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."