ISU SSP #: Crazy Times

In case you’re wondering why there hasn’t been an update in a while, here’s a brief list of what has been going on over the past five weeks, in absolutely no particular order. I…

• Went to the Great Wall (twice)
• Got three new custom tailored suits for less than US$100 each that look amazing
• Went to the park looking over the Forbidden City.
• Went to the Winter Palace.
• Ate scorpions. So delicious.
• Took a ride that looked like a vertical human slingshot.
• Passed the Exam (50 is passing, I got an 82, high score was 95).
• Took some tours of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation’s (CASC) science facilities, include a microgravity drop tower, some biology labs, and a museum on campus
• Took a large tour of CASC’s version of the Houston Space Center (the super cool control room, the vehicle assembly building, some museums, the taikonaut training center, and a vestibular system deorientation chair)
• Ate a Big Mac. So delicious.
• Gave my Life Sciences presentation, which apparently consisted of little “original research” because apparently I didn’t just list several references on my final slide for comparing the MDRS suits to actual pressure suits. Whatever, I still passed.
• Saw an opera/variety show downtown, before and after which we were stuck in traffic because of Beijing’s celebration of the Olympics being exactly 1 year away.
• At said variety show, saw a guy balance and spin a 10kg pot on his head, saw yet another awesome face changing performance, some magic, some Chinese rap (weird, more like Def Jam poetry than rap, but that’s what I was told it was), and an awesome martial arts demonstration.
• Finished all four of my sections for our final project exactly 17 seconds before the midnight deadline for the first draft. Oh yeah.
• Presented part of our Team Project on stage for our Internal Review.
• Danced, quite a lot, at every culture night every week.
• Laughed at people who thought I was an awesome dancer at said culture nights.
• Laughed even harder at people who copied my moves because they thought I was a good dancer at said culture nights.
• Laughed hysterically when people asked if I could actually teach him them how to break dance.
• Learned some Chinese, and how to write some basic words.
• Stole/received enough pins to provide the proper minimum amount of “flare” to several Shenanigans’ employees.
• Got annoyed by Texas.
• Learned that there was only one case of slight alcoholic intoxication by an astronaut before a flight, and that was on a Soyuz mission, because the Russians throw parties the night before and are virtually immune to the hangover effects of vodka. Since he was not a Russian, he was literally in the same seat that space tourists ride in, and therefore did absolutely nothing during the ride, and wasn’t even that hung over. The reporter that blew that story out of proportion has been unofficially black listed by the medical doctors in the entire space industry.
• Did not fall asleep once during a lecture, department activity, advanced seminar, or team project meeting, ever.
• Ate an “Ass McMuffin” Sandwich for breakfast. So delicious.
• Learned a lot in advanced seminars and workshops about Venus, In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), microgravity experiments with a drop tower, and re-entry vehicle design, and played a weird version of Monopoly/Oregon Trail on the “moon.”
• Was interviewed by a NASA podcast program with a crewmate from MDRS at 6 in the morning.

That’s not entirely comprehensive, but you get the gist.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve learned there are at least two universal languages that anyone in the world can understand. The first is kindness. A smile will be returned with a smile (if not delivered in a creepy way) and a gesture of kindness will be appreciated.

The second language is money. When I go anywhere, the one thing that is completely understood is money. Whether it’s the silk market, laundry services, the bar in the Hello Café, or a taxi, someone can point to a number and I can pay the fee. I have realized that this is the reason why foreigners tend to be nice to Americans, and also why Americans hate illegal immigrants. It’s a shame the world works this way, but when language is a barrier it is inherently obvious that the world favors the wealthy over the poor.

One disease that the world just can’t seem to get rid of is the popped collar phenomenon. The first time I saw a Chinese guy in a pink polo shirt with his collar up, I was so disheartened I wanted to kick a puppy that happened to be for sale a few paces away from the incident (yes, people sell pets on the side of the road and at subway stops. I can’t imagine how many diseases I could get just by picking one up, but I certainly haven’t touched them). I have been forced to collar-down a few of the students at ISU too, especially during culture night. I only allowed it on 80’s night, which because technically collar popping was popular for a few days back then, and since ISU is also intercultural, I just ignored it.

I will say that the queerest thing I’ve seen while I’ve been here has been the method that the Chinese men use to try to cool off. They roll their shirt up their stomachs, almost into the shape of a bra, exposing their stomachs and lower backs to dissipate heat. Apparently no one ever thought of the fact that when you do that you make the clothes tighter and less permeable to air. I’m sorry, this is not a cultural thing; it’s just plain weird.

Nothing has disappointed me more than the lack of crazy/awesome martial arts I’ve witnessed. The only martial arts I’ve seen while I’ve been here was the aforementioned demonstration at the variety show (which was actually quite awesome) and lots of old people slowly swinging wood swords around in the park nearby. If I weren’t walking to class at the time and actually stayed to watch, I would have been bored to tears. There are posters of Jackie Chan and Jet Li everywhere for various commercial products, yet everyone cares more about NBA basketball than the far more awesome martial arts.

TEAM PROJECT: As I mentioned in a previous post, I am on the Lunar Biological and Historical Archive project. About half of our time was dedicated to it during Module II (5^th and 6^th weeks) and all of our time is dedicated to it through Module III (7^th through 9^th weeks). Not only does each of the four groups have to complete a maximum 100 page paper, they also need to have an executive summary and a final presentation on the day before we leave. Our group also has an abstract submitted for the International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad, India, so if I get chosen to help present it there (a very real possibility), I will be presenting two papers there. Not bad for someone who hasn’t turned 21 yet.

I also think I’ve been doing a lot more than my share of the work, not because I’m the only hard worker on the team but because I’m the only one stupid enough to volunteer to do everything. Most people are working on one section, two if their subgroup has split it differently. I am involved with four sections, the Justification (explaining why there needs to be something on the Moon and not just on Earth), Scenario (explaining what could happen in the event of a disaster, my area was super volcano eruptions), and two sections in the Tech Team (lunar archive design and terrestrial repository design, two of the harder sections).

It has been fun, but the problem is that we have 100 pages between 23 of us, and that figure includes references, bibliography, table of contents, and other crap that usually amounts to 20 pages. 80 pages is not a whole lot of room to go in-depth about the topics we need to cover. In the end, our paper will be a nice overview that probably everyone will be able to understand but it won’t be much more than a large thought exercise.

It’s time for our Internal Review update. Today we gave presentations, and now we get feedback on where we’ve gone. If you haven’t been able to see pictures, I updated the link in the top left of the page that says “All Pictures.”