this is what I do when I should rather be finishing my paper.

but it is pretty awesome, and maybe a little scary, too...

check out the world population clock

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

time for an update

NBA playoffs are on. Tonight the Celtics tore the Chicago Bulls apart. As my new roommate got us cable and a huge (and when I say huge I mean HUGE) TV. Well good game it was anyways. Right now the LA Lakers are playing against Utah Jazz... and LA is probably going to win but it's close.

Besides that I got really hooked on the American Revolution this week after I went to the reenactment of the Battle on Lexington Green with my friend Maik from Dresden/DC on Monday morning (5.30 am lolz!). A lot of gunpowder was in the air as the British troops marched into town and fought off the revolutionaries in Lexington and continued marching further west towards Concord. Back in 1775 they had to retreat back to Boston eventually and suffered heavy losses because militia from all the surrounding Massachusetts towns went there to fight the "redcoats". I actually learned this from the 13 episode history channel documentary "the revolution" which I downloaded this week (but only watched 3 of them so far)... as I said I'm hooked. 

I took some pictures and video, but unfortunately they are kind of too large to upload them here. In case someone is really interested, there are videos of the reenactment on youtube. And here are some pictures

dead revolutionaries and the British ranks 

people were actually booohing when the British soldiers marched by. Obviously reenactment is taken very seriously not only by the actors...

Other than watching NBA and documentaries on the Revolution, I drafted my first poster for a scientific presentation this week. The student research conference at my university where I am going to present our preliminary results is going to be next Tuesday and I am happy and relieved that our dataset finally worked out and I found something to present. I am pretty happy with the final results now! 

... I guess that's it for now. Only 2 more months in the States for me now. Feels kind of weird thinking about going back to Germany so soon. But I am currently looking for internship opportunities for the summer and for a thesis topic for fall; exciting stuff! Before I leave though I'm gonna do a big road trip with my friend Adrian (the plan is to drive west, then down the Mississippi all the way to New Orleans and back up to New England... just a quick trip of about 3500 miles, haha!) and present at another conference in New Jersey in June. Also there are a couple of more papers due till the semester is over...

That's it for now, have to go to bed.

More news soon. x

... sitting in my empty room

at least it's way emptier that a couple of hours ago as I drove Verena to the airport this evening. The three weeks flew by like a couple of days... Boston didn't make it very hard for her to say goodbye as it was pouring all day today. 

The last weeks with her were eventful and a lot of fun. When she got here on Monday three weeks ago (together with my friends Lars, Arne, and Hanna) they had a couple of days to explore Boston and I had time to show them around as it was my spring break week. We didn't stay in Boston for very long though and drove down to NYC on Thursday to spend a wonderful weekend in Brooklyn with my friends Ari and Adam to celebrate Ari's birthday. On our way down there we passed at the submarine museum in New London, CT to see the Nautilus, the first submarine that dove all the way under the north polar ice cap and the north pole. It is a museum ship and visitors can actually go onboard and walk around, pretty awesome. 

NYC was a lot of fun as always. Staying with the best people in one of the best cities can't be anything but fun! We did some touristy things like the MOMA, the Staten Island ferry, the Brooklyn Museum but also spend a decent amount of time visiting the culinary sights around the city. Foodwise the highlight for me anyways was Foodswings in Williamsburg, vegan fast food deluxe. 

Tourists, Staten Island

hmmm food, Foodswings Williamsburg

Verena and me drove back to Boston Monday morning and I had to get back to school routine, as much as that was possible at that time with a visitor here that I wanted to spend as much time with as I possibly could. I got the most important things done but will have to start working harder again now that she's gone again. Well the next weekend we spent in and around Boston with a day trip to Newport and Providence, RI where we enjoyed nice weather and a spectacular coastline. 

Seashore, Newport

After another week school and the culinary attractions of Boston (vegan brunch, Grasshopper, ...) we took the car all the way up to Montreal for the weekend to celebrate the wedding of my friends Megan & Alex that got married this weekend and threw a big party with an amazing 80s dance action... the taste of the Montreal kids is right up my alley I have to say!! Apart from all the rain in Montreal this weekend we got a very nice first impression of the city and thanks to the hospitality of my friends we stayed really close to the interesting spots in town. 

Bride & groom, Montreal

Party hard! Montreal

Got back to Boston last night kind of exhausted and spent the day today in bed, packing, running some last errands and meeting with Daniel and Jan who are in town also for some dinner... Now she's gone and I after weeks and weeks of laziness am updating my blog and listening to some live recordings of my band from a show in Berlin over a year ago... actually I am just listening to the final "anstrafen" that my friend Thomas did to the microphone requesting some additional songs... hilarious! Haha!

In the next couple of days I am going to have some more visitors here as my friends Lars, Arne, and Hanna are coming back to Boston after touring the East Coast, before they fly out of Boston next week so I won't be lonely ; ) So long, Johanssen