Ni hao ma?

Since Monday, I've been spending my afternoons in Chinese class. It's awesome. Today I learned how to say "this" and "that", as well as "car", "book", and some other things. I can ask how your older brother is, and whether he is tall. I even have a Chinese name - the TAs made them up for everyone. They're going to be very good at making up names by the time they have kids. Mine is Ke1 kai3xin1 (the numbers mean tones, all y'all who don't know pinyin). The problem is, we haven't really covered the x sound yet, and it's a really hard sound for me to make. So I actually don't know how to say my own name. I do know that xin1 means "heart". So my name is something something heart.

With everything I've learned in the past three days (I can make up my own sentences already), I'm not looking forward to missing Friday through Wednesday. At least they're being nice about me making up what I miss, and they seem to always be having office hours.

science to shape the future of the army

That's a pretty weird logo they've got there. But hey, they give me grants.

Thailand to separatists: "La la la we can't hear you ransacking our stuff"

I think it's funny how this BBC story quotes Thailand's deputy prime minister saying that this group of Muslim separatists are just "trying" to create sectarian conflict with T-land's majority Buddhists.
1. I bet it's hard to get a hardcore Buddhist to fight with you.
2. But if the Muslims are ransacking stuff, haven't they already created sectarian conflict?