Off to Spain...

Tomorrow morning I fulfill a longtime dream of mine ... visiting Spain. I have been thinking in Spanish all week in preparation and cannot wait to speak a language I have actually spent a long time learning. Plus, the Basque region is known for its sheep cheese paired with apple cider, beautiful coastlines and I even have a strong lead on a place with good paella. I hope that I love it as much as I have imagined I would since I was 13 and first studying the language. However, I also hope it is nothing like I have imagined it.

At 13 I was convinced I would need these language skill because I was certain to marry a Spanish or Italian dancer with a fiery streak and caring eyes. Hey, I was 13 and lonely, I was allowed to invent whatever world I wanted. Now, for me the most exciting thing is truly immersing myself in the language. Being in Germany surrounded by a language I do not really speak has made me appreciate the effort and years I spent studying Spanish. Just to hear it spoken around me and to do my best to construct sentences somewhat detailing what I need or where I need to go will be a long awaited culmination of all those years. My true hope is that after immersing myself in it for this week, it will be even more apparent that I could one day be fluent if given the chance to speak it regularly. I have no idea if this is still true since I have not studied the language for 10 years now, so I look forward to finding out.

Free Will vs. Determinism

Every morning I walk past a large school on my way into work. Usually I happen to be headed in around when they have their first recess period. There is always a din of screaming and laughter as I round the corner to see the children participating in various games and forms of play. The funny thing is that social groups in many ways appear to be defined already. There are the quiet ones sitting alone thinking somewhere isolated, the rebellious ones strolling with their small groups about some far off corner of the playground, the athletic ones engaged in various sporting activities, the charismatic ones leading their admiring friends in some sort of game centered upon themselves, the adventurous ones hanging from trees and many others.

There are clearly social divisions that have been formed already and my question is merely one of how likely someone is to defy social expectations set for you as a child? Do small deviations in our characteristics and personalities as infants cause a conglomeration of specific tendencies through some sort of societal gravitational force? It all seems to happen so fast since the oldest of these kids cannot be more than eight or nine years old. I do believe it is true we are defined by the choices we make throughout our lives, but how much does each later choice depend upon the way we come to perceive ourselves to be early on in our development? How much of how we see ourselves is based upon the way we believe ourselves to have been seen then?

I personally identify strongly with those kids sitting quietly somewhere, trying to stay out of the way of others. Though there have been times people might have perceived of me differently, really this is the way I have always felt in new social situations. It seems to require a great deal of energy to overcome the pull of those social expectations that start at such a young age. On the other hand, I remember very little of my childhood and wonder a great deal just how much that time has shaped me as an adult. Anyway, as I stroll past every morning I always like to ponder what the future holds for those young minds and simply enjoy seeing the complex social dynamics at work.

The Man in the Mirror

Today I stayed home because anytime I sat up I felt overwhelmingly nauseous. In truth, I have felt something coming over me since Sunday but have resisted submitting to it until today. My body was achy and tired, food neither tasted good nor settled well, and everyone who saw me told me I looked like hell. Anyway, clearly I did not get much done today except for reading, though I have enjoyed some rather interesting twists in W&P that sustained me through the parts of the day I was not asleep. Inspired by some of those transformations, I realized that I too desired a change in my life and shaved off my beard. Though this act is purely symbolic, I find it helpful as a start. However, I desperately need to find something to sustain me besides work and fiction.

I have many things on my plate at work but am not feeling as productive on a per hour basis as I was when I first arrived in Bonn. There are a lot of smaller projects I could do quickly and just have not had the energy to get done. Many of them rely on things not yet published, but the longer I put them off the further they are from my mind. However, in general I have many things coming to fruition professionally, so I cannot really be dissatisfied there.

Personally, I just feel kind of empty right now. As a kid I had all sorts of strange diversions like climbing the tallest trees in my backyard, bird watching, teaching myself to pick locks, playing endless hours of basketball, waterskiing in the summer, juggling, splitting wood and riding my bike all over town. In college, I joined a bowling league, learned to play the drums, took golf lessons, ran for president of my university, stayed an active member of student congress and campus committees for things like my college and the library, solved the Rubik's cube, and learned how to scuba dive. In graduate school, I have brewed beer with a friend, learned to cook, tackled almost any crossword I could get my hands on, learned to play chess, hosted game nights, taught myself a little harmonica, volunteered at a science museum, tutored people regularly and towards the end had a dog to entertain.

Here, beyond my continued mathematical edification, I feel like I have very little. My hotplates do not let me do much culinary exploration, travel is great but cannot be constant, reading provides one outlet but not any real release. The economic crisis has provided me with a wealth of new information and insights to explore, though even the prevalence of new and interesting ideas there has started to wane. If I had anywhere to practice, I would love to start learning the violin. Though I would never be any good, it is my favorite instrument and it has long been a dream of mine to learn. Anyway, I hope with the now much younger looking face staring me in the mirror every morning, I will find the energy and drive to figure something else out to do with myself. Any ideas from anyone out there??

War & Peace Update: Part II

OK, so in actuality, I am well into Part III of War & Peace but since this is my second post on the matter, it seemed an apt title. Presently, Pierre and Ellen are married and the rather beguiling Prince Vasily is attempting to arrange the marriage of his spoiled and irresponsible son to the rather likable and intelligent Princess Marya. My appreciation for the deeper understanding I am gaining about the conflict with Napoleon (I never had a decent European history course, so forgive my ignorance) greatly overshadows how exhausting I continue to find the social manipulation and portraits of strained relationships. However, I recognize this feeling of exhaustion means I am invested in the story and likely seeing these interactions the way Tolstoy felt about them. The difficulty here is that unlike Anna Karenina where I had Levin, the constant voice of sanity and goodness to fall back on, here I must say there are just not that many characters I truly like. Princess Marya is just about the only one and she is so beaten down by her father I do not know if she will have the chance to find happiness. Prince Andrei is a respectable individual in ways, but seems to give very little thought to his responsibilities as a father nor care much for anyone besides himself. Anyway, I continue to make progress, and with a greater appreciation than I could have had earlier in life, but I do long for someone I can really get behind. They need not be perfect, just to present something besides the basest tendencies of human beings to either be selfish, frivolous, harsh, greedy or weak.

The Aquacities of Thought and Language

So, I almost titled this post "What Condition My Condition Is In," but for some reason I felt compelled to go with the words of James Joyce over those of Kenny Rogers. The bottom line is that lately I have been having rather vivid dreams filled with the presence of water in some form. Upon researching this, I found out of course Freud felt all water dreams had something to do with sexual repression. Sadly, I am not in a position to refute that claim at this point in my life, however it definitely feels like more than that. In Joyce's Ulysses, there is a passage referring to the qualities of water such as “its universality…. constancy … vastness … restlessness … independence … variability … quiescence … devastation … sterility … ubiquity … metamorphoses.” All of these seem somehow apt descriptions of the way I feel about my life currently. I am constantly adrift between languages, friends, homes, projects. Everything is in a state of flux and has been for as long as I can remember. I feel great uncertainty in my personal life and my professional life.

However, water is also a large part of my childhood memories. I recall the warm waters of Lake Tenkiller in the summers, the oranges and pinks reflecting off the still water as the sun rose, the mid-morning sounds of waves gently lapping against the rocky coastline behind those of laughter and chatter as the rest of the campsites woke up, the cool clear waters of our secret swimming spot in Pine Cove during the afternoon and the pleasure of watching the sun set over the water after dinner with absolutely nothing on my mind except appreciation for the setting. So, it could be my subconscious wishing for a simplicity I have not felt for some time and projecting those wishes onto that particular time in my life.

The truth is that I actually quite like these dreams involving water. The rhythm of the waves, the engulfing warmth of the water, the powerlessness I feel, all of them are comforting and really quite relaxing. For whatever reason, water is a powerful force I continue to desire more of in my life, and I have explored it through hiking to waterfalls all over the world, diving in the Caribbean, kayaking in Southern California, sailing in New Zealand, rafting in the Canadian Sierras, walking along the beach in Marin, floating in the Mediterranean, paddling down a river in Oklahoma and standing in awe of the pristine waters of Crater Lake. Some of these things I have done completely alone and some with people I love dearly, and each left me feeling small but content with my place in the world. I suppose we will see what dreams I have this evening, but I hope water is involved somehow. Of course, flying is also pretty cool.

An Ode to Granola and Coffee

Though it may seem a rather trite topic of conversation, I must say I am absolutely and completely enamored with the oat and the coffee bean as I get older. This post is really motivated by the fact that as a friend recently said to me, "A good granola is hard to find." And, the more I travel the world the more I realize a good cup of coffee is also hard to find.

The selection of one's granola of choice is clearly a deeply personal process and varies highly from individual to individual if one is to judge from the many options available at supermarkets and health food stores around the globe. Recently, my local grocery store discontinued the brand I have been eating for breakfast for the last 5 months and hence I am back on the market. As a creature of habit, I find this rather distressing and unsettling. I am somewhat particular and exhibit a great deal of brand loyalty to my cereals. My two favorites in the states are Kashi Oat Bran with Blueberry Clusters and Organic Cascadian Farms Oat and Honey Granola. I do really love the Kashi cereal but part of it may be the joy I have in sharing my blueberry clusters with Mindy in the morning. However, as neither of those are available in Germany, I do what I can to find reasonable replacements. The one I found this weekend is decent, though I might try a few more options before settling.

Through college and graduate school, I grew to love granola bars since they are delicious, nutritious and filling. When you need a long lasting burst of energy, a granola bar and a banana is a pretty good way to go. Originally, I started with the chewy Quaker Bars, which certainly have their place, but soon I found myself drawn to the crunchy Nature's Valley Bars. However, I always avoided coffee mostly due to the flavor. As I have gotten older and tried to figure out ways to deal with my slowing metabolism and changing bodily functions, my diet has become more and more important.

I should qualify this by saying that for the eight years of high school and college I ate rather poorly and sometimes not at all. There were missed meals, days when I would forget to eat completely and days of binging due to hunger. My friends likened my eating habits to a camel's drinking habits. Namely, I would store up for a day and go several with very little consumption. At the time, I could eat this way and sleep very little while continuing to be productive and in decent shape. If I needed caffeine, I relied on soda.

Then came graduate school. With the increased stress levels and truly being on my own, I began to cook and eat as a way to relax. Though I learned a fair amount about food preparation, I was neither paying particular attention to what nor to the schedule on which I ate. Since I was needing to be attentive and awake late into the night, I would drink a fair amount of soda to keep me going. As a result, I slowly put on weight. The stress and aging made my metabolism slow and I did not have the time or energy to pay attention.

Once I got through my exams and finally felt settled into my career track, I took stock and realized how unhealthy I had become. Though I tried various measures to counteract this at times with exercise schedules, reduced portions, or limited sugar intake, I just could not get back to a point of feeling particularly good. After graduate school upon finally getting out of the student health care system and procuring a real doctor, I had a thorough physical. It turned out my cholesterol was closer to high than I would have liked. The doctor suggested I do something about it since I was only 27.

I sought out high fiber foods, completely gave up soda, ate at more regular intervals, had one espresso and a banana every day at 2 PM, ate a healthy dinner of all natural ingredients before 8 PM and of course, true to the title of this blog, walked all over the place. Other than a small number daily push-ups, that was all I changed in my life. Before I knew it, my energy level was up, my productivity increased, the weight fell off and my cholesterol was down.

My favorite breakfasts these days consist of a bowl of a natural organic granola which is actually roasted, not raw, with no additives except perhaps a touch of honey served with either a good yogurt or skim milk. If I really need it, sometimes I will have an espresso in the morning also, but I prefer simply the after lunch coffee to energize me for the afternoon.

Personally, I have a feeling that humans actually evolved to rely on the dietary fibers in whole grains as well as the compounds and stimulants in coffee and tea for any kind of productive and healthy adult lifestyle over the course of our long evolutionary history. The truth of the matter is that youth fades on the inside and out so we would have evolved to thrive on naturally occurring substances to help our bodies process and store energy in a healthy fashion. After all, human lifespans began to increase after we became agrarian societies. Surely this happened for a myriad of reasons both societal and physiological, but in any case large sections of our genetics have come through generations upon generations where our ancestors ate and drank products from natural grains and plants. Surely there are genetic links between the success of the people and the species of food they largely consumed. It is true for predator-prey relationships certainly.

On a side note, I saw a medical study today linking coffee consumption during your adult life to a reduced rate of suffering from dementia. Though I am somewhat suspect of the statistics because it has also been shown that people with careers where your mind is kept active also have lower chances of suffering from dementia. There was no study comparing coffee consumption to mentally demanding careers, but surely there is a significant overlap there. Anyway that issue aside, it seems to support my theory that as adults we should drink a bit of coffee or tea every day. It keeps our wits sharp and minds active.

Dampness.

Yesterday was just damp. It was raining when I woke up and continued to rain throughout the entire day. Though it never rained hard, there was just a constant drizzle. The earth, sky, and everything in between were completely saturated and all seemed to deviate slightly from a dark shade of gray. Somehow the darkness and moisture seeped into my thoughts. I felt preoccupied, uncomfortable. The dampness removes heat from your body but makes the air feel thick and heavy. It is hard to feel comfortable or warm.

At sunset, the drizzle turned more into an occasional sprinkle accompanied by an unbelievably strong wind. Rather than clearing out the storm, there seemed to be an endless supply of dark clouds filling the sky, enshrouded in a ubiquitous dark mist. The night felt a bit foreboding. The distance between me and others was somehow magnified.

To combat these feelings, after dinner I decided to walk down the street to a decent Irish Pub in my neighborhood where I knew a fair number of people would be. I found an empty stool, sipped my beer and listened to the conversations around me in either German or English. This is the kind of pub you come to with a friend, not with a group. The place is small and warm and the people seemed content and relaxed. The bar television was set to a British comedy channel that was playing and advertising only American sitcoms. I smiled at advertisements for various episodes I recognized.

Sadly television has been a companion for me at the loneliest times and longest hours of my life. I still remember the schedules from middle school, high school, and the late nights of graduate school. Usually I came to rely on whatever was being played most at the time, probably due to its prevalence. It was reliable, consistent and familiar. As a result, I probably know more Wings, Friends and Frasier trivia than I am proud to admit. Though it gave me comfort to know I have come to depend on more than my TV set, it made me realize that at least last night, it was still the only thing there to interact with me.

I had a second beer and enjoyed the hum and warmth of those around me for a short time longer. Then, I started my walk home. As I left, I was still putting my jacket on. It was pleasant to feel the residual warmth from the pub push off the cold long enough for me to get bundled up. I came home feeling hungry and longing for the 24 hour Deli underneath my apartment in New York City. Then I came in and felt longing for the many friends with whom I have shared meals, stories and experiences over the past several years. It is always more pleasant to drift off to sleep smiling at the remembrance of an original joke told by a friend than a canned joke told off a sitcom.

30 Rock

After having been told by someone I find very funny to try out 30 Rock, I am finally starting to download an episode here and there from iTunes. Though it is not yet my favorite show of all time, it is rather hilarious. There is something I find rather comforting about the shear absurdity of some of the jokes. The pace, randomness, self-deprecating tone and pop-culture references seem to give me a glimpse into Tina Fey's mind, which has remarkable overlap with my own. Also, Alec Baldwin was born to play the role of the overbearing GE executive. To be totally fair, the first couple of episodes seemed a bit awkward, but by the third or fourth the cast had already hit its stride. I would certainly recommend it to friends with a taste for comedy that comes with a hint of absurdity and a dash of self-loathing. Sounds like a great recipe to me.

War & Peace Update

So, I am about 1/10 of the way through War & Peace at this point. I have now passed any point I reached in my previous attempts at reading this novel and think I have an idea why. Most of the pages of this book really detail the delicate social workings of the Russian nobles immediately prior to the war with Napoleon. The interactions between the various characters are largely cautious, manipulative, and insincere.

Of course, there are less serious interactions but those that seem to carry the most importance to drive the plot forward really are rather difficult to read for someone like me. As an adult, I am of course more familiar with the small courtesies and manipulations that go on in many dealings, though I still find that kind of social interaction rather exhausting. Personally, I have a few very close friends to whom I am pretty much willing to bear my entire soul but cannot stand to have inconsequential, casual interactions with people I simply know socially. This either explains or is explained by two things I suppose ... my profession and my social life. In my profession, it is a rather solitary pursuit or when forced to interact it is often an in depth discussion about a particular topic where you are challenged directly and probed for as much information as possible. Those debates then carry over into every walk of life, so one becomes accustomed to analyzing everything and everyone around them to levels most people find uncomfortable. Anyway, suffice it to say that social grace is not my specialty nor will it be anytime soon given my current vocation.

For the meantime, though it is exhausting, the story is interesting in historical context and the characters (all 127 of them) do have unique personality traits that lead to interesting interactions I am interested in watching play out. There are also aspects of each personality with which I identify, so I am interested in seeing what impact those traits have on their decisions and eventual fates in Tolstoy's mind.

Perhaps upon finishing this story, I will gain in social graces, but most likely I think I will just continue to be generally apprehensive until I replace those feelings by starting a new book. Since I read a fair amount before bed, my dreams have been filled with nervous, rather odd interactions the last three days, making waking up alone a bit reassuring really. Obviously I am in dire need of friends to interact with here in Germany.

Inauguration Day

Somehow I wound up scheduling the two talks I have given in Germany for Election Day last year and now Inauguration Day this year. The talk times were seemingly chosen at random from a selection of dates that happened to be available, but it is rather strange to me that two events in history I desperately wanted to observe were put off for the only speaking obligations I have had in this country. The time change meant of course things had barely begun to be interesting on Election Day, but yesterday I did miss the swearing in ceremony and the speech. Of course, I watched them both online later and found it rather appealing to both agree with the ideas about which my president was speaking as well as appreciate the words with which he chose to express himself.

I am not a true believer as some may call them. It seems rather clear the man is in fact human and many of the problems he is trying to solve are of the nature no human has ever encountered before. And no matter how many times god is called upon at our political events, there will be no divine intervention to solve the many problems facing society today. So, I know it will take time to stabilize the global financial system, make the health care system more accessible and effective for both our patients and physicians, move us towards environmentally safe ways of generating energy, improve our educational system, reinvest capital in investments that can grow sustainably and lead to future opportunities, and in general change a mindset of a country that has become accustomed to blind consumption. Will he be able to lead us effectively during this national time of crisis and bring forth a new time of prosperity and peace in the world??

I have no hopes of such high minded ideals, but in truth I hope we do all start giving more back to our communities, taking more active roles in the lives and educations of our children, working together locally to better the health of everyone and trying to resolve differences with the world at large. I do not know if it is possible to see a cultural shift of this magnitude on a global level. However, I do want to believe we are moving towards a role in the world where we do stand up for the ideals of human dignity, appreciate and encourage people in jobs that leave a legacy of innovation and ideas for society to learn from and build upon, bring struggling people up out of poverty and find ways to encourage a pursuit of peace from the many bloody conflicts that rage about this world every day.

The reason I suppose I am hopeful is that he seems to have ideas himself, surround himself with people who have a great deal of ideas and be able to express ideas in ways that make people want to try them out. In my field you learn very early on that many of your ideas will be based on completely incorrect intuition, but as long as they are there you have the ability to make progress. In fact, usually you learn something invaluable in figuring out why a certain idea does not work. It clarifies points of a problem that occasionally a correct solution just cannot do. People may not have much patience for mistakes in a president and probably should not have patience for huge mistakes, but the fact that he seems to appreciate knowledge, seek to gain insight and take a thoughtful approach while being willing to lead people and take risks gives me hope. Yes, dare I say it, hope he may find a solution to some of these problems or at least set an example of each individual finding personal solutions.

The bottom line is that we are all just human. We all have weaknesses and faults which some will find ways to prey upon, and there will always be the powerful and the powerless in every society. This world is filled with a history of violence and oppression as well as a history of altruism and sacrifice, but if as a society we find someone to unite us under the common purpose of service to the people around us, perhaps it really can change the direction of a nation and a people. If we can strengthen the bonds of community not just within our own borders but also with people of other nations, perhaps we can avoid being brought down by disregard for the dangers of our amazing technologies, tendency towards war, or lack of respect for the resources available to us. With great power comes great responsibility. As a species, we are capable of and have committed rather atrocious acts. However, over the course of time through more access to education, encouragement of the free exchange of ideas at a level sufficient to give many access to new information, increased levels of wealth and basic contracts guaranteeing trust and equality amongst citizens of many nations, we have come to see those acts committed on smaller scales and with I really do believe less frequency (perhaps per capita anyway). Of course, now we have the technological capabilities of doing much more damage on a much smaller time scale. We are at a crux in history I believe when we can go backward as a society through fear, ignorance and arrogance or forward through education, investment and tolerance. I am pulling for forward, but the work starts today for all of us, not just the man we have elected as president.

A Bleak Landscape Painted With Rich Language

So, I just finished Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, the Nobel Laureate for Literature in 1968. This is a beautifully crafted story with amazingly descriptive passages about the mountainous landscape of a small town in Western Japan, the depths of feeling in the tiniest interactions between lovers and in a sense the way the landscape shapes the nature of some of those interactions. I wanted to read this book because I was interested in branching out from what I felt was a rather male, eurocentric literary perspective. Though I do not know how much I have learned of the Japanese culture through reading this book, I did feel in touch with a perspective and a world that I had never experienced before. It was refreshing to feel connected to something distinctly different from what I know or expect. As time goes on, I hope to read more Asian, African, Middle Eastern and South American authors in order to experience similar awakenings within myself and explore the world through the eyes of its storytellers. Also, I hope to read some female authors so I can finally feel like the female characters I adore so much are not simply caracitures created by men with similar feelings about what women should be rather than what they actually are.

In the story, the lovers care for each other in a way that is both passionate and yet realistic. Their interactions are short-lived, known by both to be temporary and always occur in the isolated setting of this small mountain town. However, there is a depth to their love I feel that both will carry for the rest of their lives as part of who they are. If you have read the story you know the complications of their interactions as well as the tragedy that occurs at their final encounter. However, this story gave me a sense of the beautiful ambiguity and the intense personal nature of love in any form. Was this love affair right? Was it necessary? In the end, I could not answer those questions, except to say that I felt it would have been intensely important to both persons involved and yet the world around them would neither mourn nor celebrate their parting.

Beyond the captivating descriptions of human behavior and interaction, the scenes laid out in this book were painted with incredible detail though in rather few words. Just as a taste for the richness of language I have chosen to quote a passage I particularly identified with after spending many hours as a kid on my back looking up at the stars in the clear, dark skies of Oklahoma. "The Milky Way. Shimamura too looked up, and he felt himself floating into the Milky Way. Its radiance was so near that it seemed to take him up into it. Was this the bright vastness the poet Basho saw when he wrote of the Milky Way arched over a stormy sea? The Milky Way came down just over there, to wrap the night earth in its naked embrace. There was a terrible voluptuousness about it. Shimamura fancied that his own small shadow was being cast up against it from earth. Each individual star stood apart from the rest, and even the particles of silver dust in the luminous clouds could be picked out, so clear was the night. The limitless depth of the Milky Way pulled his gaze up into it."

From here, it is on to my great white whale. No, not Moby Dick, but War and Peace. I have started this book many times in college but always wound up overwhelmed by the sheer number of characters I had forgotten if I put it down for any period of time longer than a couple days. If I finish it, then I can safely put Russian epics behind me as it is the last of the list for me, which includes The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, and The Brothers Karamazov. I have loved each of these books for many and varied reasons, but I will also be glad to have the experiences of reading them behind me as opposed to looming over me like some long ago issued challenge I have yet to face.

A Rather Pleasant Day.

Today was the kind of Sunday I really enjoy. I caught up on some sleep, cleaned up my apartment, read a few news stories, prepared a talk I have to give twice next week, prepared both an omelette and a sandwich (two of my favorite things in the world), had a long conversation over Skype with my father, listened to a great deal of good music, saw a few things that made me smile and finished Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata. Most significantly, I did not walk anywhere at all.

In truth, the talk took longer than I planned. I had intended to work on some writing for another project as well, meaning I have more to do tomorrow morning. However, I feel so refreshed and contented, it is hard to worry about that now. A day like today makes me think of how I used to spend Sundays in my past life. In the morning, I would take the dog for a walk. We would deviate from our normal route to grab a cappuccino with a bran muffin for me and some citrus bread with a hot chocolate for Amber from Peet's Coffee (world's best coffee and pastries ... believe it). Then, during breakfast we would sit on the couch, share bites with the dog and watch a movie from our Netflix queue. Depending upon whether or not I had chosen the movie, I could also peruse my Economist or New Yorker from that week. Then, I could give my weekly call to my parents, friends and grandparents and still by around 10:30 AM or so, sit down at my desk in the bedroom to do a bit of work for a few hours. Amber would go to church, work, organize, clean, deal with grad school applications or just relax a bit more. Later, we would have a late lunch, run errands, make dinner or possibly have dinner with friends or family. All in all, it was not exciting, but rather comforting, productive and enjoyable.

Though they were simple and uneventful, those Sundays linger in my mind as an ideal, haunting the emptiness and disorganization of those spent alone or in an unfamiliar place. It is odd how hard it is to find a routine when you live by yourself. Theoretically, you should be able to set your own schedule and hence establish a routine more easily, but any plans you make are really empty promises to yourself or set by some outside party based on their schedule as well. There is not the stabilizing force of someone else's schedule, habits, needs and wants interacting constantly with yours. In the parlance of my particular craft, the other person acts either like a confining potential for your energy or perhaps there is some sort of nonlinear interaction between two individuals that leads to the focusing of both energies. Alone, you are left more to your own whims, adrift in the vast sea of responsibilities and interests you have before you that day, meaning you often search for the motivation and wind up wasting away a day on only one or two items that require the least effort. Fortunately, today was not one of those days.

You should see the goose...

This US Airways flight landing in the Hudson really stuck with me all day today. First of all, a plane crashed in the Hudson River. Second of all, no one was seriously injured. Third of all, did I mention a plane crashed in the Hudson River?!?

The pictures were quite astonishing of this small jet in the water with people crowded together on the wings awaiting help from the neighboring ferry boat. Somehow, though an extremely odd situation, it all looked rather mundane really. I suppose I tend to personalize everything, but it happened a couple miles from my old stomping ground and was a flight on US Airways from NYC to NC (many of which I have taken). So, somehow I just kept picturing myself on the flight.

It should say something to most of you that the first thing I thought of was the tragedy of losing my laptop. As I carry everything I am working on with me at the moment, I could just imagine all of it floating to the bottom of one of the most polluted bodies of water known to man. Anyway, I have resolved to never get on a plane without backing up to a disc, which I can carry with me in my pocket during a water rescue. Ha. The books and notes would be a rather tragic loss but I think upon reflection later I would trade them for my life.

I also was just rather amazed at the ability of the US Airways pilot to maintain his cool, locate somewhere safe, bring down the plane in the water and get all his passengers to safety. Given that I have been hanging out with a pilot (CS) a bit lately, I know these guys are smart, have great instincts, and are trained like mad to handle situations like this, but it still absolutely amazes me. I mean, the lives of so many people depend upon your split second decisions and calm under pressure. However, when you get in that moment, even those smart, instinctive and trained guys sometimes lose it. For instance, when my plane caught fire a year and a half ago, the pilot really seemed to panic. He dropped 20,000 feet, made the oxygen masks drop, was one of the first people off the plane and was nervously talking about "fire in the tube" as he walked passed the passengers in the first row of Coach to leave. If that guy had both engines fail over Manhattan, would he have landed safely in the Hudson?? I cannot say. So, what makes someone with the resolve to do the right thing at the right time? "I won't say a hero, 'cause what's a hero? But he's just the man for his time and place." The Cohen Brothers really nailed it with that one.

Lastly, this makes me desire to tell the tale of the previously mentioned time my plane caught fire. It had just been a terrible start to my time alone in the world. I had left behind my family, moved to New York alone, found out my apartment had bed bugs, projectile vomited, dented my Dad's truck, upset a seminar organizer at my undergraduate alma mater, had my laptop stolen AND barely slept all in the last month. I had also given four talks, attended a wedding, been at a week long conference, finished a paper, started a new job in New York, discussed taking the job I have now and started a new project all in that month. Finally, I found myself on a direct flight from Koeln to Newark ready to just crash on my newly purchased futon, which I had hope was still bed bug free due to the fancy plastic covering I had for it (I had bought 2 just in case one was not enough).

On the plane I was looking forward to a nice dinner with my roommates featuring the bottle of wine I was bringing home and a good night's sleep while reading a rather delightful collection of essays about books a friend had given me for my birthday. After I would finish each essay I would glance up because they were playing Spiderman 3 on the plane. It had received some critical acclaim and I wanted to see if perhaps I would be interested in seeing it even though I had not particularly enjoyed the first two (Suffice it to say, it is no Dark Knight). Well, while in this exhausted stuper, I start seeing a fair amount of commotion in the first class cabin. The old man at the end of my aisle leans over and tells me he heard a flight attendant say someone is sick. Shortly thereafter, the pilot comes on and declares we are making an emergency landing in Ireland.

At that point, I was wishing I could do something more to help the poor, old, rich bastard having the heart attack in First Class and not terribly worried about the stopover in Ireland. I figured we would land, they would carry the guy out, hopefully he would be alright and eventually we would be back in time to still get a bit of sleep before I had to head to work the next morning. However, then a flight attendant came over the loud speaker and asked any of us if we had a screwdriver or pocket knife on us. Given that we are expressly forbidden from bringing such items onto planes, it seemed a bit odd. The only thing I could figure is that some crazy doctor needed to perform an emergency trachaetomy (OK, I like Scrubs ... get over it).

We continued flying over Ireland, the large, bald Air Marshall and rather flustered flight attendants kept bustling wildly about in first class and I without much else I could see to do really just kept reading my book. Then, all of a sudden our plane began to drop. Now, I have a strong stomach, believe strongly in the capabilities of machines and am in no way prone to doubting technology, but the way we dropped so fast and the oxygen masks coming down made me think we were in serious trouble. Since I was sitting near the wing I looked out and would have sworn that what I knew was a natural bend at the end of the wing was in fact possibly the structural support of the wings failing.

Shortly thereafter I reassured myself the wings always looked that way but the ground kept coming closer before the pilot pulled up and essentially began skimming the treetops. The pilot announced that we need not use the oxygen masks and finally acknowledged that there was an electrical fire they could not get under control in the First Class cabin. At this time, I really looked up from my book to actually observe the thickening cloud of smoke filling the cabin. I even realized I could smell it. Now, two emotions hit me at this time. One was that it was a bit unnerving to be trapped in a flying plane that was in fact on fire. The other was that I am the type of absent minded intellectual who when reading a book would not notice they are trapped in a fiery metal tube going several miles per hour. It seemed to me like being a person who noticed such things even while reading would serve me well in the future, but alas I doubt I will ever be one of them.

Well, we shortly thereafter come to the airstrip in Shannon, Ireland and plop down on the runway with firetrucks in hot pursuit. The firemen storm onto the plane, put out the fire and eventually we all get to deplane to a cordoned off gate because none of us have legal permission to enter Ireland. During this four hour sequestration, we all talk and learn from the first class passengers that the Air Marshall used all three fire extinguishers on board and still the fire burned behind the panel. It turns out the tools they were requesting earlier would have been to remove the panel behind which the electrical circuit was on fire.

After quite a while we were finally admitted to the country of Ireland, bused to a hotel, charged to use the phone, allowed to drink a Guinness or two, woken up at 4 AM, bused back to the airport to wait for the check-in counters to open at 8 AM, then forced to wait on our further delayed flight until almost 11 AM. The real kicker here is that they put us back on the same plane. Some were obviously unhappy. They did have the courtesy to repaint the panel where the fire had occurred and to allow the people sitting in the row where the oxygen masks randomly sprung out somewhere over the Atlantic to change rows in case that electrical circuit was a bit off as well.

Anyway, we eventually arrived safely, though exhausted and a bit beaten down. All in all, not a terribly exciting story compared to the people who survived today's crash, but a pretty good yarn nonetheless.

Friends I Count On Every Week.

I still have a fair amount of things to do this evening so I will keep it short. I just want to list the voices from across the pond I have come to count on each week for comfort, news and information while wandering about Bonn. These sources are there for me each week on my iPod and give me something to look forward to for my long walks especially. Perhaps some of you out there will enjoy them as well.

Filmspotting Podcast - Two geeky dudes who live in Chicago and have in depth conversations about film every week with insight, analysis, playfulness and appreciation. Check them out at www.filmspotting.net.

This American Life - An NPR program (and podcast) that each week picks a theme and brings heartfelt, interesting reports on that theme through various sources. Part journalism, part spoken word histories, part readings of literature, this show really connects me to different parts of my country and humanity in general.

Planet Money Podcast - Another NPR podcast whose whole purpose is to inform people about the suddenly rather apt topics of finance and economics. They break down the economic crisis so non-experts can get a handle on some of the relevant topics such as monetary policy, bailouts, unemployment, deflation, recessions, etc.

RadioLab - Take This American Life and apply it to a scientific theme each week with more interesting production value. The two hosts take you on a journey through a topic that is not always totally in depth but never ceases to be thought provoking.

The Moth Podcast - A free broadcast each week of some stranger who stepped up on a stage in New York or Los Angeles and told a story from their life. Sometimes funny, sometimes distressing, sometimes life-affirming, sometimes surreal, each of these people share a piece of themselves with you.

The Nature Podcast - A weekly review of the biggest stories in science. They cover articles from physics, astronomy, neuroscience, microbiology, anthropology, archaeology, etc. Anything that could be published in Nature can be discussed on this show which includes interviews with the scientists themselves and breakdowns for non-experts. This is really for people who know more about science though and not for the faint of heart.

True Bromance.

Just a quick word this evening about my two good friends RP (P) and GH (G). True, GH is a woman and hence cannot technically be classified as a Bro, but I think she will approve of the title nonetheless. No one has ever understood me more nor made me laugh as much as these two individuals over the course of time. Many times I find myself laughing outright while walking down the street because of something they may have said years ago. Today was one of those days. With P, it is always some exploit I never would have attempted without him. Perhaps it is the way I process and store information, simply a testament to her sense of comedic timing or a remnant of the fact that we parted ways geographically earlier in life, but I often remember my conversations with G more vividly than things we have done together. I hope to find myself playing Scene It with a bottle of wine after a nice dinner with both of them (and all our spouses I suppose :) ) for many, many years to come. Incidentally, Scene It is the greatest game of all time and if you have never played it, you are missing out.

One of my many priceless memories of P is from his bachelor party. With a few other guys, we went to float the Illinois River for the a day. While the other co-best man (to be read with a discernible bitterness :) ) and I arranged for a boat, the others unloaded the car and milled about the shop. When P came out, he was wearing a coozie from the boat company fixed with a velcro strap to go around his neck. Needless to say over the course of the day, the character Bob Coozie the River Guide was conceived of, developed, revered, heckled and finally retired as by far the greatest River Guide in Oklahoma history. A man, a mystery ... a legend. We enjoyed this trip so much that upon finishing 2 hours earlier than we thought, we carried the boat up to the office and promptly paid for another trip. It gives me great pleasure to know that once in a while, though P is now a married lawyer living in a suburb, Bob Coozie makes an appearance in the Spring and Summer when it comes time to mow the lawn at the P household.

Today for some reason I thought of the time I told G I had been horse back riding on my honeymoon. Before I could begin to tell her of my dislike for the activity, she immediately said that she thought that was a terrible idea and began to do a spot on impression of me uncomfortably negotiating with a horse about our mutual reliance and my appreciation for him going in the necessary direction. It was eerily accurate even though I have never even been near a horse in her presence. Upon Amber asking whether or not G liked horses, she replied, "Of course ... they're delicious." Classic, brilliant and hilarious.

A Mulligan?

So, someone recently suggested to me that they are taking 2009 as a mulligan for 2008. It seems to me everyone I know had rather mixed feelings about last year. The only person I could think of who might have had a good year would be Barack Obama, but even he had 11 months of exhaustion, attacks and time away from his family before he got his dream job.

(2008 was filled with lows...)

For me, the year was filled with both death and birth, tragedy and elation, failure and success, health and illness, loss and introduction, pain and joy. I lost a father-in-law but gained a nephew, lived apart from my wife and was there with her family through the most difficult of times, left behind some friends but made new ones and reconnected to a few extremely old ones, felt out of place in New York and Bonn before finding my niche in both places as well, plus felt sicker than I have in my life and also became healthier and more productive. Those are all simply events that happened to me personally. I also watched my country bicker divisively over an all too long election process, go through an economic meltdown, and after a legacy of slavery and segregation overcome prejudice to elect an African American to its highest office. Through all of these experiences, my emotions and energy fluctuated so wildly that the swings were difficult to manage. Finally, during last summer I got so sick I could hardly believe it. I had a fever for about 8 days, odd colored liquids oozing from my eyes, pains throughout my body and endless congestion. Upon finally recovering, I realized that life had thrown me a lot of obstacles in a relatively short time and, albeit not always gracefully or optimally, somehow I had managed to come through it.

(and highs.)

One thing I can say about 2008, it was a year during which I truly lived, for better or worse. Life is both a tragedy and a comedy. As in the last days of the year I was flying home for a wedding, the rules of Shakespeare would suggest last year was a comedy. Though I do not know if I would go that far, I do remember the times when I laughed more than those when I cried and the times when I felt happiness more than those when I felt downtrodden. Even in times of profound sadness, the depths of those feelings were rooted in earlier joyful memories, so there was hope in my despair. I do hope 2009 is better and less challenging in many ways, but I think I will carry 2008 with me in hopes that I will remember the lessons its challenges taught me. Namely, the lessons of letting go of past hurts, enjoying the time you have with those you love, finding somewhere you feel at home anywhere you go and once in a while leaving work behind to explore the world through discussing with good friends anything from a good meal, a thought provoking art exhibit, a compelling character from literature, a powerful piece of music, or a moving, poignant moment from a film or play. Each experience you have does effect you in a unique way, but sharing it with someone and discussing it helps you appreciate and communicate your reaction more deeply. On a side note, I also developed a new appreciation for the sweet potato and discovered where I can have the best borscht in the universe, both of which I will remember quite fondly about 2008.

Old Friends in a New Place

This weekend my old friend and office-mate for all five years of graduate school, H, and his wife N came to visit me in Bonn. The first two years of graduate school were rather trying, so I was rather lucky to have been randomly placed in an office with someone who was generous enough to help me through any difficult times and just so happened to enjoy the same kind of math I do. Though we are in fact rather different individuals in some ways, we do have a similar sense of humor, set of scientific and cultural tastes, love of food, taste in books, schlubby style (Let's just say we pioneered the hopefully enduring Hawaiian shirt trend amongst analysts at Berkeley) and relatively unpopulated state of origin (H-ND, J-OK). However, he would remain a friend for life simply for the support he showed me during those formative years in my life and career.

(H and N in the Bakery where we had breakfast and coffee in the mornings)

Now, we are both postdocs and finally working on a project together. So, on their way to Paris for the week, H and N decided to come through Bonn. Hence, it was both a professional visit and a social call. Fortunately, we were able to resolve some questions we had about our joint project about nonlinear bound states on non-Euclidean manifolds, which hopefully means both of us will be able to cross at least one thing of our growing list of interesting and hopeful research projects eventually. It is the curse I suppose of loving something so much that you are quickly led to the realization that you actually know incredibly little about the object of your affection. And of course, the more you learn, the more you realize you do not know. Some might find frustration in the futility of it all, but I find comfort in the fact that we will never run out of questions. Not only does it make all seem right with the world, but it is also great for job security. Ha. However, projects in this business take so much time to solve, write, edit, submit, revise and finally get published that any small step of the process must be savored. Fortunately, we had two nights to enjoy our success, an old friendship, a few German beers and some traditional German cuisine. All in all, it was quite nice.

(A photo of the Rhein River, which sadly I did not get to walk them by due to some train ticket complications they hopefully resolved in Koeln. However, it is one of my favorite things about this region.)

I always think it will be strange to see old friends in Europe, as I feel somehow most friendships are formed in the context of a time and place so the location should impact the interaction. In truth, friendships are forged in that context and some will forever be trapped there, but the ones that last show great adaptability. For those friendships, however rare, oft times exploration of new places together can lead to new depths of understanding and communication. Plus, I rather enjoy being able to show people from my past life around in my new life, which consists of new surroundings, a new language, new food and really a new me by necessity. Anyway, it was a nice weekend, and I look forward to going back to work in the morning to get a lot more writing done for work, both on this project and the plethora of others I find myself obsessed with from time to time.

In The Jungle

(My Extremely Distant Cousin)

So, I have a friend/collaborator here this weekend and hope to do a more proper post tomorrow but wanted to discuss my recent completion of The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling. This book was a Christmas present from my aforementioned friends the S family of Sicilia. First of all, I am not a student of the history of literature for children, but it does seem to set the tone for the sort of rampant anthropomorphism of animals prevalent in today's literature and may I say ... I love it. Though of course many believe animals act on instinct alone, Kipling's portrayal of the animal's characteristics through their personalities, philosophies and politics really is rather interesting. Perhaps most amazing are the first hand descriptions of each war animal's duties and how they react to them. Also, elephants are such highly intelligent animals, it would be fascinating to understand just how they do process information, learn and think. Humorously, it was odd to see just how benevolent Kipling thought a 24' man-eating crocodile could consider himself. In the end, it all really does depend on one's perspective I suppose. After all, that crocodile could have eaten MANY, MANY more people than he did, but he did not as he rather liked the village and the marigold wreaths they floated in the water for him... but of course he also liked the occasional snack of a villager or bridge builder.

(Me and my trusty Rhino)

The other comment I have on this relates to the inherent darkness of some of the themes presented, namely those of death, absolute power, evil, hatred, witchcraft, intolerance, etc. Having always loved kids and especially watching them learn, I always thought sheltering them from things that could hurt them was the whole point of being a parent. However, through many of the children I interact with, it seems they are aware of these things out there in the world and even somewhat fascinated by them in a naive, playful, curious kind of way. With deference to my dear and adorable friend KS, there really could not be a Peter Pan without a Captain Hook after all. Perhaps acknowledging these themes, discussing them and showing both examples of people who fought against them and succeeded as well as those who were perhaps undone by the darker aspects of our world, we actually strengthen them more by both being honest with them and allowing their imaginations to work out the consequences of all actions, not just good ones. Anyway, in the uncertain world we live in with war, poverty, intolerance, illiteracy and many other realities that deeply sadden me; imagination, openness and strength seem like good things for the next generation to have as much of as possible.

A Cold, Cold Christmas...

Alright, so it is January and Christmas is practically a distant memory at this point, but Northern Europe is still quite cold. It has not been above freezing since I arrived. Of course, my dear friends Dan and Deborah who spent the last four months in Bonn but returned to Minnesota a few weeks ago have no sympathy for the comparably tropical temperatures here, but for me it is pretty cold. Plus, they have abandoned me here in Germany to return home to their "jobs" and "families," so they really deserve no consideration. It makes my morning walk simultaneously a bit more treacherous and a bit more brisk, plus the cold makes it difficult to think about anything besides the heat being slowly sucked from your extremities. However, I do love winter weather for two reasons.

(The View Of the Snow Outside My Apartment and the Fields Across the Road. Plus, A Glimpse Into How Dark Northern Europe Gets This Time of Year.)

The first reason is that being forced to actually battle the elements and realizing everything around you is trying to suck the warmth out of you actually makes me feel alive. Your skin and muscles tighten, your breath shortens, your heart beats faster. In general it reminds you that for all the abstractness going on within your mind, it is contained in a much larger, much colder, quite real vessel that needs to find warmth somewhere. Most of the time I feel rather detached from my body as anyone who has seen me attempt to display grace in any way can attest. Also, somehow despite eating granola for lunch and actually exercising regularly in the Bay Area I could not get below 185, but after one winter in New York I was at 165 and now am down to 160. Perhaps the walking had something to do with it, but the rather irrational part of me that loves equating all human behavior with animal behavior thinks my body was storing up energy for five years and winter never came. Still, I did love the food, wine, friends and comforts of the Bay Area, and would gladly take the 25 pounds back to experience them again (Don't tell my physician).

(The Glorious Beard)

The second reason I love winter is rather simple ... beards. Personally, I have a great deal of respect for impressive facial hair but rarely make it through the slightest balmy day with a full beard. I have always preferred the cold to heat and found any temperature over 80 rather oppressive (of course being skinnier I can now make it up to 85 before I am really uncomfortable). So, any time I get the least bit warm I shave off the beard. However, in this winter weather with no personal reasons to shave, I am sporting the most glorious beard of my life. Plus, it helps that a solid percentage of German mathematicians have beards, so I fit in pretty well here. Anyway, I am sure it will be gone at the first hint of Spring, but for now I can bask in the glow of my beardliness and respond with my standard, "Thank you, I grew it myself," upon receiving the occasional compliment. It is hard to explain my fascination with facial hair, except that perhaps in the absence of property or a family, it is something I can successfully grow to show the world I grew up in that I am in fact a man.

The Traveler's Tale

So, I have been encouraged by many people to start a blog, or, as I like to say it, my blog-pressure has been rather high of late. For those of you wondering, that will likely be the quality of joke you get by reading this blog. Hopefully at least a few people will enjoy themselves.

As for the name of the blog, for a year and a half I have been living alone in New York City and Bonn, Germany, both of which are mainly walking cities. Certainly they both have public transportation, but as I am somewhat impatient and in relatively good health, if I do not need to wait for a bus or a train, I will not. Some argue that for Bonn at least I should get a bike. However, as things tend to be stolen from me in Europe, I figure it is not worth the hassle only to have one more thing taken from me. In New York, I happened to be in a cab that collided with a cyclist, which was reason enough for me to keep pounding the pavement there. So, I walk everywhere, at times for up to 2 hours per day. Sometimes this leaves me feeling like the slightest movement would be painful, and yet sometimes I feel like stasis is extremely painful. Consequently, the fact that many American cities are rather pedestrian unfriendly has been made rather evident upon visits to see my wife in Durham, NC or various family members in Oklahoma and Southern California. Anyway, I have become rather used to depending only on my feet and will to get me somewhere, so living otherwise seems rather odd at this point.

As for the topics my blog posts will likely cover, fear not as I do not intend to discuss only walking. Living alone in a foreign country simply provides a person with a great deal of time to think, whether it be while walking about, reading in bed or simply eating dinner. Each activity is filled with an inherent loneliness and over time the wish to connect to someone takes an overwhelming amount of that time. I am not ashamed to say I have probably developed rather unnatural fondness for various figures from literature over the past 18 months, but each of those characters provided me with friendship and insight for the short time I got to know them in the pages I read. So, this blog will be a way for me to connect to those I love and maybe even a few strangers without having the ability to communicate in the way I would necessarily like all the time. Many posts will be about various adventures I have in my travels, some posts might be about walking and some posts will simply be random musings from a lonely, somewhat tired traveler.

In that regard, I recently returned to OK to attend my cousin Allison's wedding.

(Me, Allison and our cousin Michael)

The event itself was great and, as she could easily be considered my oldest friend, being there meant a great deal to me. However, due to flight complications as tend to happen every single time I leave Europe (the first time I was 20 and having never really traveled on my own before was having a nervous breakdown, the second time I was 24 and threw my back out on a 4 hour flash tour of Athens during a layover, the third time I was 27 and my plane caught fire, and now the fourth time at 28 I showed up at an airport booked on a non-existent flight with a non-existent airline, finally got rebooked but wound up spending the night on a bench in London's Heathrow airport) and a short turn around, I was rather exhausted upon returning home. It made me think about a book I once read (for those of you expecting greatness here, it was an enjoyable and highly readable William Gibson sci-fi novel, but not what I would call great literature) where a woman was required to travel often and proposed that long trips require one to unravel their soul behind them, which it then takes time to regather. For me, this seems rather apt. Having just left behind some good friends in Sicily ...

(The Sovich Family on Christmas Morning)

(A day in Siracusa with the Sovich family)

who I visited for Christmas, I went off to see pretty much my ENTIRE family at a wedding.

(The immediate family)

(Me, with my wife Amber, our dog Mindy and my grandparents)

Four days later, I hopped on a plane back to my dorm room-esque apartment in Bonn. I think it takes one time to mourn the loss of even small, unspoken interactions with those you love and the feeling of familiarity you have with a place you have at any time called home. Then, it takes more time to figure out how you fit in with your new surroundings, responsibilities and acquaintances. Bonn is somewhat familiar to me now, but it is still somewhere I live alone, so the loss of family and physical contact with those I love takes time to get over. However, I have made some good friends here and learned a bit of German, both of which I hope to do more of before I leave. Fortunately, the experiences one has when faced with new challenges and ideas tend to be rather fulfilling and soul-affirming. So, I just keep walking and living, trying to get some work done and learn a few things about the world, myself and math along the way. Even though I may have parts of my soul and soles spread all over the world at this point, it seems that both are renewable resources.