Project Time

I have finally finished building and programming my Puma robot. It was really rough. I first had to learn inverse kinematics, which I thought i understood until Inho gave me a test. On the test were two robots and I had to show the denavit-hartenberg parameters, tranformation matricies, and inverse kinematic solutions for them. I got through the first one fine and the second one was the puma robot. I did the forward kinematics and then started the inverse kinematics but none of my expressions were making any sense. I spent about a day working through it on my own because I wasn't allowed to ask any questions (it was a test, picture on the right). But it really just got to the point where I had no idea what to do and so I started asking other people in the lab questions whenever Inho wasn't in the room because Inho kept telling me "this is easy! this is easy!" He had checked my forward kinematics just to be sure I was on the right path. I must have talked to every single person in the lab asking little tid-bit questions asking for help until finally Minguk realized that the forward kinematics were wrong. Inho was really surprised it was wrong. When he made the table he made it the same way I did so that made me feel less stupid. So now that I had the revised parameters I went to work on the inverse kinematics again.

I worked on it all night and all morning and still couldn't figure it out though. I was struggling so hard and felt so bad about myself because Inho kept laughing and telling me how easy it was. I just got so frustrated I took a nap and when I woke up Choel offered to go through the whole problem with me, from the beginning. I was so grateful. He sat down with me and we made it about five minutes before he informed me the robot was impossible. I'm not really sure what that means but he said there was no way to do the inverse kinematics. So I was back to square one and more confused than ever.

I finally went to Inho for help who just kept telling me i was getting confused because I was talking to lots of different people and getting conflicting information, which was true, and that I should just listen to him. The big controversy was one parameter in the denavit-hartenberg table, which describes the structure and movement of the robot. But one parameter changes all of the transformation matrices and the elements of the matrices are essential in figuring out the inverse kinematics (determining the joint angles for a robot to be in a certain position). I was beginning to just feel really bad about myself and that I didn't deserve to be in Hubo Lab. I am surrounded by math and engineering masters and PhD students, why would a political science major be here? I don't even know the trig identites, crucial to discovering the solution. I kept trying to tell myself that I am trying, I learn quickly, and that I am doing the best I can but i couldn't help thinking I just wasn't good enough.

I was fianlly just so beat down I went up to Inho and said "if this is so easy could you please just walk me through it." He had the most annoyed look on his face, he was clearly getting sick of having to deal with me. He sat down and started at the beginning. After twenty minutes I couldn't tell if it was difficult for him or not so I asked him if it was still easy for him and he said no, it was very hard. We sat there for over an hour. He approached in in three different ways, moving on to the next method when he couldn't solve it with the current one. He eventually used some method I hadn't read about in any of the books and was more advanced he said. And even then we didn't get all of the angles. Inho said he accidentally gave me a robot arm that has an offset (or something...) instead of what he had intended. So I think he understood why I was running around asking so many questions. I felt so much better after he had struggled so long. I had no confidence in my math abilities when I went to ask him for help but by the end I was proud that I had put so much effort into it and gave it my all because even Inho really struggled to solve the problem.

So with my spirits renewed I set off on building the Puma in Robotics Lab, the original simulation program I was using instead of Webots. I was going to work on the finger pointing for SimonSays at Colby but Inho was adamant I do the Puma robot to get experience. Now that I am writing about it I wonder why he cared so much. I bet he regrets it now (wait till you hear about programming the robot...). There were many senior students in the lab who told me not to do the puma robot and to work on Webots but Inho would get angry whenever I suggested doing otherwise and said to only listen to him, which is really uncharactersitic of him because he is a huge clown, he never gets angry so i figured it must be serious. He was my mentor so I listened to him.

I built the Puma robot in Robotics Lab and set out on programming it. Inho gave me some sample code he used to program Hubo and I examined it to learn how to control mine. I started off ok, asking intelligent questions and got control of two out of three of the joints. No matter what I did though the last joint was constantly moving. It looked like Inho had a lot of work so I spent hours trying to figure it out on my own but I couldn't get it. I also don't know C, the programming language of Robotics Lab, so I spent most of time reading the code over and over again, stepping through it to make sure I didn't do anything stupid when I inevitably would have to ask for help. It all looked sound to me so I took a deep breath and asked Inho.

He came into the room and when I showed him the problem he said it was a very small problem and not to bother him with little problems. I felt so bad. I know he is working really hard and has his own work and taking care of the americans is not high on his to do list. I told him how long i had been working on it and he replied that lots of people have been asking him questions and it is really hard to understand someone else's code, and he is right. I kept feeling worse and worse. My guilt was magnified because Inho was totally in the right. I was being such a burden and even though it may not be my fault I was the problem, i still was the problem. Something I really appreciate about the guys in the lab is that they are very straight forward. Maybe it is because they don't know english that well so they can't beat around the bush or maybe it is cultural but they just come out and say whatever. I mean it sucks to be on the negative receiving end of this bluntness but I would rather that than not know what is really going on. Inho left the room and I was back to zero confidence and on top of that felt so guilty about irratating him so much.

Peter and I went to the conveinence store (i didn't even get ice cream i was feeling so terrible...) and when I came back Inho was sitting at my computer looking at my code. He spent an hour on it to find the problem and to make things even worse he turned to me half way through and said "i am not your teacher." I didn't even know how to respond, i was just so emotionally dead, lost, confused, feeling guilty. He figure out that there are different sets of axes in Robotics Lab and that I changed one set to make the motors oriented appropriately but it had to be a different set that we hadn't even heard of. I had no energy so I just went to sleep again so I could wake up and tackle the problem (left is the sleeping room in the lab)

I woke up feeling a lot better and went to work on fixing the axes. I ran the program and IT WORKED!! It was probably the most exctied I have ever been. I was so happy. I worked really hard and even though I got tons of help from everyone I felt like I had actually done something. Now that I can get the robot to go to a certain point I am going to try and link together movements. For example getting it to spell out my name in the air, or something like that. Who knows what emotional roller coaster this task will bring but I think I know a lot more of what I am doing. And as much as I used to get frustrated when Inho told me I needed to do this for experience, he was right. I am really happy I struggled through because it was definitely worth it.

Great time

having a great time!

This week Dr. Oh took out the American students and the head of some artificial intelligence lab or something like that, Professor Kwan. We went out to a Korean style Japanese restaurant. If there is one meal in the world I could choose to never ever ever have to eat or see it would be raw fish. I think I would rather eat only rice (even without soy sauce) for a month than eat raw fish for one night. And I have been successfully avoiding it my whole entire life with no problems...until wednesday night. There was no getting out of this one. I seriously contemplated pretending to be sick but realized the infeasibility so i starved myself all day so i could possibly tolerate it out of desperation (that was plan a).

The restaurant was really beautiful though. We had a nice room which was quickly filled with lots of trays of different sea creatures. There was sea squirt, octopus, salmon, sea urchin, live ocotpus, fugu (pufferfish), sea bass, shrimp, whole fish (bones and all!) and a whole tray of raw fish stomachs and other parts. I tried everything and to my surprise the stuff that sounds the weirdest was by far the best (compared to what else was on the table). The problem is everything is so chewy so it stayed in my mouth forever! I kept trying to swallow but it just wasn't happening. I was pulling a little bit of a gerbil because I kept all of the food i was chomping on in my cheeks because i didn't want to taste it on my tongue. Twice I was chewing the raw fish (for what seemed like an eternity) and it escaped my cheek and spilled on to my tongue. My first reaction was ok maybe i will like it better this time. not the case. I actually turned away from the table and thought I was going to puke. My gag reflexes are on point. I was using every muscle in my body to keep that fish inside. After the first instance of this i moved to plan b: drink myself into liking it. Which was infinitely more successful than plan a. Professor Kwan was a drinking expert and loved teaching us tricks. For instance you add a shot of soju to a glass of beer and then drink it all in one go. Thank god professor kwan was there or i dont even know what would have happened.

After dinner professor Kwan suggested a little bit of noraebang, korean karaoke. Noraebang is realllly big here, you see the places everywhere. I wasn't sure what to expect but still wearing a little asian glow from dinner thought it was a wonderful idea. It was so cool! There is a room with crazy lights going and a big tv with the lyrics and videos going and best of all, tambourines. Peter, Danielle and I did lots of trios together ranging from Kanye West to the Monkees to Taylor Swift. Professor Kwan and Dr. Oh were great also! Overall it was a really great night! most fun i never want to have again (except the noraebang) : )

Photo Journal #2

This week I helped Danielle make finger models. She has a mold that the machinist in Hubo Lab made beautifully from her design. We fill the mold with silicon and let it sit for 24 hours. A lot of the guys in the lab have been involved and really helpful to Danielle, from muscle power to brain power. She has spent the last two months researching to build the mold and this was the first week we tested it out so it was a big deal. It was a little ghetto to measure out the silicon ingredients with tiny plastic ice cream spoons in a paper cup in this high-tech lab but there was not a beaker or graduated cylinder to be found. I guess that is what engineering is for anyway.

We were taking out the very first mold. Danielle was so nervous that the machinist had to take apart the mold for her. Every time something moved she screamed; I am not sure what she would have done if any harm had come to her baby. The machinist jokingly said, “I’m a professional.” I now refer to him as Mr. Professional because I have no idea what his name is. Inho, Choel, Keim, Peter, Danielle, Chung Su, Chung Wu, and I were all huddled around, our anticipation building with each screw Mr. Professional removed, bringing us that much closer to seeing if it had worked. Piece by piece the mold came apart but we still could not see the silicon until it was detached from the very last piece.

This is what popped out. There was a split second of silence. Then the Koreans and the Americans spewed out a combination of eruptive laughter and speaking at the speed of high school girl in between breaths in our respective languages. I have absolutely no idea what words they were saying and I’m not even sure if I could discern what we were saying but everyone knew what was being said. It was funny to be surrounded by all of these guys who poked fun at Danielle saying, “What is this…!” Inho remarked, “Is this your hubby?” (He was saying hobby but the fact it came out as hubby (like husband (for the not so hip)) had us laughing for an additional twenty minutes.) They bring a girl into the Hubo lab and this is what she comes up with. We were all wearing grins while passing the model around for the rest of the day; we could not stop laughing. Even Later that night Danielle and I were working on making another mold and Dr. Oh came in to see the progress. Danielle handed him the mold. He said, “This looks like a…” and Danielle cut him off to preserve some of her mold’s pride.

I chose to talk about this moment because although I have discussed the wonders of everyone knowing English, the feeling has definitely worn off. I mean it is easy enough when we are traveling to find someone who speaks English but in a restaurant or a store where only one person is working, no such luck. And it is a hassle to find someone who speaks English. It is energy draining and just a pain to find someone or to attempt to communicate otherwise. This was the one time where the language barrier proved its permeability, which was really refreshing. I am really happy to have Danielle as a friend. We can talk about how sometimes we are just sick of kimchi, sick of the boys talking in Korean, sick of old women giving us the hairy eyeball or craving some home cooked food.

I am lucky though that in the lab everyone knows at least some English but it is still a game of gestures and some things definitely get lost in translation. Danielle and I make jokes all the time with the guys and they don’t even realize it. Or one time I was asking Inho what sound a certain character made and it took about fifteen minutes because he first explained to me what the whole word I was looking at meant and didn’t understand I just wanted the one noise no matter how I said it. I definitely feel more like an outsider in the negative sense than when I first got here. Maybe I just didn’t realize people weren’t understanding me earlier or maybe everyone is making less of an effort to pretend they understand that language seems to be a bigger barrier than I had originally thought. And Korean class makes me want to jump off a bridge sometimes but that’s another story.

But despite this there are still moments like the mold that revive me. People are people and even all the way across the world we still have the same young dirty minds.

Time Flies

I can't believe it has already been two weeks. It feels like i wrote my last blog post yesterday.

Peter, another student from Colby, arrived here a week ago! I am so excited to have him around. We are working on a project together. Inho assigned us some topics to read up on so we can simulate the Puma robot. This robot has six degrees of freedom which means it can reach anywhere in three dimensional space. But before we start virtual building we have to learn about forward and inverse kinematics, denavit-hartenberg parameters and homogeneous transformations, which all sound really smart to people who don't know what they are (and really hard to people who don't know what they are and are about to learn about them). At first we were just reading from a text book but that was a disaster. It is a lot of math that I hadn't learned yet so reading about it was difficult. I hit the internet and found out that Stanford records all of its lectures and puts the videos online. Oussama Khatib teaches an introduction to robotics class that i have been watching and makes it sooooo much easier to understand. It took me 45 minutes into the first class to recognize that I had just read 50 pages on the subject. But now I am going in the right direction. We have moved from Robotics Lab to Webots, another robot simulation program. We have started playing around with it to get familiar and probably sometime next week will get down to working on the puma. Currently the robot I built in Webots to play around just spins on the spot so I clearly still have some learning to do.

This week was also one of bonding with the lab boys (or men i guess but
whatever).It is nice to be able to move past the formalities and be friends. Danielle and I made an awesome ice cream cake for Inho's birthday and already have some plans for Choel's birthday in a week. We continue to play soccer at ungodly hours in the night and fool around in the lab (when we aren't working (which is all the time) ofcourse).

The president of Israel came to KAIST earlier this week to see Hubo! Peter, Danielle and I asked Dr. Oh if I could tag along to the demonstration and we got to see him! We were told to stand in the corner and not make any sudden movements. Since it was a private event though there weren't that many people there anyway so we were really close. I was on my best behavior (no heckling) and it was realy exciting. Peres rolled up with a motorcade surrounded by service men to be greeted by Hubo. Hubo is heading off to Mexico at the end of the month for some other important person to meet or somethign like that. so popular. Danielle came up with the idea of making t-shirts that say "I'm with the robot" instead of "i'm with the band" : )

The world cup has been really exciting! This means staying up until 6 am to watch all of the games but there is no other way to do it. Koji is a brazilian who works in the lab so watching the game with all of his brazilian friends is intense. Here is what they have taught me so far: argentinins wears their jerseys really tight, argentinians always start fights, argentinians try to draw fouls all the time, don't call it soccer and don't call him a goalie. This will be a fun filled month. Go Red Devils!

Photo Journal #1

Each week I write a photo journal and send it to National Science Foundation as a part of evaluating the PIRE (Partnership for International Research and Education, the program that has sent me to Korea) program. This means I pick one photo, describe the scene in detail and reflect on it. The topic of at least our first photo journal is to think about being an outsider. I have decided to post these entries on the blog as well. here goes number 1.



This weekend Sarah, Lauren and I traveled to Seoul. Sarah and Lauren were going to see a musical while I met up with a friend we have made, Yumi. Yumi and I went to Myeongdong, an outside street market that is super crowded but really fun. The street is lined with vendors who have tables filled with so much stuff from shiny hairpieces, sunglasses, tights, red devils apparel, to the infamous 32 cm tall ice creams. In addition to the goods being sold on the street there are stores that employ pretty women to scream into microphones in color coordinated outfits and props to attract customers off the street. There are signs everywhere, although that is not unique to Myeongdong, that light up the street at night when it is the busiest. It is really quite a sight.

Walking the streets was electrifying. There was so much going on; that is my idea of the perfect activity. My favorite was when little kids would point at me in complete shock. It was so cute. We were told that people were not as friendly in Seoul as Daejeon but the only difference I could see was that every where we went little kids pointed at us! A complete stranger led us through a maze of a bus terminal in a full run, breaking a sweat, so we could catch the last bus to Daejeon (and we made it with two minutes to spare). At first I thought being an outsider would be terrible and isolating but it actually has been great!

Random strangers have bent over backwards to help us. We instantly make friends anywhere we are sitting long enough to have a conversation. If we need anything we just look around and ask someone. It usually starts off with our five-sentence memorized introduction but ends with us receiving excellent instructions because so many people know English. Who knows, maybe Koreans are saying, “Oh those stupid Americans” in their heads but they certainly aren’t acting that way.

Being an outsider has also given us a lot of leeway to make mistakes. Myeondong highlighted how awful my Korean is. I continually wave at people, especially when I say an-nyeong-ha-se-yo (which apparently is a dead give away you’re a foreigner because most people do a little bow action). Even outside of the market I have stepped on those special platforms for eating that you are supposed to take your shoes of before hand. I have been holding my glass all wrong when someone pours for me. Despite all of these little things we are completely forgiven and everyone just thinks it is cute we are trying.

But I really wish I could just magically know Korean. Having Yumi was really helpful in Myeongdong because she could ask for the price, which I can do, however she can understand the answer, which I cannot do. Also on the train, people in wheel chairs hand out products, in our case gum, to everyone on the train in an effort to entice people into buying it. My first reaction was, “wow, they also have free gum on the train, what a place” but Yumi knew that the man was going to come around again to pick up the gum or get money from people. But having Yumi around was just another example of how great being an outsider is. Yumi is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend and she met us in Seoul, took us to the theater for the musical, took me to Myeongdong, went back to the theater to pick up Sarah and Lauren, directed us back to Daejeon and has been hanging out with us in Daejeon as well. It is so great that so many people are so eager for us to be happy!

I am pretty sure our preferential treatment is due to our American-ness in particular as opposed to just any foreigners. But this has led me to question what I have been defining an outsider as. I will always be American and I will always look different and therefore always get this treatment but will I always be an outsider? What really is the difference between an outsider and a foreigner? I don’t feel like an outsider because I am having such a great time, which conflicts with my mental image of an outsider being sad and lonely. The way I see it, some things are just different here but that doesn’t mean I can’t be included or at least try.

I originally thought the answer to my question was no; one could live here for a very long time, learn Korean culture and language, and become a member of the tribe but I am beginning to think otherwise. To be an American here is to be an outsider. Korea is so homogeneous and there is so much pride that it cannot be fostered in someone who does not have the biological and physical connection to the country. No one will ever look at me and think I belong here. I mean for all those little kids knew I could have been born and raised in Korea but they still were shocked to see me. The difference in Korea is that there isn’t the typical us vs. them mentality when citizens are confronted with something new. Despite how counterintuitive this may sound, Koreans include outsiders. My conclusion is that being an outsider is a physical attribute. No matter how much I may become mentally qualified to join the club I will never shed myself of the label outsider, and I am perfectly ok with that. In fact, I intend on living up my status to the fullest.

Look what I Made!

Robotics Lab is a program in which I designed my own robot and then simulate it's movement. The first step is to make a block diagram that lays out all of the pieces of the robot, specifies the types of joints and what motors move which pieces. The block diagram also lays out the relationship between pieces. One piece will be a parent and one piece will be a child. This comes into play with joints because different pieces will move in different ways depending on the relationship and the type of joint. Think of a ball and socket. The distinction is important because the parent is the socket and the child is the ball. It is also important with motors because it determines which piece will move in relation to the other. The most common motor type is a servo motor. A servo motor is really important for robots because you can tell the motor what angle you want the piece it acts on to be at and it will move the piece to that angle and keep it there. This is what allows a robot to raise it's hand or walk, because a servo motor is telling the knee to move to x angle and then move to another angle and so on.

After the motors, joints, and pieces are planned out it's time to start virtually constructing the block diagram. This means building shapes for each piece and each piece may have multiple shapes. The shapes are pre-determined, such as box, cylinder, or cone, but the dimensions are customized to the appropriate size for the robot. Additionally shapes can be added together to make new shapes. If you look at the video the cross on the top has rounded edges, this is because the piece is a combination of a box and cylinders on the end. The displacement from the origin needs to be calculated to put the piece in its proper position. After the pieces are in place it is time to put the motors and joints in the suitable positions so things don't start rotating in mid-air magically unattached to anything (which i experienced the first time i tried to run it).

The next step is to then write the code that makes the motors move. I used some of the code from the tutorial but had to add lines for the extra motors I had and also messed around with the motor controls. The computer I am working on makes really loud noises whenever it tries to update the animation too often so I had to find a good combination of speed to run the motors at and re-drawing of the animation.

After Inho stepped through the tutorial with me he said ok now build your own robot. At first I couldn't even think of anything! i literally had a blank board in front of me that i had complete control over how to fill but was left just staring at an empty screen. The only thing that was coming to mind was a robot like a human but that seemed unoriginal seeing as I was in the Hubo lab and complicated for my first construction. A ferris wheel then popped into my head but what I was imagining as a ferris wheel only had one motor and i wanted to prove to inho i could make something more than a dinky pendulum like the tutorial. I made what I call a swing set but it is more like tea cups/tire swings. The cross itself is spinning and then the swings hanging down are also spinning so if one were to sit on the circles (like the little capsule is) one would be spinning in circles in circles. The purpose of the capsule and the prisms are to make it easier to visually track the spinning motions.

I was really happy when i successfully made this! I had to go through a lot of trials, changed the design, added/ subtracted motors, changed joints, re-wrote portions of the code that makes it move, and tons of wonderful help from inho when i couldnt fix something (though in my defense the computer is in korean so it is really hard to go through directories and find stuff or understand the error codes, but regardless inho is the best and spent most of his time solving problems i didnt even know I had), but i finally did it! I think I am on schedule and feel like i have done something constructive with my week. and it is only thursday : )

Determined Never to be Complimented Again

I have been spending lots of time making sure i am outside. In korea the whiter/lighter skin someone has the more attracitve you are. Just like in the US we stick out our arms and compare skin colors except they point to the tannest person and say "haha youre tan!" I first thought the obsession with being white as possible, from lethal whitening creams, to parasols, to avoiding the sun like the plague, was a racist aspect of asian society (last night we went to play soccer around 9 pm and one the lab guys put on sunscreen!(yes, i gave him a hard time)). I began to really appreciate the US but I figured i would give the continent the benefit of my doubt and do some research. Afterall there are 4 billion asians, i wouldnt want to call them all racist in one fell swoop. It turns out that the color of one's skin is not indicative of race but class. A long time ago the wealthy could afford to be inside and therefore had very light skin while the peasants were outside working in the fields with tan skin. This was almost a relief to me. I mean in the US we show of affluence like no other, I think some people wish it would be as easy to flaunt how rich you are with your skin color.
Anyway I was hanging out with a group of high school girls and they spent a good amount of time complimenting me on how white my skin was. With every minute they continued to praise my pale skin I sunk deeper and deeper into depression. why did i go to college in maine...
I have made it one of my utmost priorities to never hear this "flattery" directed at me again.

Getting into Lab Mode

Today i made some concrete progress on my project. By concrete progress I mean I downloaded the program (Robotics Lab) I will be using to simulate robot motion. and by I installed the program i mean Inho installed the program. But regardless progress is progress. Inho spent the morning with me setting up the computer (we tried to set it up on my mac but it doesn't work on macs, i'm sure the guys from DASL would feel pretty smug in an "i told you so" fashion if they knew) and teaching me how to use the program because the manual was in korean. The computer i am using is also in korean. This could be helpful in learning the language but i am pretty sure it will be more devastating than useful because i just click buttons when windows pop up and god knows what i am telling it to do.
I made a three degrees of freedom robot this morning as a tutorial with Inho. He is great and so helpful. He also seems like a fun guy to be around so I am looking forward to working with him on my project and getting to know his personality better.

For lunch today, Lauren, Sara and i met up with a guy named Bill. Bill is getting us tickets to a kpop concert and he is going to take me out in Seoul while lauren and sara go to a musical he got them tickets for. This is all happening this weekend so I am really excited. Bill has been taking us out around KAIST for the past few days and we have had such a great time. He is hilarious. He loves girls and is really funny so it's impossible to not have fun around him.
I wonder if seoul will be anything like daejeon. I still dont really feel like an outsider. We have met all of the kids in the KISS program and nearly all of them are from Singapore, which means they all speak english as their first language. All of the girls live on the same floor and what ever time i am not in the lab i am spending with them. I am mad that our korean classes are split up by gender. there are two sections of korean 1 with the girls in one class and the boys in another. Also girls and boys are not allowed in each others dorms. It is like we aren't even in the same program as them because we never see them. Luckily we have facebook so we can connect and make plans to go out so we can still meet lots of people and have a good time but it would be infinitely better if we had a space where we regularly interacted. I don't know if such gender separation is a cultural thing but i will ask my teacher why at the next class and get back to you.

I was worried i was not going to get my act together to travel around korea but all of a sudden i am going on a lot of trips. This weekend i am going to seoul to hang out with bill. Then there is a KISS field trip to gyeongju. We will go on tours of all of the historical stuff and museums and make some pottery, which i am most excited about because i love ceramics and took it all through high school. Also I am planning on going to jeju, kind of like the hawaii of korea, for the last days i am here with some people from the lab. Maybe even squeeze in a beach trip, a hot springs trip, a hiking trip on the other weekends and definitely the concert Bill got us tickets for. This is going to be a great, packed 6 weeks. Thank goodness I am the energizer bunny and can move from one activity to the next seamlessly without rest. Although i may not be able to compete with the guys from the lab who i have been told stay till 5 in the morning and come in at 8. There is a room here with 2 sets of bunk beds that they nap in periodically but wow, they work hard. I learned that in korea you can either have mandatory military service or get a PhD. if i had the government on my tail like that maybe i would work as hard also. But i am keeping my perspective, i am here for the summer for just as much a cultural experience as work experience so i don't need to measure up to them all of the time, just some of the time.
: )

well i am sweaty and gross from the gym with danielle tonight and it is time to leave the lab and hit the shower. Tomorrow im coming in at 8 (and by 8 i mean 8 ish) to continue learning Robotics Lab from Inho. what an awesome life i have right now.