(no subject)

When I woke up this morning, it was pouring rain. I rolled out of bed, planning to go running, took a look out the window, and rolled back into bed.

It poured when I went into lab. But then, around 9:30, I took a look out the window. Partly cloudy, but bright blue clear sky. It never ceases to astound me how fast the weather in Iowa can change.

(no subject)

One feature of the dorms here at Iowa is that there are cable TV jacks in every room, and they are free. Something we don't get at Swat, but also something few of us would have the time to make much use of. My roommate from Grinnell brought a TV, so we've had that, even though neither of us watch a lot of it. He does use it to watch anime and play Gamecube games, though.

There are all sorts of weird channels here, including a number that are Iowa student-run. There's even a Chinese language channel. I don't really understand most of the stuff since it's in Mandarin and I'm functionally illiterate with characters (and particularly the simplified characters with which they subtitle the shows). But tonight I watched this weird drama show in Cantonese. It had something to do with this married couple and their bickering in-laws. I'm not sure I got everything, as I missed the beginning of the show, but there was something about the mother of the wife being furious about a statue of the Kitchen God that had a broken finger. Then this somehow led to the wife, who was a doctor, making a medical mistake and (I think) prescribing a contraindicated drug for someone with diabetes. Lots of heated arguing. It was rather amusing to listen to the expressions the arguing characters threw at each other (ie, "Did you just eat gunpowder?") Also funny to hear the characters (especially the mom) say the kinds of things that my own mom says to me when I've done something really, really bad.