In Which I am Abruptly Reminded of Tanzania
I saw this article this morning during my normal internetting. I've been to Stone Town. I thought it a lovely place. Why must there be hateful people with acid there? How can people hate women this much, anyway? There is no situation in which throwing acid in someone's face and running away is a good response. None.
In Which I Have a First World Problem
The carpet in the hallways of the nice hotel where I am staying (and someone else is footing the bill for) is ugly. I have to look at it on my way to the nice breakfast that I am also not paying for where I can eat as much cantaloupe and dragonfruit and cunning little pink jellyroll pastries washed down with really good coffee as I want. I have to look at the carpet on my way to and from the gym where I have begun taking pole dance classes at corporate expense. I have to look at it on my way to work in ridiculous Tanzanian clothes because most of my sober western stuff didn't survive two years of Africa, so I sit in a car with a laptop on my bright pastel-clad legs and tell people to do things to the car and write times in a notebook like I'm important or smart or something. Then I come back to the hotel where all my things have been tidied for me and the carpet is still ugly. So I go to nice dinners, also at corporate expense, to eat and drink amazing (or possibly normal? I don't know anymore) things. The carpet is still ugly. Darlings, I have a first world problem!
Last week I was a Peace Corps volunteer with an oozing pus problem. This week I am a pampered consultant in China. I don't understand how my life happens. That is not a complaint.
Last week I was a Peace Corps volunteer with an oozing pus problem. This week I am a pampered consultant in China. I don't understand how my life happens. That is not a complaint.
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| The Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut, has calamari, caviar-stuffed shrimp balls, Malaysian sauced shrimp spaghetti, potato and bacon soup, and of course, pizza. |
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| How is my life this luxurious? |
The City of Flowers, Sort of. Maybe Just the Mall of Umbrellas.
I am hanging out in Huadu, which used to be its own city, the city of flowers, and now is a suburb (population: approximately 2 million) of Guangzhou. I have work to do, really, I do. But I'm with friends. They are persuading me to abandon my Peace Corps ideals and embrace materialistic consumerism, and it's awesome.
Today, we went to a mall. There were many brightly colored umbrellas in the air above the outdoor walkways. I don't know why.
There was a fashion show featuring many improbable headdresses, I don't know why.
I like being a tourist in China. The people stare, sure, but they are polite! People don't yell "foreigner!" at me except for some small children who are quickly hushed by their parents. People don't get in my face, ask me to marry them, or otherwise harass me. It's great. Mostly, we were there to eat real ramen (because real Japanese restaurants exist in China) and drink kumquat tea (which is really good) and see Pacific Rim at a 3d Imax because giant mecha versus monsters. I think I would have enjoyed the movie much more had there been less plot.* Nevertheless, life is full of good food and leisured pursuits. I am not building anyone's capacity. I am not doing anything sustainable. I'm not even being an educated tourist and learning about the culture. I'm just going to the mall, and I am completely okay with this.
*Or maybe not. With less plot about how everyone who isn't an American (blond, blue-eyed man) either dies, screws up, or passes out before getting to be a hero while the exactly 2 scientists researching the problem take at least 6 years (I'm not really clear on time line) to figure out basic things about the monsters by writing on old chalkboards (how did the earth get it together enough to build giant mecha with that kind of investment in research?), I have nothing to focus on but how the earth doesn't have any battle plans other than giant anthropomorphic robots or a giant wall. The latter hasn't been an effective defense since the invention of the ladder and the former is inefficient and unsustainable. You don't build giant, difficult to replace things to battle giant things in the inefficient manner of tailless obligate bipeds. Even if the tailless obligate bipeds have swords. If you can only think of building things, you build small things, suited to the battle environment. Mecha sharks, people. Ideally, mecha sharks that can also fly. Packs of the things would work so much better than anthropomorphic robots (it's like how a wolf pack can overwhelm a much larger moose) and you can't tell me that mecha flying sharks wouldn't be awesome. Also, you don't get to sneak in messages about pollution while touting the awesomeness of energy inefficient giant robots. I love giant robots as much as the next nerd, but come on. Particularly when we are told that the giant robots are powered digitally. Digital has not heretofore been known as a power source.
Today, we went to a mall. There were many brightly colored umbrellas in the air above the outdoor walkways. I don't know why.
There was a fashion show featuring many improbable headdresses, I don't know why.
I like being a tourist in China. The people stare, sure, but they are polite! People don't yell "foreigner!" at me except for some small children who are quickly hushed by their parents. People don't get in my face, ask me to marry them, or otherwise harass me. It's great. Mostly, we were there to eat real ramen (because real Japanese restaurants exist in China) and drink kumquat tea (which is really good) and see Pacific Rim at a 3d Imax because giant mecha versus monsters. I think I would have enjoyed the movie much more had there been less plot.* Nevertheless, life is full of good food and leisured pursuits. I am not building anyone's capacity. I am not doing anything sustainable. I'm not even being an educated tourist and learning about the culture. I'm just going to the mall, and I am completely okay with this.
*Or maybe not. With less plot about how everyone who isn't an American (blond, blue-eyed man) either dies, screws up, or passes out before getting to be a hero while the exactly 2 scientists researching the problem take at least 6 years (I'm not really clear on time line) to figure out basic things about the monsters by writing on old chalkboards (how did the earth get it together enough to build giant mecha with that kind of investment in research?), I have nothing to focus on but how the earth doesn't have any battle plans other than giant anthropomorphic robots or a giant wall. The latter hasn't been an effective defense since the invention of the ladder and the former is inefficient and unsustainable. You don't build giant, difficult to replace things to battle giant things in the inefficient manner of tailless obligate bipeds. Even if the tailless obligate bipeds have swords. If you can only think of building things, you build small things, suited to the battle environment. Mecha sharks, people. Ideally, mecha sharks that can also fly. Packs of the things would work so much better than anthropomorphic robots (it's like how a wolf pack can overwhelm a much larger moose) and you can't tell me that mecha flying sharks wouldn't be awesome. Also, you don't get to sneak in messages about pollution while touting the awesomeness of energy inefficient giant robots. I love giant robots as much as the next nerd, but come on. Particularly when we are told that the giant robots are powered digitally. Digital has not heretofore been known as a power source.
Things They Never Told Me About Leaving Peace Corps
- I'm still dirty and broke, but now I have no excuse for it.
- I still have the reaction to food of an abused child. Airlines gave me butter. They gave me butter. Not stealing all the butter felt wrong even though I knew I would be given more.
- People who had no reason to care about me were sad that I left.
- The last time out of the Peace Corps office I said goodbye to the gate guards and they yelled at me to come back and give them hugs.
- The manager of the hotel where I always stay in Dar stopped me on my way to my airport taxi to give me a gift. One of the ubiquitous African-ish sculpted little wooden elephants that are in all the tourist shops. I don't care. I don't know this man's name and he gifted me on departure.
- It's not being overwhelmed by the grocery stores that's necessarily the problem, it's the not remembering how they work. There are little plastic bags in the fruit section? I'm supposed to put the fruit in them? The fruit gets weighed and priced non-ambiguously? That's weird. Is this true in the U.S. as well, or is this just China?
- The internet remains the most important thing in my life.
In Tanzania China. With Coffee.
I win Peace Corps! I have all the forms signed and the health care explained to me, and tonight, I board a plane to China! More blogging might happen here. Or not, depends somewhat on the Great Firewall situation. I've got a month in China and after that, I'm returning to the states. More blogging might happen, or not, but if so at a different address. I'll let you know.
Love to you all, darlings. Did I mention I win Peace Corps??
Love to you all, darlings. Did I mention I win Peace Corps??
Books I Have Read During my Peace Corps Service
Warning: navel-gazing.
- Clive Barker, Everville
- C. J. Cherryh, The Faded Sun
- Ernest Newman, The Wagner Operas
- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
- C.J. Cherryh, Cloud's Rider
- Caroline Stevermer, Magic Below Stairs
- Timothy Zahn, The Icarus Hunt
- Neal Stephonson, Snow Crash
- Isaac Asimov, 9 Tomorrows
- J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
- Sandra Dallas, The Persian Pickle Club
- Christopher Marlowe, The Complete Plays
- Neil Gaiman, Sandman, the Complete series
- Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
- Sir Walter Scot, The Talisman
- Voltaire, Candide and other Stories
- George R. R. Martin, Dances with Dragons
- Mark Twain, Pudd'n Head Wilson
- J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
- Terry Pratchet, Pyramids
- Roger Zelazny, Creatures of Light and Darkness
- Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
- Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel
- Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
- Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
- Robert V.S. Redick, The Red Wolf Conspiracy
- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
- Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things
- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
- Kurt Vonnegut, Long Walk to Forever
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
- Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World
- David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
- Kurt Vonnegut, Armageddon in Retrospect
- Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
- Roger Zelazny, Doorways in the Sand
- David Sedaris, When you are Engulfed in Flame
- Aristophanes, Lysistrata
- Noam Chomsky, The Noam Chomsky Reader
- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
- Forgotten Realms Anthology, Realms of the Deep
- Roald Dahl, Esio Trot
- Roger Zelazny, A Night in the Lonesome October
- Mary Roach, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
- Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Barbara Hambly, The Silent Tower
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
- Adam Gopnik, ed., The Best American Essays 2008
- Barbara Hambly, The Silicon Mage
- Barbara Hambly, Dog Wizard
- R.A. Lafferty, Annals of Klepsis
- Barbara Hambly, Those who Hunt the Night
- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
- Garth Nix, Sabriel
- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
- Terry Pratchet, The Thief of Time
- Joseph Heller, Catch-22
- Gail Carriger, Soulless
- Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities
- Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
- Kurt Vonnegut, Deadeye Dick
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies
- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
- Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground
- Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
- John Steinbeck, East of Eden
- Kathryn Stockett, The Help
- Laura Simms, ed. A Key to the Heart
- Richard Feynman, Six Not so Easy Pieces
- Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook
- Terry Pratchett, Jingo
- H.P. Lovecraft, The Complete H. P. Lovecraft Reader
- Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
- China Mieville, The Scar
- Mary Roach, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
In Which I am Subversive
One more thing about my exams.
I was having a problem with people being really late to my classes this semester, so I started having a quick (<5min) talk about someone important in computing history at the end of every lecture and I told them that they would be quizzed on this material if I decided a sufficient number of students were late and latecomers would not have any chance to make up the lost points. I stole the idea from my predecessor, who used vocabulary words. I only had to have one pop quiz. It worked like a charm, the students were mostly on time after that. The fabulous T.J. my predecessor is a very smart man.
One of the people I mentioned was Alan Turing (how could I not?) and because it's something I think needs to be said and follows naturally, I gave my little speech about how we shouldn't discriminate against anyone because we never know what people might do for us. In his short life, Turing gave us computing, who knows what he might have done in his old age? This is a somewhat disingenuous argument, since really, we shouldn't discriminate because all people have rights, not because we are selfish, but pragmatism is always an easier sell than idealism.
The last question on my exams is always a throw away, "what is the most important or valuable thing that you learned in this class?" One of the responses this time began "The most important thing I learned was that we shouldn't discriminate against people, because as we have seen, Alan Turing..."
I'm really proud of that, darlings. This is a violently homophobic society, and I did something to fight that.
I was having a problem with people being really late to my classes this semester, so I started having a quick (<5min) talk about someone important in computing history at the end of every lecture and I told them that they would be quizzed on this material if I decided a sufficient number of students were late and latecomers would not have any chance to make up the lost points. I stole the idea from my predecessor, who used vocabulary words. I only had to have one pop quiz. It worked like a charm, the students were mostly on time after that. The fabulous T.J. my predecessor is a very smart man.
One of the people I mentioned was Alan Turing (how could I not?) and because it's something I think needs to be said and follows naturally, I gave my little speech about how we shouldn't discriminate against anyone because we never know what people might do for us. In his short life, Turing gave us computing, who knows what he might have done in his old age? This is a somewhat disingenuous argument, since really, we shouldn't discriminate because all people have rights, not because we are selfish, but pragmatism is always an easier sell than idealism.
The last question on my exams is always a throw away, "what is the most important or valuable thing that you learned in this class?" One of the responses this time began "The most important thing I learned was that we shouldn't discriminate against people, because as we have seen, Alan Turing..."
I'm really proud of that, darlings. This is a violently homophobic society, and I did something to fight that.
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