I went home for three weeks after finals week, gained 10 pounds and got completely sunburned up to the point in which I spent a week recovering at home. That’s how you know I had a good time. My sunburn was so great that I had to put cold gel with aloe and several other ingredients on my back and shoulders and I still felt like an oven. Now I know what it’s like to go to hell, thank you Jesus.

After that fantastic experience I got back to MIT, but on the way here I had to go upstairs with my suitcase and backpack (over my sunburned back) for what seemed an eternity, simply because a train station was closed and the station at which I had to get off had no elevator… (it was broken).

I finally made it to the MIT Saturday night (that’s last week’s Saturday) and was settled in my room by midnight. I am yet to unpack and completely settle in, but that’s something you don’t care about. Sunday was a relaxing day, I had an exquisite dinner at Suzanne’s place and went to bed by 1am.

This week I spent doing the following:

  1. Training for my job as an Interphase TA
  2. Finishing up training for my summer research
  3. Practicing taekwondo
  4. Lifting weights with René
  5. Eat, sleep, socialize, have a life.
  6. Working on the taekwondo club’s websites.

I got a bike from René, so I have been able to go back and forth from places without wasting too much time. One exciting thing was that my celphone fell off my pocket while I was biking on Massachusetts Avenue, and thanks to some sort of miracle I could recover it without it dying or a car killing me. I had a fantastic week indeed. Now, however… I feel like a piece of disposable human.

Thanks to the amount of exercise I did combining taekwondo practice and lifting weights this past week, when I woke up this morning my body was in pain. Severe pain. God forgave all my sins since my last confession (several years ago) because he thought I was in enough pain now. Even now when I walk to the door I have to do it as if I were an 80 years old man, arching my back and moving slowly.

I hope this pain goes away soon because the Interphase students (my students for the summer) started arriving today and I’ll be working 6:30am-5:30pm tomorrow receiving the rest. Shall be fun. I guess it would be great if I receive them sitting on a chair and not being able to move.

Okay well, I’m going now to make things worst because I’m a masochist. I just got a call from people who just convinced me to play Ultimate Frisbee with them… because apparently that’s all that taekwondo folks in the club do during the summer. I can barely move, but they don’t care, so we’ll see if I survive. I’m also very hungry… I could eat a cow.

-omar