Montezuma, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Nina was here a few weeks ago and for the weekend she was here we went to Montezuma, a beach town on the southern end of the Nicoya Peninsula. The most convenient way to get there from San Jose is to take a bus to Punterenas, ferry across the gulf of Nicoya, then bus from the ferry stop to the city of Montezuma (about 5.5 - 6 hrs total). We stayed at a hostel that had howler monkeys right outside, and the sound is terrifying! I did not sleep well there at all. We had an amazing buffet lunch at a vegan, gluten free restaurant called Organico . . sooooo delicious!!! I also had mint choc chip vegan ice cream from there, also delicious. Unfortunately they were only open for bfast and lunch, not dinner. We tried to walk to waterfalls but didn't realize you have to actually walk in the river to get to the falls, and were not prepared for that. Then for dinner we went to a fancy restaurant on the beach! The ambience was great, but since it was dark you couldn't see the water, but could hear the waves. The next day we did an organized tour to Isla Tortuga! Which is very reminiscent of Bocas Del Toro, but the island was a bit crowded but had a lot of activities to do besides just sun bathe and swim. The organized tour took us to two snorkeling points (I had to hold Nina's hand while doing this, I don't know why snorkeling freaks me out, some form of agoraphobia maybe?), then a good lunch on Isla Tortuga. I had the most amazing pina colada there, made with crema de coco and fresh pineapple . . . mmmmm.

I also taught another dance class, this time to my own choreography for Desi Girl! It was a blast of course and am debating doing one more workshop in Jan before I leave.

xmas in CR

Well, its officially start of my "summer" vacation! The physics building closed at 11:30am, so no choice but to start vacation today! Although earlier this week there was a wave of cold weather, the sun is finally out burning my skin as it should be. Monday was probably the coldest, and since my apartment is not insulated - the windows don't actually close all the way and there's a 1/2 inch space under my front door - I resorted to drinking soup and hot tea at intervals. I should have done some stretching/dancing to warm up but was too cold to even start that. Eventually the combination of the hot liquids plus turning my stove on every 20 minutes warmed up my apartment a bit.

There's Xmas lights up in our apartment complex which feels very cozy at night. My two favorite vegetarian restaurants are closed for the next 2 weeks, but I did stock up on vegetarian tamales. Oh yeah, tamales are a big deal. Instead of smelling cinnamon and baked goods and gingerbread lattes, the smell of steamed masa represents xmas time here. They wrap their tamales in banana leaves (instead of corn husks like the mexican tradition), apparently this gives the tamale a different flavor but I'm not much of a tamale connoisseur, I just know I like 'em, a lot. Some families get together for tamale making parties, and tamale eating parties. There was even a tamale party in the Physics department on Wednesday afternoon. Campus is shut down for 2 weeks and when I return in Jan, the students will still be on their summer vacation until March or so.

The Tico tradition is to go to the Pacific Coast for Christmas, yes Xmas at the beach! This is their "summer" after all, and this really means its their dry season, and the Central Valley isn't actually hot, but the beaches are. Although summer time is xmas time, there's plenty of decorations that have to do with the usual themes of a north hemisphere xmas: snowmen, reindeer, snow painted in store front windows, xmas trees.

So, my plans for the next few days are to relax, prep for my parents' visit, maybe watch HP7 again. We'll do some sightseeing around here and head to Panama for xmas. For NYE, I'll be heading to Uvita Beach on the southern Pacific coast! A few weeks after that, I'll head to the neighbor to the north and see Nehcaragua . . then it will be time for me to head back to Cali . . crazy. . .

cultural exchange

One of the missions of the Fulbright Program is to foster cultural exchange, in addition to scholarly exchange. There definitely is no lack of American culture here, so I am doing my best to provide some Indian culture. There is a slight exotification of the culture, especially given the beautiful people and plotlines in the telenova “India, una historia de amor,” but I can't complain too much about that. There are also some stereotypes/preconceived notions (which I love breaking down), and those can be frustrating at times. I made some contacts with a dance studio and the university’s folklorico group to arrange free workshops about Indian dance. A few weeks ago I taught a two hour Indian dance workshop (Bollywood, folk) at a small dance studio; there were only 4 girls, and two of them were my friends, and 1 of them the owner of the studio. We had an awesome time and I taught in Spanish! The next workshop is in December and I’ll be making up a routine to Desi Girl to teach. I have been obsessed with that song and haven’t had an opportunity to perform to it or choreograph for it.

I’m also giving a workshop on Indian Folk dance on campus, probably a 1 hour presentation and 1 hour dance class/demonstration. I even bought a few pairs of dandias to teach some Raas (which I found at a local Home Depot type of store). I’ll talk about the differences between folk and classical dance, play some music so they can hear the differences between types of music (ie Bhangra vs. garba), and teach some basic moves. Should be fun!

oops

Wow, I’m really behind on my blogging! November just flew by and I got superbusy with visitors and fun trips and even teaching a dance class! It has already been 4 months exactly since I arrived here, crazy.

Matt’s visit – Bocas del Toro and La Paz Waterfall Gardens
Matt came to visit at the end of October and we went to Bocas del Toro, Panama for Halloween weekend. We had to take a bus to the CR – Panama border (city of Sixaola on CR side), go through immigration, walk across a bridge, go through immigration again (city of Gaubito on Panam side), take a bus to a small pier on a canal that leads to the Caribbean, then water taxi to Bocas del Toro; left my apartment at 5 am CR time and got to our hotel at about 3 pm Panama time (Panama is EST, 1 hr ahead of CR time). The province is an archipelago, with the city of Bocas del Toro being the main part with hotels and restaurants. There are tons of water activities to do, but we just went to two beaches, Bocas del Drago/Starfish Beach & Red Frog Beach. Red Frog beach is amazing, not crowded, and beautiful, warm, turquoise-blue water with great waves (not great for boogie boarding and probably too big for small kids), and a small bar with relatively cheap drinks and snacks. We spent a good 5 hours there I think. Matt wanted to go snorkeling but I was thoroughly congested with a sinus cold, so we skipped that. There is a very yummy Indian restaurant (Om Café I think it’s called), where we had Papaya Lassi and a great spicy dinner. We stayed at Lula’s B&B, which was really nice, comfortable, peaceful and affordable.

The next big outing we did while Matt was here was to visit La Paz Waterfall Gardens, which is a private reserve/park near Poas Volcano outside of San Jose, Costa Rica. We did a day trip ($65 pp, including transportation from/to San Pedro, admission, English speaking guide, lunch), it’s a beautiful park up in the rainforest with lots of animals that you would not see in the wild unless you camped out for days and were silent. There is also an amazing hotel (Peace Lodge) right inside the park. The waterfalls were OK I thought (just a bunch of water gushing down), my favorite part was probably the hummingbird garden and seeing the jaguars, pumas and toucans.

The nice thing about having visitors is that your friends and family can see where you have been living this whole time and where you have set up a life from scratch in a foreign country; often its hard to describe the vibe, community, challenges and beauty of a place, the closest I get is saying that CR is like India, but in some ways it's the total opposite of India.

Sachin & Family – Playa Hermosa

Later in November, my cousin Netie (Tai), her husband Charu (Jeej) and their 4 yr old son Sachin visited. They stayed in San Pedro for a few nights, then went on a road trip (rented a car) to Arenal, Monteverde and Playa Hermosa. I met up with them at Playa Hermosa where we stayed for two nights. It’s a small beach town in Guanacaste, north of Playas Tamarindo and Coco, both of which are known to be surfer, party type towns. But Playa Hermosa has a different vibe, calm water, and tons of development in the hills (ie high end condos, gated neighborhoods). On the beach there was a mix of Americans and Tico families hanging out. I got Sachin over his fear of beach water, but I think he’s more scared of big waves and especially the loud noise they make rather than the actual water (b/c he loves swimming pools). The sand at this beach is very fine, and under the top layer is this beautiful, sparkly black sand. The change in tide was crazy, it receded a lot while we were out there, which was cool to see, especially as the moon was moving farther away in the same direction.

The major city close to Playa Hermosa is Liberia, which has its own international airport! So technically you could just fly to Liberia and get to the beach in half an hour. Stephanie and I had to take two buses (San Jose to Liberia, Liberia to Playa Hermosa), totaling about 7 hours of travel and about $8.

The weather has been a bit strange, it’s supposed to be transitioning to the dry season, but there’s still plenty of rain to enjoy. Of course the rainforest is always rainy, and the beaches that I’ve been to have been relatively dry and sunny, although there was some warm rain at Playa Hermosa in the afternoons.

Next up, Nina is coming into town tomorrow, and we’re taking a trip to Montezuma, my first time visiting the Nicoya Peninsula! And I’m excited to have her cook for me.

"We do not follow maps to buried treasure and X never, ever marks the spot."

My research project has been in full swing the past month or so, so I wanted to give an update about that. If you want an overview of the Fulbright Scholar Program, my post from June 28, 2010 has some info.

In my submitted application that I put together July 2009, I had to include a proposal for a research project and a few course syllabi for the course(s) I would teach at UCR. This was part of the 5 page personal statement that I had to submit. But before I could even write that, I had to make contacts at UCR to 1) get a letter of invitation from the host saying that they would like me to come to their university and 2) figure out what my research project was going to be. Judging by the website of the physics and chemistry departments, I knew that they had some equipment that I know how to use and some equipment that I wanted to learn to use, so that was a good sign. But, it turned out that a friend of a friend in CR happened to be writing a proposal for a new project combining archaeology and materials science characterization techniques! What are the chances of that happening?! I get to be Indiana Jones with a physics background??! (side note: I almost minored in Archaeology at UCLA) So, I was able to write a decent personal statement/proposal that had specific goals, mentioned specific people and projected outcomes. I had no idea what my chances were for receiving the award or how many people applied for the award I applied for. The cool (but also scary) thing is that the Fulbright program does not offer any help with finding a position, contacts, picking a country, housing etc, so it is very independent but also flexible. They simply offer a list of countries and list the openings of awards (what field are they funding awards for in that specific country for that specific year?). There were no Physics awards for any Spanish speaking countries, so I applied under the "all disciplines" award for the only university that wrote back to my 'cold email' tactic asking if they were interested in hosting me at their university.

When I arrived, I was busy preparing for my course (I'll write a different post about that experience), so it was ok that the archaeological samples that we planned to examine were not in our possession (the museum did not release them). However, once we got the samples, my research project took off and I was able to get my hands dirty. Unfortunately, not dirty from digging at an archaeological site (maybe someday?!).

The research project team roughly consists of an archaeologist, 2 chemists, and me. We are basically trying to study the properties of ceramic samples (pieces of pottery) from a few local archaeological sites around Costa Rica. The use of scientific instruments to study archaeological samples is called Archaeometry (archaeological science). These pieces are pretty old, BC times even! What kind of properties are we studying, you ask? The general term is spectroscopy, seeing how light waves of different energy/wavelength interact with matter (ie my samples). Depending on what the sample is made of (molecules, minerals, elements, crystal structure, special bonds etc) the incoming light reacts/scatters differently, and that difference can be measured. The incoming light can be Xray, Infra-red, or visible light (lasers). My challenge is learning as much as I can about this field and applying it to our samples, this has nothing to do with my nanoscience background, but a lot to do with physical chemistry (my PhD specialization was Chemical and Material Physics, not pure Physics or Astrophysics). By learning about the composition of these samples we can trace the history of the specific civilization that made them, what did they use, are the style and materials used similar to other civilizations in the area, what temperature was the pottery fired at, etc. It is adding one more piece of a puzzle that tells a story of a civilization(s) in a certain region.

Because this is so interdisciplinary, it requires an interdisciplinary team.

It has been a great experience so far to add more tools to my scientific tool box and CV, and learn more about Archaeometry as a field. Passing up doing a traditional Post-Doc in a university/national laboratory right out of graduate school was the best decision for me, now just have to figure out what I want to do next . . .

homesick

A few people have asked me if I'm homesick . . I'm not sure what that means exactly but I usually say NO. To me, homesick means that something doesn't feel right, like you're not at home, or something is missing, or you can't get comfortable or just feel out of place. I imagine it being a dull, constant feeling that doesn't go away. I definitely don't feel that way. I feel at home, and have made a life and home for myself, even if it is only for 6 months. Maybe the fact that it is 6 months makes it more bearable, whereas if I was here for an indefinite amount of time it may be more difficult. But I'm sure when it's time for me to leave, I may feel like staying longer! Especially if the work I'm doing is successful.

Although I am not homesick, I do feel what I call "pangs of nostalgia." It's more of a sharp, sudden memory that makes me nostalgic for a certain time/place in my life. Sometimes I miss UCLA, and the smell of vanilla coffee reminds me of free coffee at Kerchoff during finals week and studying . . or the way a salad bar is set up reminds me of the dorm food and 2 hour long meals with friends. It's a sudden, very specific memory brought on by a sight, smell or sound. Seeing a bicycle reminds me of riding my bike around UCI, and getting yelled at by Matt for trying to ride with no hands. I'm sure once I'm far away from San Pedro, the sound of whistles, thunder and pouring rain will make me nostalgic for the moments that will eventually be ingrained in my memory. Even today, it didn't rain for once and something just didn't feel right!

Outsourced

This past Thursday night was NBC's big Fall premiere night, with my favorite shows starting up again, 30 Rock, The Office and Community. Luckily, with the amazing cable hookup in my apartment, I get NBC, CBS and ABC from Denver, CO. Why are these some of my favorite comedies? It usually has to do with witty, original writing, a cast of diverse characters with a range of points of view (point of views?), avoiding obvious cliches and stereotypes, and the plot is usually secondary (I think I'm somewhat of a comedy snob/elitist of sorts!).

NBC premiered a brand new series this past week, Outsourced. It's about a guy from mid-west US who gets sent to India to run a call center (same plot as the movie from 2006). I was a bit skeptical about it, it could easily just make fun of Indians using cliche, unoriginal stereotypes. I watched it with an open mind and thought the writing and jokes were OK, nothing too original that I haven't heard/seen from ethnic based comedy. The scene where the manager first gets to India had a typical Indian street scene with a black and yellow rickshaw, but the background looked suspiciously and obviously green screened. There were jokes about: Indian food giving you diarrhea (fart jokes too), cows being holy to Hindus, Indian accents, weird Indian names, and apparently the character Manmeet didn't know the about the American concept of "dating" (this show is supposed to take place in Mumbai, not some small, traditional village). There were also some stereotypes about the US and Americans, lines like "In America, you can do whatever you want!" (talk about freedom etc etc) And for some reason, the time difference between the US and India was not addressed. During the work day in India they get calls from the US, but that would be mean its the middle of the night in the US?

The one character I thought was funny, the obvious odd ball of the bunch, was Gupta (Parvesh Cheena). It is cool to see that many South Asians on one TV show at prime time on a major US network though! Hopefully the show does well.

I'll keep watching it, maybe it will grow on me.

Campus Life

Although I'm missing out on going back to UC Irvine this fall, it's been nice getting used to a new college campus, exploring and carving out a life that isn't so different than my life in So Cal; I think that says more about what I need in life to keep me happy/sane than about So Cal specifically. I'm getting used to the rain and lightning and thunder that usually strikes between 12-1pm, finding new places to read and drink coffee, heading out to the campus gym, people-watching, and always keeping an eye out for cool happenings on campus. And if for some reason there is not lightning and thunder between 12-1pm, my day just doesn't feel right!

Tunnel of love.

Parts of the university campus are connected by covered, concrete walkways, which are great for when it rains (which is everyday for now, usually between 12-5pm, with the heaviest being around 1pm). The sides of the walkways are lined with benches so people can chill somewhere dry in between classes. What this really means is that when it rains all the couples on campus that previously were snuggling somewhere secluded claim a bench under the walkway and continue their snuggling/snogging. It’s pretty funny and cute, so I call it the Tunnel of Love.

Food.

There’s tons of places to eat on/around campus, mostly pastries (empanadas, donuts, cakes, cookies) and pizza on the main street on one side of campus, and on campus there’s “sodas” which provide cheap, full plates of the “plato del dia” (plate of the day). This usually includes rice, beans, chicken dish (or pasta for vegetarian dish), plantains, salad, juice and maybe a fruit. All for less than $3 usually!! Unfortunately for me, the vegetarian main dishes haven’t look that great, and that’s actually way too much food for me for lunch. Most restaurants also have a plato del dia, but if there’s no vegetarian plato del dia, they won’t substitute a vegetarian dish unfortunately (so I miss out an amazing lunch deal sometimes!). Leaving campus on the farther side, there’s a Hooters, Taco Bell, Subway and TGIF!! I haven’t been to Hooters but maybe I’ll go one day. There’s also a pretty good sushi place and a café (with crepes) that I’ve been to with my Phriday Physicist Lunch group (when I go to lunch with my officemate and her friends, also physics profs). We went to an Indian restaurant this past Friday, all vegetarian, called Cafe Gokul. The 'thali' like plate was the plato del dia, which basmati rice, beet bhajiya, squash & potato bhaji, dal (but was really garbanzo beans not lentils), salad and juice. Someone also ordered Matter Paneer, and that was reallly good. Will definetaly need to go back when I'm craving some Indian food. The owner almost tried to speak Hindi to me, but my brain could not switch over from Spanish to Hindi. My brain tends to freeze up when thinking between Spanish and Hindi, so I have to ctrl-alt-del that process and start over in either English or Spanish.

Some afternoons around 3 or 4pm I join other physics professors for some coffee and pastries at the nearest soda. It's a good break and time to fuel up for the gym, and also get to know other people in the department. They tell funny stories and of course talk about the RAIN.

Gym.

The university gym offers tons of aerobics classes, but it gets packed! Membership is $20/month, amazing. However, I do miss my Abs & Thighs class at the ARC, and my fave instructor Cindy. I do daydream of teaching a Bollywood Cardio class sometimes . .

The classes are also a great way to learn some spanish vocab; I hate memorizing vocab from flashcards, so doing something active and visual helps to learn body parts and directions.

Fashion.

The faculty here seems to dress pretty casual, even jeans and sneakers for some. I try to dress up a bit when I teach (just b/c I brought semi-dressy clothes to CR) and other days stick to my jeans/linen pants and sneakers. I can't imagine wearing fancy shoes/heels, the sidewalks are very uneven and the rain makes them very slippery. I do regret not bringing my black boots, especially since it turned out that I didn't get charged for my 3rd check in bag!

The students dress pretty much like US college students (tight jeans, little tops or long tops, side bangs), although fabric boots are very common here even though they're not waterproof. Piercings are a big deal here too with the youth, tons of nose rings, multiple earrings, thick posts/gauges, even nasal septum rings (bull rings), eyebrow rings and other places on the face that aren't so obvious for piercings.

And of course the most common accessory across genders and generations is the all-important umbrella!

old books

I have a thing for old books. Maybe it is the romantic in me (underneath the cold, scientist exterior) that likes to imagine who else has read this book before me, where it has been, where was it bookmarked and why; I like seeing passages marked and highlighted, maybe it reminds me of high school English class where I learned to scrutinize everything I read with an analytical eye. I like seeing the bends in the spine, the smell and yellowing of the paper. Of course, it's satisfying knowing that used books are cheaper and help conserve the resources that go into printing new books.

I visited the campus general library today and located the fiction section. There's a limited selection, especially of books in English, but I found a few gems. Most books are super old and tattered, even with some photocopies of pages inserted into them. I checked out an old Asimov (classic science fiction) and Michener (The Source - which has an Indiana Jones feeling to it). This is going to be much better than having to buy new english paperbacks for 2X the price as the US listed price! (I bought The girl with the dragon tattoo for wayyyy to much $$)

What I love even more than old novels is old textbooks or science books. I have a few at home, including a 1st edition Theory of Special Relativity, an old astronomy book, and an old hardback collection of the Feynman Lectures from the 60's. At UCLA I worked at the Science and Engineering Library within gifts acquisitions, which meant I got to go through books that people donated (specifically professors that passed away and their families donated their books) and see if the library already had them. If they already had multiple copies, I was able to take what I wanted!

One day I'm going to have a library specifically with gothic design interior and tons of old books, a fire place, cozy couch and of course a butler to bring me coffee and pastries.

Independence Day - Sept 15

Today is Costa Rica's Independence day! The story is pretty interesting and the festivities have been cool to see, and its a holiday!

On the 14th night, there is a passing of the Freedom torch (similar to the Olympic torch) that goes through cities as people hold lanterns that they've made (with a light or candle inside) to represent that torch. When the Central American countries declared independence from Spain there was a torch that traveled from Guatemala to Costa Rica, to signify that they had gained independence. Last night in San Pedro, there was an event at the nearest park, with speeches, music and folklorico performances. Then the street was shut down as groups of students ran with the torch with a police/fire dept escort. It was really cool to see the lanterns, people put a lot of time into making them. Some of them were really creative, small houses, or an underwater theme.

This morning I was able to wake up bright and early and made it to San Jose by 815am. I heard there was a parade but wasn't sure when it started or where it would be. So wandered around until I heard music and found the route. Most of the parade was made of groups of students holding flags, dressed up in traditional clothing, marching bands. There was some folk dancing that looked very similar to garba footwork! Not any floats or animals really. I hung around for a few hours, took some pics, did some shopping and rode the bus back. For once, it was still cloudless and sunny at 12 noon! by 2pm though the clouds rolled in and its sprinkling a bit right now.

Last night I came home to find the power was out! For some reason our whole block didn't have electricity and it was a bit scary walking home but I keep a flashlight in my backpack so was able to get home OK. I heated up some water on the gas-tank-powered stove and was able to take a quick bath, cooked some dinner by candlelight and just when I decided to get comfy and read by flashlight with a glass of wine, the power came back on. So all in all, it was only out for 3 hours, not bad!

"Eres tica?"

It's always interesting when someone is trying to figure out where I'm from. My English accent + Spanish accent + the way I look = confusion, but it usually is a good conversation starter. Someone this weekend asked me if I was Tica (eres tica? = are you costa rican?), what a compliment! Sometimes they ask, "de donde eres?" (where are you from?) and I say "los estados unidos" (the united states), then they ask quizzically, "si, pero sus padres?" (yes, but your parents?) and at this point I know they are trying to figure out my ethnicity. Then say I say, "si, mis padres son de India pero yo naci en los estados unidos." From here the conversation can take a few different paths, maybe they'll talk about Indian food/restaurants they've tried, dance, music someone else that they know that is indian, or if they know my academic background and why I'm here, they'll start with the ever pervasive stereotype, "Oh yeah, Indians are really smart right?" I try to then say, "Not really any smarter than any other group of people," and try to laugh it off, but I don't think they get it . .

There's a telenovella (soap opera) in spanish called 'India: una historia de Amor' (india: a story of love, love story) that takes place in the present, in India and Brazil. I did some reading on it and apparently it deals with the caste system, a love square (between Raj, Maya, Bahu and Duda) and arranged marriages, I'll give it a shot the next time its on. It won the 2009 International Emmy for Telenovellas. It will be interesting to see people in Indian clothes speaking Spanish!

Protest Update

I got some more information about what happened on campus last week, and it's a bigger deal than I thought!

Apparently, some students stormed an administration meeting on Thursday and took over the building, and Friday took over another building (which is why the rest of the buildings were evacuated). I'm not sure who the students were exactly, but they were hooded, covering their identity. Over the weekend, the students met with admin and negotiated some type of deal, that included them avoiding punishment for what they did (including breaking some windows I think). I'm not sure how aggressive these students were, but just the fact that they were hooded and concealing their identity definitely is a bit scary and takes the "peaceful" protest up a notch. Maybe that was their goal to be overly dramatic but not violent?

This morning, there was some shouting, chanting and a march of some sort, regarding the president of the student association (FEUCR) . . as for now though I think things are back to normal.

campus shutdown

There's been some recent protests and demonstrations by students the past few weeks, as the new budget for the next 5 years was revealed. University of Costa Rica is a public university and I'm not sure about the budgeting details. Two weeks ago there was a march, and apparently yesterday some students tried to talk to admin on campus . . Something about the school admin striking a deal with the government that still leaves the school with less money than it needs . . so today some students (I think its FEUCR, federacion de estudiantes de ucr) held a peaceful protest . . but as a preventative measure all the buildings were evacuated, meaning classes were canceled and I had to leave my office (around 1030am) along with everyone else in the building and other campus buildings. Quite exciting! no one really knew exactly what was going on, so I waited around a while and heard/saw a procession of students yelling something that I couldn't understand and waving flags.

So I left campus and decided to head to AutoMercado before it started to rain, a supermarket that has imported goods. I found quinoa, tofu, wheat pasta and pollenta! Spent a lot of money but will help balance out my meals. 4 pack of Morningstar Veggie patties and package of vegan bacon cost about 5000 colones (almost $10 US)!!! so I skipped those. Plus my freezer is tiny, couldn't even buy ice cream.

Familia Tica

Last Sunday I went to visit Neha's host family that she stayed with last summer while she was here in Costa Rica for 5 weeks. They live a bus ride away but on Sundays I guess the buses aren't frequent so I ended up taking a taxi.

They're so cute! I met Disney (mama tica) and her husband, 2 sons (one of which goes to UCR) and a daughter (that is my age). Just like in India, the kids live at home for a while after college. Disney wouldn't let me speak in English and they put up with me speaking very slowly and thinking very hard about conjugating verbs in spanish . . it's a humbling experience having people look at you while you're trying to form a coherent sentence, esp when it would just be easier to speak in English! But that's how I'm going to learn. I have a hard time understanding Spanish when its the younger adults/kids speaking, b/c of slang, accents etc. (Now I get exactly why my grandparents had a hard time understanding my English.) The family was really nice and Disney invited me to visit or call if I ever need anything. . and to bring my parents over when they visit.

I have been told multiple times that my Spanish is good! Maybe b/c I'm American they expect me to have a gringo accent . . but the fact that my first language was Marathi helps with the Spanish phonetics . . the consonants are softer . . and I think my accent makes it seem like I know more Spanish than I actually do (ie grammer and vocab wise). Some people speak really fast and I don't catch everything. It might be too easy to get away with not speaking any spanish while I'm on campus, so I have to make an effort to thinking in Spanish or speaking spanish with my office-mate.

Another professor also commented that my English is easier to understand than that of other visiting professors from America . . good to know . . I can turn off my cali-girl accent when I need to!

Tortuguero Trip - Green Sea Turtle

This past weekend I took a 2 day/1 night trip to Tortuguero National Park with a tour company and a friend I made in language class. It's on the northern Caribbean coast of the country and the only way to get there is by air or water. We took a bus to the farthest point where there was a road and the proceeded on small boats. Basically the touristy part of the park is based around the village of Tortuguero, and hotels that have their own docks along the channels. The main draw to the park is the egg-laying habits of the Green Sea Turtle, which come to the shores of Tortuguero Beach July-Oct to make nests and lay eggs at night. We had a night tour, which was awesome. For the first time I saw the stars from Costa Rica, and was once again disoriented geographically while trying to find familiar constellations. The weather was completely different than the San Jose area, it was HOT and dry, with no rain the whole time. Along the horizon in all 360 degrees however, I could see tons of lightning.

The night tour was pretty well organized, in order to ensure that we do not interfere or bother the turtles in any way. We wait a few 100 meters away from the shore, Turtle watchers keep an eye on the shore for turtles coming up to shore. These things are huge! about 4 feet long and 2-3 feet wide. Once they started building the nest and laying eggs (about 100-120 eggs ine one night), we are told to go to the beach and we can actually watch this happening. I was 2 feet away and could literally see the eggs dropping from the turtle into the nest she made (our guide used a red flashlight). No cameras were allowed, and apparently we can get close to the turtles while they are laying eggs and covering the nest b/c they are in a "trance" and our presence does not bother them at that point. We then saw a turtle leaving her nest and going back into the ocean. That's it. Her parenting job is done! The baby turtles emerge in 45-60 days and aim to get back into the ocean, but most get eaten by predators. The ones that make it to maturity will eventually come back to the same beach that they were born on to lay their own eggs. Historically (according to the guide), these turtles were almost extinct b/c of the demand for turtle soup in England. But the national park was created just for the turtles.

Now on to a more philosophical point, I'm not sure that I enjoyed watching the turtle laying eggs. It felt a bit intrusive and kind of gross. I wouldn't say it was "amazing" or "spiritual" in any sort of way, but it was . . . interesting. Felt like I was spying on her. I thought we would just see turtles coming onto shore and then leaving, from far away. I can appreciate wildlife and like knowing its out there living its life w/o my interference. I'm not sure that I want to interact with it though, (ie swimming with dolphins, touching fish/sea creatures, snorkeling/scuba, horse back riding) b/c it means introducing this wild animal into a "human" way of life, like I'm intruding on their world for my entertainment. I can appreciate the need for zoos, that's the only way the average person would see certain animals and in turn gain an appreciation for animals and the need for conservation etc.

Obviously, when horses or bulls or mules are used for necessary work, there's a specific purpose beyond entertainment, and I can understand that. But somewhere there's a gray area where I'm just not sure I want to use the animal for my entertainment. But this hasn't led me to commit to being vegan just yet . .

First lecture

Had my first class today! I've got 8 students, mostly chemistry master's students and 1 physics master's student. I knew I'd feel so much more comfortable after I got the first lecture over with! Now I have an idea of what the students want and what their background is. I designed the course thinking they would have had quantum mechanics and solid state physics, but most had not. So, I'll take some time to review those topics, which is good b/c I thought I might be short on material. Also, the last 4 weeks, someone else is teaching topics that are not in my expertise, so technically I'm responsible for 12 lectures, which can be 2- 3 hrs long each. I'm not used to talking for that long! It's nice that its up to me and there's no strict guidelines. But that also makes me a bit insecure b/c for my first time it would be nice to have some more guidelines, so that I know what I'm doing or have specific goals set for me. Oh well, I guess that's part of being out of school and teaching my own class.

Nisha was in town yesterday! so I went into San Jose to have dinner with her and friends. They're vacay-ing in CR this week. It was nice to see a familial face in a foreign country.

The rain/thunder/lightning have been crazy the past few days, and I hear it gets worse in September! I haven't been drenched yet, but my canvas sneakers have been drenched a few times.

I need to continue doing some spanish exercises and studying vocabulary, or else I'm going to forget what I re-learned last week!

first few days

So this week I'm taking a spanish class, 4 hours a day, and its definitely starting to come back to me. Some of the grammatical rules are pretty complex and can't be translated into English . . so I'll probably never use em myself (conditional, imperfect). I understand the teachers perfectly well, b/c they purposefully speak slow and clear, but when I talk to other people on the street etc, they talk too fast for me!

Went to campus yesterday . . the campus is beautiful! there's a creek running through it and it feels like being in the middle of a rainforest! Some of the walkways are covered (b/c of the heavy rains) and we'll see how crowded they get when classes start next week.

I'm teaching a grad class, mostly chemists and some physicists, and there's a total of 6 or 7. It starts next Tuesday, will let you know how that goes.

I bought a tv, and the cable is amazing! i'll get to watch all my fave US shows, including sytycd tonight . . . mmmm just got a whiff of a neighbor cooking some garlic. 'Glee' is on in spanish right now . .

I live a few blocks from the main street, its a very quiet complex (no kids allowed!) and I've met a few Americans already (1 of whom is finishing his time as a visiting Physics prof at the same place I'll be working. random.). Apparently no one goes out after 7pm ish and they recommend not to walk alone (but i'll need to find out if that's an exaggeration or actually true.) . . so i'll need to tweak my daily schedule to get up early (ugh) and go to sleep early . . so I won't be out late running errands or going to the gym. Also, since its rainy season, people like to get inside earlier, it also gets dark around 5/6 ish. The rain hasn't been too bad yet, it rains every afternoon, with thunder/lightning every few days and probably everyday in Sept! luv it. I put up some netting over my windows so I can leave em open and not worry about bugs, but can still hear the rain and storms. Definitely need some rainboots but can't find waterproof boots anywhere!! Everyone I meet that knows I'm new here asks if I have an umbrella!

Well I had plenty to say earlier but now can't remember what I wanted to describe/say . . but i did put some pics up on fb!

en San Pedro

Well I'm here! After an uneventful flight, but eventful stop over in Denver, I'm in my quaint little apartment in San Pedro. I stopped by the language school I'll be taking classes at next week (right up the street from my place), did some grocery shopping and luckily caught the tail end of the downpour that happens every afternoon (apparently starts around 1 or 2pm and continue through the night). Of course with three bags of groceries and an umbrella, trying to maneuver opening two front gates using both hands resulted in my canvas shoes getting soaked, but luckily the eggs didn't break.

Driving in, the horizon reminded me of So Cal, so the south-east of where I am are some hills that remind me of the San Gabriel mountains. Everything is green here, as expected, and pleasantly humid. The thunder and sound of the rain is pretty awesome, we'll see how I can schedule walking home from campus to avoid getting drenched.

There's a dance studio, tons of restaurants and shops, and gyms, within walking distance!

So what happened in Denver? I flew from SNA to DEN, had a 1 hr stopover and then went non stop to San Jose. In Denver, I realized I forgot to print proof of my return ticket (Costa Rican immigration only allows 90 day tourist visa, so your return ticket needs to be within that time frame, mine isn't of course). So I get that printed out, then the agent says, "Oh you need to fly back within 90 days, we can't let you through", this was while my flight was boarding! She suggested buying a one way fully refundable ticket online that moment (claiming I would have proof of 90 day return and can cancel the ticket later. Once in Costa Rica, the common thing to do is go to a nearby country (Panama, Nicaragua) for 3 days to renew your 90 day tourist Visa.) Just as I was about to put in my CC# to purchase the ticket, the agent speaks to her boss who asks if I'm a student and I say no, I'm a professor. Then he says, well if you have proof of your job then its OK. Whew. Made my flight just in time. I had a feeling this would happen (Frontier Airlines mentioned this) but the Fulbright folks said it wouldn't be a big deal. I guess I should have been prepared and automatically said my reason for going or asked to speak to the manager right away.

well anyways, I made it in once piece! And so did my luggage. I was able to check in 3 pieces w/o paying.

Not sure what I'm doing this weekend, maybe check out the malls and get a hold of a tv.

What is the Fulbright Scholar Program?

In a few weeks, I'm going to begin my stay at the University of Costa Rica as a Fulbright Scholar. Here's some background on the Fulbright Program:

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the US government, designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the US and other countries. It was established in 1946 by then-Senator J William Fulbright of Arkansas and is sponsored by the US Dept of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. More than 300,000 Fulbrighters from the US and other countries have participated in the program in the past 60 years, and awards approximately 8,000 new grants annually.

I specifically applied to the Fulbright US Scholar Program, which sends 1,200 American scholars and professionals annually to about 125 countries, to lecture and/or conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields.

The most popular program is the Fulbright US Student Program, meant for US graduating college seniors, grad students, young professionals and artists to study abroad (research) for 1 academic year.

The Fulbright Program supplies the stipend, travel and living expenses, and some logistical support, while everything else is done independently (finding housing, a university host, research project etc.)

There's also plenty of grants for foreign students/professionals to come to the US and study/work.

As a disclaimer, I should say that the opinions revealed in this blog are my own and do not represent those of the Fulbright Program or US government.

I've still got a lot of stuff to figure out before I leave, but am truly excited!

A new adventure

Last week I attended the Fulbright Pre-Departure Orientation for the Western Hemisphere in DC, a 2 day orientation for Fulbright Scholars, Students and Teaching Assistants going to Central America, Caribbean and South America. Everyone was really excited and it was great to see and meet other people from the program. Most Scholars are professors at small universities with established professional careers and research, with plenty of teaching background. I, on the other hand, am teaching my first course, and just got my PhD 6 months ago! It was a bit intimidating. I definitely spoke to more of the students and grad students than the Scholars. There's 3 other Scholars going to the University of Costa Rica, but all are going in 2011. There's 4 or 5 other students/grad students going this Fall but they will be at various field sites doing their research. I'll be the first one going for the 2010-2011 year.

Most people were in the social science fields (anthro, social work, women's studies, teaching English, geography, ecology etc), the closest thing to another physical scientist was a Computer Engineer and Chemist/ecologist. Most people were going to a specific region to conduct research related to their project in that region. So what am I doing there?

I'll be a 'visiting assistant professor' at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose, Costa Rica (outside the capital), in the Physics department. I'll be teaching 1 course to graduate students, 'introduction to nanotechnology and characterization techniques', and doing research. The research project I proposed was a new inter-disciplinary project combining materials science and archaeology. The materials science aspect of it will include using techniques I learned in graduate school to characterize nanostructures (mostly Atomic Force Microscopy) within the context of looking at ceramic samples from Pre-Columbian peoples of the Guanacaste region (near the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border). I've always liked archaeology and even thought about minoring or double majoring in it, so this should be interesting! I'm definitely interested in applying my technical background to areas outside of nanoscience that can use the tools we use, so we'll see how that goes.

For now, I'm prepping my course and figuring out the logistical details. I'll probably visit Neha's host family that she stayed with last summer. Once I figure out my dates, I will let you know so you can all visit me!

Things I will miss

• Once I figured out the bus situation, I got really comfortable getting around on my own. Getting from BCollege (Shibpur) to almost anywhere in Calcutta with a combination of bus, metro and taxi was pretty cool. There's different colored buses that take different routes, and depending where I want to go, there's a strategic route I should take that's the most direct and perhaps closest to a metro station. So once I got my hands on a map (which was a challenge in itself) and knew the general location of specific neighborhoods, the next challenge was to decipher what the hell the bus guy was yelling at the stop. If the bus is going Howrah Station, he yells "howrahowrahowrah" in a loud monotonous robotic voice. If I've never heard/seen the bus stop name before, it just sounded like a random mix of sounds that had no meaning. Some of the buses had writing on them indicating the route, mostly in Bengali and few in English.
• I'll miss crossing the Hooghly while sitting in a window seat on the rattling buses. I'll miss the cool bridges.
• I'll miss the small victories I celebrated each time I made it to a new destination w/o getting lost. A compass would have helped tremendously but my internal compass and amazing (if I say so myself) sense of direction gave me the confidence and security to get around on my own, even when the buses did not stick to a route I knew. I knew I would figure it out before the end of my trip, the hard part was just getting the initial information so that I could make a mental map.
• No commitments, no appointments, no pressure to hang out with friends, family, boyfriend, pretty much no social calendar. Although it was scary and lonely at times, it was nice to have very few commitments.
• Working very few hours a day. 5 minute walking commute to lab. 2 hour lunch break.
• Chai
• The hospitality shown by Mallika Maasi and Nandita Auntie, they treated me like family even though I had never met them.
• The joy of hearing someone speaking English, especially with an American accent.
• Reading. I'm pretty sure I'm going to give up this crazy reading habit once I'm back in front of my tv. I'm not ashamed to admit it. In fact, this reading was starting to hurt my eyesight.

Conclusions

So as my time in Calcutta is coming to an end, I figured I'd jot down some concluding thoughts about my time here. There will be some things I miss, and for that I'll write a separate post.

When I decided to take this position (which fell into my lap pretty much, I def could not say no), I was excited and open to exploring a new city/place/university. I came in with no expectations, just open to adventure. I was a bit optimistic and romantic in my ideas about the situation, but I tried really hard not to have any expectations about my time in Calcutta. I knew I was going to a small university, but I didn't know how small the town actually is.

I didn't sign up for an introspective, spiritual, living in the boonies retreat, but at times it felt like it was being forced on me. Communicating frustrations in Hindi is difficult with my Kindergarten language level. I can express being happy or content and simple phrases, but trying to say something like, "I've told you x many times, this food is too spicy. I've lost weight and have been getting stomach problems b/c of this food" or "There shouldn't be rats in the AFM room, they will eat through the wires and can damage equipment. What's the point of me taking off my shoes before entering the lab if there's going to be rat feces on the floor?" is very challenging and emotionally draining.

That's how I would summarize it actually, emotionally draining. I've learned what drains me emotionally, and that's a good lesson I guess. I've learned that I realllllly want a gym, dance and my own kitchen to keep me healthy and happy on a daily basis. (I would say NEED, but that might be an exaggeration.) Luckily, the work I was doing here did not need me to bring my A-game, meaning my lethargy, sleeping habits, lack of motivation, emotional drainage and un-optimum health did not one bit alter the quality of the work I was doing (which is meant to say more about the work than about me). Although I had no serious illness to deal with, my loss of muscle and general weakness will take some time to heal, but hopefully it was just the heat my body was reacting too.

I am not ashamed to admit, I made 0 friends on my own. Sure, I tried, but I found it hard to find people my age with my interests that made an effort to show me around. I resorted to finding tourists to chat with when I was in Calcutta, but most of them were only here for a few days. I'm actually not really a people person, I am not the one to instigate a conversation but I was so desperate that I actually did a few times, coming up with lame reasons that hopefully did not come off as too desperate. Even social interactions are so culturally different here, it's hard for me to know exactly what is appropriate/normal and what isn't (but that could be a whole other posting). Part of me thinks even if I did make friends I would just get annoyed after hanging out 1 or 2 times.

The thing that saved me was being able to get out into Calcutta on the weekends. Once I figured out the bus and metro routes, I could get around on my own and explore. I actually loved riding the bus and metro and will definitely miss public transportation.

I am so over roti-sabji-daal-bhat. Definitely miss chaat food since I can't eat that here.

When can I start counting down hours? The next challenge is getting through the flight. ugh.

temple visits

This past weekend I visited Dakshineshwar Temple and Belur Math, both along the Hooghly on opposite sides.

Dakshineshwar Kali Temple is along the eastern bank of the Hooghly river (and the locals call it Ganga even though it branches off from the Ganga a long ways away) and its a temple to Bhavartini Kali built in 1855. There's the usual temple madness, long lines to get in, pushing and shoving to make it to the altar with your offering, tons of flower and puja supply stalls. However, the lines here did seem to have some sort of order, although having security guards at the entrance and exit directing people like cattle outside of a temple is a funny/weird sight. I always get irritated by this whole process, this time I just walked around and absorbed everything, mostly people watched and snapped some pix. The architecture is very cool and its a pretty big complex with 12 smaller Shiva temples surrounding it (Shiva was Kali's companion). I'd much rather enjoy an older temple, maybe that has some archaeological/historical significance, with no crowds. Although I do appreciate the mythology surrounding the gods and goddesses (can someone start making hollywood movies about this?). Why is Kali standing on Shiva?

Belur Math is along the western bank of the river and is the headquarters for the Ramakrishna Math and Mission (Vendanta Movement). The Math is the monastic org for those who follow Sri Ramakrishna, and the mission is more of the social service branch and was founded by Swami Vivekananda. The campus is pretty awesome, with some very cool buildings, very peaceful and calm, none of the craziness of Dakshineshwar. The view of the river was also awesome. It was interesting and I would have liked to wonder around more but it was friggin HOT. I wrote an essay in high school about the Transcendental Movement in the US (how vedantic philosophy was brought over to the US) and Swami Vivekananda had a lot to do with it, so it was cool to see the place for those reasons.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

I finally read Shantaram, I heard lots of great things about it and found it in the first book shop I went to looking for it. It's a bit intimidating for someone like me, its 933 pages with relatively small font. Once I started it, I devoured it. It's based on a true story, in the 1980's the author escaped from a prison in Australia and moved to Bombay. The book is about his time there, the people he met, adventures he had and details of the Bombay underworld. I'm not sure which details are true, but the suspense and story telling is soo good. He talks about visiting the Maharashtran country side where he picks up Marathi, gives great descriptions of everything from the way people "wiggle" their heads to the details about someone's face or personality. The writing is very poetic and it would be a great novel to have to read in an English class. He talks a lot of love, pain, philosophy, fear, suffering, faith, trust, pretty much any human emotion or trait. There's plenty of humor as well. I'm going to have to read it again and mark the passages I really enjoyed.

Here's a good one:

"Whatever the reason, I felt dishearteningly alone in the city. I'd lost Prabakar and Abdullah, my closest friends, in the same week, and with them I'd lost the mark on the psychic map that says You are here. Personality and personal identity are in some ways like co-ordinates on the street map drawn by our intersecting relationships. We know who we are and we define what we are by references to the people we love and our reasons for loving them."

"He hadn't said anything to me about Parvati, one of Kumar's two pretty daughters, but I'd seen him talking to her, and I guessed that he was falling in love. In Prabaker's way of courtship, a young man didn't bring flowers or chocolates to the woman he loved: he brought her stories from the wider world, where men grappled with demons of desire, and monstrous injustice. He brought her gossip and scandals and intimate secrets. He brought her the truth of his brave heart, and the mischievous, awe struck wonder that was the wellspring of his laughter, and of that sky-wide smile. And as I watched him scurry toward the chai shop, I saw that already his head was wagging and his hands were waving as he rehearsed the story that he brought to her as the new day's gift."

Shopping

I'm not usually a big shopper; as much as I love new, unique things, I also try to rebel against the consumerism so prevalent today. But given the fact that I'm being paid in rupees and have a local atm/debit card, its mighty difficult to resist. But then I also have to think of my baggage, the excess weight fees are definitely not worth it, especially since its a weight range, not a charge per kg that you are over the weight limit.

In general, its hard to find truly unique, affordable clothing. So I try to reinvent clothes that I already have. Before I buy something, I try to judge a piece of clothing or accessory by asking myself "Does this piece deserve space in my closet?" I try to think of my closet as prime real estate, it will help prevent me from spending too much money or just buying cheap junk that I don't necessarily need and that is just unoriginal and a waste of space. I would love to do a clothing swap actually and I love the concept of used clothing stores.

Note: I need to make an album of the various ways I can think of to wear a sari, in non traditional ways. But its hard to do on myself, so I need a model.

Shopping in Kolkata has been fun, I've bought some fabrics (which I hope to use on my sewing machine), some handicrafts (not too many though), some western cut dresses from Pantaloons (department store), batik sarong type materials from Shantiniketan; but no jewelry. I'm done shopping for now and will try to pack the bags and see how much they weigh before I even think about shopping more. Hopefully the things I bought weigh the same as the consumables I brought with me and things I will leave behind here.

The two malls I went to are City Centre and South City. City Centre is a bit like the Spectrum or fashion island except multi storied, outdoor type but with some indoor AC areas too, and movie theatre (where I saw "alice in wonderland"). South City is a huge 5 story indoor AC mall with a Target type store in the basement, movie theatre (where I saw "clash of the titans", only b/c I was bored), two department stores (Shopper's Stop and Pantaloon's). The two days I went there a cricket game was playing on the big screen in the center atrium and people were gathered around and cheering. The food court was pretty cool although for some of the eateries you had to buy a pre paid card to buy food. I had Subway! I spent about 1 hour in pantaloon's, the first store I went into in South City, and bought 4 things, and didn't buy anything else that day or the next day when I returned. I was pretty happy with myself for resisting the urge!

My eyes are consistently drawn to the Indian prints and patterns, paisleys, florals, batik . . and the good thing is that its so overwhelming that I can't pick just one or two things, so then I just walk out of the store. whew. crisis averted.

My one splurge, besides the spa visits, is a truly unique, designer dress that I'm really excited about and can't wait to wear. It's getting altered to fit me right now. I found a local designer online that has her own clothing line, some very cool fusion type wear. Some of the patterns were a bit overwhelming for me (pink leopard print or just mis-matched patterns) but I got a beige dress that has sari type draping and is long and flowy. She also came out with a vcd about different ways to wear saris, so i bought one. It's got some cool ideas, but most of the ideas just include more ways to make the sari even more bulky and cover up more of your body.

I also bought some books, which def. might add up on the scale. I think those would be the first I would sacrifice if it was necessary.

Temper Tantrum

Just came very close to punching a hole in a wall or actually breaking my hand instead. Getting non-spicy food is a constant battle here at the guest house dining hall. I thought the message was clear, apparently not all the staff knows. So do I have to speak to each guy in the staff and tell them individually I don't eat spicy food? Does the cook even know? I spoke to someone who I assume is the manager (Ashish), and assumed he would tell everyone. This was in late February. Then he left for vacation in March so I had to tell someone else (Asim) who I assumed had some authority. I've told him atleast 5 or 6 times in the past few weeks. Today, I find out Ashish is back while Asim is gone for vacation, so I have to tell this guy again. Do they not understand my Hindi? I was holding back tears, but I should have just cried in front of them, maybe they'd get the point then. I think I'll get someone who I know understands me to write a note in Bengali and give that to the manager. This is ridiculous.

I think I'm a pretty patient person, and I try to be nice to the people that serve me, I say thank you and please and smile, even if that's not normal or reciprocated most of the time in India. If they need a reminder for something, I hold back my frustration and ask again nicely. But I can only do that so much, especially when I am starving and don't want to deal with stomach aches (and other stuff that is TMI) the next morning. I try not to bother other people with my problems, like the Materials Science Staff (that is actually another frustration) b/c if I can communicate then I should just take care of it myself, right? ugh.

I smell a rat

Yes, today was the day when I finally saw an Indian rat up close. Luckily, it was not in my guest house room, but was in the room where I work and use the atomic force microscope (AFM). Of course I squirmed when I saw it and was shocked. The graduate student looked at me and laughed, and asked "are you scared", I said "Actually I'm disgusted. It's gross" (but hell yes I was scared!). And then the rat ran out and squeezed through a partition separating two lab rooms. So I suggest blocking it, and the grad student just laughs at me as if its no big deal. Then the rodent comes back in through the same hole and runs behind the desk, exactly where all the electrical cords and wires are for our instrument. I don't want to make a big deal about it, because it seems normal to him I guess, and I'm tired of getting laughed at. Although, in all the people's houses that I've stayed at throughout the years that I've been coming to India, I haven't seen a single rat/mouse. Plenty of lizards and moths and cockroaches though. Then I think, don't these rodents chew threw electronic wiring and cables?? This AFM is probably the cheapest and oldest in use in its class, and actually they might not even make parts for it any more . .

This room is supposed to be sealed pretty well and the area needs to be "clean". The definition of clean is of course different than what I'm used to and what it should be defined as for (ideal) nanoscale experiments and imaging. Also, there are no shoes allowed in the AFM room. We have to take off our shoes in the foyer, a few doors between the outside and AFM lab room; this of course is a good idea b/c its dusty outside and we don't want to bring in that dust into the lab room. So my shoes are not allowed but rats/mice and their feces are??

Visit to Shantiniketan

This past weekend I rode the Shantiniketan Express train to Shantiniketan for a 1 night trip. I was accompanied by a friend of a friend that is a travel agent and had some business to do there. On the way there we had the AC car, which was wayyy too cold, and on the way back non AC car which was friggin hot. The train ride was nice and I had a somewhat comfy seat and took some cool videos for my train loving nephew Sachin.

The train stops at Bolpur and then goes back to Howrah Station outside of Calcutta, and does this every day, meant for the sole purpose of going to Shantiniketan, hence the name. Howrah Station itself was pretty cool to see, seemed organized and efficient, and is a huge bus terminal as well. I wanted to explore around there and get cool pics of Howrah bridge, but apparently pics of the bridge are not allowed. Shantiniketan is where Rabindranath Tagore lived for some time and wrote some of his work, and eventually the Vishva-Bharati University developed from his vision of education and schooling. The campus is nice, huge and spread out. The small town itself was quaint, not too touristy and felt safe. I went to a small museum and walked through the compound where Tagore lived (once again no cameras allowed). There were a few cool sculptures around campus.

Apparently during Holi, this is the place to be.

People ride bikes everywhere, and the girls carry umbrellas in one hand to provide shade from the extreme sun while steering the bicycle with the other hand. We rode around on bicycle rickshaws, and I was sore afterwards. It was also nice to see an equal mix of girls and boys walking around and hanging out, very different from where I am right now at BESUS. Overall, a cool experience, but not something I would see if I was only in Calcutta for a short while.

NERD ALERT: book review of QUANTUM by Manjit Kumar

I just finished an awesome book - QUANTUM: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar.

The author provides a summary of the discoveries and scientific advancements that led to quantum mechanics (QM, a sub-field of physics). Brief biographies are artfully entwined into the achievements made by physicists in the 1800's to 1900's; extensive references, personality descriptions, quotations from personal letters, and a sense of humor provide an insight into these scientists and a history of modern physics that I never got from textbooks. The story is centered in Europe, mostly Bern, Copenhagen and Gottingen. The effects of the two world wars on theoretical physics and the scientists is also discussed, which I found very interesting. I have no talent for retaining historical information and I've already forgotten the many amazing, thought provoking, funny and quote-able parts of this book, so I'll have to skim through again and highlight so these things will be easier to find when I want to look back. Hopefully someone else will read it soon so I can discuss it.

Some random facts:

It seems that most of the notable physicists in that time made their greatest discoveries in their early to mid twenties. Sometimes, their doctoral dissertations were ground breaking, and they were made professors by their late twenties. Ernest Rutherford had 11 of his students and close collaborators win Nobel Prizes. Einstein had written two letters to President Roosevelt encouraging research on the atomic bomb.

The book first lays the foundation for understanding how QM as a field developed and came about, which takes most of the book, and later goes into the details of the fundamental disagreements between Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein about the theory as a whole and its implications.

I'll outline the basic points of view here:

Neils Bohr - "There is no quantum reality beyond what is revealed by an act of measurement or observation. Hence it is meaningless to say, for example, that an electron exists somewhere independent of an actual observation." Basically, for something to exist, there needs to be someone/something observing that other something. He also claimed that QM was a complete theory.

Albert Einstein - He thought that QM was not a complete theory. He did not believe in an observer-dependent reality, but believed that something would exist regardless if there was no one to observe or measure it.

"Einstein versus Bohr had little to do with the equations and numbers generated by the mathematics of quantum mechanics. What does quantum mechanics mean? What does it say about the nature of reality? It was their answers to these types of questions that separated the two men. Einstein never put forward an interpretation of his own, because he was not trying to shape his philosophy to fit a physical theory. Instead he used his belief in an observer-independent reality to asses quantum mechanics and found the theory wanting."

Food

The campus guesthouse I'm staying at has a dining hall that serves breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner and it's busiest at lunch when people on campus come by, other than that its usually just me and two or three other people. The first few weeks, I enjoyed the food. Breakfast was toast, fruit, and coffee/tea, lunch was about two handfuls of rice, some daal and vegetable dish, and dinner was 2 or 3 rotis with a vegetable dish, maybe an omelette or egg curry, maybe some yoghurt. Slowly I realized the spice level of the food was not agreeing with my stomach. I could eat it, so my taste-buds could handle it, but I realized my stomach couldn't. Eventually I bought my own tub of granola (yay!) for breakfast and cut out the white bread, and after telling the kitchen staff about 6 or 7 times that the food was too spicy for me, I'm finally getting some vegetable dishes that are not spicy! It was a long battle, about 2 weeks, but now the head waiter knows when I come in to bring me something that's not spicy. Unfortunately today, the squash/potato dish was meant to be non spicy, butttt I think the kitchen staff used the same vegetables from the original dish and just added water to the sauce. So when I ate it, it was just as spicy, but the waiter was shocked when I said it was too spicy. oh well. I used to force myself to eat the spicy stuff, because I was starving and wanted to build up to being able to eat spicy food, but realized that's not helping the situation. The tea and coffee are too sweet, the coffee is just nescafe added to hot milk so I think I prefer the tea, which is pretty strong. The yoghurt is amazing, probably full fat, slightly tart and sweet, reminds me of Tart frozen yoghurt from yoghurtland! And the Ras Goola they have sometimes is really good, but I think its from a store. I think I'm officially sick of potatoes though.

I get plenty of fresh fruit from the stands outside the campus gate, but its the usual (bananas, apples, oranges, maybe sometimes pomegranites). Where are the mangos and guavas!!??

I've visited most of the stores right outside the gates of campus, and there's some pastry shops but the pastry/cakes are way too sweet for me, the frosting is too sugary and the cake is dry. I have enjoyed cookies though, Bourbon being my favorite (chocolate cookie sandwich with chocolate filling), and of course Digestive Biscuits (although not OG McVitie's) filled with fiber! I've also tried the traditional Bengali sweet known as "sandesh", which is pretty good, not overly sweet like other mitthai.

In MH, I got my fill of srikhand and gulab jamun and puri.

When I get out of Shibpur, I make sure to not eat Indian food. I've tried McDonalds (McVeggie + fries) which is pretty good, Subway (which is as amazing as in the states), Pizza Hut (which I don't eat at all in the US but its the closest to Gina's Pizza or Papa John's that I'm going to get), and try to have real brewed coffee when I can. I did eye a South Indian restaurant so will have a dosa next time I get a chance.

Can't wait for some rice, beans and plantains in Costa Rica!

One Quantum of Indian

One of my pet peeves is when people stereotype or try to label other people, especially me. Maybe this is immature and maybe I have too much pride, but I do not appreciate it when someone else tries to define me and who I am or what I do or why I do things. So of course I find it a bit annoying when someone tries to quantify "how Indian" I am. So here's two anecdotes:

Early on in college, one of the first friends I made said, "Oh I totally thought you were white-washed," in response to hearing that I lived in India for a year and learned to read/write/speak Marathi and Hindi. I was offended and wanted to lecture her about a variety of topics including the label "white-washed" and her definition of it, but I think I kept my mouth shut. Her first impressions of me, for whatever reason, made her believe I wasn't "that Indian". Was I offended b/c she didn't think I was Indian enough at first? Or offended that she would even try to label me in the first place? Maybe both. (white-washed: when someone who is not caucasian or white acts like they are, ie in this context my friend thought I was more "American" than "Indian".)

On this trip, one of the graduate students that I chat with in lab asked me if I eat food with my hands, and I said "yes most of the time." His response, "Oh so you're really Indian!" (Then I said, "Well I wouldn't have lasted this long in Shibpur if I wasn't, I would have left the first week.") So in this guy's definition, eating with hands is considered "really Indian." I also got a few responses like this when I told people I am vegetarian, they seem to think that's "very Indian" as well. I wasn't really offended by this but it just got me thinking about the whole concept again. I understand that's how our brains work, we like to categorize and label things with similar properties. But I try not to do that to people and their personalities, I think it hinders their potential and makes me have subconscious expectations for them that they may not want or deserve.

And of course, I get the same question at least 5 or 10 times on every visit to India, "Which culture do you like better, Indian or American?" Ugh. I try to be polite and lucky for them my Hindi or Marathi is not developed enough to be rude or arrogant or sarcastic on purpose (my usual attitude in English as many of you may have experienced), so I say, "I like both, I don't have to pick one." And actually I don't even know what American culture really is by definition.

So, how Indian are you? I'm sure there's a Facebook quiz for that.

Happy Journey! Pune and Kopergaon

Last week I went to Pune to visit some family. I stayed with my mom's cousin, Sunil Mama, and his family and got to see my cousins that I hadn't seen in 9 or 10 years! Got to see some nightlife and grab some drinks (quite a luxury for me now). Pune is definitely somewhere I can live, it has all the conveniences of a modern metropolis w/o without the major congestion and traffic. I told Sunita Mami I'd come live there if she found me a job!

I went to Kopergaon Sun - Wed to visit Dada Baba (mom's dad). He threw me a dinner party for my graduation so I got to see tons more family from his side, aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews. I was afraid he was going to make me give a speech but he didn't, he just basically introduced me, said that I finished my PhD, working in Calcutta, told everyone about my stipend (I'm not sure how that's relevant but somehow indicates my level of success?) and also said something like "She has no plans for marriage so who knows when we'll see her again or get to celebrate with her" haha so it was nice he said that up front so I didn't have to deal with those questions. He then did "satkar", its basically giving me flowers and a shawl, as an official introduction and welcoming. He also did this to 8 other people so the attention wasn't all on me, he also embarrassed my cousin by telling everyone about her marriage/love story (which was quite scandalous for the small town I'm sure), so that was HILARIOUS. I don't think he realizes how funny he is. He is still so active for his age. His memory is very good, he didn't even write down all the details of my introduction or anyone else's introduction. It was cool to spend time with him, and it would be interesting to pick his brain about all the stuff he knows, esp. about agriculture and science.

Back in Pune, I got to see some tourist sights like the Pateleshwar Temple and Saras Bag. The Pateleshwar Temple is an old rock cut cave temple from the 8th Century right in the middle of the city! Well the city limits grew around it, but how cool is that, to have an ancient temple down the street from your house?

After seeing all those people after all this time, I was definitely tired of answering questions like "So what are you doing in Calcutta", "Why did you come to India? Aren't the facilities and schools better in the US?", "When are you going to get married?", "Are you going to marry an Indian or non-Indian", "What do you like better, India or America", "Oh are you dieting?", "Eat some more food". Basically the same questions from 50 different people, it gets tiring after a while!

History Lesson: Dalhousie Square

On Sunday Feb 28, I took a guided walk through Dalhousie Square (aka BBD Bagh) at 7am. The streets were calm and empty, a very rare sight; vendors were slowly opening their stands and cutting up vegetables and beginning food preparations for their stalls. It was a great time to take in the view and take pictures.

Dalhousie Square was the main part of "White Town" Calcutta, where the British mainly resided. The old Fort William was first here, as well as the first hotels, restaurants, business offices etc that the British establish. (see fb pics)

Random information:

The first US export to Calcutta was ice. (??)

Dalhousie Square was named after Lord Dalhousie, governor general of India from 1847 - 1856, and was later named BBD Bagh after 3 Indian independence activists: Benoy, Badal and Dinesh.

Dalhousie Square has been declared one of the world's 100 most endangered sites by the World Monument Watch.

Silence of the Lambs

Just finished Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. Have seen the movie and its creepy, that's all I can remember about it. The book is awesome, I couldn't put it down! finished it in 2 days and can't wait to read the other books. The character developments of Clarice and Hannibal are very interesting and even though I knew the main plot from the movie, I was still thoroughly engaged. The book isn't as grotesque as I would have imagined, based on the movie. But Hannibal's creepiness definitely comes out strong.

**update: finished Red Dragon and Hannibal . . all great books. the end of Hannibal isn't very satisfying though. Haven't had nightmares YET.

India Reading List

Some reviews of books I'm reading while here (or else I don't really read much on a regular basis). as of Feb 24, 2010.

The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio (non fiction): awesome book Matt picked out for me from his hometown half-price book store. Started it in Peru and finally finished it in India. Very cool book about the number known as Phi (the Greek symbol), 1.61803 . . . (goes on forever). The author goes into details about history and mythology related to this number, and how it may or may not play into certain pieces of art, architecture etc. It has inspired me to think about taking a "History of Science" tour through Europe. That would be awesome.

Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat (fiction): This is the book that the movie "3 Idiots" is based on. An entertaining, quick read but a bit cliche and high school-ish in my opinion. There's a lot of differences from the movie.

Rabindranath Tagore, The Postmaster & selected stories, translated by William Radice (fiction): the stories are hit or miss, some of my favorites are The Hungry Stones, Skeleton, Guest. Some of the stories have no real plot but recreate the imagery and mood of a village and leave the end of the story with a line like " . . and maybe he was never found again. . " or something like that. I don't know how much this had to do with the translator, but the sarcasm is pretty hilarious and in my opinion some of the social commentary/observations are quite insightful and funny. There lots sensuality and romantic descriptions in most of the stories. And a lot of quotable quotes.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga: a great, quick, interesting read. dark humor, the kind I like. A sort of realistic and also warped view of "modern" India dealing with rich vs. poor, from the point of view of a chauffeur/driver.

(ongoing) Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King (fiction): collection of short stories. Some are weird and very creepy so I have to be in the mood for that. The first story in the book is the best so far "Dolan's Cadillac".

(ongoing) Lonely Planet India: obviously.

Bengali head nod

I'm still trying to figure out the Bengali head nod.

Let me provide some cartesian coordinates first: X, Y, Z axes.

Imagine your spine is Z, across the shoulders is X and chest to back is Y. So nodding your head up and down would be in the Z-Y plane (what we Americans do for "yes"), and shaking your head side to side would be moving along the X-Y plane (what we American do for "no").

Now imagine moving your head in the Z-X plane, kind of like a bobble head. Well, I'm familiar with this sort of head nod, but it usually means "yes" or "OK, sure" or other ways of conveying affirmation. But here, I think it means NO!? still trying to figure that out, must do some more research.

wildlife

Killed my first Indian cockroach on this trip today. I thought I'd take an evening bucket bath, bad idea. I tried to drown it and it struggled on its back a bit, then tried to make its way into the bedroom. Hell naw! I made a wad of toilet paper, placed that on it while it was on its back, then dropped a shampoo bottle to squish it. Then took some plastic to pick up the whole mess with. So this is my method of having a way to kill bugs w/o directly touching them or leaving a mess of guts. Pretty ingenious if you ask me.

There's also a lizard that comes and goes in the bathroom, the window is open a crack. I don't mind him/her that much, but it needs to do a better job of eating bugs (do lizards eat cockroaches?).

This was a good reminder to keep my bags and suitcases closed at all times.

I've heard there's snakes on campus, and one was even found in the lab room I use a few weeks ago (before I got here). Ugh. I will freeze with panic if I see a snake. Don't try to reason with me, I'm a pretty rational person, but that's one thing I do not want to see, especially in my room and if I'm by myself.

On that note, I'm going to try and sleep w/o imagining creepy crawlies. A mosquito net would be nice and provide some security at least.

rain

it's raining!! thunder and lightning as well. sounds great from my window and luckily my walk to lab is a couple hundred feet so don't have to worry about getting muddy. hopefully it will cool down the weather a bit for the next few days. and luckily thunder doesn't scare me.

Common sense

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.” - Albert Einstein.

I've thought about the concept of "common sense" for a long time. It never made sense to me that we should all have the same/common sense about anything. This quotation is the definition of common sense that I try to remind myself of when it seems that no one else around me is using their "common sense". It really depends on how you grow up, what adults tell you, what experiences you've had, education etc etc.

I interpret "collection of prejudices" as being just another way of saying "things people tell you w/o you experiencing them yourself" therefore making a pre-judgment about something. My common sense tells me not to drink the tap water here, b/c that's what people tell me. I haven't actually tried to drink tap water and then gotten sick and therefore proven to myself that the tap water is not safe for me.

"common courtesy" is something else that isn't so common. I'm realizing that more being immersed in a different culture with its own set of customs and "common courtesy". Please and thank you's don't really exist. Nor does sorry. Hell, even pedestrian right of way doesn't exist. People rarely smile at strangers and although I've heard people say that people in India are friendly or neighborly, they are not any more or less friendly or neighborly than any other population of people that I've come across, only speaking of strangers though. Although it makes me angry to see litter or see someone relieve themselves on the side of the road, in the context of the culture, I guess its acceptable, but I would prefer not to do that.

So I try to think about things in a culturally relativistic way. I've noticed people like to take pride in their cultural values, as if other cultures don't share the same values or as if our own is superior in some way. Some values are shared, some aren't, but there's no point in making a judgement about that. In fact, more can be learned through differences (if learning's your thing). But you already know this about me.

Updates from the past two weeks

The first week around here was pretty boring and slow. The logistics for everything take a while. Turns out I had to open a bank account to get paid. Here's the frustrating story about that:

Someone calls the bank (united bank of india) on campus to ask what I would need to open up an account, copy of passports they say. DONE! I already had those with me (I'm SO prepared right?), so I go to the bank and try to get someone's attention to help me. The manager then says, oh you need a copy of the signature and address pages of your OCI card and passport. OK. I leave the bank to go to the department to make photocopies. Oh, we don't have a copy machine in the department office, nor anywhere else on campus? (there's an atomic force microscope, scanning electron microscope etc, but no xerox machine). So I have to leave the campus and take a very short walk to make copies. The next day I go back to the bank smiling to myself for how independent and efficient I am. Here you go sir, my photocopies. Then he hands me a thick stack of forms, ugh, OK, he didn't mention those yesterday. I fill em out, hand em back. Um, miss do you have two color photos to attach to the form? (in hindi). Me: Oh, I asked you yesterday what I needed, you didn't mention anything about photos. My passport photocopy has my picture right there. His response: No, you need small color pictures, I can't process this w/o pictures. WTF? So the rest of my morning was spent walking around the town outside trying to find somewhere to get pictures taken and printed right away so I could turn them in before the bank closes at 330pm. No apologies of course for the miscommunication. And turns out, the paper work takes 72 hrs to process to even open the account. This whole process took 3 days. OK fine. I email my contact in Kanpur who is supposed to transfer the money to my account. He says he'll get on it. 1 week later, no response. I call him, he now tells me I should have opened an account with UNION bank of India (also UBI, but not UNITED bank of INdia). I told him beforehand I was going to open an account in United bank of India, he didn't tell me then to do Union instead. So now, the process takes longer, they can't do direct transfer. Once again, no apology for the confusion, even though there was someone responsible for the confusion. I still don't have my stipend, had to borrow money and a SIM card from the department. I wonder if this would be the same if I was a Professor or someone with more authority, or if the Director's Asst. did it saying the Director needed it done right away. Who knows.

I also found out about Feb 2nd ish that I have the opportunity to go to Hyderabad full expenses paid Feb 8-11 to give some talks on Nanoscience/Nanotechnology at the Engineering Staff College of India. Yes please. Went with a prof who was also hoping to only work for 2 days so we get 2 days to sightsee. The organizers expected us to talk for about 10 hours over 3 days! I was signed up to talk about Carbon nanotubes and nanocomposites, which I have no background in. So once we got there, we talked them down to 2 lectures from me and 3 from the prof. So Feb 8 I gave a talk on microscopy (STM, AFM and KPFM) and got lots of blank stares or people snickering. the audience was mostly scientists and engineerings from defense who need a refresher course or something. Turns out I was talking too fast and they had a hard time understanding my english. The next day I basically talked about my dissertation work and it went alot better. I also got to explore the nightlife of Hbad and see Golkonda Fort, Salar Jung Museum and Charminar. The new parts of the city are pretty awesome, tons of shopping and malls, and a place called "hitec city" where software company offices are. seems pretty happening.

This past weekend, Feb 13, I decided not to go to lab (people here work on saturdays I guess) and went into the city by myself. There's a bus stop right outside the campus gate that goes to an area called Esplanade, and from there I can walk or take taxis around. The main goal is to get across the river on a bus b/c its cheaper, then take a taxi. I left campus around 1230 thinking I'll give myself time to get lost, sightsee and come back before dark. I didn't get lost and love just sitting back while someone else drives me around. I could just sit on the bus and come right back to campus. Walked around Sudder St., Chowringhee area, budget tourist area. Met a hot French-Canadian guy who's been rock climbing around south east asia for the past 6 months. It was nice to see tourists, hear english and see non brown people. Yes I like skin color variety if you didn't already know. Saw part of the Indian Museum, but only for 1 hr so i'll go back again. Got a feel of the city and how to get around. Feb 14 hung out with Reema's Maasi (Reema's mom's youngest sister) Mallika Maasi, and her 3 year old son Nikhil. Maasi is a documentary film maker and film producer! Her husband is a theatre director and actor, whose family are all involved in theatre/acting. I told her I'm up for anything and will tag along anywhere. So, we went to her friend's house Maura and Gautum b/c she had to drop something off. They have opened up a small library in their house for kids from the neighborhood to come to for free! It's so cute. Maura is involved with an alternative school in Kolkata (Shikshamitra) and the name of the library is Mustard Seeds Library (see my facebook). Gautum is a physical chemist, who seems pretty cool as well. They have two cute kids. Maasi, Maura, the kids and I went to City Centre, a nearby mall, the newest mall in Kolkata (area called Salt Lake City, newly developed on the outskirts of OG Kolkata). Had lunch and I did some window/shopping. There was some valentine's day stuff going on, couples dance contest, music etc. It was fun!

Monday was Monday, but a pretty good one at that. Went to the nearby beauty parlour and got an oil and steam head massage. awesome treat, especially since I didn't get any valentines. My hair gets dry around here, and I love when someone plays with my hair. I'll be going once a week at least, its about US $2.00.

I also want to find a cool fashion designer that can help me make clothes that I design. I know that's a stretch, but I'd luv to find a tailor that has experience in fusion clothing. I have some ideas in my head but since I can only sew straight lines for now, I don't plan on trying to sew an outfit.

OK that's its for now, we'll see if I can keep this up. there's so many details and anecdotes I want to remember.