no longer sick. yay.
hopefully i will have my own television tomorrow. i should clear some desk space. my sleeping schedule is fucked up but my life is coming together a bit better. less work in the lab, or maybe i’m WAY more efficient when kim isn’t around. it’s probably the second one. the proposal is just down to one issue: how to differentiate between alpha haemolysin and CNF1 effects in cells. and my errands are caught up, i even washed my dishes tonight, i’m doing my laundry during the match. i went running too.
what a boring summer, relatively speaking. when getting a television is among the most exciting things in your life something’s quite wrong.
on to ossm (former high school) issues. following links on arick shao’s blog (linked on the sidebar) i read that ossm’s applications dropped by over two-thirds on gary tsai’s blog. how ironic. wait, that’s not the definition of irony. but i guess that happens when you get a bad reputation from pissed off lawmakers who failed to buy off the school and send their kids there, and the instructors, students and parents who have to deal with a hell of a lot of bullshit from a crappy-ass administration. my friends and i have been saying it for almost three years now. something has to change there, even the professors are having an incredible turnover rate.
i’d like to see them expand now, in that case everyone will be living in a single there, instead of the standard doubles.
a lot of people say that it was better before they moved into the new dorm. i’d probably agree, i know several alumni who say the same. looks like we were the end of an era. . . the last happy and successful class. okay, maybe not. most of us weren’t very happy there. but we were successful.
and i’m not diminishing from the success of this year’s class, but it certainly seems that they were weaker not due to their ability but to the circumstances at the school. some people didn’t get what they deserved, and others just plain got lucky. i just hope they realize that college isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either. it’s certainly an improvent, however, from two years at that hellhole. nor am i diminishing from the great faculty there who somehow manage to stick it out through the shit. they are the ones we all have to thank for our success.
on to the world’s biggest show. it could almost be a soap opera this time.
GERMANY 1 : 0 KOREA REPUBLIC
what an AMAZING run for korea. and a great way to go out. too bad they had to pay for their seemingly rare lapse on defence when Ballack was left unmarked in the penalty area. that’s the way it goes. in fact, it was a very defensive match for both sides. as guus hiddink said, you have to punish the little teams for their mistakes to beat them. germany, the most consistent team in the world it seems, did so, unlike the two sides korea faced before. so they won. a close match, though. too bad the koreans didn’t have any finishing power. they looked tired, but i guess that happens when you play two extra time matches in a row.
it would have been really interesting if brazil and germany met in the third place match, but i can’t wait to see his trademark right uppercut on the 29th instead. i’m confident they can win one more, even against brazil. they have quite a back line, led by the veteran hong myung bo. they just need a little more up front.
on germany: it’s an unimpressive but consistent team. oliver kahn is a fucking badass. he’ll win the lev yashin, i’m sure of that. four, count ‘em, four clean sheets in a row here. of course, it could have gone the other way against the u.s., and then friedel (haha!) might have won it. much more sporting than italy or spain (maybe because they won) but in general less of the blatant fouling (except the ballack one, 71′ and a couple of dives which were well caught by urs meier).
as for the referee scandal, part of an e-mail of mine was reprinted here. yes, i’m a rabid korea fan for this cup, though i’m not korean. it’s good to see other (asian) teams win for a change. and i’m rooting for turkey in three hours too. no, my name isn’t kevin. (honest mistake, the article he cites was written by him)
so my comments will be deferred to that and the myriad of links at that blog. . . draw your own damn conclusion, hehe. in summary, it’s unfair for the refs to be criticized when the players and managers make it so hard to make a good call.
i’d like to see turkey win mainly because brazil cheats so much more than most teams. they’re not the only cheaters, but they’re more blatant about it. even scolari said that china should have fouled them more. is that right? that’s not football, that’s american football then. just tackle the hell out of everyone, right? uhhhuh. and rivaldo having the gall to attempt to justify his play-acting. at least if you get caught keep your damn mouth shut! even if the guy would have been sent off. turkey could get some sweet, sweet revenge in just a few hours (they say it’s not revenge, yeah right). they’ll probably have a drive to win not unlike that of the koreans.
seriously, if you keep organized while being driven, nothing can stand in your way. that’s the way turkey needs to play, they need to stay under control even if brazil cheats. this, incidentally, sounds like the advice kahn wanted to give to his team over the korean bad refereeing “home advantage.”
and it’s not a conspiracy. that’s stretching it a little too far.
at least someone at perugia is in their right mind, signing Ahn back on for a couple million pounds.
sadly, this world cup has brought out the specter of racism. oh wait, just about everything does. what a sad world. i hope my life has more meaning than that of a KKK member. . . in the bad lyrics of creed: let’s give love to all. (not just your own race)
what a long post.