CCL comes to a close, but not before we film Russia

It’s purely a coincidence that our one interview was filmed in front of the sex shop!  Given the guerrilla-style film making, setting up camera angles was the least of our worries…regardless, it’s a funny way to end the Culture, Civilization, and Leadership course.

Bringing down the Internet

I’m not sure if we should be proud or ashamed of it. Whatever your personal reaction, Duke University ran an experiment yesterday that brought down a part of the internet. We didn’t do it alone of course, we had the RIPE NCC (Reseaux IP Europeens Network Coordination Centre) to help us along in our gaffe. Here is the link to the story.

It’s nice to have time to read articles by choice again, my energy level was really flagging this last semester. Ramadan may have something to do with it but we were all suffering from some kind of burnout this semester. I think I only attended a couple of Centra classes live, it obviously didn’t help that I couldn’t keep track of the schedule and everything became jumbled up with Saturday and Sunday classes. Something tells me next semester will be just as tough as this one was. I hope all my fellow, foreign, students can make it to this final residency, getting a U.S visa is probably just as hard as getting one for North Korea in some parts of the world.

Oh, Hi Finals! What are you doing here?

Have you ever driven home from a great night out in the city and received a parking ticket…but didn’t realize it until halfway home when you notice a piece of flapping paper underneath your windshield wiper?

That’s how I feel about Semester 5 finals starting today.

To say I’ve been ‘out of it’ this semester is a fantastic understatement.  I can’t remember the last live class I’ve attended (including missing last night’s final Operations class)…heck, I can’t remember the last recorded class I’ve ‘attended’!  The weeks have just sort of flown by as I’ve tended to my real world surroundings.

Thinking back, the timing does make sense; I was in St. Petersburg over the 4th of July, today’s August 24th.  24 days in August + 15 days home in July after St. Petersburg….divide by 7…carry the 9…yup, 6 weeks or so.  In the past 6 weeks, I’ve fully transitioned to a new responsibility at work, had my first wedding anniversary, and tended to the joint stress of buying/selling a home in this market.  (BTW, you haven’t lived until you put in a ‘no-contingency’ offer that gets accepted, with no contract on your current home!)

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