Land of Big Sheep

In Mandarin Chinese, America is called "美国", land of beauty, while Germany is "德国", land of virtue. Now, these names are flattering at first; but then, "美“, beauty, is pronounced měi as in America, and "德" is dé as in Deutschland. The suspicion that these names are phonetic rather than meaningful is driven home by the fact that the translation of "France" is "法国", land of law/order (Fǎguó), and of "England" "英国", land of heros (Yīngguó).

Other nice phonetic names are "意大利" (Yīdàlì) for Italy and "加拿大" (Jiānádà) for Canada.

Intriguingly, the character for beauty, "美", is composed of "羊", meaning sheep, and "大", big, so (at least at some point in Chinese History), big + sheep = beautiful.

Hence one could argue that in Chinese, America is the land of big sheep.

First Solo

Today I flew solo for the first time. Fun fun! It was in N595SP (a Cessna 172 SP with 180hp) around the pattern at KPAO (Palo Alto, CA). Here my first ever solo landing:

Tobias is here

Tobias is visiting.

SGSA Oktoberfest 2002

Gary from the Stanford German Student Association board.

Arrived in Stanford, Land of the Free

Ok, finally starting my PhD in Scientific Computing and Computational Mathematics. Below Constantin and me at some random event with free food and some soft drink (alcohol being very problematic, you see.)

Beachcomber Island, Fiji

Very relaxing. Can walk around it in a few minutes. Low crime rate! A bit like a gated community. Paradise! Native entertainment in the evening.

On the way back, I met the bus driver that had taken me from the airport to the ferry. He invited me home, introduced me to his family, and cooked a nice dinner (chicken rice). Many peoples are wonderfully hospitable.

Quitting Goldman

Today I handed in my resignation from Goldman, Sachs in London. Time to do some other fun stuff. I'll miss my great colleagues (though not necessarily GOB_MUSH_INSTREAM_IGNORE_COMPLETELY).