One of the promises I made to myself this summer that I hadn’t yet achieved, as of yesterday, was eating food good enough to warrant photography. That wrong has now finally been righted. This was my first time trying Korean food!

This has been an eventful week — I’m supposed to be working soon so I’ll have to be relatively quick, but I needed to get some words out again. I’m in that mood.

Monday was quiet, but Tuesday was judgment day — July 15th. The first day of IIPP acceptance letter releases. I woke up that morning to an empty mailbox, so I had some breakfast and got in the shower. Just at around the time I was opening the bathroom door, the letter got into my mailbox, and opening my inbox again at work later that morning, I saw it. If only I had seen it earlier — I could’ve avoided the tense muscles that I had with me for the rest of the day (and the consequent running at top speed to the library to get the forms to sign and scan).

That is to say that the letter was a good one! I made it. I still don’t have direct contact with the professor yet, but I’m infinitely grateful and still have no clue how it was possible that I got in to this IIPP program. I’m already trying to make plans for the rest of my year, now that I can and I have a clearer idea of what I’m doing.

The first step is to find housing for August — my lease expires at the beginning of next month (still). I requested an Airbnb for most of the month, but still haven’t gotten a confirmation on the booking request, so it’s up in the air where I’ll be living in a few weeks’ time.

I also can’t do much in the way of working toward more in-depth plans for the IIPP internship period because I still don’t have contact with my paired PI. I’ve emailed him a few times already, but I’m not sure whether he’s read them or not. In any case, I consulted the AI bot assistant again and it told me to wait for the PI to initiate contact. When the approval documents get released to the institutions in about a month, I hope he contacts me with them (because they’re necessary for the visa application).

As an aside somewhat related to the visa application — when I was plugging in the institution for obtaining my visa, I entered TECRO (the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office) “in the United States” (the office is in DC). I hadn’t realized there were locations identified with more specificity: TECO (“Taipei Economic and Cultural Office”, sans-Representation … ?), and one of those TECO offices is a little closer to home.

I’m a New Englander, though, so I got into some Internet talk at one point in my life, getting excited by some proclamations being made by a small group of influencers — Internet train aficionados claiming that a Boston-to-DC HSR would be the greatest boon to Atlantic settlements since the Puritans founded the Beantown those few centuries ago.

It seems like I can’t fix the mistake I made on the IIPP portal: I’ll need to go to DC. I would’ve chosen TECO in Boston. Now, it seems, I have a problem whereby the solution involves traveling from Boston to DC.

So imagine my delight when I learn about Amtrak’s relatively new “next-generation Acela” trains — a Boston to DC line with a top speed of about 150 mph (just over 200 km/h!).

You will hear more about this in the future (one of my other as-of-yet unfulfilled summer promises to myself is to take a nice train trip somewhere…).

(I was able to find a good number of recent pictures on Wikimedia Commons).

Credit: 4300streetcar, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I also wanted to mention that a few people have answered the survey linked in the bar above — thanks for that! I also really appreciate the guestbook comments. Somehow, I manage to attract only nice and supportive people to my blog. Hopefully I can continue to stave off the trolls.

Thank you all for the readership! It’s almost 9 in the morning. I should get to work — I think our cleanroom is finally fully operational again (well, 50 percent operational — that’s how it goes).

See you all again soon!