Biography

Hello, I am called Emil Nicolae Popescu. Here, most people use the name Nick, but back home I like Emil. I am from a town called Jilava. It is, how do you say, near to Bucharest, Romania. Romanian is the language of my mother's tongue, but I am learning English too. It is not easy, but it is better when I am here in America. I speak German easily and a little Hungarian. This too I am learning. I came here two years ago to study Mechanical Engineering. I study often, but I also like to play the game called Settlers of Catan with my roommates. In Romania, I spent a lot of time outside. Here in America, I try to go camping, hiking, or rock climbing. I have been skiing once. I am part of MIROL (the Michigan Romanian League) and BLUElab (Better Living Using Engineering). In Romania, we have many problems with the environment (I cannot say them so well in English, but they are called like soil loss, dirty air and trash in the water). I am becoming more worried about these things. I live close to school, and I often ride my bike to school or use the buses-cars are very expensive here and I cannot afford one! At home, I did not cook, but here I make my own dinner a lot of the time. During weekends, I spend time with friends. My roommate has a car, so sometimes I ride to the market with him. Other time, I just take the bus.

Scenario

Yesterday, Emil got up and got ready, then rode his bike to school. He had two morning classes, one right after the other. After class he rode his bike home and had lunch. Then, he caught a ride to the supermarket with his roommate and bought his groceries. When they got back, Emil took the bus down to the library to study. He stayed at the library until about 5:30 pm, then caught the bus back to his apartment. He made dinner and watched some TV. At about a quarter to 8:00 pm, he headed out on his bike to go to an MIROL meeting. After the meeting, he went home and played a game of Catan with his roomates, checked his email, and then headed to bed.