new adventures await

I was only back in Cali for about 6 weeks and now I moved again! It was about time I guess, I was getting bored with no job and funds were starting to run low. Matt and I took a 4 day, 2541 mile road trip from Irvine, CA to Morgantown WV in my Civic Coupe. I was able to stuff my most necessary belongings in the car to bring here with me. We took the southern route, using I-40, I-44 and I-70, going through 11 states in total. We stopped by the St. Louis Gateway Arch, which was cool to see and learn about. There was a museum about westward expansion and Lewis and Clark's expedition to the Pacific. The first 2 days were about 12 hours each, stopping in Albuquerque the first night and Joplin, Missouri the 2nd night. The 3rd day was shorter, since we took an hour stop in St. Louis and ended up in Richmond, Indiana at night. The 4th day was really short and we took our time getting to Morgantown, WV by about 4pm. We went through 3 time zones in 3 days!

My new job is as the Education Coordinator for WVNano (http://wvnano.wvu.edu), which is the state's nanoscale science, engineering and education initiative. I'm not sure what my day to day work will be like, but it is an office type job that will involve coordinating nanoscience related education at many levels: K-16 and graduate level. They already have an Outreach Coordinator, but they were looking for an Education Coordinator with a PhD and nanoscience research experience. West Virginia Univ is the founder of this initiative and so our offices are located within the WVU Research Corporation, so I am considered an Affiliate of WVU. I have always been interesting in other aspects of education, besides actual teaching, so this should be interesting. Also, I've been interested in getting involved with science policy, so the combination of science education and policy would not be a far jump from the work I would be doing. I think. From the interview for this position, which was done in November of last year over Skype, it seems like there will be some flexibility and independence.

Morgantown is nestled the hills of the Appalachian Mountain range, along the Monongahela River. From the I-79 you can't even tell there's a city beyond the hillside, things are pretty well hidden behind the hills. The campus is split into 3 areas connected by a "tram" type thing called the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). It was built in 1975 as an experiment and is still used today. I'm living in an on-campus apartment for grad students and staff, and this past week was Spring Break, so things have been pretty calm and empty. The weather has been cold, but nothing terrible. It did snow very lightly on Wednesday and Thursday, but there's been plenty of sunshine yesterday and today. My first day of work is on Monday!

Don't cry for me Costa Rica

Well, this is it. It's my last day in Costa Rica. Six months has flown by, like I expected it would. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and can see myself coming back at some point in the future. I made myself at home and had an amazing time exploring a new city and country, on my own at many times. It is still surreal to think that I am here, and think about how I got here. Some of it was luck, and some of it was just me going out on a limb day dreaming about living in another country on my own. The cool thing was that I was able to use my direct technical expertise (Nanoscience) and also learn a whole lot of about another field (Archaeometry); and this was enough to fund me living in a beautiful country with so much to see and cool people to meet.

The reality of leaving and feelings of sadness are slowly creeping up . .

I don't think I'll ever cure this travel bug. . hopefully I can just keep finding excuses to travel.

Nicaragua

My sister, Neha, is in Dolores, Carazo, Nicaragua as a TEFL Peace Corp Volunteer. Although she's been in Nicaragua, practically my neighbor, since September 2010, she's not allowed to leave her site and is not allowed to see family/friends for the first 6 months of her time. So I went to visit her this weekend before I leave Central America. We went to Niquinohomo (her training site) and I met her host families and friends. It was cool to see where she works and how she fulfills her role as a volunteer. She's had to learn to be very social, to really be a part of a community, to be a leader/organizer. It's awesome! The challenges/realities of living in a small town are pretty similar to what we have already experienced in India: heat, sometimes no running water, no AC, hand wash laundry, entertaining yourself, language difficulties . . but there are some stark differences in the culture as well (which I'm sure Neha can expand on better than me). I also met current Peace Corps trainees who had just arrived a week ago and were just beginning their journeys.

Things are cheaper in Nicaragua than CR, even imported things (face wash etc) are a full $2 or $3 cheaper. The handicrafts are also cheaper; tons of hammocks. The Masaya market was a maze of vendors that you could easily get lost in and lose track of time in (ie can't tell if its light or dark outside). I will never get bored of looking at that stuff. I bought a hat.

After spending 3 days with her, we parted ways in Managua after a movie and lunch, who knows when I'll see her again!? The next day I took a 1 day tour to Isla de Ometepe, which is an island in Lake Nicaragua made up of 2 volcanos. There's 2 actual small cities on the island, plantation farms, hostels, hikes, and pre-Columbian petroglyphs (rock statues and carvings). It turned out to be an expensive private tour, and the experience would have been more fun if I wasn't alone and had stayed there at least 1 or 2 nights to get in some hiking to see the craters/lakes. But it was something I had wanted to see and am glad that I went.

Back to work?

After NYE, I was pumped for a few more weeks of research at work to keep me busy until I left for the states again. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not checking with my collaborators about their vacation schedule. I had asked another colleague and understood that most people take 2 weeks off (campus is closed, ie locked up for the last 2 weeks in Dec), but the people I was working with took more time off. NBD, right? If I would have known that I would have planned some other things to keep me busy for this last month. Oh well, like I said, my fault, I did not confirm this with them. This gave me more time to just relax and enjoy my beautiful apartment (which I moved out of today, unfortunately).

Also, I really wanted to visit the archaeological site Guayabo, where the samples I studied are from, but the tour I had planned to go on was cancelled b/c of a flood warning. hmph.

NYE @ Playa Uvita, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

After my parents flew back to the states on Dec 30, I took a bus to Playa Uvita for NYE. We stayed a very cool hostel (Tucan Hostel), the service was very good, it was very clean and had its own bar/restaurant. You could get a private room, rent a campsite or hammock, or rent dorm beds. We went to the main beach in the Ballena Marine National Park, and unfortunately got rained on. The sun was very intense around noon, and the waves were OK, a bit too small for my taste. The cool thing was seeing the whale's tail formation sand/rock bar that you can walk to during low tide (and it looks like an island during high tide). For NYE, we had a huge "family" dinner at the hostel, and just decided to chill there for actual NYE. There were parties going on in a few cities around us, but the hassle of finding a taxi (a sober driver perhaps) + the cost of getting there and back was too much work. So it was a pretty uneventful NYE, but I did take advantage of the Wifi and had my laptop/skype. And after my whirlwind Xmas vacation, I was happy to just stay in once place without the stress of logistics (yes, logistics stress me out apparently).

Parents' visit, Dec 20 - 30, 2010

It's time to catch up on this blog! Lots of things have happened since my last post, but nothing crazy or exciting, just things I would like to remember.

My parents and aunt came to visit Dec 20 - 30. The plan was to do some day trips in CR then take a 14 hr bus ride to Panama City to see the Panama Canal! This was something my dad has been wanting to see; he's never really been picky about vacations in general but when he said, "Yeah, let's go see the Canal," I knew I should make it happen. The day trips consisted of "taste" of CR (beach: Manual Antonio, volcano: Irazu, small village & churches: Orosi & Cartago, rainforest: La Paz Waterfall Garden). We had hired a car & driver, which ended up being cheaper than renting a car for 4 days + the headaches of driving/getting lost.

At one point, my brain almost exploded from thinking in English, Marathi and Spanish. But its quite a fun exercise when not stressful.

To get to Panama City, Panama, we took TicaBus, which is a bus line that goes straight from San Jose to Panama City. We took the executive class, which included (non vegetarian) meals, pillow and blanket + the standard movies, comfy seats and bathroom on board. The border crossing was relatively painless (although they did ask for the $500 cash insurance, but I was able to talk my way out of it saying I had a credit card ). In Panama City, we did a Partial Transit of the Canal, which was very cool. Basically, we were in a small boat (full of upscale tourists who could afford the transit in the first place), that went through 2 sets of locks on the Pacific Side of the Canal. You definitely do not need to do a transit to get an appreciation for the awesomeness of the Canal and the role it has played/plays in commerce and trade. The Miraflores tourist center provides a museum and great vantage point to see ships transiting through. We saw a cruise ship go through as well as a PanaMax ship (a ship that has the maximum dimensions for going through the Canal.) There is construction going on to develop a parallel set of locks to provide space for ships larger than the current PanaMax standard.

The rest of the time we visited some historical sites and ruins. Panama Viejo was the first site the Spanish settled at (there was already an indigenous population at the site), and then moved to Casco Viejo, which was later abandoned for the current site of Panama City. Casco Viejo is full of abandoned, dilapidated buildings with forests growing inside of them, the buildings are mostly hollow shells. Currently, some of the buildings are being restored/renovated, and that will definitely bring in more tourism into the area but hopefully not at the cost of the people who currently live there.

Finding good vegetarian food was challenging, as well understanding the Spanish. It seems that Costa Rica is the only country in the vicinity that pronounces "s" in words (IME, the "s" sound is very subtle or non existent in Panama City and Nicaragua), so add this to my mental confusion of English/Marathi/Spanish = total brain frustration and breakdown at some points (especially when you are also responsible for the comfort/hunger/overall happiness of 3 other people besides yourself).

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!