Almost to Malaysia

This weekend I have plans to meet a frisbee teammate from MIT in Kuala Lumpur, and from there, to go to Redang together.  Redang is a resort/snorkelig/tropical beach type island amidst a 9-island archipelago, and I'm pretty pumped to do some true, lazy vacationing.  Unfortunately, my flight to KL is currently delayed, but it's actually not a really big deal because I was already set to land about 3 hours before my friend.  And the Singapore Changi Airport has free internet (both wireless and kiosks), so I can't complain.

So I'm just killing time here, and I thought I'd share a quick little amusing story.  As we were waiting in line to board initially, I was standing next to the counter where they scan your boarding passes, and at one point it became apparent that they'd have to pull everyone out of line, and an announcement would have to be made.  The two women working the counter, though, were apparently both shy about their English or perhaps simply their public speaking, and fought back and forth a bit over who would have to make the announcement.  Finally, one conceded, and proceeded to pull  for slips of paper out of her wallet, with a number of preset announcements, with blanks in the appropriate places to adjust for the situation.  I watched her find one, rehearse a few times, ask her friend about a line or two, rehearse again, grab the mic, put it down, grab the mic again, rehearse one more time, wait for a general airport announcement, and then, finally, press the button and notify us that there was an unknown delay and we should return to the waiting area until further notice.  Haha she did fine in the end, and I don't understand why she was so nervous, but it was a nice 5 minutes of amusement.  And now I've wasted 10 minutes of everyone's time relaying the story.  But I'm bored.

Oh, also, speaking of random, the other afternoon in the office a bunch of us were goofing off, one of the postdocs that works for another PI, a somewhat older Korean woman going after her second career, just stops and says to us, "I think, your Asada group, getting crazy. I feel it today. Too much stress."  Haha.  Truth?  Maybe.

Oohh boarding!  Whoa a mini-stampede just started.  I'll just walk, we have assigned seats.