2010 1st day school & tweetsie

tire trouble

So when I was dropped me off at home I was supposed to go meet Sophie's breeder to pick her up, but when I went to my car I found I had a serious flat (like rim on the ground flat) - so I called the breeder, and she offered to drop sophie off instead of me meeting her (she's so sweet!). Then I set on the task of changing the tire, only to find I don't seem to have the tire wrench... I couldn't get to my bike (car jammed in the garage pretty tight) so I took my roommate's bike to WinCo. That was an adventure in itself - it was way too short for me, my knees were knocking the handle bars, and I couldn't figure out how to change the gears! Fortunately, the closest store, Winco, had 'fix-a-flat', so I bought it, biked home and put it in the tire, and drove to les schwab to get a patch/replacement. They had a waiting line and said they'd call when they were done. I had a hard time telling the guy which tire, he kept repeating it back wrong. After 1.5 hours of me browsing up and down shops on 9th st, I decided to just go back there and find out how much longer it would be. Turns out they finished a half hour before and didn't call. The tire I had wanted patched looked exactly the same as when I dropped it off (fix-a-flat left it slightly underpressured, and it still looks that way), and they said no charge for the patch but wanted me to spend $600 on new tires and alignment. They told me I could buy a wrench there for $15, and after waiting 10 mins for them to dig one out and ring it up - it was $25, so I didn't buy it (I priced wrenches at 3 stores while i was passing the afternoon waiting for their call). &%$& that... I actually have a rip in another tire - I'll need to replace them, but I'm not going back there. Frustrating afternoon... BUT, if that's the only issue I have coming home after a month away, I'm not doing too bad!!!

Airplane seat-mates

As we've probably all experienced, a good seat mate can make a long flight more tolerable, where a bad one can make even a short flight horrible. I fortunately had no bad seat mates on the unreasonably long trips too and from Cape Town (roughly 35-40 hours even with good connections).

On my way, from London to Cape Town, I sat next to a polite but chatty man - and after only a short while we discovered not only that we were both physics professors, but that he is at Stellenbosch University not far from UCT. He invited me to come give a colloquium, so we exchanged business cards, and I ended up visiting their department, having a lovely time with the students and faculty during my talk, and a very nice lunch after. They were really interested and engaged, and I was very glad to have made that connection. I appreciated meeting him, and was glad he was so friendly - though it was embarrassing for me to be talking professionally with someone after ~40 hours with no shower, and feeling horrible from traveling! (It upsets my stomach, gives me a headache, I feel very conscious about being smelly, and I just want to hide after so long on airplanes!)

On my way home (London to San Fran), I sat next to a lovely lady a few years older than me, from Beirut (though raised abroad and living in the US). She was very excited to tell me about a 24 hour romance she had with a man she met on the beach with amazingly beautiful green eyes. But as she told me more and more about her love-life, it became a conversation i was more and more uncomfortable about having. She wasn't shy AT ALL!! At one point she started using a bunch of cuss words about male and female body parts to explain how upset she was that her 3rd cousin (a marriage option for her) had two kids with his mistress in England. At least it made for a more entertaining trip - and I wish her much luck finding a husband who can afford her but does not want to impose plastic surgery (as the potential one she had just returned from meeting had said on their first 'date'!!)

The haves and have-nots

I finally realized the obvious - why I felt uncomfortable going to expensive places here. Normally I like to pamper myself, a nice spa treatment, a fancy restaurant and so forth. But here, it just feels wrong. I can't stand seeing signs indicating that someone poor will not be let in, or knowing that I was only let through the gate without question because I am white / look wealthy. I don't like going to a restaurant where I know that 3/4's of the city's population can't go, and I don't like the disparity between the waiters and the diners. In the US, so many waiters are working students, or other such people moving ahead in life - here they are the poor - but not the very poor - at least they have jobs. There is over 20% unemployment, and about 25% of the people live in the equivalent of shanty-towns. Some live in worse: "unofficial settlements" where there isn't even running water. Then there are the $20 million mansions. It's disgusting. I'm happy to be living amongst the 'middle class' and forgoing comforts that I could afford here. I know I'm here to help those who do great things. It doesn't feel like enough, and I feel strange every time I post photos of lovely settings without showing the daily reality of life here...

Taken from various pages online:
58% of adults have not graduated from high school
20% of the population has HIV
40% live below the poverty line
over 100,000 'informal dwellings' are serviced by the city (have water/electric)
7% of households have no access to save drinking water
The population has grown by about a million in the last decade (from ~3 to 4 million people) - mostly blacks from other parts of southern africa looking for work. 58% of the unemployed were black as of a decade ago - I can imagine it's only gotten much worse. (Compare to a 3% unemployment rate for whites)
10% of the city's GDP and employment is from tourism
rape, theft, and violent crime are serious issues - no one in middle or upper class lives without bars, gates, electric fences, barbed wire, and security systems (usually most of those things)

Powerful, short videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YV32qz2HJg&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzOmjXpUFG0&feature=related

Cape town is also one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world, and one of the most beautiful. It has a complex history that colors everything even today. To read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town , and a very different view:
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/destination/news/newsid=1179174.html (perhaps evidence that the "cape flats" are, as I've been told, though very poor, not as dangerous as the more mixed areas, and slightly above poverty line areas)

T-shirts I've seen here:

"Amsterdam"
"Some people are only alive because it's illegal to kill them"
super mario playing soccer (hello world cup!)
"Of course I am in love with you darling" with the I, am, l, y, ing in red (and yes, he had a girl on his arm)
"Good girls are good at lying"

LOVING the intellectual environment

I've given 2 talks so far and am about to give a 3rd tomorrow... I have no idea how it came to be that I could give 5 or so DIFFERENT 1-hour research talks based on my last 2 years of work... Yikes! No wonder I get overwhelmed sometimes :)

But being here, with my focus being on work, and the intellectual environment is amazing... Just this morning at breakfast I listened in on a powerful conversation about the importance of teaching cultural studies WITHIN the culture in question, as explained by a Jamaican scholar. I'm in a dorm with visiting scholars - all here to do research of one sort or another.

Today I'm going to the engineering education research meeting - they'll be discussing things right up my alley. Next week will be visiting the center for higher education - many people I know from past visits, all scholars of similar enough to myself that we can jump straight into the deep end discussions of our work.

Yes, there is a great environment at OSU, but this is like a mini-sabbatical - and just refreshes the brain in ways I can't express...

And oh so much more to do... 1 week nearly done, 2 to go, and a huge list of goals remaining!!!

Heat

Ok - so I wanted to be here and have sun, and avoid winter oregon rain - but seriously... how could weather.com tell me the highs would be around 80F when they're closer to 100F with the lows near 80!! I thought I was going to have heat stroke yesterday! NO JOKE! I ended up with a horrible heat-induced migrane and could barely stomach supper. I have no A/C in either my office or my dorm room, and it didn't cool down enough the previous two nights, and I woke up roasting at 5am. Safety has been thrown out the window - we're all opening our windows at night, hoping the single security guard nearby is enough to stop any criminals... Otherwise we'd suffocate in our rooms - so what can we do? Even the native Africans are having trouble bearing it. Today the heat seems to have broken, though I suspect it'll come back by late afternoon - at least we had a wonderful cool breeze in the evening and I got a good night sleep. My whole body aches :( I only worked from 9am to 6pm yesterday before heat sickness set in - and I berated myself for not being able to work more at night. I need to be easier on myself... Yes, I'm here to focus, but a 9 hour day in nearly 100 degree weather with no A/C was probably too much... (Photo is of the dorm - luckily I'm on the 2nd floor on the right side of the photo, those on the floor below are forced to keep their windows open in this heat and a robber could just walk right in the window!!)

Fashion

One thing I love about this campus is the diversity - people speaking all different languages, from all different cultures, all different fashions, styles, incomes, ages... Walking on campus to lunch is like moving through a living cultural museum. No one gives a 2nd glance at someone who is seemingly juxtaposed: the nearly-naked young 'chic' city girl next to the religious person in long robes and head covering, or the rapper-inspired kid next to the european fashion-plate...

The one odd thing - I never actually thought gladiator sandles caught on anywhere - I see them all over campus here - wow... Did we just miss out on this fad in oregon or did it pass quickly in all of the US?

symmetry and asymmetry

Symmetry: Today I took my camera with me to campus to capture photos. All these times I've walked up to campus it's the first time I noticed the exact symmetry of the central buildings, and the views established from certain key points. This place was designed by a master plan! It is so much more beautiful with the ivy growing (I've only ever been here in their winter), and so lively with all the students out and about. The moutain looms behind campus in the sun too - amazing how such a massive structure can be hidden behind clouds in the winter!


















Asymmetry: My veins have been hurting :( Not sure why - possibly the heat? But the tingling in my right arm caused me to look at both the right and left, and I never noticed before how different the vein structures are in the two arms. Completely different patterns and connections. Surprising! I wonder if that's true for everyone?

(my veins are fine, by the way - must have been the heat)

I love how things that are right in front of you on a daily basis can be noticed or re-discovered :)