Robotics Competition at the ISU

The first week back at the ISU has been extremely busy and extremely fun! Thanks to our special guest lecturer Professor Kazuya Yoshida, one of Japan's leading robotics experts, as well as the cooperation between the ISU and ENSIIE (École nationale supéerieure d'informatique pour l'industrie et l'entreprise), we had a week of robotics concluding with a robotics competition!

Why I read: A Reader's Response

While catching up on the work and online activity of others, I came across an interesting article on reading, specifically why a friend of mine reads, which can be found here. She concludes by asking why we read and how would we convince others to read?

So, here is my response.

Christmasses 2013

Christmas time is pretty special for me, and for my family. We work incredibly hard all year long and, among the many wonderful aspects of this holiday, Christmas is the one time of year we take opportunities to relax, and spend extra quality time together.

We have many Christmas traditions in our family, but the most important is just being together. It might sound emotionally mushy, but it's the truth. We have had to change traditions, even locations, but we have always managed to get together and free ourselves, for a moment, of outside distraction and responsibility.

Last year, we went to Cuba, which you can read about here. This year, we did something equally special, following our usual traditions and even took back up a tradition we had neglected for some time.

All work and no play: Finishing 2013 at the ISU

Christmas has come and gone, and I've been so busy that it has taken me this long to catch you up on my adventures.

With Christmas coming, boy did I ever need a break! The workload at the ISU has been as exceptionally demanding as advertised, but the worst thing is that I haven't had the time to focus on anything other than my desk and the classroom. While I'll get into the details of my activities in other posts, this one is simply an update of everything I've been working on since last I posted here.

International Culture Night at the ISU

The International Space University, ISU, where I am currently studying, is well known for its "3Is": International, Interdisciplinary, and Intercultural. My current class of 40 students, has students representing around 30 different cultures. It has been an interesting and exciting experience finding out more about their cultures.

The ISU encourages this interaction and has asked its students to arrange "culture nights", where specific cultures have the opportunity to share some of its traditions, food, and culture through presentation and food. The first culture night we had was very successful, and we were treated to the food, music, and perspectives of Puerto Rico, Catalonia (a province within Spain), and Venezuela.

For the second culture night, the ISU students awaited the cultures of China, France, and Canada! We were all really excited, especially the Canadians as we were being visited by Canadian astronaut Dr. Robert Thirsk!