to be "illegal" (Mao era). Gaiman asked about it to one of the organizers and what he answered was: (I paraphrase but put in quotes just because I can) "For centuries, China has been very good at building stuff other people create, but not very good at creating. We realized that the leaders of many creative endeavours in America where fans of science fiction and fantasy, so we started to embrace it." I thought that was very interesting.

After Gaiman's speech there was a Q&A session with the host (faculty from MIT) and the session was very interesting. It went on for 80 minutes and I wasn't tired of listening it at all. During this I decided that I should try to read some of Gaiman's children's books. He had some interesting points about it. After that they opened the floor and answered questions from the public for about 15 minutes.

It was very fun and I'm glad I went to see him.

I stayed with Sid and then left early morning and now I am back in the Upper Valley.

On Friday I arrived 3 hours early at the airport, so we went to the mall to spend time before the flight. I bought 6 movies and 4 seasons of TV, everything was so cheap (at least half off, the TV seasons were 2 for 1).

The flights went okay, I was glad that Phoenix airport has free wireless, I TeXed up some of the Calculus III homework while there.

I arrived at Boston at 5am and after baggage claim and buses and subways I arrived at Sid's house at 6:40am. We chatted for a bit, then I took a 2 hour nap, then I met with Iuli and Mike at Harvard Square. Mike is a nice guy, it was nice meeting him and spending some time with both of them. We ate brunch at Zoe's. It is like Ihop but Greek style. The Greek style nachos were delicious, who would have thought that feta cheese and olives on nachos would taste that delicious. The food was quite good. The place was packed and Iuli was surprised that it wasn't more full, apparently they get long lines to go in.

I then went back to Sid's apartment and napped some more. We talked a bit while having "Parent Trap" in the background providing a lot of Lindsay Lohan jokes for our chatter.

I took the 5:30pm bus to Dartmouth. The movie on the bus was Scoop, the latest Woody Allen movie. I liked it a lot. I am aware critics didn't like it, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. The movie is fun, funny and entertaining. I really like the characters, Woody Allen's "Sid" with his constant phrase "I love you, really. With all due respect, you're a beautiful person. You're a credit to your race", made me laugh each time it appears. Scarlett does have a "funny" quality as Woody Allen mentions in interviews. I also thought Hugh Jackman as the son of a lord was a pretty good character.

The first thing I found back in Dartmouth was that someone tried to steal my bike. He (or she) managed to steal the front wheel. Right now, my bike is in the shop being fitted with a new front wheel.

I watched two Buffy episodes and played 3 hours of Wii to feel back in town. Guitar Hero III is very fun and this game "Zack and Wiki" was quite entertaining although it was also frustrating for a bit when I couldn't beat some fish and I didn't know if I was doing a bad maneuver with the controller or if the controller needed new batteries. I came to the conclusion that I just wasn't doing the movement required to fish a fish.

I went to Boston because Linnea came to visit me and was arriving Saturday morning (6am), so I had to stay in Boston to be able to meet with her at the airport.

I arrived at 7:30pm to Boston and met with Sid at Harvard Square to go to the Harvard Film Archives. They are having a special weekend on Romanian films. We saw a short film called Traffic and a movie The Way I Spent the End of the World by the same director. I liked the short, Sid hated it. It was a little glimpse into the life of a person stuck in traffic. The movie was actually very good (Sid also liked it), it was focused on a girl (and her little brother) and their activities close to when the dictator Ceausescu was overthrown. A very good movie even if the Ceausescu storyline wasn't there, one of those movies that can get to you even though they seem to rely on their historical surroundings. The little kid did a terrific job acting.

I slept in Sid's apartment and left at 5am to catch the 5:30am metro towards the airport. I met with Linnea there at 6:30am and then after several bus rides, metro, taxi, ride from a friend I am in my home while she is napping (she has been travelling for almost 24 hours, since she first took a car ride to Seattle, then a flight to Boston, then the buses with me, etc.).

I expect a fun weekend.

I spent the weekend in Boston, here is the quick summary of events:

-Took bus and had a very fun conversation with the person that sat next to me. It is always great to meet interesting people. It all started because I asked her if she was studying for the GRE (evident from the book she was reading) and then she told me all about her life, how she travelled in Mexico last year, how she has been working as a consultant for over 10 years and wants to go to grad school to teach and help more minorities like her (african-american) have better lives in America.

-Met up with Cesar and went to a frat party at MIT. We were walking near a place where there was supposed to be a Romanian party (Iuli told us about it), but we didn't find it and entered a place with loud music. The drinks were free (hence Cesar was happy) and it was very fun.

-Next morning, met up with Alejandro (Cesar's brother). At night Teri, Silvia (Alex's girlfriend), Alex, Cesar and me went to the BBFF. Cesar was very nervous. There was free food (chicken, which we took after and I ate today). We saw the movies. One of them was very good. It was a documentary called "Criminal Mass". It was very well done. It was about the ridiculous rules against riding a bike in New York. How they have been enforcing laws that don't exist and don't permit people to ride bikes because they deem them as protesters. I can't explain it well with my writing. The movie was funny and impressive.

-After Cyclus was shown, some people asked me if I had made it and pointed towards Cesar then they asked him several questions and were really enthusiastic about how much they liked the movie. It was great.

-Besides those two movies, the others were not that interesting. One was really bad and some were cute but too long.

-At night I hanged out with some friends of Teri. It was fun.

-This morning I hanged out with Cesar and Alejandro. Left at 3:30pm. I am back at Dartmouth.

-Watched the World Series match at Murphy's enjoying the peanut butter and chocolate pie I love so much with a couple of good friends, I had a blast.

I really love it here.

After going to all my classes on Friday, I packed and headed to Boston on the bus.
I met with Iuli and three of her friends; Erin, Megan and Carolina. The three of them speak Spanish (Carolina is from Spain). We went to Rendang near Harvard Square to eat malaysian food. I ordered fried taro with chicken, vegetables, cashew nuts and some interesting sauce. It was delicious albeit expensive. Chris arrived just when the food arrived.
After dinner, the six of us went to a bar called Red Line. I drank Pineapple juice and the rest had beers or other drinks. It was fun, although it ended kind of quickly since we wanted to go to another place and in the end left the bar and didn't go anywhere else.
In Chris' apartment, Parthi, Chris and I talked nonsense for hours until we went to sleep at 5am.

On Saturday, I woke up, finished reading Watchmen (review soon to follow) and went with Chris and Parthi to CostCo where they were going to buy stuff for their apartment.
At CostCo I ate a surprisingly good "Chicken Bake" and drank a berry smoothie that was delicious, while Chris had a disgusting looking pizza.

In the night, we went to a housewarming party of Marina, friend of Iuli. It turns out that the roommate of Chris (Sean, a guy who constantly says "awesome") was also going to that party, since another guy on the same house was a friend of his.

The party turned out to be very fun. The time when I had the best time was when some girl put some salsa and merengue music. I danced with a girl named Anya, who was russian, but for a strange reason spoke Spanish. She danced very well and it was very fun. After that, she went with a friend somewhere else and I was left alone when the music changed from salsa to merengue. As I have stated several times, I love merengue, I was looking around seeing who I could invite to dance, I noticed a girl wanting to dance, but it took me about a minute before I actually went and invited her to dance. I danced with Katrina, a swedish girl, for about 4 songs. It was quite fun, since Katrina is one of those girls that looks at you when you dance (I think that is more fun than looking at the floor or at other sides).
Besides the dancing, the atmosphere was quite comfortable and fun.

Since I don't drink, I was the designated driver, so I gave a lot of rides. I drove for 2 and a half hours. It could have been 2 hours, but I got lost in one of the rides, since I hadn't driven in Boston before and the girl did not know how to get where she wanted me to take her and everybody I would ask would send me farther and farther away from the place we had to go.

On Sunday, I went to lunch with a good friend of mine, Karima. Karima and I met in an international summer science camp in Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel four years ago. She's a grad student at MIT, so I called her to see if she wanted to do something. The day was grey with lots of rain, so we went to some nearby place (it turned out that she lives very near Chris' dorm). We talked for a couple of hours and then I took the bus back home (interesting that I am starting to think of Hanover as home).

Had a great time, I am really enjoying my life.